A Calling To Help America’s Pastorate
I can tell you exactly what I was expecting when I first approached Pastor Hershell at Perimeter Megachurch in Norcross Georgia.
I drove there with the last hundred dollars in my pocket, directly from the seat of Satan where I have returned – and I’m talking about Boston, Massachusetts. And I told them what God had very clearly laid on my heart.
I told Pastor Hershell, “God has sent me here to save the Evangelical Church in America.”
Well, I can only speculate, in hindsight, as to the roar of laughter among the members of the board within his mind.
“We kind of expect those seeking church membership here to want to learn from us,” he said.
And it’s not that I wasn’t learning. I ask God for wisdom every single day, and God has given me more wisdom than certainly I am capable of channeling. As it turns out, the wisest Christians among us – the best life we can possible achieve is to make ourselves living sacrifices. So, in Christian terms, I’m really living the high life right now because of my faithfulness to God’s calling.
As for Perimeter, long story short, I told Pastor Hershell exactly what he and Perimeter were doing wrong. What was Perimeter doing wrong? What are they still doing wrong today? Well, they’re having women lead men in worship. A proverbial striptease of sorts. Okay, that’s pushing it a little far. Long story short, God gave me the wisdom not to join Perimeter – which, apparently believes that having a cross in the main sanctuary is too “triggering.” That ought to have been my first sign right there.
As a general rule of thumb, if you walk into a church and it has a countdown clock and rock-concert lighting, it’s not a church. I suppose it doesn’t help that I blogged they had a cross constructed, literally, of faggots in the lobby, contrary to the Old Wooden Cross of our stout-hearted Christian grandparents.
Despite repeated attempts to reach out to Perimeter Church, their increasingly millennial, nepotistic pastorate still isn’t listening. And they’re playing a losing game. The irony is that the church places a premium on “winsome” evangelization. The problem with their overzealous focus on “Winsomeness” is that they’ve lost the heart of the Gospel in their overemphasis on all the trappings of the Gospel. What’s more, Perimeter Church is spiritually undercut by the personality politics of its idol and pope Randy Pope. I’m not kidding. His name is actually Pope.
My intention, of course, has always been to fulfill God’s calling for my life to help the church in America fight the battle more effectively. I am uniquely equipped to do this by virtue of my time in the trenches of the Satanic FakeNews Media.
It’s never a fair fight against the Media, which I call a principality.
When Perimeter kicked me out for very vocally calling them out for the whoredom within, I kind of took it personally. After all, God reached me through Christian radio, the likes of pastors like Charles Stanley, whose church is located a few blocks south. But a wayward Sodomite pastor named George Ray – and I don’t think that’s very far from the truth – had recommended Perimeter. I think Pastor George Ray was trying to teach me a lesson of sorts; he wanted me to perhaps understand the full state of disarray Evangelicaldom is in right now.
In my own spiritual maturation I’ve been able too look back on all these experiences in my attempts to share the gospel with, as it were, America’s pastorate, trying to show them why they’re being ineffective, why the hairs are getting grayer.
Time and time again, I get the same answer at church after church. Often, the churches won’t admit this directly, however when you finally get around to it, I haven’t met a church that did not adopt this kind of mentality, and here is the anti-Biblical mentality of today’s church.
Unbiblical Fear Within The Pastorate
Church pastors all seem to be justifying their unBiblical fear. Perimeter actually incorporates a mix of several unBiblical precepts which, in all its cerebral expository sermons, undercuts its own Biblical effectiveness. And in their pride, Perimeter simply didn’t want to, and still doesn’t want to, hear what God’s placed on my heart to tell them. As if Perimeter Church’s superficially robust, if stagnant year-to-year finances managed with all the pizzazz of an Enron executive, are effectively addressing the core of Perimeter’s spiritual ills festering within. They still haven’t been confronted.
Thou Shalt Not Commit the Sin of “Scandal”
Perimeter’s spoken, preached theology is entirely rooted in a mix of the Bible and Presbyterian Catechism. But Perimeter’s practiced theology is, from my experience giving of my own time to the church in ministry, more “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
I’m not saying that the “Winsome” aspect of Perimeter’s operation is intrinsically evil, even if a man named Charles Manson used the book to found a cult and kill people. Because isn’t that the ultimate influence you can really have over someone, is to end their life? I’ve read the book – okay, the audiobook – and it is not necessarily evil. It is a set of tools to help understand the human mind, kind of like the observational side of psychology. If you understand it, you are better equipped to communicate with people.
