My next door neighbor who goes to a Bible Church, asked my wife the other day if she had heard about the IF:Gathering and that she had just come back from a conference and was wondering about it. A friend of hers told her that one of the things they were talking about at the conference was if you are wealthy you need to give it all up. I notice they have a shoppe on their website. Maybe give all your wealth to them. Their materials are quite expensive. https://ifgathering.com/gather/I have heard so many times through the years whenever someone wants to fleece you, they always end up saying, "give up your wealth". Watch out for that phrase. We should not be telling anyone what to do. They are not our stewards, they are the Lord's stewards.I looked at their website in a cursory way and did not get a good witness and reminded myself that I would come back later and look more into it since my neighbor was being asked by her friends to come to a "gathering."Well, I did some more research and already Christianity Today has run into it and wrote an article. So, I just want to give everyone a heads-up on this and if anyone has any experiences with this movement that is apparently growing like wild fire, please share them. This pastor has written about IF and be sure to read some of the comments.http://www.truthkeepers.com/?p=763Lighthouse Research also has several articles. Here is one:IF: Gathering Leader/Pastor Melissa Greene—A Female Version of McLaren, Bell, Rohr, and Mertonhttp://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=17015 Here is a father whose daughter attended an IF:Gathering and he is an ardent supporter of Lighthouse Research. In his comment, he is taking exception with LR and Pastor Fisher. Pastor Fisher, answers his comment. http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=16928So, what do you think, is this a movement of God or not? Is it just another expression of Emergent Church reaching out to all the women in the Church with contemporary mysticism or is it valid? Several well known New Agers are endorsing it. Red flag anyone?
Hey J-I read some of Pastor Fisher's articles on this and some fof the comments- very interesting back and forths. However- I did not read very deeply into the whole website so I was hoping you might be able to answer this question-Why does he consider persons like Shane Claiborne a heretic? I read one his books quite some time ago- may have been his first one. It was essentially a more radical call to live out the gospel. It was pretty radical I admit, but I didn't get the idea that it was heretical.Pastor Fisher also seems to lump all emergent church leaders as heretics. Again, I may not know enough about the emergent church so perhaps you can explain why he does this. By the way- I am not questioning his calling them heretics at this point because I am not sure what he finds heretical about them.
_________________Todd
"The emerging / emergent church documentary" is a 3-hr comprehensive documentary on YouTube by Elliot Nesch. Will blow your mind & tell you everything you want to know about the movement. Birthed in "The New Age" movement, denying hell, denying the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, focusing on experiences rather than backbones with the truth of the Word of God (including Hindu, Buddhist, etc. practices), etc. etc. It is a heretical movement altogether. Name one "Emeegent Church" leader & you can find and list their heretical, unbiblical views. Joe Schimel of Good Fight Ministries has a great one available too (called Submerging church or something?), but you have to purchase the DVD. But his stuff is always very thorough, very backed throughout with scripture, & uses these stacks of documentation & videos of these heretics' own words. God Bless, Jeff
TMK, You would have to ask Fisher those questions. You could just add a comment to his article at the bottom.
With these movements, you often get a presentation that sounds good and it us not till you are hooked that you find out where they are offstream. Knowing the teaching of the speakers from their websites, at a conference is enough to know what is behind the good sounding speil.I avoid emergent influences.
Jeff-How do you define the "emergent" church?
