Jeremy Darling's first sermon....

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[An ex-GCM pastor]

Jeremy Darling's first sermon....

http://www.evergreenccmedia.com/messages/lib/2008-08-01-rock.mp3

As we have read in the other post about pastors and "prepared-ness."  I guess it is in good timing Jeremy's first sermon.  He's just like papa.  A cocky little runt.  "I don't like school...."  Listen to it.

-Ex

[AgathaL'Orange]

Hey... he uses the old "winsome" term that GC uses with their own special definition.

This is the REAL definition:
1.  generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence <a winsome smile>  
2  : cheerful  , lighthearted  

The way GCx uses it is "Win" some.  When they say, "Are you winsome?"  They mean, does your behavior win people to God.  

It's funny because GC is the only place I have heard that term used that way.  It's only used that way by old schoolers or old schoolers' kids.

Also, he says the "making Christ attractive" statement too.  It's just like listening to the same GC message over and over.  Incredible patterning after his father.

I'm sure he's a nice guy, truly... I don't know him... but it's the same message!  The same thing!  

Just my initial thoughts.  Geez.  I would hate to post my first sermon and have mean people like me tear it apart.  

Poor guy.

[AgathaL'Orange]

He does have a good point about kindness though... it does work wonders. However, lots of people around are REALLY nice... not just GCMers.  This "us" vs. "them" elitist attitude is getting old as well.

[Linda]

I didn't listen to the message, so my comment is a general one on the concept of making Christ attractive to the world.

On the surface, it sounds right, but if you step back and look at what is being said it seems to me profoundly arrogant.

Think of it. The Creator of the entire Universe, from before time began, set in motion a plan to redeem all of mankind through the sacrifice of His only Son. How could I possibly say or do anything that would make Christ more attractive?

What arrogance to assume that if I dress a certain way, or play a certain kind of music, or preach on "relevant" topics, I can somehow make Christ more attractive. As if Christ HAS to be made more attractive and it's in my power to do that.

Of course, we shouldn't be jerks! But this isn't an "either or situation". Those "winsome" characteristics are gifts of the Holy Spirit, which gets me to what I think the heart of the issue is for GC. It's works righteousness. Do this, act this way, and you will be right with God and your local church. If you don't do this, or act this way, we will shun you and God won't like you very much. The fruit of GC that we experienced personally, wasn't all that "winsome" in the end.

[An ex-GCM pastor]

Another concern I had with posting the Jeremy Darling FIRST sermon is that in a very large way it is a recycled message of his dad, Mark.  With refering to the other posts about what makes a good pastor, go to seminary, etc..., and that GCM only prepares GCMers. And the guy who became a great sales rep with being a church planter (i.e. If I can get a couple to go to church on Sunday, I can sell your wiggit) is a lame excuse of what ECC or any GCM can do.  It's more than a sales and marketing thing, but in a way that's the very thing ECC has prided itself on.

What I mean to hit th bulls-eye, is the fact that I recall when Ken Johnson became a pastor at ECC.  He pretty much changed the way he dressed and talked and acted.  He went from a 3M engineer, dressed as an engineer, and almost became a copy of Darling.  Dressed for a winsome-day, acted winsome.  Almost like a GQ man.  And he in my mind was a nerd, through-and through.  Never knew why he became a pastor.  

Back to Jeremy D.  It really scares and highly concerns me that ECC is seen as the creme ala creme of churches in the GCM-system.  Mark or Jeremy sound the same.  Acted the same in this sermon.  It is a carbon copy of Mark.  Ken tried to copy Mark.  That winsome theology is less and less imperative as there are many churches more interested in helping people, and not just to show a fancy show on a drama stage or sound "cool" during the sermon.  But I expect nothing more out of ECC than what it is doing now, a c.c. of Mark Darling.  It is uncanny how it's the same-sounding.
The apple does not fall far from the tree.  I am sure that Mark is sheperding Jeremy for a key leadership role in GCM, as Mark himself is a national leader, and has a "bit of a push."

A question I have:  1) from the other post about prep for leadership, what makes J. Darling a good pastor?  He even says he did not like school, just like papa.  He started college at the age of 15, post-secondary, so the State of Minnesota tax system paid for the most of his tuition.  WAY to yound to really appreciate a good education as a learner, as something I should said in my first post is that Jeremy says in his FIRST sermon that high school is a waste of time...sound like someone you know already?  Education a waste of time.  Seminary a waste of time....?

