Community: Back to Basics

Church potlucks get a bad rap, and honestly, sometimes they deserve it. But a cramped fellowship hall and a shaky casserole table can reveal something we’re starving for: real, embodied Christian community where people actually know each other, share life, and grow up together. We start with the awkwardness of meals after church and end up asking a bigger question: what is “covenant community,” and why does the Bible keep pulling God’s people back to the table? 

Along the way, we connect the biblical story of breaking bread, Acts 2, and the command to not neglect meeting together with what we’re watching happen in modern life. We’re more connected online than ever, yet lonelier in our neighborhoods, our churches, and even our homes. We talk about curated identities, convenience as a trap, and why the rise of porn, VR hangouts, and even AI girlfriends is a warning sign that we’re giving up on real relationships. 

We also get practical and a little confrontational about “online church” as a lifestyle. Watching sermons can’t replace being known, using your gifts, and sticking with a local body through the mess. And if you’ve been hurt by church, we don’t pretend that’s nothing, but we do challenge the reflex to disappear. Growth takes time, forgiveness takes work, and community is where your sin gets exposed and healed. 

If you want faith that actually forms you, start showing up, sit down at the table, and learn how to love the people God put near you. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s been drifting, and leave a review that helps others find the show.

Transcript

Cold Open And Jujitsu Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hey guys, welcome back to the King's Banner Podcast. How are you guys uh doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I mean, we're good. Yeah. Me and everyone else watching. I think we're all all of you?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah. All of us. I was referring to your your group of personalities, your pastor personality, your jujitsu personality.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

You know, that's a you know, that's an interesting thought. I think um, I think they're kind of all the same. But you know, like you're not allowed to choke people out as a pastor. I'll say that. Yeah. So there, I mean, there's at least something there. But maybe, maybe I mean there's an opportunity for me to do that. A biblical choke out, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll yeah, I'll choke you out with the with the the just the beautiful revelation that we have from the spirit.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

You've heard of the sword of the spirit. Have you heard of the headlock of the spirit?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Um guillotine, you know? Guillotine. Maybe uh Kimura of the Spirit. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Guillotine and biblical seems uh seems to conjure up different imagery.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Like, you know, I'm I'm not exactly here Holy Grail in the back of my head, you know, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah, I'm so sorry. All right, what are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Uh

Potlucks And The Point Of Meals

SPEAKER_01 1:20

so I wanted to kind of I was thinking about um you remember, I don't know if you went to a church like this, but I went to a church that was small enough that we like I feel like every other month, every other week, every month, um, we were having like and it's awkward potluck even afternoon after church. And like right now with the church, we're doing meals every time, but it feels like it's directed, it feels like it's different, and it's not that awkward, like oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Well, part of it is that uh potlucks are just sketch. If you're not like the first person in line, bro, you don't want those, like there's gonna be three good dishes from those couple people to know what they're doing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

And even those three dishes uh were made at best the morning before church and are sitting for late.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah. Like they brought them to church and they're like, just let it, you know, detaw on the counter, and yeah, they can it could all go south. So yeah, but why are we what about potlucks?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Well, so like I I was thinking about it like the difference between sitting down to a potluck and like just being there for food and what like what's the purpose of it? The purpose is to get the church together and and like talk and engage with people and and like I know what we're doing Sunday afternoons is we're trying to drive that engagement, we're trying to drive like building relationships and things, and I wanted to talk about because you know, we we talk about in our values covenant community, and like all right, what what is that? What does that look like? And do we are we are we doing that?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, and um I wrestle over those words covenant community because it sounds so culty, covenant. You know what I mean? Covenant covenant, sounds so culty, man. I thought about like uh you know, covenant fellowship, and I hate the word fellowship because it's like this 90s word that can mean a million things. I thought about like covenant gathering, but I was like, gathering sounds like magic to gathering. I don't want to do that. Like I was really trying to think about and I the problem is that words get hijacked by lots of people and become things like even the word community for me makes me think of like um like a senior living facility, you know what I mean? Or like a or like come join the home shady oak community. Yeah, community just sounds like oh, it's a trap, it's a prison. Yeah, that's what it is. But we all pretend to be happy together. Like I don't ah, it drives me crazy, but it is a it is an important thing, man. I mean, you

