Exciting Days

This past weekend was über-cool. Evan, who is my brother in law, spoke in our services. Evan gave one of the best messages I've ever heard... deep, funny, personally vulnerable, theologically rich, challenging... Wow! You can check it out on our website... it's titled "Bag in the Can."

After services, Evan & Lindsay shared their heart and some of their vision for planting a church in the Bay Area with a group of about 35 folks who came to support them. I especially appreciated their heart for their church-planting team. In response to questions about how we can support them, Evan & Lindsay basically asked us to pour ourselves into their team members. Love it! That's the heart of a shepherd... always looking to benefit those under their care.

What an incredible boost to all of us as we rally together to launch Evan & Lindsay and their team later this year! Keep updated on their progress by following their blog.

I'm also stoked on the developments with our other Foursquare churches in Santa Cruz county. Danny & Jenny Bennett are rockin' the house with their 5-week-0ld church-plant, Santa Cruz Hope, which meets at Del Mar Elementary in Live Oak. They had over 150 folks at their first public service on Easter, and Danny told me over dinner this past Sunday that lots of folks have kept coming back! Yeah!!! That's what I'm talking about! Here's a video of Danny talking a bit about their heart as a church:



Also, I just got word this morning that Michael & Kim Howard (pictured left, but no, that's not their baby) were just officially installed as the new Senior Pastors of our church in Soquel (formerly Lighthouse). Up until now they've been "interim" pastors, but now it's all systems GO! A couple weeks ago, Mike & Kim invited Steve & Donna (who pastor our church Scotts Valley), Daniel & Pamela (our church's founding pastors), and Hilary & me to lay hands on them and pray for them and the church. What an amazing thing to have such unity and sense of teamwork in all our efforts! Mike & I are having coffee in the morning to brainstorm an inter-church work-party over at their place sometime later this summer. Such a work party would be a seriously awesome and seriously historic moment!

All of this to say... Jesus is remaining faithful to His promise:

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18

Gates (last I checked) were defensive structures. That means we're on offense! We're called to be advancing, not just surviving or maintaining! His invitation to each of us is to seek Him so that He can show us our place in the ranks of His saints' onward march toward victory. Jesus is teaching me and encouraging me lots these days as He is showing me my place among His troops.

May 21st Hoax

I've gotten a few questions about billboards that some of our folks have been seeing in the Bay Area that are announcing this coming Saturday as the end of the world.

The billboards are sponsored by a couple groups affiliated with a radio preacher named Harold Camping. Bottom line, Mr. Camping's approach to scripture and ministry is fundamentally flawed. Dozens of similar teachers / teachings have flopped just like this one will (click here for a list of dates have been picked by various teachers and ministries through the years). Despite their good intentions, such teachers get sucked into this thinking because of the lure of special knowledge and sense of insider info and the feeling of power and control that come along with it. Paul wrote about such teachers to his young friend Timothy:

As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. 1 Timothy 1:3-7

My basic thought about any date-setting claim is that Jesus specifically told us that nobody could predict the date:

Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. Matthew 24:36

If Jesus says nobody knows, then I think that means that nobody knows. In other words, I'm thinking that one day Jesus is NOT coming back is May 21st!

Mr. Camping and his friends counter this verse by saying Jesus only meant those words for those people at that particular point in history, but now that the end is upon us, God is letting us in on the secret. The fact that virtually every church and every denomination and theologian has rejected their claim they see as further confirmation that they are on the right track! In the end times, they quote from Revelation, many churches and believers will fall away. "See!", they say, "The churches are falling away from the truth because they are rejecting our teaching!"

Since their logic and interpretation of Scripture is circular (they interpret all scripture through their already-arrived-at conclusion), we are only left to evaluate with the measuring stick Jesus gave us, that we should evaluate a ministry by its fruit (Matt. 7:20). The fruit of this "ministry" and the dozens of others who have tried to pick dates is not good. Their fruit is fear-driven manipulation, followed by disillusionment and a loss of credibility (Christians everywhere bear the reproach of these unaccountable, sensationalist false-teachers). The fruit we're called to bear is disciples won by binding up broken hearts and setting captives free.

All that said, we pray Jesus' mercy and grace on these folks (just as we pray for ourselves). But mercy and grace doesn't mean that we don't call false teaching what it is! It's a distraction from people's real spiritual growth and I pray that this stuff is exposed for the hoax that it is. I also pray that when the hoax is exposed, that the Lord will use it for good by calling those who have gotten off-track from their true assignment (making disciples by offering people the restoration that is only found in Jesus) back on track.

For further reading, check out Lee Grady's great article in Charisma mag.