Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate. We got tired of the same ole answers when we started looking for help when it came to our walks with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help you Navigate your Christian walk.
Navigate Podcast
Building Meaningful Community Within Diverse Church Models (Repost)
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TJBHpodcast@gmail.com
What does the biblical pattern of God working through imperfect individuals mean for our expectations of church leaders? Join us as we examine the unrealistic standards set for spiritual guides and grapple with the paradox of human fallibility and divine purpose. We confront the pitfalls of idolizing leaders and the challenge of creating a perfect church system that still respects the humanity and brokenness inherent in unity.
What's up guys? Welcome back to Navigate. I'm with Justin. Yes, hey buddy, hey man, how are?
Speaker 2you. I'm fantastic. I was gonna say dilly, dilly. I don't know why Dilly dilly. That's an old bug, you know we've been doing a podcast for a while now and I feel like I'm pretty chill in front of these mics, but every once in a while I'm like what do I say? What are the things that I? What do I do with my hands?
Speaker 1For me it's always the opening, like hey, welcome to Navigate whatever I'm like, do I need to change that? And I think of that as I'm saying it, and then I come to the pause.
Speaker 2It's just you, it's fine. It's fine. He's like hey man, it's because every time you're like, why'd you say it like that? To navigate? Yeah, it's true, I am. I'm a critic.
Speaker 1I have said some weird ones and Justin starts just cracking up and just starts making fun of me. So I have to start the whole thing over.
Speaker 2Sometimes I just I start calling him names. I have tomatoes over here that I'll throw rotten tomatoes not even ripe tomatoes, rotten tomatoes In case it gets you know. That's what that smell is. No, yeah, the smelly smell.
Speaker 1We talked last week. Actually, I think about this a little bit and I thought I'd make a good little podcast episode. Okay, just for people who are curious.
Speaker 2Yeah, bring me Maybe get some insight. I'm excited.
Speaker 1So our church is several campuses? Yes, right, so our pastor preaches live at one campus to the majority, and then we have two other campuses that we just get the video screen Multi-sites, multi-site campus formula, or you could call satellite campuses. Parachute apply Parachute church. I've heard that, for I don't know if that is that. Is that Not quite the same?
Speaker 2Okay, I wasn't sure you could say parachurch, that's.
Speaker 1That's a little different Parachute, parachute church, Church would be like yeah, that concept.
Speaker 2Yeah, there's a couple of different models, like in the church world, man, yeah, you got like. You got like multi-site, which is essentially the same site in different locations. You got satellite campuses, which is essentially like like this campus came out of that campus and may or may not actually be the same site, but it's kind of like a different version. It's the same church but it's not really the same church.
Speaker 1But they get the same feed or whatever.
Speaker 2Then you have then you have like a type of multi-site that is actually more along the lines of, like, we planted a church, it's us, it's the same DNA, it's the same values, it's the same name, but it's a different pastor and a different group of elders, but they all kind of work as part of this thing. And then you have networks, which are different churches, who might even be multi-sites or not, multi-sites that are part of a greater group of people, that all come together. Really, tim, it's the Protestant's way of trying to do Catholic church. You know that's the goal Somebody's like hey okay let's be honest.
Speaker 2We need unity and we're always trying to create in the church ways to have better unity. Right Like the whole Southern Baptist Convention, which is a garbage heap now it's a dumpster fire is this attempt at bringing a bunch of different churches together in a united way to help grow and walk in the right directions together. This is actually very important and it's a problem in our world today, tim, because we don't have like a Christian statesman right now, like Billy Graham used to be able to step up and be like we need to get behind this, and every church is like all right, dog, let's go. You know what I mean Like let's make this happen. Or you had guys like RC Sproul you know what I mean who could speak for a large amount of people and if he gets up and says this is what we need to do, people are going to mobilize and move behind that person and get it done. We don't really have that person anymore. You don't have Joel's team anymore.
Speaker 1Get him.
Speaker 2Here's what I'm saying. There's so many problems with this, too, and now we're getting into like we need a pope.
Speaker 2Well, this is the joke, Because now, like, look at the pope. Now we're like, oh, don't want that, that's a mistake. Look at, look, how bad that gets when that happens. And anybody that's been on a board knows how exhausting they can be, which is why we had things throughout church history like confessions. You know what I mean. They were supposed to be, and even more so creeds. We can get into creeds maybe. I mean take about all of it, but confessions were this thing that was supposed to be.
