Woldview Leader

Changing the Worldview of the Modern Church…

By J. Konrad Hölè

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I HAVE BEEN SITTING ON THIS MESSAGE SINCE 1998. IT HIT ME AT THE SALT LAKE CITY UTAH AIRPORT AT 6:00 AM WHILE WAITING ON A FLIGHT TO TAKE ME HOME TO BEFORE NOW, IT’S JUST THAT

MINNEAPOLIS. IT’S NOT THAT I COULD NOT SHARE THIS

I COULD NOT BECOME AN ACTIVIST FOR SPIRITUAL REFORMATION IF EVERYTHING

I KEPT LIVING FOR AND DEFENDING WAS SIGNIFICANCE THROUGH A BUILDING, GODLINESS BY STATUS, SUCCESS

BY NUMBERS, AND INCREASE BY EXPOSURE

— THIS MENTALITY WAS CONTRADICTING THE VERY REFORMATION

I WAS CALLED BY GOD TO FIGHT FOR IN MY GENERATION.

S

omewhere lost on the isolated soap boxes of what mainstream fundamentalism fights as the epidemics of same sex marriage and supremecourt sanctioned baby-murder; And the mega-growth architects have assembled as a mega-mall shopping experience for finding Jesus, is the lack of an articulated blueprint for how the modern church will succeed in history.

At present we have the outcry from high-profile church leaders over isolated instances of social and cultural demise, and the threat against the God-fearing right-wing.

Non-existent is the explanation from these same Christian leaders and pseudo spiritual celebrities — many of whose titles are as big as the plush sanctuaries they speak from, and the private planes they transport in — of how the contemporary church will be remembered in history. Even more absent is the idea of how the church will be built over the next hundred years. Something must change in our thinking.

This is called having a worldview.

No, not lashing out over world issues, but rather, having a worldview.

A worldview doesn’t mean asking all of your faith partners to pay for the expansion of a message that has succeeded more at recycling the church than it has at

transforming it. A worldview doesn’t mean a message that succeeds more at building ministry influence at the expense of the church than it has at building the actual church.

A worldview involves the ability to explain the church’s most important and effective next step in the millennium of triumph, not merely blaming whoever is our present day arch nemesis.

You see, America is dying, and the church wants to blame pagan society for killing it. The church is searching for one more terrorist link between what was yesterday’s Babylon and what is supposedly the Babylon of today.

America is dying, and high-profile religious media

When the American church is bigger, but American culture is worse, then something is tragically wrong.

sensationalism wants to sell it another tape series. Nobody seems interested in genuine transformation.

When the American church is bigger, but American culture is worse, then something is tragically wrong.

Yes, we re-elected a president who professes Christianity; but the American church has got to do something far more profound to prepare for upcoming decades than simply comprising the God-fearing red states.

It is our complete void of a biblical worldview that prevents us from creating a line upon line strategy that could serve as the backdrop for the type of reformation that would dwarf issues of moral lawlessness. A worldview that would give us a more functional and dominant place in history. A voice, that current endtime Bible prophecy decoders, zuitsuit televangelist, and Jesus in a happy meal mega-church CEOs seem too enamored with their own place in ministry to give us.

Okay great, we can now define the average lifespan of a homosexual according to Pastor Rod Parsley’s recent book, Silent No More, and we can all recite at Sunday school level the outcome of a nation whose god is their belly. Better yet, now we can speculate with greater awareness the possible dangers of the Koran and other false religions.

But we still seem to struggle with defining the church and its greatestest handicaps. Determining The Worldview Leader

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where we go from here is a far more important problem than being able to tell the average gay person, “chances are you won’t live past fifty-five.”

We have become the church of more complaints than answers. We have painted a dark picture of how the church is going to leave, rather than how the church is going to rise.

Today’s church whines like a kid being picked on by the schoolyard bully called the “ACLU.” All the while attempting to transform a now generation with a now gospel — a church that is as terrified as it is clueless over using the templates of past reconstructionist history as a present day guideline.

A weak worldview is the reflection of a lack of personal and doctrinal integrity which has found complacent comfort in seeing the world as something we are preparing to exit, rather than preparing to over-haul.

So at the end of the day all that we have is a gospel that changes personal status — via me selling you my new ghost-written book, or trinket of the month — rather than a gospel that changes history.

