About 8 years ago, I was speaking at North Greenville University when a skinny kid with a buzz practically attacked me before the message.  I will never forget what he said to me. ”Clayton King, my name is Steven Furtick, and I am going to work for you one day.  What is it gonna take for me to come and meet with you?”  I immediately knew that this guy was dangerous.  He was going to do great damage to the kingdom of darkness, and I wanted to be friends with him.   He graduated and he and his wife Holly moved to Boiling Springs where he traveled as an itinerant speaker for Crossroads for several years.  He also co-hosted my syndicated radio show with me for about 2 years, but his ultimate calling was to pastor a church that would change a city for Christ.  He told me this when was just 19 years old.  When Steven was a senior in college, he called me one day while I was on the road.  The conversation went like this…   “Clayton, a student here at North Greenville said he heard you cuss in a sermon once, and that he loved it!  He said it took alot of guts to say what you said.”   “Steven, I have never cussed in a sermon.  I am certain of that.  He must have me confused with Tony Campolo.  I give you my word, it has never happened.  I have too much respect for the pulpit to do that.”   “Thanks, Clayton, I will take care of it.”   End of  coversation.   Steven personally gathered every guy that lived in the house where this guy lived and asked all the guys who had heard the rumor to get everyone together that may have heard it from them.  Then with several dozen college boys sitting in a big room, Steven told them that he had spoken with me, that I had assured him I had never cursed in a sermon, and that though he had never heard every single sermon I had preached, he trusted my integrity and believed me.  He told every guy in the room to not only stop spreading the rumor, but to go back and find everyone they had told it to and correct themselves to protect my honor among those guys.   You might be thinking, “That is no big deal at all, so what?”  That is my point.  If he had my back for something as small as an untrue rumor about my pulpit language, think of how quickly he would get my back if it were something of greater significance.   I have the honor to preach for Pastor Steven tomorrow at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC.   They were the fastest growing church in America last year numerically, and in just over 2 years, they have gone from 4 to 4,000 people in attendance.  Thanks Bishop, for believing me and for getting my back.

I can now see why people go to Alaska, and why so many never come back. It is a stark and beautiful place.  No surprise there.  But I believe it is that sheer ruggedness that draws people like the Death Star’s tractor beam into the cold wilderness.  Some people go for a few days, like us.  Some go and stay for ever, and others never come back because that place takes the life.  After reading “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer, it is no wonder that Chris McCanless never made it back to him family in Georgia.  Alaska is cold, brutal, unforgiving, and awe inspiring.  Enough about that.  Tomorrow I will begin my new series called GOT YOUR BACK.  I will telling some stories and making some important points on how important it is for brothers (and sisters) to love their friends in deeds and not just words.  Recently, it seems the most popular thing to do in the new church age is to find a preacher you disagree with and start a hate club.  I hope to show that this is counter-productive to the gospel, hurtful to the kingdom, and sinful. I also pray that the entries inspire you to look for ways to “get somebody’s back” when they are attacked, when they are the recipient of gossip, the topic of a hurtful rumor, or the just getting kicked around for no reason. If you have ever had someone get your back when you needed it, you know how great it is.  If you have ever had someone abandon you when you needed them to get your back, and you were all aloe with no ground support, then you know the sick feeling of being exposed and defenseless.  Stay tuned, the first post will be ready on Saturday. 

One great thing about this blog is that I have not made any sort of promise to post a certain number of times a week (my hat is off to my good friends who are more dedicated than me).  I have always believed it is better to focus on quality instead of quantity, and I would rather post twice a week when I have something substantive to say than to post every day and write about my dog, why I hate American Idol, or how often I sneeze.

Therefore, I wanted to let you know that my wife and I leave for Alaska tomorrow morning and I will most likely be practicing “radio silence” on our vacation for the next 10 days.  We intend to sleep alot, eat alot, see alot and be together, enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful world that God made for us.

Pray for us as we celebrate 9 years of marriage in one of the last unspoiled places on earth.  Talk to you soon…

The gospel of Jesus Christ (the story of His life, death and resurrection) is the only hope for the human race. Political leaders cannot save us. Recycling cannot save us. Cutting carbon emissions cannot save us. Even eating healthy and exercising will only prolong the inevitable. One day we will all die, and then the only thing that matters is what we did with the gospel. It is good news. It is the person of Jesus. It is our only hope.

There are lots of reasons why I still preach the gospel. It is true. It works. God called me to do it. I actually believe it. Obedience to Christ. But there is another reason.

I still preach the gospel because I believe in heaven and hell, and I believe that people who willingly reject the gospel spend eternity there, without God, forever. Therefore, I am a slave to the gospel, and by God’s grace I intend to preach it until my dying breath.

But don’t take my word for it. Below is a real life true story emailed to me by a Liberty University student. Not something you just read or hear about. This happened this weekend to a teenager who repented of his sins and trusted Christ this past September while I was preaching at Liberty University. He was tragically killed this weekend, and is now in eternity, forever, with Christ.