Also, it is admirable, arguably, to not even give any appearance of wrongdoing or sin in one’s life, to live in such a way that even if something is right, to avoid it if it would somehow mislead children into sin. And right now I’m laying aside the female worship leader whoredom – that’s a secondary issue. I’m trying to get to the fundamental theological sins of Perimeter right now as they are practiced, as opposed to how they are preached.
No, the Perimeter Megachurch problem is not, principally, the whoredom of the “rock concert church” akin to many contemporary worship services where women unBiblically lead men, hence the title of “Worship Leader.” Laura Story has gotten some very bad theological advice from these people. My tendency is not to blame the women, but rather the theological stewards behind their souls. And I think Laura Story’s theological stewards, her own leaders at Perimeter have led her to the slaughter, which is another side issue, the pop-evangelicaldom rock concert whore culture.
I gave Hershell a chance to respond before publishing this, and by extension Randy Pope, the “pope” of Perimeter Church, and again that’s really not far from the church at all.
Dr. James Dobson, who is often vilified even by some of the most stringent Evangelicals for his promoting a “self-esteem gospel” and his writing to “forgive God,” which I don’t think he has ever retracted to this date (I asked Dobson’s team, they haven’t responded. Perhaps they will) – Anyway, for all Dobson’s potentially theological iffy statements, himself not being a theologian, one of his precepts for life I have to agree with, and it’s directly applicable here.
Dr. James Dobson says, and I paraphrase with zero fear of distortion here, “Don’t focus on flair; just do a good job in what you do, and the shine will take care of itself.” In other words, Perimeter Church oughtn’t be so concerned with the “winsomeness,” the “attractiveness.”
The irony is that when you go to a sermon, Randy Pope can talk you in theological circles. This is a problem it has in common with many a church of theological leanings which are vastly different but yet the same in that there is zero application, zero connection to real life. Nowhere is this more apparent than regarding the doctrine of homosexuality. Pope, if asked, will wholesale condemn the practice of homosexuality. But if it were as terrible an abomination as he teaches, surely the church would stand up to this great evil. But no, that wouldn’t be winsome, and would perhaps invite media “scandal.” Furthermore, it triggers Pope and the rest of Perimeter to fall back upon another, even bigger unBiblical premise which is but a defense mechanism whereby Perimeter not only practices, but encourages, the immediately easy life, rather than the Biblical, long-term wise and fulfilling life. That rule is: No politics. It’s a rule that has a lot of qualifiers, which we’ll get into now.
To round out this section, however, Perimeter’s fatal flaw in its unbiblical theological practice, exploded to the level of Biblical church case law, and the reason I was expelled – was simply that “no scandal,” a precept borne out of perhaps a misinterpreted Bible verse intended to encourage, rather than discourage integrity and oversight – has been twisted for selfish, non-Christian, godless purposes of the stuff of Scarlet A’s. Not very wise.
The UnBiblical “No Politics Rule”
And so Perimeter, for some strange reason, has a second unbiblical line of defense. Randy Pope’s rules for no politics are as nonsensical as Jerry and Elaine’s rules for dating, in that they painfully ignore the obvious fact that the rule’s principal purpose is again established for the purpose of protecting the Pope. Again, not a bad purpose in and of itself. We desire to protect our leaders because, presumably, they do good for all of us.
Except – this becomes a problem when the desire to protect self within leadership becomes more important than the desire to safeguard the spiritual souls of the sheep. When this happens, there is a real scandal; whether or not it comes to fruition among the sheep is ancillary. But a sin has been committed and needs to be corrected.
In Practice, It’s More Like: “No Unpopular Politics”
Randy Pope spends a good amount of time gloating about the politicians, usually God-fearing Christians, which come to him for help, whom he refuses to lend his microphone to. He makes an unbiblical distinction between politics and the practice of evangelization; as if you could somehow separate our sacred obligation as citizens of a self-governing republic from our calling to make disciples of all the world. But let me illustrate the telltale sign, if you’re not yet convinced, no doubt on highly emotionally charged bases, for your disagreement that politics are an integral part of our sacred duties to serve God in this land of the Free, where we are indeed charged with being good governors of self, like all kings have been charged by God to govern well. Why would we be any exception?
