3 Responses to Steve Furtick and Elevation Church

1. Rob Braun says:

   May 13, 2016 at 2:28 am

   Ironically I joined the CRC after serving as a minister in a church similar to this for over 10 years. Although my church wasn’t a “Health, Wealth and Prosperity Church” it was a movement built upon the church being lead and governed by the lead Pastor. Elders were only advisory and appointed, for life, by the Pastor. As a direct result of this kind of “personality cult” church government, there was little or no true accountability for the lead Pastors either in their life or doctrine. This is the reason I love the Reformed Confessions and decided to join a church that confessed to believe in them. They lay out a theological base line of what the church is supposed to believe and hold what comes out of the pulpits accountable to them. My former church’s beliefs and doctrine were determined by only the Lead Pastor and could change as the “Spirit” move him on any given Sunday day. This is why I was devastated by the CRC’s change from holding all Office Bearers accountable to the 3 Forms of Unity to instead allowing them to pretty much believe in what ever they wanted to in the new Covenant for Office Bearers. I feel very strongly that it undermines our commitment to the Scriptures and its authority in our beliefs of which our Confessions so clearly bring out. Article 7 of the Belgic Confession as an example. This is the wrong direction for us especially now when there is such a dire need to be presenting the soundness of biblical faith to a church culture swirling out of control in moral chaos and madness.

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   • PaulVK says:

     May 13, 2016 at 2:42 am

     Why do you think the new covenant didn’t do this? To me it seemed essentially the same as the firm of subscription.

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2. Rob Braun says:

   May 17, 2016 at 2:20 pm

   If that is true about the Covenant for Office Bearers statement then why didn’t we just stay with the original 3 Forms of Unity statement? Clearly it is allowing “Office Bearers” who don’t agree with our theology into leadership roles in our churches. My question is, if our Elders are “lovingly” allowed to disagree with key theological and confessional positions yet hold church office, by what measure do they determine and protect the standard of our church’s faith? As I wrote above, I left a church that operated that way. I certainly didn’t expect the one I joined would end up going the same way.

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