Posted on 09/23/2023 10:25:48 PM PDT by Morgana
A screening of John MacArthur’s “The Essential Church” at the 2023 G3 National Conference had to be evacuated in Atlanta Friday night after a bomb threat was reported.
The annual conference is put on by G3 Ministries, a Christian organization that stands for “Gospel—Grace—Glory,” and was created in 2013 to hold a “theology conference that would focus on God’s Word as opposed to the pragmatism and techniques that are so often the focus of evangelical conferences.”
Due to the growth of the conferences over the years they now also “educate, encourage, and equip local churches with sound biblical theology for the glory of God” throughout the year.
This year’s conference in Atlanta had nearly 8,000 people in attendance and featured speakers Paul Washer, Voddie Baucham, Steven Lawson, Justin Peters, Ken Ham, Phil Johnson, James White, James Coates, Virgil Walker, Darrell Harrison, Owen Strachan, Josh Buice, and many others.
RELATED: John MacArthur Made ‘The Essential Church’ To Make Some Pastors ‘Feel Guilty’
While details are still uncertain, some reports claim that just before a screening of “The Essential Church” was about to be shown, a man went on the stage and made the claim that there was a bomb in the building.
According to those reports, the man was apprehended by security and later turned over to the the authorities.
Pastor Tom Buck, one of G3 Ministries directors and speakers at this year’s conference, informed ChurchLeaders that information is still being gathered as to what really happened. Buck said he was having dinner with the speakers when they were told they had to evacuate the building.
Shannon Paul Halliday, the writer and director of “The Essential Church,” shared how he was about to speak to viewers at the screening when the bomb threat occurred.
“I was mic’d up and ready to go on to talk about the Essential Church movie, and a bomb threat, came into the building. G3’s been evacuated. Interesting timing @JennaEllisEsq @ArlenysBuckelew,” Halliday posted on social media.
John MacArthur’s and Grace Community Church’s lawyer, Jenna Ellis, who appears in the film posted, “Praying for everyone at @G3Conference.”
Ellis told ChurchLeaders, “I’m very glad to hear the situation was managed and everyone attending is safe. I hope G3 will afford Grace Productions another opportunity to show ‘The Essential Church’ movie because every Christian needs to see this important documentary and prepare to stand firm in the future for God against tyranny. It is also currently streaming on SalemNOW online.”
Pastor Carl Hargrove posted a video of conference speakers and attendees gathering together in their hotel lobby singing hymns after they were forced to evacuate the convention center.
I ended up going for about 6 months until it started getting weird with the "Speaking in Tongues" and "Casting Out Demons " with people having seizures so I quit going, it started getting pretty wild
From the link in the article about “making other pastors feel guilty”:
The synopsis of “The Essential Church” reads, “When governments use Covid edicts to restrict the gathering and worship of the Church, three pastors facing the risk of imprisonment re-open their churches in the face of a world that has chosen to comply.”
It is completely not like that now. There may have been a few incidents like that in the early days( I didn’t attend during those days)...but it is not like your description now or for the last 40 years. They never had “speaking in tongues” demonstrations or “had demons being cast out” as a public display. You might be thinking of another organization.
There was an over, over hyped response to the pandemic no doubt. Tyrannical politicians used the “emergency” as a way to bypass normal(American) system of checks and balances, and scrupulous voting systems. Then they implemented their essentially “woketard” rules. It was like the character Anthony Fremont(the malevolent child) in the Twilight Zone episode who had the power to do whatever his childish mind envisioned.
If the movie “shames” pastors on purpose...that would be bad. But there are those who in good faith tried to comply to reasonable contagion mitigation strategies in a way that did not stop the churches from meeting. Live stream, limited gatherings, voluntary masking, etc. No one should be shamed unless they shut down completely or ignored the command,in God’s word, for the churches to “meet”.
John MacArthur has never been charismatic. In fact he wrote a book about the charismatic movement called Charismatic Chaos. And he is still actively preaching at Grace. Sounds like you may have him confused with another pastor.
Ping
Grace Community church doing the pentecostal thing?
Never heard of that before.
I heard they cleaned it up long ago .
Glad to hear they were able to clean it up.
I also lived across the road from a mostly abandoned Tony Alamo camp in Canyon Country on Sierra Hwy for a few years, They would show up sometimes for a week or so. They seemed kinda weird and Tony Alamo was real unfriendly and creepy .
My experience with the Church community in the LA area was a long strange trip
My beautiful ex wife got "stolen" away by an assistant pastor from a Hope Chapel branch we attended and she got remarried before the divorce was even final (legal in CA, she was a paralegal at Sony ) said she was going to a "Womens Bible Study" at nite and would come home real late.
last I heard she was a licensed "Christian MFCC therapist , something she always talked about doing as a career
(Just kidding!)
That’s strange because MacArthur is a cessationist and does not believe in speaking in tongues. .
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