Is Spiritual Formation taking over the SDA Church?

[lazarus]

The pastors are now teaching it right in the churchs as Adventist made a great number of those going to the seminars. The seeds were sown then, and the Spiritual Formation/Discipline weeds are coming up now.

So what?

[debbym]

Quote:

All this business about mysticism.... it seems to me that if a person does anything to actually develop a one to one relationship with the biblical God its going to get called mysticism. Yet we have the examples of the trance states EGW went into, Jesus fasting in the desert ( you can bet he was in a different mind frame by the end of that. Why are people so very scared of anything that takes you past the books, words written by men and women, and directly to the source? You all want to spend eternity with this divine being, yet you are terrified of getting to know him now it seems.

I think you are projecting the thought and feeling of fear because there is a disagreement.

just because some may disagree with the spiritual formation and emergent church formation does not mean they are fearful.

just because there are sunday laws on the books waiting to be enforced, doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

Just because the signs of the times suggest Things are moving towards Christ's return doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

the work of the enemy at the end of time involves spiritualism. this is the bottom line. this is clearly described in sop.

Hypnotism deception and manipulation of the mind were present when eve was deceived and will bloom with more refinement and subtlety to mark the final deceptions of the world.

this doesn't mean we are scared, it means our eyes are open, and we can be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

it is a reason to rejoice, but to be aware. it is ok to be careful, it is ok to be concerned, it is ok to have your eyes open.

the enemy just wants us to not break with our flesh, to not die to the sinful nature. he wants us to cherish it listen to it, and please it. jesus asks us to trust him more then to trust ourselves. The word of God is given to us to meet all forms of deception and meet them it will.

the scriptures are full of warning and admonitions, does this mean that we need to ignore them so we don't seem like a bunch of scaredy cat idiots? if we worship God and really get to know him, and we see there are in fact real choices to be made to step aside from living in our selfish nature and the self pleasing agenda that we need to just ignore what we see? Are we to just spend our time continuing to seek him. then only tell everyone, everything is wonderful, there really is no deceiver, no dangers, just don't worry about anything.

no, jesus warned his children, adam and eve were warned, Paul warned, the ancient prophets warned, and we are warned, not to make us paranoid, but to be wise, and make informed decisions. it is not the fearful that walk with God, but it is the discerning.

If you love god that is ok. if you obey God then you are being ridiculous. If you seek God that is ok, if you perceive there is a deceiver working on the world, you are a scared weirdo. If you lower your sugar and salt intake to avoid high blood pressure and diabetes that's great. If you are vegan you are arrogant and self serving. If you just stick to seeking God that's great. If you talk about danger in christian spiritualism you are afraid to really know God.

[thx4mercy]

debbym, your whole post... just excellent!

[olger]

Debby be soundin good.

G

[JoeMo]

Hi Deb,

Quote:

just because some may disagree with the spiritual formation and emergent church formation does not mean they are fearful.

just because there are sunday laws on the books waiting to be enforced, doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

Just because the signs of the times suggest Things are moving towards Christ's return doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

You are one amazing Christian, Deb! If you are ever in Denver, let me know. I'd love to have you come to our church - maybe even speak!

[Reddogs]

Originally Posted By: Reddogs

The pastors are now teaching it right in the churchs as Adventist made a great number of those going to the seminars. The seeds were sown then, and the Spiritual Formation/Discipline weeds are coming up now.

So what?

So when they tell you that you cannot teach the 3rd Angels message, or bring up Ellen Whites writings, or Adventist beliefs or doctrines, in deference to the new converts they are seeking what will you do?

[Stan]

Can you please give specifics on where this has infiltrated the Adventist Church?

Be specific.