Speaker 2Here's a list of beliefs that we have that come along with. It's more drawn out, it's more specific and it helps unite a greater amount of people in one what they should be teaching on, what they all agree on together to what they're defending. You know what I mean. And three areas where they are helping catechize. You know what I mean. They're their kids and what they're inviting people into. It's a set of here's our beliefs that we teach. Here's our beliefs that we stand for. Here's our beliefs that we'll defend.
Speaker 2And it was great because a lot of people would say, yes, we're a one big one, like the Westminster Confession of Faith. I like the Westminster Confession of Faith. I'm working through a book right now it's RC Sprawl Breaking Down the Westminster Confession of Faith and kind of walking through it category by category. I think it's super helpful. Not everyone is like 100% I agree with everything in here, but it gives everybody at least a ballpark of like what would be what's helpful.
Speaker 2You got, like the Baptist 16, I think it's the 1611 Confession of Faith. There's all these different confessions that have come up that really are trying to help unite the Protestant Church and create a network of churches where they all work together and are all kind of under one I don't want to say federal head, I gotta be careful here at the language that I use but all under one, let's say set of beliefs about the faith that they're willing to defend with and move in unity with. For what's going on. This is important when, like craps going on in the world Say, your government hypothetically loses its mind. Maybe there's a fake, you know, like pandemic where people are getting sick and dying, but it's actually basically just like a cold and the whole government tells you you know hypothetically, tim that we have to shut the doors to our church and it's not safe anymore and every church is.
Speaker 1Then but a while protest at the same time.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah. Riots maybe, Maybe something insane where like riots are happening and they're stealing everything and you're allowed to drink and smoke and go to strip clubs, but you can't go to church.
Speaker 2Just in the event that that happened, you would want a set of beliefs or standards for churches across the board so that there would be agreement about the decisions that they made together, as opposed to each individual church trying to figure out what the standards actually are for what's happening For them.
Speaker 2It helps to have someone or something that is a higher standard that is being appealed to, because you want that established before you get into the fog of war. You know what I mean. Yeah, I get that. When more crap hits the fan, you want to have a plan of escape or you want to have a plan of action to know what you're going to do. Confessions were that those networks of churches built around those confessions even denominations were built around, generally speaking, first a set of beliefs that they all agreed on and then whatever churches were coming out of that that affirmed these different things kind of had a structure. Like Lutherans still have the Missouri Senate, there's different groups of people that are coming together, that are communicating and talking about what they agree and what the churches are going to function like under their particular type of leadership.
Speaker 1There's a big Baptist one too, isn't there?
Speaker 2There's all kinds of different things. Sometimes it's a convention, sometimes it's a.
Speaker 1Senate. There's a Nazarene one too. What's that? There's like a Nazarene one there.
Speaker 2Yeah, all these different denominations usually try to have kind of a head or group of people where they're coming together, they're working together on stuff. These people should be writing papers on statements of belief, fleshing stuff out, helping people understand stuff. Again, look, the Catholic Church has a lot of really good mechanisms in it to try to bring unity and clarity and defend things. The problem is is if it gets corrupt higher and higher at the top, then it works its way down and it becomes harder and harder to change.
Speaker 1I just want to know what you liked about the Catholic Church is that if you go to Mass here, you go to Italy. You do Mass. It's going to the same thing.
Speaker 2Which is so funny to me because, yeah, just sort of bring it back down to like the multi-site conversations. Some people are like I don't really want the same church, it should be different. It's weird that it's like a cult of personality or something like you've ever been to one Catholic Church and then another Catholic Church and then another Catholic Church, Because it's all the same thing.
Speaker 1But I feel like community is different. In different I mean same church, but the community is not the same as it would be at a different site.
Speaker 2Totally so. If you go to like yeah, I mean, if you're in South Africa or wherever you find yourself, that's going to be different than what you have in Papua New Guinea or whatever, these different places have different communities and those different communities are made up of different people, and the goal is not uniformity, it's conformity to Christ. Part of the problem is that sometimes the form becomes more important than the actual function. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1I'm trying to be careful because I'm trying to keep my job too. But yeah, that's hilarious. And I mean that in the sense of what might be good for that and the make it for everybody. That doesn't really work well here.
Speaker 2And that's exactly what I'm getting at. So sometimes, look, here's this funny. When we look at, say, the Catholic Church, tim, we say, man, it's really good they have structure. It's the same here. It's the same here. It's the same here. We're all doing the same stuff, we're all walking through the same things. You know it's the same rubric, same liturgy, same basic communication. That's happening, walking everyone through the same steps, and we're like I really like that. But then everyone is like, yeah, but it would be cool if it was a little different or we could do it this way, but we're a different community.
