Post by philiprosenthal on Apr 25, 2006 8:55:11 GMT
This thread is about His People's teaching and application of that teaching on destiny vision and greatness. Perhaps others can clarify whether this is also taught elsewhere in EveryNation.
Speakword2004 raised the question following question in a thread on another topic:
www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/19832.html?1145343439
"The last I heard about students at Wits was that His People Society members were preaching "Destiny" in one-on-one evangelism instead of salvation. The poor recruit instead of "lost soul" gets the whole package in one go.
The message that God has a plan and a destiny for you and that it is your destiny to be, not only saved, but to have a vision, a calling and a ministry is scary. What 20 year old has their destiny mapped out? Perhaps it is just overzealous young students too pumped on the "destiny" training that they are getting.
.....It does seem that at Wits the idea that "it is your destiny to be with us" idea is a less than subtle attempt at control and politicking."
Answer: The Bible has a lot to say about destiny and greatness. Nevertheless, Paul Daniel, in his backslidden state taught a whole lot of rubbish on these subjects - mixing the Bible with secular success literature wisdom and some of his own ideas.
The ideas were basically:
* God has a wonderful plan for your life (true);
* God wants you to be great and important (not necessarily true in worldly terms);
* This church has a great vision and destiny in God (half true. it had one before, but lost it when it disobeyed the scriptures);
* The fact that God has in the past worked in your life in this church indicates he intends you to stay here (false).
* There are a few people in the world (such as the His People/EveryNation apostles) for whom God has a great plan.
* If you stick close to them, you will also become great (lie - you will just become their slave).
* Implication: If you want to fulfil God's wonderful plan for your life, you better stay in this church - no matter how unhappy you are. (Lie).
The lie requires you add up the components of it. The parts half-truths were often stated, but it was left to people to put them together by themselves. They are seldom stated explicitly in terms of the total lie, but the components are repeated endlessly till people stop questioning them.
A lot of people did. That is one of the reasons why so many people find it so hard to leave His People Ministries - because they think that God's plan for their life is only in this church. i.e. That God can't bless them and fulfill their visions and dreams in another church. This is a lie. God can bless you very much in another church. In fact, God has also blessed other churches and leaders outside EveryNation very much.
Sometimes this is escallated to social pressure. When people talk of leaving then other people in the church start to worry they are abandoning their destiny in life. Its rubbish and its unscriptural, but its a lie a lot of people have bought into.
A related lie taught by Paul Daniel in his latter time in office was that if we all stick together, then we will together become great - while if we are separated then we are not important.
This is a 'tower of Babel' strategy for greatness. It is human ambition saying they are going to build a tower that reaches to the heavens. God judges this pride and ambition by sowing division in such organisations. That is exactly what has happened. God doesn't want human religious ambition in defiance of him, using worldly methods to succeed. Thus he judges it.
Contrast Abraham, who left his comfortable home in Ur in answer to the call of God. God blessed his obedience. Abraham didn't build himself an empire, he just obeyed God. He didn't take the initiative, he let God do that. He didn't follow his ambitions. He just obeyed God. Those who want to find their destiny need to obey God - not dream up ambitions or blindly follow other ambitions and proud men. Abraham didn't have a majorly glamorous life. If God' hadn't fulfilled his promises, we never would have known he even existed. He trusted God and obeyed God. Paul Daniel did not. He ran after worldly ambition, money sex and power - and he lost everything. Now lets throw away this silly false teaching about achieving great destiny by human ambition, vision and sticking together.
VISION
Another unhealthy emphasis in His People introduced by Paul Daniel in his backslidden years was that of 'vision'. Anything could be achieved through vision. Do a word search on 'vision' in the Bible and you won't find that taught. Check the scriptures like 'write down the vision' they use and you will find it out of context. Now there is a proper place for vision. But when vision becomes all important, then it becomes a legalistic bondage. Achieving the vision becomes more important than faithfulness and obedience to God. Therefore pragmatic compromises can be justified. People can be ridden over and treated like dirt. We can burn ourselves out. We can push other people to exploit them and burn them out also. All so long as we achieve 'the vision'.
For example, if students fail their studies because they are doing evangelism, then that does not matter because they are helping to fulfill the vision of expanding the church. No. People matter. Faith matters. Obedience to God matters.
Our vision can be compromised. Its not the end of the world if we don't achieve it. It is a big problem if we disobey God's absolute commands.
So, write a vision for what you want to achieve. But if you need to abandon it, then don't get all guilty. If you fail, don't worry too much. But don't go exploit other people and burn yourself out to try achieve it.
BAPTISED SELF-CENTREDNESS
A central problem with all the vision, greatness and destiny emphasis in His People is basically that it is self-centred and focuses on human achievement rather than on Christ. Faithful Christians are not so much bothered with how much they are achieving in life, as the extent to which they are obeying and following Christ.
Note that Christ did not really follow the advice of modern success-guru's which has now been baptised by His People. The basically threw away almost all their advice: lived a life of relative poverty to compared to the kind of money he could have raised and the power he could have accumulated. He trashed his popularity by giving people hard teaching and provoked the Pharisees to crucify him by attacking their religious hypocrisy. That is the kind of life we are called to - but it is the absolute opposite of what His People has been promoting.
