Addicted To Church?

This is a video by Pastor Ken Patterson of Baltimore, MD. He makes some really interesting points. Know anyone like this? Think this video might be helpful? Pass it along.

interesting vid

lj.

@ 9:17 I was ROTFL!!!!!

addicted to church? doubt I've ever been addicted to church. Maybe addicted to simply knowing stuff....but not just church activities and stuff like that. See it all the time though. most "christians" are addicted to church....that's just my belief though.

Ok so he defined church as "those who act outside the four walls". Where did that definition come from? So the church is service, witnessing, being on your job...in your community...and at the mall? Huh?

There are people who are addicted to preaching? That's not necessarily the issue he seemed to raising. The problem Pastor Ken raised had to deal with folk being so focused on the PERSONALITY (Pastor, Minister, etc.) as opposed to the message PREACHED.

It comes to the point that all we know comes from the church? I didn't really follow that point. What we know about the world has its starting point in the Scriptures. We understand murder, lying, adultry, etc against the backdrop of the Scriptural teaching of Sin. If the church which is the pillar and ground of truth addresses these issues Scripturally, the church (as it unpacks the Scriptures and using teaching as its primary ministry) should govern what we know about the world.

We become socially decayed as a result of being church addicts? Huh?

Church addiction isn't the underlined issue that needs to be addressed, it's folks who are in unbiblical churches and the subsequent effect that continual exposure to such an environment has on the heart of the saint.

Another problematic observation with regards to this video: it has a STRONG bent towards the theurapeutic as opposed to the THEOLOGICAL. This is a disturbing trend that sparks the kinds of things that he notes in his video. Making this sort of paradigm shift fosters church atmospheres which are a far cry from the NT model. It rather aligns itself according to an emergent or emerging model at best or at worst it models church according to Oprah or Dr. Phil.

Oh and 10 minutes and 30 seconds were used up making skewed observations and less than 10 seconds were allotted to saying Jesus is the answer to the problem. Well what does he mean when he says Jesus is the answer or solution? Does he mean remedy is modelling Christ along missional lines? Is he directing us toward Christ's NT mandate or model for what a church is, solves the issue? Should we just say the name Jesus in prayer and that deals with the problem?

The more I think of this video I find it less helpful for its explicit content. Yet it comes off as unintentionally helpful in that it provokes the viewer to scrutinize it and scrutinize yourself to be sure that you're viewing it through the proper (biblical, doctrinal, theological, apologetic) lens.

Redeemed wrote:

Ok so he defined church as "those who act outside the four walls". Where did that definition come from? So the church is service, witnessing, being on your job...in your community...and at the mall? Huh?

There are people who are addicted to preaching? That's not necessarily the issue he seemed to raising. The problem Pastor Ken raised had to deal with folk being so focused on the PERSONALITY (Pastor, Minister, etc.) as opposed to the message PREACHED.

It comes to the point that all we know comes from the church? I didn't really follow that point. What we know about the world has its starting point in the Scriptures. We understand murder, lying, adultry, etc against the backdrop of the Scriptural teaching of Sin. If the church which is the pillar and ground of truth addresses these issues Scripturally, the church (as it unpacks the Scriptures and using teaching as its primary ministry) should govern what we know about the world.

We become socially decayed as a result of being church addicts? Huh?

Church addiction isn't the underlined issue that needs to be addressed, it's folks who are in unbiblical churches and the subsequent effect that continual exposure to such an environment has on the heart of the saint.

I definitely feel you here, Derek. I can also relate to where Pastor Ken was coming from. I think he made mention of the symptomatic problems that certain kinds of churches seem to develop, but I agree that he really didn't address the real issue behind all of that.

I also disagree with the definition of the church. As you stated in our conversation over the weekend, the church or "ecclessia" are "the called out assembly." So, the church consists of people primarily in an assembly of believers. They do all those things outside of the four walls, but the things within the four walls are of the utmost importance to the health and life of the church.

I think the social decay he may have been speaking about is that of people outside of the church, even believers. Sometimes, folks can be so involved with their church that they have no time for the saints of God who don't belong to their own church. I don't think he's advocating that people stop working in their churches, though.

But, I agree that the problem really lies in that people are in churches that are unbiblical so they don't really understand how the church is supposed to operate.

My response (also considering Derek's points)