An Address To a SBC Deacon Body Regarding The Purpose Driven Shift

An Address To a SBC Deacon Body Regarding The Purpose Driven Shift
Used with permission

When I served as a deacon, if the pastor had a concern, I would listen intently, and it became my concern. If the Pastor said we should do something, I agreed and voted for whatever he said. Because, I trusted the pastor and the staff implicitly and without question. I loved and respected my pastor and the men that I served with on the Deacon body and the Church we worked to serve. As an inactive Deacon and teacher I would now like to present to you my concerns for our church.

On June 11, the pastor led a deacon discussion about me, supported by 2 letters that I sent to him privately and in confidence in the month of June. You were asked to read the letters & vote on a motion that would later be used to remove me as a Teacher. You saw words like heresy, repent and apologize.

If I was in your shoes that night, I may have felt surprised or even shocked that the writer would be so bold. I might have had questions for the writer of the letter, but more than likely, I would have voted for whatever the pastor recommended. Why? Because he is my pastor, I love and respect him; I love and respect the men I serve with as a Deacon and the Church that we serve.

The thought that something might have been missing, the thought that something was hidden from me as a deacon would never enter my mind. Why? Because I trust the pastor and staff implicitly.

Gentlemen, something was missing from the Pastor’s discussion that night. Something that should have been shared with you, in order for you to do the right thing for this church.

Last year, in preparation for the 40 days of purpose I stumbled upon distressing information regarding the doctrinal error, ecumenical motivation & psychological manipulation behind Rick Warren’s PDL.

In addition I discovered that the root of Warren’s theology is not the Bible but in psychology, organizational business management & new age philosophies masked in Christian terms. I discovered that Warren was the most successful entrepreneur of the seeker sensitve, consumer driven, church growth movement that has overtaken a large part of the Protestant and Evangelical community over the last 10 years. From this point on I will refer to this movement as the Church Growth Movement.

Before the 40 days program started I first wrote a letter to the pastor advising that my family would not participate because of several issues in the book, including the endorsement of a Catholic mysticism, which I recognized immediately as a former Roman Catholic.

Even practicing Roman Catholics shun Catholic mysticism, because it combines Catholicism with new age philosophies and practices things such as deep breathing prayers and mantras, which are rooted in Buddhism and Hinduism.

The pastor later stopped me and asked to talk about my concerns. We met and The Pastor asked if my Catholic background was preventing me & my family from seeing the value of the program. I told him no, it was my Baptist background that was revealing the fact that this course is not biblical.

The pastor said “…even I do deep breathing prayers, I breath the Holy Spirit in and breathe out..” He asked, “Do you think God can use this and make something good come out of this?” I thought for a moment and said, “Well, yes”. The Pastor said “give it a chance and I’ll be praying for you”.

Well, we gave it a chance. We saw RW on the big screen and the skits on stage. We heard messages that were scripted like que cards. We stopped attending the 11 am service after the 2nd Sunday. We were being entertained and tickled but not taught.

During the 40 days other church members contacted me and expressed their concerns about PDL. I began to spend every minute of my free time researching the PDL program and the church growth movement.

We spoke with YYYYY, who has been a brother ,a mentor, and a teacher to us since we came to the church. He encouraged us to give the program a chance; people are say good things about it.

After completing more than 100 hours of research I learned that the Purpose Driven program and the consumer driven church growth movement was unbiblical & poses the greatest threat to the gospel in bible believing churches across the world.

It was not hard for me to imagine how this came into our church given PDL’s best selling book in the USA of all time and RW’s being called America’s pastor by the media.

Local churches were jumping on the bandwagon in the excitement of being apart of the success and media attention the book had received.

In the excitement, no one would remember what the giant of the faith; Charles Spurgeon said over 100 years ago, “ The church the world loves is the church that God abhors”.

After the program was over I met with XXXXXX who was chairman of the Deacons at that time. I expressed my concerns to him and he directed me to the pastor. XXXXXXX encouraged me to tell the pastor “Preach only from the Bible”.

I scheduled a meeting with The Pastor after the 40 Days was over. We sat privately and I shared what I had learned. I gave him a CD with 25 hours of reading material as evidence. During the meeting I expressed the hurt and angst that not only my family had felt but others as well about the error of this teaching.

After 90 minutes The Pastor apologized for causing this hurt due to the Purpose Driven Life, and committed that our church would not use any of RW’s material again.

I was relieved. I thanked God that our Pastor saw the Purpose Driven Life and the church growth movement for what it is - a business driven, ecumenical and unbiblical way of “doing church” as Warren says. A few days later, XXXXXX called and told me that the staff had met and said that the staff had met and in fact will no longer use Warren’s materials.

