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Brittany Smith, c3, c3 church, c3 global, C3i, ccc, Chandler, Chris Rosebrough, Christian Post, Code Orange, Code Orange Revival, Confessions of a Pastor, COR, Ed Young, Ed Young Jr., Elevation, false, false teacher, Fighting For the Faith, Furtick, Heresy Olympics, Laying Hold of Eisegetical Nonsense, Matt Chandler, Noble, Phil Pringle, poison, Presence, Presence Conference, Presence Conference 2012, Rosebrough, spiritual poison, Steve Furtick, Steven Furtick, T.D.Jakes, td jakes, Young
We’ve already bought up our concerns regarding Phil Pringle inviting Steve Furtick speaking at Pringle’s C3 Presence Conference 2012. Read the article here:
Phil Pringle Endorsing Problematic Steve Furtick for Presence Conference 2012
Brittany Smith, reporter from the ‘Christian Post’, records a conversation Chandler had with Furtick last year:
“The Reformed community is not a big fan of you,” Chandler told Furtick last year during The Elephant Room, which featured blunt conversations and debates among influential pastors. Chandler had expressed concern that Furtick was rejecting doctrine in the name of outreach.” – Brittany Smith, ‘The Bible Is Not About You,’ Says Young Evangelical, http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-bible-is-not-about-you-says-young-evangelical-67210/, 16/01/2012. (Accessed 20/02/2012)
People also may be critical of Rosebrough’s harsh criticism of Furtick. However, Rosebrough received an email from a member of Steve Furticks church. This member confirmed Chandler, Smith and Rosebrough’s understanding of Furtick. Rosebrough read out the email on his radio program here:
Laying Hold of Eisegetical Nonsense
Chris Rosebrough said,
“Ok. This email comes to us from a man who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. He and his wife attended Elevation church for five years. However, they will no longer be attending. And – I’m not going to give you his name cos I know how the Elevators will treat him if they heard who this was.” – Chris Rosebrough, Fighting For The Faith, Laying Hold of Eisegetical Nonsense: 21:55, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/01/laying-hold-of-eisegetical-nonsense-.html, 19/01/2012.
This email gives us good insight to Elevation and Furtick. The ex-Elevation member wrote to Chris,
“I just wanted to thank you for your ministry. I’ve been extremely blessed by it in the past few days as I’ve listened to your archives learning about discernment and all of the tricks used by false teachers. I had been going to Elevation Church for the past five years every single week until very recently. I have been feeling unrest for many months, considering leaving the church, sensing much ego on Furtick’s part amongst many other things…
But I was held back by the lies taught every week thinking, ‘Surely, for the church to be flourishing the way it is, it must be God, right?’. Boy was I wrong.
I also want to point out that despite daily prayer and reading of the Word, I have been unable to grow spiritually, bound by the completely backward, narcissistic eisegesis, teaching at Elevation church. After Matt Chandler’s unbelievable message, and much that I had learned listening to your podcasts, I now know why I haven’t been able to grow spiritually. I have been consistently ingesting spiritual poison and have been reading the bible completely wrong.
I feel like my eyes have been opened and I have had difficulty understanding how I could listen to that, week-in and week-out. But I am just glad that I have escaped that trap. Looking back at all of the people there and how it kept me from growing or even learning anything about Jesus, I have the very uneasy feeling Elevation is being used as an extraordinary cunning tool of evil used to ensnare people. A masterfully orchestrated show, designed to manipulate emotion!” – Chris Rosebrough, Fighting For The Faith, Laying Hold of Eisegetical Nonsense: 22:47-24:41, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/01/laying-hold-of-eisegetical-nonsense-.html, 19/01/2012.
The letter goes on,
“I want to point out a couple of observations that I found interesting from Matt Chandlers sermon.
- He seems to be looking and preaching directly to Furtick to his left much of the sermon. Especially when he makes points of the bible ‘not being about you’.
- He repeatedly says, ‘Look at me’, before saying an important point. Could he be saying that to Furtick?
The cameramen tended to show the crowd and those on stage whenever the audience was clapping. So I scrubbed through the sermon and watched every time it happened, watching Furtick, who did not clap once or even appeared to be paying any attention to Chandler. He was slumped back like a teenager with an attitude. I was especially unnerved when Matt Chandler proclaimed that He doesn’t want Matt glorified. He [God] wants to be glorified in, and everyone applauded except for Furtick. When Chandler says, ‘You are not the centre of the universe’, he looks directly at Furtick. To proclaim that and stare at him in the face when he is clearly despising everything Chandler is saying is so unbelievably bold. He says, ‘There is no sin in your life past, present or future that has more power than the cross of Jesus Christ. None’. That’s forty one minutes into the sermon to applause and amens, accept for Furticks, who at that point is leaning on his fist, presumably glaring at Chandler. He’s normally unbelievably energetic, jumping around, raising his hands, amening pastors off the stage. I don’t want to extract meaning that isn’t there but why won’t he acknowledge the cross of Christ when he so exuberantly acknowledges every other thing uttered by guest preachers?
I’ve watched him for years and I have never seen him behave that way. Thanks again. My wife and I spent hours upon hours, listening to you show learning discernment and being encouraged.” – Chris Rosebrough, Fighting For The Faith, Laying Hold of Eisegetical Nonsense: 26:50-29:01, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/01/laying-hold-of-eisegetical-nonsense-.html, 19/01/2012.
We must ask the question, why on earth would Pringle invite such a dangerous teacher to speak to thousands of Christians? Does Pringle not care of his spiritual duties as a pastor?