And the Body of Christ will never be taken seriously for merely condemning cultural and political paganism. The church will only be respected when it is committed to a generational overhaul of spiritual decency. And for everyone who says, “well I’ve read the back of the book and we win,” that line is as old as it is incompetent.

I grew up a fourth generation Pentecostal. Four generations go back to the Assemblies of God, 4

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while three generations go back to the Voice of Healing movement of the fifties and sixties. Yes, I have witnessed some very genuine demonstrations of God, and I am not void of fond memories to share at family reunions. However, what Pentecostal and Charismatic movements since the nineteenforties are leaving for future generations to deal with and clean-up is a demonstration of the perversion of religious legalism and spirit-filled heretical greed — more than a demonstration of the transforming power of God to build the Kingdom. When you do not leave the next generation something to build on, that is a clue that their potential deterioration was not a concern to you.

That is the first prerequisite for a biblical worldview: getting a burden for the next hundred years and beyond.

In other words, forming our literature and constructing our platform with a long term conviction that dwarfs the stereo-typical “I need to get my name out there and have something to give the partners this month,” approach.

A weak worldview is the reflection of a lack of personal and doctrinal integrity which has found complacent comfort in seeing the world as something we are preparing to exit, rather than preparing to over-haul. We have already proven in mainstream ministry and continue to prove through daily media exposure that we can build ministry success without bringing about mass reform.

We have already proven that we can build ministry without building the Kingdom. And the subtlety of the whole thing is where we have exploited the anointing as irreverently as we have marketed it.

But because there has been positive experiences for many individuals as a result of being touched by our anointing, and after all, “the gospel is being preached,” then our conscious is soothed. So, an alarming number of preachers in this generation find it exciting that God is using them without

ever grasping that who God uses and who He is pleased with are not necessarily the same thing.

The Hooker Church The church was the place where we preached that God could clean up a harlot. Now, we have become one. Due to the result of a weak worldview we have created a form of church that is reminiscent of a street corner hooker. Not the inexperienced hooker who gets used one time and then gets rescued by someone with compassion for her pain and perversion. Rather, the Hooker Church, like a veteran prostitute, turns one trick, takes her profit, and waits for another John to come along and exploit her potential and co-dependence all over gain.

We keep waiting on the corner for one move after the other.

Another wave, another Toronto blessing, or Pennsecola revival. The restoration wave, then the spiritual warfare wave, then the prophetic wave. Now, it is the return of the Apostles. Some of the churches I have spoken in were so consumed with “everything apostolic”, or “everything prophetic,” I almost wondered if they wore apostolic or prophetic undergarments too. After all, the Mormons do! And they also believe in Apostles and Prophets!

Then there is always the trustworthy blame it on a Jezebel spirit.

And of course let’s not forget the half of the Charismatic world that is still waiting on the Apocalypse.

And the reality? We have become the generation that changes spiritual fads better than we change spiritual lives. And from every wave, we take our profit and go stand back out on the corner and wait for another.

The argument is not that these various movements contained no positive merit; but, like any hooker, her external is the compensation for what she lacks internally. So, our “wave-craze” is our compensation for how our worldview fails to exceed

whatever God might be “wowing us” with for the moment. Spiritual fads are the church’s way of re-labeling the same self-centered inaccurate spiritual dysfunction.

It’s like spoiled ice-cream.

We assume that if we can add whipped cream, nuts, chocolate and strawberries then we can change what it is. But that’s not the case.

The inherent danger is that when we have no worldview we call a God fad a God movement. In a movement you change history. In a fad you just change scenery and props.

Movements are plotted by a remnant of people who have nothing to lose. They are therefore not afraid to take what cannot be called, schooled, or funded by institutional religion, and drive it like a stake through the heart of pharisaical job security. They are not fad makers; they are history makers.

Their ministries are not built by latching onto the lightening bolt of the latest Jesus buzz. In contrast, a spiritual fad allows the attention to be on those fueling it. Historychanging movements embrace obscurity more than the spotlight while thriving on the knowledge that they are a step in the journey rather than the destination.

Oh, and this issue of “isn’t the world hurting and lost?” I’ve got a news flash for you. The world may be hurting in its perverted ideology, but they are not lost. They know exactly where they want to be several decades from now in the way they want to change world culture.