Randy Pope routinely contradicts this rule of “No Politics.” And he does it when – and he doesn’t realize he’s doing this – the media approves of his political involvement. That’s right. Perimeter doesn’t call it politics, of course – that would be too blatant and obvious. But because of the emotionally charged nature of the debate, they get away with tainting this. And may I suggest most of American Evangelicaldom also does.
So, what does Perimeter call the politics it does engage in which gets the stamp of approval from media? Social something-or-other. They don’t call it the “social gospel,” but that’s what it is.
In other words, if Perimeter were to pass out Christian Coalition voter information cards telling which candidates were pro-homosexual, it knows it would get a backlash from the Media, and they would be shunned. And Perimeter, like most evangelical churches, fears the media and pols. And it’s sad because it’s our duty as Christians to lead these people to the truth. And so Perimeter will engage in various Social Justice Warrior types of political endeavors, partner with Johns Creek and local civic and business organizations in that regard, but will ignore the very topic tanking the church. While, not coincidentally, you’ve got the female worship leader leading men, which is a big Biblical “no-no.” The irony being that, running the church like a corporation, they have put lots of time into considering the meaning of the titles they bestow. Contrary to the Pope’s “forced-casual” golf course attire, Perimeter is actually pretty big on titles. It’s a difficult elephant in the room to get away from, when the guy at the helm’s name is Pope. I’ve never seen anyone kiss his ring, to be clear, but still, it’s a gorilla of an illustration.
The problems of the personality-driven theology as it’s practiced are perhaps complicated by the fact that the personality upon which all these church rules are based are unabashedly grounded upon a highly introverted personality. Introversion, as a personality, is a can of worms, but may I quote the pastor whose church I did join, Charles Stanley, in saying that “God did not design us to be introverts.” To say that what is really being evangelized at Perimeter Church is less the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and more the personality of Randy Pope, is an understatement. But again, the perfect storm of unBiblical media-imposed fear, the fear of the power distance from the church’s founding entrepreneur, and an averseness to “scandal” which trumps averseness to the actual sin which causes scandal is really, in and of itself, a recipe for – well, scandal.
This is not a piece whose purpose is to indict Perimeter church for its witch trials or the underlying reasons for it, however. This is a parable based on a real life example for the church in America as a whole to learn from. Perimeter Church is not alone in its sins. I did reach out several times in an effort at reconcilication with Pastor Hershell Hatcher.
I’m actually continuing to work on this, so – perhaps we’ll let you know how it goes. I had tried an effort at reconciliation previously but it didn’t go very well, through a mutual friend of myself and the Pastor. Hopefully God uses this posting to convict Perimeter of its ills. Who knows, perhaps God will convict me as well!
My Meeting With Another Pastor Today: Preaching From Fear
God bless him, another pastor I was meeting with today, of the “Bible Church” persuasion, has given much of himself to the community.
I came across this particular “Bible Church” when I happened upon a box of Bibles which appeared, at first glance, to be a newspaper box, you know, on the street corner like you’d find newspapers in. And I recognized the brilliance in such an evangelization strategy.
This particular pastor is – skeptical of my calling. Granted, he recognized the brilliance in my approach from the outset, but has soured toward it since. The reason, clear as day, is pride. After all, his counseling ministry and his pastoral ministry is the most important thing. One-on-one evangelism. And I’m in agreement with that, except for the fact that this particular Bible pastor is not effectively doing evangelism, and neither are his disciples.
His defense: the effectiveness is not important, we just have to live up the call of the one-on-one evangelism and sharing the gospel.
Effeminacy In The Pulpit
This particular pastor agreed with me regarding my observation that regardless of whether someone’s in the pulpit or not, each generation of Americans are progressively more effeminate (or manly in the case of women). This is a direct contradiction of the Gospel we are called to preach, the disciples we are called to make.
I could tell that this particular “Bible Church” pastor was defensive because he proceeded to accuse me of not sharing the gospel, however I tried to make it painfully clear to him that what I was actually trying to do was to help him plant seed in more fertile soil, to even till it for him, as it were.
He asked me if my work was what God wanted me to do, and how many one-on-one discussions I have had. And it has been a while. But I’ve noticed that most churches simply are failing the battle. And so, without realizing it, this particular Bible pastor regressed into the defeatist defense mechanism that he protested he would never make, simply in another form.