Short answers

[Reddogs]

Quote:

All this business about mysticism.... it seems to me that if a person does anything to actually develop a one to one relationship with the biblical God its going to get called mysticism. Yet we have the examples of the trance states EGW went into, Jesus fasting in the desert ( you can bet he was in a different mind frame by the end of that. Why are people so very scared of anything that takes you past the books, words written by men and women, and directly to the source? You all want to spend eternity with this divine being, yet you are terrified of getting to know him now it seems.

I think you are projecting the thought and feeling of fear because there is a disagreement.

just because some may disagree with the spiritual formation and emergent church formation does not mean they are fearful.

just because there are sunday laws on the books waiting to be enforced, doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

Just because the signs of the times suggest Things are moving towards Christ's return doesn't mean we have to be fearful.

the work of the enemy at the end of time involves spiritualism. this is the bottom line. this is clearly described in sop.

Hypnotism deception and manipulation of the mind were present when eve was deceived and will bloom with more refinement and subtlety to mark the final deceptions of the world.

this doesn't mean we are scared, it means our eyes are open, and we can be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

it is a reason to rejoice, but to be aware. it is ok to be careful, it is ok to be concerned, it is ok to have your eyes open.

the enemy just wants us to not break with our flesh, to not die to the sinful nature. he wants us to cherish it listen to it, and please it. jesus asks us to trust him more then to trust ourselves. The word of God is given to us to meet all forms of deception and meet them it will.

the scriptures are full of warning and admonitions, does this mean that we need to ignore them so we don't seem like a bunch of scaredy cat idiots? if we worship God and really get to know him, and we see there are in fact real choices to be made to step aside from living in our selfish nature and the self pleasing agenda that we need to just ignore what we see? Are we to just spend our time continuing to seek him. then only tell everyone, everything is wonderful, there really is no deceiver, no dangers, just don't worry about anything.

no, jesus warned his children, adam and eve were warned, Paul warned, the ancient prophets warned, and we are warned, not to make us paranoid, but to be wise, and make informed decisions. it is not the fearful that walk with God, but it is the discerning.

If you love god that is ok. if you obey God then you are being ridiculous. If you seek God that is ok, if you perceive there is a deceiver working on the world, you are a scared weirdo. If you lower your sugar and salt intake to avoid high blood pressure and diabetes that's great. If you are vegan you are arrogant and self serving. If you just stick to seeking God that's great. If you talk about danger in christian spiritualism you are afraid to really know God.

They are telling people from the pulpit that they must come to the Spiritual Formation and planning to do Spiritual Training classes to get the members into the church growth mode. I was invited by one of the pastors and I declined and they actually came and checked what I was teaching in Sabbath School class, all because I would not join and go to the Spiritual Formation groups. Its a very strange for me to have this done, just strikes me somehow as unethical or even unchristian......

[Stan]

REDDOG

PLEASE be specific on Adventist telling people to do this.

[Reddogs]

REDDOG

PLEASE be specific on Adventist telling people to do this.

Ok, they are doing this every Sabbath in our church, and they also did it in the church they took our friends to Willow Creek and followed that church growth model. I cant speak for every Adventist church but I see a pattern which I would say every Adventist needs to be aware of, and if you look into it you will find that is how they are being told to follow the plan for church growth in the seminars that Adventist pastors are going to at Willow Creek.

[Reddogs]

and Adventist pastors have been going in huge numbers to the seminars. I think I posted this but it has some good points..

Here is what I came across on Willow Creek:

It was founded on October 12, 1975 by Bill Hybels, who is currently the senior pastor. The church has three weekend services averaging 24,000 attendees, making it the third-largest church in the United States (this ranking includes multi-site churches).The church has been listed as the most influential church in America the last several years in a national poll of pastors.

..from Adventist Today:

'In the last 15 years or so, New Spirituality (or "emerging church, "spiritual formation," etc.) by whatever name its followers choose, has flooded Protestantism, especially Evangelical churches. In the last 5-7 years, the waves have been rolling over many in the Adventist Church.

