well, Shannon and I have been enjoying our sweet fifth year anniversary here in Orlando, Florida. On Monday we went to MGM Studios, the lights went out on the "who wants to be a millionaire" live set, then Tuesday was Wet-n-Wild which was a awesome time. Wednesday we headed to Universal Studios and were lucky enough to get on Fear Factor Live. Only six people were selected and Shannon and I were two of the six. We made it to the final two and we competed against each other and of course I won but in front of over a thousand people. We ended up winning 6 free tickets to Universal Orlando so if anybody wants to go let us know. Then Thursday we went to Island Adventure which is Universals theme park, it was also a sweet time, a lot of rides and Spider man was there, we got a picture. Friday was Epcot, this park rocks, if you ever get a chance check it out.
Other than that we went to church on Wednesday night. Calvary Chapel South Orlando. There ware seventeen people there, worship was great but the sermon was as lame as it gets. Makes me wonder why no body was there. My wife and I almost considered it torture. It's not that the guy sucked but he was so stuck on having such a bias opinion on his own agenda. If we really want to reach out to the people in our culture I believe that we should, just as Jesus did, reach out with a arm of community. I mean this guy was a flipping punk. He was so pissed at the world, he was so mad at the people that didn't agree with his ways. This guy will never ever affect his culture for the gospel of Christ. His loss I guess, I just pray that the young pastor matures quickly and that the Lord changes his way of thought. I was sick of him preaching even by the time he made it to verse 4 and he was going to verse 59 of Leviticus chapter 15. Straight suck, that's all I can say.
Every day has been busy and because this is a vacation I have not worked on theemerge.com at all. Part because I have devoted this time to relax and to my wife and also I am moving to tri-Cities Washington on the 2nd of May. SO the podcast and an update on theemerge.com will follow in the next week. Rock on and God Bless....Wes_Line
10 comments:
Thanks for making a spot on our church. You're Christian love was definately shown through your "evaluation" during your long stay and fellowship with us. Let me just "fill" you in on some stuff.
1. CCSO @ the time you were here was a church was 5 years old (started in the living room of our pastor who worked a full time job at the same time) comprised of about 150 people (including kids). Our midweek bible study was located at our "office" which isn't located near where most of our fellowship lives, not to mention it was an expositional study of Leviticus, which to those who are still in need of "spiritual milk" won't find it palatable.
2. If you're so "emergent" then why do you have a problem with small numbers of people sincerely coming to a wed night expositional bible study (which everyone who goes to it knows it is an expositional study). When Jesus sat down and expounded the scriptures to the disciples, did he expound the new testamenr? I don't think so. We're in the middle of the book of Numbers now. Where are you in you study of the bible?
3. As I write this, our fellowship has grown and have secured a building that is now located in Orlando. Since you like to use numbers to determine effectiveness of ministry, we must be effective becuase we are growing. About 40 people on Wed (not including kids) and 130 on sun (with about 70 -80 kids on sun)
4. Our pastor, by the way, has been in ministry since 1992 and isn't "old" by any means, but he isn't "young" either. I can look at your blog and call you a punk (because online, it seems as though we feel we can get away with saying stuff we are too shy to say in others faces) but I know that you aren't. Why? Because I believe you sincerely love the Lord and desire to see our world changed for CHrist. That I appreciate. What I don't appreciate is you're inability to understand what "Judge not for in the SAME MANNER you will be judged" means. Get off your high horse, or start your own church.
Wow, I finally got some feedback on this old post. Sorry, but I was extremely turned off by CCSO and would never attend again. It's not my fault if Senior Homeslice sucked worse than Joel Osteen on a good day. Maybe if you let someone else teach and let Mr. Pastor clean the toliets instead I would feel more welcome...and willing to endure another episode.
Woe, 130 people in 6 years, that must be a record or something.
And for the record I have been burnt by punk ass Senior Pastors that think there all that. I am not saying that CCSO is that type or deal but all I remember is the lame ass attitude toward the culture that surrounds your church. Sorry for the harshness that you get from me, I honestly love Christianity but I can't stand the church that so wrongly represents it, myself included. I usually even piss myself off most the time.
ok...so you made your point. 130 people in 6 years is not a record.
