Dr Paul Allen

Anyone who has been in local church ministry for any amount of time is well-acquainted with disappointment. Things like criticism, gossip, and less-than-ideal fruit are normal. And, in some sense, you get used to that. But there is one thing that never gets easier: when an individual who has professed Christ, immersed in the local church, and served in ministries, departs from the faith. AKA, “apostasy.” John Owen defined apostasy as “continued persistent rebellion and disobedience to God and his word,” or “total and final and public renunciation of all the chief principles and doctrines of Christianity.” As our leadership team has had to grapple with this, we wanted to share a few things we’ve learned from the tragedy of apostasy. We’ve learned to weep over apostates. The wound is deep and multi-directional. There is the weeping over the shock of it all. There is weeping over the callousness apostates show to the ministry they’ve received. Often, they will shun your care a...

“The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now.” – Joshua Harris When anyone walks away from the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a devastating thing. When a respected leader who wrote books, pastored a large church, and who led many people to Christ does it, it can be all the more devastating. But when it is a respected leader whom God used, not only to help someone grow spiritually but who led them to Christ, it can prove to be earth-shattering. In a bathroom in Seoul, South Korea, a young man crying his eyes out as he read Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris . Right then and there he asked the Lord to save him a...

When is a church not a church? This question has received various answers throughout history, depending on one's perspective and evaluation of certain groups. There exists no monolithic interpretation of what constitutes a true church.  However, in classic Christian orthodoxy certain standards have emerged that define what we call "catholic," or universal, Christianity. This universal Christianity points to the essential truths that have been set forth historically in the ecumenical creeds of the first millennium and are part of the confession of virtually every Christian denomination historically. However, there are at least two ways in which a religious group fails to meet the standards of being a church. The first is when they lapse into a state of apostasy. Apostasy occurs when a church leaves its historic moorings, abandons its historic confessional position, and degenerates into a state where either essential Christian truths are blatantly denied or the den...