.hurt.

I normally never blog twice in one day, but I feel so strongly about this issue that I need to write this. I Googled “Elevation Church and Matt Chandler” and one of the first links was to a blog. The author of this blog stated that he loved that Chandler was able to come and bring the truth to Elevation and that it was time they realized it’s not about them. There were also about 35 comments and this one struck me the most:

“Justin,
Your description of Elevation and Furtick is too gentle. Look at the other speakers at this revival. T.D. Jakes, Ed Young, a woman (who preached Saturday evening and Sunday morning), several TBN Pentecostals, etc. I’ve watched it each night and the preaching and “worship” music have been horrifying. Chandler was the bold bright spot.
I’m afraid your criticism of Furtick will remain timid, as will TGC’s on the whole, because to criticize Furtick is to criticize his new apologist, and speaker at this revival, James MacDonald. To criticize this revival is to criticize the Elephant Room (where you will again have TD Jakes, Steven Furtick, and James MacDonald together; Perry Noble and Chandler were at the first one), which you are reluctant to do (as is the rest of TGC).
If inviting a heretic (TD Jakes) to share your pulpit and having a woman preach your Sunday service doesn’t warrant the strongest of rebukes from you or anyone else at TGC, I wonder what will? Are these just differences in ministry philosophy? Or something much more?

“It’s yet another sign of evangelicalism’s growing conformity to worldly values and worldly behavior. The various evangelical coalitions and young Reformed movements that looked so encouraging five years ago have done more to encourage and enable this kind of exhibitionism than to challenge it. These things ought not to be.

How bad will it have to get before true leaders in the church and in the various gospel-centered movements find their voices and start calling the church–and some of these out-of-control exhibitionist preachers–to repentance? I for one hope we get an answer to that question before very long. I pray for it every day.”

After I read this I wanted to cry and I immediately asked God to forgive us all for what we have made this. I don’t understand how someone can be so offensive and yet call it being on the side of God. (Now don’t get me wrong, I understand God is wrathful and loving, but this is very different) One reason I wanted to cry was because he didn’t even name Christine Caine, he called her simply “a woman.” And technically, he’s right, she is a woman. However, she has done more for the kingdom of God and human injustice than most people will ever do in their lifetime.  I was at Elevation last year when she came and spoke on a Sunday morning, and not one person got up and left because a woman got up to speak! Don’t tell me God can’t use a woman to reach the nations with his saving power!

The second thing that made me want to cry was that he states that the worship was horrifying. I wish I could sit down with this man and ask him if it was horrifying because he was scared of how he saw God moving in the crowd and was beginning to realize he doesn’t possess an intimacy with God that he thought he had? All of the worship songs at Elevation are biblically sound. End of story. If they weren’t Pastor Steven would not allow them to be used. He used to lead the worship weekly at the Baptist Student Union at North Greenville and he started out as worship pastor and main pastor of Elevation. I think he knows what he is doing!

Finally my heart breaks when I realize that this individual believes that there is a need for repentance in Elevation Church. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia. Meta meaning change (metamorphosis) and noia meaning mind (paranoia). So it literally means a change in mind. If Elevation was to change its mind about its foundational beliefs, the city of Charlotte goes back to how it was six years ago: the Devil’s playgrounds. However, you have to understand that it does not stop at Charlotte. Elevation has reached the world; therefore, repentance on the part of Elevation means that God’s life-saving power becomes squelched. Granted, God is larger and would be able to overcome this deficit. But he chose to plant His soldiers in Charlotte and use them for raising those who are dead to life.

The first couple of times I went to Elevation, I hated it. It was uncomfortable to me because it was a different environment from what I was used to. Don’t get me wrong here: it was a different environment, not a different message. The people were actually greeting me enthusiastically, not like it was a weekly duty to check off. The message was relevant to my life and it was full of God’s Word! As I continued to attend, I began to realize that God’s hand is on Elevation Church. I have learned more, grown more, and fallen in love with God more in a year and a half than I ever did at the church I attended growing up. And isn’t that what we are supposed to do: love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind?

I understand God calls everyone to different churches. That is absolutely between you and God. But don’t go criticizing someone else’s church when you don’t even invite people to come to yours. Don’t criticize because it is unfamiliar to you or uncomfortable. Jesus is uncomfortable and unfamiliar to man; yet when was the last time you said, “Jesus, you probably shouldn’t have said that.”

May I never be found criticizing another pastor or church until I find a Biblical undoing committed by that individual or institution. What has happened to us?

.division.

Sometimes I wonder why some people love to argue with other people. I especially wonder this when the people who are arguing base their arguments off of hearsay or speculation. I have to be honest up front and let you know that I am proud to say that I go to Elevation Church and I support everything they do. Yes, they are a big church. Yes, they have loud music. Yes, they have high-end tech equipment. Yes, they do a lot of nontraditional things. When did God ever say, “Your church can only be so big? If it gets bigger than this, something is going to go terribly wrong and I will get upset because people will be bringing glory to my name.”? Wasn’t the point of Jesus’ death to bring everyone who called on his name and believed into his family? Isn’t it our job to take the Gospel to everyone?

I understand the fact that some have personal preferences when it comes to worship. But I also know that God can overcome those preferences when He is being glorified through His bride–the Church. I have seen this in my own parents. My parents are not fans of loud, hip music. (Trust me, I should know) Yet over the course of the past year and a half, I have come to see my parents worship God in new ways that I have never seen them worship God in twenty years. It is amazing how God has used Elevation Church to grow my parents’ and my own public worship.

