According to the LifeChurch.tv website, “LifeChurch.tv wants to make a lasting difference in your life, in our community, and in the world. How do we go about that? By leading people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That’s the driving purpose behind everything we do.”
LifeChurch.tv has a number of satellite campuses that usually watch the weekly Sunday sermon by telecast, but they consider themselves to be one church.
Here are the general criteria we use to determine which churches in our culture that ought to be exhorted to love and good deeds regarding the sin of abortion apathy.
1. Adopts a pro-life position but does not state this boldly or publicly.
2. Would check a “pro-life” box on a survey or ballot, support a pro-life option, but takes no action against abortion.
3. Discourages members in good standing from taking action against abortion under the covering and approval of Church leadership.
4. Encourages members to minimize the seriousness of the sin of abortion. (Example: Abortion is just another old sin like gossip or lying).
5. Does not practice any formal church discipline on unrepentant abortion rights advocates, abortion practitioners, and those who have chosen to murder their children by an abortion.
6. Possesses the financial ability and number of people able to seriously challenge the culture of death and is not otherwise engaged in works of pure and undefiled religion (James 1:27) which prohibit their taking up the cause of abolition themselves.
7. Brushes aside, rejects, or even opposes multiple attempts to bring the church to a greater awareness of the sin of abortion and their apathy in dealing with it to the extent that the word of God demands.
When active members in good standing at LifeChurch.TV attempt to set up ministries within the church under the approval of its leaders, they receive the answer that LifeChurch.TV is pro-life, but chooses not to address the topic from the pulpit or in their other ministry programs. When members desire to address abortion within the church they are told things like the following:
This is a very sensitive subject and… to be honest, pro-life comes off as militant much of the time…This seems more like a mission opportunity and need than a connection, growth, discipleship endeavor. I’m glad it is where God has you at present, but I don’t think LifeGroups is the right recruitment vehicle.
At this time we will not be able to organize a LifeGroup around this cause.
Members in good standing at LifeChurch.TV are not allowed to establish ministry groups with standing against abortion as their purpose. Multiple emails sent back and forth between a long time LifeChurch member and their campus pastor proves this. When members bring up standing against abortion with their pastors and the need to love their neighbors in keeping with the commandments of Christ, they are told to keep it to themselves and out of the church. LifeChurch does not believe that standing up for the image of God, or defending pre-born neighbors from the slaughter of abortion is part of their mission. They may be personally pro-life or secretly pro-life, but they do nothing whatsoever to stand against the “shedding of innocent blood.” going on a mile down the road from their N.W. Expressway church building.
It is currently impossible to find anything out about abortion and Life Church’s position regarding abortion on the LifeChurch.tv website (we expect that this will change soon). When inquiries about LifeChurch.TV’s position on abortion are made by local abolitionists who diligently call, re-call, leave messages, send emails, and go to the church building and talk with LifeChurch people and staff, we do find that LifeChurch.TV is in fact “pro-life” though they expressly choose not to address the evil of abortion from the pulpit or in their other ministry programs.
Please listen to this recording of a telephone discussion between an abolitionist and a LifeChurch.tv staff member with knowledge of all LifeGroup ministires and activities. (Please keep in mind that the recording of telephone conversations is entirely legal in the state of Oklahoma):
As can be heard, LifeChurch.tv staff have little compunction against stating to strangers over the phone that committed and devout believers at LifeChurch.tv are not allowed to start up LifeGroups devoted to standing against abortion or assisting women facing crisis pregnancies.
Please also note that LifeChurch.tv thinks that strong followers of Christ can just go get abortions and that while that may not be a good thing, it is tantamount to gossiping, and you will remain in good standing with the church body, your spiritual leaders, and LifeChurch.tv staff.
Here is the text from the email I sent Jurhee following our conversation:
Hi Jurhee. We talked on the phone last week about LifeChurch and Abortion,
In that phone call you told me that your church currently had no ministries in operation devoted to bringing the Gospel into conflict with abortion or to ministering to abortion-minded women experiencing Crisis Pregnancies.I would like to bring your church a stack of resources that might be helpful to your members and visitors that you might be able to make available in your welcome center or fellowship areas.I have a number of resources like the one attached to this email which I would like to donate to your church if you would be able to make use of them. (Sorry that this file is a little hard to look over. In physical form, this “quad fold” folds up into a nice little square with “What about Abortion in the Case of Rape?” Appearing on the front). We also have quad folds discussing the occurrence of abortion and the teaching of scripture regarding child-sacrifice. As well as a few focused on the obligation of the Church and the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in relation to the sin of abortion.Please look this example over and let me know if you are interested in having materials like these delivered (entirely free of any and all charge) to your church. I would do this because of your active ministry to people facing the temptation of abortion and close proximity and the most active abortion clinic in the Oklahoma City area.Please respond to this email if you would like any other assistance regarding your church taking a more active role in opposing what I believe to be the evil of our age.Grace and Peace,T. Russell Hunter
We did not hear back from LifeChurch.TV regarding this offer for assistance or resources.
