So What’s the Problem?
Pastor Steven Furtick writes in his blog in an entry titled “I promised you a good comeback“:
The other day, a lady said something to my wife that made me sick to my stomach upon hearing about it. Literally.
She was talking about how she visited Elevation with her family over the summer.
So far, so good…In fact, she continued, they have visited “just about every church in Charlotte, looking for the church that’s perfect for us.”
Uh oh…
My wife doesn’t have much tolerance for church hopping Southerners.
Neither do I.
I agree Pastor Furtick. I find the idea of church shopping to be literally stomach turning, too. You know what? It’s HERESY. Our Lord turned to Peter, give him a new name (always God’s way of signaling something REALLY big) and said, “On this rock I will build my church.” You will notice the complete lack of plurals in that statement.
Then the woman made one of the most absurd comments I’ve ever heard from a churchgoer, even here in the Bible belt. That’s saying a lot.
“I wanted to let you know that there’s one praise song, I can’t remember the name of it, that ya’ll do better than all of the dozens of churches we’ve been to in our church shopping quest.”
Ma’am, if you’re reading:
Who do you think you are? Simon freakin’ Cowell?
Have you reduced the worship of a holy God to a singing competition?
To see which band can cover Chris Tomlin to your exact standards?What do you think this is? Shopping mall Christianity?
Like one church is Abercrombie, one is Hollister, and the other is GAP?
Don’t even use the phrase church shopping in my presence.
Jesus bought you with His blood. You don’t get to cheapen that by shopping for the church that perfectly scratches your every itch.Jesus didn’t die on a brutal cross so we could sample different church varieties like a party platter.
“I go to Church A some weeks, cause I like the music there, but I like the preaching better at Church B, and my kids like Church C, but my friends go to Church D. So I hit ‘em all.”This is madness. It makes God sick. And it makes you a spiritual bastard.
The Church is the bride of Christ.
Quit sleeping around and pimping her out to satisfy your own personal preferences.
You know what? I agree with you. Jesus bought the church with his blood, but I don’t get WHY you think shopping for a church based on ”worship experience” is such a terrible thing? I know why **I** think it is a terrible thing, but it seems to me Protestants in general have taken to defining “worship” as an experience that is “meaningful” to them personally. Who are you to judge what grounds too shallow to engage in the practice are? Perhaps there are scripture references that I am unaware of that govern the practice of “church shopping”? If worship should be “meaningful” to those who participate in it, then why are some methods of finding a place of worship acceptable and others not? As a Catholic, I personally don’t think worship should be “meaningful” to me at all. Worship should be what God defined it to be. With God’s grace and His mercy, as I draw closer to Him it will become meaningful….in no small part because HE knows better than I the appropriate food for my soul. And because God defined it, worship, in its essentials, is the same no matter what Catholic Church I attend. Worship as GOD defined it, is sacrificial. Abel knew that. Abraham knew that. Moses knew that. And so did everyone who was right with God in the Old Testament. We see over and over again, terrible punishments meted out to those who started to make worship meaningful to themselves like Nadab, Abihu, and Saul. In the New Testament, Jesus defined what form sacrificial worship was to take in the New Covenant and nowhere in Sacred Scripture do I see evidence that we get to just make it up to suit ourselves, or our culture, our community, or any other variable that you’d like to dream up. With “Do this in memory of me,” Jesus took the liturgy of the Passover meal and transformed it into the sacrificial worship of the New Covenant and then provided HIMSELF as the victim and high priest. This is the worship of heaven that we see pictured in Revelation which was included in the canon because the Church Fathers knew that is spoke to the importance of worship and not because it was fodder for a poorly written series of novels.
The church is a battleship, not a cruise ship.
Pastors and leaders are generals to equip you for battle in the trenches, not cruise directors to make your stay more enjoyable on the Lido deck.To all of you who are currently searching for a church to belong to, that’s cool.
Sometimes it takes time. And you should take your time making such an important decision.But how about adjusting your criteria for church selection to reflect the will of God more than your likes and dislikes?
How about looking for the church that Jesus founded? The one that the martyrs of the first centuries died to pass down to us? They died to protect what would become the Sacred Scripture (one of the reasons to form the canon btw Call them crazy, but they didn’t want to die for documents that weren’t actually scripture.). They died to protect the Eucharist and not a symbolic remembrance. They died rather than sacrifice to pagan idols and yet, their practices are condemned as pagan by many Protestants who would claim they are their brothers and sisters in Christ. They died believing in the authority of the Catholic Church to proclaim and interpret the Sacred Scripture and in the magisterium’s authority to decide what was and was not Sacred Scripture. They died believing in the sacramental duties and authority of their duly ordained Bishops and Priests and Deacons and yet, those who claim kinship with them denounce these things.
