I was a little concerned when I read this post (not really) because I am a believer as a result of the preaching at Saddleback Church. And, I guess Saddleback qualifies as the “mother” of all seeker-sensitive churches (in this analogy we’ll make Willow the dad). According to the author, the preaching message that is able to produce TRUE conversion has to include these elements:
You are guilty of sinning against God by breaking His laws and commands. You deserve God’s punishment both now and for eternity. But the Good News is that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for ALL of your sins and offers you a full pardon. Repent of your sins and believe the Good News. (You can find the whole chart here)
Boy was I relieved. Here is the message I heard Rick Warren preach that led me to trust in Christ and receive the gift of salvation (extracted from the video “What Does it Mean to follow Christ” found here):
God created you to love Him. The sad part is that sin, my attitude of wanting to be God, breaks our ability to have a close relationship with God. And ALL of us have sinned. It’s only by God’s mercy that we have any hope of going to heaven.
Since we can’t get into heaven on our own merit God had to come up with the plan of salvation whereby we can get into heaven on somebody else’s ticket who was perfect and that perfect person was Jesus Christ. Jesus said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except by me.’
What does God want me to do with this truth? Four things:
- Admit my pride and ask for forgiveness for my sins.
- Believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose on the third day.
- Receive God’s free gift of salvation.
- Invite Jesus to be the Lord of my life.
Whew! It looks like the message I heard has all of the key ingredients, albeit the terminology is admittedly, a little more “user friendly”. But as I have grown in my understanding of my faith, I now realize that God’s unmerited favor was given to me in a moment of repentance when Christ became the ultimate and final propitiatory sin offering for the atonement of my sin.
15 Comments(+Add)
All churches from time to time produce false professions of faith. The concern with some seeker churches is that they sometimes tweek the message to be more palatable and therefore misrepresent the gospel (easy believism).
But John, let me also add that some churches that are critics of the seeker churches hardly ever have a convert. So let’s not get all prideful about it. If a seeker church has 100 professions in a year and only 20% are genuine (like you) that is 20 converts. If a strict, orthodox church has 20 professions and 50% are genuine that is 10 converts.
There is room for more passion and more clearity on all sides. Thanks for the post!
John,
First, praise God for your salvation. That is awesome and it doesn’t matter from whom the message of the gospel came for God’s word stands on its own. Obviously Mr. Warren’s message had enough kernals of the true gospel for the Holy Spirit to use to call you to Christ, but I have to admit I had to cringe at some points. One could be hypercritical of ANYONE’S sermon and so as not to appear uncharitable here are just some of the main “problems” I see:
(1) “. . . sin . . . breaks our ability to have a close relationship with God.”
Sin in a Believer breaks fellowship (i.e., close relationship with God), but before one is saved the bible says we are dead in our sins and separated from God, so for the unbeliever sin does not “break” our ability, we have no saving relationship with God at all at this point. Before we come to Christ we have no ability to break something that isn’t there.
Eph 2:12-13 – “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ”
(2) “God had to come up with the plan of salvation whereby we can get into heaven “.
Oh dear. This insinuates that man’s sin caught God by surprise and He had to come up with “Plan B”. The Bible states that Christ’s sacrifice was planned before the foundation of the world. This was a very unfortunate choice of words and paints a very deficient view of God’s plan of salvation.
Eph 1:4 – just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him . . .
Eph 3:11 – This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,” etc.
I could go deeper, but I don’t want to be unnecessarily unkind. I admit I am no admirer of Mr. Warren, many (enough) of his points were right on. His gospel message did have enough key ingredients for the Holy Spirit to use and I praise God for that!
Again, praise God for your salvation!
Good Question! First of all, let me say that whilst I agree with the basic ingredients of salvation as outlined above – I don’t believe you necessarily need to come into a full revelation of that before being saved. I was saved as an 11 year old, I made a clear commitment to follow Christ. However, there was a moment when I was 19 when certain key elements of the Gospel message suddenly clicked into place – that certainly wasn’t my moment of salvation though. Even since then, I am constantly enjoying a greater revelation of what Christ has done for me and what that means in my life. I would imagine that to some degree or another, this is a normal and acceptable process that the majority of Christians go through.
I don’t go to a seeker sensitive church, but have been to a few seeker sensitive services in the past. My main concern with what I’ve seen is that the emphasis is often on life improvement rather than the problem of and solution to sin. The only legitimate motivation for salvation is the realisation that you’re a sinner, and the desire to put that right. That motivation and desire may not be fully fleshed out at the point of conversion, but it certainly shouldn’t be replaced by anything else (e.g. the fulfilment of felt needs, the desire for friendship/sense of belonging, the promise of an easy life). If the foundation of your salvation is anything but that, all else eventually falls apart – you have yourself a false convert.
There can be nothing more damaging you can do to someone than to convince them they are saved when they are not. For that reason I do have a problem with the idea of making it easy for people to be saved – a genuine salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit and initiates a whole new life, it’s not a decision to be made lightly or under coercion.
I agree with Ianmcn – I felt empty and without purpose when in 1975 I became convince Jesus was God. I never thought of improving my life, I desired eternal life. My life was absolutely changed. But I could not have met the doctrinal standards of knowlegde some lay out for conversion.
The Holy Spirit is capable of using an imperfect presentation of the gospel (to an extent) and bring sinners to Christ. Many, many people came to Christ under a free will message and yet some claim that isn’t the truth. Almost all my Calvinist friends changed their view after they were converted.