“Let’s All Throw Our Hands Up In The Air and Brace For The Rapture”
Obviously, the above was not his argument. But the unBiblical fear behind it, the motives of my Pastor’s heart which I saw clearly, is the same as those pentecostal churches who make it. What this particular “bible church” pastor actually said was, “It’s going to get worse; the Bible tells us it will.”
But I challenged him, “Does that mean we should just give up?”
To be fair, one of his sheep came in, and so he had an audience, which kind of put him in a bad position of defending himself, so he eventually stopped engaging. When he continued to accuse me, which I reminded him is really Satan’s most potent tool – well, this was the final exchange in the matter:
Bible Church Pastor: How many people have you shared the Gospel with one-on-one?
Me: I’m doing it right now.
And then I had the realization, hit me all at once that I had gotten my hopes up yet again in the Hub of the Universe which God has allowed to become Sodom and Gomorrah. What I had walked in to get was good, godly advice from a capable, mature Christian. And by the end of the discussion, what I had realized was that if there was a place in America, a church where I could get spiritually fed, that was not my role here. I realized that God had sent me there to evangelize a missionfield of what I had thought just might be a Biblical Church where I could grow in fellowship but which, at last, proved to be an effeminate-led body of believers which was at last, regretfully, freaking out in response to my suggestion that perhaps they could be doing something differently.
And so while the last thing you’d find at this “Bible Church” is a pastor wildly and emotionally flailing around and dancing on the stage and in the aisles, as you find at wayward churches which place an emphasis on dancing and services and that sort of wayward thing –
The fact is that this senior pastor of the Bible Church, not coincidentally convinced that it was his ultimate authority that mattered, and with no elders which had any kind of “vote” in anything of spiritual significance –
He might never have led a service where he would attribute a coming rapture to a certain emotional hype preaching about “America is now Satan’s, so let’s sing songs about how desperate we are.” No, he never would have said that because his denominational inklings, to his credit stand against that. However, in the end, his fear of confronting his own shortcomings prevailed nonetheless, and with it, unfortunately, his cowardice in rising to the challenge to more effectively evangelize. Despite the fact that I was trying to hand him the very tools to do so. And, God willing, I will keep trying. But this is a common problem among churches, which is why I share it with you.
Unlike Perimeter, again to this “Bible Church’s” credit, there was no whoredom. It cannot be accused of that. And they’re trying so hard. The senior pastor tries hard. Very intelligent man, but again in that cerebral way.
The positive part of being cerebral, for a senior pastor is that you can tell very clearly what the Bible wants us to do. But the bad part of it – that introverted type of personality common to both this “bible pastor” and the Pope of perimeter church, is that you are not effective at translating it into actual evangelism.
And that’s what the church is not effective at doing right now. It knows, somehow, that it’s ineffective, that nobody’s responding, as the pews thin out. It’s not getting better. And so pastors do what any reasonable CEO does when their job is threatened, of the effeminate sort. It’s flight, fight, or freeze — and pastors are freezing like deer in the headlights. More accurately, America’s pastors keep on “following the formalities,” doing what they’ve always done out of habit.
The smoke is there for anybody to smell; they’re avoiding the problem, most of America’s pastors. Like the deer in the headlights.
“Analysis Paralysis” as it’s been called by the gurus. In a way, it’s not just being a bad pastor, in Randy Pope’s case, he designed the church to be run like a well-oiled business. Nevermind the marketing inconsistency of a sanctuary lacking a cross – and inconsistency between the words coming out of his mouth about the supremacy of the Biblical model of family and what the church actually does in worship and in home life.
It’s very clear to see, without making any logical leaps that female “worship leaders” defy the Biblical mandates against female elders, and females leading men in worship. It’s unBiblical. And at a time when boys are taught by the government they’re not actually boys and vice versa, this bears serious reexamination.
I’d say that Randy Pope has made a management error, an error that you don’t have to be a churchman to understand. It’s not a mere pastoral problem, it’s a CEO problem, and a common one. He’s … gotten theologically lazy. Once upon a time he had the wherewithal to pull off a very convincing act for an introvert, to appear winsome and bring people he called “dumber than himself” to Christ. Not sure how “winsome” that is, but that’s his testimony. Okay, points to the Pope for sincerity.
