No Limits Conference Speakers?

[KarenJo]

Originally Posted by A_PoMo

I guess NH is a compassionate and nice guy and has a hunger for the Lord. That's all good. He certainly has toned down the whole NT Elijah thing thing he had going there when he was younger. I do appreciate his more measured and toned down approach to communicating. And like I said, I thought the message I heard earlier today was good and helpful and inspirational.

But Karen brings up a good point and it's one that concerns me about him and people that believe many of the things he believes. It's not so much how he says stuff that is the issue as much as what he says at times that causes problems for people. Words mean something and even if you say something with compassion and gentleness it can still be harmful if it's not true and it damages peoples relationship with God. The real problem is some of the wrong theology that he believes. Case in point, what Karen said about his fasting. He believed wrong things about fasting and I remember he would put alot of pressure on people to be like him in that regard and he was held up as the paragon of spirituality by alot of people and wannabe prophets. But he was wrong and even though his intentions were pure he hurt himself, his family, and I would say his church because of something he believed that was wrong.

I remember once he said this from the pulpit, "I just cannot see how it is possible that anyone who owns a television is going to heaven." He said it very compassionately, emotion in his voice, kindly, gently, etc... he wasn't screaming and spitting and all that. It was very sweet. But very deadly in that it is dead wrong and had the very real potential to distort people's understanding of God and holiness (which is an attribute of God) and put a load of false guilt and condemnation on people that happen to own televisions and took his word as truth. Words matter because they mean something. Even if you're compassionate and kind in how you say it the end result can be a damaged person who lives under false guilt due to bad theology. When you teach bad theology you're exchanging the truth for something else and that's never a good thing. True, we can survive these sorts of theological toxins in our souls and any one of them won't kill you. But it's the accumulation of many small untruths that can have a deliterious effect on people and they end up dying a spiritual death of a thousand spiritual cuts or they're walking around as spiritually walking wounded bleeding all over the place and their spiritual growth is severely hampered and stunted. It's as abusive and damaging as emotional and verbal abuse to children and spouses.

I remember another incident where JHaney taught one of my new converts classes. She told the ladies that pants were associated with prostitution and thus were an abomination to God. She was very "kind" in how she said it. But that didn't matte because words mean something. One of the new convert ladies got up and ran out of the room crying. I chased her to her car trying to console her and she refused to talk and never came back to church again no matter how hard I tried. In her mind she's a whore in the eyes of God.

That's the problem I have with NW's sermon and with some of the stuff I hear NH and others say. The untruth of what they say creates, over time, a seriously distorted picture of God and this in turn leads to alot of other bad stuff. Case in point, the Lord put me in the same insurance office as the boss of a girl who used to attend NW's church. The things she was told and internalized devestated her and created basket case. She would literally shake with fear when we'd drive by NW's church. She lived in literal fear of God. She wanted to go to NW's church but had been kicked out for what I feel was a relatively minor offense. She didn't feel she could go to any other church because they didn't 'have the truth'. She felt, due to the bad teaching she'd been taught, that God had rejected her and sincerely felt that she was reprobate and beyond forgiveness. It took me a long time to get through to her and she finally came to church w/me a couple of times. I could tell other stories but I'm sure alot of ya'll mad enough at me.

I appreciate what you had to say. (Is this BE from MoBe Productions?)

I can say that I did think that NH was unbalanced as a youth and because he didn't use wisdom with regards to fasting, he paid a price and is still paying it. I think with age there should come more mature thinking and now that he's married with 5 kids, he is more balanced than he ever was as a kid. I hate to hear of anyone who has left the church because they were treated so badly. We would all be better off to remember that words hurt and words heal. In my opinion, the days of abusive ministry need to be over. We need to stop trying to build the “MegaChurch” and remember that if we can't manage the people we already have then we don't need anymore. It's time to look again at the role of ministry and what the purpose of what ministry really is. Ego's need to be kicked out the door and it's time for ministry to remember that they wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for the people sitting in the pew!