As people may know, we at Church Watch are no fan of false teachers and false prophets. We do our best to bring you information that exposes fraudulent men and women who hi-jack Christianity for shameful gain.
One such person is Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church.
We have covered in the past how Andy Stanley is campaigning that the church must progress from the “sacred text, sacred man, sacred place” paradigm that he claims Jesus did away with in his lifetime.
Now Andy Stanley has said this:
“The Church really should be … nothing more than a community of people who follow the teaching of a man sent from God to explain God and to clear the path to God. You don’t have to agree but you shouldn’t dislike it unless there’s more to it.”
We are looking forward to Andy Stanley leaving the pulpit for good and get along with his life among the community of his believers. It is refreshing to see a false teacher live with his convictions, step down from the sacred office of pastor and embrace what he believes is right.
Stanley says, “By God’s grace, perhaps in our generation, we will be used to strip away everything that makes the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily resistible.”
Well that starts with you Stanley. We are looking forward to you stepping down as a “sacred man” (pastor) who no longer twists our “sacred text” (“bible”) and shut down your “sacred space” (North Point Community Church). We wish you all the best.
Tony Ridgaway writes,
Andy Stanley: The Church Is Too “Resistible,” Needs Rebranding
In the first message of a new series this past Sunday, February 1, megachurch pastor Andy Stanleytold the congregation at North Point Community Church that the Christian church at large has become “unnecessarily resistible” to newcomers, its stubborn “temple model” needing a rebrand.
Stanley began the sermon by praising the changes made to Christian churches in the recent past: Steeples, choirs and suits are a thing of the past, and the church is much more “accessible for people who weren’t into the church thing.”
“We (North Point) have kind of led the way to create these different kinds of churches … where it’s about creating environment,” Stanley added.
However, he continued, the church is holding onto what he called the temple model, which he defined as granting “extraordinary power to sacred men in sacred places who determine the meaning of sacred texts.”
“The arrival of Jesus signaled the end of the temple model,” he continued. “The Church really should be … nothing more than a community of people who follow the teaching of a man sent from God to explain God and to clear the path to God. You don’t have to agree but you shouldn’t dislike it unless there’s more to it.”
“How is it there are things that people say about us (Christians), the reasons they don’t like us have nothing to do with the fact that Jesus is ultimately our ultimate authority?” Stanley asked. “How did we become so resistible? … (Jesus’) three top commandments [were] to love God, love one another, love your enemy. What is there to resist about that? There should be nothing resistible about the church except … our loyalty to Jesus Christ.”
Stanley said North Point was going to lead the way in finding out what the problem is with the church and change it. “By God’s grace, perhaps in our generation, we will be used to strip away everything that makes the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily resistible.”
Do you think the church needs a rebrand? What suggestions would you make? Is the church “resistible,” in your experience as a leader?
Source: By Tony Ridgway, Andy Stanley: The Church Is Too “Resistible,” Needs Rebranding, ChurchLeaders, http://www.churchleaders.com/daily-buzz/247913-andy-stanley-church-resistible-needs-rebranding.html, Accessed 13/02/2016.
Categories: North Point Community Church
“The Church really should be … nothing more than a community of people who follow the teaching of a man sent from God to explain God and to clear the path to God. You don’t have to agree but you shouldn’t dislike it unless there’s more to it.”
What ever happened to all the verses about qualifications for pastors/elders? And what the qualities are that set pastors/elders apart?
Andy Stanley is another notorious verse cherrypicker. He throws away whichever verses he doesn’t like, ones he can’t explain, ones he disagrees with, ones he refuses to conform to, and ones he feels are “just plain embarrassing.”
It is unfortunate that the preaching of his father did not take effect. This is the ranting of a man, deluded into thinking that the Church of Jesus Christ is nothing more than a club of people who gather together to do their own thing. It is obvious to me that Biblical doctrine is not his forte. May God have mercy on him and those whom he has led astray.
I may be a relic from the past, but I still believe that we need more power from the pulpit, not less. There might (and are) things we do that unnecessarily turn people away, but preaching the Word of God without compromise should be the last thing we change – when that changes we no longer have a biblical model for church.
You’re no relic. You hold to a standard that most Christians are demonised today for holding to.
Amen and Amen Brother! You are right on target to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, “for ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be fully furnished unto all good works!” Too much of the world is IN the CHURCH…believers are those that should come out from among them, saith the Lord; and, you be separate….for what concord hath Christ with Belial. We are to reach those without Christ with a genuine faith, love for and committment to Jesus Christ and His Church… (Eph 5::24, Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish…Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Eph 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
It is time for the Church to stand up for the TRUTH. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3.
