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NAR Leaders set themselves OUTSIDE of the Christian faith.

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In the article below by John Rowell, (author of ‘Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church’) – Rowell admitted the following:

“I was one of Dr. Wagner’s students beginning in 1980 and, as a part-time, not-for-credit student in his D-Min courses for the next five years.  During that time, his growing awareness of and openness to the dynamics of the Holy Spirit, his use of Wimber as a guest lecturer in the courses I audited and his description of the global move of God among unreached people deeply impacted my theology, my ecclesiology, my missiology and my pneumatology.”

Sitting under the teachings of Wagner, we see Rowell articulate very clearly how the NAR cults have operated undetected in their attempt to hijack Christianity. More importantly, Rowell observes Wagner’s mentor (Donald Miller) notes 12 distinctives of NAR cults to Christian churches. The most important are that these churches ‘started after 1950 and their members are born after 1945’. This because, before the 1950s, was the birthing of the New Order of the Latter Rain cult – where it all started. The other distinctives can be merged into one point – the NAR cults are very big on modern and postmodern aesthetics, paradigms, technologies, constructions and art-forms.

Rowell’s observations on how Wagner distinguishes Christian churches from NAR churches needs to be seriously considered:

CONFESSION
The first point “From Christ as Savior to Christ as Lord” is important because this affects the NAR conversion experience and NAR member’s idea of conversion, baptism, gospel and other important ecclesial matters. Essentially – if someone is stressing their relationship with Jesus as ‘Lord’ then you are bound to stumble upon NAR theology ticking underneath their concepts of gospel, baptism, conversion and ecclesia.

BAPTISM
More importantly in NAR circles is the baptism of the spirit over the baptism of water (as Wagner points out). Just as Christ emptied Himself, followers must empty, FULLY yield, surrender or abandon themselves to the power of the spirit – a concept often expressed in NAR worship. This NAR theology is also outworked not in their spiritual baptism but in their theology on water baptism. If NAR cults do practice water baptism, they try to hide in the Baptist denominations (Steven Furtick, Rick Warren, Beth Moore, etc), then FULL immersion is a sign of a followers FULL commitment to follow Jesus as Lord.

OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS
The idea that NAR churches MUST see ‘Jesus the Lion’ is important to rally members to see their God as a dominant and powerful deity – thus giving the Apostles and Prophets of this movement a frightening authority over members. Another point Wagner highlights is their cultic ‘theology of glory’ (Cross to crown, from death – for life, etc).

Wagner also mentions ‘living in the desert to crossing the Jordan’. This is code in NAR as to how adherants of the NAR are to progress from the biblical idea that the church is in the wilderness waiting to meet Christ in his Kingdom – once we have run the good race here on earth. They claim we can take dominion now and manifest the Kingdom now and invade the promised land (our culture, nation, world) now. This is a major aspect of their false ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’.

Wagner also distinguishes Christianity from the NAR – ‘From seeing and hearing to discerning’. This may sound odd to some but the key word is ‘discerning’. The NAR take ‘discerning’ to mean operating in the ‘Holy Spirit’ to see and hear things supernaturally.

There are many points we can labor on – but this article below should warn Christians everywhere how deceitful the NAR really are in trying to take over Christianity and make it their own. By Wagner’s definition – they don’t fit the Christian faith – they are enemies within, trying to change the church by force in order to make it what they want.

Rowell writes,

New Apostolic Reformation

Dr. C. Peter Wagner is an experienced observer of the global expansion of the 20th Century Church.  After 16 years as a missionary in South America (he served in Bolivia under two different agencies) before he joined the faculty of Fuller School of World Mission (FSWM).  He was an early disciple of Donald Mac Gavran and became the heir apparent leader of the Church Growth Movement after his mentor’s death.  Dr. Wagner’s career at Fuller ended officially with his retirement after more than thirty years as a professor.  He continues to teach occasional courses at FSWM, is the founder of Global Harvest Ministries, The World Prayer Center, The Wagner Leadership Institute, The International Coalition of Apostles and The Apostolic Counsel of Prophetic Elders.  He has long been the recognized leader of AD 2000’s United Prayer Track and the Spiritual Warfare Track as well.

His career has been rooted in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, an decidedly non-Charismatic denomination.  During his tenure at Fuller, he was a member of Lake Avenue Congregational Church during the leadership of Ray Ortland and Paul Cedar.  His openness to spiritual gifts and spiritual warfare developed over a long period of time beginning with the influence of John Wimber.  Wimber had been a student at Fuller and later a colleague when Wagner recruited him to became director of the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Church Growth and Evangelism.  His convictions and his journey of faith are well documented in over forty best selling books.