The Biblical Table And Covenant Life

SPEAKER_00 3:57

see, especially in the New Testament, I mean all throughout the Bible, there's a massive picture of like the table eating together. I mean, it begins that the you know, one of the first covenants with Abraham is, you know, uh a picture of a table, and then you get with um you know Moses, and it's a table, and I mean, all the way out through scripture, you see this picture of the table being set, and at the end of the story is a massive feast and the wedding supper of the lamb, which is gonna be food. Yeah, which I'm pretty freaking pumped about. All right. My son asked me this the other day. He's like, Why does God like call himself food so much, Dad? Like, I was sitting on the couch with my son, and he's like, It's a weird thing. He's like, because he's he's bread and he's like water, and like he's trying to understand, and I'm sitting there like, yeah, I mean that that's fair. Um, food itself is a weird thing if you think about it. Like I put it, I put it in the same category as like, oh, this sounds terrible. But like using the restroom, yeah, it's just an uh it's a very frustrating, ongoing thing that you have to do, or you will die. Yeah, you know, and sleep is also in this category. Why do we have to do these things? Because ultimately all of them reflect our need for God, our need, like there's typological significance to everything that we do in life, which is kind of hilarious. But um in Acts 2, especially, it talks about them meeting together, breaking bread in each other's houses, having everything in common, supporting each other. Um, in Hebrews 13, it tells, or Hebrews chapter 10, it tells us to not neglect meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Um, you see, obviously, the Last Supper is a table. Uh so much of life together as Christians is spent in this picture of being in covenant with people and covenant with God, or maybe better said, in covenant with God with other people who are also in covenant with him. And the frustrating thing about church is that there's other people there, you know? Like that's the that's the reality, is it's the body of Christ. We all come together. And when you get together with a bunch of people, man, you don't pick the people at your church. God does. You don't get to, you know what I mean? Like, you don't get to pick, we want this person and not this person. It's a lot like your own family. You know, they're born into this family, and it is what it is, we go from here, you know? Um, and so I I think um we desperately need community. Yeah, one of the first things God says in the Bible it is is not good for me to be alone. It's not good, and that's just about marriage. That's a reminder that it's not good for you to be isolated.

Loneliness In An Online World

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

When we look at our society today, we see everybody is online, but most people don't hang out. Yeah, front porches have basically disappeared. Um, garages are the things that people pull into and close the door before they actually go out and see anybody. Yeah. You can have uh a million friends online and not know a single person in the actual area that you live. You could be unaffiliated, I mean disconnected entirely from basically all of those people, their thinking, their processing, their religion, their worldviews, um, and live next door to them and never say hi to them. Yeah. We're seeing uh an increase of like tiny houses. You know what I mean? Yeah. These little places where it's like you have a sink and a bed. It's basically like a space pod. You know what I mean? It's like you want to live on a spaceship that's not in space, here you go. It's perfect. And the the question there, or at least the implicit reality, uh, is that uh the home is no longer a place for people, it's a place for you. And online is a place for people. And we see anxiety skyrocketing, depression skyrocketing, you know, uh stuff is not healthy and not as it should be in so many different ways. And nobody, at least I'm not seeing a lot of people connect it to the need we actually have for real people, real conversation, getting together with other people, like sharing meals, talking, and it creates a superficiality. Everybody's online, everybody's posting the perfect version of themselves, or whatever version of themselves they want people to see. Even things as intimate as sex are now like it's OnlyFans, it's pornography, it's um it's online dating relationships, swipe left, swipe left or swipe right. Some people are punting on people altogether and are just like, I'll just have an AI girlfriend or an AI boyfriend. I saw one in ten men now have an AI girlfriend. That is one in ten. That's insane. That fast. One one in ten. I'm like, that is absurd. Now that I think that's the United States specifically. I don't know if that's a I don't think it's a global phenomenon. Sure. But I find that just astounding to me that we are punting on actual relationships with actual people. And it was like, how depressed and horrid and alone do you have to feel that you're like, you know what, robot girlfriend sounds pretty good right now.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Well, you're you're saying that, and one of the things that comes to mind that I didn't even think about, um, but so like um VR is becoming a little bit more popular nowadays, and there's some really cool stuff you can do with VR, but if you look on the most played VR program, yeah, it's VR chat, where you create an avatar of yourself, put your headset on, and sit on your own couch and pretend to be with a group of people.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Oh my word.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