After attending Elevation for a good while, I know that Christ is the center of the church. They just have capitalized on a unique way of presenting the Gospel that is effective and necessary in the city of Charlotte during this present time. Some may call Elevation a “numbers” church, but shouldn’t we rejoice over those numbers? Think about your bank account. You access most of the information about your account online. You don’t keep your individual dollars in your home, but each number you see in your account represents individual dollars. Without one of those dollars, you would inevitably have less than if you had the dollar. A number means something, it always represents something. In the case of Elevation, we praise God over the numbers because every single number represents a life changed. And a life cannot be changed without God doing the changing through his sold out servants.

Steven Furtick, the pastor of Elevation, attended the same school I go to now. And I can guarantee you that the message that our school sends out has not changed since Pastor Furtick was here. Dr. Epting, our president, desires above all else that before any of our students graduate, they either receive Christ and/or grow closer to him. We are not a large school, but I can know that this school is “numbers” oriented. Dr. Epting always says, “Just one more.” That is the message of the Gospel. That is the message Christ sent out to the world as he hung, bloodied and bruised and naked on the cross for us!

Elevation Church may not be what everyone is used to. I think it is because we become so accustomed to our this-is-how-church-has-always-been-and-always-should-be mentalities. We forget that if we are rightly preaching God’s Word and we are seeing others come to know Christ as their intimate Savior, and we are seeing them become strong Christian disciples, that we are all in this together. The church does not exist to satisfy your selfish worship preference on Sunday morning. The church does not exist to exalt your popularity in the church. The church exists to see those who are far from Christ come to know him. Until Elevation stops preaching the Gospel or Jesus comes back (which I am willing to bet would happen first), I will continue to support Elevation because they are rescuing souls and giving all the glory to God! No one may ever read this, and that is fine, but it is always wise to not speak until you have experienced the facts. May God continue to be glorified by everything Elevation does!

.strengthening.

I am amazed at how God will answer the honest prayers of a seeking heart. Not even a week ago I began to ask God to teach me how to pray this year; thankfully He began to work on me immediately. My wonderful grandmother sent me a link to a sermon about prayer the next day. I was finished with class early yesterday and stumbled upon a live streaming of Beth Moore talking specifically about prayer. (Talk about a divine appointment!) My Bible Study questions this week have reiterated the necessity of prayer in the life of believers. And God has shown me through the Code Orange Revival and a little boy in Indiana that prayer is much larger than telling God my problems. Prayer invites me in to an intimate communication with the one who created me and loves me unconditionally and allows me to lay my stressors and issues aside for a moment to seek God’s will for individuals of the Church worldwide.

Even though it has only been a few days, I can tell that God is already beginning a great change in me. Day by day I am learning that what He is doing can only be done with His help. He is patiently showing me what it means to wake up every morning and surrender to Him, to ask that He open my eyes throughout the day to see opportunities for praise and prayers. It is difficult to remind myself to be in a constant state of prayer right now, but I am thankful that God is not going to just give up on me that easily. I know that with His help, He will continue to instill that desire to talk to Him in my heart.

I am truly beginning to see that until we fully surrender the areas of our lives that we wanted to hide because they weren’t as strong as other areas, we will distance ourselves from God. This is a sad state of existence; this is how my life has been in the past. God is now bringing me out of that hidden state and showing me how to be in a moment by moment relationship with Him. A relationship that satisfies, that lasts, that never gives up. What a wonderful God we have!

.happy {belated} new year.

Some days I still have a hard time remembering that it is 2012. It seems like just yesterday we were waiting for the world to crash as the clocks and computers switched from 1999 to 2000. I am also amazed that I have had this blog for a year now and that I have had over 2,100 views! And just like last year, I have decided to forego the resolutions; instead I have made a semi-to-do list.

The first thing on my list this year is to ask God to teach me how to pray. Honesty moment: I desperately struggle with prayer on a daily, consistent basis. Most of the time I have a hard time believing that God really answers my prayers. It is hard for me to understand that prayer is important because prayer doesn’t make logical sense. My mind thinks in the immediate, black and white kind of way. If I can’t get a response right away, then I unfortunately believe that there is no point in wasting my time. And this is the trap that I set for myself every time something major comes up in my life. And it is exactly why I need to desperately seek God’s help for this area of construction in my life. I need God to show me the power of prayer in my life and to teach me how to pray prayers that can change the world. With a foundation of prayer, the rest of the list begins to fall in to place.

Secondly, I am going to learn to be more bold in my faith this year. I serve a God who has accomplished larger feats than I could ever dream, and his power and spirit live in me. If God can use Peter to save 300 people in one day, what can he do with me in one year if I boldly sell out to him? In March I will be going to Madrid, Spain for one week and I am already dreaming big and baby stepping my way to asking God to give me amazing boldness for him.

Third thing on the list: settle the material wealth vs. spiritual wealth debate in my life. As I get closer and closer to graduation, I am daily reminded of the career path that I am presented with once I graduate. I have chosen a major that allows for great material gain once I earn my accreditations. The pull of the material world is strong on my life; however, the pull of being sold out to the nations is stronger. It is a debate that may continue to come up in my life until the day I die. Yet when I look at pictures of people in foreign countries or hear about the work of missionaries all over the world, something within me resonates loudly and I desire to be a part of it too. Maybe one day God will allow me to somehow experience both worlds, but for now I need to remember that what I invest for eternity is all that matters.

This is a bit of a big year for me. I turn 21 in a little over a week, I go to Spain in about two months, and I will be a senior in August. I am amazed at how much God has grown me since last year and I am excited to see how I will change this year. But I know nothing can happen until I start at number one on my list and learn to fully trust God with every area of my life. It is going to be a challenging year, but I am more than ready for a large work of God in my life. May this year be one to remember.

.2011 in review.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 32 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.