Trampolines, Kicking Bibles & Whisky Worship Songs - The Fruit of The Seeker Sensitive Movement 🔥

The Strange Fire of Corrupt Worship

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. The title of this episode is Trampolines, Kicking Bibles, and Whiskey Worship Songs, the Fruit of the Seeker-Sensitive Movement.

Okay, maybe I'll rework that title. Another title I thought of was just to call it Strange Fire, because where does that come.

From?

The story of Nadab in a bayou where they corrupted the worship of Jehovah God and they offered strange fire before the Lord. I'll read that passage in a moment. By the way, if you're listening on Spotify, you probably want to watch the YouTube version of this.

So we're going to show some clips that are going to be important to see what's happening if you haven't seen it already. But I'm going to be talking about, in this podcast, I'm going to be talking about the antics that have been going on in these so-called megachurches lately.

Instead of covering the same stories, because I talked about this already to some extent in my last podcast titled The Messed Up Church, instead of just rehashing all of this, I want to sort of drill down to the source.

Where did the seeker-sensitive movement begin? What is it all about? Why did it start up? What were their intentions? Did it really originate with Rick Warren or does it go back further than that? First, let's start with a passage of Scripture.

This is from Leviticus 10, 1 -3. This is very relevant because it shows you how the Lord feels about those who would corrupt the worship of the Lord. Leviticus 10, 1 -3, it says, In Nadab, in a bayou, the sons of Aaron, the priest, they took either of them, his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and they offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.

And there went out fire from the Lord, and it devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, This is that which the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh to me, and before all the people I will be glorified.

And Aaron held his peace. So Aaron, the high priest, his two sons were struck dead by God because they corrupted the worship of God. Now there's some debate about the strange fire. What was that? Did they offer the wrong combination of incense, the wrong recipe?

Were they drunk when they did this? And it doesn't really matter so much what it is, it's the principle. We know how God feels about those who corrupt worship. I left a comment on Todd Friel's video, Wretched Radio, where he talked about this megachurch where the female pastor kicked the Bible across the stage.

And I said something to the effect that, Do you want to know how God feels about those.

Who corrupt worship?

Ask Nadab and Abihu. And a lot of people seem to like that comment, so hey, let's run with it then. But, do you want to know how God feels about it? You know, you can't really ask Nadab and Abihu, right?

Well, there are modern day Nadabs and Abihus. For example, Pastor Brian Tome and Pastor Ali Patterson. Watch what they did. Tome wins the toss, chooses to receive the Bible. Patterson back with the kick.

Oh my goodness!

Touchback!

For the first time in 18 years, there's a touchback for the kickoff.

Okay, so you say, well, that's not worship, right? I know, but you've probably seen that clip already. But that is a megachurch that supposedly was a worship service where they kicked the Bible across the stage.

And in some ways, I'm not glad they did it, obviously, but in some ways I am because it really shows you how they feel about God's word. There's a lot of churches that pretend they believe the Bible, they pretend they honor the Word of God, but they really don't.

This church, they just show you, hey, here's what we think about the Bible, and they just kick it across the room. That's helpful because we know, okay, mark and avoid this pastor or these pastors.

Got it.

But, you know, it's not just this church. All sorts of crazy things are happening in seeker-friendly churches all over the U .S. And this brings us to clip number two, where the pastor is, I don't know, doing flips, I guess, for Jesus.

Watch.

But I'm going to have faith for it. I'm actually going to build my stamina. I'm actually going to do something.

But what would happen if everybody started flipping on the things that God told them.

To do?

What if we started getting hype? We would be like a city on a hill. Oh, we would be able to be seen.

Okay, so that's Mike Todd. He's the head of Transformation Church. He says, you know, what did he say? He said something to the effect that, well, we're called Transformation because, after all, we support trans people.

It's like, okay, according to 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications for church leaders, they are to be reverent. Was that reverent, him doing flips on the trampoline? You tell me. I got that clip of Pastor Mike Todd on the trampoline from Cory Miner, who runs the Smart Christian channel on YouTube.

In his review of that, he brought up Charles Haddon Spurgeon's quote that I mentioned last time, you know, how the day would come where instead of the pastors feeding sheep, you will have clowns entertaining the goats.

Yeah, that's exactly what that is. And what do clowns do? Well, they wear an outfit. They do crazy stuff to try to entertain people. All the while, they draw attention to themselves, sort of like this guy.

Watch.

Okay, so Pastor Nadab there is swinging back and forth, and he's doing his rendition of Miley Cyrus' wrecking ball, which apparently, according to Justin Peters, the original video of Miley Cyrus' wrecking ball, she was swinging on it in the nude.

But obviously, they didn't show that on MTV, nor am I going to look it up. And you shouldn't either. But it just tells you how perverse the whole thing is, and that's what they bring into a church service?