The world is not waiting for a revival or a fad. They’re not waiting for Jesus on the white horse. They’re not waiting for the next power, prophecy, Azusa, or Dominion shake and shudder conference. They’re not waiting on another church growth seminar that can tell them how to be the only Pastor in their town who can afford to fly around in their own helicopter. The world isn’t waiting for anything. They are doing it. They are reforming technology, finance, industry, the arts, and most of all…

LOCAL AND NATIONAL LAW!

And what are we doing? Waiting.

And since we think we have all of the answers, and already possess a seat at the Marriage Supper, we don’t consider what we are actually doing as waiting. So, we huddle inside of our plush new domes, small split-off motels, and strip-mall churches, and teach marketable principles to principle junkies.

All, the while bellowing in prayer — which really only helps us feel less guilty for being selfish, isolated, and incompetent — for a world that is doing more than we are.

The Gospel of Me The first issue that must be addressed when explaining the lack of a biblical worldview in the church is to demonstrate that embracing the biblical mandate requires unselfishness because you have to start thinking generationally.

Generational thinking would demand that we grow beyond ourselves in order to save those beyond us.

Even Pastor Rick Warren’s twenty-four million copy bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life states this pivotal truth. Unlike most books on mainstream Christian bookshelves Warren’s sums up the matter by writing, “it’s not about you.”

Is this a profound statement? You better believe that it is. Especially in the midst of a “me generation” that grows worse by the constant barrage of “me gospel” preaching. Pastor Rick started his book by exposing the secret to the Kingdom of God — being God-centered instead of me-centered.

So much of mainstream ministry, especially the faith and prosperity camps, has become nothing more than a “me movement.” We have enlarged the medium of Christian television that should be more accurately referred to as “me T.V.” It’s a “me gospel” preached through “me terminology” to a mass of people who assume that God adapts to their needs rather than them adapting to His nature.

It’s the awesome call of God on MEEEEEEE! God called me, told me, showed me, and if you disagree with me then you’re either not hearing God or you’re attacking the anointing in MEEEEEEE! So what is commonly preached as prosperity is centered around nothing more than what God cannot wait to do for me, give me, or promote about me — all this is in addition to the calling He has on me.

That is what a worldview is; how we choose to view things. And the church will never effectively reach what it cannot effectively see. The American church has become the church of solicitation more than the church of empowerment. We see a crowd of people or a national television platform, and think “what can they give or buy,” instead of “what can they become.”

And this anointed narcissism comes from our pulpits first. It is a subtle false humility that declares, “this is an awesome anointing that God has commanded me to take to my generation.” Or, “the soul’s that I must reach,” or, “the city that I must win before it is too late.” And while this “reach them all as quickly as possible” approach can appear noble on the surface, below it reeks of a power trip from inferior leaders who crave more to be the saviors of something rather than the servants of it.

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The first instruction that God told Abram when he arrived in Canaan was to “open your eyes and look from the place where you are. Then God said, everyplace you see, to thee I will give it to you.” (Genesis 13:12) That is what a worldview is — how we choose to view things. And the church will never effectively reach what it cannot effectively see.

The American church has become the church of solicitation more than the church of empowerment. We see a crowd of people or a national television platform, and think “what can they give or buy,” instead of “what can they become.” We’ve created spiritual obesity that we are calling a spiritual harvest.

What we’ve ended-up with is crowds full of spiritually fat people who struggle with walking up two flights of emotional stairs by themselves without wanting to quit and sit down. This affects our ability to see or discern. For instance, we’re not effectively reaching the homosexual community because we see them incorrectly. We’re discriminating them as badly as we hate local and national government discriminating us. Without us playing the victim our goal should be to reach the gay community while not condoning their sinful lifestyles.

Misreading the People You cannot change the masses by making them faith partners instead of disciples. You cannot sell the world another tape series while the gays are fighting for same-sex unions.

The average high-profile leader sees an auditorium full of people and sees ministry effectiveness. A half-full hall means this city doesn’t receive my gift, or this must not be a strong enough television market.

So, I don’t know if I will come back again unless enough local area churches or partners can guarantee me better results.

