Greg Laurie

On May 6th, Greg Laurie, pastor of mega-church

Harvest Christian Fellowship wrote a letter to pastors and church leaders in
the New York region, announcing his

Harvest Crusade 2008 in New York City on October 19th. This letter to
pastors and leaders is causing confusion among some because of its content, and
this Lighthouse Trails report will examine this issue.

Greg Laurie is best known as a Calvary Chapel pastor. His church

is listed on the Calvary Chapel website, and Laurie often speaks at Calvary
Chapel functions. And it is Laurie’s connection with Calvary Chapel that
presents a great dilemma.

Two years ago, in May of 2006, Calvary Chapel issued a

“Parson to Parson” letter, in which a statement was made against the
emerging church and contemplative spirituality. The following month, at the 2006
Senior Pastor’s Conference, Calvary Chapel founder and pastor, Chuck Smith, told
the senior pastors that Calvary Chapel as a whole was rejecting various
movements and practices that have been taking place within the Christian church
at large as well as in some Calvary Chapel churches. According to a number of
pastors in attendance, who afterwards spoke with Lighthouse Trails, Smith asked
that those Calvary Chapel pastors who were going in the direction of the
emerging church would no longer call themselves Calvary Chapel churches. One
week later, Calvary Chapel instructed its

distribution center to immediately remove all of Rick Warren’s Purpose
Driven Life books from its center. The statement read: “The teaching and
positions of Rick Warren have come into conflict with us at Calvary Chapel.
Pastor Chuck has directed us to discontinue this product effective immediately.”

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Such directives coming from the founder of Calvary Chapel have caused an array
of mixed feelings. There are many Calvary Chapel pastors who wholeheartedly
support these decisions, such as

John Higgins of Calvary Chapel Tri-City in Tempe, Arizona and

Jim Jarrett of Calvary Chapel Redding in California. Both pastors have taken
strong stands against contemplative and emerging spiritualities, as have other
Calvary Chapel pastors. However, there are some who have ignored Chuck Smith’s
directives and continued taking their churches toward these beliefs. And still
others have been unsure in which direction to go. But one thing is for sure,
Chuck Smith is one of the only well-known Christian figures today who has made
public declarations against contemplative, emerging, and Purpose Driven. Just
last week, at the

2008 Senior Pastors Conference, former New Age follower

Warren Smith addressed the 800 senior pastors, at Chuck Smith’s invitation.
Warren Smith is the author of Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications
of the Purpose Driven Church. This invitation leaves no question that Chuck
Smith is still committed to his earlier statements rejecting the Purpose Driven,
emerging, and contemplative movements.

And now this brings us to the unpleasant task of reporting that Greg Laurie is
giving a strong promotion of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, which means he is
indirectly promoting contemplative and emerging (which we will explain later in
this article), and directly promoting Purpose Driven. And unfortunately, there
is a twist to this story.

In Laurie’s

May 2008 letter to pastors and leaders, Laurie talks about

his upcoming crusade in New York City, saying, in reference to it, “God is
on the move.” He then states that “[t]his move is also seen in the formation of
the

New York City Leadership group. Under their direction, a community-wide 40
Days of Purpose campaign with Pastor Rick Warren has been launched, and the
significant services of Bill Hybels’

Leadership Summit conferences are also being organized to strengthen the
local church.”

Because Laurie has publicly connected Purpose Driven to a move of God and
calls Willow Creek’s conferences “significant,” Lighthouse Trails is
compelled to issue a warning to the body of Christ. For those who may find this
rebuttal too severe, bear in mind that just last month Rick Warren had New Age
sympathizer Leonard Sweet speak at

his small groups conference. Sweet has stated that small groups are the
means in which

people can attain to a “christ-consciousness” (a New Age belief). And as for
Bill Hybels, this spring Willow Creek featured Brian McLaren at

one of their youth conferences. McLaren, who calls the doctrine of hell and
the Cross

“false advertising for God”, is one of the emerging church’s most prolific
writers and a close associate of Willow Creek. And as Lighthouse Trails has been
consistently showing for over five years, both Rick Warren and Bill Hybels are
two of the emerging church’s most influential proponents, and both heartily
promote the mystical contemplative prayer movement (see


A Time of Departing, chapter 8). For those who understand the
ramifications of the contemplative approach to spirituality this is
disconcerting.

In addition to Greg Laurie’s letter to pastors regarding Rick Warren and Bill
Hybels, Lighthouse Trails has learned that Laurie is also helping to finance
Warren’s September event in New York. Lighthouse Trails contacted the New York
City Leadership group this past week after we learned that Laurie’s name was on
their website showing him to be a sponsor. The New York City office said that
this sponsorship is in the way of financial support and is for Rick Warren’s
September conference. There are

two “Event Sponsors”: Greg Laurie and a legal firm in New York. Without a
doubt, Laurie supports Purpose Driven.

