If you want to sharpen your biblical discernment skills, try taking some time to ‘decipher’ the sermons of C3 pastors – particularly pastors from C3 San Diego! Armed with the understanding that practicing discernment provides a means of protection for all believers (who may be being deceived spiritually), Ps. Chris Rosebrough draws our attention once again to C3 San Diego and one of their youth pastors, Brad Jones, whose sermon comes with this description attached:
“How attractive does your life look as a Christian? In this eye-opening message, one of our youth pastors gives three practical keys on how to live an attractive life that will set you apart.”
Navigating their C3 San Diego website as we tried to find out exactly who Brad Jones is (by typing his name in their search engine), proved more than a little difficult. LinkedIn describes him as a “Youth Specialist”, a pastoral role definitely not found in the bible. We did find some troubling Q&A on C3 San Diego’s website for their MyCity Youth:
Why should my son/daughter go to MyCity? “At MyCity Youth we believe that your child has a God given calling and destiny. We have a strong desire to bring that calling out and see your child fulfill the God dream for their life. MyCity Youth is a place where your child will be developed as a leader in their sphere of influence. We want to partner with you so that your child will flourish in everything they put their hand to.”
Who are your youth leaders? “As mentioned before, every youth leader is background checked. Our leaders are not babysitters, parents, or professionals, but are commissioned to love and lead our youth. We view them more as coaches, explemlifying (sic) what it looks like to live a life after God and how to make wise choices.”
The reality is this – C3 San Diego youth leaders, under the purview of their lead pastor Jurgen Matthesius are nothing more than self-confessed ‘life coaches’ helping people ‘fulfill their God dream’, find their ‘sphere of influence’.
Are they simply encouraging their followers to ‘build their own god’?
With an unopened bible on the pulpit, youth pastor/specialist Brad Jones delivers a completely unbiblical message, while claiming to have an intimate relationship with God through direct revelation.
As Ps. Rosebrough notes:
“Brad and God dialogue all the time together.” Preaching a message that “breeds narcissism rather than repentance, breeding and exalting of self rather than a humbling of self”.
“Brad Jones for all his talk of having a relationship with God, apparently it’s not tight enough of a relationship to where he would actually obey what God has commanded him to do in the written word of God, in the bible. So he makes stuff up, invents dialogue he has with God, and God’s theology is all ‘wackerdoodle’ in his supposed conversations and then he comes up with a problem that’s the exact opposite of the problem we really have. And the solution he comes up with, is just, make up some… ‘I do deliverance so, you came into an agreement with the devil so take that and tear it up and make a new agreement. Yes and even used legalese language to make it sound official and stuff. But what he’s done is nothing. He hasn’t called anyone to repentance for sin, recognised their unworthiness before God. And to recognise that we each need a crucified and risen Saviour in Jesus Christ. He’s the One who makes us worthy by taking our sin upon Himself and bleeding in my place and yours. You see, God made Him to be sin who knew no sin – and as it says in Isaiah, God put on Him the iniquity of us all. We are worthy, made worthy because Christ has taken all of our sinful unworthiness and He’s bled and died for it on the cross and risen from the grave. And so He calls us to repent of our sins, to humble ourselves and to recognise that we are, well, by nature, objects of God’s wrath – so that He can make us alive in Christ and give us eternal life as a gift.”
“Yes, anyway, I don’t want to bug you or bore you with all that biblical stuff because you know, C3 San Diego, they’re super relevant and they don’t need any bible stuff, they can just make up their own stuff and call it Christianity and Christian doctrine and that’s the problem. And there’s far too many churches that do this.”
Full sermon can be accessed here.
Source: Ps. Chris Rosebrough, Fighting For The Faith, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exaRtRK0b4, Premiered May 16, 2019. (Accessed May 23, 2019.)
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