As you have indicated, Peter and Paul instruct to just "preach the Word" but don't get weird.  "Weird" is a word up for discussion…people have different ideas of what weird is.  Maybe pink hair and gold furniture turns you off but maybe balding with a shortened mullet and sculpted facial hair is strange to others.(?) :-)

I don't know what church circles you frequent but they must not fall into the places I attend regularly…if you don't have a Bible open in your lap, you're out of place.  Your last two paragraphs bring us back to what we, as the church, should be really doing.  And I have to agree with you that there are those churches who in trying to reach the culture, preach and teach a very watered down Gospel that the world doesn't often even recognize as Gospel. 

Perhaps you are right.  On the one side we have a semblance of the Christian church that so compromises their message that any Gospel is lost because we don't want to offend anyone.  On the other side, I see a very strong church that is truely preaching the Word/scripture and souls are really getting saved.  And they are making an impact on their city and community.  One such church is Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  You can go to victory.com and see the results of their "labors."  They are preaching a compelling message of the "greatest story every told."  There are many, many other churches doing likewise…we need more. 

Allen Paul Weaver III
author, Transition: Breaking Through the Barriers
http://www.allenpaulweaveriii.com

Phil,

I think one of the biggest problems we have as a Christian community is our lack of power. God's power will get the world's attention without us having to say much at all! 

When all the world hears is talk…whether they relate to what we are saying or not, it means very little without a demonstration of God's power in our churches, programs, and our individual lives.  We must walk in that power in order to love the world, overcome our personal demons, and live in a way that will influence others. If and when we do that, people will notice us and the doors will be open to share our faith in a compelling way. 

Here are two posts dealing with Christian truths so hard, they offend.. Nevertheless, these two stories have great truths speaking to the collosal problems of modern Christianity, which is the worship of escape vs. the enabling of indwelt Jesus in us, and honoring those who are so indwelt:

.  The Parable of the Mark of 666

Once there was a gospel recording artist who weighed 350 pounds.  In fact, he had such a spirit of gluttony that his body had been marked by God’s angels with a six, which is the number of fallen man.  Well, one day he read in the Book of Revelation about the mark of 666.  He wanted to know, what did it mean?

So, he asked a proud lawyer, who was president of a Christian bible college.   But this man’s theology was actually so repulsive to God and so far from the Mind of Christ, that angels had marked that man’s soul with a six.

The lawyer also didn’t know what the mark of 666 meant, so he asked a famous dispensational preacher.  Now this preacher was so hungry for gain, God’s angels had marked that man’s spirit with a six.  But unlike the other two men, this preacher thought he knew what the mark of 666 meant.

The dispensational preacher said 666 was the number of the coming anti-christ.  Further, the preacher told his two friends he was becoming rich by spreading fear far and wide concerning such end-times subjects.

This intrigued them all, so they decided to collaborate and share their talents.  As a team they made many television programs, books, movies and seminars about the expected disappearing of people who were ready to be raptured, the coming world war Armageddon battles, how to fear a dreadful anti-christ leader and especially how to avoid the one world mark of the beast. 

Their work generated in their audiences great fear of the future, which they disregarded, and wealth for themselves which they didn’t.  Actually in their heart-of-hearts they didn’t believe in the rapture, because why charge for their material unless the royalties created storehouses of wealth for themselves?  They also didn’t really believe in end-of-the-earth Armageddon battles after the passage of time proved that wars come…and they go while the earth continues.  Neither did they fear a coming anti-christ because none of their predictions had ever been true, including dire prophecies about what technology would do with the numeral six.

But after a while each of them received from God’s angels two more markings which they never had spiritual eyes to see.  With the marks, they could no longer buy truth.

By the time they died they all had become rich, envied and entirely pleased with themselves.  But in hell they learned that their spirits, souls and bodies on earth had been marked by God’s angels with the number they knew nothing about:  666.

and…

The Sorry Televangelists – Once there was a famous televangelist who loved to preach escape Christianity.  Over his life his media ministry reached 120 nations, hundreds of millions of people and garnered several billion dollars in donations and product sales.  The televangelist loved to preach and write about the escape of the rapture, the escape of eternal security and the escape of Jesus’ imminent second return fixing everybody but the faithful escapists.  Then the preacher died and was told by heaven that his triune escapology doctrines had been wrong.  Jesus wanted to indwell responsible Christians, but this televangelist’s lifetime of efforts had impeded God’s kingdom of truth from coming on earth.  So since the televangelist had put himself first in Christianity all his life on earth, heaven put him dead last in heaven.  The televangelist was then, for the first time, sorry.  In fact, he was very sorry.  So for a thousand years he told everyone in heaven he was sorry.  After that, heaven told him to stop.  But the man still was sorry, and told everyone in heaven another thousand years that he was sorry.  Heaven again told him to stop.  But the man could not stop feeling sorry.  He did this for ten thousand years, until heaven realized he was actually in his own hell, and could not come out of it.  So as a mercy, heaven sent him to where he believed he belonged.  He went to hell and was extinguished in the lake of fire, because even with the gift of eternity, he could not stop being a sorry televangelist.  Many others like him had the same experience, and could not make anything of heaven but hell.  They were called the Sorry Televangelists.  Had they but once been sorry on earth for their monstrous deeds, they could have prevented themselves from filling heaven, and then hell with sorrow.  Only the lake of fire ended their misery.

So does that mean that Christians who are informed about what is going on in the world, and who even have the audacity to read secular books and magazines and newspapers, are morally compromised, worldly people? Then presumably, people such as C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer were spiritually lacking, because both men were very well educated. Their reading materials were not limited to the Bible, although they certainly read the Bible frequently.

The premise contained in the aforementioned quotation is bogus at best. In fact, I would argue that such a premise is designed to encourage Christians to equate holiness with ignorance, in order to reduce their capacity to strongly influence the world with the gospel of Christ. (Satan would love that!) It was precisely because Lewis and Schaeffer were well read that they had such an impact on the world. One cannot refute the fallacies promoted by modern culture if one does not know what those fallacies are.

If I had to be limited to just one book, then of course, I would choose the Bible. Fortunately, there is no need to make such a choice. I'm glad that it is possible to buy books about other subjects (such as how to operate a computer); otherwise, it's unlikely that I'd be able to enter this blog post or use the Internet, to name just one of the many skills which cannot be acquired by those who limit their reading materials to the Bible alone. (And just for the record, it is likely that one would never know about Smith Wigglesworth if it were not for books about the man! Yet, if one defined holiness as "avoidance of all reading materials other than the Bible", one would not be able to read such biographies.)

As for Mr. Burke's thinly veiled attacks on the authors of the "Left Behind" series of books and movies, I think that those attacks are despicable. It is not enough for Burke to publicly express his disagreement with the doctrines on which those series are based. He further insists on implying that believers in premillenial dispensationalism are bound for hell. (That pretty much includes most members of the Assemblies of God church.)

What unholy, unloving arrogance! Regardless of the merits of premillenial dispensationalism, it is not one's escatological beliefs which determine one's eternal destiny. It is faith in the saving grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, and the atonement purchased for all believers on the cross of Calvary, which saves Christians from the fires of hell.

Theology is important. I don't deny that. But the Bible does not say that unbelievers will know Christians by our impeccable theology. Rather, it says that we will be known by our love for one another. In that respect, Mr. Burke is sadly and pathetically lacking in the fruits of the Holy Spirit.