Time Out For Evel

It is being reported that Evel Knievel passed away today. As a child of the 70’s he was the biggest hero in my neighborhood. The ramps my friends and I jumped on our bikes…not to mention the scrapes, cut and bruises…were a elementary kid’s tribute to Evel’s daredevil lifestyle. I had the Evel Knievel toy…I had the Evel Knievel bicycle…I had the Evel Knievel lunch box. If he was on the “Wide World Of Sports“…I was glued to the television.

Back in my comedy days I had a routine talking about how he inspired me to almost kill myself trying to jump my bike over the neighborhood creek. It always went over well with the audience and ended up on one of my records. When I moved to Florida I used to fly out of Tampa to dates and had the privilege of meeting Evel on one of those flights (he also lived in the Tampa area). He was very gracious…spent an hour talking with me…and patiently answered all of my questions (and listened to me talk about Christ). I gave him a compact disc with the “Evel Knievel” routine on it before we got off the plane. Weeks later I got the coolest letter from him saying how much he liked it.

I was thrilled last year to find out that he’d come to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. It is nice to know that I will get to see my childhood hero again some day…in Glory. Until then…he will be remembered fondly in the Elrod house…and missed.

Accountability: The Bible

Over the last several months God has really been laying into me about accountability. Not only accountability to make sure we are following God’s Word as a church….but also personal accountability in my own life.

For years I had friends…three in particular from my Prison Fellowship days…that I could share anything with and thus I felt totally accountable to them. I guess that in itself is the main difficulty in true accountability…finding people I can be totally honest with that can also be truly honest with me.

With me no longer working with Prison Fellowship on a regular basis, there became a need for new accountability. I still talk with those three dear “prison” friends very often, but our lives don’t intersect enough for them to know me on a day-by-day basis. They also have never really had any ties with Compass Point…so it would be impossible for them to also provide accountability for the church.

The accountability process I now have in my life…and the life of Compass Point…has been…and will continue to be…a growing process. Accountability is based…not only on Scripture and God’s leading…but also on unwavering trust in another human being. With that in mind, over the next several set of posts I will lay out a brief sketch of my accountability structure. I’ll start with…

THE BIBLE – It begins and ends here. If it’s not Scriptural…not just one verse taken out of context but according to the whole counsel of God’s Word…I do my best to flee from it. This is also the case with Compass Point.

In order to do this I must be…my accountability partners must be…the Elders of Compass Point Church must…scholars of God’s Word. That means that I am daily reading from Scripture, but also several times a week pouring into it for hours at a times. I will admit…there are times that as a pastor of a growing church…”life stuff” and “ministry stuff” gets in the way. I really have to block out time when the phone is turned off, the world is shut out and I just spend uninterrupted time in God’s Word.

As I’ve said before my greatest regret is not finishing seminary (something I will rectify one year from now…more on that in a later post). However, I do not let that stop me from being a scholar of the Word of God. I read MacArthur commentaries like most pastors read business or leadership books. I almost always have one with me and I really use them as a text book. While I study hard for what I’m going to be preaching on…at least once a week I spend several hours studying something I have no current plans to present to my flock. This is done for my own growth and knowledge…something just for me…that I look forward to.

Finally, I have QuickVerse loaded up in my Mac (my main way of studying…but I wish they’d get MacArthur’s stuff on Mac) and I use Sprugeon’s “Morning And Evening” as a daily devotional…well…morning and evening.

Other accountability measures to follow…

No Friend Of Emergent

This post is…by far…the most difficult I have ever written. By publishing it I know that I will receive much flack…quite a few flaming emails…and lose some dear friends…including some within my own congregation. However, I learned a long time ago that:

1. Silence is support.
2. If you don’t stand for something…you’ll fall for anything.
3. There are hills in which to die on.

Before I begin, please know that this piece has taken almost six weeks to write. Before that I spent many months in prayer…and God’s Word trying to discern things. I also have been blessed by receiving counsel from Godly pastors, missiologists and theologians from around the United States. They know who they are…and I thank them for taking my calls and responding to my emails.