Speakword2004 raised the question following question in a thread on another topic:
www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/19832.html?1145343439
"The last I heard about students at Wits was that His People Society members were preaching "Destiny" in one-on-one evangelism instead of salvation. The poor recruit instead of "lost soul" gets the whole package in one go.
The message that God has a plan and a destiny for you and that it is your destiny to be, not only saved, but to have a vision, a calling and a ministry is scary. What 20 year old has their destiny mapped out? Perhaps it is just overzealous young students too pumped on the "destiny" training that they are getting.
.....It does seem that at Wits the idea that "it is your destiny to be with us" idea is a less than subtle attempt at control and politicking."
Answer: The Bible has a lot to say about destiny and greatness. Nevertheless, Paul Daniel, in his backslidden state taught a whole lot of rubbish on these subjects - mixing the Bible with secular success literature wisdom and some of his own ideas.
The ideas were basically:
* God has a wonderful plan for your life (true);
* God wants you to be great and important (not necessarily true in worldly terms);
* This church has a great vision and destiny in God (half true. it had one before, but lost it when it disobeyed the scriptures);
* The fact that God has in the past worked in your life in this church indicates he intends you to stay here (false).
* There are a few people in the world (such as the His People/EveryNation apostles) for whom God has a great plan.
* If you stick close to them, you will also become great (lie - you will just become their slave).
* Implication: If you want to fulfil God's wonderful plan for your life, you better stay in this church - no matter how unhappy you are. (Lie).
The lie requires you add up the components of it. The parts half-truths were often stated, but it was left to people to put them together by themselves. They are seldom stated explicitly in terms of the total lie, but the components are repeated endlessly till people stop questioning them.
A lot of people did. That is one of the reasons why so many people find it so hard to leave His People Ministries - because they think that God's plan for their life is only in this church. i.e. That God can't bless them and fulfill their visions and dreams in another church. This is a lie. God can bless you very much in another church. In fact, God has also blessed other churches and leaders outside EveryNation very much.
Sometimes this is escallated to social pressure. When people talk of leaving then other people in the church start to worry they are abandoning their destiny in life. Its rubbish and its unscriptural, but its a lie a lot of people have bought into.
A related lie taught by Paul Daniel in his latter time in office was that if we all stick together, then we will together become great - while if we are separated then we are not important.
This is a 'tower of Babel' strategy for greatness. It is human ambition saying they are going to build a tower that reaches to the heavens. God judges this pride and ambition by sowing division in such organisations. That is exactly what has happened. God doesn't want human religious ambition in defiance of him, using worldly methods to succeed. Thus he judges it.
Contrast Abraham, who left his comfortable home in Ur in answer to the call of God. God blessed his obedience. Abraham didn't build himself an empire, he just obeyed God. He didn't take the initiative, he let God do that. He didn't follow his ambitions. He just obeyed God. Those who want to find their destiny need to obey God - not dream up ambitions or blindly follow other ambitions and proud men. Abraham didn't have a majorly glamorous life. If God' hadn't fulfilled his promises, we never would have known he even existed. He trusted God and obeyed God. Paul Daniel did not. He ran after worldly ambition, money sex and power - and he lost everything. Now lets throw away this silly false teaching about achieving great destiny by human ambition, vision and sticking together.
VISION
Another unhealthy emphasis in His People introduced by Paul Daniel in his backslidden years was that of 'vision'. Anything could be achieved through vision. Do a word search on 'vision' in the Bible and you won't find that taught. Check the scriptures like 'write down the vision' they use and you will find it out of context. Now there is a proper place for vision. But when vision becomes all important, then it becomes a legalistic bondage. Achieving the vision becomes more important than faithfulness and obedience to God. Therefore pragmatic compromises can be justified. People can be ridden over and treated like dirt. We can burn ourselves out. We can push other people to exploit them and burn them out also. All so long as we achieve 'the vision'.
For example, if students fail their studies because they are doing evangelism, then that does not matter because they are helping to fulfill the vision of expanding the church. No. People matter. Faith matters. Obedience to God matters.
Our vision can be compromised. Its not the end of the world if we don't achieve it. It is a big problem if we disobey God's absolute commands.
So, write a vision for what you want to achieve. But if you need to abandon it, then don't get all guilty. If you fail, don't worry too much. But don't go exploit other people and burn yourself out to try achieve it.
BAPTISED SELF-CENTREDNESS
A central problem with all the vision, greatness and destiny emphasis in His People is basically that it is self-centred and focuses on human achievement rather than on Christ. Faithful Christians are not so much bothered with how much they are achieving in life, as the extent to which they are obeying and following Christ.
Note that Christ did not really follow the advice of modern success-guru's which has now been baptised by His People. The basically threw away almost all their advice: lived a life of relative poverty to compared to the kind of money he could have raised and the power he could have accumulated. He trashed his popularity by giving people hard teaching and provoked the Pharisees to crucify him by attacking their religious hypocrisy. That is the kind of life we are called to - but it is the absolute opposite of what His People has been promoting.