Leadership Videos from Verge Network

Many of you are involved in leadership in your local assemblies. Have you ever had experiences in ministry which seem to take away all your joy?  Sometimes the enemy of our souls has ways of creating intense frustration and discouragement.  Francis Chan looks at this at one of a number of videos at Verge Network’s YouTube channel.

Matthew 7:21 (NLT)

²¹ “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.

Here’s another message from the same channel. David Platt looks at the variety of beliefs — some of them somewhat wacky — belonging to people who identify as Christians. Can they really be Christ followers? I know some of you don’t have internet connections which allow you to watch videos, so some of the text is printed below.

David Platt says,

“We live in a day where is means almost nothing to be a Christian. According to research almost 4 out of every 5 Americans identify themselves as Christians…But in this group of self proclaimed Christians, less than half of them are involved in church on a weekly basis. Less than half of them believe the Bible is true. An overwhelming majority of them don’t have a biblical view of the world around them. So researchers went even deeper then to distinguish men and women who are ‘born again Christians,’ as if there’s any other kind of Christian. But these are people who say they’ve made a personal commitment to Jesus, they believe they’ll go to heaven, because they’ve accepted Jesus as their savior. And according to research nearly half of Americans are ‘born again Christians.’

But you look at this group of ‘born again Christians’ and researchers found that their beliefs and lifestyles and virtually indistinguishable from the world around them. Many ‘born again Christians’ believe their works can earn them a place in heaven. Others think that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. Some believe that Jesus sinned while He was on Earth. And an ever increasing number of ‘born again Christians’ just describe themselves as marginally committed to Jesus. So people you can use data like this to conclude that Christians are really not that different from the rest of the world. But I don’t think that interpretation of that research is accurate. I think the one thing that’s abundantly clear from those statistics is that there are a whole lot of people in our country who think that they are Christians, but they are not. There are scores of people—here and around the world who culturally distinguish themselves as Christians and biblically are not followers of Christ.”

Wishing Hell Wasn’t So Doesn’t Change the Bible

First, Radical author and pastor David Platt.  This was filmed in India as things were heating up in the U.S. over the publication of Rob Bell’s Love Wins, though I should add that Bell doesn’t clearly state some of the things he is being associated with.  Nonetheless, this is worthy of viewing:

Did you note the difference between “intellectual universalism” and “functional universalism.”

Next, Hell is Real But I Hate to Admit It author and pastor Brian Jones. The book is releasing in the next few days.  I wonder sometimes if perhaps there is a degree to which an understanding — perhaps an acceptance — of the doctrine of hell is mark of spiritual maturity; while at the same time others believe that a rejection of the doctrine of hell is some kind of mark of spiritual sophistication.  This video was directed to pastors, but there doesn’t seem to be a general book trailer.  You can read my review of the book here.