Fire in Denver

John,

Thanks for bringing this to me directly.  I’d be glad to talk more about it.

But first, it was wrong of you to talk to Matt, on every level – Matthew 18:15, “If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private.” Also see  Matthew 5:22-24.  You said you don’t want this to become gossip, but the first thing you did was gossip.  I am the one you should have talked to about this directly first, in private, not Matt.

If you are taking to someone who is not part of the original problem or part of the solution to that original problem, that is by any definition, gossip.  Disregarding the gossip problem, you talked to him first when the Bible says you should have talked to me in private.

And then bringing Matt into this email under those conditions and furthering the problem is without any biblical precedent.  What are you thinking?  How is that in the least bit constructive?  You have created a complex unbiblical relational issue now where none should exist, which is why our Lord so abhors such things and gave clear, simple instructions on how to avoid them by talking in private.  I introduced you to Thom and Sandy and Matt is in their 3to5 Club.  It’s possible we will now have to get Thom and Sandy involved as well, widening the issue even further – I will have to think and pray about that.

In bringing Matt into this when you did, you also violated the scriptural process of dealing with an issue you have with a brother in regards to the church – Matthew 18:15-17 – go to him first in private, then take a few trusted people with you that both parties would trust, then to the church.  You are judging me on issues regarding the church, without even having a discussion on it first, but you violate some of it’s simplest constructs.

You need to go to Matt immediately and ask his forgiveness for having gossiped with him and let him know how wrong it was for you to do this, and assure him that he will not be put in such an awkward position again by you.  You should also instruct him to not follow your lead, and ask him not to spread the gossip you started. I feel it’s important that you let me know this has happened as well to close the loop with me.  I have no intention of talking about this with Matt and I pray he doesn’t talk with others and create more gossip.  It is up to you to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Finally in saying you have the Lord in this you are pulling an arrogant, hierarchical trump card that does not lend itself to open discussion or truth-searching.  Your approach in this email clearly defines you as the one who already has the truth, and you don’t need to back it up with anything other than “God told me I’m right”.  As a result, you’re closing is not believable.  You are not actually asking to openly discus this at all.  Your email clearly says that it’s now my job to refute God judging me through you.  Your call for an open discussion is hollow. If you truly wanted to have a two-way discussion, you would not make judgments without talking (“false teaching”, “deception”, “contrary to Scripture”), or make such brazen claims of superior righteousness with first talking to me (the Lord is on your side – not mine).

Finally, you are so far off base in the judgmental statements you made without first discussing them together, it’s hard to know where to begin.

I have no intention of causing people to move away from a a local church.  In fact, in our discussion, I quoted I Cor 7:20 – “Let every man remain in the condition in which he is called.”  I do not have any interest in moving people away from their chosen local church and I can bring you thousands of lovers of Christ who have come through my life who would affirm this.

Second, the church is not expressed only in traditional western definitions of “local church” like yours.  There are 45,000 registered denominations with vastly different views of what it means to meet locally. There are also thousands of unregistered expressions. Which ones am I moving people away from? I know of none.

I learned a long time ago that great movements are not created by fighting something – by moving “away” from something, but by moving toward something.  I don’t move people away from any of the 45,000+ local expressions of church.   We relate to people who have never been involved in any religious environment or any local expression of church, and we help them build biblical community where they live, in an expression that is culturally relevant for them, so they can remain in the condition in which they were called.  And many times these committed communities look nothing like others that you personally might be more comfortable with.

Religious people like Matt, Thom and Sandy are highly attracted to what we do and we have never recruited a single one of them to move away from their local church and join ours.  To the contrary we regularly discourage people from joining us from the traditional local churches –  most of them should remain in the condition in which they were called.

There are millions of people doing what I’m doing around the world – building culturally relevant expressions of biblical community that may or may not look like yours or anything like the traditional western local expressions of the Body of Christ.  Highly religious people from traditional religious backgrounds like Matt’s and Thom and Sandy’s are very attracted to what we do because it builds such strong local community.  We have yet to recruit any of them away from the local expression they were called to be part of, and we only ask the same from them and you – don’t recruit us away from our expression, which is very unlike theirs or yours.

I have been studying church for 35 years with thousands of others worldwide who are involved with millions of people building local expressions of the Good News that don’t follow traditional western structures.  This is no longer a movement, it’s a tidal wave around the world, and none of it should be a threat to the 45,000+ traditional local expressions.  We’re not subtracting from them or recruiting from them in any way. We’re just adding to them so that the Good News lives in every place.

I rejoice in what you are doing and am not threatened at all by your commitment to traditional local expressions of the Good News.  We have a big God.  Let’s figure out how to live in a world of abundance and not a world of scarcity, and make room for a creative God to build wildly varying local expressions of his Church that work for everyone across the wide spectrum of our culture and His world.

I look forward to hearing about your conversation with Matt.

In Him,

Chuck

On Sep 16, 2011, at 5:13 PM, John Stein wrote:

Hey Chuck,

I hope that you are doing well.

Hey, I wanted to let you know that you came up in discussion today. Matt had mentioned your name in conversation, and I told him that I got a check in my spirit during our meeting.

I feel that it is false teaching to cause people to move away from the local church, and in my opinion, I believe it to be deception and contrary to scripture. I feel that I have the LORD on it as well. I shared this with Matt because we have a specific relationship.

But, I do not want it to become gossip. Therefore, I want to bring this discussion directly to your attention so that you can refute my comments.

If I misunderstood your position, please clarify things.

If you ever wish to openly discuss the matter, I am more than willing.

Thank you.

Peace,

John

John Stein
(720) 213-6693