ALL SMILES, BUT GREATLY DECEIVED
WARNING:
Photo: Some of the IF women – photo used in accordance with the US
Fair Use Act for critical review and reporting. (source:
http://www.jennieallen.com/if-we-were-wild-and-full-of-faith-its-time/)
(Jen Hatmaker and Melissa Greene in photo)
DANGER: EMERGENT "'IF' GATHERING" CONFERENCE COMING FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS & GRANDDAUGHTERS IN A TOWN NEAR YOU, FEBRUARY 2-3, 2017
BY LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
[God] will take this hell on earth and someday show us how hell was building heaven.—
Jennie Allen (founder of IF: Gathering)
Have you heard of the IF: Gathering? If you
haven’t, you most likely will soon enough. The women’s movement
started just a few years ago but is already making some big inroads
into the evangelical scene. On the outer appearance, this looks like a
legitimate Christian movement – the women who lead and speak at IF:
Gathering are young and vibrant; they talk about Jesus, they go to
church; some of them homeschool their kids—it all looks so Christian.
But underneath this outer thin Christian layer lies an emergent
atmosphere . . . and the target is your young evangelical daughters
and granddaughters.
In a few days (February 2-3), IF: Gathering
will be presenting their annual conference in Austin, Texas. The
conference, called IF:2017 will also be live-streamed to many churches
throughout America and Canada (and in some other countries as well).
Lighthouse Trails has received a number of phone calls and e-mails by
concerned parents and grandparents whose daughters and granddaughters
are attending the conference, either in Austin or one of the
sponsoring churches.
Here is a link to the list of churches
that will be holding the IF:2017 conference next week via live-stream.
According to the IF website, there are over 2000 live-streamed events
for this year’s event. If you multiply that by even just 150, that is
nearly 300,000 women! When you go to the list, type in your
zip code, see if there is a conference being held in your city or
town, and if there is, start alerting those you know. Your friends may
have daughters who are attending.
You may not be familiar with these names, but
we encourage you to do your research and please read Cedric’s article
so you might come to understand the underlying agenda of IF. As
Cedric says, we don’t question the sincerity of these women, but we do
question the direction they are heading spiritually.
While her name
doesn’t appear in this year’s line up, Melissa Greene is involved
with IF as well (please see article below to learn about Greene’s
beliefs and this video of her). Greene, a pastor, resonates with emergent leader Brian McLaren, and her church made headlines when it came out promoting same-sex marriage.
In May of 2015, Lighthouse Trails author, Cedric Fisher, wrote a booklet titled “
IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering.”
We are posting that booklet in its entirety below. If you scroll to
the bottom of his article and hit the green Print button, it will
format a nice PDF copy for you (you can buy it in booklet format too,
but you’ll have to print it in order to have it in time before the
conference). If you know a woman who is planning to attend the
IF:Gathering conference next week, please print this article and give
her a copy to read. Because the emergent “theology” is deceptive and
spiritually dangerous, these young women need to be given a heads up.
Lest some say that Jennie Allen has cleaned up
IF by not having Jen Hatmaker and Melissa Greene at this year’s event,
keep in mind that Jennie Allen knew what these two friends believed
when she invited them to be part of IF just a few years ago. How can
we trust our daughters and granddaughters to someone who shows no
discernment and who very likely will continue connecting with and
inviting speakers who are of a similar emergent mindset
.1 For example, Shauna Niequist (Bill and Lynn Hybels daughter) is involved with IF (they sell her book on their site, she contributes on the blog, and she is one of the speakers at IF:2017) and recently she gave her “blessing” to Jen Hatmaker’s acceptance of same-sex marriage and endorses Jesus Calling.
Once you read Cedric’s article below, we
believe you will understand why we are so concerned about this
movement. Writing this article reminds us of another article we wrote a
number of years ago in 2008. It was titled “
Brian McLaren’s Hope for the Future – The Minds of Your Grandchildren.”
Since then, the emergent church has continued growing and indeed
grabbing the minds of countless young people, many of them from
Christian homes. We hope and pray parents and grandparents will do all
they can to keep their own young people from going down that same path,
this time via IF.
Don’t forget to check
the list of places IF:2017 will be livestreaming to see if your town or city is hosting an IF conference.
IF IT IS OF GOD—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering
By Cedric H. Fisher
IF:Gathering came in like a storm, one of those
winter events that seem to appear out of nowhere. No one saw it
coming. A team of highly popular women—authors, bloggers, and speakers
coming together—what a great idea. But it wasn’t novel. Professing
Christians have been making pilgrimages for decades to high-energy
conferences with a star list of speakers and singers. As with so many
of these other conferences, IF purported to do the work of God.