“I work with the high school marching band at Liberty Christian Academy. They are a great bunch of kids with an amazing director, Mrs. Deike. A few weeks ago I helped them with auditions for a leadership position in marching band. One of the students who auditioned was named Jamie. Mrs. Deike asked him to share his testimony with us. For a while he discussed how he had doctrine thrown around at him for much of his life, and it really caused him confusion as to what salvation meant. He then went on to tell us that after hearing you speak at LCA last fall, he finally realized what it meant and gave his life to Jesus. That life has been tragically cut short. On Friday night after a dance at the school, he was killed instantly in a car accident. I learned this on Saturday morning when Mrs. Deike called me sobbing. I write this to ask you to pray for us. We are all hurting pretty bad. Jamie was a loved member of the band. But I know after hearing his testimony a few weeks ago that he is now with Jesus. So, I also write to thank you for allowing God to speak through you, so that Jesus could save his soul. That’s the reason Jamie’s in Heaven right now.”

God be praised that this young man proclaimed faith in Christ. This is why I still preach the gospel. May we all be praying for the family that has lost a precious son. And may each of us preach, teach, live, sing, show, and proclaim the gospel daily. I intend to preach it until The Gospel Himself calls me home.

We live in a precarious day. Notwithstanding all the shifts in culture, politics, world events, and technology, things within the church, particularly the evangelical church, are to say the least, moving pretty fast.

Consider that for every young man entering the pastorate today, by some estimates there are 2 older minsters leaving, retiring, or burning out. Consider that the church planting movement is now a multi-million dollar industry with conferences, books, seminars, weekend retreats, and thousands of blogs and pastoral bloggers all involved around starting churches. Consider that a great number of new churches that have started over the past 15 years have loosely modeled themselves after Willow Creek, the trailblazing church that set the pace for the modern church growth movement, (under the genius mind of Bill Hybels, part pastor, part C.E.O., part Billy Graham and part Bill Gates) and that Willow Creek has recently confessed that their original model was flawed. Consider that Christian contemporary music has now passed Jazz and Blues to take a larger market share of the industry than both combined. Consider the emergent, emerging, neo-reformed, house church, and simple church movements. Most can’t even keep up with the names.

We are living in some dangerous, exciting, historical days. And while the church of Jesus Christ expands and His Kingdom advances, there is also a back door through which many millions have chosen to leave through. Speaking of the American evangelical church, everyone from Barna to Dobson has been lamenting the mass exodus of hordes of people from the church for years.

The angry. The misunderstood. The theologically moderate. The wounded and confused. The bored. The busy. The books written about this migration out of the church could sink a battleship, so I feel no compulsion to add to their already significant research.

But in light of all these tectonic shifts, the enormous volume of my generation that leaves the church for the aforementioned reasons, and knowing what I know (and having seen the ugly side of Christians and church life), there is really one question that I keep asking myself, and I think you need to ask yourself as well.

WHY AM I STILL IN THE CHURCH?

What keeps me coming back over and over again? And for many, this is just a Sunday question because Sunday is about it, as far as attendance and involvement goes. But for me, church(es) are my life and my livelihood. At least 4 days a week most weeks, I am at a church, with a church, in a church, with church people. After 21 years and with so much angst from my generation toward a church that they think cares little for them, their needs, the enviroment, the poor, or even the gospel, why do I stick around?

There are many answers, but I only want to mention one today. Take it or leave it, argue with it, do what you will with this, but this is the over-arching , all-encompassing reason I still love the the church, and all the other reasons must be secondary to this one.

I STILL LOVE THE CHURCH BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. IT IS RIGHT BECAUSE THE CHURCH IS GOD’S IDEA, I BELONG TO GOD, AND I OBEY HIM.

I can (and probably will) give many more reasons, but they all flow from this reality. I did not invent the church, nor did you (nor did powerful rich white men, the Illuminati, or anyone from the DaVinci Code, despite what some books would have you believe). The church was God’s idea, His way of continuing His work in the world that He began with Abraham, through Israel, through Jesus Christ, and now through His Body, the community of faith. The church IS NOT AN OPTION. It is a necessity, the vehicle through which the sacrament of salvation is served to the cosmos, a family with wierd cousins and creepy uncles and fights and splits and arguments. BUT IT IS STILL THE CHURCH and I still love it.

The bottom line for me is that I belong to God. I was purchased by the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. From that moment, I ceased to be my own anymore, meaning that when He became my Lord, I began doing what He wanted me to do, not what I wanted to do anymore. So for me to deny His family, to remove myself from His body, and say that I don’t need it, is akin to taking back Lordship from Him and saying, “No thanks, God. I tried you out as Lord, and did not like your leadership or your church. I will now take back control of my own life, thank you very much.”

I can hear the bloggers in cyberspace reading this and saying, “But you don’t understand. It’s not that easy. I have been hurt, the church is corrupt, my pastor had an affair, we had to wear DRESSES AND LONG PANTS!”

I would never minimize the hurt and pain that church issues cause people. But I will also not minimize the Church of the Living God, His very body, because some of His children can’t quite get it right and fight over how to make it work, either.

So I still love the church because, simply put, it is right to love the church. Even with all it’s trouble and splits and plagues, power struggles, ego-maniacs, and denominations, the church will always be God’s idea, God’s people, and ultimately, God’s business. Since I am also His, I choose to continue loving, and living in, His church. And in my opinion, so should you.