I asked myself this morning, “How did this journey of knowing Christ begin?” Well, the Bible states that it all began with Him (Heb. 12:2). But, specifically, I want to discuss my most recent journey of pursuing Him and not chasing after all the other “religious” activities. This journey began for me while taking a course on Christian Perspective at William Jessup University. I began to ask questions about what I then considered “normal” Christian activities and strategies for church growth. When I was in full time ministry I was very involved in using materials from Saddleback Church. During this class I began to question the validity of the purpose driven church paradigm. Was this really the biblical path to authentic church growth? My answer moved from “definitely” to “I don’t think so”. It would take several pages to list all the questions I asked of this topic. But, it caused me to begin to read through the book of Acts again and see some of the ways the early church operated under Christ’s headship. I began to see that in many ways the modern western church was not submitting to the headship of Christ, but rather using the world’s ideas to bring people into their buildings. This caused me to repent to the LORD for doing things on my own and following leaders that did the same. It all looked good, sounded good, and seemed to work. However, my teachings, sermons, and classes misrepresented scripture. I didn’t look at the context, but rather how it would all fit in a “cute outline” and PowerPoint.
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why does the church I attend do and teach the things that it does?” “Does this line up with Scripture in its proper context?” If you are in full time ministry these are not easy questions to answer if you are honest with yourself.
The Sansone Files 