What does it mean? Seriously….
Perhaps one of my shortest posts….
I often hear pastors talk and write of some ‘next level’ of faith to which their listeners and readers need to rise. They exhort their audience to do this thing or that thing more faithfully to get there. Seriously, what is this ‘next level’ (or, in the parlance of the painfully uber-hip…a whole ‘nutha’ level) of which they speak? They never define it. Where in the Bible do I find information this next level? Those exhortations to strive for some nebulous higher level seem to infer there are castes of Christians defined by their performance….
Posted on September 9, 2011, in seeker sensitive church. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Westminster Bookstore
Never heard of this. Are they perhaps referring to the 3 stages of spiritual growth in 1 John?
Actually, it is a works-based exhortation, most often heard from pastors of mega-sized seeker churches, wherein you move spiritually upward by works of law rather than by growth in grace. A most common context is tithing wherein you are essentially told you gain financial favor with your god in taking ‘bold steps of faith’ by giving a certain percentage of your income to the church. Many of these church leaders who deliver those exhortation to move to the next level seem to veer towards a Galatian mentality. If you are familiar with Ed Young, Jr and those of his methodology of preaching, you will have often heard of that ill-defined next level. It infers that you can eventually move to a super-Christian level by super-level obedience to the Law…..or, more accurately, to obeying subjective inner promptings that you think might be a prompting from God.. What prompted this post was a blog entry by a pastor whose blog I follow. He is a guy who once attended a Reformed church and has recently planted a church and apparently is now influenced by guys like Perry Noble and Steven Furtick. Very much into a legalism lite kind of thing. You do not hear Romans 8:1 from these ‘next level’ guys very often…..
Oh, thanks Ron, for the explanation. Have heard of Ed Young, Jr. but have never heard him preach or read anything by him. From your description of this methodology I guess I’ll just have to be content being the less than super-Christian that I am.
Yea Deborah, me too. I am probably an abject failure as a Christian by the standards of many. All I got is a white-knuckle grasp on the Messiah. Even when my grip weakens, His grip is secure. That is good enough for me.