The average high-profile leader sees enlarging mailing lists and partner bases more than enlarging an individual’s ability to live an 6

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A lack of generational thinking is not a rapture issue; that’s the easy excuse. It’s an ego issue. Ego in the sense that many of today’s leaders desire to be the one stop shop for world change that they are not looking for, much less preparing for, the long term change the kingdom of God requires that will never happen through their ministries. independently functional and mature lifestyle. We’re teaching people how to fund our projects rather than instructing them in how to solve generational problems and leave a prosperous inheritance for their grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The rapture fundraiser: Oops, I mean hope.

Dr. D. James Kennedy stated in his recent book Lord of All: Developing a Christian Worldview and Life View that “we do not know when Jesus Christ will return. But we must stop treating involvement in this world as if we are just polishing the brass on the sinking titanic.”

We have so many leaders who so crave being the force strong enough to usher in the second coming that there is little if any recognition of “who am I building for and what will it look like a hundred years from now?” They don’t ask generational questions like, “what is my place

inside of a hundred-year plan of global spiritual dominance?” It’s more like, “what is my time slot on television? What is my speaking time slot at the big conference?” Or, “what is my slot on the bestseller list.”

The rapture has become a diversion and more of a fundraising tool than our hope.

A lack of generational thinking is not a rapture issue; that’s the easy excuse. It’s an ego issue. Ego in the sense that many of today’s leaders desire to be the one stop shop for world change that they are not looking for, much less preparing for, the long term change that the kingdom of God requires that will never happen through their ministries.

And the sinners? We aren’t really trying to relate with them nearly as much as we say we are because they terrify us more profoundly than we want to admit. Especially, if our petitions and our spiritual warfare does not seem to work before Jesus shows up to bail us out.

Generational thinking means seeing great spiritual reform in terms of stages that will likely take longer than we would be in our prime to facilitate. And insecurity has become too rampant in our pulpits in order to devote an entire lifetime just to building a piece of the process.

Anyone can talk tough when they are un-challenged.

Now preachers can blame the fallout from their lust, greed, or even heresy on excuses that are more akin to the logic of alien abduction than a reflection of reality.

Former mega-ministry leader Larry Lea was quoted in a February 2002 issue of Charisma magazine as saying the reason why he believes he went through the personal and ministry scandals that removed him overnight as a church growth world icon was because enough people in his prayer army were not praying for him. What was worse was that in the

same article spiritual warfare guru C. Peter Wagner agreed with Dr. Lea’s assessment and then apologized to him publicly. Let’s not kid ourselves.

The sins of spiritual leaders are not an issue of demonic attack or having “feet of clay.” It is the calculated lust for power. I cannot blame a lack of prayer support for my own lack of self-government. I cannot go out and commit any number of immoral acts and then blame it on not having enough of the people in my ministry praying for me! We have become comfortable with the one evil that can destroy any generation worse than a leader’s adultery or a leader’s money problems — that is a leaders own self-deception.

Let’s face it. We not only love it when in our Charismatic services people fall down under the power — we expect it. We’ll even have the ushers help them back up so they can fall down again. We not only love it when someone receives what they describe as a tangible touch from God in our service, but we want you to look into the camera and tell the watching world whose service you were in and how far you drove to be there to get it. We’ve trained a generation of followers to not only accept our empty sermons, but to throw money at us and shout for us to say more of it. We’ve grown more fond of the response than the end-result.

Then there is the growing number of high-profile, arena-style ministries that turn to Christian television for exposure. Christian television has become the melting pot for leader’s who spend more on their wardrobe and hair than their theology or insight. They only know how to talk tough into a crowd of fans or television cameras that cannot talk back. A generation of leaders who can write better appeal letters where everything is “urgent,” or “you must respond now,” instead of being able to write deep spiritual commentary. Some days you do not know whether you are watching professional wrestlers scream into the camera or the Gospel

being preached since one can eerily resemble the same boastful emotional stimulation tactics as the other. Christian television has not really shaken a nation. It has established personalities.

It has become the platform of the “God said, God told me,” and, “God appeared to me so you better not question me” hype. All from leaders who became millionaires by selling momentary spiritual declarations rather than long-term spiritual results.

Christian television, while having the potential to be the vehicle of media transformation is becoming more a vehicle for building high profile ministries without showing any high profile change.

