What does andy stanley believe

When he was in the eighth grade, his father waged a bruising battle to become senior pastor of First Baptist. The battle inflamed tensions so much that his family received nasty, anonymous letters and deacons warned his father that he would never pastor again. One night, during a tense church meeting, a man cursed aloud and slugged Charles in the jaw. Andy says his father didn't flinch, nor did he retaliate.

He kept fighting and eventually became senior pastor of First Baptist. But another church incident taught him a different lesson. Andy was raised as a Southern Baptist, a conservative denomination that teaches the Bible is infallible and that women shouldn't preach.

His father was twice elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. One Sunday, a gay pride group planned to march past his father's church. Leaders of the congregation, warned in advance, dismissed church early to avoid contact with the group.

But organizers of the march changed the schedule. Andy watched as First Baptist members filed out of the church and gawked at gay and lesbian marchers streaming by. Then he noticed a Methodist church across the street whose members held out cups of water for marchers and signs that said, "Everybody welcome! Come worship with us! The pull of the pulpit, though, was stronger than any reservations he had about church. Andy enrolled in college to become a journalist.

But he abandoned those plans after a youth minister's position opened up at his father's church. Those who heard Andy's first sermons say his talent was evident from the start. He had a knack for saying things that stuck in a listener's mind. He was funny, insightful, took on hard questions, and he nudged people to look at familiar biblical passages in a new way. Charles started televising his son's sermons on In Touch's broadcasts, and picked him to preach in his place when he was traveling.

And when First Baptist opened its first satellite church on Easter Sunday , he appointed Andy as its pastor. Within three weeks, Andy's congregation was turning people away at the door because they had no more room.

Within two months, Andy's satellite church swelled to 2, members. Andy says his father was delighted. He started joking that the Stanleys would become a preaching dynasty. And both men began to share an "unspoken dream": that Andy would take the helm after his father's retirement. In Touch was no longer just a ministry; it was Andy's inheritance.

Something, however, would drive father and son apart. Andy didn't know his parents' marriage was in trouble until he was in the 10th grade. Before then, he never saw his father or his mother argue or even disagree. Charles and Anna Stanley seemed to have the perfect relationship. A year after his father appointed him to pastor a satellite church, he knew his parents' marriage was disintegrating.

They had been to every counselor and doctor imaginable. Eventually, his mother moved out and stopped attending church with his father. Anna Stanley had made her own mark on the church -- and on her son. She was always a very safe place. The Rev. Louie Giglio, one of Andy's best friends growing up, still remembers some of the lessons Andy's mother taught at summer Bible camp.

The quiet exit of Anna Stanley from the pews went public in June when she filed for divorce. Her action caused a sensation in Southern Baptist circles, where divorce is considered a sin by some based on a literal reading of the Bible. Some pastors shunned Charles; others publicly demanded that he step down.

The scandal dragged on for years as the couple attempted to reconcile. In , Anna Stanley explained why she wanted a divorce in a letter to her husband's church that was excerpted in the local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in an article titled "Torn Asunder.

She said she had experienced "many years of discouraging disappointments and marital conflict. Charles, in effect, abandoned our marriage. He chose his priorities, and I have not been one of them. The impending divorce didn't just threaten Charles' family; it jeopardized his ministry.

He had always preached unquestioning obedience to the Word of God. And wasn't Jesus clear about divorce in Gospel passages such as Luke "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. New Testament passages such as those had prompted First Baptist to institute a policy that prevented divorced men from serving as pastors or deacons.

What would the church do when its celebrity pastor -- the man who packed the pews and beamed First Baptist's name across the globe -- got a divorce? Charles treated the calls for him to step down like he treated the punch in the jaw so long ago -- he didn't flinch. He said he would gladly work on his marriage but he wouldn't resign as pastor. Gayle White, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution religion writer at the time, dug up a quote from the embattled pastor that explained his rationale and used it in her "Torn Asunder" article:.