Speaker 2We should do it this way. So the very thing that you come to appreciate about something is also the most frustrating things, right? Look, if you went to McDonald's, tim, and the entire menu was different, you would be pretty frustrated. Well, they're like no, these are way better. Have you tried this? This is local. You gotta give this a go. You're like I just want a double quarter pound of cheese. You know what I like?
Speaker 2It's actually the consistency that, I think, is what drives a lot of people to a lot of places.
Speaker 2But consistency is also the things that kill people if you forget the reason for what you're doing right. And so it's this very difficult dance of how is the form and the structure that we're applying to something helping support the overall mission not becoming more important than the mission, but existing enough that the mission doesn't become obscure, become a different mission. And this is key because a lot of humanitarian efforts now, tim, didn't start as humanitarian efforts. They started as Christian efforts where people wanted to get people into the kingdom, stuff like Red Cross. There's a lot of things that started out very Christian, that were like we love the Lord and we want to fill people's bellies and we want to give them. Jesus ended up just being filled people's bellies because the mission ended up changing, because the method what they were trying to accomplish on the ground became more important than the actual larger mission of what they were saying was gonna happen. How is it that the SBC is currently just in an absolute meltdown mode?
Speaker 2Well, now you have 60% of it the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention is in kind of meltdown mode because, like 60% of the people that are in there are now like progressives that want women, pastors and all these different things, and some of them are like fine with gays. A lot of them were like the BLM stuff. They were just all over the map, like, yeah, we need to affirm this stuff and these things are good and like, and everyone's like what is happening right now with all these people who used to hold these standards. Now there's a whole group of people that are coming into leadership positions and they're doing some shady things to try to jam through stuff that they want. And so it's this again. It's this very difficult thing where it's like we need unity, we need to be able to come together and communicate and defend things together.
Speaker 2But if you create structures that end up later being used against you to destroy the very things you were trying to defend, then it's a problem, and so this is why we're constantly rebuilding. This is why we're constantly or what the older church would have said reforming. It's not that you have one break off of the Catholic church because they lost their way so teleologically and say, well, that's it, that's all we need, and we'll never do that again. No, what we're constantly doing is moving towards the cross and moving towards Jesus and getting to the Bible and working towards the Bible, so that we're not walking the opposite direction. Why? Because the tendency is always to drift, and the tendency then, once you have created structures, once it starts to drift, is to utilize the structures that were meant to defend things to actually tear those things down. And so then what happens? Well, we have another schism and everyone's like I can't believe it happened. Look, it's terrible, look what's going on. I just look.
Speaker 2This gets into a whole other conversation. People that are obsessed with podcasts like the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill need to stop. You know what I mean? Like, here's what I mean. If you read the book of Judges, tim, it's a freaking mess. Did God pick those people? Did God pick them? Yeah, yeah, okay, just a quick click. God picked them. They did a good job, exactly.
Speaker 1Okay, let's look at.
Speaker 2King David. Let's look at King David. All right, would you let him pass to your church?
Speaker 1At which point, exactly which phase in David's life?
Speaker 2Well, the ghoul thing about David is that he's David the whole time, Tim.
Speaker 1After he kills Goliath? Yes, After the Shiva, probably not.
Speaker 2Right, exactly, is he still King after that? Yeah, what? God didn't remove him. He didn't make it an example to everybody and tell him he's disqualified from ministry forever. Sure, do you have. This is. This is why I'm trying to point this out. God uses broken, messy things all the time. Yeah, all the time. People that I would say that dude shouldn't be in ministry, this shouldn't be happening. And look, am I saying that this is it's okay for men to do horrible? Absolutely not Okay. If you hear this podcast and like what he's saying, is it's okay for pastors who have done terrible things to stay in leadership.
Speaker 1That's where my brain went to, so it was like I'll bring that up later, yep.
Speaker 2What I am saying is that we have created this standard that God himself does not even use. We've created this idea about what perfection is supposed to happen. We're looking for a sacrificial lamb and someone to kill because we're angry and frustrated that problems are happening and difficulties are happening. I'm like, look, if you read the Bible, god picks one person after another who is deeply flawed, has a lot of problems. And, let's be honest, you're not letting Samson serve in your kids ministry and God put him in charge of a nation. Yeah, okay, like chill out, chill out.
