David,

Thank you.  You response is fair and I understand.

My reaction to your response is based on BOTH your first and second message.  Yes, your second.

As I look at things such the "Da Vinci Code" I see the Church in a mad scramble to teach the underpinnings of the Bible (and the Gospel) to ward off a heretic view.  Meanwhile, the mad dash was the result of the Church failing to teach the Bible leading up to the movie.  We teach "messages" without the Bible or the Bible as a backdrop.............I believe that if the Church been teaching the Bible accurately and completely, then two things might have happened in this regard. 
1)  The Da Vinci Code would never be written.
2)  If it had been written then no one would have gone to see it, because they would understand the truth.

Here is a difficulty in the approach.....Teaching the message of "Faith" based strictly on faith in a teacher from a pulpit then when the pulpit teacher stumbles, fumbles, dies, etc then his message dies...........What GOD's message is, is the BIBLE!  We no longer teach it.

The "Word" became flesh and dwelt among us.  My only job is to redirect people to the WORD.  You can do whatever you wish to convict or drag folks in to the Kingdom, but the Spirit draws them.  Not me, not you. My job is to point them to the Word so that it can continue its job.

The difficulty I see is that teachers and preachers weak in the Word, weak in history, weak in understanding drove me away from church.  They had no answers.  They only had "faith".  The difficulty was they did not have the basic understanding to handle a few simple questions to keep me around it long enough to hear the rest of the message.  I know this happens.  It happened to me.  When I asked questions I was told that I was, "Tempting God".  Of course, we cannot tempt God.  That message has been poorly taught.  What I found is that is a simple answer that people give when you exhaust THEIR knowledge base....So it is not about tempting God, it is about tempting the human frailties of a man.

Most people in church have no idea how the Bible story lines up.  Unfortunately, when young people go to college with the "Gospel" or Bible as it was taught to them, their instructors in college pull apart that message and many never return.  It is simple to undermine the Bible message and story using the knowledge base available to people today.  It does NOT mean the Bible is wrong, it just means that it has been poorly taught (and poorly understood).

Here is the problem we see in colleges today.  The superficial knowledge of those enterring is tested by spiritual mystics and new age philosophy.  The students are not given a source to return to (Because the Bible is not properly taught and edified) and they falter...........WHAT IF, the Bible was actually, factually correct when read in context?  Do you realize that more people would be retained?  Do you realize that academics would be drawn back in to the Word..........My job at this juncture is NOT to point to Jesus.  That is apparently what you see as your job.  My job at this juncture is to point to the Bible, because the Bible will be there for them long after I am gone............They must be pointed to THE WORD so they can take it with them.............Whether someone touches them with the message of Jesus or not is up to people under your conviction.  My job is to give them support material to fall back on when they walk out of their evangelistic experience.

We are discipling and building tools to disciple the future..........I do not have to utter the name of Jesus at each juncture.  I am not denying Him, nor anything about Him, but in the stage of the relationship for which we are developing our tools we do not want to RUN PEOPLE OFF because of a bad taste that was left in their mouth some where else............

If you are patient and if we do remain friends, then you will see the ONLY book quoted in any of our materials is the Bible.  We start in ancient history in Egypt and walk people through history accurately pointing to the Bible as a guidestone.  At some point before we get through with them or after we hope that someone who has a burning desire to walk someone down and aisle, pray a prayer and dunk them in water does their job. 

What our call is, is to be a cog in the wheel to provide the tools and information that puts the wheels back on the cart when they fall off. 

If you will look back over time, virtually every cult and many of the things taught against by the church today (any church) stemmed from an evangelistic outreach that lacked follow-up and discipleship. 

Unfortunately, the old teaching tools can now be quickly and easily tested with the Internet and the foundational understandings such as time lines and such are rather easily undermined.  This "undermined" aspect of the message erodes the power of the Cross and Resurrection, because the issues leading up to it, and around it are being destroyed by an opponent.

Here is something you can do.........Go to Wikipedia and search for King David or King Solomon.  It is somewhat subtle, but the presentation states these people are "Bible characters".  The underlying message is they are fairy tales/mythology.  There is no establishment of fact...........I know this is not the message of Jesus, but these "great kings" are named in His lineage.  The story is becoming unraveled...........The unique aspect of our study is that using the Bible alone we locate them and virtually all the underlying events mentioned leading up to them, including them, and following them..........THIS message presented properly will likely appeal to those who were blown out of a church that lacked information.

The gospel and salvation is a SPIRIT work, not a work of man.  Our focus is to shore up the REST of the story so that those who focus on fragments of the book can continue to do that and can derive whatever benefit they are called to do.

I guess my offense was in part that you would question my "call" or my focus, when I never questioned yours.  A simple understanding of the "body" of Christ would reveal that all the parts of a body look and behave differently.  If all our flanges were thumbs we would be "all thumbs" and would booger up the Bible message pretty badly............Frankly, we would booger it up and leave a generation in the dark, which is where we may be heading.  If you will notice, they have taken prayer out of school and it is being removed from other places.  Odds are we may even see a president in the near future refuse to be sworn in on the Bible..........Think about where we could be heading if things are done "as usual".

Have a God day, and understand everyone has a role to play.  If their role is different than yours then you do your job to the best of your ability and pray that they do theirs.

All the best,

Ted