However, IF was unique in that it was mostly a digital event. It was
greatly effective.
The IF:Gathering held its second event in
February of 2015 and involved 1200 women at the physical location,
with a possible 100,000 or more watching by 40,000 live links in more
than 120 countries. The ongoing influence of IF
after the
conference has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of women
all while flying under the radar of pastors and church leaders who may
be accepting IF:Gathering at face value, not knowing anything about
this group of high energy talented women leaders.
After reading the list of IF speakers and
researching information about them, I have become convinced that IF
poses a significant risk to Christian women, who unwittingly are
submitting themselves to IF’s speakers and teachers. The danger? It
comes in the form of emergent ideology, spiritual formation,
and contemplative spirituality (contemplative prayer is a mantra-like
“prayer” practice that vitalizes the “progressive” “new” Christianity
(i.e., the emerging church). Thus, I am compelled to report on my
findings regarding IF.
How did IF:Gathering come about and is it
ordained by God? These are questions every responsible Christian needs
to ask concerning anything claiming to be a new move or revelation
from God. Those questions are especially important during such a time
as this, a time when the church is suffering from great deception and
apostasy. Is IF influencing women to draw nearer to God or rather
leading them onto a spiritually dangerous path to heresy?
IF’s Beginning—A Whisper from the Sky
The 2015 IF:Gathering did not end when the
conference was over. It continues to function through the network
established before the conference occurred. Its influence continues
through local churches and individuals who hosted the event, through
social media, available videos of the event, and the “IF:Table,”* all
of which have the potential to reach countless more women and evolve
into a major women’s movement. If that occurs, it will help set the
agenda of how the future generation perceives and implements
Christianity.
The first statement on their website under “Who We Are” is:
We exist to gather, equip and unleash the next generation of women to live out their purpose.1
The founder of IF:Gathering, Jennie Allen, is a
bright and energetic, best-selling author, blogger, and popular
speaker. She appears sincere and dedicated to ministering to people.
She and her husband have been involved in ministry for a number of
years. However, since she is the founder, we must consider her
activity, her influences, and her statements about the birth of
IF:Gathering.
Allen is a Bible teacher who had been teaching
groups of girls and young women since high school. She studied at the
University of Arkansas for three years, completed her B.S. in
Communications at Carson Newman College in Tennessee, and graduated
from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Master’s in Biblical Studies
in 2005. It would be two years after her graduation from DTS when she
had an experience that birthed IF: Gathering.
Allen signed a multi-project contract in 2011
with Thomas Nelson, which included a series of seven DVD-based Bible
studies and two trade books. Her first study released in 2011,
followed by another one released in 2012. Her first trade book was
also released in 2012. Allen’s book
Restless: Because You Were Made for More and the
Restless video-based Bible study were released simultaneously in January 2014, a month before the first IF:Gathering.
Allen was also one of the speakers in the
neo-emergent Nines Conference in 2014, which hosted a speaker lineup
that included some of the main influences in the New Christianity
movement.
How did the IF:Gathering originate? There are
different and conflicting explanations given by Allen.
The first
account was presented by Allen in the initial IF:Gathering in Austin,
Texas, 2014:
About 7 years ago, a voice from the sky—that
doesn’t often speak to me—but that day there was this whisper. It was
the middle of the night, actually. And it was “Gather and equip your
generation.” And this was ridiculous, because honestly, I was a stay
at home Mom, I didn’t know anybody that could help me with that job.
And it was a completely ridiculous statement. So ridiculous that I
just, for two days my bones hurt, and I didn’t know what to do with
it. My bones hurt, for two days.
I thought, Okay God, what do you want me to do? Wisely my friend said, “Jennie, if
it’s God,” cause it may not be. All voices from the sky are not always
God, FYI. But, “if it’s God, then He’s going to give you everything
you need to accomplish His purposes. So just wait.” And so I waited,
and that was seven years ago, guys.2
Allen eventually came to believe it was God who
whispered. She would wait several years for Him to put IF: Gathering
together. However, a year after the account of IF’s birth that she
gave in the 2014 conference, she posted another account on her blog:
Truth is, IF:Gathering began as more of a hunch than a vision.3
A month later, and one year after her first
account, Allen gave another account of how the IF came about during
the IF: Gathering February, 2015:
I mean, 7 years ago, 8 years ago now, I heard
a voice that . . . well, okay, I didn’t. This is like all different
theologies right now. Okay, just give me grace. I don’t know, but I’m
just telling you, in the night I woke up, and I was overcome with
these words, “Disciple a generation.”
