Is Your Church Going Purpose Driven?
The Southwest Radio Ministries has a handy little Brochure that you can download for free to help you make a reasonable assessment. You might need it if you want to know the answer. If your church leaders are attempting that kind of change, you cannot find out by asking them; It’s the wrong question to ask. Here’s why.
Your pastoral staff or the change agents in your church will never accomplish their agenda by standing up in front of the congregation and boldly declaring, “This is what we want to do and this is how we are going to do it.” In their training materials, Church Transitions by Dan Southerland, an associate of Saddleback Church, instructs how to pull this off successfully. Initially, a small clique of church staff, possibly (and preferably but not necessarily) including the pastor or a new pastor, plans the change without telling the rest of the church membership. The clique is trained to initiate the change in eight published steps. The church membership is not to be informed of the transition until the fourth step. This means the church membership is not told until it is too late to make a difference.
Your pastoral staff or the change agents in your church will never accomplish their agenda by standing up in front of the congregation and boldly declaring, “This is what we want to do and this is how we are going to do it.” In their training materials, Church Transitions by Dan Southerland, an associate of Saddleback Church, instructs how to pull this off successfully. Initially, a small clique of church staff, possibly (and preferably but not necessarily) including the pastor or a new pastor, plans the change without telling the rest of the church membership. The clique is trained to initiate the change in eight published steps. The church membership is not to be informed of the transition until the fourth step. This means the church membership is not told until it is too late to make a difference.
Did you see that?
Those instructions are chilling.
In order to accomplish their objective, they must foist it on unsuspecting congregations by stealth. And because they believe their agenda is right, or godly, or noble, or good, they have no problem employing devious tactics because “the end justifies the means.”
Now, back to the question; when asked, “Are we changing to a Purpose Driven, or seeker sensitive, church model?” most change agents can unflinchingly look you squarely in the eyeballs and flat out deny the truth because they are convinced that, technically, what they are telling you is not a lie. Here’s how.
“Purpose Driven” is Rick Warren’s plan, "Seeker Sensitive" refers to Bill Hybels' plan. These are trademark plans among several plans that are all broadly categorized as the "Church Growth Movement" or "Chruch Marketing." Most change agents employ a plan for church growth or vision that is a variation or compilation of one or more plans that they have "customized" for their own use. So, if asked, they can, technically, be "truthy" in their deception. The real question to ask is this, “Do we have a vision for churc
h growth and a developed marketing or business strategy to help us achieve that goal?”
And even if you carefully phrase the question, they will still tap dance around it or give you a bunch of "truthy" non-answers but it will be much more difficult. You will need to become educated on the subject, listen carefully for the buzzwords, and be able to identify the symptoms.
Dedicated to the Resistance
Now, back to the question; when asked, “Are we changing to a Purpose Driven, or seeker sensitive, church model?” most change agents can unflinchingly look you squarely in the eyeballs and flat out deny the truth because they are convinced that, technically, what they are telling you is not a lie. Here’s how.
“Purpose Driven” is Rick Warren’s plan, "Seeker Sensitive" refers to Bill Hybels' plan. These are trademark plans among several plans that are all broadly categorized as the "Church Growth Movement" or "Chruch Marketing." Most change agents employ a plan for church growth or vision that is a variation or compilation of one or more plans that they have "customized" for their own use. So, if asked, they can, technically, be "truthy" in their deception. The real question to ask is this, “Do we have a vision for churc
h growth and a developed marketing or business strategy to help us achieve that goal?”And even if you carefully phrase the question, they will still tap dance around it or give you a bunch of "truthy" non-answers but it will be much more difficult. You will need to become educated on the subject, listen carefully for the buzzwords, and be able to identify the symptoms.
Dedicated to the Resistance
No comments:
Post a Comment