We all know well how, for the last 25 years, ministerial excitement and tons of Adventist money has focused on Willow Creek in Barrington, IL, and Saddleback in Lake Forest, CA. Enormous numbers of Protestant pastors studied how to invigorate their churches with the seeker-friendly methods.

...from Spectrum:

'This is the Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago which is an evangelical association that runs workshops, conferences, and seminars and Adventists, both pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at Willow Creek's seminars.'

"The Year of SDA Congregationalism" (PDF). 26 (4): 3–10. ISSN 0890-0264. http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive26-30/26-4byrd.pdf.

...from Adventist members and minitries:

The guru of this movement is Bill Hybel who for decades having been preaching to throw out everything you have previously thought and been taught about church growth and replace it with a new paradigm, a new way to do ministry, techniques to foster mere numeric growth. You may be surprised to learn that his mega-church has trained large numbers of our leaders and pastors in Willow Creek techniques of increasing church growth by spiritual formation and 'church growth' techniques, more "popular" music, and celebration-style activities during church service.

http://www.sdadefend.com/Books-new-order/Connections.htm

"Mystical spiritual formation practices are being taught not only in retreat centers and monasteries, but in evangelical Christian churches as well. Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois and Saddleback Church in California are two of the forerunners in evangelical spiritual formation teaching."

http://rekindlingthereformation.com/S-deception_Spiritual_Formation_American_Willow-Creek.html

....I am alarmed at the interest of God’s people in something called the “Emerging Church” and “spiritual formation.” What I am going to show you about it today should alarm you too. The Emerging Church movement is being promoted by megachurches such as those run by Rick Warren, of Purpose-Driven fame, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek, and many others.

The concepts are also entering the remnant Church through spiritual formation. And it is promoted by some of the most popular and respected preachers alive today. Their names are no doubt very familiar to you because you have probably heard of them in one way or another.

You have probably heard the old saying, “things aren’t what they seem.” That is also the case with the Emerging Church and spiritual formation. There are many nice-sounding terms that are used to make you believe that this is all Biblical and right.

The term “Emerging Church” or “emergent teachers” is used to describe this movement. “Contemplative prayer,” “meditation,” “discipling,” “discipleship,” “spiritual discipline,” “ancient-future worship,” “vintage worship,” “future church,” and many other similar phrases are also terms used in connection with the Emergent Church and spiritual formation. Some even disguise the whole thing by naming programs in spiritual formation with bland and generic terms like “growing in Christ.”

These seemingly wonderful concepts are very alluring to the uninformed and unaware. And while you may not hear all these words if the Emerging Church or spiritual formation movement comes to your church, you will certainly be introduced to the concepts behind them.

While words like disciple, meditation, and spiritual discipline have a true meaning, these words are being redefined and reintroduced into the Church with an entirely different meaning. Most people who hear them are not alarmed because many of these words are used in the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy and they have heard them for years. Moreover, when these new concepts are promoted, they use many of the old terms that everyone is familiar with as a bridge into the new concepts.

Spiritual formation teachers promote something that is very familiar to anyone that understands the ecumenical movement that the Roman Catholic Church has promoted since the 1960s. Emerging Church leaders say that doctrine is not as important as your experience with Christ.

While we must have a daily experience with Christ, what they really mean is that doctrine is not important at all, and that we should not worry about, or discuss it.

Emerging Church leaders want all religions to blend together, and they are working with Rome to accomplish it. The trouble is that doctrine comes from Christ. And doctrine comes with Christ. If you remove the doctrines, you don’t have Christ. If you don’t believe Jesus’ teachings, or the teachings of those prophets through whom He spoke, you can’t say that you have a true relationship with Jesus.

