Relevant/Journey OP Churches a Threat?

[DividedThigh]

if relevant means reaching our generation, then they have my blessing, our church is going to be relevand impact our community, dt

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Having read Chester Wright's letter weeks prior to it being posted here ....I find it extremely interesting that the "powers that be" may not see the WWPF as the greatest threat to the mothership but rather "relevant churches" like Johnston's church in DE.

Wright states:



I am aware of many of my age cohorts who are indeed taking this approach in their local ministries. Wright is correct in his assessment of the current situation.

I call them hy-brids ... those that are true "relevant" churches, that is.

I had a friend who was being funded as a metro missionary by HMD who had a church named The Journey, (if I recall).
They even had a DJ minister at the church ... (good to see PIMs be used for alternative ideas/ministries *wink*)

Many are keeping the Water and Spirit message but are only keeping platform standards.

That said .... I decided to take up Elder Wright on his challenge to find "relevant" and "journey" UPCI churches in addition to Johnston's church...

I am sure that the following short list are diverse and may or not be as "relevant" as they market themselves:

http://www.kingsfarmupc.org/
http://epicenterchurch.com
http://visitreallife.org (http://reallifedefined.blogspot.com/)

Some questions ...

Do you know of any other "relevant" org or Apostolic churches? Please share them.

Do you agree this is the biggest threat to Oneness Pentecost as Wright seems to imply?

Can Johnston weather the storm that seems to be mounting against this new "fresh face" of the organization?

Will this infiltration of relevant journey churches bring about reform or will they be stamped out?

I think it depends on what one means by threat to the Oneness movement.

I never saw WWPF as a threat to anything. If there is any threat it's the internal attitudes and fighting

[A_PoMo]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

Maybe it is your fault.

could be! i'm a leader! a pioneer! haha

[TCSQ]

Good to see this thread started. I have been thinking about this concept for several days now. I have to wonder if the concept of "relevance" as it is being explained really is the issue at all. Could the REAL issue be IRRELEVANCE?

This might be lengthy post, but hey, I dont think anyone reads my posts anyway so its more like a good place to frame my thoughts for me if for no one else.


I was wondering.... are there any people on this forum who came in as a teenager in that span of time from say 1968 to 1975?

The talk about lights and fog machines etc etc being somehow "relevant" or helping make us relevant to the youth of today makes me flashback (pun intended) to the REAL DEAL
the years of the Hippy Movement era.

You talk about minds blown, Janis Joplin, trippin', Woodstock ,acid rock, Hendrix, drugs everywhere , Charlie Manson, LSD glorified as "MIND EXPANDING" H*LL no we won't go! counter culture THE culture, it was wild man! Really Really WILD! It spilled out into the streets and the parks!

Many of us walked around in a permanent haze or a continous Electric Light Show type mind condition.

Love ins, living in the park, rioting in the streets, politically agitated towards far FAR radical and violent maoist style communism, SDS, Weathermen, Black Panthers, Brown Berets, Red Guard, We really did make the current generation look like a bunch of LIGHT WEIGHTS! (You may quote me!)


But you know the great revival (and honestly to this day I measure consciously or unconsciously virtually every service or conference against that revival) that hit in that period of time was the most incredibly inconceivable revival because the churches like the one that I came into were anything BUT "relevant!"

Little old ladies with big hair and long dresses would grab their Bibles and go out to the park where the hippies were actually LIVING in panel trucks and psychedelic painted teepees, or just sleeping under the bushes, and sit down right in the middle of the group who were singing and dancing, and would wait for a break in the mood to say "You know **WE** know a song!" only to have some guy say "Sing it granny! And they would break out "Would you be free from you burden of sin THERE'S POWER IN THE BLOOD! POWER IN THE BLOOD!" And you talk about a move of God out in the parks! I know several pastors and missionairies today who came in out of a drug drenched grossly immoral hippy lifestyle exactly in THAT wonderful OLD TIMEY atmosphere of Pentecostal POWER and BOLDNESS AND DARING!

I was there! I saw it with my own eyes! I am saved today because of that wonderful unequalled in my life time so far revival! And there was NO ATTEMPT MADE to be "relevant" at least in the concept relevancy seems to have on this group lately. NO CHANGE IN MUSIC! It was still that Twangy Rambo Stuff and old time hymns, NO CHANGE IN CLOTHING STYLE, it was still modest Pentecostal dress and suits and ties on the ministry, NO ATTEMPT TO DUPLICATE THE ACID TRIPS WITH POOR IMITATIONS OF PSYCHEDELIC LIGHT SHOWS AND ACID ROCK CONCERTS , just a normally lit sanctuary. BUT THEY WERE RELEVANT MAN! THEY WERE RELEVANT! They knew EXACTLY what we were hungry for! They knew exactly our sin condition, they knew exactly what we needed! THEY MADE THEMSELVES RELEVANT BY PRAYING WITH US IN STREET MEETINGS ON STREET CORNERS AT THE PARK AND DOWN AT REAL HONEST TO GOODNESS WOOD ALTARS IN THE CHURCH!