For the last several years the church I pastor (Compass Point) and I have been mistakenly lumped in with the Emergent movement. It may be because Compass Point puts so much emphasis in missional, servant outreach…or it could be because I’m an occasional contributor to Next Wave. I have never been comfortable with us having the Emergent tag, though I did little to discourage it. I had always maintained a “live and let live” mentality when it came to my concerns about Emergent’s theological stance. I can no longer do that.

Recently two fairly emerging church plants have ceased functioning in an official capacity. These were made up of mostly young to mid 20-somethings that had theological leanings toward a more liberal and Emergent doctrine. As a result of these two communities of faith dissolving, some of the participants began coming to Compass Point. With them came a universalistic doctrine that they attempted to convey in every situation that was presented to them. For the first time the leaders of Compass Point and I had to deal directly with the illness that is the doctrinal beliefs of those that align with the Emergent movement.

I’m all for a healthy theological debate…however I will not even begin to entertain a discussion into the integrity and validity of God’s Word. The truth is that not everyone will see the gates of Heaven…and Hell is real. Our repentance of sin and acceptance of Christ our Savior…by the grace of God…is the only way out of eternal damnation. Any teachings to the contrary is…heresy.

For a while now the leadership of Compass Point and I have been able to sit on the sidelines of the Emergent debate. While there was much that we disagreed with theologically…there were also many Emergent things that we did when it came to outreach and missions. I think there was certain “frog in the kettle” scenario for us…while we were bothered by statements and books by some of Emergent’s leadership…it was not to a crescendo that really rocked our world.

That all changed last year when many of the main “voices” of Emergent began to get a little louder with their universalism stance. It began to show up in books they were writing, magazines they contributing to, in interviews they were conducting, in videos they were producing and in keynote speeches they were giving. They would be very subtle in the way they would drop it in…while talking about social justice, inequality and missional outreach. It was almost “smoke and mirror”-like…an old magician’s trick to divert your attention away from what was really happening. It would be something as simple and unassuming as, “God isn’t mad…God is love…He doesn’t want you to feel guilty about the sin in your life…and oh, by the way…everyone is saved no matter what they believe…they just don’t know it”. Universalism. Heresy.

It is not my place to name names or expose those “voices” of Emergent. They do not fall under my accountability…nor do I have access to them. However, their heretical views and false teachings have now been brought into the field of the Compass Point flock…and it IS my job to protect the sheep. The Elders of Compass Point and I can no longer sit silently by. We have decided to take stand. The following things have been implemented at Compass Point:

1. For the first time in our history we now have a Constitution & Bylaws with a comprehensive Statement Of Faith.
2. Our small groups are being revamped in order to protect the doctrinal integrity of God’s Word. Resources by authors, pastors or speakers aligning with Emergent will no longer be used.
3. We have a much better mentoring strategy and program in place for our up-and-coming leaders.
4. There is greater accountability and training in place for those that preach or teach the Word of God at Compass Point.
5. Only literal translations of the Bible will be used in the preaching and teaching of God’s Word at Compass Point. Our sword of choice…English Standard Version (ESV).
6. Our Sunday messages will occasionally be topical-based series…but will mainly be expository in nature. We have already been doing this for some time…but we have now made a more “official” stance of it.
7. We are in the process of having our church listing removed from websites or publications that have ties to Emergent. We are also in the process of disassociating ourselves from networks or alliances that are affiliated with Emergent
8. This post was added to my blog to be a public statement that Compass Point Church and Chris Elrod is not affiliated in any way, shape or form with Emergent.

There will be those that will criticize the steps we have taken. So be it. There will be those that will choose not to fellowship with us. We can accept that. There will also be those that will say that this blog post was not needed because Emergent has no official theological stance. That’s a crock! Those that speak for you…define you…and what you believe. Others will say that we’re being legalistic. It’s not legalistic to believe that “theology” contradictory to the Word of God is wrong. Finally, there will be those that say that we’re judging. No…it’s called discernment…and it’s Biblical. It’s what we’re suppose to do as the shepherds of the flock that God has entrusted us with.