We prioritize exhorting churches which meet the above considerations and worship in close proximity to abortion clinics. LifeChurch.tv is the largest church meeting within a mile of Naresh Patel’s killing center in Warr Acres, Oklahoma.
The purple bubble marks the Warr Acres killing center. Babies are being murdered on a regular basis one mile away from the building where thousands of Christians head weekly to worship. (The other orange blips also represent various religious organizations, churches, and “churches”).
We also focus first on pro-life churches with pastors who choose not to preach against abortion or who refuse to call it a murderous sin. We would exhort Craig Groeschel to condemn the sin of abortion from his pulpit and send the call and cry of abolition out to his tens of thousands of weekly hearers. Wake Up Church!
And so we went to the Northwest Expressway Campus of Lifechurch.TV in hopes of exhorting them to love and good deeds regarding abortion and to take a bold stand against the killing of babies taking place a mile away from their place of worship.
We do not hate LifeChurch.TV or her members. We actually love them and are choosing to exhort them out of love. Pray that the staff of LifeChurch makes some changes to what they are doing and the whole body of LifeChurch members, pastors, and leaders repent of their abortion apathy and truly rise up against the evil of the age. That would be a glorious sight to see, bring much glory to God, and we abolitionists would help them in their work and even follow them as they took up the cause.
We are going to put up a lot of videos documenting our first Church Exhortation soon, but here is how it basically went…
Excellently.
Nobody got a poor attitude everybody while we were there (out in the sun for six hours). Everybody followed the guidelines we agreed on during the “Wake Up Church” conference.
We passed out a ton of the new “Are the Churches Guilty Again?” quad-fold (comparing the churches in America today and the Churches of Nazi Germany during the Jewish Holocaust).
We talked to quite a few people at LifeChurch.TV and really had the opportunity to plead with many to do more to love their neighbors. And we showed over a thousand church goers the truth about abortion and put on display the murder of their neighbors which takes places down the street from their place of worship.
But most of the people there, I’d say 9 out of ten cars, just drove by with their heads down or eyes averted. As we called out to them saying, “We are not here to protest you but to plead with you. We love the church and want you to rise up against the evil of abortion!” most just ignored us.
Why? ….that is what their campus pastor told them to do as he concluded their service. We know this to be the case because some members were surprised by their church’s response and came and told us about it.
A couple of ladies rolled down their windows and told me they were very disappointed with their pastor and church. Another guy came out and held a sign with us and told us of the conversation he had inside with his pastor and how he couldn’t believe that his church wasn’t actually on board with what we were doing. Of course there were lots of people who timidly gave us a wave of approval and many people who told us that we were number one! (with their middle fingers).
Some people just told us that they agreed with us that abortion was bad but did not like the way we were drawing attention to its evil outside their church or the fact that we were calling people to repent of the evil of abortion apathy.
There were also quite a few people who cussed us out, told us that abortion was a good thing and that we needed to leave it a personal decision, and that each
woman had a right to decide what she wanted to do with her own body and her own children.
And this is why we were there. Why is there any confusion and division on the morality of abortion or the obligation to stand against it within any church claiming to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
Were Pastor Craig Groeschel to faithfully speak against the evil of abortion and bring the light of the Gospel into conflict with the darkness of abortion and be bold enough to speak plainly on the “issue” and its inconsistency with true Christianity, his flock would not be so scattered on the topic or confused by our exhortations.
We are calling on Pastor Groeschel to take a stand. To be bold. To be radical. To be a little weird. To be Biblical. To keep the commands of Christ. To shepherd his flock
in the way they ought to go.
Pastor Groeschel, We are compelled by the spirit to beseech you and your church body to rise up against abortion to be salt and light in a dark city where children are being murdered down the street from your worship centers.
LifeChurch members and attendees, We do not hate you. We do not want you to hate us. We want you to rise up and be who you claim to be. Be the true body and Bride of Christ who is now at work destroying the works of the devil and making all things new.
We pray you will join us in the work of abolition and make our leadership of this movement unnecessary. Rise up! oh church of God and do the works you have been called to do.
Pleading or Protesting?
Here is a great little video documenting the way that we carried out our recent Church Exhortation at LifeChurch.TV.
This ought to shut the mouths of those clanging symbol critics and pharisaical watchdogs who create new commandments against public exhortation, stifle the work of the spirit, and argue that we are not allowed to plead with our brothers and sisters at LifeChurch!
Click here to read an “Update on Exhorting LifeChurch.TV”