Yeah, that's pretty bad. But it's still probably not quite as bad as this next guy singing a, what, worship song about drinking whiskey and beer?

Watch.

Okay, you say, well, that's not a worship song.

That was Garth Brooks.

Right.

But this was in a supposed church service Sunday morning. It's a seeker sensitive church. That's their worship service.

What is it?

They're offering strange fire before the Lord. These people are corrupting the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are modern day versions of Nadab in a bayou. So now that you saw what the seeker sensitive church has become, let's ask the question, where did this all start?

The Seeker-Sensitive Movement as an Evangelism Strategy

First, what is the seeker sensitive movement or the seeker friendly church? The idea first started as an evangelism strategy to reach people who would normally never attend a regular type of church service.

So one way this has been described is church for people who don't like church. So get rid of the hymns, bring in a rock and roll band, get rid of the pews, replace them with nice comfortable chairs. The pastor, he'll dress down, no shirt and tie.

You know, Rick Warren was famous for preaching in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and flip flops. So basically they said, we're going to get rid of everything that seems churchy and we'll turn the worship, sir, you know, instead of a church sanctuary, we'll have like a dark auditorium and it's going to have like a, it's going to be like a party atmosphere.

It's going to be like a, a concert atmosphere, but we're still going to preach the Bible. We're still going to preach the gospel. Of course, there's a few problems with that. First of all, in terms of calling it seeker friendly, what does the Bible say?

Romans three 11 says that no one seeks after God. So that's the first thing. If you have the correct theology, you know that people are saved because the Holy Spirit of God is drawing them. You're not going to be able to manipulate them into believing in Jesus.

So if you have the correct theology, you should never fall for this in the first place because no one is seeking after God. Number two, it's not really that unbelievers have a problem with pews versus chairs or the pastor wearing a suit and tie versus dressing down.

That's not really the main problem that unbelievers have. Unbelievers, they don't like the message of the Bible. I mean, the Bible is the problem, the gospel, you know, repent of your sin, believe on the Lord Jesus.

I mean, that's the part they don't like. So the idea that you're just going to get rid of all the churchy stuff, but still preach the gospel, these places are not preaching the gospel.

Okay?

So over time, even if you think that this movement started out with the best of intentions, which some people think that's true, some don't, what these churches have become, they have simply become entertainment centers.

Yeah.

It's the clown entertaining the goats. It's a rock concert followed by a motivational speaker. Instead of a pastor, you have a life coach, anything but a preacher, you know. Now, how did this movement begin?

Where did it begin? If you read up on it, most people would point to Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. These would be the two big names, Willow Creek and Saddleback Church. Some people though, believe it began even earlier than that with Billy Graham and him promoting and endorsing the Jesus revolution.

Remember the Jesus people movement of the late 1960s, early 1970s, what did they do? They got rid of the hymns, brought in rock and roll instead of the pastor, you know, showing reverence for God and, and listen, I don't want to make things all about clothing because that's not really the issue.

Just like pews is not really the issue, but it's just sort of the first thing people notice that they got rid of the hymns, brought in rock and roll. The pastor isn't wearing a suit and tie. He's wearing, you know, jeans and a t-shirt or whatever.

But the Jesus people movement, yeah, that hippie culture of the 1960s kind of overtook the church in some ways. And then Billy Graham endorsed that movement and Billy Graham did a lot to popularize this whole model of a rock concert followed by, you know, the speaker.

But let's give credit where credit is due. Calvary Chapel, where the Jesus people movement began, Calvary Chapel, for the most part, they did keep a focus on preaching chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the Bible.

And Billy Graham, and you know, I've talked about on this channel, Billy Graham's interview with Robert Shuler and issues surrounding that. But Billy Graham, at least in his crusades, he more or less preached the Bible, right?

And the rock and roll that he promoted was pretty mild compared to what we have now. But here's what you need to realize. Even if this strategy of being seeker friendly, even if this started with the best of intentions, and even if Billy Graham and Calvary Chapel more or less stuck to the Bible, the next generation of Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, they moved a little further away.

And then the next batch, you know, the next generation of seeker sensitive leaders, they moved further away than that. And then right down to what we have today, where Mike Todd is on the trampoline and female pastors are kicking Bibles and worship leaders are singing Garth Brooks instead of Amazing.

Grace.

The Rotten Fruit of Seeker Sensitivity

So in conclusion, however things started, whether it was a good idea or bad from the start, whatever you think about that, here's what I know for sure. The fruit of the seeker sensitive movement at this point, it is clearly rotten fruit.

Therefore, stay away from it. And I would add one last warning. If your church is moving away from a traditional service to a more contemporary service, be very, very careful. All right. Thanks for listening.

And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.