Roasted Dove
I’m watching with slightly bitter bemusement the reaction of Calvary Chapel pastors to the manifestation of what appears to be an official recognition of a long standing, unofficial, split.
I hate to say I told you so…no, actually I’m reveling in both the fact that I told them so and the fact that so many of them told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
We wrote in detail about previous grabs for power, we wrote about the fact that Chuck Smith endorsed the CCA concept reluctantly at best, and we told you that many of these men couldn’t stand each other.
We told them that the group was split between East and West, between the past and the future.
It boggles my mind that so many accept the faux holy narrative that a few guys meet and have an instant audience with the Almighty and then communicate His directions to the masses.
This bunch did what they’ve always done…they got together with an agenda for power and then pretended that God endorsed the plan.
It was an exercise in oligarchy and backstabbing by men exhibiting the worst and most petty traits of self appointed leaders.
It’s been going on for a very long time.
The CC pastors now are being hung by their own petard…the “anointed” higher up in the “anointed” pecking order are treating them just like so many congregants have been treated…as lesser beings to whom they are not accountable.
This is an opportunity to deal with things as they really are and demand change and biblical accountability at every level of however this debacle plays out.
Instead, my guess is that they will wait to see if the oligarchy can claim apostolic succession yet again.
The reality is that while this group values independence as an 11th commandment,they are and have never been independent at all, but completely dependent on a leader or leaders to tell them how to think.
With leadership in flux, the confusion and consternation is palpable.
My guess is also that there will be an attempt to paper over this mess one more time with false claims of unity and brotherly love.
It will be another lie, but the lie seems to work very well.
Until this group is rebuilt from the bottom up instead of the top down, it always will.
I don’t know who has the real control (and I don’t care one way of the other) – it seems to me that Brodersen has the other guys by the short hairs if he controls the radio station (at least Chuck’s The Word for Today) and the publishing house.
Hey, just not sell Chuck’s program in the markets controlled by the opposition and not sell Word for Today books to the same for filling their bookstores.
and then I would moon them. 🙂
Roasted Dove… I’ll take an order to go, hold the mayo!
“This is an opportunity to deal with things as they really are and demand change and biblical accountability at every level of however this debacle plays out.” – agreed!
Well Michael, you told us so!!
I recently became familiar with a similar but lesser known group of churches called Great Commission Churches. Since my college freshman daughter is attending one of their fellowships, I decided it was my duty to check them out thoroughly.
I have some more investigating to do, but from what I can tell, they are much like Calvary Chapels with one HUGE difference. Many in the original leadership group.realized several years ago that they were doing things wrong. They publicly repented, in a letter that mentions specifically what their faults were.
To me, it sounds like a letter that should have been written by the old guard CC a couple of decades ago.
I quote from their website: “…Although they had always promoted the importance of humility and leaders being servants, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, GCC leaders put a greater emphasis on servant leadership, personal and organizational accountability, unity with the body of Christ, and responding humbly to criticisms. During this time GCC pastors pursued reconciliation with former members through Project Care and wrote the Errors and Weaknesses paper in 1991, in which wrong practices and imbalanced teachings from the past were acknowledged. This chapter in Great Commission Churches’ history is another example that shows that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is far greater than the sins, failures, and weaknesses of men.”
Don’t know if this link will work, but here’s the 13 page paper:
http://ae32b6f7a6ad6f5ae1f0-a966d7fcbad4fbcd7d1dccf3fbabbb92.r98.cf2.rackcdn.com/uploaded/e/0e4539571_1442587016_errors-weakness-final.pdf
From another place on Great Commission’s website:
“As servants of Jesus Christ, we will be criticized. What does the Bible teach us
on how to respond to critics? The answer is simple: Humility.
We must remember that our reputation matters little. What matters is God’s glory. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
What people think of us or our church or Great Commission is not important.
Rather, our desire is only that God is loved and worshipped through Jesus Christ His Son.
When criticism comes our way, may God grant us humble hearts as we seek to
serve God and people. And amidst unfair criticism, may God accelerate our efforts to
spread the message of the love of Jesus Christ to a world in desperate need of a Savior.”
CK,
Sounds like good stuff…I’ll try to read through it later today.
Not to sound like a troublemaker (that’s not my intent), but why does it seem that folks are celebrating thecwsy this issue is unfolding?
Stephen,
I don’t think most are celebrating.
What you’re seeing from me is a lot of frustration and weariness…it’s not like this couldn’t have happened three years ago.
You do have some on one side who want to see Brodersen tarred and feathered…I’m not one of them.
I’m thankful for the many Calvary Chapel pastors who serve with integrity and a desire to minister to their community. I know a few of them here in Southern California.
When it comes to the guys doing backroom manipulations, trying to get the power and prestige for “their side”, I’m saddened. Further proof that age doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom. At their age, they should know better.
amen to EricL’s #9
I prophetically told Chuck Smith, on a Sunday morning, with Dave Rolph and Oden Fong present, “You will see the full extent of your Calvary Chapel family with your own eyes.”
Shortly after that he took the Jesus people band “Love Song” on a tour of all of the Calvary Chapels.
So in light of this, since Chuck no longer walks this earth, Calvary Chapel, in my opinion is not going to experience anymore growth as it has in the past.
Anything that comes from it now will be an altogether different animal than what Chuck Smith knew.
I have my ear to the ground, listening for what God wants to do upon the earth today.
And for the moment it doesn’t look like anything is happening.
Bethel with Bill Johnson is way out in left field and missing the mark wholeheatedly.
And those who choose to take shelter in traditional theology and denominations won’t see much.
But you never know God could come down off His throne and spark up a people who have not known Him and move through them as he did with the hippie generation in the 60’s.