That are like it's living reality.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

It's a full community with people that will never disagree with you and always get along with you. And and as kindergarten. Yeah. You're back in kindergarten.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Well, you're in kindergarten, but as with all things, you've got people who are doing perverse avatars or doing like crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Of course. Like, and it's like even even the stuff we're building now, right? Yeah. Minecraft and Roblox and all these different places where I go to, you know, Sims was the gate. Was it the 80s or 90s? The 90s. How many versions of Sims were there? Like 150 or something. Well, they're not that many, but then there's all the add-ons to them and everything. So I don't know. Yeah. We're obsessed with a life that is disconnected from our actual life. Yeah. We are constantly wanting to drift away into isolation and create our own realities. And um, we see this in like trans ideology, you know, when people are trying to apply a fiction that they want to live in and then um push it on everybody else to get them to do the things that they want. And then if I can't make that happen, a lot of people do it online where it seems to affect people less. But ultimately, like this is an important thing that I think most people are missing. This is a oh man, I should go here too.

Why Online Church Falls Short

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Okay, online church. Can we talk about this for a second? Okay, so we don't stream on Sundays. Many people have asked, like, are you streaming on Sundays? I want to watch the sermons. Go to church. Yeah, be around people. Listen, whoever you are, if you are listening to this and you are not going to church on Sunday, for the love of all that is good, turn off the sermons, turn off, like, turn off the podcast, just go to church on Sunday, be with humans, touch grass, right? I think that's what the kids are saying. But there's this tendency to just want to do everything online and miss the actual fellowship. And a lot of people are like, oh, no, listen, you are robbing the rest of the world and the community around you from the gifts, abilities, wisdom, all the things that God has given you. You are robbing those people. You're not using what God has given you to help be a part of the body. You're pretending to be a part of the body, you're not a part of the body. I don't know what to tell you. Like, Paul was never like, you know, it is what it is. And if you can't get together or go share with other people or talk to other people, you know, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

If I cut off my pinky and throw it in a box, and he was it's not part of my body.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

