South Charlotte Church Plant


Join us as we launch a new church in South Charlotte. Sign up for the prayer newsletter;
consider financially supporting through giving; or become a TRAILBLAZER.

Monday, December 17, 2007

iPride

After posting about Battlecry, I thought I would go check out their website...
Below I have cut and pasted these teenagers quotes:

"Religious Tradition has taken over there spirit and it's my job to help break that in Jesus name and I speak LIFE and Freedom into them and I say awake, awake o sleeping giant, and follow God's will!"
"I am here to speak out. God is going to speak through me in very dramatic, and life changing ways. "
"I will fight to save my generation with all that i have, leaving no one behind. I will rally other soldiers to help build the army that WILL take back the 96 percent."

This scares the crap out of me...not really because of the war images (though that should as well). Mainly because every quote started with "I." Each statement has a sense of grandeur and wanting to be the next big thing.

I fall into this trap very easily as well; When ministry becomes focused on me and God becomes merely a vehicle to self-promotion.

This attitude of using God, so that "I" may accomplish great things is not only what these teenagers are expressing, but it is what many of us are thinking as we desire successful numbers, successful worship attendance and successful ministries. We wrongly prioritize our goals such that it makes us feel that same sort of grandeur.

Miles Finch writes,
"When our goal of worship is to receive God's help to be successful, pride is taking over. Then we are just using God to further ourselves. Could it be that we want church-growth secrets, or even God's Spirit...for the wrong reasons? Have we slipped into a proud and competitive mode? Is this part of the reason why the American church seems so crippled right now?"


To read this full article it is in the spring 2007 Leadership Journal entitled "Surprised by Pride." He also quotes CS Lewis:

"Pride gets no joy out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever or good looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others...It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Freaky - always feels good (prideful?) to know there's SOMEONE to the right or left of you, eh?

But, who's the guy you're quoting from out of Leadership Journal? i was confused.

ShareThis