I was one of Dr. Wagner’s students beginning in 1980 and, as a part-time, not-for-credit student in his D-Min courses for the next five years.  During that time, his growing awareness of and openness to the dynamics of the Holy Spirit, his use of Wimber as a guest lecturer in the courses I audited and his description of the global move of God among unreached people deeply impacted my theology, my ecclesiology, my missiology and my pneumatology.  Dr. Wagner’s influence inspired me to transition from an accounting career into church planting and cross-cultural mission ministry targeting unreached peoples.  He speaks and writes mostly as an observer, giving language and logic to assist others in responding to God’s work in the world of global evangelism.  It seems he is becoming more “prescriptive than descriptive” these days though he still communicates with characteristic honesty, integrity and clarity.  There is no hidden agenda in what he asserts by conviction.  I have every reason to trust his intentions even when I don’t fully agree with his convictions.

I say all this to assert the obvious.  In my humble opinion, Dr. Wagner is a professional missiologist par excellence, a global church leader of long standing, an astute and credible observer of church growth and now, as he moves into his 70’s, an active and eager statesman for a large part of the church worldwide.  In this latter role, drawing on the skills of his varied career, he has become the champion for a movement he has called, “The New Apostolic Reformation.”

Mind you, he is not creating this movement, he is chronicaling it in keeping with his past role as a descriptive teacher of church growth dynamics.  But in a more directive way, Dr. Wagner is also cooperating aggressively with what he senses the Lord is doing in the world as the 3rd Millennium begins.  The incredible variety of leadership roles he plays offers Dr. Wagner an unusual array of platforms from which to “beat the drum for apostolic reformation” for all to hear.  He’s serious about his convictions.  Let me summarize my understanding of some of them for those who aren’t yet “in the loop” and who aren’t likely to read the rapidly expanding body of literature describing this phenomenon.

1. Why has Dr. Wagner coined the title “New Apostolic Reformation” for what he is observing?

Dr. Wagner believes that an apostolic anointing is the only explanation for the explosive growth experienced by an increasingly large number of churches around the globe.  Though others credited the unprecedented growth of these churches to their being born under an “apostolic paradigm,” he hesitated to use the term because he felt it would be rejected by many traditional leaders from both charismatic and non-charismatic perspectives.  Then, in 1996, George Hunter published a book entitled Church for the Unchurched writing about these exploding churches and he chose to call them “apostolic congregations.”  Dr. Wagner knew the title fit, but he waited until it was thrust into the public domain by a respected leader from a mainline denomination before he began to use it.  (Hunter is the dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury)

Dr. Wagner has long been interested in large churches and in their leaders.  But as the decade of the 90’s wound down, he was aware that something new, something unprecedented and something powerful was reshaping church life in some of the new but exploding congregations and church networks gaining prominence.  Frederick O. Burklin had written about this phenomenon as early as 1978 in “The New Apostolic Church’ reporting on an emerging church network in England.  His article on this phenomenon appeared in David J. Hesselgrave’s book, Dynamic Religious Movements. Then, in 1995, Lyle Schaller, America’s most aged and revered church consultant published The New Reformation: Tomorrow Arrived Yesterday, reporting that he had missed this emerging development.  By his own admission, Schaller had focused so much on the renewal of the old that he failed to see that a new reformation in American Christianity was well under way.  Not a renewal but a genuine reformation had occurred before Schaller took notice.  Thus his title suggests that the emerging vision for “tomorrow arrived yesterday.”

Dr. Wagner’s former professor at USC, Dr. Donald Miller also acknowledged this trend  in his 1995 work, Reinventing American Protestantism:  Christianity in the New Millenium.  There he notes, “I believe we are witnessing a second reformation that is transforming the way Christianity will be experienced in the new millennium.”  The first reformation obviously was inaugurated by Martin Luther in 1517.  Dr. Wagner writes in Churchquake, “We are now witnessing the most radical change in world Christianity since then.”  He expects the consequent changes on the horizon to be as monumental as those which followed Luther’s revolt against Catholicism.  But whereas the 16th Century reformation was a theological shift in response to corruption and apostasy, this 21stCentury reformation is a practical shift in ecclesiology and polity being shaped in response to the growing irrelevance of traditional churches.

Alternative names have been argued for by other influential “church watchers”.  Wagner sights those who prefer a variety of adjectives including post-denominational, independent, charismatic, restoration, grassroots, neo-demoninational, new-paradigm and “The Next” church.  He has chosen to follow other writers in what seems to be the best descriptive term for what he sees as a genuinely global reformation.