It has become the place where we spend days and weeks raising money to supposedly reach the lost while we produce program after program that only appeals to our own kind. Then we have the audacity to call this the “Gospel of

Concept gospel is where we create isolated institutional religion that prohibits people from becoming anything more relevant than what they understand or feed on. Preachers who are master orators in the pulpit, but who are emotional nightmares or tyrannical dictators outside of it, can thrive inside of the groups that have bought into the concepts.

the kingdom” (Matthew 24:14) that is being preached. Oh, it’s a gospel alright. But kingdom gospel…that’s a different story.

The Gospel of the Concept Kingdom.

Welcome to the generation of the churched consumer.

The generation where spiritual marketing defines what too many consider to be spiritual impartation.

The generation where the average Christian television personality gets it right more out of luck than knowledge. The generation where our most notorious pulpit maestros seemingly do not sober up until HBO or Dianne Sawyer catches them in the act.

Concept gospel is when we have a concept of how a principle should work then we force Scriptures together to make it appear legitimate. Then we write a book about it and sell it to our group.

All the while we portray the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration more so than the source of truth. In other words, it does not have to be accurate, just believable. Debate it and you are dismissed as a preacherbasher not on the cutting edge with what God is doing in the earth today. Never before in the history of the American church have we had such a mass of people who know where they fit inside of their spiritual concepts, but are clueless as to where they fit in the role of changing church history. Unless we embrace the mission of architects more than salesmen we will go down in history as the church known for what it sold and not for what it revolutionized.

Concept gospel is where we create isolated institutional religion that prohibits people from becoming anything more relevant than what they understand or feed on. Preachers who are master orators in the pulpit, but who are emotional nightmares or tyrannical dictators outside of it, can thrive inside of the groups that have bought into the concepts.

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The world around us that is changing culture and re-writing law does not grasp overly-spiritualized vocabulary. They do not get it when the guest on Christian television speaks in tongues. Tongues edify the believer, not the unbeliever. We’re still having church for ourselves rather than church for the world outside.

it does not have to think, plan, or build for future generations. We are more masterful at discerning the signs of the times than we are discerning the signs of shallow Christianity. We have become more masterful at decoding the signs of Bible Prophecy than we have at decoding the signs of Bible heresy.

The big question is, how do we develop a biblical worldview?

2. We must work harder to send more people out of a building, than we do just trying to get them in one.

Where did the definition of ministry effectiveness get lost in translation? Where did the face of success for us become defined by how many Sunday morning services

1.We must stop being the church of the liquidation sale.

You cannot change what you are trying to leave. And you definitely cannot ask the masses to fund something that is going out of business. It’s tough to reform America when the only paradigm we have is to use it and then leave it. Gays are building something for the next ten generations. They are preparing for future generations to legally marry the same sex of someone else’s great grandchild.

Pastor David Moore of the Southwest Community Church and author of the book, Five Lies of the Century, recently stated when asked the question “can we re-claim America for Christ?” “I certainly hope so,” he writes. “The reason that I invest some of my time and energy in this arena is because I believe it is a winnable battle, and I would not give a chunk of my life to something that’s over. I’m always concerned about the pastors who will preach with the spirit of, well, you know we’re the last faithful twelve, and it’s over, and we’ve given away the country. And we just have to wait for Jesus to come and rescue us. Well, He is going to return and He is going to rescue us in His time, but what if it’s a hundred years from now? What if it is five hundred years? What kind of world do I want my children in?

What kind of world do I want my grandchildren raised in?”

The American Church is the only institution on the planet that assumes it can be so led by the Spirit of God that 8

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The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a rule that none of their Kingdom Hall churches can go beyond 250 in membership before they will split it and start a new one. This is for one very pivitol reason amidst several; they preserve the power of discipleship. They would rather rule a region than rule a building. They would rather intimately disciple a family than hoard a mass. Church planting in our present day is perceived more as a job for the missions department than it is a central task of the New Testament church.

we now have? Guys like Noah or Elijah would not have survived in the after service VIP room at the average church growth conference amidst the barrage of questions of “how many are you running now?” No wonder exaggeration is such a part of our presentation amongst our own kind, when size and exposure are the plumbline of influence.

