I posted this on my Myspace page. This is my critique of the Willow Creek Apostate Summit, and the sorrow it brought me (and to the poster who said Jesus did not throw the stone at the woman- you are absolutely right. He did not throw the stone at her. He did something far more strong. He said "Go, and SIN NO MORE.")
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About three weeks ago, at my church, Evangel, ( a church with an elementary, junior high and high school,) the worship pastor "Larry" announced a summit that was coming up, the Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2006. As he put it, it was a summit for all aspiring leaders to attend to enhance their influence over someone and preach the Gospel. Fair enough, I thought. I felt I did need help presenting the Gospel in a way that Christ was glorified but at the same time I would be living proof that repenting and living a Christ-filled life indeed was a guaranteed blessing. With the encouragement of my girlfriend, I signed up and paid the fee--yup, paid. It didn't sit well with me that we had to pay for Christian leadership, but "Larry" said we got a discount. You see, those attending the actual event paid up to $300, but those of us watching via satellite would pay only $65. Fair enough, but still I couldn't help but think of Jesus when he called those men out for turning the temple of God into a den of thieves.
Whatever, I thought. I paid the ticket and just waited for the countdown to the actual event. But my spirit began to feel uneased at what would turn out to be a reality. I was feeling the reluctance when I learned that many of the guest speakers would be secular scholarly men, and the most shocking was a celebrated interview between Bill Hybels and U2 frontman Bono, who in a tour last year began chanting "Jesus, Jew, Muhhamad- all true, all sons of Abraham." This was ecunemism 101, and to say that I was outraged would be being too nice, but I had no right to complain as I paid my ticket and would have to suck it up. I just decided I would boycott the Bono segment.
The LORD prompted me to read the prophet Jeremiah for the last couple of weeks. I would read between 2-7 chapters at a time, even go back a few chapters to see what I missed. I could feel Jeremiah's frustation as his warnings to the land of Judah went ignored. Chapters 9, 14, and 23 stood out among the book, and I would soon realize why.
The day of the summit was upon me, and I entered my church with reluctance as I was given my name tag for all to see who I was. I took my seat with a sweaty back and looked at the gigantic teletron, or "summit-tron" on the pulpit which would broadcast to us via satellite the summit. I made acquaintances with a man named Kaz, who a week earlier gave his testimony about how he came to be saved. We spoke for a little bit until "Larry" the worship pastor walked onto the pulpit and welcomed back our pastor who was gone for almost two months due to knee surgery (and his absence was felt because the substitute pastors for the sunday services, people from other churches, were extremely light on doctrine. It was biblically void.) However, my heart began to break as the pastor was enthusiastically embracing this Willow Creek Summit. Here was a man who gave sermons on not conforming to the world's culture, and here he is now PROMOTING a worldly conference into our very church! I tried to reconcile my heart but deep down the image was clear: I was witnessing my church networking with the ecunemical movement.
The summit opened with a video montage of the state of the world with a song that promoted "oneness." In other words the lyrics went something like "one faith, one world, one Christ, one war, etc." It was followed by a rock band that harkened back to Blur or Green Day performing the song "Christ the Solid Rock." Aside from the exaggerated pyrotechnics, big screen and inflated choir, the lyrics at least promoted Christ' glory and His throne and His alone. At this point I was just reaching for any kind of biblical doctrine. It was the state of desperation that was to come.
Session 1 is of course the "senior pastor" of Willow Creek, Bill Hybels himself, titled "Life Cycle of a Leader." He mentioned Bill Gates, claimed most people admired Jimmy Carter post-presidency (despite the fact that Carter, an alleged baptist minister, is pro-abortion, pro gay rights and is largely responsible for the situation in Iran right now when he was president and allowed that regime to grow.) Regardless of politics, Hybels dropped some names and to make it all relevant he dropped in the occasional Bible names, Jesus obviously as well as Solomon. However, no mention of the Holy Spirit was present, and with no wonder as the Holy Spirit is all you need to become a firey leader for God. Of course this summit was nothing more then a susbtitute- nay, a $300 substitute for the Holy Spirit. But what Hybels said towards the end of his session was troubling but not surprising. He stated that he was called to "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lead people to God." No mention of the Great Commission to spread the Gospel and preach it to all creatures that those who believe may be saved. Hybels is presenting the Roman Catholic doctrine of a works salvaton, that doing good works is your way to heaven. It was very obvious with his lack of mention of the Holy Spirit or even preaching the Gospel of salvation and repentance.