Another 2) if being a pastor at ECC, by which is required to make it to PASTOR prayer meetings by 6:10am 3-4 a week, and really a SHOW of your loyal love for ECC and what the pastorship stands for, and not an education, what the heck makes J. Darling a good pastor?  He went to the early morning training sessions testing your loyal love?

3) Winsome will always be the cornerstone of the Rock and GCM.  Why?

A loyal love for Christ is more impressive than any loyal love or same-sounding sermon from a national leader's kid.  A carbon copy.

-Ex

[wastedyearsthere]

I remember the "winsome" mantra in GCC being told that they were following Paul in 1Corinthians 9:19-24 about becoming all things to all men in order to win the most.  I always felt they took this to an extreme which meant going out drinking with those that drink etc etc.   When I was in the GCC church in the 80's-90's they wanted to be like other churches.  Without good solid seminary teaching and foundation they could never succeed.  Talk about an in-grown church!

I listened to much of this message and felt like I was transported back to 1984........  There messages never change.  I know people who have left merely because of the lack of meat to their messages!  

As far as making Christ attractive -- I agree with the poster who said how arrogant is this?  This limits God -- or makes it conditional -- we can win people if we dress nice, love people, on and on......  

As a usual GCC message everything remains up to us to win people and should be our only goal in life.....

[EverAStudent]

When you have not been trained in the Scriptures and how to interpret them so as to find what the author originally meant to convey, AND if you have an overarching biased filter through which you funnel all Scripture (e.g. evangelism), then all your messages have to sound alike.

Lacking the skill to read the irony embedded in the poetry, the deep doctrine of Romans, the purposeful intent of God's manipulation of history in the narratives, and the dire warnings from Jude, everything just comes out "evangelize."  How could it come out otherwise?  Psalms--oh, it shows how to be winsome, so go evangelize.  Romans--it's just the gospel, so go evangelize.  Nehemiah--that's an allegory about building the church, so go evangelize.  Jude--he was warning us to convert the wicked of this world, so go evangelize.  Sigh...

Such an approach misses out on the rich and varied content of the Word of God.  Holy living, God's plans for people, the eschaton, relationship building, decision making principles, guildelines for reconciliation ... so much, so very much...

How sad that GCx-ers often do not even know what they are missing.

[AgathaL'Orange]

Let's see... what is the GCx sermon repertoire?

1.  Be winsome.
2.  Submit to authority (specifically mine).
3.  Winsomely, submit to authority.
4.  When you are submitting to authority... don't forget to be winsome.
5.  Winsomely demonstrate submission to authority.
6.  Don't be winsome to members of the opposite sex for the purposes of dating.
7.  DO be winsome to members of the opposite sex in order to get them to attend church and then consequently submit to authority.
8.  Give away all your money to the church, but keep enough so as to winsomely purchase cool clothes in order to be even MORE winsome.
9.  Win some trophies in heaven, by being winsome and "winning some."


Got a little carried away here.

[theresearchpersona]

You know on the "make Christ attractive" thing, it comes from man-centered evangelism and the neo-arminianism that has very strangely pervaded modern evangelicalism?

What I mean is that it's a branch off the idea that you save anyone if you just find "the key to their heart"; or by offering them something they think is better than their sin (like a purpose-filled life of social service...hmmm....sounds a lot like what the unbelieving world does when it wants to have a meaningful life). One can trace the modern roots of this to Charles Finney.

Funny because I know plenty of people who are very very much unbelievers yet they're incredibly kind, patient, gentle, self-controlled, loving, happy, liked by all around them: and their numbers are just increasing more and more with the proliferation of those ideals in secular culture: those aren't things that come only of the Holy Spirit.

Rather anyone can cultivate those, but nobody can cultivate a love of THE Truth: and like Aquinas's response to the man who said he knew His friends were seeking God, the world seek's God's benefits, not God: or else it'd want to know the Bible's theology (ahem, the Truth): in fact, "theology" just means "about God" (and I believe that's an even better translation than "the study of God"); the closest I've ever seen GC come to teaching bible doctrine is the Leadership Training Materials...and those are egregiously poor and irenic toward wholly contradictory stances so as to keep and foster an uncontended-for unity (no "contend for the faith delivered only once" to have for unity here, just "unity in diversity (in [almost] anything so long as you claim to be Christian)").

