Very Bad Doctrine

I attended a church the last few weeks that I thought was going to be really cool. Unlike the flashy churches that just seem to want to entertain us, this place was pretty laid back and didn't seem to care about being "culturally relevant."

The church is called The Gathering At Corona and the pastor is Ken Peters.

Week number 1 was fine. Good place. I decided I was going to go back.

Week number 2 was pretty good. Pastor claimed to be a prophet which I don't have any trouble with but I've seen to many false prophets in the church simply to take them at their word I was going to look for a bit of evidence. Skeptical yet optimistic. After the service, the pastor came up to me, we chatted for a few minutes and he suggested I call his secretary to arrange a lunch meeting so we could get to know each other better. Hmmm I'm thinking I really like this pastor. On the way home, I asked Little Dif what they talked about in Sunday School. This is where I got concerned. She told me that they were teaching them to speak in tongues. "What? What do you mean? How were they teaching you to do that? You mean they were teaching you about it?" She said, "No, we even practiced, first for one minute, then two minutes." RED FLAGS!!

Yet I remained calm and I considered this might be the work of an overly enthusastic, but obviously wrong Sunday School teacher. Since I was planning to have lunch with the pastor, I wanted to bring this to his attention and make sure the situation was dealt with. Certainly he would see the folly of teaching young kids (or anyone) HOW to speak in tongues. I had a busy week and didn't set up the appointment but I remained optimistic and so I went back for...

Week 3 which was today. Little Dif wasn't with me today but I remained optimistic and I would tell the pastor we'd definitely have lunch this week. It never got that far. About 15 minutes in to the worship, he started encouraging those with the gift of tongues to start speaking out. Just to be clear, he was encouraging everyone to do it at the same time. There was no order to it, there was no interpreter, just lots of shouting in gibberish. He explained right away that it was a misinterpretation of scripture that we weren't supposed to speak in tongues without an interpreter. So I sat down and right away opened my Bible and scanned through 1st Corinthians 14. Ah, there it is! Verses 26-28. NASB

What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and let one interpret; but if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God.

Really does it get any more clear than that? I took out my notebook and started copying those three verses on to my paper. I wrote a little note to the pastor on the bottom telling him that what he was teaching today was wrong and to please call me to discuss it and I left my contact info. I struggled for a bit with what to do with the note. I thought about going up and slipping it on the podium and walking out. I thought about giving it to an usher but I wasn't sure he'd get it. I thought about interrupting the whole thing and having a little debate with the pastor right there. I said a quick prayer and as soon as I did, I remembered seeing a sign in the parking lot RESERVED FOR SENIOR PASTOR. So I walked out (no one noticed, they were in the middle of worship), slipped the note in the slightly open window so it landed on the seat and I went home.

At first I hesitated to put the name of the church and the pastor in this post. But I decided I'm not spreading rumors or gossiping. People need to know where bad doctrine is taught. This pastor is teaching bad doctrine in clear contravention of scripture. The pastor might call me back but I'm not holding my breath.

**Note to Pastor Ken: If you happen to come across this blog entry and you are willing to correct your error, please contact me and I'll be more than happy to remove this post AND come back to your church. My email address is here on my blog, contact me there.**