We broke from this and I got time to speak with Kaz. I shared with him information about Executive Order 13397, which was a federal law that basically made churches government property (you would have to read between the lines when you read the actual document, which is available on the White House' official site, because there would be no other reason our Homeland Security would be interested in any activity of our churches unless it was to add yet another arm for its diabolical system.) Kaz was receptive to what I was telling him, and I gave him a copy of the printout I made of Executive Order 13397 that he may study on his own.
Session 2 was "reverend senator" James Meeks. If you're familiar with Meeks, last year he was stopped and pulled over by cops for possibly speeding. Meeks, a black man, rushed out of his car, prompting present police to draw their guns on him. Meeks was obviously using his status as a public figure to break the law and leave his car instead of remaining in the car and following procedures and respect authority like the Bible commands us. Meeks was not repentant of his cries of racism and sued the police department. I only bring this up because as a leader Meeks should be an example of Christian leadership, not "do as I say, not as I do" theology. It was neither here nor there because that was not going to be relevant to the sheep around me as Meeks took the pulpit of Willow Creek and presented his summit. He was introduced in a video montage, and one photo showed him in a bus with his arm around hate monger Jesse Jackson. Birds of a flock. Anyway, he did bring his own brand of charisma as the Willow Creek congregation (and the congregation in my church) laughed themselves off at his jokes. Needless to say, I was not impressed as he presented the 10 enemies of a growing church. It is not relevant to list what he called enemies because I can tell you what wasn't on the list: being unequally yoked with unbelievers (2nd Corinthians 6:14,) allowing those living sinful lifestyles among the church (1 Corinthians 5:5-7,) loving the things of the world (1 John 2:15-15,) false preachers (Matthew 7:15-20, 24:11,24, Acts 20:29-30, 2nd Cornthians 11,) and a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6.) Of course mentioning these as part of a list of enemies of the church would be beneath James Meeks and his part in the ecunemical movement and in this day and age of tolerance and feeling good. The tragic thing was that Meeks' presentation was about as Biblical as it got. It was all downhill from there.
We broke for lunch and I got to speak more with Kaz and a couple of other guys, trying to get the point across about the worldliness of the summit. There was some agreement but I could tell they were in conflict over the entire deal, as if they were trying to reconcile with the fact that there was some usefulness to the summit and looked for it.
Session 3 was Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church. Not much doctrine here, and although his message for the importance of family over church was a biblical one, it was overshadowed by his startling confession that he did not understand bible prophecy well. This is a man who is a pastoring a mega-church (though he, Hybels and company continually use the phrase "local church" to indoctrinate the cattle,) but is somehow clueless to the word of God. This is a far cry from Paul's lesson to Timothy about knowing the Scriptures and how it was profitable for doctrine, reproval, and completion of perfection. One thing I learned about the Emergent Church movement was that they try to emphasize the Bible's so-called ambiguity, a characteristic of the early Gnostics, according to 2nd century Christian Irenaeus.
The final session of the day made my blood boil, and my eyes sleepy. Peg Neuhauser, a woman with NO Christian association, nor a church or even a confession of Christ in her mouth, spoke about "tribal warfare" in church. I tried hard in my head to see where in the Bible such nonsense was ever an issue (aside from Paul's admonishing of the church of Corinth for being followers of either Apollos, Cephas, or himself when they should only really be following Christ, but tell that to the Billy Graham crowd that surrounded me.) She mentioned some things about our mind and so forth, which really was about as useful for a Christian as windshield wipers are for a bicycle. But one thing startled me and I was glad the LORD allowed me to have the discernment to see. In the book we were given to take notes, on Neuhauser's page there was a small chart with a circle and some words on it. Inside the circle were two lines crossing, thus dividing the circle into four separate equal parts. They showed the same image on the "Summit-tron" and it took no analyzing or thought to figure out what I was looking at. It was as if it just smacked me upside my head and laughed at me.
I was looking at the Gnostic Cross.
It was confirmed by the fact that much of Neuhauser's session was about the mind. Gnostics believe salvation comes from hidden knowledge. Friends, this was no coincidence. This was Satan imprinting his mark on the minds of the sheeple. The summit ended for the day and I was sick to my stomach, and I carried the burden of a very sorrowful and heavy heart. My spirit felt malnutritioned and I saw the brothers and sisters around me paving their way to Hell.
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Later that day, I was in my young sister's house taking care of her cats since she was out of town for the week. There was a very violent and strong thunderstorm, with a succession of thunder the likes of which I have never heard in my lifetime. My girlfriend called me from the train telling me of the frightening vision of the city being clouded in darkness, and she told me about the lightning bolt that nearly struck the car she was in. I told her that God was angry, and as the thunder got loud, I got on my knees and repented before the LORD. I knew he was angry with me for participating in this Willow Creek debacle, and I asked HIM to allow HIS goodness to shine through me as I would go into day 2 of the summit. God's anger was confirmed when my girlfriend called me to tell me that the cab driver who drove her home told her that God was angry. It was even further confirmed when my older sister's husband told me that he saw a lightning bolt strike right in front of his car.