Forget being able to call down fire. If you only have one great protégé to leave your mantle to, then you have not sufficiently maximized your ministry.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a rule that none of their Kingdom Hall churches can go beyond 250 in membership before they will split it and start a new one. This is for one very pivitol reason amidst several; they preserve the power of discipleship.

They would rather rule a region than rule a building. They would rather intimately disciple a family than hoard a mass. Church planting in our present day is perceived more as a job for the missions department than it is a central task of the New Testament church.

To change our worldview we will have to change our definition of what we consider to be successful church growth. Is it numerical growth or growth in the people? It is too obvious in the mega-growth of the last thirty years that people growth and numbers growth are easily confused.

Disciples do not pack megasanctuaries. Followers do. Disciples are not made by a marketable spiritual principle. Followers are.

Disciples don’t want God because Starbucks is in the lobby of their church. Followers do. And while using a message to attract followers is not the problem, allowing the message to maintain them in a follower state is.

Jesus on the jumbo-tron I agree with the concept of one of my heroes Tommy Barnett, of pastoring your leaders and your leaders pastoring the people.

However the recent mega-growth boom has done more to produce mega-anonymity that has been labeled mega-growth. Mega-follower ministry is not where we actually sit near a Pastor who is breaking spiritual bread with us on Sunday morning. It is rather where we sit near the big-screen that the pastor’s image is being shown on.

Why wouldn’t the masses love megaanonymity if mega-unaccountability is also a part of the package? According to church statistician George Barna, from a survey conducted between 2002 and 2004, over 50% of the average church attendees in mainstream evangelical America were not sure that they had given their lives to the Lord, despite their regular church attendance.

We’re throwing food to the masses rather than feeding them.

And since the crowd is far enough away when they catch it, they can either use it or leave it in the seat — or throw it away if they do not like it. We have created more Sunday morning distance than Sunday morning impartation. And not only do we have the nerve to attribute this distance as New Testament twenty-first century ministry that God is somehow responsible for, but we also expect the throngs from the tenth row on back to at least feel fortunate enough that they were able to be anywhere in the domed vicinity to receive Jesus via the jumbo T.V. If Jesus was ministering in today’s standards He would have been considered a success for attracting five thousand families almost over-night. He would also be considered a failure for ending up with twelve after losing the rest in one sermon (John 6). It is tough to consider yourself a success in modern day ministry terms if you are Jesus. When you have preached to thousands in three years and only affected less than twenty-people radically, you’re not much of a ministerial success.

And the issue of church size, whether big or small, is irrelevant

compared to how profoundly one generation of Christianity can continually demonstrate just how much that its spiritual codependence far outweighs its spiritual independence. It is the throngs of under-achievers who are labeled as growth. Those who see a typical Sunday morning worship service, or an arena event, as not much more than their opportunity to live as the alter-egos of the driven, visionary, articulate, fashionable, magnetically charming person in the pulpit.

So in one sense, we have created “super-fans”, and called it growth.

The man, his message, and his book deal.

This generation has become one where we equate the gospel with a personality. It’s as if we cannot trace a word from God back to where we applied it as much as we can trace it back to the person who said it.

This then exposes the differences between ministrybuilding and Kingdom-building.

Building ministry is based around what we give to the masses. But building the Kingdom is about what we demand of the masses to become, i.e., individuals willing to pay more than the mass will be willing to.

Yes the masses need the gospel as much as anyone. But the problem is not the masses. The problem is what we are doing to purposely hold onto the masses. Our promises of everything great God cannot wait to do for them, is far outweighing any no-frills, no-illustrated sermon description of what the cost is to become something great in God and then our demand for them to pay it.

Presentation addiction.

Jesus did not take a sabbatical or do public damage control when the five thousand left Him. He was not trying to keep the five thousand.

Sure He attracted them, but His message was not built around keeping them. While He could

give people loaves and fishes more out of sympathy than intention, His message was not a loaves and fishes message. His message was a discipleship message.

Jesus’ identity was not in the number of those who followed but the number of those who unselfishly pay the price to embrace His Kingdom. He wasn’t trying to give people three principles for success, or five principles for receiving your harvest.

He wasn’t writing books on ten steps to abundance either. Even the Beatitudes, as poetic and serene

Disciples do not pack mega-sanctuaries.

