7 years ago, almost to the day, I responded to my first altar-call. With trembling hands I moved with hundreds to the front of an auditorium in Waikanae and experienced God. I have no doubt God really moved in this time, but little did I know that altar-call would be the first of nearly 20. After the camp the illusion ended. I went from meeting to meeting hoping to recapture something of that first experience, convinced that it was God. Finally it all ended after 2 very painful years of learning that God was with me continually - and no more so during a performance.
I’m sad to say I was one of the lucky ones who made it through. At the end of this journey there was a trail of destruction of other followers who just found it too hard to reconcile the character of God in the day-to-day with the slick production that started it. In short, we were all deceived. We were sold a lie that couldn’t last by people who only cared enough for us to ‘make a decision’, and not for the kind of Christians we’d become afterwards.
With regard to the upcoming Harvest Crusade, some may argue that this is a cultural thing. A mere result of the secular world we live in, and that this deception is never modeled or encouraged by the crusade. While I do not doubt the hearts of Mr.Laurie and his team, it comes back to Marshall McLuhan’s quote that Daryll Gardiner continually reminds me of, ‘The Medium is the Message’. The medium is smoke, lights, sounds and big bands, and overall, a complete lack of information and Gospel truth required to make such an enormous decision. How can we reconcile this one-off experience with the day to day process of being discipled into a follower of Jesus?
Here is my issue: Discipleship should not be the remedy for deception. It cannot be the process by which we encourage people to stay with something after they’ve realised they were coaxed or manipulated into it. In essence, it is like people are taught to drive an automatic and then put behind the wheel of a manual. Where they once put their foot down and trusted everything would fall into place, they now must worry about timing the clutch and the accelerator, while trying not to stall in the process.
"I wonder how many of us have lost our barbarian way and have become embittered with God, confused in our faith because God doesn't come through the way we think He should. Is it possible that the transforming power of the church has been lost because we keep inviting people to step intothe comfort, safety, and security of Jesus Christ?"
Erwin McManus, 'The Barbarian Way', (2005) p.48
Why do so many marriages end in divorce? Because the couple went into it expecting things of each other they couldn’t deliver, Why does someone return a product to a store? Because it didn’t live up to the claims of it’s packaging, Why do so many once-passionate Christians turn away so early in their faith? Because they were sold a selfish, consumerist idea of who Jesus is, that he refuses to deliver on because it simply isn’t him.
So the cycle continues. Deceptive ministry breeds deceptive and disappointed Christians who only know one way to bring people to Jesus – through further deception. The fact is that many who invite their friends to this year’s crusade will invite them on the premise that it’s ‘just some bands playing’, or that it’s ‘really cool’, or that Greg Laurie is ‘the funniest speaker’. Remember that deception is not necessarily lying, but the manipulation of, or lack of, information. Let’s ask some serious questions about why we do this stuff the way we do it. When someone responds to an altar-call and come to the front, is it really Jesus they meet when they get there?
I personally am not familiar with Greg Laurie’s speaking, and so have to give him grace for the fact he may be one of the few who delivers a very coherent and comprehensive picture of the Gospel. Yet again, the Harvest Crusade is not my target here, but more an example of the culture that must change if we are to be people who seek after truth and honesty in the way we share our faith.
That being said, I will not hide my clear bias against this model. I think it can be done well, but I’ve rarely seen it. I hope to be proven wrong when the crusade arrives later this year.
4 comments:
How can we accept the Christian message from someone who we dont know? Shouldn't we get exsposure enough to it from the Christians that we ar clsoe to? Or are Christians presenting such a bad example of the faith to their "non XN" friends that they have to rely on a public speaker and a band to stir up positive experiential emotions towards the gospel.
The example of Paul (surely the most popularised Xn evangelist) was to stay with and disciple new communities of faith, and then support them from afar with letters and sending other teachers to be with them (Timothy). The crusades do not follow this model at all.
And this brings me to another point. There is a problem among a lot of modern evangelism/outreach that fails to recognise 'the lost' as real people. We fall into the trap of a sick-puppy-dog syndrome where it's thought that these people are 'poor souls', or 'lost and confused'. Often we fail to remember the time when we were exactly the same. It is not by virtue of our own heart or intelligence that we came to faith, only by God's grace.
To truly love people, we must be in it for the long haul and regard them as real people who have made real educated decisions about their beliefs.
If they look around our world and the most logical conclusion is that God can't exist, then I would say that as his ambassador's it is us who have failed, not them.
More to say on this but I'm almost outa credit at the cybercafe...
A qoute from Dave at Ex-Chrsitian website,
“While a Christian, I was also a musician, heavily involved in the music ministry at a Charismatic church. I understood music’s power and knew how to use music to play on the emotions of the congregation. If you doubt that music has this ability, to play on your emotions, try watching an adventure or mystery movie with the sound turned off – just read subtitles instead. See if your anticipation for “what will happen next” is nearly as intense as compared to when the soundtrack is playing underneath the action. When the music at church was "right," and the volume swelled just so, ecstatic utterances — tongues, words of knowledge, prophecies — would bubble out of people's mouths like milk boiling in a pot. After the service I'd hear, "Wow, the Spirit was really moving today," and "The Lord really ministered to me today," and "I felt the Lord all morning," and so on.I'd speculate about what would happen if we abandoned music during the services. I questioned whether anyone would still enjoy worshipping God. I wondered if the Holy Spirit would be felt at all.Feelings. That's really what the bulk of Christianity and religion is really all about: fabricated, fluffy, feelings.”
If there is one thing the backslidden are good for it is honest critique of organizations we like to call “church”.
Thansk to AJ Chesswas for that last quote, BTW.
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