But very revealing is which Christ are they worshipping at ECC? Or christs? Because the Christ of the Bible says the world hates Him: period; he's NOT attractive to it. And offering God's blessings but not the whole story on God (yes, if you are in sin, He does HATE you...according not only to psalms, but the NT says that between the believers in Him and God Christ has broken down a wall of enmity (hatred)). Today's world thinks hate and love are wholly incompatible...but anyone who's ever known a love-hate relationship knows otherwise (though obviously we're nowhere as near as deep as God in such things: it's just illustrative).

I says "christs" above because surveying the beliefs and things in which people look to in GC, it's not homogenous faith: a biblical one in any single person is difficult to find, it's various compatible worldly philosophies drawn from worldlings' books that called themselves Christians: compatible insofar as the drive for ecumenical unity in shallow and empty things were emphasized as those things were being integrated (some of which were programs aiming at cross-organizational "unity" explicitly).

There was a Reformation distinction made which, as best I can tell, is a valid on embodied in scripture, that the Church is truly invisible: having a spiritual unity, although believers will be made evident. Funny because in the kind of unity GC drives for they say "disunity is a sin that grieves his heart" however scripture itself says "there must be divisions [heresies] among you, that those who are being approved may be made manifest" (note my verbs are slightly different for translating them more literally).

But GC squashes these because to contend for the faith will disrupt their program of evangelism...but evangelism for what? and for who?


[note: "Arminianism", if you don't know, basically boils down to that man makes the final decision to be saved vs. God being sovereign over salvation; it's opposed to what guys like Augustine and Calvin taught from scripture; theologians go even more technical and call it "moderated" or "semi-pelagianism", because it's very much the same as the pelagian heresy condemned in the early centuries; very strangely (and something that's still of concerned to us protestant folk) is that with the rise of humanism came the re-introduction of pelagianism's tenets into the general atmosphere of the Chruch, so that some of the Catholic (later protestant leaders) doctors/teachers began to fight it: but as  then many of them also began to protest Roman Catholicism on scriptural grounds Rome had a counter-reaction, convulsed, and reversed positions since their opponents were also focusing on these points of concern--such as Arminianism (which wasn't named such until even after Jacobus Arminus's death and the codification of a system of it by his followers, but which ideas were around). This is really odd, though, since it even contradicts Augustine, which the Vatican calls its church's "doctor".]

[lone gone]

Good observations....

Augustine was just one of the "doctors"... hence the Roman Catholics can have various understandings.... even as the various Popes have contributed to the ongoing understanding of God's will. I am not surprised that they can teach two messages.

GC, along with all the world, suffers from a delusion that is summed up by Luther.... curvatus In se...   Latin for Curving ( or turning) inside. It is our natural human physical tendency. We measure  and judge the world by the values we find inside ourselves. We look to ourselves to validate our experience. It is the "old Man" that still inhabits us and troubles us.

If we think we are winsome then we are winsome.... even if we are not. If we think we are approved then we are approved, even if we are not.

If we think we are "godly", or "just" or "righteous" or  "pious", we moight not be. Jesus himself taught that many will call him Lord, and yet they will not have known him.

Clinging for salvation to a tortured Jew hanging on a bloody cross is the height of human insanity.... but it is the truth. Only those to whom God has revealed this will understand it.... and then only by the understanding that God gives.

It's all God.

[theresearchpersona]

Only those to whom God has revealed this will understand it.... and then only by the understanding that God gives.

It's all God.

Glad you remember that from Jesus in the NT.

[Barry]

.....A true Leader..Is one who leads by example....Actions speak louder than words...Enigma..One who is more than he appears to be..He who is greater than thee..Jesus...Let me not Proclaim my Name..Humility.. is the greatest virtue..let us be a servant..let us be Un-seen..our deeds and true Heart..God Knows us..He will be the one to call us by our name..he will say come forward...

[Happy Camper]

I happen to be a current member of the GCC church in Fort Collins, and I'm praying for you all.

[Huldah]

Happy Camper, how should we interpret your visit here? It's not clear whether you're being snarky or sincere, or whether your prayers reflect an acknowledgment or a denial of the damage done by GC.

Either way, I hope you realize that many of us here pray for GC. With so much prayer on both sides, it's unfortunate that there's still such a chasm between former and current members.

[Captain Bible]

I happen to be a current member of the GCC church in Fort Collins, and I'm praying for you all.

I like camping too.