As I read your blogs, I am confused by the paradox that you present. You have an undying love and heart for unbelievers, but when it comes to other believers in the faith, you spew words that can be considered slanderous and explicit (ok...maybe just to our pastor). I know you say you sometimes "piss yourself off." Maybe it's because your veiw of Christianity is so legalistic, but you just don't know it. Let me explain.
What some (I stress some because to admit ALL would be lying) churches and its people in the past have been guilty of is legalism in regards to things such as drums in church, long hair, peircings and tatoos and so on. But what is the legalism they are guilty of? Is it the banning or condemning of these things? No...it's the fact that they've placed rules on what makes someone a true christian without any biblical basis. I fear that you've made false presumptions on what true christianity looks like based on frustrations of organized religion and a "proof-texting" of some bible passages you may have looked up in a concordance on the bible or a cool new hip book from the coolest new pastor who has the coolest new relevant paradigm on church- and that is legalism too.
I appreciate your heart see a "true" church movement rise up. But where can we find the model for that or can we? I believe we can. If we can look to God's word without our predjudice and baggage and let it tell us what Christianity is to look like, point blank, from pure exegesis of the bible and leading of God's spirit - we will see that the model for the Christian life isn't a mystery to be discovered, but it is clearly established.
I'm not trying to prove that my senior pastor is the most humble man since Paul, but you don't know him and I think you misinterpreted his words. I'll find a way to post his sermon so you (and everyone else who didn't get to hear it) can relisten to it - that is if you let me. And by the way, our pastor does clean the toilets, takes out the trash and vacuums the floors. It's part of the perks of being a small church. It keeps you humble.
I'll be honest. What hurts me is that the very person who was responsible for leading me to the Lord and modeling to me what it means to have a passion for the lost is now being accused of the opposite from a guy who spent two hours listening to him preach Leviticus, which is a book about the Laws of God to His people. I've known our senior pastr since I was a teenager, and I watched him get basically kicked out of a church because he was bringin in teens who had tattos, black trench coats, were smoking in the parking lot and had rock n roll music back in the day when none of that was mainstream in the Christian community, and even in the non-christian culture. I saw our little youth group go from 50 to 300 in a year. It was awesome to see his heart for the lost and his desire to see people come to Christ.
13 years later I ended up in FL with my wife and found myself attending his church. His heart hasn't changed, and I feel bad that, like all the people who spew hurtful words at Mark Driscoll, you have found yourself judging and even putting down a man you don't even know - who by all investigations of his life has done nothing but made continual sacrifice after sacrifice for following a call on his life by God...making disciples.
Thanks for listening. I had to blow some steam too.
p.s.The Post Emergent Movement
If you would spend more time reading the rest of my stories you would find that I come from a Calvary Chapel background. I've attended Calvary Chapel Bible College in SoCal. in 99-00 and have attened almost every bigtime Calvary Chapel on the West Coast. I was an assistant on staff for over 4 years at a Calvary in the Northwest. We grow to over 1200 people in 6 years. Put that one in your pipe and smoke it:0 The the pastor committed adultery and everything came crashing down. Bill Richie and CCOF Northwest looked at my past before I was even saved and saw that it would be best to kick me on the street also. Thus I have delt with intense bitterness for the last 1.5 years toward CC's and my visit to CCSO was right in the midst of that episode.
My apologise to Mr. Nestor as his quality sermon in Leviticus. I must have been on my church beat down mode and Charles I hope you have thick enough skin to take this like any other critizim you endure in the ministry. I understand how hard it is yet the reward is worth it all the more.
And for the record, I am not Emergent. Like I said, I have a CC background and you would have to be an idiot to substitute the many absolute doctrines that we have in our Christian faith.
I am not easily offended and I do thank you for the quality dialogue. I have found that in the midst of conflict and controversy we see and feel the passion that makes us who we are. I feel a bit more close to CCSO, whoever you anonymous guys are.
