I live in Alpharetta. Though I attend Perimeter PCA (an evangelical Presbyterian church), I have visited at North Point several times, and always found the message Biblically sound and the music (though quite “different”) still beautiful.
A personal observation:
I have a friend who is a North Point member who was faced with the news from her Doctor early on in her pregnancy that the baby had “Downs”. She and her husband, of course, chose to NOT abort the baby and with the amazing support of the church “family” they were able to face with tremendous strength all the hardships that this situation brought and continues to bring. Northpoint held special prayer services for her and her family all through those months, praying for God to heal the baby’s serious heart defect the doctor had also diagnosed. What I saw was amazing faith both on the part of my friend and the church.
On the other hand.... another personal observation:
I was appalled during the presidential election to see how many friends and neighbors I had thought of as “conservative”, now supporting Obama. Just as another poster brought up in a previous thread, they seemed to be caught up in the “white guilt” thing and the excitement of voting for “hope and change” and they were way to busy playing golf and tennis to look into the actual facts. I was so depressed about the whole election (McCain and Obama was just NO choice at all!) that I didn’t ever look to closely at the numbers. But I bet you could check the precinct records in and around Alpharetta. The huge numbers of North Point Church voters would have been a significant impact. Perhaps that would shed light on the question. I would not at all be surprised if we found Alpharetta to not be as conservative as we once thought.
One more personal observation:
North Point is a huge church. Many in it’s congregation are strong evangelical Christians and avid conservatives. However the church’s mission seems to be to attract the rest of the crowd, bring them in to hear contemporary music, a powerful sermon, be surrounded by the love emanating from the core believers (true Christians) there and by doing so, bring them to an understanding of the Gospel and God’s plan for their life. Perhaps Andy Stanley naively sees this hope in everyone, even Michelle Obama while some of us suspect the Obamas have gone to far to the dark side to ever make it back.
It will be interesting indeed to see what repercussions North Point Community will have from this event.
Those are insightful points.
I attended the event and appreciate the suggestion to look with a discerning mind rather than an open-mind. I have a mixed report for those interested. First, because of the response from the church reflected in post 93 I believed the church meant the outreach that would occur after the event, but what I didn’t anticipate was what happened at the event. The co-hosts “Ray of Hope” church is a black congregation and they were there in force. The audience was at least half black, but others of interest who were there included many from CDC (a predominantly secular crowd for sure) and many physicians and health care workers from the Atlanta area who may not attend church. As you would expect the place was packed like an Easter or Christmas service and I would say there were atleast 6500 people. I sat next to a black man from the other congregation, a physician and his wife from Georgia Academy of Pediatrics, both of whom don’t attend church regularly and next to them was the assistant to Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC director. The ticket said “doors open at 130, program begins at 230” but this is what I hadn’t counted on, FLOTUS didn’t speak till 4:00 and the 1.5 hours prior to that was a fully captive audience with many secular people attending and they heard the NPCC mission, the black church’s mission, music from NPCC musicians which is typically Christian pop-rock, and from the black choir which was good ol’ gospel music. Intermixed with this were the PSAs about let’s move campaign about getting kids more active in sports and play. Then when the program started, a little Asian girl (no more than 7) recited perfectly (including one nation under God) the pledge of allegiance and from what I heard the majority of the audience spoke along enthusiastically (even the pediatrician next to me whispered along) but what was even better, was when one of the NPCC main singers sang the national anthem a cappella in one of the most beautiful renditions I’ve ever heard. It was unbelievable! Then the Ray of Hope pastor spoke about FLOTUS (she is the pastor who gave the invocation prayer at the 2008 DNC convention) and it was very impassioned- they are likely personal friends. Finally, Andy introduced FLOTUS by saying some flattering words about the movement and that as a parent he appreciated the effort on behalf of children and that regardless of political or religious persuasion we as citizens can all rally around working together to make our children healthier-about which he seemed very sincere. This is also very much his language. It is inclusive, but not to offend Christians, so much as to show the secular world that there is some common ground.
When FLOTUS spoke, what surprised me was one of the first statistics she cited was about the number of young adults that are too overweight to join the military. Had this been a line by a conservative, I would have gotten behind it. The rest was impassioned but pretty boiler plate stuff about the health risks of obesity to children, etc.
Here is what I hadn’t counted on that I thought was a benefit: Many of the black audience seemed to rally around the fact that the obesity problem was particularly acute in their population, and she did talk quite a bit about it ultimately being a parent’s responsibility. This was good to hear.
The down side: I know a lot about the Let’s Move program and the personal responsibility part I agree with, but it veers quite a bit into the whole social justice thing and implies much about institutional racism impacting poor populations more, which just frustrates me quite a bit.
SO the bottom line is, should the church have hosted FLOTUS, what were the up and down sides.
The up was that it did allow a fairly conservative congregation to integrate with a big liberal black congregation in a very friendly way. While in the line waiting to get in I had great discussions with members of Ray of Hope; also as described, it presented a Christian program complete with patriotic trimmings to a partially unchurched secular crowd of elites who may never see it again; and I generally agree with many of the points in FLOTUS message.
The downs: When does the first step of the slippery slope begin, I am somewhat concerned, based on my knowledge of the whole “let’s move”program that it began yesterday. Its a warning against faith-based initiatives, which I had been somewhat ambivalent towards, but now realize that by partnering with the government the church has to compromise in ways it might not want to.
Also, it gives FLOTUS a big forum and as has been said in the stream before, seems to imply the church’s endorsement of everything Obama instead of maybe just this one thing.
The question I would ask the readers to consider, is whether the event as described, and the subject around which the Lets Move campaign is focused has any merit, both from a Christian outreach perspective, and from a national concern. The second question is should a church get behind anything suggested by someone in the whitehouse, if there are so many things in the whitehouse with which the church disagrees. I admit to being unsure.
I am pretty sure that based on having attended the event it will be viewed in mainly a positive light by the congregation because of the program itself. I will post again if I hear otherwise Sunday.