And now for the twist: To make a long story short, in 2005 Lighthouse Trails
issued a report titled

“Rick Warren teams up with New Age guru Ken Blanchard”. Our report, while
fully documented and accurate, brought on a barrage of response from Rick Warren
and Saddleback, including

a letter from Warren to Lighthouse Trails denying the connection, phone
calls and emails from two Saddleback leaders, numerous letters sent out from
Saddleback calling Lighthouse Trails evil and liars, and an accusation from
Saddleback, saying that Federal agents believed that Lighthouse Trails may have

broken into their computer server. In addition, there was an effort to
discredit George Mair, a biographer who wrote a testament of praise in his book
A Life with Purpose but who inadvertently connected Rick Warren with Ken
Blanchard.

All this to say that Rick Warren and

Ken Blanchard had made plans to work together to implement the global
P.E.A.C.E. Plan (read

transcript).But since our report and since Warren denied the connection,
little has publicly been done between Blanchard and Warren.(1) But that has
changed. On the New York City Leadership’s

“National Advisory Team,” which incidentally is a brand new organization
(according to the phone call we had this week), sits, among others, Rick Warren,
Bill Hybels, and Ken Blanchard.(2) We were told that Blanchard’s role is to help
develop programming for area pastors and leaders. For those who are not familiar
with Blanchard’s promotion of eastern style mysticism and numerous New Age
authors, we encourage you to

study the matter on our research site, in which we provide solid
documentation. Blanchard,

who claims to have become a Christian in the mid-eighties, has even up

until recently shown a propensity toward mysticism; and his involvement with
a process called the

Hoffman Quadrinity Process (a New Age belief system), leaves no doubt as to
where Blanchard stands on these spiritual matters. Of the Hoffman Process,
Blanchard says, “The Hoffman Process brings forth spiritual leadership in a
person” and “It made my spirituality come alive.”2
In a 2007 book titled Little Wave and Old Swell, a book that is “Inspired by
Hindu Swami Paramahansa Yogananada,” Blanchard has written

a glowing foreword!

This report will obviously be disheartening to many Calvary Chapel pastors and
church goers who have believed that their movement was going to press forward
into the future without these un-biblical movements. Laurie’s current promotion
and financial backing of Rick Warren will cause many to wonder just which
direction the Calvary Chapel movement will really end up going.

Roger Oakland, a world-wide evangelist who has ministered to pastors and
congregations for over twenty years had this to say about the situation:

While Pastor Chuck Smith has clearly attempted to warn Calvary Chapel
pastors about the dangers of the Emerging Church, not all Calvary Chapel
pastors are listening and taking his warning seriously. The idea that we
need to find methods and practices to reach the postmodern generation by
becoming postmodern is dangerous. I am deeply concerned for pastors who
are moving in this direction.

It is ironic that on April 21st of this year, WorldNet Daily posted an
article written by Greg Laurie titled

“‘The Emergent Church’: A dangerous counterfeit.” In the article, Laurie
said that as a teen he “had been looking for something to believe in, something
worth living or dying for, something that was genuine, real and authentic. But
most of all,” he said, “I was looking for something that was true.” Laurie said
he found this truth in Jesus Christ. He added, in referring to the emerging
church: “And there are some pied pipers out there who are leading many young
people down the wrong road.” And then he quotes Brian McLaren. In his article,
Laurie correctly identifies the panentheistic overtones of the emerging church,
but here lies the irony. While Laurie is right in exposing the false doctrines
of Brian McLaren and mystics who say all paths lead to God and God is in all, by
his promoting Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, he too is promoting these heresies.
Indirectly yes, but nevertheless still promoting them. And this is going to
confuse and mislead many people. Maybe it is time Greg Laurie goes full circle
and comes back to that place of his youth when he said, “I was looking for
something true.” He won’t find it in contemplative or in the emerging church;
and that means he won’t find it in Willow Creek or Purpose Driven because both
of these movements adhere to contemplative and emerging. It is our prayer that
Greg Laurie will remove his financial backing from Rick Warren’s New York
conference and send out a new letter denouncing what he previously suggested is
a move of God.

This coming November Greg Laurie will present

“Preach the Word,” a conference for Pastors and Leaders. Those joining him
will include Alistair Begg, Chuck Smith, and John MacArthur. Perhaps these three
men can help Greg Laurie remember the simple and true faith he found so many
years ago.
 

 

Notes:
1. In the fall of 2007, Rick Warren invited Ken Blanchard back to
Saddleback. As far as we know, it was the first time he had been there in over
three years (see
story).

2. Bob Buford also sits on the board. Read chapter 2 of Faith Undone for
documentation on Buford’s significant role in launching the emerging church
movement.