victoria nelson

Review of Lake City Church

We visited this church a week ago. The executive p...

We visited this church a week ago. The executive pastor was speaking, and I assume that his teaching was consistent with what the church believes, but as we have only attended once, I state that as a caveat. For people who are looking for a truly Christ-exalting, God-honoring church, reviews stating things such as "everyone is friendly," "they have good programs," or "the music is up-beat," are not helpful. To people who are interested in exalting the Person of Jesus Christ, those things should be nice things to have, but irrelevant to whether or not it is a good church.

Therefore, I feel led to comment for those who may be looking for some deeper content. The church itself is lovely and the message was full of Biblical content, but it was also very subtly full of very false doctrine. For example, the pastor said that "Jesus didn't die to save you from an angry God" and that "God doesn't punish sin; the consequences of sin itself will punish you." That is extremely counter-Biblical. I got the sense that, in the name of love (a non-Biblical version of love), they were preaching a God who is not wrathful and does not condemn sinners. The God of the Bible (both New and Old Testaments) requires a payment for sin - either through faith in what Jesus Christ's atoning work on the cross has already accomplished, or eternally in hell.

The problem with their message is that it presents a God who is not in Scripture and it cheapens the message of the cross. The love of God can only be fully known when we also know the depth of His anger over sin. Then the love of God shines through in fullest strength. This type of message also keeps people from true salvation. If we "accept Jesus" without a true conviction of sin and repentance, we are not saved. I hope that this church is not doing that as it is the one thing Jesus hates most (Matt. 23:15).

There were numerous other doctrinally false comments, but for now I'll note just one other thing: the church seems to promote self-centeredness. The central theme was not the glory of God, or the exaltation of who Jesus Christ is, but rather, how God can fix the problems in your life. This is the definition of self-idolatry - looking for a "god" who can serve me - rather than true worship - dying to self so that I can live for Christ alone (Gal. 2:20).

Hopefully this sermon was an aberration, but I fear that it was not.

** Update: notice that the church's response to my original post does not in any way address the fact that Jesus did in fact save us from the wrath of God (His anger over sin), or the extremely self-centered theme of the sermon.

Of course God disciplines His children. I never said that we need to "work" for salvation, or for His love, but that, if we are in Christ, we are saved from His wrath, and if we are not in Christ, He will pour out His wrath on us for all of eternity. This is not what was preached on the Sunday when I attended Lake City Church.

And the worship and sermon should never be about us. They should be focused on the knowledge of God and the exaltation of Jesus Christ. We seek His glory and find our hearts and lives reordered. We don't seek "fixes" for ourselves, as if God's primary goal is to serve humanity, rather than to promote His own glory.

If you respond to this post again, please comment on the actual doctrine within the sermon. Please do not make blanket statements that do not address what I have stated here.