The idea today is that we are to just accept everyone as part of Christ’s body no matter what they believe, and as we experience Christ together, doctrine will be less and less important. Today, evangelicals, formerly known as Protestants, are deeply involved in the ecumenical movement, which is designed to bring them back into unity with the Roman Catholic Church. This is also leading them into a “new spirituality” which is really just old Roman Catholic mystical spiritualism.'

http://amazingdiscoveries.org/AD-Magazine-Archive-Summer-2011-Spiritual-Formation

...Recently, Willow Creek published the results of their 2004 congregational survey entitled, Reveal: Where are You? The surprising results required the study’s authors, including executive pastor Greg Hawkins, to tell senior pastor Bill Hybel that “the church isn’t as effective as we’d thought.” In the Forward to the report, Bill Hybels makes an astonishing [and I think humble] admission, “…parts of the research did not shine brightly on our church. Among the findings, nearly one out of every four people at Willow Creek were stalled in their spiritual growth or dissatisfied with the church—and many of them were considering leaving.”

In the report, Willow Creek acknowledges that they have long-employed the “The Church Activity Model for Spiritual Growth.” Essentially, the premise was that as “a person far from God participates in church activities” they will eventually become “a person who loves God and loves others.” Now, this could mean any activity--whether it be directing traffic in the parking lot or volunteering in the nursery. I call this the “faith by osmosis” approach—the idea that as long as people are in the church environment, they will grow spiritually.

To their credit, Willow Creek asks and answers the question as follows: “Does increased attendance in ministry programs automatically equate to spiritual growth? To be brutally honest: it does not. …Church activity alone made no direct impact on growing the heart…”

http://www.adventistreview.org/article/1513/archives/issue-2007-1533/willow-creek-s-confession

[Reddogs]

Notice where it says "Adventists, both pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at Willow Creek's half-dozen annual seminars—including church leadership conferences in May and October and a leadership summit in August."—Adventist Review, Dec. 18, 1997.' That has to be having a impact on a large number of Adventist churches, so its not just local..

[Stan]

Originally Posted By: Stan

REDDOG

PLEASE be specific on Adventist telling people to do this.

Ok, they are doing this every Sabbath in our church, and they also did it in the church they took our friends to Willow Creek and followed that church growth model. I cant speak for every Adventist church but I see a pattern which I would say every Adventist needs to be aware of, and if you look into it you will find that is how they are being told to follow the plan for church growth in the seminars that Adventist pastors are going to at Willow Creek.

Which Adventist Church do you go to?

AND this did not answer the Question.

[Stan]

Notice where it says "Adventists, both pastors and laypeople, consistently make up one of the largest groups at Willow Creek's half-dozen annual seminars—including church leadership conferences in May and October and a leadership summit in August."—Adventist Review, Dec. 18, 1997.' That has to be having a impact on a large number of Adventist churches, so its not just local..

Any of the Adventist I know who went there, went there as observers, and it doesn't mean the took it in hook line and sinker.

[Restin]

What exactly is contemplative prayer, anyway? A problem with this whole topic of 'Spiritual Formation" is the subtle use of otherwise common words and phrases. On the surface, to the loyal SDA, "Contemplative prayer" seems to disallow any contemplation on matters of religion: no sitting on a park bench looking up at the trees and wondering about the Creator... no setting aside my Bible a moment to "contemplate" the Savior's day on the cross, etc, etc.

Yet, I've had to learn that phrases like "contemplative" have special meaning in Spiritual Formation, different from the usual words describing worship. Even the phrase, "Spiritual Formation" is so vague one does not see on the surface the seditious direction.

This, I assume, is part of the deceit. It designs to use our common words and phrases about worship to sneak in New Age, Wicca, mystic, and Jesuit practices. It even mixes actually some good ideas to lead on to the spiritualist part. It also entails a risk when we have to study into the meanings and might get hooked trying to sort those special meanings out from our old words of true worship.

[Stan]

Also notice that it was one man's opinion in 1997, which others said that was an overstatement, and it was 15 years ago.

[Stan]

definition's are rather loosy-goosey. the thing most are against is when you go into a trance like state..

[Tom Wetmore]

Is that the same as "zoning out", or maybe "day dreaming"?

