Jon Courson has been appreciated over the years by many
people who are my friends and whom I respect. I believe that he preaches the
real Jesus and the true Gospel, for which I rejoice. I also believe that his
ministry and church organization is a reasonable example with which to
examine important issues together. So...
May I raise some questions and concerns?
Consider listening to Jon Courson's teaching at Applegate
below:
What are Jon Courson's views of the "Seeker Friendly" movement? The
Emergent Church Movement? Contemplative Spirituality?
What is Jon Courson's view of the Word of God?
Should a room in a church building be called a "Sanctuary"?
"I need a place like this… where… I’m not simply being preached at….
or even talked to, as important as preaching can be and sharing is so helpful
for me, but… I need a place where I can really say Lord I’m here to talk to you
and to hear from you and to express my gratitude to you Lord. So we do that
around here. Every morning at 6 o’clock the doors are open. At 6:30 worship
begins." Jon Courson
Should a disciple of Jesus be taught to depend on a "Pastor" to
learn what the Bible says?
"…He will write His will upon your heart. That’s the New Covenant,
folks."
"Too many of us don’t understand that very well. Our Trinity, is
God, the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Bible."
"We don’t know what it means to live in the Spirit or walk by the
Spirit. We make the New Testament books the new law. We’re under the law. We
read and we say ok it says this so I better do that. It says this so I better
not do the other. And we put ourselves under the law. And we wonder why we’re
not thrilled about our walk or excited about our faith."
"It’s because we just traded the Old Testament for the New Testament
books. The Trinity is not God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy
Bible. The Trinity is God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God will guide you. He will write His will, Jeremiah 31, upon the
table of your heart."
"And that’s why the early church was so on fire. They were
spirit-filled and spirit-led. They didn’t have the Bible. But, they knew what it
meant to be guided by the Spirit. When the Spirit said, “Go there, turn off
that, come this way”, they would do it. They would obey the promptings of the
Spirit within their hearts and their life was exciting. And their effect, they
turned the world upside down. In forty years time there was not a place in the
known world where the Gospel wasn’t preached and heard. 40 years. 40 years. What
have we done in forty years, folks? Because they obeyed the Spirit."
"Well then, what’s the Bible for. Why do we have bible, why do we
for 30 years here at Applegate go from cover to cover, chapter by chapter, book
by book, verse by verse. Because… I’m to walk by the spirit. But is that
impression on my heart or that thought in my mind, is that really Him? Or is
that too much pizza that I had yesterday and it’s caused my mind to do crazy
things. You see. How do I know?"
"Here’s the key. I do what what’s written on my heart. If it is in
harmony; if it’s confirmed by the word, see that’s why I’ve got to be a man of
the book I’ve got to. Not so I can find rules to follow or regulations to keep.
It’s so that I’m going to obey what’s on my heart moment by moment, day by day…
and I’m going to know that its really him because my mind has been soaked in the
word year after year, time after time, going through this book, over and over,
so that when this thought comes into my mind or that impression’s on my heart I
will know that is the Lord."
It is true that we should walk in the Spirit and we should not turn the New
Testament into living under the law... but is Jon Courson's teaching on these
topics Biblical teaching?
Is this really what it means to walk in the Spirit?
Is this really what it means to trust and obey Jesus ?
Is this really what the New Covenant means?
Is this the proper view of the word of God?
There are many things I consider problems in this particular teaching of
Jon's which I focused on because it seems to be representative of a lot that Jon
Courson stands for.
One item of concern: I believe it is wrong to try to separate our Triune God
from the Word of God as if they could be responded to in opposition to each
other. Jon uses a device that I have heard elsewhere: "Too many of us don’t
understand that very well. Our Trinity, is God, the Father, God the Son,
and God, the Holy Bible." He uses that device to ridicule people who he
believes have turned the New Testament into a new law.
As a friend recently stated, faithfulness to the Bible is not legalism.
Worshiping the true Trinity cannot be separated from rightly dividing the Word
of God.
Please consider how Jon Courson then applies this view of the word to his
view of walking in the Spirit.
In an article in a Medford, Oregon newspaper, the reporter writes:
"The Rev. Jon Courson, the evangelical pastor who built the Applegate
Christian Fellowship into the biggest church in Southern Oregon, will leave his post to become a
pastor with the 25,000-member Calvary Church in Costa Mesa, Calif. Courson’s surprise move was
announced at evening services Wednesday, along with the naming of his son, Peter John
Courson, 25,
as pastor of the Applegate ministry. The younger Courson has been an assistant pastor there for
almost two years. The elder Courson, 49, will work as right-hand pastor to his longtime mentor,
the Rev. Chuck Smith, leader of the huge Southern California congregation with satellite
television and radio broadcasts reaching all over the world, said Peter
Courson...The Costa Mesa
church is the "mother church" of several thousand smaller Calvary Chapels, including
Applegate Fellowship, all over North America...Starting from scratch, [Jon] built the Applegate
Christian Fellowship into a sizable following of 5,000 to 7,000 attendees each week, the largest
in Southern Oregon, Peter Courson said...His son was chosen to replace him "without any
question" by the 150-man assembly of deacons and elders, said Bob
Thornley, 46, one of
Applegate’s pastors...The congregation was both sad and happy about Jon Courson’s leaving,
said his son, 'because it’s time to share him with the whole church and the whole body of
Christ.'" ("Applegate Fellowship pastor takes new post" By John Darling for the
Mail Tribune, July 19th, 2002)
Since about February 2007, Peter-John is no longer on staff at
Applegate but has now become the "Teaching Pastor" at
Calvary Chapel Capo
Beach, California. This is the church that
Chuck Smith, jr. was the pastor of until recently. I pray that our Lord
Jesus would bless him and his family, his extended family including his Dad, and
that there would be fruit from their ministries in spite of the concerns I raise
on this web page.
Update 7/29/06: There are now three
"Teaching Pastors" at Applegate Christian Fellowship, according to
their web site. Jon Courson is now back at Applegate. The other two listed as
Teaching Pastors are Jon's two sons: Peter John and Ben Courson. Seth Gilbert,
listed as the Worship Pastor, is Jon's son-in-law according to a southern Oregon
newspaper article in the Mail
Tribune.
"In 2002, Courson accepted a request to join his longtime mentor and
friend Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in California. In 2005,
Courson moved on to teach at a pastor training school in Carmen Serdan,
Mexico for young men.
"In March of 2006 Jon left Carmen Serdan to move back to southern
Oregon to join his son Peter-John Courson pastoring at Applegate Christian
Fellowship. He also continues to teach the pastor training school which was
relocated to the Mountaintop Retreat Center, which is a part of the ministry
of Applegate Christian Fellowship. Along with this move came the transition
away from the standard Senior Pastor role at Applegate for Peter-John, his
eldest son. Applegate now has three Teaching Pastors, Jon, Peter-John, and
Jon's youngest son, Ben."