He was writing letters to people and sending emissaries when he absolutely couldn't be there. Yeah. And in all of his letters, he's like, I want to be there so badly. I want to come hang out, I want to be a part of what we're doing. And I feel like what we don't notice in Paul's writing that is totally counterintuitive for I think our world today is how badly and how much he loved the people that he was with. I don't even think we have like the ability to understand some of those things because we have such a desire to be distant from and separate from and away from because people mean trouble, people mean mess, people mean difficulty. And he wasn't running away from that. He was running straight into it. Yeah. And we see this in uh, I mean, it's it's global, but even even part of the American dream tends to be my dog, my land, my house, my family, and my separation from everybody else around me. You know? And it's like, okay, if it's not good for men to be alone, what are you doing out here? Yeah. But or or some people are like, I'm gonna live off the ground. I find my peace with God. You know, when I go up to the mountains or I spend time there, that's my church, that's my cathedral, that's where I go. I'm like, cool. So away from everyone is where you find peace. And I'd be like, all right, like Jesus went up to pray, and then he would come down and minister to people and immediately engage in what's going on. If you're saying the time that I spend with God and where I feel connected to the body of Christ is with alone, like by myself, just me and Jesus. Well, I think you're missing the whole part of the second commandment, yeah, or the second table of the law. First four laws of the Ten Commandments are all about our love for God and how we do that. Next six are all about how that applies to everybody else. And so I think um, man, we started talking about potlucks. The the goal is to put people together and help people grow together, families to grow together, lives to like grow together, people who have different gifts and different abilities coming together, helping each other, encouraging each other, making up where one person is lacking or another person is hurting. The older I get, the more I realize I'm not good at certain things. Uh and I know the things that I am good at. And if you don't know the people that are around you, man, you're like, I don't, I don't know how people do it. I mean, I guess that's why they're reading self-help books. I don't need somebody else's book. I'll help myself, right? Um, while I update myself on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and whatever else and tell everybody my life is fine. I had my uh my water main break in my backyard uh a couple weeks ago. You walk out, you know what I mean? Yeah, you push the ground and it pushes back, you know what I'm saying? Like it just like it was a waterbed. Um thank God. I know a uh a genius uh person who I just called and I was like, You bro, you gotta help me. You know what I mean? He got it, he's like, I'll be right there. He's like, I have the part actually with me right now. I'm like, why? Why do you have that part with you? Like, why is that? Why is that? I know who you're talking about. He just has it. He's just ready to go, jumped in and chased it down and got it fixed. But I was thinking, like, man, how how good is it when the church actually functions the way that it's supposed to? And our avoidance of people and desire to be away from people, I think is just straight demonic, man. Yeah. We want to maintain some kind of selective sovereignty over our um yeah, psychological comfort, our social comfort, maybe is the best way to put it. And the Bible is constantly telling us to deal with other people, and when you deal with other people, you're actually gonna end up dealing with your own sin stuff. And when you deal with your own sin stuff, then you're actually better off and ready to equip and pour into more people. Um, the whole portion of Ephesians chapter four, God gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, preachers, and teachers for the equipping of saints, for the work of ministry, and then he goes into this entire thing about doing unity and life together until we all attain to the unity and the statue that belongs to the fullness of Christ, that maturity that comes with that. And it's like you don't get that outside of community. No, you know, so when we say community, what we're actually trying to communicate is people who are being intentional about being around other people who are in covenant with God. Yeah, covenant community. I'm not saying community for community's sake, because honestly, what's the point if you're not running the same direction? What's the point if you're not trying to achieve the same things? And I would actually say some community is not good at all to be in, and you should exit that community. Uh, because there's a lot of places that you can find community.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

I think about uh the classic, classic sitcom cheers. You get all these people coming to that bar, a place where everybody knows your name and is going to just let you continue to be a drunk the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Just affirm each other's sin, right? Well, and I think um sometimes, uh man, I want to be careful about this, but like so let's talk about the LGBTQ community for a second, okay? The gay stappo. Yeah, the gay stappo. They will be the first to welcome somebody in. Sure. I would say they are great at welcoming somebody in, helping them feel love, they will affirm you in your sin problems and patterns and whatever else and tell you it's great and like sin loves company, right? Yeah, I think um there's a there's a world of people who are looking for community. And if uh if Christians live in such a way that they suck at community, I actually think a lot of people are gonna find community in really bad places. Yeah. And what's what's hard is that I think a lot of Christians are kind of bad at it. You know what I mean? Like not all of them. There's a lot of people I think that are great at this, that are good at opening their homes and meeting with people and talking with people. But I would just challenge somebody. Like, if you're going to church on a Sunday and you can't remember the last time you met somebody new, gave them your number and grabbed coffee with them, what are you doing? Yeah. Like you can you can watch a great sermon online or read a great sermon in a book. The point is for the community of faith to come around the teaching and that to inspire how we then walk those things out with the people that we're with. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, let's actually do this together. Let's walk together. Let's, I don't know, make disciples or something. It shouldn't be super complicated, but I will say it reveals all your sin. Like, people are not a problem, they're just revealing your sin. You know, just embrace that for a second and then grow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Like get get better. Don't hide. How does it go? One of the one of the lines you said when you know people talk bad about you, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

You're much worse than they think you are. Yeah, spar Spurgeon. Yeah. If any man speaks ill of you, don't be upset with him. You're far worse than he thinks you to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, that's exactly right. We can be hurt by people too, but if you keep in mind, man, we suck. This is how we grow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

This is how we get better. And so many people, what happens when you get hurt or frustrated?

