And Now I’m Disappointed with Focus On The Family
Over the last year, X3Church has become one of my favorite national ministries. One whose heart, mission, and methods, I support wholeheartedly. We are hoping to have them come speak at The Rock this next Spring.
Focus On The Family has, for years, been a cornerstone resource for American Christianity. Providing support in many areas to the Christian family in America, helping countless individuals, and generally encouraging Christian parents to lead their family well.
However, recently, I heard a fairly alarming thing… apparently these two great tastes, dont’ taste great together. Focus does not recommend X3Church to those struggling with pornography. Instead, they refer people to their in-house counseling staff. I can understand this, of course, if you have people on staff, why refer people outside of your organization?
However, this is interpretted by some as a negative endorsement of X3Church. Causing churches to pull their support of X3Church as well.
Maybe what is alarming to me here is not Focus’s lack of endorsement for X3Church, but rather, churches looking to Focus as arbiters of what is good and what is bad. This is problematic. X3Church has some incredible resources and is making an amazing impact against pornography. They need all the support they can get.
Also alarming to me is this: why, when called and asked about X3Church would Focus, whose word (for whatever reason) carries a lot of weight in Evangelical Christendom, say, “We do not recommend them.” Notice in the article linked above, Focus does not say why they do not recommend X3Church, simply that the don’t.
Come on, people.
Technorati Tags: x3church, focusonthefamily, Christianity
x3 is covers a hot-button ministry issue, and they seem to do it with the least amount of tact possible. I understand, to some degree, the ‘marketing’ behind this, but it sure seems like they are always stirring up trouble. Though I find I generally agree with them, I don’t like their methods.
Pat - that makes sense. Putting a picture of a half-naked Ron Jeremy on your site is definitely… edgy?
It’s probably REALLY good for their mission field and target audience though, which is not, primarily, churches.
I don’t mind the EDGY stuff - I agree that its good for the mission field. What I mind is when they pick fights with other Christians via the very public platform of the internet. For some reason, I doubt they spent a lot of creating a dialogue with Focus. Throwing that up on the internet accomplishes nothing for the body, and is probably meaningless to their mission field.
They remind me of whiny liberal bloggers.
Whoa, I just typed that and realized, maybe it’s because that’s what they are.
How’s that for sentence structure?
Posting the E-mail on their blog like that may not have been the best, but this isn’t the first time they’ve been stiffed by bastions of Right-Winged Old-Skool Evangelical Christianity. I think both parties are guilty.
First offense, not that it matters, DOES belong to Focus here, taking the legs out from under a ministry opportunity.
Church to Focus: “We are thinking of having X3church come speak, what do you think?”
Focus to Church: “We don’t recommend X3Church for this topic, we recommend Focus On The Family Porn Counselors ™”
Church to Focus: “We will comply.”
Yeah, not a good practice to put the letter on the blog. Let’s try to keep the infighting in the church amongst ourselves.
However, in XXXChurch’s defense, one thing I do like about them is they tread in territory that few Christians dare even think about going. Whether it is an effective move by XXXChurch’s part, we might not know until Heaven.
As for Focus on the Family, I like to trust their judgment on different issues, but at the same time, they are human, and can be wrong. In this case, it sounds like they’re pimping (is that the proper term for this conversation?) their own counselor over anyone else’s. Heck of a marketing and sales method.
So X3 is a little extra edgy. FotF is too conservative. The pastor from the church that chuck’d them doesn’t have a mind of his own. And the blogs are feeding the disunity and gossip.
Hey internet world, my name is Nate Swinton, and I’m connected to that body. Somehow the sum total of all of us believers = the body of Christ. Don’t ask me how, but when I read about him, he sounded different.
I think it to be most likely that FocFam has no real qualms with X3Church per se, nor are they engaging in shameless self promotion. (I think of myself as an expert in the field of shameless self promotion, and I plead ‘takes one to know one’.) Rather, it may be a case of ‘don’t send a boy to do a man’s work,’ where in this case, X3Church and their sweet accountibility software pale in comparison to the personal touch that FocFam feels their Christian pychos provide. (If X3Church actually has these resources, I revoke that statement). I would not be surprised if said psychos endorsed X3Watch entirely, after an initial consultation was arranged to methodically chart a more personalized course of recovery. Honestly, without knowing anything about an individual’s struggle, the body they’re tied into, et cetera, that makes sense.
Sorry to disagree, Matt. I’ll try not to let it happen again.
Okay, did a quick re-read, and I see more common ground. However, regarding ‘Hive-Mind Christendom’:
Given infinite time to research every resource available to a christian, snubbing X3Church on the say-so of FotF would be inexcusible. Under less ideal conditions, there’s enough out there to keep the believer with a refined spiritual palate busy indefinately, so not taking Dobson’s word for it seems more reasonable.
Try to find all of the Lavar Burton references in that comment :)
“so not taking Dobson’s word for it seems more reasonable” should read “so taking Dobson’s word for it seems more reasonable”
Spam, spam, spam, spam . . .
spam! spam! spammity spam!
It is not suprising to me that Dobson and his people assume they know best regarding ministries. Ministry X good, ministry XXX, bad.
After all, in spite of not being experts in Greek or Hebrew they singlehandedly undermined the sale of the TNIV because they knew about “errors in translation”.
I’d recommend writting one or both and encourage them to lay aside differences/open communication. Showing their sins to everyone is pointless unless you plan on confronting them on them.
As to the groups themselves. Their are some ministries that rub me the wrong way. While I’m not sure if my reason for not liking them is because of truth or some lie/area of my heart I’ve held back from God… I cannot always be certain, but I am sure that each has its purpose in God’s plan. Also it reminds me of the churches in revelations… how each of them had something praiseworthy, but almost always had something holding them back from receiving God’s full blessing. To reach this world we must be bold, but we must be careful not to compromise the values Christ gave us and end up being detestable before God and man.
As for a good counselor… I recommend the His Holy Spirit… always able to help… always open for buisness… you just have to seek Him.
Testing
I have put X3church on my spam list for a couple years now. I just didn’t find their approach in good taste. Then, today, I was reading one of those spam emails about a former porn star who details the “ugly side” of the porn industry and her horrible experience. My heart truly goes out to her. It’s great when we men can see the other side because these girls are suffering and not having a fun party. These causes compassion and not lust. However, I still think we should be careful about X3church.
God bless.
I forgot to mention. I wouldn’t hold anything against any ministry for not wanting to endorse X3church. It is controversial in its approach.