Certainly a lot of old timers out there who will recognize the next move of God when they see it.
“I will do a new thing – Something that has not hitherto occurred, some unheard of and wonderful event, that shall far surpass all that I had formerly done.”
Isaiah 43:19
“I will do a new thing – Something that has not hitherto occurred, some unheard of and wonderful event, that shall far surpass all that I had formerly done.”
I think the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ has satisfied this. What could come after this that would far surpass it?
I pray to God that no one says the regathering of the nation Israel at the last day.
Correct
A new thing; such a work as was never yet done in the world at the time of Isaiah, even the redemption of the world by the Messiah.
This God has done.
And He can move through people to make known this wonderful redemption through Christ.
He can spread the gospel message through those who are currently antagonistic and lost in sin as He did through the hippies.
Often times the prophetic utterances of the Old Testament prophets have far reaching meaning beyond the obvious.
In New Testament, new covenant God moves through a people, they get set in their ways, a denomination is born, and God steps over them and starts to move through others who also eventually get set in their ways and become another denomination.
God steps over them and moves through a new people and history gets repeated.
God is always looking for those through whom He can move freely.
The time will certainly come when God is compelled to fulfill His Word to the cross of the T and the dot of the i.
#8.
Michael, thanks for the answer but I should not have asked it, I suppose…because answers always (especially in this case) lead to more questions (source of frustration, etc).
There is a lot of background that I simply don’t know. That’s the way it is, is all.
I’ll just hang out and keep reading and interracting as things come up. 😉
“a denomination is born, and God steps over them and starts to move through others who also eventually get set in their ways and become another denomination.”
What is wrong with a denomination if it is right?
MLS, There is such a thing as dead-right.
Captain,
But is that a function of being a denomination?
See, I look from the other end of the hallway. I see independent churches, from the moment of their inception, as being wrong in that from their formation they say we have no shared ground with any other church – in orthodoxy or orthopraxy From the beginning it is us four shut the door.
So, to Surfer’s comment, I see nothing in a denominational setting that would make God ‘do a new work.’
I’m with MLD. A denomination can be a wonderful thing, providing accountability and support to a local congregation. Far more problems happen with the lone wolf approach of non-denominationalism. Too many congregations are brain-washed that any form of authority (other than the senior pastor and his buddies) are evil, that “religion” is evil, and that the only complete truth is to be found under the teachings of a particular man. Special snowflakes in the pulpit are a curse to Christianity.
EricL,
Thanks
My point was that I would think that the spirit of God would move on to create a new work (while I still hold that the Isaiah passage culminated in the new work of Jesus) – would move on from an independent church far quicker than a denomination.
Once the independent church begins with the subliminal message of “Let me show you how church is really to be done” – that the holy spirit is done.
a move of God? a work of His? a new one? … isn’t that up to God, Himself?
when God turns the ship (the Church) a bit, it is totally apart from any of our attempts at doctrinal correctedness (made up word)… granted He’ll use a Tyndale or a Luther or a Calvin, but He doesn’t ever turn His Truth over to the sole custody of any denomination or any man… IMNSHO, of course 🙂
a “new work?” that phrase should be gone or turned over Apple or Microsoft… IMHO … again
What is wrong with a denomination if it is right?
It also must be NEW…
Sarcasm mold off
Em,
I agree – it was the anti denomination guy that misapplied the Isaiah verse. 😉
passin throgh,
Paul was a Lutheran – Luther was just reclaiming what the RCC had stolen away. 😉
The East West split may be true at the highest leader level, but not really at the regular churches. My East Coast CC (and most of the ones near us) is more progressive (west-coast-like I guess) but still goes to conferences at Philly and works with them for missions,etc. The “split” if there is one has no impact on us
I find it very interesting that every denomination has a great history of God moving in their midst.
The Methodist had John Wesley Redfield who inspired the Holiness Movement.
By some counts, there are over 2,000 denominations in the United States alone.
Lutheranism:
Lutheranism derives from Martin Luther, the original reformer. The Roman Catholic practice of indulgences (the belief that giving a specific donation to the Roman Catholic church would free one’s soul from purgatory), among other things, troubled Luther.
He established 95 theses about the church’s practice and nailed them to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1519.
After a debate with the local Catholic bishop on these things, Luther’s ideas gained popularity. Although Luther only wished to reform the Roman Catholic church, reconciliation proved impossible in 1525 when Luther was excommunicated.
Seeing no other viable alternative, Luther split from the Roman Catholic church, thus forming his own organization.
Within the next century, Luther and his theology of “faith alone” would spread throughout many portions of the Holy Roman Empire and all of Scandinavia.
There are so many denominations.
We can see that the majority of these denominations were established on the basis of new ideas of men and those who would follow them.
There is always room for another great move of God in the land!
Unless your stuck in a denomination that is closed to the idea…
Unless your stuck in a denomination that is closed to the idea….
I am stuck in a denomination that is closed to the idea.
Thank God.
For me, a “great move of God” would be thousands of people converting to Christianity with nothing new added.
Surfer , Luther did not come up with any new ideas. He fought what were actually the new erroneous ideas of the RCC. What Luther was into was not new thinking but retro thinking – traveling back through Augustine back to Paul.
When you say a new move is needed, are you suggesting that the Holy Spirit is asleep at the wheel today? 😉
And now the lines that have been drawn in secret are finally acknowledged publicly.
I could puke over the wrongmindedness that propels these power-hungry so-called pastors.
And I DO rejoice in the told-you-so, because up until now, the players in this little drama have acted like Michael had no idea what he was talking about.
PS If I ever hear the word “anointed” again, more retching will ensue.