Church Hurt And Legalism At The Table

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Like, let's just talk about church hurt for a second. Yeah. Somebody pisses you off, something happened that wasn't supposed to happen or didn't happen that was supposed to happen, and suddenly you feel totally vindicated and hiding.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And it's like, uh, okay, is this a healthy response? No, but I feel vindicated about it. Yeah. Cool, bro. All right. Well, how about you?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I don't want to, I don't want to feel that pain again.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

And look, I don't want to be a jerk. Some stuff, some really shady things have happened. Yeah. If you need to find another covenant community that loves Jesus and is getting after it and grow there, that's totally fine. But what you don't do is isolate yourself. Don't be the person who drops back and says, I did church once, that didn't go well. If you read the Bible, there's some crazy stuff happening all the time. Jesus never is like, all right, I'm out. I can't deal with you guys anymore. Yeah. I mean, you want to say that that was the ascension, maybe. You know what I mean? But he did die first, in all fairness. He died first, and then he said, I will be with you. I will be with you to the end of the age. Yeah. There you have it. He's like, yeah. I I just think um, we talk about covenant community, we're not talking about now we drink the Kool-Aid. Yeah. We're not talking about the let's talk about that a bit at least.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Like, how can you do it badly the other direction?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, the other direction is where there's so many um uh how do I say this? There's a there's a false piety involved where the goal is not we want to grow and help other people grow. It's if you haven't attained this standard or you're not maintaining this facade, you're out, which is kind of what the Pharisees had created.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Was a giant standard that nobody could attain to, and they were constantly stacking rules on people's shoulders, and it became more of a pecking order for who could pretend the best rather than who was actually growing. And when you do that, you just suck all the air right out of the room, man. Yeah, you it becomes a place where everybody is a faker and nobody is actually getting help. Uh, and it's a it's a super legalistic environment. And um, this is where, man, I've watched people who are really trying and want to grow just get destroyed at a table because they prayed the wrong way. They used a swear word, you know what I mean? And the whole table goes ice cold on them or treats them like they're an absolute piece of dog crap. You know what I mean? Like it's I've watched stuff happen. I've heard horror stories of these things, and look, those people need to grow. All of us need to grow, all of us are working towards a standard, but but I would say this, and this is important that the what is preached from the pulpit is not the standard that is achieved in the seats. Yeah. Like they're different things. Like we're all under the authority of God, we're gonna preach the authority of God, we're gonna fight for this together, we're gonna hold each other accountable. We're also going to stumble and make a lot of mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, well, and to your point, um, about stumbling and making mistakes, I my wife recently, just the past couple days, told me a story. She literally stumbled for the record, or hip or something. Yeah, well she did do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Wait, where do you think?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

No, not that. Um no, so we were talking about she had just listened to our last episode about um biblical anthropology.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Um and she had said, you know, one of the things that can happen is people who who already know these things, like she was appreciating that we had put like we had gone through it. Yeah. Um, because she's like, I I just hadn't really thought about it, I didn't know. And she had in a in a church setting um a while back, you know, somebody had said, ah, the the trichotomy of the body, soul, you know, spirit, and all that. And she's like, Well, aren't soul and spirit just the same thing? And like, yeah, not trying to like do anything, just getting murdered immediately, and but and immediately it was like, oh, you're a heretic. And it's like, she's like, and it shut her down.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

And it's like, so um I used to do this. I'm not gonna lie. I used to be like Bible answer man. I'm not that guy.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

