Now he’s more like hard candy. Check this out. Totally not the way to shepherd your flock.
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Source: Brittany Smith – Christian Post
After South Carolina Pastor Perry Noble apologized to his congregation for criticizing those seeking more discipleship, a Christian apologist and radio host said a simple apology isn’t enough. He suggested that Noble go on a “Repentance Tour.”
Chris Rosebrough, host of Fighting for the Faith, noted on his program that the public apology was a step in the right direction, but he also doesn’t think Noble should stop there.
“I personally think that at this point the magnitude of the error disqualifies Perry Noble from being a mentor to pastors,” he said. Because Noble made those statements at a leadership conference for pastors, Rosebrough said he has to do more to undo the damage of those statements than just apologize to his congregation.
The controversial comments were made at a 2009 conference called Unleash, an annual leadership event conducted by Noble’s church, NewSpring.
During his session, Noble told pastors that “the person that always screams I want to go deeper” is “the jackass in the church.”
“I tell people, you’re only as deep as the last person you served,” the megachurch pastor stated then. “Deep? Most Christians, John Maxwell said it, are educated way beyond their level of obedience anyway.
“What you’re really saying is you want me to stand on the stage and confuse the heck out of you so you don’t have to apply what I teach on Sundays.”
According to Rosebrough, Noble apologized for the 2009 comments earlier this month. He said, “I need to repent of my perceived disliking of discipleship – notice I said perceived. I want to say I’m sorry and ask for your forgiveness.”
Noble explained that he had always placed more significance on evangelism because of an incident that happened early on in his ministry. A woman came up to him after he preached a sermon on reaching everyone in their town and told him that the church didn’t want to grow, it was more focused on making disciples.
The young pastor became angry with this woman’s response and said it made him think that in church culture it was either evangelism or discipleship. “So for years I preached evangelism,” Noble said.
And while he said that evangelism is biblical, and Christians are called to reach the world, he has realized that it’s not either-or, it’s both-and when it comes to evangelism and discipleship.
He told his congregation that it’s not a bad thing to want to go deeper, because those who “go deeper, also go wider in [their] walk with Christ. So as you go deeper this way your arms open up and you want to reach more people for the kingdom. You cannot go deeper and not love the people that Jesus actually died for. So this church is passionate about evangelism, but also passionate about discipleship.”
Rosebrough believes that Noble needs to make it clear to every pastor who he’s been in contact with that he was “flat out dead wrong, and if they followed your advice and treated people in their congregations as ‘jackasses’ because they wanted to go deeper, it is not right. Saying sorry to the congregation is just the tip of the iceberg.”
NewSpring Church declined to comment.
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Discipleship is a major point in Christianity. Evangelism is good. Telling people about God’s Holiness, wrath, why we need Jesus (who gave up His life to die for our sins so that we might be able to be reconciled and in a right relationship with God should we accept His free to us, expensive for Him gift of salvation which covers us from His righteous wrath) and rose again conquering death is important. But you cannot just leave someone there. New Christians need help and need to be able to grow in thier faith so that they will not get wiped out by various attacks from the devil.
As for the Jackass comment, perhaps Mr. Noble would do well to read over the qualifications of an Elder easily found in Titus 1:5-16.
Appointing Elders Who Love What Is Good
5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint[a] elders in every town, as I directed you. 6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe[b] and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 8 Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
Rebuking Those Who Fail to Do Good
10 For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. 11 They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”[c] 13 This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. 16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.