And the reality Is in retrospect I NEVER ONE TIME THOUGHT ANYTHING MUCH ABOUT THEIR DRESS MUSICAL STYLE PLATFORM ATTIRE LIGHTING SYSTEM, No what I was looking for was NOT a form of entertainment OR SOME APOSTOLIC VERSION OF TIMOTHY LEARY OR ANGELA DAVIS I was looking for rescue! I was looking for the reality of Jesus of Nazareth, a clean spirit and a saved soul!

All the man made attempts at getting the kids to think you "GET THEM" you are "COOL" you are "RELEVANT" will flop big time in the end, what they want is the salvation experience that Jesus alone can provide, and IF YOU PREACH IN THE SPIRIT you can be dressed in bib overalls and standing behind an orange crate in a cleaned up garage in the middle of the mojave desert with just a kerosene lantern, and you will be RELEVANT.

So am I saying that you need to wear a suit and a tie? NO I am saying that just like a dasheeki or a tie dyed t shirt THAT IS IRRELEVANT! LIGHT SHOW or Kerosene lamp...IRRELEVANT The only ones who care about your pyrotechnics and blinking lights are those looking to be entertained! The ones who are looking for Jesus could care LESS about any of that stuff, they are lost and most of the time they know it on some level, and want and need God! No one cares about your suit or lack of one! No one cares about the colour of the sanctuary or the carpetting or lack of carpet, really we have to attempt to BE RELEVANT because I fear we have become IRRELEVANT to a lost and dying world, and OUR solution is FOG MACHINES! Incredible.

[A_PoMo]

i wonder if c.wright would appreciate this event:

www.myspace.com/labyrinth_in_lodi

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by A_PoMo

Aren't OP's by definition charismatic?

Regarding 'emergent' vs. 'emerging' it's good to delineate between the two if you want to appear at all informed about the movement. They're as different as Trinity vs. Oneness godhead doctrines.

Depends on WHOSE definition lol

Charismatic movement originally was a movement emphasizing the gifts but NOT tongues as THE evidence of the baptism of the Spirit .Pentecostals saw those particular tongues as NOT being 1 of the 9 gifts, tongues for church edification

[A_PoMo]

perhaps the whole relevancy thing should be defined. when i refer to relevancy i'm not referring to lights and fog and jeans and all that. in fact, all that stuff is pretty much 90's stuff and not really cutting edge.

i would define 'relevancy' as re-engineering public worship and the proclamation of the gospel in ways that effectively connect with an increasingly relativistic, pluralistic era and in ways that are communicated in forms that are less didactic and more in tune with an image/art driven era.

there are those (like one of my profs) who think that becaue pomo isn't logical that it's going to go away. it's not. and this means that our emphasis on propisitions and the scientific method to 'prove' our rightness will be come increasingly ineffective, thus irrelevant. the message isn't irrelevant, but the vehicle that we use to communicate the gospel certainly can become irrelevant.

[A_PoMo]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Depends on WHOSE definition lol

Charismatic movement originally was a movement emphasizing the gifts but NOT tongues as THE evidence of the baptism of the Spirit .Pentecostals saw those particular tongues as NOT being 1 of the 9 gifts, tongues for church edification

Perhaps, but don't you think that perception is changing?

[SDG]

TCSQ,

There a many "relevant" churches that are not doing the light/fog show thing ...

I know there's been a fog machine kick going on ... here at the forum ....
but you might be missing the big picture.

FYI ... you might be a tad hung up on it.

Some of these churches a very "bare bones" in their presentation.

[deltaguitar]

I have to agree with the last few post in that relevance has nothing to do with jeans and fog machines. All this does is make the culture feel more comfortable.
People are hungry for Jesus and the word of God and if you meet their needs you are being relevant.

In order to stay relevant I would think that the most important thing a pastor and saints could do would be to get outside the walls of their church and just BE among the people. Don't be afraid to make friends, feed the homeless, visit the nursing homes, visit those in prison and anything else you can do to reach out to those who have real needs.