But I sat on it. I put it in my back pocket
and said, “Okay God, if you want to do something crazy like that,
you’re gonna have to make it happen.”4
I read Allen’s book,
Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked my God and My Soul,
written a couple of years after her experience with the sky
whisperer. In her book, Allen describes deep intimacy with God and
willingness to obey Him completely. However, she does not mention
anything about Sky Whisperer or his commission to organize the IF:
Gathering. I find that puzzling. What better place to introduce and
expound on such a life-changing intimate experience and surrender than
in a book describing full surrender?
I’m willing to concede that there could be a
good reason for the inconsistencies of her accounts as to how IF came
about. But an individual whom God supernaturally calls to accomplish a
significant work should give a credible and unambiguous account of
that call. One could say, “I saw a need and did my best to meet it.”
However, when one says, “I heard a voice from God,” a different
standard is involved. The reason is because something that has a
supernatural event as an origin will have a much greater weight of
influence. It presents the individual as a special agent of God, just
as any of the figures in the Bible whom God used to accomplish
unprecedented purposes. It almost immunizes the revelation and the
individual from critical examination.
Therefore, I believe it is proper and
reasonable to examine Jennie Allen’s statements concerning the origin
of the IF: Gathering. The questions are: “Is Allen’s explanations of
the origin of IF:Gathering convincing and does she provide viable and
credible information that concludes IF: Gathering originated from God?
One should prayerfully consider those questions and ultimately should
ask: if it’s origin is in question and if it’s founder is involved in
emergent conferences, can IF:Gathering produce good fruit? The next
section concerning the speakers in IF:Gathering may help answer that
last question.
For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor
does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own
fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather
grapes from a bramble bush. (Luke 6:43-44)
IF, The Speakers: Ambassadors of God or Emergent Collaborators
If Jeannie Allen did indeed hear supernaturally
from God, and if God supernaturally equipped her to organize the
IF:Gathering, we would expect good fruit from the conference and the
speakers. We would not expect people who are influenced by emergent,
New Age, and other aberrant authors and teachers. It is logical to
expect that the speakers would be stellar Christian examples.
Space does not permit me to deal with all the
conference speakers, so I have chosen several whom I believe need to
be examined. They are listed in alphabetical order.
Sarah Bessey
After reading portions of her book, Jesus Feminist,
I get the impression Sarah Bessey believes that Christianity is stuck
with the Woman Suffrage movement somewhere in the 1920s. She
references radical feminist, social activist, and journalist Dorothy
Day in her book and seems to draw from secular feminism. From that
concept, she tries to invent a need for radical feminism in
Christianity, presenting bizarre commentary on the Scriptures to back
up her position. The following quote illustrates her view:
Many of the seminal social issues of our
time—poverty, lack of education, human trafficking, war and torture,
domestic abuse—can track their way to our theology of, or beliefs
about, women, which has its roots in what we believe about the nature,
purposes, and character of God.5
In the back of
Jesus Feminist under “Further Reading,” Bessey offers a book titled
How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership, which includes essays from emerging church authors Tony Campolo, John Ortberg, and Bill and Lynne Hybels.
Jesus Feminist also has endorsements in the book by Brian McLaren and Tony Jones. On her blog, she lists among her favorites
A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren and
Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.6 She also promotes
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen.7 There’s no question that Bessey resonates with the views of these men.
With such emergent and contemplative influences, how can good fruit be produced by this speaker?