Speaker 2Like God uses really broken messed up situations and really broken messed up people. And it's not that like they got put into a position of authority. And then God's like, okay, I'll kind of honor this. No, god shows up to them and says you're the guy, here's what I want you to do. And they do it and there's, and it's messy, and sin happens and all this stuff.
Speaker 2I'm like God, why would you allow that? How could that happen? And look, I I gotta be careful because I don't want to like minimize what somebody has gone through. Sure, if they've been collateral damage in the fallout of awful ministry, I am sorry, I am, I don't wish that on anyone. What I don't want is everyone jumping on the bandwagon of let's beat up people who failed in different particular ministries and let's use them as some kind of case study of what could happen if we allow strong leaders in and, and then we start talking about toxic masculinity and toxic leadership and toxic this and toxic that, and I'm like dude, you should probably consider what is happening all throughout scripture and measure it up against that before you decide about whatever utopian, safe version, some sanitized version of Christianity you're trying to build at your church and I just so. When we talk about the rise and fall of Mars, helen, we're talking about structures within churches and different forms and different functions and all these things. What I want you to understand, if you're somebody who's frustrated by it, is that's the whole Bible, that's the whole story of how God is working throughout history is. It's messy and it looks different in Joshua than it does in judges, than it does in second chronicles than it does in Genesis, all of its different, and sometimes it's kingdoms, and sometimes they're intense in the desert, and sometimes it's one guy in his family growing, and sometimes we're in exile and freaking Egypt, and sometimes we're in exile and Babylon, and sometimes we're killing it and conquering and we're in the best place we've ever been, and there's different ways that God is working throughout history and if I asked you, tim, which one of those is the right one, you'd probably kind of blink your eyes. Michael, that's a weird question, right and and and this is my point I think we're always trying to like checkmate problems. You know, boom, got it done, set this up. Nothing could happen now. Yeah, no, it's not the kid.
Different Perspectives on Church Structures
Speaker 2I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people about like eldership. They're like what's your eldership look like? Because I really don't want to see a horrible, messy situation happen, and I'm like I'll tell you right now Hmm, it doesn't matter how many checks and balances you have in a system. If somebody is hell bent on destroying something, yeah, I mean it might slow it down a little bit, right, but like there is no system that can be created by man that's gonna stop awful things from happening, it can't happen. You can slow it down, you can attempt to do different things, but the second something happens on the inside, the whole thing breaks down. This is why you know that I'm trying to think who the who? The famous quote was by the was Thomas Jefferson, but he said that the Constitution assumes a moral people. It's like, look this, this is gonna work great if people aren't terrible, you know yeah it's like, right, but that's kind of the point.
Speaker 2Right is that people are terrible and these things are gonna happen. I'm like I can't believe that happened and it's like, yeah, that's that's how that stuff happens and it sucks and we want to pray against that, we want to guard against it and, yes, you should have structures in place and try to do things in a better way and all of that. But I think sometimes we have a helicopter mom kind of personality with how we approach the messiness of life and Christianity and how the rubber meets the road and a lot of these different places. Hard stuff happens and hard ways and it's frustrating when we Through the scripture, that's all that we see. And then we get to the church and we think none of that's supposed to happen and it's some some millennial kingdom In the most literal sense where it's like, but I thought lions laid down with the lamb here, nah, they get eaten. Those things gotta happen.
Speaker 2So to realize back in, there is probably no perfect way to actually do things. The important thing is how are we trying to achieve what is the most important thing, and that is obedience and love for Christ in Everything that we're doing, and there's a lot of different ways that people have come that aside, on how we actually get that done or what that actually looks like. Yeah, right, yeah, and so multi-site, for instance, for all you guys that are wondering, well, why would we allow this, or when did this become a thing, and maybe you have some questions that you wanted to ask about that specifically to me, did you?
Speaker 2keep going, I might okay, well, but when we ask those questions, I think it's wise to know that we start from a premise of well, there's really not one particular Form, that everything is taking. The question is what is the best form to accomplish the function of love and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ in the body of Christ that we find today? Some people are like house churches are the absolute best thing ever me and my six buddies and we die together here. But we can go so much farther and we can fit more people. I'm actually being facetious.
Speaker 2There's some cool stuff with house churches and let's be honest, what's happening in Iran and Iraq and Egypt and a lot of these places where you are not allowed to have services, is House churches and that's how they get away and grow and work and they have to. And a lot of people in the West are like that's the thing that we should be doing. And it's like let me tell you right now what they wouldn't have in China if there wasn't that kind of persecution. House churches why? Because they'd all be gathering together, because it's way more awesome and you can get everybody together and there's unity and fellowship. And it's not six people, it's 600 people or 6,000 people because God's moving and we're worshiping and praise at him together.
