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.
No doubt you'll see a few posts about this around the place over the next couple of days. I've just spent the past weekend working at 'Fuse', Global Tribe's replacement for the former YFC Capital Teen Convention (or CTC). It seems this rebrand was exactly what was needed to breathe fresh life and energy into the event - it was an amazing time. Here are some great links to check out who were instrumental in making it happen.
