3 Things You Need To Know About Celebration Church (And Criticizing Your Brother)
When I was leading my church, the Lord showed me two important truths that I was to lift up and make the center of ministry. One was Water Baptism, and the other was Communion. I felt like as a whole the church had lost sight of these two simple things that God said were important. While the modern church was enamored with good things like loud preaching and worship music, I felt like Baptism and Communion had been relegated to an afterthought. In some ways, Baptism had been replaced by “asking Jesus into your heart” and Communion with “three worship songs and a prayer.”
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We held meetings every Sunday evening. While we had good music (my wife is a phenomenal musician) and Bible preaching, Communion was held up as the pinnacle of every service. Some members of a local megachurch, Celebration Church, started coming to our small meetings. They began to lament to me about how their church wasn’t even doing communion on a monthly basis anymore. In my foolishness and pride, I quickly seized the opportunity to lift myself up against my brother. Of course, I feigned a love towards this “misguided church.” I’m sure I spun my words in a way that made me sound wise. But my jealous heart rejoiced that I was doing something better than someone else.The issue wasn’t with the revelation God had shown me. The issue was with my heart. For a time, I was in the right. But here’s something significant:
You can be right but go about it in all the wrong ways.
And when you behave like this, you will get no reward for being right, but only face judgment for the wrong you have done.To make a long story short: the Lord eventually led me into a divine detour into the business world. This sounds strange to some people. Why would God do this? Because God knew it was the best way to strip me of my “pharisee complex,” my love of being a pastor (not serving as a pastor, but being seen by men as a pastor). Read Matthew 23:5-7.After a year into my divine detour, the Lord spoke to my wife that we were supposed to go to Celebration Church, the same church I had held in contempt. I didn’t like the news, but somehow I knew she was right. So I swallowed my pride and resolved to go with the right attitude. I quickly saw that the Lord was there, as much or more, as anything my wife and I had ever done. The Lord promptly showed me this man, Stovall Weems, was anointed as an apostle. See Ephesians 4.But then it happened, the Lord gave Pastor Stovall a vision on Good Friday/Passover of 2018. The Lord showed this man everything He showed me (and much, much more). That afternoon, after Easter service, the Lord spoke to me almost audibly:
“You see, this man, Stovall, is my servant. When I speak to him, he will listen. And when I choose to reveal a thing to him, then I will do it. But who are you? Who were you to judge my servant?”
Three things that you need to know about criticism:
#1. You’re likely tearing down a person better than you.
When you judge and criticize, you always run the risk of tearing down a person who is a far better person than you. You may be better at this one small fault. But that could mean they are a far nobler person with one small speck in their eye (as was the case with me and Pastor Stovall). That’s why the Apostle Paul advised us to take the safer route, “prefer your brother above yourself.”
#2. You are foolish when you arbitrarily pick your own standard and then boast about it.
Criticism is ridiculous if you think about it. In your pride and blindness, you are basing all your assumptions about being better than another person on a standard you picked out yourself. That’s not a level playing field, is it?
#3. You may be right, but going about it in all the wrong ways.
Here’s the thing: the fault you are finding with your brother may actually be there! But that doesn’t mean you’re seeing everything in the right perspective. You are merely a man and have a severely limited view of things. Scripture says, “Man looks at the things on the outside, while God looks at the heart.” God sees the whole picture.
What is wiser?
When you find a fault in your brother, keep it to yourself and commit to prayer for that person. Pray to God who sees all things. You will find at least two things will happen. One, you will grow more love and compassion for that person as you talk about them in His presence. Two, you will see all the areas of pride and jealousy lurking in your own heart. Heartfelt prayer will enable you to deal with that log in your own eye, and truly help with the spec in your brother’s eye.