The Fencepost

Note: This post originally appeared as a note on my Facebook profile, March 4, 2010.

Seeing all the talk about today’s Unleash conference at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina, I did some poking around in their Unleash resources from prior years’ events. Mostly I was curious to learn how they approach the subjects of preaching and teaching, since that’s a subject very close to my heart lately.

Interestingly I found almost nothing on these topics, except for a brief note by Pastor Perry Noble about how he prepares for sermons by listening to a lot of podcasts, reading very few books, and brainstorming with staff members. For now I will lay aside my views on this process to explain what I did find: this quote by Creative Pastor Shane Duffey in the PDF notes of his “Service Planning” breakout session from 2008. He used the “5 rules of defensive driving” as analogous to how they apply to their service planning and management practices. Overall, I found those points to be relevant, insofar as they apply to a church with a heavily process-oriented service approach, such as NewSpring.

But then there is this: a 6th “bonus” rule:

Bonus Rule #6: Don’t swerve for animals: when people swerve for animals, more often than not they end up hitting something else…sadly enough, this frequently ends in their death. In the church, you will have critics whose goal is to get you off the road, off the vision of your church. DO NOT SWERVE for them. You can slow down…try and help them understand the vision, stop for a minute, but if that does not work RUN THEM OVER.

A brief internet search will inform you of the October 2009 firing of a NewSpring staff member due to severe and repeated threats against a blogger who criticized their church. This blogger brought his concerns to his county Sheriff department, which was prepared to file a charge of distribution of pornography against this staff member. While the charge was never filed, the fired staff member and several other employees of NewSpring admitted their involvement in vicious and prolonged campaign of threats and intimidation, with violent and profane language and inferences, aimed at this blogger and his family through the internet and mobile phone services. Shane Duffey never admitted involvement, but the blogger’s extensive cataloging of each and every detail of the assault clearly implicates him in at least encouraging and fueling the campaign.

My main question, then, is this: When a church staff member sees critics of his church as “animals” to be “run over,” how long will it be until something like this happens? Are Duffey’s views his own or were they fostered and cultivated by the NewSpring employee environment?

Moreover, what happens if a bona fide member of NewSpring approaches a staff member about serious, biblically-based concerns that the church may be promoting errant teaching or ministry practices? If said member lovingly but firmly explains to Duffey from Scripture how NewSpring is in error, will that member be branded an animal to be figuratively “struck and left for dead on the side of the road” (analogy mine)? If any serious concern does not match NewSpring’s “vision” (which Duffey admits in his notes can change in an instant), will it be rejected and targeted as “roadkill”?

These are serious questions that deserve serious answers. For anyone attending or listening to Unleash today to learn how to “fulfill the Great Commission” as NewSpring’s web site states, please consider the messenger with every bit as much discernment as you hear the message. There are plenty of other approaches to church ministry that side with the Bible in not dehumanizing detractors.