So I’m saying let us not make false promises to people that obscure the atonement aspect of the gosple, but also let us embrace grace and not act like our detailed prescription must be followed to avoid illegitimate professions.
Very nicely put.
Would you also say that “turn or burn” messages have a certain coercion to them that lead to false conversions?
In a nut shell; I find that most disagreements about salvation messages are disagreements on style and less on substance.
Houston John said:
I don’t see it as an unfortunate choice of words. In it’s entire context I believe that Rick Warren did establish that God is sovereign.
Absolutely. Scaring people into salvation is just as wrong as pampering them in. If God is gracious enough to give us a part to play in the process of someone’s salvation – we mustn’t overstep the line of responsibility he’s given us. The final “deal” as it were, is between them and God and should be allowed to happen when and how God wants.
Houston John,
First of all, thank you for rejoicing with me over my salvation. As a recovering alcoholic, I can truly say with John Newton that I know two things for certain: I am a great sinner and I have a great Savior.
Your points are well taken and I think more a matter of nuance than anything else largely due to the way in which I summarized what Rick had to say in the interests of brevity.
For example your point #1. Rick quotes Isaiah 59:2: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sings have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” The point is that sin separates us from God.
Your point #2. There is no Plan A, Plan B time reference suggested but more a sense of Rom 8:3,4: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us . . .”
Peace,
Chris Rosebrough has a post on this very subject at http://www.extremetheology.com/2007/09/does-the-infome.html and then follows it up with this http://www.extremetheology.com/2007/09/am-i-saying.html
I find the arguments of these ODM’s very hard to believe.
Jimmy,
Here is the “fundamental” problem with Chris R’s post…
“IF a person attends a church that doesn’t properly teach God’s Law AND Gospel but rather makes its evangelistic appeals by never discussing sin but instead says that Jesus will make a person’s life more satisfying (infomercial gospel), THEN that person does not know that they are a sinner who will face God’s judment and that Christ died for their sins and they need to repent and trust in Christ. That being the case, even if that person identifies themselves as a Christian, they have NOT truly been converted to the Christian faith.”
He is saying that going to church is what saves you… and belief in said churches teachings… and that is either a grave oversight or grievous error.
It is God Who saves us… at a building of worship… by a stream and a rock concert… even the words uttered do not matter that much as the heart itself is what God sees and hears… it is how that heart is responding to the Call of God…
And that is by humility and acknowledging not “our sin” but that we cannot do anything to save ourselves and need God’s mercy… and in that we receive His Grace through faith (which is not just mental assent but the understanding or relational trust).
What I see from the ODM group is a formula… they have this formula… preach the Law, then show they are a sinner and dead… and then preach the Good News. It is not bad in and of itself, but God is not about formulas… nor does a formula save us…
THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST SAVES US.
This is the issue… the denial of the relational aspect over the mental assent.
Be Blessed,
iggy
Iggy,
You said: “Acknowledging that we cannot do anything to save ourselves and need God’s mercy” is somehow different from acknowledging our sin? I don’t see the difference. If sin is “missing the mark” then acknowledging my inability to save myself is the SAME thing as acknowledging my sin.
I do agree that salvation is not the result of a formula or simple mental assent but I would have no reason to put my relational trust in God for my salvation if I “thought” I was a pretty good guy on my own merit.
JOhnD,
Did I say otherwise? Show me where I denied man is a sinner?
The issue is that when we depend on a formula, we are not depending on God… can God use a formula? OF COURSE! (not yelling… just giving emphasis)
Here is the other issue…
It seems when someone like me finds a chink in the armor… then I have “neglected” something else…
I notice this happens a lot… Often an emergent will say “yes that is the given, but it is more than that”.. and what is heard is that they are not saying the “given” is true and that we need to go beyond it…
In a way that is true… yet, can one capture the understanding of “trinity” in “just” a doctrinal statement? No… it is to be experienced as we find our life in Christ.
It is that there is some obsession against the word “just”… it cannot be “This and more”.
God cannot be reduced to a formula.. and the weird thing is then you are still stating that if one does not accept the formula and acknowledge they are a sinner… they will not be saved!
Show me where the Ethiopian eunuch “repented” for his sin… he just acknowledged who Jesus was and was baptised… show me where Cornelius the centurion “repented” yet you will see a humble heart as he bows at the feet of Peter making a Jew greater than a Roman Centurion.
Also, notice (for you Lordship Salvation people) that not everyone who call Jesus Lord will be saved! (Matt 7:21) There is no “formula” regardless to Ray Comforts views on this or not!
There will always be an exception… and that is to lead us to Jesus for our salvation and not trust in OUR OWN WORKS OR CRAFTINESS…
Be Blessed,
iggy
I know people who got saved watching Jesus Christ Superstar; I know people who got saved under MacArthur, Graham, Warren, Bell, Kennedy, Hinn, and a host of others.
A person can get saved watching the Passion as well as Godspel. My point is as we try and present the gospel as is Biblical, God’s Spirit can reach people using who He wants and not what we want.
Rick…That is my contention as well.
Here’s what really scares me about his post, and I commented this on his blog. By saying that he now knows who is and who isn’t saved based on the way the message was presented to them he is treading on very dangerous ground. That smacks of equating oneself with the Holy Spirit. That’s a place I would never want to be.
It comes down to the need of some to put God in their comfortable box. It really seems kind of ridiculous for us as humans to try to determine where, how, when and why God can move.
http://relevantchristian.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/god-in-a-box/