Some church historians have divided into the Apostolic Paradigm of the first here centuries and the Christendom Paradigm from the fourth to the mid-twentieth Century.  The re-emergence of apostolic leadership in our day is seen as a return to a biblical model of governance.  It is certainly not an extension of the polity claimed in Catholic and Anglican circles as an extension of “apostolic successions.”  This is a “New” Apostolic Paradigm for a “New” Reformation.  Under its influence change is dramatic and fast paced.

2. What is meant by “apostolic”?

The term can be rightly applied to three nuances based on scripture:

While Dr. Wagner argues that all three nuances apply to his sense of this word’s proper use in the New Apostolic Reformation, it seems to me that current proponents of this emerging paradigm are focused on the use of “apostle” in a governmental sense.  Wagner openly admits that this is the hardest aspect of the new order for traditional church leaders to accept.

Dr. Wagner’s definition of apostle:  The gift of apostle is the special ability God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to assume general leadership over a number of churches (or ministries) with an extraordinary authority in spiritual matters that is spontaneously recognized and appreciated by those churches (or ministries).

3. How large is this phenomenon?

David Barrett, editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia reports 1,000 apostolic networks on record in his global database.  These networks are found on six continents and account, by his estimate, for some 100 million believers worldwide.  Dr. Wagner estimates that in the US alone there are as many NAR churches as there are Southern Baptist congregations – something approaching 40,000.  Growth in the Third World among these churches far surpasses the more mundane statistics found in the West.  Europe’s largest church is Manna Church in Lisbon, Portugal with 25,000 members.  The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil claims over 3 million congregants.  The world’s largest congregations are now in Nigeria where the Church of Jesus Christ in Logos assembled 10-12 million people for its Holy Spirit service in December, 2000.  The world has never seen this kind of church expansion!

4. What distinguishes these NAR churches from traditional congregations?

  1. They started after 1950
  2. Their members are born after 1945
  3. Seminary training for clergy is optional
  4. Worship is contemporary
  5. Bodily expression in worship (rather than cognitive or contemplative approaches) is the norm
  6. Lay leadership is highly valued
  7. Dress is often informal
  8. Tolerance of personal styles is prized
  9. Pastors tend to be understated, humble and self-revealing
  10. They develop extensive small group networks
  11. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are affirmed
  12. Bible centered teaching predominates over topical sermonizing
  1. From Christ as Savior to Christ as Lord
  2. From Jesus the Lamb to Jesus the Lion
  3. From emphasis on the cross to the crown
  4. From justification themes to sanctification themes
  5. From “saved from death” to “saved for life”
  6. From concern about water baptism to spirit baptism
  7. From living in the desert to crossing the Jordan
  8. From praying with the mind to praying in the Spirit
  9. From denying or fearing demons to doing spiritual warfare
  10. From counseling ministry to deliverance ministry
  11. From offering training to discerning anointing
  12. From begin guilty over sin to gaining victory over sin
  13. From liturgical worship to spontaneous worship
  14. From singing in the choir to singing in the Spirit
  15. From the pipe organ to the keyboard
  16. From traditional hymns to contemporary praise
  17. From staff ministry to body ministry
  18. From predicting to prophesying
  19. From telling about the Kingdom to showing the Kingdom
  20. From seeing and hearing to discerning

5. Wagner offers “5 Compass Points” that help us track with NAR churches. In these   fellowships:

  1. Theology has absolute norms rooted in the Bible.  We can agree on core truths without being creedal.  We can be morally strict without being mightily dogmatic.
  2. Ecclesiology looks outward.  Citing Ted Haggard, the primary purpose is “to make it hard for people to go to hell from your city.”
  3. Eschatology is optimistic.  Quoting Robert Schuler, we need to know that Satan is defeated in the end.  But there is no need to “let eschatology stifle your long-term thinking.”
  4. Organization and Authority flow from relationship not structure.  There is no need to create an institutional culture of distrust and legalism which allows centralized gate keepers to withhold permission.  There is a deep conviction that board proliferation should be avoided.
  5. It is assumed that Holy Spirit anointed leaders can be trusted.  Senior leaders cast vision and others follow.  Accountability should be relational not institutional.  Their task is to serve people by exerting God-given influence.

6. Is a modern-day expression of apostolic ministry biblical?

7. Are we not warned about false apostles in II Cor. 11:13-14?

In fact we are warned in this text about false apostles; and in Gal. 1:9 about false evangelists; and in Matt. 7:15 about false prophets; and in John 10:12 about false pastors or hirelings;  and in II Pet. 2:1 about false teachers.  The realization that Satan counterfeits these gifts should make us cautious to confirm legitimate anointing, grateful for the genuine giftings released by God and certain that Satan would not waste his time counterfeiting a gift no longer available to the church.  In context, the work of a false apostle is to usurp the authority of God’s truly anointed leader by trying to discredit, defame and deny his proven worth.  This observation should also make us cautious about abruptly opposing apostolically gifted leaders.

