"Thou Shalt Party"
"Created for Greatness"
Beloved, if we think this is no big deal then I am afraid we have missed the urgency of the Gospel message. Tomorrow is promised to no one and when we actually find the unsaved in a church building we are going to tell them they should party? We should assure them the best is yet to come without preaching Christ crucified for their sins? We should puff up their ego by telling them they were created for greatness? The banner at the bottom of page four of this welcome manual exclaims - "Because You Matter"; and you do! You matter so much to God that He gave up His only Son to save you. But instead of hearing that you are dancing to Lionel Richie and hearing a message about how you need the church instead of how much you need God! This is just tragically sad. The manual actually brags that Kensington leadership is "thrilled to have a high percentage of people who are just kicking the tires of the Christian faith."
Kicking the tires? Investigating the claims of Christ? What world are these people living in? beloved this is the new church model for this generation. There are plenty of mega churches who ask unbelievers to "try Jesus out" for a small period of time. If He is not for you, no big deal. Like Jesus is a new car you are considering buying except they are encouraging you to lease Him instead. The next two portions of the welcome manual are standard for seeker friendly, purpose driven churches. First is the plea to serve. The insistence that we were not meant to be alone, which we were not by the way. Their solution however is always the same and exists of two prongs. The first is some form of small group connection. When you are dealing with tens of thousands of congregants there is simply no way to properly shepherd the flock so the vision casting CEO Pastor-Dude sets up these groups. It is packaged as "community" but it essentially is a way to manage a large base of people who you need to keep coming and paying their tithes. The second part is always some form of social justice action that the mega church supports. So we have the appearance of being the hands and feet of Jesus to the poor and needy in this world. I remember when I posted about Creflo Dollar's pitch to have his congregants pay for a 70 million dollar luxury plane I had people who attended his church defend it by saying he gave away free backpacks to kids in need. That is the level of disconnect we are talking about. The church may even arrange "missions" trips, although they usually make those who volunteer pay their own way. At Kensington for example they have three opportunities for you that they are involved in. One involves adopting a school by mentoring or volunteering. The second is a program called Helping Hands, where Kensington connects people who can help with physical needs such as painting, to people in the community who need such help. The third thing offered is to get involved in a possible missions trip.
Now, all of these things are noble efforts and I am not against a church being involved. But without the Gospel none of it matters. You end up with mentored kids who are still going to hell. That leaky faucet is fixed but you are still going to hell. Yes perhaps you get to build a playground in a third world country but traveling across the world with a false gospel saves no one. Even Jesus taught this:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. - Matthew 23: 15 (ESV)
But look at the ingenuity of these schemes. They are designed to give the maximum public relations exposure for the church as a whole, with the least amount of effort expended by the church itself. Everything is outsourced to the congregants to do. Small groups outsources the direct leadership. Adopting a school is not done by the church but by the individual on behalf of the church. The Helping Hands is simply organizing community needs with community resources and as previously pointed out, the missions work is usually funded personally and the church gets the overall credit for "touching the world,"
The next part of the seeker friendly, purpose driven plan is to provide the appearance of being biblically concerned. Leaders are not stupid. They realize that amidst the goats there will be real sheep. So there will of course be men's and women's groups where the promise of going deeper will be offered along with a weekly service devoted to prayer to show how pious they all are. Still no Gospel mind you. Usually the men's groups, women's groups, and small groups are operated under pre-selected curriculum of course, not an actual Bible study. These are fill in the blanks teachings designed to provide a cover of bible-ness without all the messy doctrinal issues. Going deeper really means sitting down in the wading pool. One mega church pastor this year referred to the people in his church who want to go deeper in the word as "jackasses." Another said they were the "excrement in the body of Christ." Even in the Kensington new attenders course Jesus gets second billing:
New to Kensington and wondering what's next? Join us for a brief overview (under an hour) of our history, mission, and opportunities to help you better plan your next steps. Offered one Sunday per month after services, Start is an interactive class for new attenders (and everyone else) that covers the history and vision of Kensington, what it means to follow Jesus and more
The history, mission, vision and opportunities at Kensington, oh and that Jesus guy. If that was not bad enough the next class is called "digging deeper" where you can "experiment with issues of faith." Yes, that is what unsaved people need. To experiment with faith. To kick the tires on Jesus. Kensington is the model of everything wrong with the church today and shows brilliantly how Satan has invaded God's church. What is always worse however is that the seeker friendly, purpose driven models always believe in spreading their disease. Multiplication is part of the devil's design. To get people so convinced that their marketing scheme is not only of God but what the world needs. In their manual, Kensington gives the prototypical pitch:
"Planting new churches is a major way we express God's urgency to reach the world -- with relevant, culturally sensitive churches, locally and globally."
God is not urgent to reach the world with Lionel Richie. He is not urgently try to reach the world with messages relevant to a world that is consigning people to hell. The Gospel transcends culture. It transcends time. It is entirely relevant on its own. The arrogance of these schemes! As if God's Gospel was somehow deficient! As if it just needs some help. Some re-engineering. As if it just needs a good marketing team or a fancy new hashstag. Planting new churches that use the same heretical model that you do only ensures that more people will be unsaved.
Beloved, the rest of the manual had traditional seeker friendly pablum. There is the obligatory shout out for giving as worship because when you have a ten million dollar budget someone has to pay the bills. Smoke machines and skinny jeans aren't free you know. Then there is the page devoted to what they believe. Amidst the usual correct doctrinal beliefs that they apparently never preach on is this lead off nugget:
