I want to get your assessment on American megachurches?
Brother Andrew: Let me first say, I refuse to be negative. Whatever they see as their calling, they have to pursue with all their power. It does not make me envious to see a megachurch because I don’t see that in the Scripture. The church was always low-keyed, there were places where there were tens of thousands of believers, like Ephesus, and they had no building at all. And nowadays any place in your country, if there are ten or 20, or 100 members – you have to have a church – bigger, bigger, bigger. I don’t see it in the Scripture. It’s clearly not my calling, that is again not meant as criticism. God can use the church for bigger influence, provided that bigger church means more power with God, more anointing from the Holy Spirit, passion for the lost people, and not people who are in charge who are on an ego trip and just make their own name big, writes lots of books, and television and all that. All that often ends in total disaster and the church that is growing in comparison, you might say some house churches or underground churches in China are megachurches when you think of the number of members, but they have no mega building, they certainly don’t have no mega salary, no mega fame, and no mega books, and all that.
I think God has a different set of values and we should do well to look into that from Scripture and be humble. If people are being used by the Lord, praise God for that, and I am not envious and I wish them success. And I have been at Rick Warren’s church. They gave me a special award for being old and still following Jesus. Can you think of that? So I got up for the big thank you, and I said something like you Americans are crazy, how can you reward an old man for still following Jesus? All he wants to do is go to heaven and make it. You don’t have to reward him in the world. Instead of rewarding an old man who still follows Christ, you should punish all the rich people in your church who spend all their money on the bigger boat, and bigger this, that and the other. That should be the system, but don’t reward an man who is near eternity because he still follows Jesus, it is the calling of all of us. What’s your problem? Well, frankly, they’ve never invited me back.
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“Christianity was birthed in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and will only continue as we have this empowering from above. God is always looking for the willing vessels that will trust Him afresh for the impossible.” from: Principles for the gathering of Believers under the Headship of Jesus Christ.Since 2012, a growing group of believers in North America started to warn of coming persecution to western countries. This message was shared in a variety of ways. One of the responses to this was to compile a book taking principles from underground Churches around the world of how they thrived under pressure and persecution. The volume, Principles for the Gathering of Believers, had in a short time over 50,000 downloads in ebook format and much interest was shown. Some new house churches started through this and other existing groups were encouraged.