How about praying: “God where can you best use me?” instead of asking “What’s in it for me and my kids?”
How about considering where you can best accomplish the mission of the Son of God:
Seeking and saving what is lost.
Building the Kingdom.Not protecting your pet doctrine,
Sage advice. How about NOT protecting your pet doctrines Pastor Furtick or are your pet doctrines worth protecting because you’re in charge? How about taking a good long hard look at what the men so inspired by the Holy Spirit that they were able to discern what was and was not the word of God and formed the canon of scripture that YOU accept, believed it said? How about not re-inventing worship? (At the very least could we not call it *spit* “worship experience” *spit*?) How about believing that Jesus founded ONE church and that its member were to have a unity so visible that the world would know who sent them?
singing your favorite song, or sitting in your reserved seat.
If this entry ticked you off, it’s probably because you’re guilty and God is convicting you.
I. don’t. think. so. This entry ticked me off because it is the height of hypocrisy for a Protestant minister to build a “church” based on his “pet doctrines” to select a “worship team” that sings his favorite songs and sits up front in a seat reserved for him and then, criticize those who seek a church on the same grounds. Pastor Furtick, church shopping is WRONG and it isn’t less wrong if it is done those reasons you consider “appropriate.” The Church IS the Bride of Christ. ONE Bride. ONE Church. (One Faith, One Baptism, One Lord, One Fold and One Shepherd) It is bought with His Blood, imagine how it grieves him to see it divided.
If you’ve been attending Elevation for a while, and are a Christian who is already going to heaven, and are treating our church like American Idol, waiting to decide whether you will vote us in for another week based on whether you like the show this Sunday, please find somewhere else to take up space.
We need your seat.
Otherwise, roll up your sleeves, invite your unchurched friends, plug in as a volunteer, give financially, pray for God’s continued favor, and let’s rock this city.
Speaking of rocking this city, I’ll be making the biggest announcement I’ve ever made at Elevation this Sunday.
It is utterly ridiculous what we’re about to attempt.
And my lips are sealed.
Until Sunday.
Let’s hope you are about to announce an examination of the prayer of Jesus as he was facing execution.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you love me. John 17:20-23
We are supposed to be ONE as the Father and the Son are ONE. I wonder if Jesus and the Father have doctrinal disagreements? I wonder if their unity is “symbolic”? If it is invisible? I am ONE not just with my brothers and sisters in Christ who happen to attend Mass in the same geographical location as I do but I am ONE with my brothers and sisters in Christ at EVERY MASS that has ever taken place in every place and every time since that Passover meal in the Upper Room.
What right do any of us have to elevate our understanding of Sacred Scripture as more important than that the prayer of Our Lord? No matter how I tried to justify it when I was a Protestant, sola scriptura really amounted to my very own personal understanding of Sacred Scripture. After all, what does the average Protestant do but find a church that most closely matches his/her own understanding of Sacred Scripture? And some add in the quality of the music and the Sunday School program as well. I made my intellect into an idol. Church was what I defined it to be using my very own sin-distorted lens and whatever verses I used to support the direction I wanted to head and I blamed it all on the Holy Spirit’s leading. (Succumbing to the rather obvious temptation(s) that if I was right, my brother or sister was obviously wrong and it must be because he/she wasn’t hearing clearly from the Holy Spirit because of sin in his/her life. Or perhaps because I was smarter. Or more sincere. Or…..) Sola Scriptura is a doctrine of division and of disunity because it allows us all to “be like gods” and decide for ourselves what we think about the written instructions God left us. Sacred scripture is not self-evident (show me a list of the table of contents in any of the Sacred Scriptures….the canon was made by MEN). It is not self-interpreting or there wouldn’t be so many different interpretations and DON’T blame the Holy Spirit for that. ONE Holy Spirit does not lead us to the kind of division and strife that leads to 30,000 denominations. (Link opens to a PDF file.)
The idea that church unity is some sort of invisible thing that binds us all together despite our doctrinal differences is heresy and the sin of “church shopping” (among others) is birthed from it. Pastor Furtick, you will not stomp out the sin of “church shopping” with a sternly worded blog entry suggesting that there appropriate and inappropriate criteria for engaging in this practice. You will stomp it out by looking to the Church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock and reconciling to it. If you need a place to start may I suggest the Coming Home Network? And while you’re at it, why not bring your congregation across the Tiber with you like Alex Jones did? We’re saving a seat for all of you.
Edited to add: In the event you have followed a direct link to this post, I have posted responses to Tom N.’s comment here, ty 23’s comment here, and to PURPLEGIRL.
More comments from issues raised by this post and the discussions resulting from it: What is the Catholic Church Doing to Reach the Lost?, and The Catholic Church and the Bible.
And then there is this little gem on Hacking Cough.