Followers do. Disciples are not made by a marketable spiritual principle. Followers are.

Disciples don’t want God because Starbucks is in the lobby of their church. Followers do. And while using a message to attract followers is not the problem, allowing the message to maintain them in a follower state is. as we try to portray them, were the ultimate mandate to self-control.

As a result we have a churched generation that arrogantly assumes they can partake of God’s nature and experience true prosperity by simply working a spiritual principle rather than submitting to ongoing spiritual conversion. This is not an issue of trying to complicate the Gospel, but we need to do more than just serve notice on the devil every The Worldview Leader

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week that your God’s special child, and anyone who hurts you is going to be sorry they did when they see you ride around in the new Mercedes that God blessed you with. People are juggling insanity and we’re giving them pulpit pablum to fix it.

This generation more than any other celebrates the entrance of the word, more than the application of it. We’re far more addicted to who said, “thus says the Lord,” than we are over what it might mean to walk out the “thus says the Lord.” Many do not even question whether the Lord said it at all. We will shout you down in a meeting while making little to no connection with what it would cost to live what we are shouting about.

In many contemporary charismatic churches they will bring money up to the platform while you are preaching if what you are preaching is truly exciting. The last time this happened to me I did not know whether I was preaching the Word of the Lord or I was a dancer at a strip club. We’ve produced a generation of picky eaters who know more what their favorite preacher says about the truth than they know about the truth itself. And their excitement over what they have been promised by the preacher prohibits them from feeling any sorrow or mourning over such things as why they have changed churches, jobs, or spouses, but have not changed levels of life.

3. A worldview is not a revival.

REVIVAL IS NOT A CURE! (oops, just ticked some of you off). Of course revival is good, and necessary at certain times. But people are not developed or sustained by revival. Revivals do not emphasize worldviews. Worldview is about vision. And vision, or lack of it, is what determines the destiny or deterioration of a people. Every credible revival in history that has brought about true reformation has necessarily followed reformational preaching. This type of preaching was what the puritans referred to as “light and heat.” But in establishing 10

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a twenty-first century worldview, we have to at least be open to preaching a reforming Gospel that is not so narrow and self-inclusive that we end up sounding culturally inept. Our message would have to do more to call people to arms, than call people to give in the offering.

It’s more about speaking with both force and relevancy at the same time.

The American church must cease getting people excited, leaving them where they are, and then calling it “anointed ministry.”

The American church is spiritually proficient enough to get cars, homes, and pay raises but not changed enough to eliminate divorces, depression, split churches, and power abuse. They function with an emotional maturity similar to that of a twelve-year-old.

4. A worldview would mean that preachers could no longer act like spiritual drug dealers who feed peoples addiction to anointing and spiritual gifts without producing any significant behavioral change.

Church people can become as addicted to environment as easily as non-churched people can become addicted to cocaine or alcohol. It’s easy to become addicted to a spiritual environment when

scores of television preachers and conference celebrities are promising you things like “the double portion anointing that is in the house tonight.” Or, when promises are made of the transference of one high profile preacher’s mantle to the mass crowd watching by T.V. or sitting in the seats. Then there’s my personal favorite, “generational curses are going to break off of you right now.” And, of course, all this without any real insight as to whether your lifestyle and sacrifice really qualifies you to even be in the ballpark of a double-portion anointing. Or, if your submission to a realm of character change that is a process before it is a prayer line, would even position you for generational curse removal.

We’ve marketed the promise of God’s instant favor so presumptuously that we have lost our platform to explain the sacrifice of virtue. But, if we only have a few moments to win a crowd, raise an offering, sell a product, or get the phone lines ringing with telethon pledges, how far can you win them with the demand for behavioral change? It’s just easier to make a bunch of “faith-favor statements” and “holy-hype declarations.” Let the gullible people figure it out for themselves days, weeks, and months afterwards while their lives are still repeating the same patterns of confused religious helplessness.

The American church must cease with getting people excited, leaving them where they are, and then calling it “anointed ministry.” The American church is spiritually proficient enough to get cars, homes, and pay raises but not changed enough to eliminate divorces, depression, split churches, and power abuse. They function with an emotional maturity similar to that of a twelve-year-old.