The Mythical Jesus

In today’s world there seems to be two kinds of Jesus Christs making the rounds. One is the Mythical Jesus…and one is the Biblical Jesus.

The Mythical Jesus came not to be a Savior…but some kind of ancient Mother Teresa…with a little Al Sharpton thrown in for good measure. He didn’t like the rich…or the Republicans…or war…or church…or corporate worship…or pretty people…or absolute Truth. He only came to hang out with prostitutes, homeless people, sick people, rebels and liberal people…and shunned everyone else. He staged protests against the Roman Empire, loved to pray in labyrinths and only read Scripture in the confines of a communal home environment with zero accountability. He questioned all that His Father stood for and only asked questions without ever giving answers…in order not to offend anyone. He was a pacifist that never got angry and practiced tolerance…except with those that disagreed with Him. He used a lot of big words to describe what He did…words that nobody else understood…but made Him look cool. He also spent a lot of time drinking beer and talking about all the stuff He was going to do different.

The Biblical Jesus…was none of the above!

Jesus Wasn’t A Social Worker

Jesus wasn’t a social worker. He also wasn’t a political activist. He was the Perfect Lamb that came into the world…and left the world…as our Savior. Yes He healed people…fed people…and loved people…but that was not His purpose. His purpose was sacrifice…in our place…because of our sin…so we wouldn’t have to pay. He lived…He died…He arose. Our acceptance means that we never have to taste Death.

The God still gets angry…when we cheapen the message…and the purpose…of His Son…by saying that Christ was on this Earth living some kind of mystical “secret life”…as a politically-correct social justice lesson.

You can dress it up with nice dust jacket graphics and promote it with a sold-out coast-to-coast tour…but crap still smells like crap at the end of the day. The packaging may look inviting…but the stink coming from some of today’s “communities of faith” is almost becoming unbearable!!!

Love Doesn’t Win

This is one of many blog posts this week (and the coming week) that is hard for me to write. I am a missional guy. I just got back from Colorado picking up an long-term ex-inmate for aftercare, I spent Thanksgiving with the homeless of Lakeland and every Monday night you can find me at a local pub hanging with the disconnected 20-somethings of our community.

Compass Point is a missional church. We help single mothers afford childcare, we embrace former skinheads and we pass out free water to thirsty people all over town. We have always operated under that overused slogan…”Love Wins”.

Here is my problem…I no longer believe that anymore. Love doesn’t win…truth does!!!

Christ said…”I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Love wasn’t mentioned. God can love us a bunch…but that love won’t get us into Heaven. We can love God a bunch…but that love won’t get us into Heaven. We can love people a bunch…but that love won’t get them into Heaven. Only true repentance of our sinful nature and total acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Savior will get us into Heaven. There is no other way. It is not love that wins…it is solely the knowledge and total acceptance of truth that wins.

Love can’t be truth..and therefore can’t win…because it is based off of feeble human emotions and feelings. There are days that I don’t love people. There are even days when I don’t really love God all that much. There are times when the love fades and a struggle emerges. It is then that the knowledge of absolute truth takes root…and it’s application in my life takes over. True love beyond ourselves can only come through knowing the Truth. It is only through knowing and applying Biblical truth that lets me love on people…and God…when I emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically don’t feel like. That doesn’t come from a cheap fickle thing like love…it comes from a life-encompassing thing like truth.

I guess my basic problem with “love wins” is that…it is not working. It may work elsewhere, but it isn’t working in America. For all of the loving on people that the church is doing today…not many are coming to Christ. The United States has become the second largest mission field in the world. Third World countries are sending missionaries to us these days. That just sucks! The church…shouting “love wins” to the rafters…has become more concerned with loving on the prostitute with conversation at the local watering hole…and less concerned with telling her about “living water”. We’ve become more concerned with building community with people that sharing the truths of the Bible. Love…and community…has become the tail that wags the dog. Community without God as the center…is a inferior imitation to true relationship. Love without truth…is useless in the Kingdom of God!!! Authentic love…and community…doesn’t happen unless truth is first there.

