1. There is order in this church. It is not a free for all, which these highlight videos may not perfectly portray. These are aimed at showing the intensity, desperation and indignation for God's name that we hold. We are reverent as well as fervent. We have Elders, we have Deacons, we have Pastors. When it is worship time, we ALL worship. When it is prayer time, we all pray. When it is sermon time we all pay attention. All these things are done when God wants, but we are not bound by a schedule that man has set. We are well pastored and we all have jobs to do, which we are full aware of.
The videos speak for themselves.
2. As for women, sir, you are taken out of context. That was a letter written when women were just becoming allowed in the church. They were ignorant, and would often yell out to their husbands whenever they were confused. Paul was trying to make their transition into the meetings smooth, so that the men would not resent them. If you want to contextualize it, don't let ignorant people preach or set doctrine. nor should anyone be disruptive, and we are very attentive of that.
It's amazing what justifications our modern churches come up with in order to allow what has traditionally been disallowed. I will leave the readers of this thread to judge for themselves if a godly church allows such things.
Geneva Study Bible:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, {8} nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
(8) The first argument, why it is not lawful for women to teach in the congregation, because by this means they would be placed above men, for they would be their masters: and this is against God's ordinance.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:
According to St. Paul, women are not allowed to be public teachers in the church; for teaching is an office of authority. But good women may and ought to teach their children at home the principles of true religion. Also, women must not think themselves excused from learning what is necessary to salvation, though they must not usurp authority.
3. I agree that we SHOULDN'T have to go to one place to find God. Look at the church though. Christians are some of the most oppressed, depressed, enbondaged (may not be a word, but it communicates better than 'bound' as I am writing it) people on Earth. Our intention is not to be THE Church to go to, but for this power of revival to be shared with all churches and the word of Reformation to spread like wildfire. That is why you will hear over and over that we invite pastors and leaders to come, so that their churches can be revived. This does happen, and we link arms with churches that are like-minded. Right now, this seems to be a hot spot, and we in the church are trained to make it continue, not in a free-for-all, hit and miss style. We want this to spread, but a cold candle must touch a lit candle to catch fire. Here is fire, so come and be lit. We don't even WANT to be the only church people can go to, but if people aren't getting helped in their church,we invite them to come.
A revival shouldn't need assistance to leave the confines of a building, or be exclusively tied to a building. I have never heard of such a thing in history as this, going on for over 10 years in a single church building. Why do you have to work so hard to take God's Revival Power to other churches? Is God not able to do it on His own? Truly, the entire city of Kansas should be about 60%-70% converted to Christ by now if this was a real revival.
4. Your fourth accusation is a LIE! Absolutely and straight forward. Wwe have never claimed this, and we have never directed anyone anywhere besides to Jesus. Jesus comes to help. Do your homework and visit the location yourself before you EVER, EVER, EVER make such an outrageous and egregious claim about any church, anywhere, of any denomination. Pastor Steve Gray is a humble man, who will himself say he was not God's first pick to do what he does. We know who are Lord is, where our help comes from, and under whose authority we do anything. We are careful, even hesitant to do some of the things that we do and say say what we say. This is a church with a humble pastor raising up humble men. We want to help people and that is our aim. If other churches were doing there job to heal all three facets of their congregation (Spirit, Soul, and Body) we wouldn't have so many broken people coming from everywhere, and we wouldn't continually extend the invitation to come and meet Jesus. We draw near to Him and He draws near to us. Period.
You are very aggressive in your responses Swizzle, which makes this work done in your heart - in my mind - to be questionable. I ask you to compare yourself to the Moravian Christians in John Wesley's day. They were beaten and abused, yet they went away without a complaint or any feelings of anger at all.
Besides, if I am in error then God will deal with me, will He not?
5. Your accusation that we do not go out is SINCERELY, SINCERELY underinformed, prejudiced, and misdirected. What you see is our church services. We invite people to come to our services, doesn't your church do the same? We send out missionaries. We have missionaries in Burma, Uganda, and Malaysia. Not to mention, our Pastor and teams from our church have traveled to other countries. Are you seriously critiquing us for having services in our church building and inviting ALL WHO NEED HELP from all over to come to them? You see small clips of our services, and now you are the expert on everything we do? Is that how powerful your anointing is? I must apologize for this good tree that produces good fruit, because the one section of branch that you have seen does not grow according to YOUR expectations.
I just wonder honestly how much money your church makes from all of these visitors. In addition, nope, our church didn't invite people from all over the world to attend. It was up to us to take the gospel out to them, by first preparing men to be qualified to take care of a house church, and then by sending them out to a new city.
I apologize for how harsh this may come across, but sir, in all respect, I have done a good thing to post testimonies to glorify the name of the Lord. For some reason though, I constantly have to apologize to fellow CHRISTIANS for the good I have done, because they despise how the manifestations LOOK. We judge ourselves and correct if we have done something wrong, according to the Bible, not the demons that haunt our church, as you seem to think (believe me, they hate it here). It is not your place to take away from God's glory because you disagree with the means by which God works. If you want to continually harass this work of God out of context, by all means, you aren't welcome.
If this work is not of God, then it will only bring deception to people and trip them up from the Narrow Way, which few there be that find. I must speak a warning against it because I don't believe that it's Biblical.
And no worries, I had no plans of attending.