Mega Church Pastor Perry Noble blogs his top ten problems with church and reveals the flaws in his heresies along the way...

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Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. - 1Corinthians 15: 1-2 (ESV)

Every now and then a seeker friendly, purpose driven heretic cannot help themselves from exposing their own twisted mindset and revealing for all who are willing to hear, exactly what is wrong with the way they believe. Make no mistake about it beloved. You can believe wrongly. You can place your faith in a false gospel that cannot save you. In a false christ who cannot save you. The Bible is very clear about this in our key verses. Paul is reminding the believers at Corinth that the Gospel he preached, Christ's Gospel, is the only one that we can make our stand in. It is the only one through which we are saved. If we fail to hold fast to it then we trade it in and believe in vain. What a frightening thought but just looking at Matthew 7 reveals that many churched people will stand on the last day thinking they had served Him only to discover He never even knew them. Do not listen to charlatans telling you doctrine does not matter. According to 1Timohty 4 it is doctrine that will save the listeners. What we believe is crucial, lest we have believed in vain.

https://perrynoble.com/blog/ten-convictions-i-have-about-the-church

The heretic we speak about today is Perry Noble who pastors the mega church known as New Spring in South Carolina. Known for abusive tithing messages and all around narcissistic eisegesis, Noble took to his blog this week to list the top ten "convictions" he has about the church today (linked above). What is intriguing is within his complaints we see a glimpse into everything wrong with this new wave of false mega church pastors and how they view the body of Christ. We will go through them one at a time:

1) Jesus never intended for the church to be a group of isolated, self righteous and angry people. In the past, the church spent so much time debating with people over social issues that we forgot to love people like Jesus told us to. We have to remember that we will reach way more people through conversation than condemnation.

A fair enough point to start but one wonders if this is just a strawman to excuse sin. We also do not reach people with "conversation." We reach them with the Gospel. This is a consistent error within the hipster new wave churches such as New Spring. Similar like when Carl Lentz of Hillsong NYC said that his church has a stance on love and everything else is a conversation. Well that's swell but entirely unbiblical. The question is whether you are trying to bring souls to the foot of the cross or whether you are trying to fill your pews.

2) If churches do not learn how to reach people on their mobile devices, we will soon not reach them at all.

Really. So God was not prepared for the information age, eh Perry? Here is a news flash for Mr. Noble. God does not need you. We need Him. Most come to realize this on their own as the Spirit draws them. The Gospel is always sufficient but it has to be preached. Church was not meant for the unsaved Perry. It was meant for the sheep. If we would ever behave as the church and be salt and light to a dying world then the lost will want what we have. Then if they came to church seeking Christ instead of what goodies you might give them; the Gospel being preached would convict them. That is God's plan. With or without tweeting. With or without Facebook. I see the majority of Facebook posts from churches and well intended pastors is glorifying of the church instead of Christ.

3) It's not a lack of prayer that is holding most churches back; it's a lack of preparation. We need to prepare for messy people to actually show up and not ask them to leave because they do not have the appearance of perfection.

The seeker friendly cracks are starting to show now. The teachings of the Purpose Driven Church convince pastors that the growth of their churches is what their calling actually is instead of preaching the Gospel and tending to the sheep. Acts Chapter 2 makes it clear that it is the responsibility of God to grow the church as He sees fit. That is the opposite to the purpose driven agenda, which we can see here showing in Perry Noble's third "conviction." In the minds of seeker friendly mega church pastors, the key is in your carnal preparation over your spiritual preparation. Prayer? Nah, don't worry about that. You have to spend your time preparing for messy people to show up. What? I am also unsure what churches Noble visits where messy people are asked to leave.

4) Churches that do not invest heavily in students and children will disappear in the next decade or so.

Another idiotic and empty threat from Noble. As if God and His Gospel are not enough. The truth is that studies have been done on this very subject and they reveal that 70% of churched youth leave organized church when they reach the age of critical thinking. Their reasons are they see through the hypocrisy of the seeker friendly ruse. They do not need a tattooed pastor in skinny jeans and a faux hawk trying to be hip and "relevant" to them. They do not need their carnality catered to anymore than adults do. This may come as a shock but they need the Gospel. They do not need the slick marketing, sensual music passed off as worship, or any other of the schemes currently employed by false teachers like Noble.

5) Seminary will become less and less relevant because most Christian educational institutions are focused on how to reach people in the 1970s.

This absurd comment shouldn't be surprising from someone who once said during a sermon; "The Jackass in the church is always the person that always says, I want to go deeper." Perry Noble and mega church pastors like him hold in contempt the Berean Spirit we are supposed to have as believers. This is a pervasive mindset used by Satan in these last days to dumb down the sheep so that it is easier to deceive them. I have heard well intended brothers and sister argue that everyone is somehow equal when it comes to handling the Word of God and that is simply not biblical. God has set aside people to bring the Word of God and to feed His sheep. I guess Perry and his friends forget this admonition from Paul to his protege, Timothy:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. - 2Timothy 2: 15 (KJV)

What the purpose driven model does is breed dependency upon the church instead of fostering your own relationship with God. You don't own a Bible? Just download an app. You didn't bring it with you? The verses will be on the screen and in the "fill in the blank" handouts we spoon feed you. Be aware when you are around teachers who discourage you from feeding yourself on the Word or who marginalize who you are in Christ. Recently there was a video that went viral from a wannabe "prophetess" who was berating a congregation that they should never question their pastor because they are just "dumb sheep." That is essentially what Perry Noble is saying here. Don't study to show yourself approved. Another insidious lie from the pits of hell.

6) There is not a one-size-fits-all discipleship model. Different people grow in different ways.