Day 2 of the Summit will be a short essay because the truth is I only really heard about 5 minutes worth of anything before I left for good. I showed up at 11:30 intentionally, as I missed the first speaker, Ashish Nanda, who was oviously not a Christian and speaking things of the world (this was the first interview conducted by Bill Hybels with his ever loving universalism.) It was followed by another interview with Jim Collins, a man who owns a research facility, and it was this segment that I walked in on, the last 5 minutes. Not wanting to hear any more worldly tripe, I opened up my Bible and began to read Jeremiah. Chapter 23 was most definitely speaking to the sheeple who were chanting "amen" to every word spoken by these secular leaders, as if God sent them! The spirit of covetousness was most definitely in the air. In verse 22 of Jeremiah 23 , God says that any prophet HE sends must always preach about turning men away from their evil deeds and evil lifestyles. Psalm 1:1 says that a man is blessed who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. God did not send ANY of the men at this summit because NONE of them spoke about repentance or living a life for Christ.
I gave Kaz during the break my Bible book, a book I wrote about the history of the textus receptus vs the Westcott and Hort texts. It was information I would hope would open is eyes. Unfortunately I would not give out any other copies of the book or of the Executive Order 13397 flyers I did because the spirt of wickedness from these so-called "christians" who spoke of doing works, spoke of doing this and that, charity, what their favorite modalist evangelist would say and so forth was just too much. God had delivered many of them to their delusions and falsehoods.
I boycotted the Bono segment as I said I would, but I wanted to look at 5 minutes of it at least. This time, though, I was not in the sanctuary of the church, but in the lunchroom with my only company being the cleaning ladies. It began with a video of Bono performing "Where the Streets Have No Name" in his recent tour. I was not in the sanctuary but I could just feel the sheeple upstairs clapping along with the song as if it was a Christ-centered song! Do you see what has happened? Worldly music had now CREPT into the house of God. This was apostasy in its fullest manifestations, with the added blasphemies of adding the texts of the Psalms over the video of Bono prancing around the stage to the delight of his worldly idolaters, both in AND out of the church. Hybels asked him the first question, and it was all I needed to hear. The question was "what is your first love?" Bono, keeping to true ecunemical form, admitted the god behind this entire demonic summit, and the summit's demonic purpose. He said his first love was music.
Brothers and sisters, you know who was created to be the first composer of music:
Ezekiel 28:13: Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the worksmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
I left after hearing Bono's answer and spent an hour with the words of Jeremiah the prophet. Bill Hybels said he wants to be among intelligent men. Jeremiah says wise men do not glory in their wisdom or might, but rather in knowing and understanding God (9:23-24.) Hybels boasted about fasting (which is in direct violation of what Jesus commanded in Matthew 6, regarding fasting in secret as opposed to putting on a show of suffering for everyone to see,) and men like Andy Stanley who admitted ignorance of Bible prophecy led in prayer. The word of the LORD through Jeremiah says "when they fast, I will not hear their cry, and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sowrd, and by the famine, and by the pestilence (14:12.)" When I returned to the summit, I got the input from Kaz about the gyst of Bono's segment. Obviously, all it did was inspire these people to think about what works they could do to enhance the kindom. Works salvation was what it was all about. Charity, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked may be a good thing, but not preaching the gospel, all you do is prolong their eternity in Hell.
The final straw came when some female singer who I am not familiar with came on stage and sang two songs. One of those songs was "Everyday People." Familiar with that song? It has such lyrics as "Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong, My own beliefs are in my song, the butcher, the thinker, the drummer and then, makes no difference what group I'm in I am everyday people" plus "different strokes for different folks, and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo. We got to live together." The ecunemical spirit was boldly preaching to the lost cattle who sold their souls just so they could party and learn how to be rich and powerful. I could never look at these people as my brothers and sisters again. I've all but lost a potential family and now find myself alone again in my Christian walk, an orphan now to find a church I can grow and die in. Or perhaps become a member of the underground churchs that assemble in people's houses like the first century Christians did in the book of Acts. I think it's that time I now seriously should consider the house church movement. It is clear that the churches that we know them now have been handed over to Satan and the world government, the universal government, the universal church. The Greek word for universal, by the way, is "katoliko." Pope Benedict XVI and the queen of his heaven would be very pleased.
Oh, and Evangel's school has been given over to the government. They lost their charter.