Christine Caine
Christine Caine claims Joyce Meyer as her
“spiritual mother” and lists Word of Faith preacher Sheryl Brady as a
dear friend calling her “flat out the best chick preacher of the
word.”8 Caine has “preached” in seeker/emergent Steven Furtick’s mega
church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The following is transcribed from
Caine’s opening statement in Furtick’s church:
This place is a little bit like God, take
this in context, in that like you are omnipresent. You are here. You
are across the room. You are down the street. You are all over the
worldwide web. It is like wherever you look, here we are and it is my
honor and privilege to be here, I couldn’t wait.9
Caine also declared that her heart was
“knitted” to Furtick. One whose heart is surrendered to God could not
possibly be knitted to an individual such as Furtick. Journalist and
researcher Jim Fletcher says this about Furtick:
Steven Furtick . . . mentored as he is by
evangelical bigwigs like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, felt bold enough
to post a YouTube video in which he sneeringly challenged what I’d
call traditional Christians to basically get out of the way, because
their time is past. Presumably, to Furtick, it’s the “new
generation’s” time now, so step aside with your stodgy hymns and
expositional preaching style. . . . Masked a bit by a pious nod toward
humanitarian causes, the leadership of this group is quite nasty,
albeit in subtle ways.10
Further, according to the itinerary on
Christine Caine’s website, she will be speaking at NAR (New Apostolic
Reformation) leader Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding,
California in August 2015 in the Bethel Women’s Conference. Why does
this matter? It shows a pattern of being willing to associate with
people and “minister” in churches that are teaching and promoting
false and dangerous teachings.11
Melissa Greene
Melissa Greene is the pastor of worship and arts
at GracePointe Church in Franklin, Tennessee. The church made national headlines in January of 2015 as senior
pastor, Stan Mitchell, declared his church now accepts homosexual
marriage.12
When I pull up Greene’s website, I immediately
notice the picture of her sitting in a Yoga position. In a May 25th,
2014 message on her website titled “Worth,” Greene admits to reading
emerging church pioneer Brian McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy
(and McLaren spoke at GracePointe in the fall of 2014). Greene
favorably quotes other prolific New Spirituality names: Phyllis
Tickle, Richard Rohr, Frederick Buechner, Rob Bell, Nicholas
Wolterstorff, Thomas Merton, Peter Gomes, Aldous Huxley—a list that
reads like a veritable who’s who in emergent and contemplative heresy.
In “Worth,” Greene declares that, “Christianity
is broad and diverse.”13 Considering that many of her influences
accept all religions as being of God, there is no doubt to what she
means when she states this. Greene also made the audacious statement:
“The most devastating fear in people’s lives is the fear of God.”14
She attempts to validate her statement by taking verses out of context
and misapplying them. What does God’s word declare?
And do not fear those who kill the body but
cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)
Therefore, having these promises, beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)
For thousands of young Christian-professing women to submit to someone like Melissa Greene could have a detrimental effect.
Jen Hatmaker
In Jen Hatmaker’s book, Interrupted: When Jesus Wreck Your Comfortable Christianity,
she makes it clear that she is influenced by a number of New Age/New
Spirituality individuals. She quotes Catholic priest and contemplative
activist Richard Rohr and emergent leader Shane Claiborne. On her
blog, she promotes the book, The Circle Maker, by Mark
Batterson, a book that encourages readers to draw circles around
specific things in order to have more answered prayers. Batterson was
inspired with this idea by an ancient sage.
In Hatmaker’s book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess,
she reveals that her family takes part in a Roman Catholic ritual
with mystical origins, the “Seven Sacred Pauses.”15 Hatmaker got her
inspiration from Seven Sacred Pauses, a book by Macrina Wiederkehr who is a spiritual director
in the contemplative prayer movement. In Wiederkehr’s retreats, seekers
are guided through experiences of silence, contemplation and lectio divina
(a contemplative practice where words and phrases from the Bible are
repeated in mantra-like fashion). The “seven sacred pauses” are seven
times a day to pause and pray, which Wiederkehr describes as “breathing
spells for the soul.”
Consider Hatmaker’s statement concerning the preaching of God’s Word:
I have spent half my life listening to
someone else talk about God. Because of this history, I’ve developed
something of an immunity to sermons.16
This is eerily similar to the sentiment of Sue Monk Kidd (author of
The Secret Life of Bees),
who once, as a conservative Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher,
expressed her dissatisfaction (and eventual rejection) of the preaching
of God’s Word. That led Monk Kidd down a path away from the Christian
faith and straight into the New Age. Today, she worships the goddess
Sophia.
This disgruntlement of God’s Word is so
prevalent among leaders of the emerging New Spirituality church. If
not preaching, then what? Is it emotionally charged conventions and
books with flowering, poetic phrases that open up to spit out a toxic
drop of heresy? If Hatmaker is immune to preaching, she has rejected
God’s method in favor of her own.
Ann VosKamp
Ann VosKamp’s highly popular book, One Thousand Gifts,
is peppered with favorable references to and quotes by various
mystics, pantheists, and universalists. The following is a list of
some of those influences:
Sarah Ban Breathnach, Teresa of Avila, Julian
of Norwich, Evelyn Underhill, Brennan Manning, Annie Dillard, Thomas
Aquinas, Peter Kreeft, Walter Brueggemann, Francis de Sales, Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Nouwen, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade. She
also quotes mystic Catholic nun Kathleen Norris on her blog.17
You may not have heard of all these names, but
in my research, I have found that they all embrace a panentheistic
mystical-based spirituality. For VosKamp to quote and reference so
many authors in this category shows she is embracing and absorbing the
spirituality of these figures.
