Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe Arizona, offered up the following advice to pastors:
Preach DOCTRINAL sermons. This is good advice for any pastor. Don’t fall into the trap of this liberal “relevant” and “practical” type preaching. These are the buzz words of the new-evangelicals. I preach sermons on SPECIFIC subjects such as eternal security, baptism, King James Bible only, exclusivism, the death penalty, the resurrection, the trinity, creation, Bible reading, Bible memorization, verbal inspiration, and also sermons against specific sins such as nudity, drinking, television, birth control, sodomy, wrong music, etc.
Anderson, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher, thinks that topical preaching is the best way to preach. For those of you who are not familiar with topical preaching, preaching topically means choosing a particular topic and then finding verses that support the chosen subject. Topical preaching abuses the text of the Bible, often providing little more than proof texts for the subject at hand. This kind of preaching allows preachers to make the Bible say what they want it to say, regardless of context or proper exegesis. Evangelicals can use the Bible to “prove” almost anything. By preaching topically, Anderson can give his political views the air of authority, leading church members to think that God is against such things as gun control, drinking alcohol, public schools, and watching television. Anderson is famous for his sermon on the sin of “men sitting down to pee.” That’s right, according to Anderson, the Bible commands men to stand when they pee. See? You really can use the Bible to prove almost anything.
Topical preaching allows cult leaders such as Anderson to justify any belief that pops into their brains. Anderson has zero theological training, yet he passes himself off as an expert on the Bible’s teachings. His followers fawn over him, viewing him as a Donald Trump-like straight-shooting son-of-a-gun. Numerous devotees of Anderson have told me that his preaching is Devil-chasing, sin-hating, step-on-toes proclamations of God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Bible — King James-only. They think that the uneducated Anderson is the best preacher in America.
Steven Anderson, along with men such as the late Fred Phelps and evangelist Phil Kidd, mistake their attacks on all who disagree with them for Biblical preaching. Such preachers believe in what is called “hard” preaching — sermons that deliberately offend. Sadly, Anderson has learned his craft well. Now that Fred Phelps is dead, Anderson is widely considered the most hateful preacher in America, a label he wears with pride. In coming months, as I publish some of Anderson’s sermon clips for The Sounds of Fundamentalism series, readers (listeners) will hear Anderson make the most outlandish of statements. Many of you will likely conclude that Anderson belongs in a padded cell. Just remember, several hundred people call him pastor and thousands more think he is a great man of God. Worse yet, come Sunday, countless Steven Andersons will stand behind church pulpits and spew hatred and bigotry — all in the name of God and according to words found in the King James Bible. That countless Evangelicals willingly call such men pastor is disturbing. Wanting moral certainty and believing God speaks through men such as Steven Anderson, these church members will discard reason and common sense and with one voice shout, AMEN, PREACHER. KEEP TELLING IT LIKE IT IS! Until they can be brought to understand that such preaching is abusive and harmful, there is no hope for them. As long as people see these cult leaders as prophets of God instead of molesters of men’s minds, they will continue to think that what they hear preached on Sunday is straight from the mouth of God.
If you have not read Understanding Steven Anderson, Pastor Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona, I encourage you to do so.
This man is a wolf. Non Christian or christian you have to see that. I watched some of his ‘sermons’ and saw nothing but angry ranting. He is filled with hate. And not hatred of sin and evil but hate period. You can be sure that he is a bully. I don’t know him and I could be wrong …. but time will tell.
Also anyone who thinks King James only is right is an idiot. Sorry but that is true. If I said that the Latin vulgate is the only version how would that sound???
Anderson is a puke of a man. Is there any book other than the Bible that lends itself so cunningly to such hateful beings? It is often suggested that broken men like Anderson abuse the Word of God but I no longer feel that is true. The Bible was written to be taken out of context and cherry-picked with complete disregard for exegesis. There is no reasonable way to explain away the complete maniac God of the old testament who one day decides to fuck-over the whole world. There is no way to make a delusional father who willing to gut his own son to serve the voices in his head, a good dad or even a halfway decent person! Unless, that is, you become a Christian and worship the tyrants!
Pity their children, indeed…
questions………
he claims to have led thousands of people in the city blitzes he does. so how come only 200 people go to his church? is the deal in these blitz things just to get people saved? is it just a notch on the belt or something? I thought that the people converting people would want to see them in a church after the conversion. that they would want to see people “grow in Christ”. it doesn’t make sense to me….. with all these conversions why wouldn’t his church numbers be bigger? thanks! oh … really like your stuff …. it helps us a lot.
Here’s Anderson’s (justification) explanation:
Many critics of door-to-door soul-winning say that soul-winning “doesn’t work” or is a fraud because so few of the people who get saved in the process ever end up coming to church. Therefore, they say that these people “must have never really gotten saved.” Here is a list of 11 reasons why most of the people who are saved through the soul-winning of Faithful Word Baptist Church will never come to church, even though they are truly saved.
