One phenomenon that came and went before I knew anything was some “revival” in Lakeland, FL. By the time I heard anything about it, it was over. The controversial leader of the event was already leaving, talked about a “leave of absence” from ministry, then divorced his wife and married an intern.

As a Pentecostal, often my belief and practice gets wrapped together with Charismatics, so when junk happens (and it’s happened in my own denomination), it effects me. I know struggles. That’s not the issue.

The issue I take is how sloppy we have become as a church. We so rarely take stances on truly moral or theological issues. I will commend my denomination for being able to take stands on morality more often than not. While I have watched them sidestep some landmines because of personality, I have also watched them take great care to take a tough stand even if they were dealing with a well-known personality.

That said, I think even my own denomination is sloppy theologically on many other issues and while we can take the “high road”, so to speak, on some moral issues, we are slipping badly on other things. We’ve taken much more of a business model approach for church leadership. We’ve taken a “networking” approach for fundraising that grossly overlooks bad financial practices. We follow money far more than we used to and it’s coming back to haunt us in some ways. We are far more “results” driven than Spirit-driven.

It’s just a bit sloppy.

It’s why when I read a couple of paragraphs from a Christianity Today article online I thought not only of moral stances, but our lack of theology when the editor said this:

One critic, Charisma editor J. Lee Grady, faulted Bentley for sending the charismatic movement into a “tailspin.” He quoted an anonymous Pentecostal evangelist who said, “I’m now convinced that a large segment of the charismatic church will follow the Antichrist when he shows up because they have no discernment.”

That quote is haunting. It’s not just a lack of discernment on morality. It’s a lack of discernment in theology and biblical understanding.

This is why I do this blog and why I still pastor, preach and teach. The Body of Christ is seriously lacking in discernment. One would of thought it would have improved after the late ’80s debacles with Bakker and Swaggert. It has not. It’s worse. The evangelist in this case was questionable from the get-go and people STILL flocked to see him.

I do this blog and continue to preach on spiritual formation because the Body of Christ needs to wake up.

It’s probably directly related to why someone like that evangelist could get thousands into a Florida tent and I get a handful on Sundays. Oh, well. We keep moving on!