Thursday, September 27, 2007

Taking care of your flock...

What would you have done??? Last night we had a guest speaker come to our Weds. night chapel service. He has been scheduled for a year by our previous director, so we felt obliged to have him, and we were going on the recommendation of a friend of a friend of a friend... so, this guy comes and he claims to be an Apostle. He says he has visited 145 nations around the world, spoke in South Korea in front of 700,000 people, and is the youngest apostle ever to go and do such and such with so and so. He told us that he prays for seven hours a day, and for the students to be pastors they must pray at least two a day, read their Bible a minimum of an hour a day, and fast once a week. So, his teaching was okay (I mean, I'm not in agreement about it being LAW to have a good ministry you have to do these things), but his attitude was strange. I am bothered that I can't find him ANYWHERE on the web. I have googled his name, I have tried to find things out about his ministry and I can't find a thing. What would you do?

5 comments:

El Goyito said...

What did I do...? Well, honestly in 20 years of being Christian I have NEVER seen his degree of arrogance and pride come from any pulpit. Fortunately for me I had to duck out early with my drama troupe. This clearly annoyed him and he said "For those of you staying, please raise your hand." I wanted, oh HOW I wanted, to confront this so-called "Apostle to the Nations" after the service but well...it's probably better I didn't! Might've lost my religion fer a minute!

Hbomb said...

Our pastor here has been very clear that he will not let anyone come in to speak without first knowing and having a relationship with them. That was a difficult position for you to be put in and I will pray God will give you wisdom. I do think it is your responsiblity to share with the students what you believe is truth and what you believe about this man otherwise they are going to believe that you believe what he said because you "supported" him being there (if that makes sense). That is however just my thoughts, and I will simply pray for God's insight for you.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Helen. You have to talk to the students about him. Maybe use it as an exercise for them to search the scriptures to "test" what he preached.

He sounds very familiar. Hmmmm...

Anonymous said...

Well, hindsight is 20/20 but...

Probably the right thing to do would have been to confront the dude right there in the middle. If he really was that bad, then he needed it. And it would have been a never-forget lesson for the students.

But that's like getting into an argument and 5 minutes later thinking, "Oh man! I should have said this, and this, and then this!"

I would publicly correct the things he said, apologize to the students for letting him through the door, assure them he would not be back and then do as Sarah says... turn it into an exercise.

I remember a few years back we had a guy in our church who just went on a rant in the middle of his sermon about how terrible the American church was. It was beyond constructive and just plain angry. My brother, the pastor, said firmly from the front row, "That's enough. Too harsh." It got really quiet for a second and he straightened up. I don't remember anything else he said, but it sure made me grateful for a pastor like that.

Kevin Thomasson said...

Why can't people just preach the word of God. I see more and more young ministers failing to just stick to preaching the word and getting out of God's way.