Osteen Said What?

Here is a video that the Museum of Idolatry did that goes through portions of one of Joel Osteen's talks to see if what he says lines up with Scripture. It is a little distracting because it is like watching an Asian Old Time Kung Fu movie (his lips don't line up perfectly- at least not when I watched it).

But if you can get past that and realize what he is teaching to folks and how the author of the Museum of Idolatry goes through, questioning his theology.

What do you think? Is he accurate in his comments during the video?

Christless Preaching

Now I’ve concluded that Jesus just didn’t make the cut. It wasn’t an accident or a mistake or trying to be sly with all those pesky post-moderns. It was worse than I thought: Jesus wasn’t needed, so he didn’t make an appearance. It was Christless preaching on purpose. --Michael Spencer

I recently came across a great blog called http://www.internetmonk.com/. Sadly shortly after finding out about it, the main writer, Michael Spencer, died. They have been running some of his older blog posts. I have been reading much lately on the pattern of churches to preach things other than Jesus.

Now, the Bible is clear, this is nothing new. We have always liked folks willing to tell us what we want to hear. This is especially prevalent in the bigger (mega) churches, who subscribe to the marketing and church growth models of Willow Creek and Saddleback, though many small churches deal with this as well. The Seeker-Sentisitive (or centered) churches seem more interested in getting people into the church and growing the church than training disciples, as a recent study done by Willow Creek showed. (The name of the study escapes me right now)

Anyway, the full blog post is here. I hope to post some portions in the next few weeks, but I don't know how my time will look. I highly recommend it.

DB