In the last chapter of
One Thousand Gifts, “The Joy of Intimacy,” Voskamp writes:
Mystical union. This, the highest degree of
importance. God as Husband in sacred wedlock, bound together, body and
soul, fed by His body, quenched by His blood . . . God, He has
blessed—caressed. I could bless God—caress with thanks. It’s our
making love. God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a
making of His love for us . . . couldn’t I make love to God, making
every moment love for Him? To know Him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit
skin to spirit skin . . . The intercourse of soul with God is the very
climax of joy . . . To enter into Christ and Christ enter into us—to
cohabit.18
This is what contemplatives consider “intimacy”
with God, as if God is more a lover or a boyfriend than the Creator
of the Universe, the King of Kings, and our beloved Savior. This is
what millions of young Christian women are being introduced to.
The question is, are Sarah Bessey, Christine
Cane, Melissa Greene, Jen Hatmaker, and Ann VosKamp really called from
God as they profess to be? While I won’t question their sincerity, I
must ask the questions: How can the IF:Gathering be ordained by God?
How can Jennie Allen have supernaturally heard from God concerning her
conference? And how could righteous God Almighty have sanctioned a
movement that is so influenced by diabolical sources?
The IF:Gatherings promise great solutions, but
in practice, they covertly chip away at biblical concepts of God, the
Holy Spirit, and biblical Christianity. They are based on flawed
concepts masked by alluring phrases. Like all other emerging church
“coaches” and mentors, the IF leaders intend to solve the problem of
what they insist is failed Christianity. They believe a
replacement—New Christianity—is the solution.
Considering the influences of the speakers, the
IF:Gatherings will lead to dangerous, alternate spirituality. The
Conference overwhelms susceptible women with music, visuals, and
emotional camaraderie. When their hearts are prepped and open,
provocative questions are presented, and answers that conflict with
God’s word are offered.
IF the Fruit is Good
When I was a worldling, I visited the notorious
Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Fresh from the Oklahoma hills, I had
never witnessed anything remotely like it. One thing that fascinated
me most were the barkers. The barkers were men who stood outside of
the many establishments attempting to coax passersby to enter them.
They were so convincing. Their skills had been honed by trial and
error. Bending to the persuasive and captivating power of their words,
I entered one of those establishments. Once inside, I was shocked at
the total absences of morals. Although it made my cheeks blush, and my
moral upbringing urged me to leave, I was with a couple of friends
and didn’t want to be considered a prude. So I stayed. The longer I
stayed, the more I got used to the immorality. The more I got used to
it, the more I wanted of it.
The speakers at the IF:Gathering are barkers.
They are luring many professing Christian women with persuasive and
captivating words. A repetitive error I noticed in the Conference was
that a speaker would set up a straw man, and then mix the answer to it
with Scripture. She would then insist that the conclusion was a valid
point. An example was when Jen Hatmaker argued that we cannot
possibly know all of God. She quoted a Scripture from Romans 11:33.
Her conclusion was that because we cannot know God fully, it is not
detrimental to faith to have doubt. However, faith does not depend on
knowledge, but trust. Lack of knowledge should not make us doubt, but
rather a lack of trust. This was a prevailing theme at IF.
Hatmaker also insisted that God set us free
simply to set us free; that He set us free for us. Again, this does
not agree with God’s Word:
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
We were created for God’s purpose, to worship
and serve Him. He set us free so we could belong to Him to honor and
serve Him with all our hearts, mind, bodies, and spirits.
One constant thing that made me cringe was the
cavalier attitude that some of the speakers, especially Jennie Allen,
exhibited toward God. At one point, Allen, says, “Darn it, darn it,”
and goes off on a rant implying that God is stupid, mean, and that His
plan is absurd. The rant came only minutes after she declared she was
nearly overcome with reverential fear of God.19
In Melissa Greene’s “Worth” sermon, one comes away with the following conclusions:
Certainty is bad; Questions (and no answers) is good.
The old-fashioned faith of our parents and grandparents is outdated and irrelevant.
References to numerous mystics and emergents
The “text” (the Bible) is OK, but there is so much more to be grasped.