Granted, I have directly confronted Perimeter staff about this problem, but again the point here is not to place blame, regardless of the frustrations that Perimeter staff is no doubt facing. Regardless of the frustration my other “bible church pastor” no doubt felt when I confronted him earlier today. Actually, he confronted me and I merely held him accountable. I didn’t force the issue; he started accusing me of not sharing the gospel as the Bible mandates.
It’s the same thing Pastor Tim of Calvary Christian Church in Lynnfield said. This is the pastoral defense mechanism. I’m actually used to hearing it so much I’m encouraged by it because it means God’s going to break through to these guys soon. And it goes like this:
“How many people have you shared the Gospel with?” They say it as if to compare their tally with mine. Come to think of it the cult in Boston, widely recognized as a cult – here in Sodom and Gomorrah — I called attention to it as well as the MOSAIC cult of Los Angeles, which despite the material you now find on line has a theology rooted upon the pagan philosophy of the “five elements – earth wind water fire wood” again, stemming from founder Erwin’s “artistic” personality, not scripture –
Help Me Help You.
How many disciples have you made, pastor?
The Good News – the Good News, the gospel I have for you is that I have an answer for you. I know how you’re attempting to make disciples; and I want more than anything to fulfill my calling from God to help you be successful in that endeavor, which is godly.
The danger signs are clear for anyone to see. The media is gloating because they’ve been almost entirely successful at reverse-evangelizing your church. Just look at all the millennial men in your church – not exactly stout-hearted, are they? Look at the millennial in your pulpit. How can he preach against the homosexuality forcing an entire nation God blessed more than any other to bend over and grab its ankles, in the name of Rush Limbaugh?
Pastor Hershell Hatcher at Perimeter Church told me to remove the quote from Rush above. He was concerned it wouldn’t be winsome. “We don’t want word getting around someone who wrote that goes to Perimeter Church.” It’s not winsome. (I paraphrase that a little, but there is zero distortion here.)
You know what’s less winsome? I attended the only church I ever formally joined, First Baptist Atlanta only to find that the Charles Stanley I knew from the radio was being replaced by a shimmeying pastor. He said all the right things, but in the center of the Bible Belt, the homosexual demons had won.
And young people? Gone. Gray, thinning hairs among gray, thinning pews. Heck, the musical act at First Baptist, Charles Stanley himself, appeared at times as stilted and as passionate as an audio-animatronic in Disney’s Carousel of Progress.
God’s given me the wisdom to help you. But you must first invite me to do so. I’ve given all for the Gospel, and I’m sorry if that is not immediately recognizable to you.
May God bless you, and may God have mercy on your souls if you should lead another one of these little ones to sin.
I am a sinner in need of God’s grace; thank you for taking the time to listen to what God has placed on my heart to share with you here.
A Parable for Today’s Pastor
The gist of it is this. Would you send a man with a lead bullet in his arm to a nutritionist? That would be foolish, right? Because no matter how nutritious the food you feed him, he’s got poisonous lead seeping into his blood which will eventually kill him if you don’t remove that bullet.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (or read!)
American pastor, your congregation is being fed by you, sure. It’s being fed good and holy nutritious Words from God, and the Bible.
But your congregation has also got a poison drip in their arm that’s killing them. Not just on Sunday, but twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It wakes them up in their sleep, and even appropriates their relationships with friends. It also poses as an omnipotent, omnicient source of spiritual and practical information that works day and night to take them away from their Bibles.
Now, you can keep on preaching as you’ve been preaching. You can feed them the most nutritious of food – heck make it organic and non-GMO! But if you don’t take that poisonous drip into their blood out of them – you’re going to find yourself with a totally and completely dead bunch of sheep.
I’m talking, of course, about the devil’s principality of media. Print, television, and now so-called “social media.” And social media is about as social as “gay marriage” is marriage.
Let’s share the gospel. Let’s make disciples. But let’s do so smartly. This is “eat the darn show-bread” common sense as Jesus discussed. This is “work a miracle on Sunday because the Sabbath was made for man” common sense. Must I cite the verses? You’re a pastor. You know exactly where they are. A man needs to be both baptized and also needs to have a poison drip taken out of his arm. Which do you do first?
Please pray about reaching out. I know the media because I am media by training and trade. But principally, I am a missionary of God. And I believe He wants us to talk – and soon.
Yours in Christ,
Peter