Perry shares a little bit about the NewSpring story in this month’s online edition of The Church Report. Among other things, he offers a few challenges for other pastors who desire to see their ministries grow. Here’s one of my favorite quotes: "I think it’s a pastor’s obligation to make Sunday the
most exciting day of the week and make the church the most exciting
place in the community to be." Check out the rest of the story.
As much as I celebrate what God is doing in your church and through your ministry…I do wonder about the wisdom of using imperative statements such as “it is the Pastors responsibility to make Sunday’s the most exciting day of the week.” That is a statement that cannot be backed up scripturally. If it is your mantra…great. However, I would restate it as “for us, we desire to make Sunday’s the most exciting day of the week and I see that as my responsibility.’ This would refrain from making your philosophy of ministry another pastors burden especially since it lacks biblical ooommmppphhh to base it on. Thanks for allowing the dialogue!
If you quote Perry, or anyone else for that matter, please don’t cut a sentence to serve your own personal preferences. The proper quote would be “The third thing I would tell pastors is I think it’s a pastor’s obligation to make Sunday the most exciting day of the week and make the church the most exciting place in the community to be.”
Man, when you properly add in the “I think” is seems to calm the confusion, doesn’t it?”
The point is/was that when you say “it’s a pastors obligation” you are making an emphatic statement and thus my point…it still is a weak proposition biblically to make this the Pastor’s job descritpiont; one of creating ‘exciting’ days of the week is not the Pastor’s obligation. The job description from a biblical mooring is much more substantial than that.
Again, I think highly of Pastor Perry and his ministry there, but I am disagreeing with the quote not attacking the man.
Just for the purpose of dialogue, who’s job would it be then to make church interesting for the people outside the walls? In scripture, Jesus was always relevant to culture, right? Who should that be relegated to? Shouldn’t excitement and relevance be part of a church’s vision? Reality is that there are people outside of the church walls (NewSpring included) that are on that wide road straight to hell. Shouldn’t an attempt to engage them take place? (For real, no sarcasm is meant in these questions. They come in love to further this discussion.)
Jesus confronted and engaged people, not culture. He did it the same way that my 73 year old friend who doesn’t know an iPod from a bean pod does (he leads people weekly to Christ both young and old while being culturally irrelevant as you can be) by demonstrating unconditional love, compassion, truth and availability all while being led by the Spirit. He is attractive to people as he actively reaches out to others in the marketplace. When Jesus was with people outside the four walls he was a people magnet as He loved, healed, fed and taught, which is our same assignment and call…to reach hurting people through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also went to the Synagogue and taught, read scripture etc. The Pastor’s obligation is to equip people to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13) and is obligated personally and ministerally to fulfill the obligations of I, II Timothy and Titus. The Apostle Paul, an authority on church life :) commanded and instructed Timothy on how to minister and lead the church in the midst of a decadent, entertainment driven and sensual culture just as ours and he never once referenced the obligation to put on exciting services. The point being, we all should do what the Lord tells us to do in our churches and it may be your style, methods etc. that make each one distinct but you cannot make an obligation out of what the Bible does not require. I’m not advocating stiff, stuffy, yawning services…just simply addressing the issue of Pastoral obligation. Thanks for the opportunity to dialogue but I’m not sure if Tony created his site for me to ramble on indefinately…God Bless!
I don’t know exactly what Tony would say, but I know that I have enjoyed hearing your thoughts, even though we still don’t agree. The vision that God has put in Perry for NewSpring is so different from what has been done in church for so long. Some are being called to learn from NewSpring, some are not. I didn’t grow up in church, never knew about Jesus until I was 26. After many invitations, I came to NewSpring and heard about Jesus. One thing that I remember vividly is that it was exciting. People were actually excited about Jesus. I had never seen that. I got saved at NewSpring. In love, I wish you the best. If you are a pastor, even more so! Thanks.
Tony,
I just thought you would want to read this in relation to the Church Report.
Rising evangelical star Jason Christy leaves trail of fraud, associates say
http://www.abpnews.com/2685.article