In the end, everyone is saved.20
As I mentioned earlier, Greene admits to
reading Brian McLaren, and from the content of the “Worth” video,
McLaren’s spirituality has become her own. The IF leaders hope to lead
as many women as possible into the same direction as Jennie Allen
declares:
While I wish I were a more confident,
rebellious pioneer, God had to nearly force me to the wild, new path
He had for IF. I am however compelled to call as many of you as
possible to the roads less traveled because there are many wandering
who may never make it up to the highway.21
IF Conclusion
[God] will take this hell on earth and someday show us how hell was building heaven.22—Jennie Allen
The IF conferences are full of emotional
manipulation with videos of heartbreaking stories and impassioned
pleas to do something; draw near to God, have more faith, win the
lost, help the less fortunate, etc. At various points in the 2015
conference, a speaker would burst out in an impassioned plea to do
something about the plight of humanity as if it were the fallback
position when passion was otherwise lacking.
IF’s leaders insist that biblical Christianity has failed as a viable work of God and that God and
they are bringing forth a cure—New Christianity.
I fear that IF’s
excellent adventure
is advertisement for a mass departure from God’s Word. Rather than
having their faith built up, participants are encouraged to question
“traditional” Christianity. And those who are giving the answers—the
IF women—are unfortunately getting
their information from emergents and mystics who present a different gospel and another Jesus.
It is addictive, this linguistic confection.
The mind is overcome with giddiness. But is it of God? Or is it rather
a “beautiful” seduction? I believe the latter is true.
To order copies of IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering, click here.
* IF:Table is a dinner hosted by one person on
the second Sunday of each month. It is described as six women, four
questions, two hours (https://ifgathering.com/new-to-the-table/)
Endnotes:
1. IF:Gathering website, “Who We Are”: https://ifgathering.com/who-we-are.
2. Jennie Allen, 2014 IF:Gathering: https://ifgathering.com/if-gathering-2014.
3. Jennie Allen’s blog, “How to Leave Normal”:
https://ifgathering.com/2015/01/how-to-leave-normal, January 21, 2015.
4. Jennie Allen, IF: Gathering: https://ifgathering.com/2014/09/ifgathering-2015, February 2015.
5. Sarah Bessey,
Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women (New York, NY: Howard Books), p. 169.
6. Sarah Bessey’s blog: http://sarahbessey.com, December 30, 2008.
7. Ibid., July 17, 2008.
8. http://instagram.mislav.net/users/christinecaine?max_id=216035535549657297_2724891.
9. Christine Caine, Elevation Church, Code
Orange Revival 2012,
http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/codeorangerevival (some of her sermon
can be watched at:
http://www.god.tv/code-orange-revival/night-4-anything-is-possible-with-god).
10. Jim Fletcher, “‘Hip’ church gives biblical
Christians new label: ‘Hater’” (WorldNetDaily,
http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/12/hip-church-gives-biblical-christians-new-label-hater/#JEfipOHtSOZJfZeD.99).
11. Read John Lanagan’s article/booklet titled
The New Age Implications of Bethel Church’s Bill Johnson where it discusses Johnson’s propensity toward “quantum spirituality” (the belief that God is in everyone).
12. Elizabeth Dias, “Nashville Evangelical Church Comes Out for Marriage Equality” (
Time Magazine, January 29, 2015; http://time.com/3687368/gracepointe-church-nashville-marriage-equality).
13. Melissa Greene, “Worth”
(http://melissagreenemusic.com/tag/worth, May 25, 2014, watch video
at: https://vimeo.com/97252399, 22:40 minutes to 22:47 minutes).
14. Ibid, 24:18 minutes to 24:25 minutes.
15. Jen Hatmaker,
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2012, Digital Edition), Kindle location 3266.
16. Ibid., Kindle location 435.
17. Ann VosKamp, (http://www.aholyexperience.com/2006/11/memorizing-word).
18. Ann VosKamp,
One Thousand Gifts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), pp. 213, 216-217.
19. Jennie Allen, IF:Gathering; Session 1- 03.
20. Melissa Greene, “Worth,” op. cit.
21. Jennie Allen, “How to Leave Normal,” op. cit.
22. Jennie Allen,
Restless: Because You Were Made for More (Nashville, TN: W Publishing, 2013), p. 74.
To order copies of IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering, click here.
One
thing to note about this letter is the following statement: “Most
students are required to be part of a spiritual formation small group of
six to eight students who meet weekly for two years.” This lines up
with the special report Lighthouse Trails released in 2013 titled “An 
