Vic Young Interview 2
A few weeks ago, Vic sent every registered active pastor in the FGBC the paper he is presenting to Oxford. (I reviewed his paper here). The day before BNYC, I called Vic and interviewed him.
You can find out more about Vic and Fountain of Life Bible Church by following the links. You can read about his conversion and the beginnings of Fountain of Life in this previous post.
CC: You’re in the airport on your way to England and someone asks what you are doing. You explain and they say, “Faith and Reason in Modern Society?” What’s that all about?
VY:
Basically, the utilization of pragmatism and utilitarianism in the modern day church as opposed to faith.
CC: Do you want to explain the difference between faith and reason?
VY:
Faith is basically realizing in Acts chapter 2 the Lord added unto them as He saw fit. Faith is not about those who plant or those who water, but about God who gives the increase as 1 Corinthians 3 says. As opposed to reason, which says, “Let’s utilize consumer psychology, market research and man’s intellectual effort to increase the numbers. Faith deals with souls for eternity as God enlightens and gives and draws by the Holy Spirit. Reason utilizes man’s abilities to create a pragmatic experiences to increase numbers.
CC: So how do you explain the difference between focusing on church growth and having a passion to see souls saved?
VY:
Good question. I think to be able to summarize that succinctly is going to be difficult. I think today, and this goes back to a reference I make in my paper to Americanization, in America we have the ideology that bigger is better. And I think that’s a trap we fall into. Often times, we’ve Americanized the gospel. For us, growth is incidental. It’s not something we go for. We’re going after seeing people get saved. We don’t utilize programs for church growth. We don’t track church growth. The numbers are accidental, well, not accidental, that’s a very uncalvinistic term, they’re incidental, Because we are interested in the individual soul being saved and growing, the numbers just happen to take care of themselves. But for the church growth movement, that is their main thing. Like with the Willow Creek organization. They have liberal churches. They have conservative churches. But what binds them together, the most important thing, is church growth. It’s the church growth movement. The ideology. The philosophy. The numbers. These have become the goals.
[Still wondering what this has to do with anything? Tomorrow, Vic gets more specific about where he sees the influence of the "church growth movement."]
You can find out more about Vic and Fountain of Life Bible Church by following the links. You can read about his conversion and the beginnings of Fountain of Life in this previous post.
CC: You’re in the airport on your way to England and someone asks what you are doing. You explain and they say, “Faith and Reason in Modern Society?” What’s that all about?
VY:
Basically, the utilization of pragmatism and utilitarianism in the modern day church as opposed to faith.
CC: Do you want to explain the difference between faith and reason?
VY:
Faith is basically realizing in Acts chapter 2 the Lord added unto them as He saw fit. Faith is not about those who plant or those who water, but about God who gives the increase as 1 Corinthians 3 says. As opposed to reason, which says, “Let’s utilize consumer psychology, market research and man’s intellectual effort to increase the numbers. Faith deals with souls for eternity as God enlightens and gives and draws by the Holy Spirit. Reason utilizes man’s abilities to create a pragmatic experiences to increase numbers.
CC: So how do you explain the difference between focusing on church growth and having a passion to see souls saved?
VY:
Good question. I think to be able to summarize that succinctly is going to be difficult. I think today, and this goes back to a reference I make in my paper to Americanization, in America we have the ideology that bigger is better. And I think that’s a trap we fall into. Often times, we’ve Americanized the gospel. For us, growth is incidental. It’s not something we go for. We’re going after seeing people get saved. We don’t utilize programs for church growth. We don’t track church growth. The numbers are accidental, well, not accidental, that’s a very uncalvinistic term, they’re incidental, Because we are interested in the individual soul being saved and growing, the numbers just happen to take care of themselves. But for the church growth movement, that is their main thing. Like with the Willow Creek organization. They have liberal churches. They have conservative churches. But what binds them together, the most important thing, is church growth. It’s the church growth movement. The ideology. The philosophy. The numbers. These have become the goals.
[Still wondering what this has to do with anything? Tomorrow, Vic gets more specific about where he sees the influence of the "church growth movement."]
posted by danny2 @ 8:24 AM
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