Beware of the ARC!

Today I’m joined by Clint Adams of The Earnest Layman blog, and we discuss the dangers of The Association of Related Churches, better known as arc. Check out Clint’s blog in the link below! And don’t forget to subscribe to the MUC podcast! Thanks for watching!

MUC podcast on iTunes:

The Earnest Layman:

Profile: Association of Related Churches (ARC):

ARC church finder:

[lisag]

We attended an ARC church for 9 years. It breaks my heart to know we and so many others were deceived. As former Catholics, we knew we wanted God in our life but didn't know more. When we found the ARC church, it was so different than Catholic church, we were sucked in. The worship music was so moving, and we were learning more than we did in Catholic church (or so we thought). I know so many comments ask - how do people not know about bad teaching? And we just didn't know coming from a Catholic background. For the first time in our lives we enjoyed church and felt like we were worshipping God. We do however feel our church started off more sound and took a pivot at some point and perhaps it was when they became ARC members but we don't know for sure. Praise God our eyes were opened. We studied the Book of Jude and watched American Gospel and found a Baptist church now!

[tulsajhawk]

Excellent video. This ministry of exposing false teaching is so needed. I recently left a mega church and I have found all of the names mentioned in this video of critical importance in discovering how I was deceived. I listened to the multipart episodes Chris Rosebrough did of Robert Morris. It was a little devastating to know I bought his tithing doctrine hook, line, and sinker. But videos like these have helped to set me free from it all. Thank you!

[lindaburns]

This is my first time to listen to your podcast. I am sitting here amazed. I attended Church of the Highlands (Chris Hodges) for 4 years then moved to Dallas and started attending Gateway Church(Robert Morris)..I remember sitting in church listening to this exact sermon from Morris, promoting his book, Blessed and Beyond Blessed. Knowing in my spirit, this is wrong and deceiving. I was so greived.
But the most egregious, has been the "altar call" from both "pastors ". Often I heard the words, "I don't want to offend", " I don't want to shame anyone". Never the opportunity to come to repentance, or hearing the words, confess your sins. I have never read in scripture from our Saviour or the Apostle Paul, " I hope not to offend".
I appreciate your encouragement to pray for these pastors, and especially for these attending that are being led unto the path of destruction. Your study has confirmed what I knew in my spirit.

[kristineverett]

Thanks for doing this, brothers. It's so needed.

[Sara-hyru]

Thanks for playing the clip of the dream teaching. I'm coming out of NAR and megachurch teachings and this kind of talk sounds so strange to me now. I'm a mom and most of my friends are housewives. I don't see what my dream is supposed to be other than raising my children and taking care of my husband. It just doesn't make any sense for most people. A lot of people are living week to week on their income and bills - just doing the best that they can. Is that not good enough? And they're not saved either? What about in poverty stricken countries where there is no opportunity to do anything besides day to day survival? This is just ridiculous.

[jamiesmith]

Until i started watching these videos, and ones like these, I did not realize that these are the "churches" I have pretty much been "raised" in... please pray that my family and I find a church that focuses solely on Christ

[revtom]

Thanks for sharing this brothers! There several ARC churches in my area, and some people I know are attending some of them. I shared this on my Facebook and hope it will open their eyes to the true gospel and truth of God's word!

[PoetiqueMs]

The Easter sermon at our SB church was very like this. The focus was on people rather than on Jesus. I was so grieved.

[jocelynnelson]

I am so thankful for your ministry, as well as Steven Kozar, Chris Rosebrough and Justin Peters! I also found Fighting for the Faith last year and have been listening to the podcast as much as I can. It's been a blessing!
And the 2 part series on Robert Morris was very eye-opening!

[williamgammeter]

I can no longer tell the difference between "leaders" and "stand up comics"

[nikkipislaan]

I live in Sarasota, FL and there are quite a few in my area. Rick Bezet's brother Randy Bezet is the pastor of Bayside Church and they are steadily aiming to become a mega church with multiple branches through southwest FL. The head campus is in Bradenton and all the other churches stream in Pastor Randy. The other campuses have a "campus pastor" but only preach maybe once a month. I have attended three ARC churches now and while they were different from each other in many ways, there are some common threads between them that go against the gospel. It's disheartening because an ARC church brought me to Jesus, but now I feel if I were to ever go back to one it would hurt my relationship with the Father. It has made me very guarded now.

[meganbrown]

I've been attending Lifepoint Church in VA, and it's an ARC church. I've been attending for 7 years and I'm not liking what I'm seeing. My eyes are slowly opening and the more I dig in the more I'm hit with unpleasant information. I had no idea these ARC founders were this way. Of course, our church makes ARC seem like this great organization that plants churches to save people far from God. Thank you for posting!

[leisureletter]

Just found out one church I attended (when I was trying to find a church home) was an ARC church. I knew something wasn’t quite right with the preaching when I attended but man. I had no idea. I have 17 ARC churches in my area (in little old Virginia no less). I will def mark and avoid those churches.

[edwardpragg]

Well I looked up the ARC churches in my area which is from Redding CA to Medford Oregon and didn't find any results, which is good. Then I looked at all the major cities in Northern California and Northern Oregon and got big hits. So it seems like their strategy is to plant their churches where the BIG money is. That kinda figures!

[jmitch]

Keep in mind many of these churches are very subtle in their ways. Not always open or understood by the average person. I have seen this first hand and something kept telling me (God) that something isn’t quite right. Never or rarely will you hear of Sin and Repentance. When I questioned the pastor the answer was “that doesn’t get people in the door”.

[dutchess]

Surrat just spoke a couple of weeks ago-at the church i have been attending for several years. I have struggled to keep attending this church for so long and I couldn’t put my finger on it until this past weekend and I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to me. now my daughter who is 22 has been raised in this and I need to pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to her.

[roniastevens]

Greg Surrat might be the president of ARC but the every day operations is Dino’s job. But Chris Hodges is really the kingpin since he saved Dino’s bacon when he brought him to Birmingham and “restored” him, gave him a job and put him in place at ARC. Its the good ol boys club of I cover your back and you cover mine.

[nikkipislaan]

They played this Robert Morris video about tithing at my former church!! Thankfully the Lord protected me that day because the only thing I remember speaking to me is that everything we have is a gift from God so all we are doing is tithing 10% back to God what He has already provided.

[michaelutley]

You mentioned that he takes notes of Fighting for the do I!

[stevegrosvenor]

When I started a church some guy told me to check out A.R.C. but gladly I never followed up on it dodged a fusillade