Speaker 2The scene in heaven is a giant group of people all worshiping and praising like. Well, we don't want to do that. We want to separate it out, because you lose community in heaven. You know you do it that way, right, but the form is really important in that particular environment because you can't do it another way. And so what's happening is God is blessing. It means using these different house churches and there's amazing community and fellowship and they have each other's backs and the way that they're doing it's great. Praise the Lord. There's different stuff, like Different denominations, to your point, or stuff like the SBC, where people are coming together and saying, hey, this is helpful, we like doing it this way. Multi-site is another way. Or this is our church that we attend, tim. There's one primary preaching pastor and then we're using those messages and then building the community of faith around the word proclaimed, whether that person is in person or we're putting him through a screen, right, and a lot of people like well, I don't like the screen thing.
Speaker 1The screen thing is was an issue for me for a while.
Speaker 2So tell me, tell me why, tim, let's talk through that.
Speaker 1It feels almost disconnected. Okay, it feels like I could just do this online.
Speaker 2Yeah, why do?
Speaker 1I need to go to a building to just watch somebody do that from a wife's screen, you know.
Speaker 2So let's talk about that. So what's the difference here? If I just tell you form and function, what do you? What do you think? Like, how do you? How do you understand that Form and function? Yeah, does it achieve the function. The what yeah yeah, so is the word being proclaimed, is it being preached? Yes, yes. Is there any difference in the function? Yes, or is it all the form?
Speaker 1I'm think I'm trying to understand where you're coming from, like both, I know.
Speaker 2If the goal is we want true the truth of the word of God, proclaimed through a vessel of God to the people of God. Then, whether that's coming through a screen or whether that's coming through a person there who's proclaiming it, it's the exact same thing happening, accomplishing the exact same function right now. Here's a question why?
Speaker 1does that be that one guy? What's that? Why does it always have to be that one guy?
The Purpose of Church Structure
Speaker 2So see, so that's a different question. One question. So one question is does it make sense to have a screen or not? The other question is why not use two people? And that's a different question. One is is anything wrong happening there? Yeah, no, could it be done better? Hard to say. Can another person do the same thing that the other person was doing? That's another question. Yeah, so now we have a conundrum, right, and I think that's the whole point of God. Uniquely gifts somebody in a very special way, and God has given you the ability to amplify and use that at a greater degree. Why would you not do that? Yeah, like you could ask it this way Tim, why does, uh, why does so-and-so keep writing books?
Speaker 2You know, why do you keep reading books from this particular author? Other authors have written the same thing and it's like, yeah, but he writes really well. I like what he has to say about this particular topic. Yeah, but I mean, just consider the fact that you don't really get to see him. You know you're not friends with them or anything. You really you're really only reading his book because you like the way that he says what he says. Yeah, is that sinful? No, he's a better writer. I like hearing him. He has good things to say.
Speaker 2And you might be like yes, but somebody else wrote on the same topic and I'm like cool, thanks, appreciate that. God bless you. Um, maybe I'll give his reading a go-to. Um, it's, it's not so much it, and this is what I'm getting at. It it's not so much about the, the, the form, as it is about the function. What is it that we're actually trying to achieve? And if there's a good way that we found to achieve this, we should work really hard at trying to achieve that particular thing. So here's what I found. I've had people be like well, multi-sites are like a cult of personality. Yeah, you know, I mean, everybody's there because it's just the one person that's teaching this particular way, and they're like I would only go to somewhere where you know it's in person and I would like well, that makes you the cult Person, because what you're saying is no, I have to be there because that person is there.
Speaker 2Yeah it's not actually about the message, it's about the person, which tells me, actually you're more about the form than the function. Then, if you go to a multi-site, what actually ends up happening is the community is more emphasized than the pastor is, because that preaching pastor isn't there. There's discipling pastors and there's elders who are helping, do discipleship and teach people and grow people, just not in that particular way. And you might be like, well, where do you get like a, like a justification for this in the Bible? I would say, well, if you look at scripture, paul was writing letters to everyone all the time and they were supposed to read them publicly in front of the crowd to make sure that they were getting the message of what he was trying to communicate. I'm like, yeah, literally Paul a lot of times was like Multi-siting in his messages at these churches to tell them what needed to happen or what the teaching was and if they had questions, so they weren't sure.
