This is the pastor of a local church here in Dallas that I attended for the better half of last year. I stopped for a little while I traveled around the area and checked out a variety of other churches. I’m thinking of going back actually and I wanted to post this video to hear what your thoughts are of how Todd encourages us to do church and his admonishments to those of us considering church ministry. With much of what he says I agree wholeheartedly, while other elements cause me to stop and think before I want to agree. Please let me know what you think. Specifically, tell me what you think of his thoughts on worship, the celebration of communion and what he calls “regular attendance by irregular believers.”
Link to Todd Wagner’s DTS Chapel Message on Oct 21, 2010
Hello!
I know this is an older post, but here are my thoughts (for what they’re worth):
1) Law. The sermon is all about what I better do…what I need to do… what I should do. Nothing about what Christ has done for me. It all sounds good and spiritual, but the fact is I am a sinful person who has been redeemed and is still being sanctified. I need to hear the message of the Gospel while being encouraged on the right road, not just beaten with the “you better do this with all your heart” club.
2) As far as worship (in a musical way), I find most modern songs to be about the person/congregation rather than the savior, so I tend to shy away from them. The ones that actually are about Christ are so doctrinally shallow I feel they are lifeless (even if they are upbeat). So in short, I agree with his assessment that much of what we call worship is emotionalism and worship of worship rather than genuine praise of the one who saved us.
3) He makes a lot of points (equating a multitude of actions as despising Christ) from the same text. That seems to be taking a lot of liberty with the passage. I would probably say he is reading his message into the text rather than pulling out the points found in the texts. That is a VERY unsafe practice.
4) “Irregular believers” seems to be his term for the religious lost. Myself, I have no problem showing them the door. In Scripture, meeting together is for the sheep, it is NEVER where goats become sheep (that’s what evangelism is for). If a tare makes itself known as a tare, watching the tare leave is just fine, as long as the law of God and the good news of the atonement is explained to them before they leave. If they want to leave after that…that’s fine. Why would we struggle to keep leaven in our midst when we are told not to have there in the first place?
I was listening to this while doing some other stuff, so I hope I didn’t misunderstand any of what he was saying and make a goofy comment. The thing that really stood out to me is he needs to stress the news of grace and gospel while preaching a message like this, because nobody (including him) can live up to all the “you need to” messages found in Scripture.