Now with the confidence of the staffs’ decision, I later posted the research on my website. I created this website in January 2005 to share Bible study commentaries for my class, as well as news updates.

I didn’t publish or discuss any of the details of what had occurred with the pastor or the staff. As far as I was concerned the staff saw a mistake was made, they recognized it, and fixed it.

For the following 12 months I continued researching church growth movement and posting the findings on the website.

Earlier this year as announcement was made during the worship service that we were preparing for another 40 day adventure with Ed Young. My wife and I were stunned. I called YYYYYYY and expressed my shock over this apparent reversal. YYYYYY calmly instructed me to not jump to conclusions and told me to “research Ed Young like you did for Warren. You will probably find the 40-day reference was simply an innocent remark.”

I took YYYY’s advice. I reviewed the material for No Fear and researched Ed Young and found nothing of concern. I was relieved and felt perhaps I jumped the gun. I even told the Pastor and ZZZZZZ that Ed Young seem to be a solid citizen in the evangelical community.

On April 8th, I had sent an email to the staff, the new Chairman of the Deacons and YYYYYY telling them I recently completed a study of the early church and would like to get together and evaluate we we are at, where we are trying to go, and how to go there together. Perhaps we can look to book a start up session in May. I even sent a synopsis of the study.

I also shared information about the Together for the Gospel conference which was to be held at the end of April. A Conference for Pastors and Preachers hosted by Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, Albert Mohler with special guests John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul

It was a conference for pastors to focus on the recovery of the biblical ministry of the pastor, elders and church in light of the erosion caused by the church growth movement.

The month of May came and went, and no response. No one was interested or even gave the courtesy to decline. I was disappointed and disillusioned with the staff.

I sent an update to the staff reporting the activities and presentations made at the Together for the Gospel Conference. Nearly 3000 pastors assembled and published a statement of what they affirm regarding the biblical model of the pastor and the church.

Highlights of the Affirmation include:

- Compromise of the Gospel has led to the preaching of false gospels, the seduction of many minds and movements, and the weakening of the church's Gospel witness.

-We are concerned about the tendency of so many churches to substitute technique for truth, therapy for theology, and management for ministry. We affirm the centrality of expository preaching in the church and the urgent need for a recovery of biblical exposition and the public reading of Scripture in worship.

-We deny that evangelism can be reduced to any program, technique, or marketing approach. We further deny that salvation can be separated from repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

This was sent to the staff. No response I was saddened to see the disinterest and discourtesy of the staff.

In May, I stumbled across a piece regarding Ed Young Jr. What I found floored me. It appeared that Ed Young Jr. is another pillar in the consumer driven church growth movement, focusing in on creativity and visual entertainment in church services.

Apparently I originally researched Ed Young Sr., who is also a pastor, not Ed Young Jr.

It seemed that the staff was now attemtping to avoid the appearance of being seeker sensitive and consumer driven . Same stuff different label. The same game. Looking at the last 6 years at the church, I began to connects the dots. It was obvious to me that the staff had simply swapped Rick Warren out and put Ed Young, Jr in.

My wife and I were crushed. I shared the information with YYYYYY; he would not accept what I told him until he saw the facts. Even then he could not bring himself to the thought that after everything that was learned about Purpose Driven Life, the staff would reverse their apology and their commitment not to pursue the unbiblical church growth model.

Later that week, the music minister called me and said that The Pastor was at the SBC convention but wanted us to get together to discuss my concerns. Due to my travel schedule the meeting had to booked for June 22.

I was cautiously optimistic and encouraged about this meeting. Perhaps the pastor heard Dr. Albert Mohler speak against this movement , as he did in the Together for the Gospel. Dr Mohler was the former SBC president and President of the Southern Baptist Theological seminary in Kentucky. He has written several articles about the error of the church growth movement and this threat is a frequent topic on his radio show that I listen to via the Internet.

That’s not why the pastor called for this meeting.

On June 22, I entered a meeting that I thought was to include just the pastors and I. To my surprise, the Chairman of the Deacons and the former Chairman of the Deacons were present. The music minister was not. I didn’t know why but I didn’t ask.

The pastor said that he wanted to address my concerns. An exchange began regarding my old concern about the Purpose Driven Life. All three men said there was nothing wrong with, I ask the pastor, why are we discussing this now, I already met with you last year, and now you want to bring it up again. I was shocked.

