At the time I attended Fellowship Denver, I had many spiritual doubts and wrestling. It did not welcome my wrestling. (From the pulpit they stated that they welcome those things, but that was not my experience.) I felt deeply lonely in my wrestling, not welcome to explore my questions. I often sat in my car and cried after services, feeling confused and alone after the teaching and worship (see below). Leaving was an act of trust in God, one that began the journey to my own healing. Perhaps I am writing this post of out of residual pain, but maybe it will protect someone else.
One of their frequent worship songs had the lyrics, "I am nothing more than sin." The first time I heard it, I looked around and the entire room was singing that lyric with hands raised - no one thinking for themselves that such a statement is not biblical. That same Sunday, during a baby dedication, Hunter prayed, "God, these babies are sin in your eyes." I waited for him to expound - that they were also created in God's image - or even that God desired to save them. But other than the dedication, that was the only statement he made about the babies. These are only 2 of many examples of the hyper focus on depravity that led me to leave. As God was teaching me about His love... I just couldn't carry the heaviness I felt every Sunday after the sermons and worship, so after two years, I started searching for a new church.
Additionally, some of the teachings in the church turned grey areas of Scripture into absolutes - the pastors often insisting their interpretations of Scripture were biblical and others were not. One example - sex before marriage. (I attended the same seminary as both pastors - and even at that seminary, several professors dialogued about there not actually being bible verse prohibiting sex before marriage - it only prohibits sexual immorality - which is left un-defined in the Bible.) Yet Fellowship Denver pastors insisted that they could "define" what sexual immorality meant, despite the Bible itself not even being clear. This happened with many topics - little nuance with complicated Scriptures and insistence that they held the biblical truth on topics of controversy. Part of my own spiritual healing involved embracing spiritual nuance - not something welcome at Denver Fellowhip. Ironically, I witnessed Fellowship Denver pastors calling other pastors at other churches "prideful" (because the other pastor believed he was teaching biblical truth when it clashed with the Fellowship Denver views). To me, there are real problems in the world - and to focus on name calling other pastors, eliminating premarital sex, eradicating gay marriage, the depravity of a baby... are these really the things that will change the world? Where is the love? The curiosity? The questions? The humility?
I do believe this would be a good community for people with a more rigid set of beliefs. Who care deeply about monitoring the private sexual lives of others (monitoring a single person having sex with a fiancé or a gay couple), who have a hyper focus on depravity & children being nothing more than sin, who don't wrestle with questions or doubts, and who want to be spoon fed someone else's interpretations of Scripture rather than bringing Scripture before God in humble curiosity. read more