You do or die. You do whatever is necessary to win. It doesn't make any difference what it is. That survival spirit was second nature for Charles, whose father died when he was 9 months old and who grew up so poor that he learned about Santa Claus the Christmas morning he discovered in his stocking the orange that had been in the refrigerator the night before.

He lived in 17 homes by his 8th birthday. His mother, Rebecca, worked two jobs and was often away from home. But she'd leave her son notes, reminding him of chores, giving him advice or simply to say, "Charles, I love you. At night, she'd kneel beside her only child and pray, "God bless Charles here for whatever it may be.

Just as his mother protected him, Charles shielded her. She married an abusive alcoholic who told his stepson he would never amount to anything and sometimes tried to attack Rebecca. So it was really no surprise that, decades later, Charles would refuse to back down. He told opponents calling for his resignation that he answered to a higher authority.

I was simply obeying God. Besides, what could he do -- make someone not divorce him? Charles, though, wasn't the only one in his family with a strong will. His son had other ideas about divorce. The tension between Andy and his father had been building even before the divorce.

They were partners in ministry, but they were becoming rivals. As Andy's congregation started outdrawing his father's, people told Charles that his son was becoming a prima donna who wanted to take over the entire church. Those rumors seemed to be validated, Charles recalls, when his son's church staff asked him to give them the satellite church's property. Whose idea was it, No. The distance between father and son was also philosophical.

They had different ideas about church leadership. Andy had discovered another preaching mentor, the Rev. Bill Hybels, an unassuming, genial pastor -- the kind who travels alone without an entourage.

People tend to focus on the cosmetic innovations of seeker churches: incorporating contemporary Christian music in worship, injecting clever skits and colorful stage props into services. But Andy was also drawn to Willow Creek's primary mission: reaching "irreligious people" who had been turned off by traditional church.

After hearing Hybels, Andy says, church made sense "for the first time in my life. Andy incorporated some of Hybels' innovations into his father's satellite church. He stopped wearing suits in the pulpit as his father had insisted.

Last June, my daughter showed up to church to lead worship in the elementary environment. The same woman, Christy, who had baptized her told her that morning that because she had come out as gay on Instagram, she could no longer serve in leadership, meaning she could no longer be a worship leader or lead her second-grade small group. She was, however, allowed to volunteer in other ways, such as handing out flyers and working in the parking team -- just no leadership roles.

Our daughter was crushed. What followed was the worst three months of our lives as parents. My husband, who volunteered as a technical director there, and I, who worked with 3 to 4-year-old kids in the church, lost our friend-groups as well. The loss was doubly painful because we moved to Georgia because we had felt called to be in this church. Five years ago, my husband was offered a choice to relocate to anywhere in the United States.

We picked Georgia because of North Point Ministries. Every Sunday, she would go to church to lead worship at the 9am service, lead a 2nd-grade small group at 11am, then worship at the pm adult service, and then finally attend the high school service at pm. He had been justifying some of his sinful behavior by claiming it was just a small area of his life.

He claims that Christians should focus on the resurrection and not rely on the Bible. Stanley rightly emphasizes the resurrection as a core truth for the Christian life. If you gave up your faith because of something about or in the Bible, maybe you gave up unnecessarily. Either way, such a teacher is a dangerous influence. I will attempt to show how the examples, beliefs, and practices of Jesus and Paul contradict his assertions.

Jesus clearly relied on the Scripture in His case the Old Testament as the foundation of his life, ministry, and work. He exposes their hypocrisy by quoting Moses in Mark and affirms Mosaic authorship. Criticism from people both in and out of his congregation is something Stanley has faced in his years as a well-recognized pastor, and he explained that he approaches this conflict directly with the goal of finding the root of the issue.

Stanley then outlined his approach to his leadership role during the current times of confusion and uncertainty, defining his responsibility as being someone who can offer succinct responses without losing the human element.

During the times of uncertainty, the best thing a leader can do is provide clarity. Search News Archives.