Christian City Church: Church Growth, Pentecostal, Emerging – 3 Hybrid Movements In 1

A Christian City Church (C3), founded in Australia by Phil Pringle, planted a church in San Francisco last year: C3SF (Christian City Church San Francisco). This church should not be confused with CCSF – City Church of San Francisco.

Excerpts from C3SF’s doctrinal statement:

• Christian City Church San Francisco – a vibrant, relevant and powerful church whose desire is to see people of every walk of life connect to God, connect to community and connect to their purpose. (The main subject of the church is not God, but people. God, community and purpose are mere objects of the church).
• God is relevant. (Scripture calls God holy, just, wrathful, peaceful, forgiving, love and mercy, just to name a few. But not “relevant.”)
• Seeking His Truth and Authenticity is a worthy pursuit. (This sounds like Emerging Movement language, but as seen below, they are also driven by a Church Growth vision, which Emerging Movement resulted as a negative reaction against Church Growth Movement.)
• Each book [of the Bible] is to be interpreted according to its context and purpose. (This statement is vague and ambiguous. Both orthodox and heretics can make this statement, but both sides will define their position differently.)

C3SF’s complete doctrinal statement is available in pdf.

1. Renew Promotion Video.

done

To the untrained eye and ear, this may seem to be no different from City Church of San Francisco’s video, or 9Mark’s video posted yesterday. But the latter two are world’s apart from C3’s. Two main differences: C3 is heavily anthropocentric, while the other two are theocentric. The second difference is that C3 uses heavy Emergent vocabulary to convey their values:

• “hang out with God” (versus Isaiah 6:5)
• “church without restrictions and religious ideals” (The website’s statement of beliefs clearly states that this church subscribes to the “normative” principle of Scripture, not “regulative.”)
• “It’s given me purpose…  It’s given me life…” (Narcissistic and anthropocentric views. Contrast this to Westminster Catechism Question #1)
• “connect with God in a relevant way” (What does it look like to connect with God in an irrelevant way?)
• “The cafe gives us a chance to connect with people.” (It’s not the Gospel that connects them with people, but the cafe, any cafe, in the city.)

2. C3SF’s Vision Video.

• The subject is not God, but the people. God is merely one of three connecting objects (the other two objects are people connecting to other people and people connecting to purpose).
• “A place to experience God in people and power.” (Pentecostalism emphasizes “power” whereas Paul emphasized weakness (1 Cor 1)).
• “A place of the miraculous.” (Observe that as this is mentioned, a “laying of hands” is shown on a young woman.)
• “The sound of heaven where the atmosphere of God’s presence overflows with welcome and power so that no one can deny God is alive and in action.” (Definitely not the same vocabulary of either General Revelation or Special Revelation.)
• “A generation so bold, so life giving and history shaking, they cannot be ignored” (versus look at Puritan historical influence in Oxford.)

3. C3 International’s Values Video

10 Values of C3 Culture

1. We are people of prayer.
2. We are people of worship and praise.
3. We are people of faith and vision. (The vision being referred, I believe, should be tied to the Pentecostal idea of modern-day prophecies, as clearly evident in the vision videos below.)
4. We are involved in the presence of God.
5. We believe in successful living. (Prosperity gospel)
6. We develop disciples and leaders.
7. We are a discipleship movement.
8. We connect. (What’s important is to be relevant.)
9. We believe in servanthood.
10. Freedom (versus accountability to God and other believers).

4. C3 International’s Vision Video #1

• “We [man, not God] will take hold of every individual and turn them into a child of God.” (versus Psalm 68:20; Romans 9:16)
• “Religion is the worst enemy of God. God sent Jesus in this world to break religion so we can live in the spirit.”
• Observe the charismatic “laying of hands” at 4:16 and 2:45 time clocks in the video
• Faith:  ”Once people get a spirit of faith in them, nothing can stand in your way.”
• Hope: “Having a vision for your life. You’re not here by accident. You’re here with destiny in your bones.”
• Love: “We want to welcome people, accept them, embrace them, and bring them into what we call ‘The Big Hug.’”
• “The whole Kingdom of God works on the principle that if you believe it, then you’ll see it.”
• “We celebrate art and music and dance.” (It is clear, not just from this video alone but from all the videos, that Phil Pringle is using the popular definition “art” rather than the classical definition of “art.” Both David Wells and Michael Horton have written extensive works on this contrasting issue.)
• “By the year 2020, we’re going to have at least 1,000 churches with an average membership of 500 in each.”
• “[C3] has a very dynamic worship, a very powerful worship - a sense of God’s presence.”
• “[C3] is fun, true, real, relatable…  you can identify with them.”
• “[C3] is very lively, a whole new experience.”
• “[C3] is freedom, energetic…  it’s life.”

5. C3 International’s Vision Video #2

• “[We want to] bring a bright, relevant, contemporary, powerful, fun church into this world” (versus Ephesians 5:25-27)
• “We [man] will see by the year 2020 at least 1,000 churches.”
• “We [man] will not only plant new churches but grow those churches to an average size of 500 members.”
• At 1:48 on the time clock, Phil Pringle is shown having supposedly predicted 9/11 back in December 31, 1998.

6. C3 International’s Vision Video #3

• “Building the church is still God’s great program for the earth.” (Phil Pringle is using the word “building” to mean numerical growth.)
• “This isn’t just about church planting, but about church growth.”
• “We’ve broken through 1,800; we’re planting another church.”
• “We’ve just applied to take some land to build on because we want to see growth. Not just addition but multiplication.”
• “I am pumped about the 2020 Vision.” (Just like Simon in Acts 8 was pumped in superficially creating a vision of doing the works of God.)

C3 International’s Vision Video #4

Ending Thoughts:

C3 movement’s timeline seems to have begun around the same time Emerging Movement started. They appear to either be a Pentecostal variant of the Emerging Movement, be 1900’s Pentecostalism adopting Emerging vocabulary and ideas, or possibly be something completely different in origin but has embraced both. Additionally, their 2020 Vision follows the heels of the 80’s/90’s Church Growth Movement, propogated by C. Peter Wagner and Donald MacGavran, who emphasized physical numbers rather than character (holiness, patience, joy, gentleness, faithfulness, purity, etc.).

For C3 to appear as both Emerging Movement and emphasizing Church Growth is ironic because 21st Century Emerging Movement deplores 20th Century Church Growth Movement – 21st Century young adult generation had seen the religious hypocrisy and duplicity from their parents’ generation who embraced Church Growth Movement, and thus became one of the fuels that gave birth to the Emerging Movement. (See Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis.)

For people who are in the “gray” about what the problems are with Emerging Movement, Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement, and Church Growth Movement, three books will help to understand the backdrop to which C3 appears as being a hybrid: D.A. Carson’s Becoming Conversant With Emerging Church, John MacArthur’s Charismatic Chaos, and Michael Horton’s Power Religion. I have also posted several blogs in the past on these three issues.