Before the Strange Fire conference in 2013, I did a rather extensive primer on the Charismatic Movement as represented in the top 50 largest churches in the US as represented by Outreach Magazine. Here’s the links in case you have a few hours to burn going over what was hundreds of hours of research and writing:
The New Apostolic Reformation
The Outreach Top 50: #1-5
The Outreach Top 50: #6-10
The Outreach Top 50: #11-15
The Outreach Top 50: #16-20
The Outreach Top 50: #21-25
The Outreach Top 50: #26-30
The Outreach Top 50: #31-35
The Outreach Top 50: #36-40
The Outreach Top 50: #41-45
The Outreach Top 50 #46-50
The Largest Churches in Africa
Only a few of the Largest Churches in Asia
That whole series was good for what it was, and is still a decent resource with a lot of information. Some of the links are dead…especially the African links. It seems like those churches change web servers every six months. Some of the churches no longer even exist (funny how a mega church can disappear in less than 2 years), but those posts are probably still helpful.
I don’t have the time or resources to keep them up-to-date, but I have updated two posts as some rather striking information has come to light. The first is #11 – Gateway Church pastored by Robert Morris. When I wrote the post I didn’t have a whole lot of time to toss into watching all his sermons (and I definitely didn’t have money to buy his books), but since the time of writing a whole lot of interesting information has come to light that made me change my conclusion about him. He’s now clearly a prosperity preacher and a blazing false teacher who says some rather insane things.
The second is #28 – Mars Hill pastored by nobody…but it used to be pastored by somebody famous back when it existed. Given all the changes that have come out regarding Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill over the past year and a bit, I updated some of the information and added a new conclusion about him. He’s now clearly a false teacher who has now started down a path that leads somewhere even worse.
Several years from now, I predict that people will speak of Mark Driscoll and say “We should have seen that coming!” The last thing he needs now is be back in ministry or to start hooking up with the Prosperity Gospel crowd. Either way, that’s just something that I’ve done seeing that those posts still get a fair amount of reads.
I’ve got more book editing to do now.
Also, I recently had a brainstorm and have come up with what I hope will be a fantastic book title.
No spoilers yet.
Until Next Time,
Lyndon “writing books takes forever” Unger