When the Bible warns about not falling for teachings based upon human wisdom this seems like a perfect example. It sounds so right doesn't it? Yet it is ridiculously wrong. It does however provide deeper insight into the seeker friendly theologies. You see in these churches the Bible is about you. The stories are about you. The characters are portraying you. You are David staring down your Goliath or Joseph ruling over all of Egypt! Hallelujah - pass the offering plate! Except one little problem beloved. The Bible is not about you. It is not about me. It is about Jesus Christ. The Lord does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. When we are saved we are to bury the old self and die to it. We are to rise as a new creation in Him who never changes. Sorry Perry but there most certainly is a one size fits all discipleship model and his name is Jesus Christ. In the world, we all grow in different ways but in Christ there is only one way. We need to pray. We need to read the Word. We need to worship God. These things are constant Perry. You should try them. Once again however this reveals a look inside the seeker friendly mindset. In their thinking, individuality matters. I was just having this debate with a well intended brother regarding youth in church. He was espousing the notion that we have to embrace their identity. A hundred times no. Their identity is sending them to hell. They need to embrace the identity of their Savior. I do not care if you think that is "old school" or stuck in the seventies or whatever other excuse people come up with. The Gospel does not change because it does not have to. It is the power of life unto salvation. It has been saving people for thousands of years before Perry Noble's wisdom and will be doing so long after Perry Noble has left this mortal coil.

7) The church's emphasis needs to be on STARTING to follow Jesus and not STOPPING the list of sins we single out.

So we start to come to the heart of the deception. In the minds of the purpose driven mega church pastor, it is all about the system. Twenty minutes of "worship" validating how much God loves them. Ten minute offering centered around their temporal blessings. Twenty minute message about something relevant to their world but not to their eternal needs. Close with a 15 minute "alter call" where you ask people to "invite Jesus into their hearts." In this mindset the most crucial point is the decision to come forward to repeat that three sentence false prayer. The problem is that at no point did anyone address why they need to follow Christ. There has been no discussion about their sinful state and their need for a Savior. Beloved, you cannot start to follow Jesus if you do not come to Him based upon your sin. That is what you need to be saved from! That was the entire point! Do you think Jesus died on the cross so you can invite Him into your heart? Do you think that He died on the cross so we can make a decision for Him? No. He died for our sins:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. - 1Peter 2: 24-25 (ESV)

The emphasis in the purpose driven church is as Perry Noble wants it to be. It is not on sins at all. Instead it is on this false narrative that we say a three sentence prayer devoid of any repentance on our part and that we are thusly saved. We are not and many will stand before Christ on the last day to their despair when they realize they were lied to.

8) The world would change in an unbelievable way if the church would attack the issue of obesity as relentlessly as it attacks the issue of homosexuality! (It would also be way more relevant to the church!)

Not sure what Perry's obsession with weight is but for the sake of time I will leave that be. The reality is the church should not be in the business of attacking any issue other than sin and the need for a Savior. Preach the Gospel. Those that wield Christianity like a blunt weapon against the unsaved are just as wrong as Noble. The power is not in our word but in His.

9) Community is more important than reading the Bible. (The early church didn't have the Bible for the first 300 years of Christianity"but they did have one another.)

Perhaps if Perry had gone to Seminary he might have learned more about the Bible before making such asinine comments. While the organized Bible was not decided upon for hundreds of years, to pretend the new church had no Scriptures is silly. Here is the description of the early church:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. - Acts 2: 42-47 (ESV)

What is the first thing they devoted themselves to Perry? The Apostle's teaching. When Paul was building churches throughout the Book of Acts, what does Perry Noble think he was preaching? The Bible even reveals that Paul's letters were considered Scripture during the time he was still alive:

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. - 2Peter 3: 15-16 (ESV)

As they do with other Scriptures! Perhaps if Perry Noble spent less time bad mouthing people who have studied to show themselves approved and more time studying himself he would not embarrass himself so badly. Beloved, there is no community without the Bible. It is doctrine that our unity is formed by and found in. This again reveals another level of purpose driven thinking however. To them it is not about the Word of God. It is about their little community they have created. Where you all get to go every Sunday and socialize and sing Kumbaya and wait until Jesus comes. Problem is there will be a lot of disappointed people on that day. This marginalization of the Word of God is preeminent in seeker-friendly, purpose driven circles. The founder, Rick Warren once advised pastors to not preach the Gospel on Easter so their visitors that day would have a reason to come back the following week. That is simply frightening.

10) Denominations will become increasingly more like the United Nations - a group of people that talks but does not act and issues meaningless statements and warnings.

Noble finishes his tirade against traditional churching by taking a swipe at the UN. Putting politics aside this is once again to put forth that his way is better. That after two thousand years of religion, God has finally brought forth Perry Noble to show us the error of our ways. You see the "meaningless statements and warnings" he references are devotionals just like this one you are reading. Anyone who dares to point back to the Bible is labeled as divisive and not with the program. I mean, it's all about community, not the Bible. If you are looking to go deeper you are just a jackass according to Pastor Noble. Denominations? Things of the past along with those archaic seminaries. Unreal.

There you have it beloved. Ten insights into rank heresy. Ten complaints from a man who has proven over and over again that he is not fit for a pastoral office. He cannot correctly handle the Word of God and by his own admission, it simply does not matter much to him. I know sometimes it must seem like this is written about too frequently but you must realize that over 27,000 people across ten campuses attend this charlatan's church. This is the nonsense they are taught every week. Even deeper than Perry Noble however, his blog post reveals the fundamental flaws and heresies within the seeker friendly, purpose driven churches today. This is what they believe and we need to be very careful beloved lest we have believed in vain.

Reverend Anthony Wade - December 22, 2014

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.