Spiritual Formation, what is its end game?

[Reddogs]

 

Spiritual Formation is taking over many churches and especially the emerging church movement, in which you will find the same ecumenical pattern all the way back from Vatican II, bring everyone no matter who, when, what and preach acceptance and love. Hide real truth and ignore repentance from sin and iniquity, and unveil easy theories and practices from contemplative Spirituality Mysticism. It claims to provide wonderful new ways for our people to draw close to God and seek higher spirituality; it has, as its foundation, the ancient mystical and pantheistic teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism, and paganism.The techniques used for silencing the mind in Spiritual Formation is identical to classic occultic meditation practices taught in Hinduism, Buddhism, wicca, paganism, etc.

Here is Rick Warren on Spiritual Formation:

"From time to time God has raised up a parachurch movement to reemphasize a neglected purpose of the church... The Discipleship. Spiritual Formation Movement. A reemphasis on developing believers to full maturity has been the focus ... authors such as ... Richard Foster and Dallas Willard have underscored the importance of building up Christians and establishing personal spiritual disciplines.... [this] movement has a valid message for the church...[it] has given the body a wake-up call. —Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Church, p. 126.

And from Willow Creek:

"The Practice offers Saturday morning meetings which provide a rhythm of worship, teaching on a particular spiritual discipline and time to experience or "practice" that discipline. This practice time allows participants to get a fuller understanding of how to incorporate the discipline in their daily lives." Spiritual Formation at Willow Creek

They are taking over the churches by ignoring or setting aside the church manual and putting in what and who they want to run their methods, and throwing out anyone who gets in their way or tries to protest. They take out all the elders and teachers who try to stop their agenda of Spiritual Formation. Anyone who rejects the Spiritual Formation and Spiritual model they bring in is either accused of 'apostasy' and being 'against the church' or being a trouble maker, stirring up a rebellious spirit. Some are told not to speak of what is happening or are rebuked telling them by their 'dissent' they are causing 'others to fall' or 'stumble' and keeping away potential converts. They came into our church led by the Conference leader who basically made sure it was installed in our church. Our churches original founder was told not to bother to come back in a phone call with no regard to his place on the board or work in building up our church, the elders were forced out, the church board was filled with what can only be deemed as the unknowing or those lacking spiritual discernment, and those who fully knew what was happening and I can only say were purposely pushing it with no thought to the results of their destructive work. Well, they took over and when I went with my wife to the church board meeting to investigate they threw me and my wife out of the church board, luckily they didn't put their hands on my wife or it may have gotten dicey to say the least. They ignored the nomination of leaders voted in the prenomination church vote and the pastor put in his people against what plainly was the wishes of the church, and cancelled the final vote in front of the church when they saw it was going to go against them. When we went to challenge these actions it was too late as they had packed the church board with those the pastor had picked and we had no choice but to leave our brand new church we had worked so hard to raise money to build in the hands of what I can only say to be kind, were not spiritually minded at all.

Now sadly our church building has become a empty house of the Lord, few show up for church service to say nothing of Sabbath School, many of those who supported the implementation of the Spiritual Formation by the pastor have left or began to see the problems it has brought. They had told them, as in the church in Miami I had previously attended but had moved before I saw the results, that Spiritual Formation was going to have waves of people join, increase the membership with those who were touched by its power,  and bring a deeper spiritual relationship to everyone in the church. Nothing could be further from the truth, it deceived many who had come seeking truth to our doorstep, it destroyed the core believer group, it muzzled any who tried to speak out, they even told the greeters they could not say "Happy Sabbath" or any equivalents on Sabbath morning. I know because they told it to my wife among the other greeters. We sadly made the decision we had to leave our brand new church we had helped build and now meet with others at a rented church.  Watch out for Spiritual Formation, in any of its forms, as it soon will come to your church brought by those you would think could be trusted and do its destructive work.

I got this reply on the issue of Spiritual Formation from one of the forums..."Every single one of the young pastors here in Minneapolis are promoting Spiritual Formation in their own ways.

The way I discovered this was when Pastor Jerry Holt (who laughed as he confessed that he never accepted ordination in the SDA church) as his first public outreach he sponsored a public reading of the books "A Purpose Driven Life" and "A Purpose Driven Church". And in those books are the present day mantra of the Contemplative prayer/ Spiritual Formation movement.

This was at the same time that he sold a paid for church out from under the elders of the Northbrook church in Robinsdale MN, he took away the SDA title (No mention anywhere of our denomination on the new building), put the church over 2 million dollars into debt, brought in a rock band and TV cameras and started baptizing homosexuals without the conference permission. Then he asked to keep the tithe for himself and that is when the conference finally stepped in. If that man was not sent by Satan to help destroy the SDA church then I am not an Adventist. Then after he did all that he went right back to the Lutheran Seminary where the main emphasis is on Spiritual formation, contemplative prayer techniques.

That book that he spent thousands of church dollars promoting the outreach of reading publicly says that the Spiritual Formation movement has a "vital message for the church," and has "given the body of Christ a wake up call" (p. 127 Purpose Driven Church).

How did these guys get so deep into our institutions? As soon as they are discovered they send in reinforcements to persuade others against the ones making waves. The persecution I went through for sounding the alarm I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, yet these men claim to be led by and ordained by God. And guess who is promoting all the change in the church?

If you guys are serious about waking up to see how they have infiltrated us, watch carefully those who advocate the changes in our denomination, look at the things they bring in, including the writings of men who are leaders of the Spiritual Formation cause.

You will see that these men are in top positions inside our church now. They are everywhere and no one is going to listen to you now because these men are masters at gaining trust. Most of them have degrees in psychology and they are master manipulators. ,,,,The issue of women ordination was brought to the SDA church through those manipulators, and now they have set so many issues into motion our church is not the same as it was even ten years ago....

Ask them about where they were graduating from College. You will find the pattern there. Watch out for those who say things like "Ellen White said Jesus was mystic"... Interesting to say the least.