Steven Furtick: Preaching to the Dead and Starving the SheepDan Long 6/03/12

God's Word makes it very clear that there is no such thing as a "God Seeker." As a matter of fact it is quite the opposite. The Bible labels the entire human race with these characteristics: "dead in trespasses and sins," Ep. 2:1; Ep 2:5; Col. 2:13; Mat.8:22; 1John 3:14, "slaves to sin," Jn. 8:34; Ro. 6:20; 2Pe. 2:19, "enemies of God," Ro. 5:10; James 4:4 "minds set on the flesh," Ro. 8:6-7"hostile towards God," Ro.8:7And to be even more specific, that there is "no one who seeks after God," Ro 3:10.

 Yet "seeker friendly" Pastors are twisting scripture, and taking passages out of context to make their messages more palatable to people who are at war with God, "dead in their trespasses and sins," and "enemies of God." These "Pastors" (you cant really call them Pastors because they care nothing for the sheep, but are egotistical wolves, seeking their own personal gain) have turned the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ on its head. They are adjusting their sermons, in order to placate the non Christians in their churches who are spiritually dead, and depriving those who may be genuine Christians from sound Biblical doctrine.

For example, Steven Furdick of Elevation Church said that his church does not exist for Christians. He says, even if a person in his church gave their lives to Christ as early as last week, the moment they came to Christ, Elevation Church stopped existing for them. Really??? I thought the purpose of the church was to build up the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul gives the  the genuine "purpose of the church." The purpose of the church is to " equip the saints for the work of ministry," not primarily to minister to unbelievers, but for the purpose of "building up the body of Christ," (verse 12.) The reason for building up the believer is to bring him or her to maturity in Christ, verse 13, so that the believer will not be "carried about by every wind of doctrine, verse 14, but will "grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, verse 15.

Evidently, Paul thought knowing right doctrine was top priority in order to keep the believer from falling into error. And yet "seeker friendly" Pastors like Steven Furtick say that the purpose of the Church, doesn't exist for the Christian. He says that after a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ, the next step for them is to get into a "small group and serve," not so that the new Christian can learn sound doctrine, but so that they can "serve." In his video called "What is the Purpose for the Church?" Furdick goes on to say "We preach Jesus so people far from God can know Jesus, and then we train them up so that others can know Jesus. It's called 'kingdom multiplication."

So the purpose at Elevation Church is not to make disciples, through teaching and preaching the Word. The purpose of Elevation Church is to bring people to Christ, and then immediately train those new believers to bring others to Christ. This is done at the expense of genuine discipleship. Jesus calls us to make disciples, but evangelism is only the first step. We don't immediately train people to go out and make new disciples. We are to disciple new believers by teaching them sound doctrine. And yet what does Furdick do? He mocks those who desire sound Biblical doctrine.

After mocking those who hold to the "Doctrines of Grace saying, "If you need the Doctrines of Grace by John Calvin to excite you, your in the wrong church," he arrogantly says...."there are 720 churches in Charlotte (where Elevation is located) I'm sure we can find one where you can stuff your face until your so obese spiritually that you cant even move."

What a blasphemous statement! "Whether a person is a Calvinist or not, the Christian needs right doctrine and good theology to grow. This isn't my opinion; look at what Paul says to Titus in Titus 1:9. Every Pastor is called by God to " give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. "Paul also tells Titus in Titus 2:9 that he is to "teach what accords with sound doctrine."

And yet seeker friendly pastors are contradicting God's Word by avoiding sound Biblical doctrine, and even mocking those who desire it, when a genuine believer will truly desire it. I'm not minimizing evangelism. It is extremely important. We are called as Christians to reach the lost and to preach the gospel of Christ to our family, neighbors, friends, co workers, and strangers. But we are not to elevate (no pun intended) evangelism over sound doctrine. If we don't know sound doctrine how will we ever be able to disciple anyone?  Steven Furtick needs to repent of his blasphemy, and his whole idea (which is unbiblical) of the purpose of church, and do what a Pastor is called to do, preach sound Biblical doctrine, and stop starving the sheep.