In 2007 at one of the Sunday youth meetings of Bay Area Fellowship church of Corpus Christi, TX (grades 6th through 12th), the youth pastor showed a “funny” video depicting him and another guy meditating and saying, while in the lotus position, “…empty your mind and find the inner child within you….” Supposed to funny, but completely missed the mark.
Considering all the teenagers that were in attendance, it would have been a great opportunity to warn them of the dangers of New Age / Occult techniques, of which meditation is a part. Instead the pastors chose to poke fun at the occult practice of conjuring up an array of spirits, angels of light, who are more than happy to inhabit those who “empty their minds” and without the protection of God Almighty, venture off into a redefined “Christianity”.
Contemplative spirituality (meditation, centering/listening/soaking prayer, yoga, lectio divina, spiritual formation) is not something to laugh at, to poke fun at. The power behind this darkness is satan, an angel of light. According to the Bible, we are to take this seriously
This church is definitely emergent, which means they believe in the “ancient paths” of the Catholic mystics, whether they will admit it or not. The senior pastor, Bil Cornelius, was a speaker at Saddleback Church (Rick Warren’s church) in 2005. In this PDC article (Page 1, Page 2, Page 3) Cornelius outlines his philosophy for converging the purpose-driven paradigm into an Emergent/Emerging church (the name of the church is incorrect in the article).
Youth Ministries Alert 