1. They don’t speak English.
About 50% of the people that I personally win to the Lord speak only Spanish. Although I speak Spanish well enough to effectively preach the Gospel and dialogue about Biblical doctrine, our church does not offer services in Spanish. Our church will never offer services in Spanish. However, it is our goal to preach the Gospel to every single person in the greater Phoenix area. We do not want the Spanish-speakers in our area to go to Hell without getting a chance to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel. There are several people in our church who are able to speak Spanish, and I would estimate that about 20% of the people who are saved through our soul-winning efforts don’t speak English.
2. They are older children or teenagers.
Many of the people we win to the Lord out soul-winning are teenagers or children and are therefore not in a position to drive themselves to church. Since they are not the decision maker in their home, they will probably not be able to get their family to go to the church of their choice.
3. They live too far away or have no vehicle or gas money.
Our goal at Faithful Word Baptist Church is to knock every single door in the greater Phoenix area, which includes approximately 4 million people. Therefore, we do not only knock doors in the immediate vicinity of our church. As we radiate outward with our soul-winning, we find ourselves knocking doors that are 20, 30, or more minutes away from our church. Let’s face it: someone that we win to the Lord in a ghetto 30 minutes away from our church is probably not going to make the 1 hour round trip drive to come to our church. But does that mean that they are not really saved? No!
In addition, our church does “Small Town Soul-winning Marathons” every few months, and dozens are saved in small towns across Arizona that are usually about 1.5 hours from our church. These people will probably not make a 3 hour round trip commute each Sunday to be a part of our church. However, if we don’t bring them the Gospel, who will?
4. They are too shy to visit.
I have been in church my entire life and am by nature an outgoing person, and yet many times I have been very shy and nervous walking into a new church for the first time and not knowing anyone. One time, there was a young lady in her twenties who came to visit our church. She had been in church her whole life, and her father had been a Baptist pastor. After talking with me a little bit, she told me that she had actually come to visit the week before but had chickened out when she got to our parking lot and saw “the crowd.,” so she turned around and drove off. She worked up enough courage to come back the next week and come to the service. Some people are just too shy to walk into a church where they don’t know anyone – especially if they have never even been to church before.
5. They already go to church somewhere else.
Many of the people who get saved through our soul-winning efforts already go to church somewhere. Many of them are already even attending a Baptist church. Once they get saved, they may continue to attend a liberal Baptist church or a new-evangelical church because of the fact that they have ties with friends and family there.
6. They are recruited to another church by friends or family.
Often I have won someone to the Lord who has family or friends who are already saved. Although these watered-down Christian family members or friends never took the time to get their loved one saved, they will jump all over them to get them plugged into their church, now that they are saved. People are much more likely to go to a church where they already know people than to a church where they don’t know anyone. Also, a new believer may not know all the specific things they should be looking for in a church, and therefore, they may easily end up going to an inferior church because they already know people there.
7. They are too lazy to come to church.
Because as a church we knock every door in each area we go soul-winning, much of our time is spent knocking doors in slums and ghettos. Many of the people who get saved have very little character and are very unreliable people. Many of them want to come to church and have every intention of coming to church but do not have the character to get themselves out of bed in the morning and drag themselves to church. Many of them can’t even hold down a job, let alone come to church on Sunday.
8. They are physically disabled.
As we knock doors out soul-winning, we are able to preach the Gospel to many people who would otherwise never hear it because they are physically disabled and almost never get out of the house. Many are hooked up to machines, crippled, very elderly, or in some other way too impaired to get to church. Thank God, we are able to bring the Gospel to them and give them the opportunity to place their faith on Jesus Christ for salvation.
9. Their spouse does not want them to come.
Obviously they should come anyway:
“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” – Acts 5:29
However, many who are saved will allow this to keep them from coming to our church.
10. They are offended by something in our church invitation.
At Faithful Word Baptist Church, we are very clear about who we are and do not pretend to be something that we are not. We want people to know what kind of a church we are. Therefore, our church invitations are filled with information that we want people to have, and that will give them a clear picture of our church. These are the three invitations we hand out:
Because our nation has become so wicked, our church seems extreme to the world. Many people will take offense to something in the invitations we hand out, and therefore decide not to visit our church.
11. They consider our church “too extreme.”
Our church is considered “radical” and “extreme” simply because this world has become “extremely” different from the standards set forth in God’s word. When people hear real Bible preaching, it can sometimes be shocking to them because the television has brainwashed them their entire life with messages that are contrary to the Bible. A person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ still may be worldly and not able to handle hard preaching.
Conclusion:
Does soul-winning work? Well, it depends on what you consider the goal of soul-winning to be. I believe that the goal of soul-winning is to get people saved. Therefore, it works! If your goal is to have a larger church attendance, then it may not work as well as other methods. Jesus Christ promised that HE would build the church, and so I will leave that to him. He never commanded us to build the church; he commanded us to preach the Gospel to every creature.
http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/why.html