What I Like about Word of Faith

It doesn’t take much searching to find a website that is anti-Word of Faith. The claims go all the way to it being destructive to the church as a whole. This is an interesting viewpoint in my opinion. If the Church belongs to God then how can it be destroyed? Especially since a lot of the loudest screamers believe that nothing happens that God doesn’t ordain to happen. But I digress. There are things that I am grateful to God for connecting me with Word of Faith. Here are the main things.

Who Am I

1.       I learned that I am righteous. There is nothing that I can do to earn God’s love. Salvation is by grace and Faith in Jesus’ work on the Cross and not by my dead works. This was something I’d never learned in church. The churches that I had been a part of prior subtly taught a Works based system where whenever I messed up I thought I was at risk of losing my salvation. Humorously this caused me to think I had missed the rapture on a number of occasions growing up. I now don’t live in fear of God throwing me away because I’m not perfect. The pressure is off and I just rest in His grace to do what needs to be done out of love for Jesus.

Why Am I Here

2.       Not only did I learn that I was righteous but I learned that God has a unique plan for every person’s life here on earth. I’d grown up with the view of just trying to get to heaven. That earth was just something to endure until you make it to heaven. I now have a sense of purpose here on earth. I don’t fully understand what that purpose is but I no longer feel like I’m just a mist floating in the wind.

What is this book

3.       My Word of Faith church was the first church I was a part of that actually taught me about the bible. My prior churches talked about politics, news, current events and bringing your bible wasn’t necessary. My Word of Faith church required bringing your bible because we were going to be using it heavily. I was taught about Faith, Prayer, How to Study the Bible and a number of other things that had never been presented to me. Word of Faith emphasizes the importance of the bible and the reading of the bible more than any other church I’d ever been a part of.

These are just a few things that I like about Word of Faith. There are some things that I don’t like but the good outweighs the bad in most cases. In later posts I’ll be addressing some of the common criticisms tossed at Word of Faith to see if they are valid in light of scripture. If these blogs can cause one person to at least hesitate and research before tossing a stone at a fellow Christian it will have done its job.  

Seeker Sensitive... Wrong?

Philippians 1:15-18
New King James Version (NKJV)

¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: ¹⁶ The former^[a] preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; ¹⁷ but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

I was thinking about this scripture this morning. There are so many types of churches out there today. I wanted to deal with the so called “Seeker Sensitive’ churches in this blog. We see the band and casually dressed Pastor and pick up the stones immediately.

I read this description of what “Seeker Sensitive’ means on ChristianExaminer.com.

A “seeker-sensitive” church is a church whose main purpose is to try to make the church look more attractive to unbelievers. Many churches use technology and media to drive outreach to the communities. Most say this is a powerful outreach tool, but the affects of it can, and will, be very unhealthy for the church as a whole.

I may be simple but why is this unhealthy? Paul says that we rejoice if Christ is preached. Why should we be afraid of churches that want to provide a safe non-judgmental environment for unbelievers? Everyone doesn’t respond to Fire and Brimstone messages. Paul says in Romans 2:4 that the goodness of God leads to repentance.

 One church can’t meet the needs of every person but can we have enough faith in God that He can get people where they need to be? Why can’t God use the “Seeker Sensitive” church to bring about true repentance and then lead that person to a place that offers real discipleship? Personally I go to a church that some would consider “Seeker Sensitive” and I love it. I love the uplifting messages, the practical sermons and the focus on just loving and worshiping Jesus. I’ll let you in on a little secret. No matter how you dress a church up when the exclusiveness of Jesus being the only way is presented in the so called “Seeker Sensitive” church (and it is) things tend to not be as attractive to the unbeliever.  

I came across this post on another blog and it perfectly sums it up. There are three types of “Seeker Sensitive” churches and it is wrong to lump them all in together.

A good seeker-sensitive church will have the following characteristics: (1) a heart for the lost, (2) a contemporary 'style', (3) meets people where their at by dealing with felt-needs, and (4) purposefully and effectively guides people towards God-centeredness.

A pathetic seeker-sensitive church does the first three well, but completely blows the last one. They do try, just not very hard and not very effectively.

A sinful seeker-sensitive church acts as if #3 is the ultimate and final goal in life.

http://www.joshgelatt.com/2011/08/is-seeker-sensitive-church-sinful.html#comment-form

Can we please stop labeling people we don’t understand for doing things differently than us? At least take the time to find out if the person or church is doing anything wrong biblically instead of judging them off first impressions.