Speaker 2He was going to different churches at different times. He was sending other people out to these different churches at Different times because he was functionally the person who was leading and overseeing the church in this particular network, trying to draw hard lines and be a spiritual father and electing leaders and elders, and could he do all of it? No, how many people are like? Well, I don't like the fact that I can't get a hold of Paul myself. Mm-hmm, I don't want to talk to one of the pastors that he elected. I only want to talk to Paul because he's the one that's doing this I know today Well that's the joke that I'm making okay, that's Tim you're catching on, you're catching on.
Speaker 2That's exactly the point that I'm getting at is, people have this mentality and like, no, that's exactly what was happening biblically. You had different guys who were in leadership positions, who are installing other people in leadership position because, let's be honest, he was 13. What is it 17? The pastor is the one who is responsible for shepherding your soul. Mm-hmm. Okay, do you think Paul felt like he was responsible for every soul in every area?
Speaker 1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2I don't think so.
Speaker 1That's why you wrote the real letters right.
Speaker 2I think he wrote the letters to help back up the elders who were there, who were responsible for their souls right, but with a still sense of responsibility on himself right. Certainly, yeah. Yeah, don't, don't hear me wrong on this. He certainly had a responsibility and a desire to see these churches flourish and grow. He would do everything to help them. Yeah, but he wasn't sitting there trying to spend time with each individual person.
Speaker 1He was doing it through other people who are going to be responsible for their souls.
Speaker 2I see what you're saying. Yeah, in the same way that Jesus elects the disciples. You could ask the question Well, how come Jesus just didn't do it all himself?
Speaker 2It's like Because he had people he was doing it with yeah you think there are people like I don't want it, I don't want the disciples to heal me, I only want Jesus to heal me. You know it's like, and listen. There might be circumstances when you're gonna need this particular person to address something. Case in point if you need a statesman, if you need somebody who's gonna speak for a larger group of people, do you think our C's parole speaks for every Prosperitarian congregation? Is he responsible for all of their souls? No, but he could speak and rally a lot of people around a particular goal, to get them in a particular place. I think John John MacArthur, although less so, there's still somebody who could rally a lot of people and say guys, this is what we need to be doing. We need more of that and more of those people and more of those voices.
Speaker 2And actually, multisite is an attempt at rallying more people around a central message, a central catechism, a central confession To mobilize the body of Christ and unite them for whatever the world is throwing at them. It's a very effective form. It's it's accomplishing a function and and those forms change all the time, in different places Throughout the world and in different times throughout history, and our tendency is to always be frustrated with the weaknesses that we see and our particular form and look at other forms and be like, yeah, but they do it this way, that's so much better. But then, like once you're in that form, you see all the problems with that one too. What? Because there's no perfect way. And again back to the Bible All the time, god works in different places, in different ways throughout time, through different people and all of its messy, and all of it is Culminating and God continuing to extend his grace and do an amazing work throughout history.
Speaker 2So, wherever you find yourself, christian, do what you're convicted by, but don't sit back and be a critic and be frustrated with the church all the time because you see issues. What you're saying is I'm frustrated with humanity. Yes, now jump in and do something about it and help and pull her in. Are you gonna solve all the problems, king David? No, you're not. But you can still get your people to seek the Lord Jesus Christ and pursue him and get after it. And whatever Structure we can put into place to help make that more effective Amen, let's do it. Yeah, and wherever structure is getting in the way of trying to help that happen, amen, let's reassess and see if there's a better way to do it. But I will say this most people are great at being critics. Most people don't realize that they don't have any solutions and think that they're bringing value by critiquing what's happening rather than helping in the areas where they can, and that's just sin. Yeah, that's what that is.
Speaker 1What do you think is in people too? So, like our pastor, who does the teaching right and we live stream it to our campuses- yeah. I know a lot of people listen this, go to our church, but a lot of people don't. Yeah, what is it in those people that are like, hey, I want to talk to the guy who's on the screen. Like, what, what is in people for that kind of drive of I want to talk to no one else but him about this particular?
Speaker 2You're in my life.
Speaker 1I think it's actually a good thing. You know, our campus has several pastors that can deal with that issue.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it's actually a good thing, but it comes out in like perverted ways, all right, and I don't mean perverted in some kind of weird sexual way. Hello, maybe that's your problem. I'll pray for you, that bald head. When somebody is communicating like that, tim, and you hear them talking all the time, you begin to feel like you know them and they know you. And it's the difference between talking to somebody who you feel like you have a connection with and somebody that you don't feel like you do, or somebody that you feel like you have a deep respect for and connection with, versus somebody that you don't feel like you do. I do think there's like I've talked to people who listen to this podcast now, tim, and it's a little weird. They'll be like it's weird because I feel like I know you, because I listened to three hours of you in the car.