We have taught a generation how to use the attainment of “stuff”, as the witness that God’s hand is on their lives. We are the only crowd on earth who claim to have solutions yet find it difficult relating to the depth of the problem. Problems are only

resolved by yet another fundraiser of “if you will pay for my projects then God will solve your problems.”

To make matters worse they point toward the eastern sky that Jesus is going to soon break through leaving people with the impression that their problems won’t matter anyhow.

We blame issues like depression, suicide and divorce on “satan is just out to get Christians.” When in actuality it is simply one person’s self-centered, self-management of helplessness.

We’ve sold the term “Miracle” so much that we have created a spiritual generation that resents the concept of “process.”

We have taught Christians how to “will change and assume Godliness.” They say, “I’ve got it,” instead of, “I see it, I change it, and I live it.”

This is what makes our HolyGhost fundraising techniques and merchandising so easy to sell — it’s the illusion of instant change.

Whereas the process, on the other hand, transpires regardless of whether you sow a miracle offering or obtain your prophecy on tape.

There is no offering big enough to circumvent the process. We’ve got people putting their faith out for a harvest rather than believing they can outgrow years of pain and personal hang-ups. They are jazzed to sow an offering to change their circumstance, but they have no clue of how to change their lives.

We’ve told them that prosperity will respond to their offering.

When in reality the law of seedtime and harvest works even for the un-believer (just ask Bill Gates).

Still, what God’s Word declares as true prosperity will only come in response to a personal submission to the truth.

God will not give you a Bentley as a reward. Bentleys are purchased by knowing how to make money.

When God prospers you He will give you a piece of Himself. Nothing about God’s nature is instant. It

is line upon line, precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:10). God uses one generation to build upon another.

It is also covenantal; which means it is providential more than it is miraculous.

5. We have got to stop being the “kings of the hidden fine print,” and start preaching a long term commitment to a long term Gospel.

Welcome to “Holy Humanism 101.” It’s the pride of the mass altar call, rather than the pride of the depth of personal submission. It’s rather tough to have a functional worldview for the next hundred years of the church when we do not even have a functional worldview of how to bring people to Christ.

This is where we have confused humanism with Christianity.

What should be entry level Christianity — the explicit denial to self — is instead presented as something for only the veteran believer.

The masses are appealed to with a “God can’t wait to fix it all and make you happy” invitation, that shrinks in the fear of an impending sparseness if the parameters of true commitment were discussed.

And, I know the whole “get them in the net and God will clean them” concept, which at limited times can hold merit. But, allowing anyone to assume that their carnality can compete with His deity so that they feel God has earned their trust — as long as they will just get into the net — is as heretically deceptive as it is self-exalting.

We are selling Jesus to the masses through selling them a seat at the table of “how to negotiate your walk with God, and stay in control of who you are” — and we are calling that salvation. We’re telling people that God wants to be their friend, and then sandbagging them the moment He demands to be their Lord.

Without a biblical worldview we pride ourselves in who came forward more than who came back. And if this “bride of Christ” stuff were really true, then our

humanistic approach is not so much preparing people to be a bride as it is preparing them to be wedding crashers.

In conclusion: A reconstructing move of God cannot be contained in catch phrases like “alive in 2005,” or “more in 2004.” It will be a motive change, then a perspective change, then ultimately a way of life.

We cannot keep saying our mission is “souls,” in the midst of the spiritual environments where the overwhelming majority of people present are already spiritually proficient in the art of Christian etiquette. There is coming a day in Christian America when the mass will get wind of a New Testament order that says that it is okay not to expect to receive deep spiritual growth from the cheap seats. That it is really okay to want a gospel that does more to develop them than fleece them.

And when this day comes, sensationalist gospel will be just like a has-been rock star of the eighties hair bands playing now to halfempty halls with a half-empty voice.

Yes, we need to reach as many as possible; but not in some mass “slip in slip out let the Children’s Pastor and youth Pastor raise your kids for you” style. There are no V.I.P’s in a worldview; only trailblazers and mavericks.

This is not about a vision for a new building. It is about a vision to change history.

Thank you for allowing me to share. Catch the fire.

Your partner for reform…

J.Konrad Hölè

J. Konrad Hölè is the senior pastor of LifeChangers Church North America.

To learn more about his ministry visit www.worldcentreministries.org The Worldview Leader

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