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Who said he was possibly resigning? Where did that information come from? I’m just curious.
I attended Andy Stanley’s church for a period of time. My opinions are based on personally experiencing worship there. Have you? Or, as so many do, taken what he says out of context? Have YOU “cherry picked” phrases he has said without hearing the entire sermon? I will not speak for him or defend him for any missteps (the rock band thing was a huge one). I no longer attend NorthPoint but they are for my reasons and based on personal experience. I will say that with regard to the particular quote above about church, I think that what Andy described was basically the model of the early church. The early church didn’t have the Bible as we know it today. They didn’t have spires, pulpits or dedicated buildings. They were small groups that met in homes.
How about not offering your personal opinions and experiences? Can you do that and then defend the lunacy of Andy Stanley?
You can hear Stanley’s full sermon reviewed by Chris Rosebrough from Fighting for the Faith. And no – we don’t take people out of context. That’s dishonest. However, people like to defend their idols and like to slander us to justify why they don’t have to look into these matters themselves. We hope this is not you.
What a rude comment. A perfect person to address this is a person who attended the church and saw and heard what was going on firsthand. Keep just dropping links written by someone other than yourself. 🙄
Krissi – if you want comments/emails from attendees, former and present, we can publish them. It seems that listening to hours of Stanley’s sermons (in context) is not enough for those who have the same wicked agenda as he does – he’s ‘writing’ his own version of a Jefferson bible.
Cheers Team ChurchWatch.
“If Scripture cannot be trusted, then we are doomed.”
https://churchwatchcentral.com/2016/09/28/for-the-bible-tells-me-so-biblical-authority-denied-again/
Cheers, Team ChurchWatch.
I would encourage anyone to listen to the series or any series from beginning to end and then draw their own conclusions based on what they’ve actually heard.
And Andy is not stepping down. That is very misleading.
We have done our ‘homework’ and He should step down.
Krissi – Stanley said “North Point was going to lead the way in finding out what the problem is with the church and change it. “By God’s grace, perhaps in our generation, we will be used to strip away everything that makes the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily resistible.”
And his starting point is the bible:
* On one hand, he says that “it’s next to impossible to defend the entire Bible,” and says that “the Bible is not the foundation of our faith;” but he later tells his audience how he loves the Bible and reads it every day.
* He claims that pastors should “take the focus off the Bible on put it on the resurrection,” but we know about the resurrection because it’s written about in the Bible. Stanley seems incapable of simply saying that the Bible is God’s Word and it’s historical dependable.
* He repeatedly claims that the early church had no Bible at all until well into the third century, even though that is historically incoherent and dishonest. The early church had the separate books of the Bible before they were bound together in one volume.
* He invented something he calls “the temple model” and claims that all false religions (including the Old Testament Jewish religion established by God) had a “sacred text,” a “sacred space” and a “sacred man.” He claims that these three things need to be eliminated, because he feels that Jesus said so (even though Jesus never actually taught this). Incidentally, he is still the senior pastor (sacred man) of North Point Church (sacred space) who makes frequent reference to the Bible (sacred text). He has come pretty close to eliminating the Bible, though…
* What is Andy Stanley very clear about? He seems to have tremendous confidence in his own ability to convince everyone of whatever he currently believes is important. He appears to have much more confidence in himself than the Word of God. Judging by the infrequent use of Scripture in his sermons and his willingness to erode confidence in the Bible, it really seems like Andy Stanley is happy to be the focal point of his church. Although he claims to be directing attention to Jesus, it’s impossible to know which Jesus he’s talking about, because without the objective Word of God as the reference, he ends up making himself the authority over who Jesus really is and what Jesus really taught.
https://churchwatchcentral.com/2016/09/23/the-andy-stanley-cornucopia-of-false-teaching-fast-talking-postmodern-ambiguity/
Cheers, Team Churchwatch.