He then told me “ JJJJJ, I read you letter to the Deacon body, and if you don’t back down from your position you will not be allowed to teach your class.” I was floored and upset at this time. I was shocked the pastor who had not responded to one request of mine or responded to my last two emails is now telling me that he breached confidentiality of a private communication and read it to the Deacon body.

Not only did he breach confidentiality he conducted some kind of vote without my proper representation and without any complaint about my Sunday School teaching for the last 3 years.

Was the pastor taking back his apology he made in 2005 and commitment not to pursue PDL or it’s church growth program ? Or perhaps he was just patronizing me last year in hopes that I would just go away.

At this point I was dazed by the pastor’s reversal and the apparent insincerity he displayed last year. I was stunned by the former Chairman of the Deacon’s on his reversal as well. In 2005, he had encouraged me to tell the Pastor to preach only from the Bible.

The pastor began to make comments about my less than perfect church attendance. He defended his preaching, stating he teaches book by book on Wed nights. I thought to myself, “that is not the definition of expository preaching.”

The pastor with cynicism suggested I go to Seminary. (The implication of that remark was that I didn’t know what I was talking about.)

I asked The Pastor how could he possibly inform the Deacons of what my concern has been over the last 16 months by reading two letters? I stated “ I gave you 25 hours of research last year.” The Pastor quickly responded, “I didn’t read any of it.” It was then I realized The Pastor was just humoring me when I met with him in 2005 to plead with him to not use Rick Warren. It now seems that he had every intent to pursue his vision for the church and he proved that when he answered the next question I asked:

What is the role of the pastor? The pastor responded, “to feed the sheep and cast the vision.”

I was shocked again. Vision casting is a big part of the consumer driven church growth model. Both Warren ,Young and others promote it on their websites. It is a business practice for CEO’s to engage in, what they visualize their companies can be. They began drumming up support with key influencial people in the organization to initiate slow deliberate change. It has it’s roots in Total Quality Management developed by Peter Drucker, who tutored Rick Warren for years.

I told the pastor that’s not in the Bible. He shot back, “Yes it is”. I said , “No it isn’t”. I told him the role of the pastor is to feed the sheep by unfolding the mysteries of God, equip the saints and lead them in the power and instruction of the Holy Spirit.

I asked the pastor if he was counseling a married man who had an affair, and he asked you should he still talk to his girlfriend, what would you say ? The Pastor said no. I asked the pastor should he still have coffee with her, the Pastor said no.

I then said that growing this church by business methods is spiritual adultery and it needs to be cut out from this church.. I abruptly excused myself and left.

At sometime toward the end DDDDD arrived and entered the meeting.

On Sunday June 25, while I was making copies of Bible verses in the church office, the Pastor came in and said, “ JJJJ, what are you doing?. I said the deacons had voted and you will not teach your class.”

I immediately responded "I do not recognize the kangaroo court you assembled. You took a private and confidential communication and went to the deacon body without my permission, with a concern I have about you as the pastor and I am to trust you to represent me properly to the deacon body ?”

And you vote on removing me as a Sunday school teacher, when this is totally unrelated to my teaching of the class ? What complaint do you have against me regarding Sunday school ?

The Pastor replied, "I haven't looked into that yet ? "

I replied "so this is retribution for expressing what is an unpopular concern ?"

I replied, “ I am not teaching my class”. The Pastor said, “ Then why are you preparing as if you are.” I told The Pastor it is my responsibility to make copies of the Bible references for the lesson whether I teach the class or not. By this time DDDD and AAAAA arrived and shut the office door.

The Pastor said “ they don't need what your printing they have their Bibles”. I replied, “ I guess they don’t need teachers, I came out of a denomination that hid the bible from the congregation."

The Pastor said, “JJJJJ, you are not allowed to use that Copier”. I continued to make copies.

The Pastor then said, “JJJJ, you are not welcomed to attend Sunday school here.”

Again, another blow not just to me but now my family.

DDDDD says" look at you , look at you face, you are attacking the pastor and have no right"

"I have every right,and obligation to expose the doctrinal error that has been brought into this Church. For 16 months I have pleaded to keep this out of this church, and have been ignored. Now I am being punished."

I told the men that “this congregation will now the truth about what you have done.” The Pastor later went to my class. I told the class I was removed and the matter was under review. I phrased it that way because this was an ongoing issue and the class did not have a need to know at that time. I left the class. The Pastor then told the class I was removed for my attitude.

Which in my opinion was nothing but a lie. So which is it ? I was removed because of my position concerning an issue that I thought was resolved last year, or my attitude ?

And when and where did I have a public display of a attitude?

If that’s the pastor’s standard for disciplinary action, then what will be the disciplinary action for what this staff has done publicly to me and my family ?