C3 Church Watch 
Here is a quote from apostacyalert about the new mystics which is very relevant considering that Phil and Chris were saved in our church in the Jesus Movement. Quote:”During what is possibly the last major outpouring of the Holy Spirit in true revival, known as the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 70s, two church leaders were in the forefront, Chuck Smith and John Wimber.
The devil immediately reacted to the move of God that began with a confused generation of hippies and spilled over into the long established denominations. He sowed tares that resembled the wheat on the outside, but who brought in the unholy spirit, resulting in metaphysical confusion. While true miracles were being wrought by the Holy Spirit, the unholy spirit counterfeited the power by convincing those who were not grounded in the Word that they could learn to do these miraculous things too through following methods and formulas. Gifts could be taught when not caught. This attack against righteousness is the devil’s pattern to destroy the works of God using his own servants of light. (2 Cor. 11:13-15)
In the early days of the Jesus Movement, Pastor Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel was the place to be. John Wimber was one of his assistant pastors who was zealous about what he called “doing the stuff.” His focus was on the experience and he divided from Pastor Chuck who insisted on doing things orderly.
Wimber joined up with the Vineyard movement where no limitations were put upon any metaphysical manifestations, no matter how unruly. This split the Calvary Chapels between those who wanted to get grounded in the Word of God and those who wanted to operate unhindered in the supernatural. The former stayed with Calvary and the latter followed Wimber to the Vineyard.
After the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit ran its course, the former hippies, now grown-up with families of their own, faced a spiritual quandary. Should they focus on growing up in the faith by getting saturated in the Word of God or follow the wonder-workers and get saturated in the spirit of metaphysical experience? One way could lead to dead orthodoxy while the other path could lead to a never-ending quest for power.
For true servants of the Lord there is the narrow balanced road to keep in the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Put on the full armor of God in order to stand in this evil day. The armor includes the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, along with the shield of faith for quenching the fiery darts of the wicked one. A review of the 6th chapter of Ephesians reveals who the true enemy is – not one another, but the rulers of darkness of this world that disguise themselves as angels of light who come against us. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood.”
The end-times church that Jesus promised to keep from the time of trial that is soon coming upon this world did three things right: they kept His word, did not deny His name and had but a little power (see Revelation 3:8). The new mystics, as we shall see, do not follow that pattern.” Unquote
Is it possible that with a lot of false teachers tha Satan has tempted them as he tempted Jesus and offered them the world in exchange for their souls?
The bottom line is bums on seats=dollars and the pulpit pimps don’t care how they achieve it as long as they get rcih and build up their inflated egos. Of course Satan will provide air and assistance to inflate the egos.
Notice in the photo on the left Phil is rubbing his hands with glee as he sees Dola la la la lars being fleeced of the sheeple.
Who cares what poison is injected in them as long as they are numbed and fleeced.
I took my family and left Elevation after the Code Orang Revival. This is not a church, its a show. They herd you in like cattle, they tell you where you can and cant sit, and when its over they herd you out so the next batch of cows can be led in. Nothing is personal. You will never talk to or even meet your pastor. He is protected by a swarm of armed bodyguards who whisk him to a safe room as soon as he is done with the show. Everything done their is based on emotion and hype. Yes furtick is a dynamic speaker and sounds good but its all smoke and mirrors. I lost my job over the summer, no one at the church would talk to me or pray for me. Some neighbors just left because they emailed and called 8 times to talk to a pastor due to marital strife. Their request was ignored. The weekend “worship experience” is all they are about. There is no dicsipleship, no nurturing, no caring….They make it clear, we dont want to pray and counsel and help the poor or feed the hungry, there are already other organizations to do that, thats not what we are good at!!!! So they throw a donation their way and if you need help they will tell you…call one of those organizations….Everything is about Elevation. Every service starts with a video showing how “your church is changing the world” hello steven, God is changing the world, not your church, if your church disappears tommorow, I am sure God will accomplish all he needs to in Charlotte with or without you. All of the staff and worship leaders idolize him to the point its sick. Everyweek we were told that Pastor Steven had a great message for us, not once did they say God had a message for us. Now for easter, they are using the number 7 as a theme….they have everyone watching the sermons from the past 7 easters to see what Pastor Steven said. How bout we look at what God has been telling us for the last 7 years. This church is hip, fun, highly over produced and puts on a great show. From a production standopoint its second to none, the facility at Blakeny is amazing. The technolgy is top notch. I have a degree in music business and for producton and showmanship I give them an A+….for being a church I give them an F. I have heard stories of many people who like me have recently given up on Elevation. My prayer is Furtick wakes up and comes back to God and salvages what could be an effective ministry, but for now its a big moneymaking business that is spreading through Charlotte like wildfire.
@ W – “They herd you in like cattle, they tell you where you can and cant sit, and when its over they herd you out so the next batch of cows can be led in.”
Isaiah 40:11, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart.”
Cattle are herded but sheep are led. Sheep are totally dependent on their shepherd for feeding, for protection – obviously neither are being provided.
May the Lord lead you to “quiet waters” and a home where God is honoured above man.
If I was a non-Christian reading these blogs and saw the way you are judging these other Christians it would make me glad I have no part of it with you.
Ben, you have nailed it to a certain extent. The reason this site exists is because churches like C3 and Elevation are stumbling blocks to the unsaved.If pulpit pimps like Furtick and Pringle weren’t deceived there would be no need for this site and this blog wouldn’t exist and the unsaved wouldn’t be able to read it.I would like to say to any unsaved, and to you if you are one,that God’s church is all about you and your spiritual life and is not about emptying your wallet and bank account or about manipulating you to mortgage your house to the extent that you can’t afford the repayments and will loose it. God is NOT after our money. A true pastor is not after our money. A true shepherd will feed the flock on God’s word rightly divided.