It has been a while since I have shared much of a personal nature concerning the work here at Apprising Ministries. The initial direction that my wife Donna and myself felt AM being led to go was toward the idea of a kind of Internet “church.” The plan seemed to be I would provide sound teaching and council for those who were temporarily unable to find a good local church. However for whatever reason, people who had said they were going to assist in this venture never did, and virtually all of those who initially supported our work have since fallen away.

Under what seemed to be the guiding hand of the Lord the emphasis for AM gradually shifted to exposing the growing cult of the Emergent Church since there has not been much written from a more pastoral angle about this growing cancer in the Body of Christ. Along this time we also began daily receiving letters saying things like:

“I am a member of and deacon of my church and I teach college age sunday school. I would like to thank you for your boldness in the Lord to stand for and proclaim the FULL counsel of our precious Redeemer. Our church was dragged thru the compromising, man-centered, feel good, self-esteem, Scripture twisting, false gospel, no repentance, God just wants to be your friend Purpose Driven Life program. Now the question is what do you do now?

May the Holy Spirit energize someone(s) in the leadership to please stand for the TRUTH no matter what the cost. Thank you again for all of your work to help brothers and sisters know the truth and always be ready to give answer for the hope that lives within us. Remember when you grow tired late at night or after a long day and still have work to do “the people who KNOW their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits” Dan.11:32. Your grateful brother in the Lord.”

Another wrote:

“Dear Ken, VERY good article on the Emergent Church. Nice work. You are right on target. It is perhaps the most dangerous heresy of our time, calling itself evangelical while selling out to neo-paganism. Thank you for being one of the very few pastors in this country that truly preach the word of God. Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing from you.”

And this type of situation started becoming more commonplace as well:

“I sent an email to another ministry several months ago about the things occurring in my (former) church. Some time has passed now with no response so I now turned to AM for help. I have been reading articles of Ken Silva’s for several months now and he seems to have a sound biblical stance on all the things going wrong in churches today. Specifically I would like to know his views on Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis book and his claims about the cross being for more than salvation of souls (trees, plants etc), shalom, reconciliation.

It just so happens that the youth pastor in our church seems to have taken almost verbatim the things Rob Bell is saying in Velvet Elvis. When I heard him speaking to the youth I thought he was clearly stating something heretical and a message of another gospel, especially when he claimed that the cross was about so much more than just saving human souls. It’s about also saving trees, birds, fish, the environment. This lead him to speak about being involved in environmental and cultural issues. He kept referring to harmony and balance being restored as it was in the garden. He also spent a great deal of time explaining the concept of shalom.

I did not have knowledge of the social gospel movement at that time as I do now from reading your article “Emerging With The Social Gospel.” It wasn’t until recently after reading through Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis that I discovered where this youth pastor was getting his ideas from. That is why I would like to know Ken’s opinion on the theology found in Velvet Elvis. It seems bizarre and dangerous. I know many of the grave dangers of emergent, purpose driven, etc, etc. but if I can get a little help in understanding the theology and doctrine found in velvet elvis then I would be able to present a better case to the leaders in my church when explaining how I believe their youth pastor is teaching another gospel.”

At the same time I often see people lamenting the fact that there aren’t many pastors and leaders who are willing to boldly stand for the Truth. The question that usually follows is: “Why don’t more of them speak out against the rising tide of false doctrine?” Well, as one who has been doing so I can offer that if we were to receive some encouragement and if people who have promised to stand with us in financial support actually followed through there would be more of us. There is a tremendous price that is paid. The truth is that a work like this will only be able to continue as long as God’s people pray for us and are willing to do without if need be for the Truth of the Gospel just the same as we must.

Perhaps people don’t realize that for me to do this type of research and writing requires a great deal of sacrifice for Donna and myself. We both work fulltime jobs in the secular world and then come home to attend to the details of the ministry until well into the evening most nights. For those who may not know we are the only ones directly involved in AM and we receive no outside funding from any agencies. So money comes out of our own pocket for me to have the books and resources I need to properly write against the false doctrines of the Emerging Church movement.

I’ve nothing to lose at this point to ask you to consider the rarity of a man who produces the volume of writing the Lord has enabled me to in the few months AM has been on line. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s worth the sacrifice of time and money if there are more important works that need the support of the Church. It matters not to me, but the assistance is certainly not coming here, which brings us to this critical point. Please join us as we seek the Lord as to whether AM is necessary to the Body of Christ, or would His Church be better served if we were to begin steering people elsewhere?

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?

Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?