I am beginning to think that if I would have just said that everything at CCSO was wonderful these conversations would have never taken place and Charles would have never wrote the blog Post Emergent which I found here. Thanks for taking the time...
It's amazing how this cyberworld works...
ouch...yeah. I honestly can't say I've been in your shoes, and whether you were justified or not to feel the bitterness you had - I'm sorry. I'm sure Charles has got the thick skin you allude to. (I'd like to think he does since he preached that very concept when going through the book of leviticus...lol)
You're right. I am glad that we can converse about this and I'm glad you aren't as beligerent as many of the other bloggers I've had contact with. I just got done reading more of your blogs and as a "twenty-something-er" I feel you on the whole "a lot of Christians don't want spirituality and relationship with Jesus and others (including non-believers). I just hope that you come to a point to realize that bitterness towards anyone (whether in the church or in the world) is never a desire that God has for us. I know you know that, but I'm just saying. The reality is that it takes time to heal from something that hurts so much. I'll give you that. I do wonder where the line is when our talk goes from confrontational but edifying to judgemental and "unwholesome"
By the way...anonymous is just one person. My name is phil.
phil, thanks for helping me out on the real CCSO. As much as I love the church as a whole I also can't stand it in the same way. I was in the Calvary Chapel bubble for way too long and all I knew was CC doctrine, distinctives, and way of doing church. All I was taught and breathed was Calvary Chapel. There really is so much more to Christianity than what I knew being brought up in CC. I became a fundamental prick that cared only for those that were part of our Calvary and I had a pride in that. We were the new kids on the block and everyone was watching how and what we were doing.
Calvary's to me are a small stream in the movement of Christianity and I was stuck in that place for a long time. I was Calvary all the way. And I am now sick of who I used to be and thus I am very critical of CC as a whole. I know not all are alike and hopefully CCSO is a new breed that can breath change not only in culture but also in the monster machine we call Calvary Chapel...
Peace.
Wes, this is Charles. Hey no hard feelings. I do admit when I read what you wrote I was taken back. I was like, "hey that's not who I am".
But I can relate to being thrown out on the street from a pastoral position where we were reaching teens that the "church people" didn't like. It was an Assemblies of God church. Like you were born an raised Calvary, I was born and raised Assemblies. For a long while after that happened I said I would never do ministry again. But I couldn't get away from God's call on my life and He lead me into Calvary which I love. It has it's problems just like anything that man is involved with, but I love what Calvary is about as far as a Biblical philosophy of ministry is concerned. The thing is that Calvary has grown up and many guys have turned it into more that it is supposed to be. They turned it into a liturgy and from your experience a machine. That machine is lest evident out here on the east coast. People in Orlando by in large don't know what Calvary Chapel is and have never heard of it. There are some.
If I can let me encourage you. Don't let other peoples behavior affect you own. Determine that you are going to keep yourself pure and do the right thing before God. I've gotten through my ordeal. It happened in 96. Now I look back with compassion for those involved instead of being upset. I realize God has used it all to grow me and bring me to the place I am now. And for that I can praise the Lord.
Love in Christ and your brother,
Charles
Charles, thanks for that, I greatly appreciate the heart. ANd I do believe that God has much more in store for my life despite the circumstances. I do also thank you guys at CCSO for the time spend here in dialouge, it's also appreciated. I do feel what you guys are talking about CC's on the East Coast. Other than Bob Coy I think most of you guys are under the radar in a good way.
I got saved when I was 19 and then raised in CC for the last ten years. I have seen how not to do church in a lot of ways and still I have brought much maturity and quality experience from my time with CC.
I was unfortunately brought up under a pastor with a pope-like complex of pastoring and it ended on a bad note. Thakfully there are guys like yourself and many others that are there to serve and not be served.
I really do look forward to visiting you guys again on my next trip to Orlando. This dialogue has brought much transperancy and realness which is fairly difficult to come by these days. Much love...
Wes_Line.
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