Yeah, that's a horribly unbiblical idea. What is this? The new swinger's theology? Read the key verses carefully. Care for the flock entrusted to you. What part of that does John Burton not get? Care for the flock! Burton thinks that giving all pastors access to steal his sheep will eliminate the competitive spirit? You see he does not really care because in his grand vision, he is the apostle over all the regional churches so who cares where the sheep are? Once again however -- the Lord entrusted to the pastor a flock of sheep. Burton got this uncaring view of the sheep from the Rick Warren Purpose Driven Church concept of blessed subtraction.
"4. The church has contagious and aggressive vision for local church growth, yet they rarely talk about regional revival. They emphasize the goals, the strategies and the determination to grow their church, to develop their ministries, to increase in number, to outgrow their building, to attract visitors or to focus on what benefits them on a local level." -- John Burton
Well, I would agree that focusing on the purpose driven growth strategies are not good it is worse to expand that heresy to the entire region. Burton's vision is so dark. What he is describing is the end result of 20 years of purpose driven teaching. Churches are singularly focused on carnal growth, outgrowing their buildings, attracting more and more goats and increasing their overall numbers. Burton however does not seek to correct this but to cash in on it. As the Grand Apostle-Guy over the region, Burton stands to benefit from churches focusing on the same sense of faux-revival and sheep-swapping.
"5. If they have a prayer emphasis at all, it's almost entirely directed toward their own local endeavors. They pray for all of the stuff I mentioned in the point above while having little zeal for an outpouring in the city. They don't understand that the revival may not even launch in their own local church, so they focus on a move of God happening in their own body while forsaking the call to intercede for regional transformation. Instead of groaning and crying out for God to move in their city, for wickedness to be exposed, for other churches to come alive, for an earth-shaking outpouring, they are praying for internal ministries, for their own tent pegs to expand and for local increase." -- John Burton
The only one making the call for regional intercession are heretics like John Burton. Once again he is chasing a myth. The bible does not say there will be a great end times revival but rather a great end times apostasy, which John Burton is complicit with. His talking points here are all straight up NAR. God moves in the lives of people, not in some vague notion of a city or region. The wickedness that needs exposure is in the hearts of those in church, not the unsaved. The unsaved have their wickedness exposed when they are drawn by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel. His bad-mouthing of local growth reveals much within the wickedness of his own heart. That you would have such disdain for individual souls saved at the local level and instead prefer the grotesque false salvations of mega-churchdom is quite revealing of who John Burton is.
"6. Money isn't sowed into their region. They use finances internally to grow their own local church. While they may have earmarked funds for missions and benevolence, the idea of sowing into regional revival is foreign to them. Further, when dead-end churches do give to outside ministries, it's almost always churches within their own denomination." -- John Burton
Oops, your ecumenicalism is showing sir. Did you catch it? Obviously money is always a big deal within a false authority paradigm because it has to flow from the bottom up to the leadership. This is the traditional pyramid scam. So to John Burton, your church is a dead end church if it does not give its money away to this bogus "region" that of course is led by apostolic authority. Even worse however, you are vilified and mocked if you do not give your money to other denominations! Think hard why this is important to the NAR dominionist and to Satan. As long as churches adhere to denominational politics then it frustrates the efforts to grow the one world church. The "region" Burton truly visualizes but will not talk about is the entire world, where there are no denominational demarcations. Where doctrine is sacrificed on the altar of unity. Now the reality to God is that a church that preaches the Gospel and protects the sheep from false doctrines is the vehicle for actual kingdom growth. The kingdom the NAR seeks to build is on this earth.
"7. They rarely if ever bring in guest speakers who are leaders in other local churches in their region. They want to control the narrative and they don't want people to be influenced by a more dynamic speaker or someone who might connect better with people in their church. They fear losing those people. They fear their nice, tidy, local family being disrupted. They also fear another leader behind their pulpit who carries a more potent vision for the region than they do. With all humility I can say that as a visiting guest minister in regions I've never previously been to, I've often had more vision for that city than the pastor of the church. It's crazy. I've also boldly coached pastors not to undo what God is about to do in the meetings. When God calls me to speak in a church, a lot will be confronted and exposed and a firestorm of God's loving reformation will be in the room. Pastors, have the guts to embrace someone who won't simply affirm what has been built, but will call the people higher." -- John Burton