I have also become completely disenchanted with the Emergent definition of love. Love is patient and kind…at times. Love can also be a trip to the spiritual woodshed for a Biblical butt-whooping. Love isn’t just handing out food and blankets to the homeless. It is also saying “I’ve given you fourteen cans of food and two blankets this week…and none of it is going to do you any good when your heart finally stops ticking…let me tell you about something called Truth that I’ve found.” The love in “love wins” is always defined these days as some kind of hand-holding, hippie-looking, Democrat voting, everyone-smiling-like-a-Coke-commercial ritual. There is definitely evidence of loving kindness in the Word…but there are also many examples of loving toughness in Scripture. In contrast…truth is the one constant throughout the entire inspired writings found in God’s Word. I also find it funny that some Emergent leaders argue over the reality of absolute truth. Without absolute truth…there is no absolute love. A “chicken or the egg” conversation is pointless…read Genesis 1:1…the Truth came first.

Does this mean that Chris Elrod will stop being missional? No. Does this mean that Compass Point will stop being missional. No. It just means that spreading the Truth will be a little more important in the coming days…than trying to make everyone like us through love. The Bible says the world will hate us if we truly follow Him…what the heck…we might as play off of that. We’re going to continue to embrace skinheads, take in ex-inmates, give out warm clothes to the homeless and help single moms pay for childcare. However, it will no longer be done without any verbal presentation of truth. Faith without works is dead. Works without truth…is pointless. I’ve read the back of the Book…Truth wins!!!

Copyright Issues

Last spring the an Associated Press writer used a quote from my blog in an national story.  The first I knew about it was when I got a call from a radio station in Detroit for an interview due to the article making their local newspaper.  I wasn’t ticked about the quote being used without my knowledge…in fact I was honored.  However, it got me thinking about copyright laws and how they pertain to blog posts.  In the past I haven’t really sweated people taking a quote from this blog…posting it on theirs and then linking back to my original post.   However, in the last few months I’ve seen folks reprinting complete posts of mine…or series of posts…without a link back to this blog…or even crediting me with the original thought.  The watchdog groups have been especially bad about this.  So I got to checking with one of my lawyers from back in my comedy days…a guy that specializes in intellectual property (not that any “property” that I write is all that intellectual).  It seems that blog posts are considered intellectual property and are subject to basic copyright laws. On my new WordPress site I have a copyright info section in one of the tabbed pages and at the bottom of the sidebar.  It basically says:

Blog posts on ChrisElrod.com may not be reprinted, reproduced or redistributed in their entirety without written permission from Chris Elrod or Compass Point Church. Minimal use of specific quotes, sentences, phrases, media or written thoughts on ChrisElrod.com may used elsewhere online or in mass media with a link back to this blog or by specifically mentioning ChrisElrod.com in the reproduction, reprint or redistribution.

 I guess what I’m saying is that it’s cool to repost a quote or thought from my blog onto another blog or media resource…but please don’t recopy the entire thing.  I will occasionally let Next Wave or Relevant Christian do that…but they always ask for permission.  Also, if you quote something from me on your blog…or in an article…be sure to give some “link love” to ChrisElrod.com!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Flogging Molly

The guys from my Monday night “Pub Club” have really turned me on to the band Flogging Molly. I’ve been pretty sick this week…major cold and no voice…and I’ve been really jamming to the “Drunken Lullabies” album. I know we are on the eve of Thanksgiving…but I’m in a St. Patrick’s Day/Irish kind of mood. Nothing like a good punk rock tin whistle to help you feel better.

Wesley Update

Many folks have been emailing in asking about how Wesley is doing. In the first two weeks that he’s been here we’ve been able to get him settled into the 21st Century (he’s been locked up since 1987), get his Florida drivers’ license (a HUGE undertaking), open a checking account and our folks have really embraced him well. He’s also been a big help with mentoring some of our people and helping out on Sunday mornings. Because he got out so close to Thanksgiving…most places are not taking applications at the moment. We are still looking for him a permanent job and a permanent place to live. Any prayers in that direction would be greatly appreciated.