[Daryl]

Dr. Jon Dybdahl has a book out that is/was in our ABC stores. The name of the book is "Hunger."

Here is a link to a critique of this book by one of our pastors. His name and email address is in this critique at the following link:

http://sdaomega.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/hunger-critique.pdf

[ClubV12]

I appreciate this thread. The next time someone hands me a "hand out" on this subject I'm not going to accept it. People get SO worked up over it, has been my experience. It goes hand in hand with the same folks that love to talk about conspiracy theories.

Unless this is a specific issue in your Church and YOU need to deal with it, have answers for it, understand it, don't waste your time on it. I've got a full plate already just trying to keep up with a bunch of "winds of doctrine" blowing like a storm that I DO have to have answers for.

[Reddogs]

[debbym]

Quote:

In Summary

Although the author of Hunger wants to teach ways to still the hunger of the soul, some of the recommended

methods directly counter the instructions of inspiration. Thus they can lead only to a counterfeit spiritual

experience. The meditative practices of breath prayer, lectio divina and the Jesus Prayer are part of a mystical

tradition that spans many forms of spirituality, all of which are incompatible with the Adventist understanding of

the nature of God and how He makes Himself known to us.

These practices originated in Eastern pagan religions, were adopted by the Desert Fathers of the Catholic

Church, and are now being offered to the Protestant community. While the goal of achieving higher spirituality is

commendable, the method is flawed. Deeper spirituality is experienced through sanctifying obedience to the

Word of God.

It seems futile to attempt to Christianize practices of pagan origin, such as breath prayer, lectio divina, and the

Jesus Prayer, and attempt to use them in our worship of God. We cannot use practices based on intrinsically false

thank-you for sharing this review and summary viewpoint that is so clear, and apparent, and understandable.

I am so glad people can understand why there is valid concern. Just because some of the people that are concerned tend to be conspiracy theorist, or fanatical, or any variety of communication issues, does not mean there is not an obvious and clear issue here.

I have seen this in another book in the abc, and it is a modern day kind of version of the book God calling, which was written by some women over a hundred years ago, and they were channeling messages from God written in first person.

i tell you there are serious problems with this, and the modern version is sold and freely been given out on my conference.

but i try not to engage in controversy and naming because those involved just cannot seem to comprehend there is an issue. This is like people involved in glossolalia, they just cannot see why there could be anything questionable about it.

once you imbibe it seems you just love it and will not let it go.

[ClubV12]

I certainly don't want to downplay the seriousness of this issue, DebbyM. Some will need to address it, I don't have that burden or see that need in my area, at this time.

Some need to work the cities, like New York. God bless them in doing so, it is not MY work, not my burden. All though I may choose to support such work with pen, voice and pocketbook when led to do so.

Each of us need to be sensitive to our calling, what part of the vineyard we work in. In my area this issue is indeed one the conspiracy theorists and off shoots love to promote. It is a distraction to the members of the flock I associate with and to myself.

[phkrause]

I certainly don't want to downplay the seriousness of this issue, DebbyM. Some will need to address it, I don't have that burden or see that need in my area, at this time.

Some need to work the cities, like New York. God bless them in doing so, it is not MY work, not my burden. All though I may choose to support such work with pen, voice and pocketbook when led to do so.

Each of us need to be sensitive to our calling, what part of the vineyard we work in. In my area this issue is indeed one the conspiracy theorists and off shoots love to promote. It is a distraction to the members of the flock I associate with and to myself.

I'm in total agreement club. I used to give plenty of money to many charities, etc. Now that I'm retired I was hoping to do personal ministries, but that didn't work out. I now have to take care of to grandchildren, because the DCF took them from there mother. This right now is the calling that God has given us.

[CoAspen]

Quote:

I now have to take care of to(two) grandchildren, ...........the calling that God has given us.

Can't get any 'higher' calling than that!!