People like you all at church watch are what is wrong with half the church’s these days that you see not growing. If you aren’t going forward you will go backwards. The church has to continue to evolve or you will eventually lose your congregation. Jesus tells us many of times about the importance of growth. And in order to grow your church must keep up with the times. Whydo you think in the 90s there was real concerns about the church and why there hadnt been growth. Why do you think they had to hold conferences with head people all over the country to figure out how to overcome and get churchs growing again. Because the church was not growing. They realized they needed to evolve and bring the church up to date with the times to start reaching more people and grow or Christianity was headed in a bad direction. Unfortunately you can drive around on sunday mornings and see which churches heeded the warnings and which didn’t. I however am lucky to belong to a loving church that took the matter very seriously. Over the past 10 years we have had to add services and do great outreach events that have started to bring thousands to them and grow bigger every time. And appears there is no limit to how big we will grow. After exploring your site sadly i feel sites like this are part of the problem and not the solution. And yes very misleading and seems as tho you take things out of context and twist it for your own agenda. I will be praying for the people running this site. I have listened to andy stanley speak many of times and in no way is he nearly the person you claim him to be. He is a great mind in this unknowing world we live in. Im going to go out on a limb here and say the people running this site want to go to church and grab and sing the same old hymns out of the same old hymnal thats been on the back of the pew for the last 80 years and listen to the preacher preach from the king james version. Dont get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that.well besides the preaching from the KJV. No one has spoke like that in hundreds of years and it has a tendency to put ur young crowd to sleep. Its old school church and thats ok. But thats when u add atleast one more service that will speak to the younger crowd. And i dont mean just your youth. Most people under 50 prefer a more contemporary service. Not to mention the young people are the future and without them the church will die with your last elder. Sad but true. That is why the church must always continue to evolve with the times in order to grow. I’ll just leave my thoughts at that but i will continue to pray for the people running this site and hope you will stop bashing some of the great people of our time like Andy Stanley, who by the way draws tens of thousands of people every week, and start being part of the solution and bring more people to know the lord. Instead of trying to turn people away from some of our great minds of our time. May the lord be with you. God bless
“People like you all at church watch are what is wrong with half the church’s these days that you see not growing.”
Because we love Jesus by keeping his word and obeying it. Got it.
“If you aren’t going forward you will go backwards. The church has to continue to evolve or you will eventually lose your congregation.”
That is nothing more than a neo-fascist response that you will never find support in the scriptures.
God does not change, nor does his church. By all means, technology and taste can change but we know this is not what you are implying.
“Jesus tells us many of times about the importance of growth. And in order to grow your church must keep up with the times.”
Christ never says that. However, it is clear you’ve been listening to the god of this age, who would tempt people like yourself to replace God’s Word with such garbage to attract the goats.
“Whydo you think in the 90s there was real concerns about the church and why there hadnt been growth.”
Because we were dealing with a bunch of unregenerate men who put more faith in the church and prostituted themselves to build their own empires so they could live their best lives now. They love the praises of men rather remain faithful to the faithful.
“I’ll just leave my thoughts at that but i will continue to pray for the people running this site and hope you will stop bashing some of the great people of our time like Andy Stanley”
The prayers of the righteous are powerful. Pray as much as you want, they are of no effect to the Christian church until you repent of your sins.
You don’t stand with Christ and His Church, you stand with Satan and his servants like Andy Stanley who continue pervert the grace of God and His Word and shipwreck the lives of believers. You need to repent of your apostasy and and call out to God like blind Bartemus so you can can see clearly. These pagan leaders you love have blinded you the way they did Samson so they can glory in your foolishness.
Let us demonstrate proofs of your utter blindness and disdain for Christ and his word:
“who by the way draws tens of thousands of people every week,”
That is NOT the standard any Christian uses when proving one is faithful pastor. If you were a Christian, you would know the standards of men is a sinful comparison.
“and start being part of the solution and bring more people to know the lord.”
We preach Christ and Him crucified, and expose how these men love oppose this very message by offering lip service to the Christian gospel and preach themselves and false gospels. You can’t get more of a solution then that. However, you wont see that because if you were a Christian, you’d rejoice in the truth and realise that we are calling people to walk in integrity, not deception.
“Instead of trying to turn people away from some of our great minds of our time.”
The people you seem to be defending have the most reprobates in our time. You want to know why we have a Clinton or Trump running for president? It is because these men have usurped the Christian pulpit and have preached foolishness for decades, their fruit and darkness being reflected now in our times.
So stop putting up with their reprobate ways.
“May the lord be with you.”
We reject your “lord” – and may you reject your lord. We worship THE “Lord” and we refuse to allow reprobates like yourself mock him in your defense of evil and wicked men.
Repent of your sins and return to your first love, the cross of Christ, so you can be forgiven of your apostasy. You are a fine example of what is wrong with the church. If you’re offended with our tone and our scriptural positions, you are missing the point of why we exist.