Hopefully I will be back on task next week.

This is the second book I have ever pre-ordered.

It is just a coincidence that this follows some of my Friday pirate Videos but this is a little sad. I have never really listened to Ed Young but I have heard him raved about by some friends. This video makes me not really want to hear from him again.

He talks about people who join a church or staff specifically to leave and start another church, he calls these people pirates. His is horrified that some people, the most recent ones he has had to deal with, took 20 years to complete their act of piracy. Seriously? If you can stay in a church let alone on the staff of a single large church for 20 years you deserve an award. If he really believes these people took the heartache, abuse, struggle and time over a 20 year period just to go start their own church he is crazy.

Several issues I have:

1. He says church planters should plant in places that don’t have church, presumably like he did. No wait he is in Grapevine TX, Dallas (could there be a MORE church dense place?), and southern Florida.
2. He says that if you did this in the corporate world you would be in jail. Apart from being untrue, he misses the point, as the larger churches I have been involved with do, CHURCHES ARE NOT IN COMPETITION!!!! WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!!! We are all working for the kingdom of Jesus Christ at least one would hope.
3. When I was at a mega church much like Young’s a small church opened just across the street from the back side of the property and people were outraged but the thing is no one who goes to one of those churches would ever go to the other. We need more churches not less if we are to really reach the world with the Gospel.
4. Having been through this situation on both sides understand that sometimes people just have to go their separate ways. Even Paul and Barnabas decided to go their separate ways but they realized they were on the same mission. Maybe I am presumptuous but it seems this kind of language only gets used when you were worried about building your own kingdom.

Now are there ethical questions that could be involved here sure, and I don’t believe there is one blanket answer. Again from my experience before I arrived at the mega church I attended an incident similar to what he is discussing occurred. A ‘pirate’ planted a church near by and many people float between them but is it accurate to say that that pastor and anyone who attends that church are in sin? Some people would say yes.

This video exposes some large issues within the organized church. It seems he is more interested in building his ‘business’ than God’s kingdom.

Hat tip to Letters from Kamp Krusty for the video.

Plus I just love Pirates!