Conference Alert: Lead Like Jesus Revolution

 


Excerpts from

Lighthouse Trails  –
July 15, 2008

See the rest of the newsletter:

www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletter071408.htm

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 Wayne
Jacobsen Resonates with Contemplative/Emerging Writers

CCN (Church Communication Network)
is sending out notices about their upcoming

Lead Like Jesus Revolution conference, which will take place
on October 17th. The event will be broadcast to various
locations across North America. Advertisement states that this
one-day event features “the nation’s most influential Christian
leaders.” Two of those “influential” leaders are Ken Blanchard
and John Ortberg (who are also the hosts of the event). Both men
are two of the strongest and most influential proponents of the
contemplative prayer movement.

Ken Blanchard has been the topic of many Lighthouse Trails
reports. Best known for his One Minute Manager top seller,
Blanchard professes to have become a Christian in the late
1980s. However, he has been promoting and endorsing books,
authors, practices, and organizations, which have an eastern
religion emphasis, consistently for over twenty years. Often, he
has written the forewords to books that outwardly teach New Age
meditation practices and books that are Buddhist or Hindu in
nature. A recent example is a book titled Little Wave and Old
Swell (2007 edition) (see

our report), in which the author of the book says it is
“inspired by Hindu swami Paramahansa Yogananada.” Blanchard also
sits on the

board of advisors for a New Age group called The Hoffman
Institute. The Institute takes its name from a method called The
Hoffman Quadrinity Process. The book The Hoffman Process
(written by Tim Laurence) is a primer in eastern-style
meditation and New Age spirituality. Here are a few quotes from
that book:

“I asked my friends up
above. They always have the right answer,” he replied,
referring to his spirit guides that, as a psychic
healer, he often consulted.-Tim Laurence, speaking about
the Hoffman Process founder, Bob Hoffman, p.15.

Many traditions around the world focus on the breath as
a link to the divine. — Indeed, it is used as the focus
of the Buddhist practice called Vipassana, or “insight
meditation.”

You can use a short meditation to remind yourself of
this connection to all others in this world of ours.–As
you breathe, feel that breath coming from your core
essence. p. 207.

When you are open to life, you start noticing the divine
in everything. p. 209.

Of the Hoffman Process, Blanchard
says:

The Hoffman Process brings
forth spiritual leadership in a person. It made my
spirituality come alive. Through the Hoffman Process I
actually brought my faith into my daily actions. (from
the Hoffman Institute website) (emphasis added)

Another book Blanchard wrote the
foreword to is Jim Ballard’s book, Mind Like Water. In the book,
Ballard states:

I signed up for the yoga
meditation lessons … founded by Paramahansa Yogananda….I
had evidently reached a level of consciousness beyond
the usual … I continue to consider meditation far and
away the most important thing I do. (p. 77,78)

In this book, Ballard instructs on
breath prayer, visualization, mantra meditation, and a number of
other practices to enter the altered state of consciousness.
Blanchard, who spoke at Saddleback last year and who currently
sits on the

New York Leadership Center’s advisory board with Rick Warren
and Bill Hybels, says in the foreword of Ballard’s book:

Jim Ballard’s wonderful
book, Mind Like Water … I hope that you and countless
other readers will find in Mind Like Water some ways to
calm your mind and uplift your consciousness.

Blanchard, who will be
co-hosting the CCN Lead Like Jesus event with

John Ortberg, is considered a leading influencer in today’s
Christian world at large.

John Ortberg’s 2005 book, God is Closer Than You Think has a
who’s who of mystic proponents, some of which include Anne Lamott,
Annie Dillard, Gary Thomas (Sacred Pathways)… interspiritualist Tilden Edwards (Shalem
Institute), Thomas Kelly (Divine Center in all), Jean Pierre de
Caussade, Frederick Buechner,
Meister Eckhart, Dallas Willard
and Thomas Merton. Ortberg’s book,

The Life You’ve Always Wanted has many of these names as
well. Ortberg and contemplative promoter Ruth Haley Barton
Barton co-authored Ordinary Day With Jesus, which instructs
readers in mystical prayer practices. Both helped to develop
Willow Creek’s Spiritual Formation program.

CCN represents today’s most popular Christian figures:

Beth Moore,

T.D. Jakes,

Max Lucado,

Philip Yancey,

James Dobson, Gary Thomas,

Rick Warren,
Leonard Sweet,
Brian McLaren, and Erwin
McManus, to name a few. A large percentage of the

80+ CCN speakers promote both contemplative spirituality and
the emerging church.

For more research on Ken Blanchard,

click here.

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Other reports from
www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com:

The New Age
Comes to the Girl Scouts of the USA

The Oneness Blessing – Pathway to Global Awakening

Brian McLaren Tour
Starts Soon |

Ken Blanchard Joins “The Secret” Team

Rick Warren
Teams Up with New Age Proponent Leonard Sweet

Al Gore and Tony
Campolo Address Baptist Organizations

Emergent Manifesto |

Deceptive
Roots of the Emerging Church

The
Re-Think Conference |
Deceptive
Roots of the Emerging Church

They Like Jesus,
But Not the Church |
Erwin
McManus

The Secret: A New
Era for Humankind

Yoga, Mysticism & Moody Bible Institute