Absurdity Running Amok

I opened my email this morning to find a very enthusiastic person telling me about a recent “Mother Daughter Church Planting” seminar. (those are his quote marks, not mine) He included in the body of his email a link to (Dynamic Church Planting International) DCPI which provided the training material and promotes itself as
"Equipping leaders, churches and associations to impact the planting of one million dynamic churches to reach the world for Christ."

DCPI was founded by Paul Becker who recounts his special calling thusly:

My prayer retreat began on June 13-14, 1997. I spent the first evening and morning in a motel room near San Diego, CA, reading the Bible, and asking the Lord for His vision. On the afternoon of the second day, I drove to Palomar Mountain for a hike. I prayed that the Lord would communicate his vision for DCPI to me. As I walked along the Upper French Valley trail, the Lord impressed these words upon my mind: "Plant a Million Churches." I didn't hear an audible voice, but the words were very clear.

So Paul Becket founded DCPI and dedicated his life to growing the kingdom by starting new churches. Why start new churches? Well, DCPI puts it this way,

Our answer then must be church planting is critically important because it honors God and spreads His fame among the nations. Church planting reflects the light of His beautiful, perfect character through every dark corner of the planet. It brings praise to the One who came to seek and to save those who are lost....John Piper (in his book The Pleasures of God (Sisters, OR: Mulnomah Publishers, Inc., 2000), p. 110) put it this way: "The aim of missions [we might add, and of church planting] is to bring about the obedience of faith among all the unreached peoples of the world. But that is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal--even of faith and obedience--is 'for the sake of his name.'"

Anyhoo, this very enthusiastic mission minded person and his Lutheran (LC-MS) pastor went to the seminar to learn how to be more mission minded than they already are and bring about that obedience of faith that DCPI promotes. Believe it or not, there are a surprising number of organizations willing to come in, evaluate your process, and offer up suggestions as to how to increase your productivity so that you can reach as many folks as humanly possible

Included in the body of the email were links to three videos presented at the seminar as instruction and training tools. The three links were
1. 'Evangelism Linebacker'
2. "Mr. Back Pew Warmer"
3. "Harvest"

Recognize any of the videos up there? Of course you do! I posted the 'Evangelism Linebacker' video as an mission idea gone absurd. Apparently, “Mother Daughter Church Planting” seminar is taking videos to heart and showing them to get the troops motivated to grow the church for Jesus.

Boy, I glad some people are finally coming to their senses and throwing out all that old stuffy way of growing the church through preaching the Word purely and administering the Sacraments rightly. Just think how much more we could grow the church if only we used simple business models! If only…

Gosh, now my brain hurts! I can't seem to figure out which Earth of the multiverse I'm on!