Understand The Times, International

Comment from Understand The Times:

The following article is just a little glimpse of what is about to happen in Christendom. UTT has gone on record to say that a watershed event is about to happen. A number of pastors around the world will be convicted of what they have done in the past. Purpose-driven-seeker-friendly-postmodern-friendly tactics promoted by church growth gurus who were inspired by Peter Drucker will soon hit the wall.

Mega-churches will be closed and their parking lots will be barren on Sunday morning. Only those churches where the pastor teaches the Word of God and warns and prepares his flock for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will flourish. Some of the vacated cathedrals built by the purpose-driven crowd will be available for purchase for pennies on the dollar.

September 2 - Pastors Question Francis Chan's Decision to Leave Megachurch

Article: Misc.

Popular author and preacher Francis Chan was recently questioned by fellow pastors who tried to wrap their heads around Chan's decision to leave his megachurch. He said he wanted to start over and get a core group of disciples who just try 100 percent to follow the life he felt was clearly spelled out in Scripture.

Driscoll and Harris, who are council members of The Gospel Coalition, expressed some concern over starting something and leaving and wondered if he would repeat that pattern in the future.

"I don't know how to explain it other than there's always been this core conviction of 'something's not right and I think I know what it is but I'll just keep quiet,'" he explained. "Now, I want to express it and live it and just go 'now, I believe I'm living in congruence with the whole New Testament.'"

He also stressed that his leaving Cornerstone was for the church's own good. "It's kind of diverting some of this 'I must hear from Francis.' By staying there, I was causing, not causing the whole problem but I wasn't helping the issue."

Driscoll questioned Chan on the theology behind some of his thinking to give everything up. "What if God wants to sanctify you through not poverty but generosity, not suffering but blessing, and what if it's not through simplicity but complexity?" Driscoll cautioned that Chan could be following a "poverty theology," which he said is "the same error as prosperity theology - that holiness comes from have or have not, not who is."

"I believe it's motivated by love and a desire to be Christ-like," he responded. "I don't want to suffer needlessly or just to suffer. "I get excited about becoming a picture of Christ. Of course I have the right to get the stuff that I want and enjoy it but it's again letting go of that, not holding on to that and saying here's an example, let me lay that down, and go and lay down my life for the brothers."

But what he does know is that there is pride in him that has destroyed him in many ways and he just want to spend the next season of his life purifying that.