Speaker 1The other day.
Speaker 2You know what I mean, and I'm like huh that's weird.
Speaker 1I never met you yeah.
Importance of Obedience in Church
Speaker 2And I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool, like, hey, man, I love that this blessed you. Praise the Lord. We pray before every podcast that this would bless people and that God would use it in your life. But then there's almost the connection that they think they have that we don't necessarily have. I also think that is somebody that you see teaching all the time. There's evidence of how studied and how God is using them, and so you want to make sure that the person that you're talking to is somebody who God is using, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 2Like there's some different competency stuff that's in there. But at the end of the day, if you trust the person that's teaching, you should trust the person that they put in leadership for you, and usually we don't make that step. We think he's teaching you're some kind of weird understudy that doesn't know as much as this particular person does and it's like actually you don't know. This person might even be more gifted in the area that you need help with than the person who's speaking on this particular topic.
Speaker 1Well, you brought up Jesus and the disciples. I was like, yeah, if I had a choice between talking to Jesus or Peter, I'm going to choose Jesus, probably.
Speaker 2But then you know, and there's a sense in which I get that, unless God specifically told Peter to do this, and I'm going to empower you for it, and then it makes sense to talk to Peter.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So like and again I'm not saying like the goal of Peter is for him to point people to Jesus, but still, the point at the end of the day is that the structures that God has put in place, he's built in a particular way so that people would know him and love him and that the whole body of Christ would be utilized. And oftentimes what happens is when we get into churches and we talk pastors and we talk all these different things, people kind of throw out the window everything that we read in 1 Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ and how it's supposed to function in different ways and different things happen in different ways, and everybody's like yeah, but that's the only person that I want to. That's actually not healthy or good. That's you saying no, only this particular part of the body can do. You know this other part. And I'm like well, that's actually not the case. You got two hands, pal.
Speaker 2It's going to be okay, right Like there's different ways to do things and so, like I said, I think it's good intentions that it's like well, I do love this person, I do. I see God's hand of work in their life. They have spoken to me by the Spirit through the word. I do feel connected to them. I do want to follow them and lead. I think this is good, those are good desires, but then when it gets communicated is cool.
Speaker 2Well, the way that this person does this is he's put these three people in this position to lead and care for you in this way, and you're frustrated by that. What then you have is then I'm starting to have a cult of personality. Then I'm saying it's actually not about the function that it's accomplishing, it's about the form. Well, I have to meet this person in person, I have to talk to them face to face. Why? Well, because I need them to know who I am Right. Well, that's different, that's a different conversation. Now you're saying, no, it's about me and what I personally want, not what my pastor actually thinks is probably better for my growth.
Speaker 1That's yeah. I find that very interesting Because if I'm going through something, there's probably three or four people I talked to first, before I talked to the guy speaking on screen.
Speaker 2Well, that's because you're like that. A lot of other people are, not A lot of people. I'm only talking to the person on the platform.
Speaker 1It's nothing against that guy at all. Right, that's just what it is. I got to tell you.
Speaker 2I got to tell you this was like it's cracked me up so hard. Ok, I've been a pastor for a while. I do the campus pastor thing and I have a team. I got elders, I got people that I know. I know a ton of people in my congregation Like tons and tons of people. I see them all the time. I'm meeting new people all the time. I'm constantly chatting to people all the time.
Speaker 2We had our lead pastor show up for one of our events one time. Probably 12 people came up to see him that do not serve on any of our teams, that I have never met before. Like where did you even come from? I've never even seen you here that are immediately going up and shaking his hand and talking to him and saying, oh, I'm so glad you're here. Blah, blah, blah. And that was the funniest thing ever, because I'm sitting here like the person who wants to be and talk with this person is not the person who's actually engaged and growing here and doing all the stuff here. They're here for the person and that, to me, is sin. That's where I'm like and I can't look, I can't judge their hearts Only what I saw happen. But the fact that I don't know you, you don't serve here. We've never talked before and this is my campus with the people that I serve with, and you show up just when this guy's here. I'm like, yeah, man, I just have a hard time believing it's real for you.
Speaker 1I just do or at least that You're chasing that personality.