8. Are these modern-day apostolic leaders claiming authority equal to the twelve original disciples who held the office at Jesus’ bidding?

No.  In fact, I Cor. 9:1 and II Cor. 10:8-16 make it clear that those who minister with apostolic authority do so only within a God-given sphere of influence.  In I Cor. 9:1-2, Paul’s authority is questioned by opposing “false apostles” and he appeals to the undeniable fruit of his work in Corinth to defend his anointing and authority.  In I Cor. 9:2 Paul plainly states, “If to others I am not an apostle (and doubtless to many he was not), at least I am to you (and you can’t deny it!), for you are the seal of my apostleship”.  In Corinth, Paul is clearly within his “sphere of influence.  In fact he was recognized as having broad authority to take the gospel to the known Gentile world (Gal. 2:7-9).  In II Cor. 10:8-16 Paul is careful to guard against “overextending” his influence (see v. 14) by boasting beyond the measure of his anointing (v. 13).  Again, proof of his being within his proper limits is the incontrovertible evidence that he planted the church in Corinth – his authority certainly reached to that local assembly!  In these nine verses, the word “sphere” (province or rule from the Greek “kanon”) is used three times; the word “measure” is used five times.  Paul seems to acknowledge that even his anointing has limits.  This would seem to follow the progression of thought in I Cor. 12:4-6 that in the variety of gifts bestowed by the spirit there is a variety of ministries and a variety of effects as the entire Godhead superintends the outworking of their anointing released in the body.  Part of the challenge of acknowledging apostolic anointing is to discern the limitations of an individual’s sphere of influence, that is their measure of grace from God.

9. Where does apostolic authority come from?

10. How do prophets function in relationship to apostles?

Acknowledging the ordinal placement of apostles vis a vis prophets in I Cor 12:28 and the joint significance of both these giftings as recorded in Eph 2:20, it would seem that prophets are to assist the apostles in being attuned to what the Spirit is saying to the churches at any give time.  Prophets are specially equipped to provide discernment, direction and encouragement for apostolic leaders as Ananias and Agabus did in the book of Acts.  As both gifts function, these leaders must exercise wisdom by walking in mutual submission and respect for what the Lord is doing through their respective anointings.  In the final analysis, apostles have a higher governmental role to play but they should humbly receive what the prophetic ministers are sensing the Spirit is saying as they exercise their leadership and make application of the revelation God provides.

11. To whom are apostolic leaders accountable?

Scripture seems to teach that apostolic leaders are accountable first to God for the proper stewardship of the grace He manifests through them (I Pet 4:10).  Secondly, they are accountable to the churches that send them out for ministry.  We see this clearly in the case of Paul and Barnabas in their relationship with Antioch (Acts 14:25-27).  They are on certain occasions also accountable to one another in the course of ministry that brings them together.  Note how Paul and Barnabas relate to each other in Acts 15:36-41 and how Paul confronts both Peter and Barnabas in Gal 2:11-14.  Finally, these gifted leaders can be accountable to appropriate church councils as is demonstrated in the authoritative gathering called by James in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-20).

12. What ministries are specifically identified with apostolic anointing?

In an effort to help us grasp the diversity of ministries apostolic leaders display, Dr. Wagner offers some extra-biblical terminology for our consideration.  His primary categories include:

a. Vertical Apostles – have direct authority over other the leaders they have raised up and released for service in specific churches and para-church ministries.  Paul is a biblical example of a vertical apostle.  Under this category, Wagner includes:

b. Horizontal Apostles – have significant spiritual influence over other leaders even where there is no organizational connection that would provide direct line authority or personal accountability. James, the brother of Jesus, fits this role in the first century.  Under this category, Wagner includes:

c. Marketplace Apostles:  these are men and women who are anointed for special spiritual influence for God in the business and professional realm.  Their ministry is an extension of the church but it occurs primarily outside the four walls of the church facility.  Luke, a first century medical doctor, and Lydia, a seller of fine fabrics, are possible biblical examples of this kind of apostle.  Dr Wagner has developed no subcategories for marketplace apostles because he is not yet familiar enough with the 21st Century outworking of this anointing. He does, however, say that he believes that God has revealed prophetically that marketplace apostles will have greater global impact in the period from 2001-2010 than any other kind of apostle. He wants others more involved with marketplace ministry to help provide appropriate language to describe the modern-day ministry of marketplace apostles.

Source: John Rowell, New Apostolic Reformation, In The Workplace, http://www.intheworkplace.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=1935&view=post&articleid=68277&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=John%20Rowell&fldTopic=0, Accessed 25/07/2017.

Email all comments and questions to c3churchwatch@hotmail.com.

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