I have made multiple requests from the staff for the details of the discussion of the June 11 th Deacon’s meeting, the motion and the vote. To date I have only received the vote count and confirmed that the two letters I sent in June were distributed.

DEACON RECAP

The Pastor distributed two private communications to this body. You were asked to read the letters. The pastor engaged in a discussion with you. I do not know what you were told.

I asked this staff repeatedly since then to tell me what was told to you, and they have refused.

I can only assume that based on my meeting on June 11, that the pastor told you I have some type of problem with the purpose driven life, without telling you the whole story I have just told you.

But I do know that some type of motion was made to call for a vote to remove me as a Sunday school teacher.

It is my understanding that one deacon suggested a secret ballot. He must have recognized the risk of undo influence of peer pressure, and influence of the pastor nad the conflict of interest the pastor created by representing himself and a small part of my story. This deacon must have recognized that this situation required an effort to preserve the integrity of each man’s vote.

The request was denied. A vote was taken. It was unanimous vote.

So I ask myself, “Why did the staff change their minds since last year?” Or were they just pretending to change their minds in hopes that my family would leave the church.

According to the RW’s church transformation team leaders, a pastor may have to wait until the traditionalists of the congregation leave or die before the change to the new way of doing church can be completed.

Traditionalists? You mean Bible discerning Christians who cling to the old rugged cross?

One deacon who was not present for this meeting asked the Chairman of the Deacons if he missed anything. the Chairman replied, “no you didn’t miss anything”

I did months of research to arrive at my conclusions expressed in my two letters to the pastor. How much time were you allowed to investigate my concerns?

How much time did the staff spend investigating my concern? They proudly and with defiance said they didn’t read anything.

You were asked to vote on a motion after hearing the pastor’s concern, and the two letters you read. This vote was a vote not on facts, but how the pastor made you feel about me.

That’s called manipulation by undue influence.

Holding a vote without my testimony is called railroading.

The manipulation of this deacon body by the pastor to arrive at what seems to be his personal predetermined outcome by influencing the opinion of the majority , and concealing all the facts is called consensus, the same psychological tool the church growth gurus use to compromise the true gospel in small group settings.

The pastor distributing my private communications without my permission is called breach of confidentiality, which is against the civil code of the Commonwealth of Virginia for an individual in a position of counseling or fiduciary trust.

The pastor’s attempt to ban me and my family from attending Sunday school is called spiritual abuse.

"Spiritual abuse occurs when a leader uses his spiritual position to control or dominate another person absent from biblical wisdom, Christlike humility and the clear command of Scripture. At the very least this is legalistic pride on steroids--the doctrines of men instituted, accepted and embraced as biblical truth, yet, outside the pervue of God's holy Word. At the very most it is absolute power corrupting absolutely..."

Last year the Church bulletin title changed and “The Vision” was introduced as the “new thing” God is doing at this church. That is a text book example that your church now will be under the influence of the church growth movement.

This vision was in the works several years before. The Mapp committee was arranged to determine what people may want in a church, just like what Robert Schuller did and Rick Warren. Building church recreational centers is one of the components of being attractive to unbelievers, bringing the culture of the world into the church, so the world will feel comfortable and you can watch your church grow over night. That’s the lie of this movement.

Our pastor used the church credit card without a vote or consultation and charge over 8000$ to purchase the purpose driven life program in the name of the vision. He said he had a vision that God wanted us to do this.

We went into debt to acquire properties because we knew this would be necessary to accommodate more buildings for more people. We built the atrium all in the name of the vision.

I stood up last year at the August business meeting and recommended the sale of at least one rental property to pay back the designated funds. Is the church growing so fast that we had to go into debt and buy 3 properties.

The pastor told me that “that would be against the vision of the church”. I replied then “we need to revisit the vision” That hasn’t been done.

How many people have left this church because of the way this staff has treated them.

How many people are still here, but have been intimidated into silence and compliance by coersion, embarrassment and rudeness.

How many now have one foot out the door waiting to see if this deacon body will take control of this staff and and hold them accountable for these appalling events.

What does my wife tell my son and daughter who watched their father spend 5 – 10 hours a week preparing to teach his Sunday School Class why he is not teaching any more, did he do something wrong ?

I extend the same invitation to you as I did to this staff. I am willing to share what I have found regarding the error of of the seeker sensitive consumer church growth movement, the evidence it’s influence on our church.

The question is will you move forward biblically , or will you will you respond politically.

Right now there are church members assembled in the atrium praying that God’s will be done.

Read the background surrounding this address.