Speaker 2Well, you would at least think that if that pastor's teaching meant that much to you, then you would be jumping in and serving in a part of what's going on, not just showing up and talking to him. When he actually shows up, says I value who you are and I like who you are more than I value being obedient. So what you've told me to do, so, I don't know.
Speaker 2It's one of those interesting things where, when I think about it, jesus is like he was always whittling his crowd down. The dude always had huge crowds following him. He was like you know, if you guys don't eat me, you shouldn't be here. And they're like you're weird. He's like, yeah, bye, see you, he was always doing things. He drew a crowd, but then he was always whittling it down too, based on what people were actually willing to do, not just what they wanted and what they were there for.
Speaker 2And you have to ask yourself the question why am I at church? Is it for me and my personal entertainment and what makes me most comfortable, or the form that I like the most? Or am I here because I believe the grace of God is working here and I want to partner with him in whatever place I find myself in history and whatever form I find myself in this historical moment? And it's really that's the question how willing are you to work outside of your comfort zone because you know the grace of God is doing something there? And I would say, man, if you're that person who loves to critique and is frustrated and won't serve here because you're worried about this or that or whatever. Dude, really, what you do is about how you're giving your life to Jesus, not how you're giving your life to this church, and I tithe or give money to these different places, and I'm not the guy who's going to go through all of the different. What exactly are they doing? How are they doing this? I'm not going to walk in and analyze how they're spending the money that they're spending. I'm not doing that. Why? Because I'm giving my money to God and they're responsible for what they did with the money that I gave to God. And that's important, because even the widow and Luke what is it?
Speaker 219? She puts in the 1, 64th of a day's wage in the coffer. And Jesus looks over and he says she put in more than every single one of them because she put it out of her poverty, they gave out of her wealth. And what is he saying? In that moment, she gave to God their giving to themselves. She knew who she was giving to, but Jesus, she put all that she had in the coffer of the temple system that was exploiting her. Don't you know that? They were terrible people and they were spending on the wrong things and they didn't even love you, jesus. And he's like, yeah, I'm not even looking at that. She knew who she was giving to, she knew who she was serving, she knew what she was doing it for. And you do not have to be serving a perfect church or a perfect pastor and a perfect scenario to be obedient to Christ. And if you're using other people's imperfections to keep you from obedience to Jesus, you're in sin, not them.
Speaker 1That's good. I kept thinking of this story. We did a bunch of remodels at this campus man and I just overheard a conversation. This day was fired up. Amazing what people actually freaking complain about, dude.
Speaker 2And it's like seriously.
Speaker 1We painted a thing, a certain color, and they go yeah why are we painting it this? Whose idea was this it's? Like, oh, that was our pastor or so and so, and oh, I'm going to tell him that's stupid, like that's just like I'm like he was fired up, dude. I'm like really, why do you care?
Speaker 2that much.
Speaker 1It's weird to me. It's baffling you just walk over to him.
Speaker 2You just smell like chloroform to you.
Speaker 1And he serves Like he's one of the serves guys here. It just cracks me up people in church it's messy man, the weird ownership they feel.
Speaker 2It's messy, and Jesus tells us to love those people and care for those people. So if you feel like I'm dogging on you, I'm not. I am going to call you no more every chance I get, though I am, I'm never going to stop doing that and you should be doing the same with me. But if we're I mean there have been church splits over carpet, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2And if you give people an opportunity to speak into every little thing that's going on, what you're actually doing is usually this is just a leadership tip. If you're giving people in a Q&A on things that really don't matter one direction or the other as far as the function of what we're trying to achieve, you're actually giving them an opportunity to create dissension and division and problems, because people have opinions and there's places where those opinions matter, like doctrine, things like that that's a bigger deal. But, like man, if you open up a forum about what sconces we're using, you are a fool. You are, and if you take everyone's opinion into consideration, it's going to be a rough day and you're actually going to create decision and frustration and friction unnecessarily. That's just bad leadership. So just throwing that out that's for free.
Speaker 1All right, man, I'll probably do it today, buddy.
Speaker 2Well, my hope is that everybody listen to this guy's jump in, Serve your church, pour into it there, whatever model, whatever way that they're doing it. Consider that the forum is not nearly as important as the function is, and that God is actually calling you to serve and be obedient, regardless of what is going on. He's looking at your heart. He's looking at your hands, what you're actually doing for the kingdom, wherever you find yourself. Don't let somebody else's inability or frustration with how your church is doing something keeping you from being obedient to Jesus. Awesome.
Speaker 1Cool man. Well, thanks, dude, have a good week everybody. Good job next time.