There's a place for Bible answer man, but it's not if you're comedy session, that's one thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, but if like you can be in a small group, and man, you can crush anybody who says something the wrong way, doesn't understand the full concept. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times somebody has said we're two or more gathered in their prayer, and I just want to I want to lose my mind. That whole portion of scripture is about church discipline. Every time somebody says we're two or more gathered, I'm asking the question, who are we kicking out of the fellowship? What happened? But like these things get set, and you just you'll walk past him. I can't imagine how many times Jesus just didn't say anything when the disciple said something really stupid. Like we have a couple of times that he's like, You're being an idiot. You know what I mean? You're telling me something. You don't know what spirit you're from. Yeah, exactly. That kind of mentality. But you're telling me 12 like rugged idiots who really didn't cut it, most of them, at least in you know, from different places in Jerusalem or Galilee or that that area. You're telling me that they were just nailing it all the time. Yeah. Either they were silent or they were making mistakes. Like those were the two modes, except for Peter, who accidentally got it right a couple of times. You know what I mean? Um I think that's probably more what the church looks like.

A Church That Limps Still Walks

SPEAKER_00 24:17

And I think I brought this up before, but Jacob wrestled with God. Yeah. Right? He he wrestles with God. God dislocates his leg um or jacks up his leg in a way where like the ligament's not right. And it says he walks with a limp, you know? And we're supposed to be a picture, like he's the patriarch. He literally is named Israel. Uh, the church is is the chosen people of God are Israel. We could that's a whole nother conversation for another time. Yep. But I I want us to understand that the church has a limp because our tendency is to run. Jacob's tendency was to run from his problems. That's what he did. He stole his brother's birthright, and he's out like he's kind of a coward. That's that's kind of who he is. His name, Jacob, literally means like liar, usurper. Like he's uh he's not as masculine and awesome as Esau is, and he's just kind of trying to make it work. Even the stuff that he does with Laban. Uh, if you guys read this story, he's like finding ways to scheme and make it work for him. And God's like, you know what, you're done doing that. You're done running. Yeah, you're done doing the thing that you've been doing. And so he walks with a limp the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, it's funny that imagery of walking with a limp because we try and run, and you know, God is the lion of Judah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

The lion goes after the gazelle with the limp.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Absolutely. You got the limp, yeah, you're going down. I say this because I think sometimes we look at the church and we're like, how are we ever going to get where God called us to go? How in the world is he going to bring about everything that he said he would bring about through the church, which is just limping along? It's like in his sovereignty and goodness, he uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. Yeah. Like, yep, church has a limp. It's not perfect. If the church hurts you, I want you to know Jesus didn't hurt you. Uh, people who are part of this thing can be problematic and frustrating and irritating. Yeah. There it doesn't, it's never an excuse to say I'm not gonna go or be a part of this community or fellowship anymore. It's an opportunity to grow. Yeah, it's an opportunity to learn, it's an opportunity for other people to learn. But if you don't hang out with other people, I'm just telling you point blank, you don't get better. Yeah, you don't grow. Nothing cool is happening in your life apart from the grace of God and the ministry of the other believers in your life. And if you think you're there's like an asterisk in the Bible with your name on it where you can look later and it says, oh, this doesn't apply to me because this and this happened, you're just flat out wrong. Yeah. And um don't get swayed by this culture that is constantly putting people in this false reality where we avoid people constantly because I've been hurt before, and now that's oh man. And I could get into how like the word abuse gets thrown around so quickly now, too. Yeah, they they're abusive, it's emotional, dude. I cannot biblically abuse is a real thing, but not the way that we use it today. Not the way we use it. We we in in the church, uh, we don't use the word hate speech, we use the word abuse, and that tends to mean the same thing. You know what I mean? It's like it's the same language in Christian circles as acceptable, you know. I was just, you know, they were they were spiritually abusive or whatever. Usually that means like I just didn't like what they said or the way that they said it, and they weren't empathizing with me in that moment. They probably weren't. Yeah, they may not have done a great job. Yeah, that's what it's like to be around other people.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I what one of my favorite quotes in the entire Bible, I think it's Matthew 17. It might be verse 17, actually, as well. But Jesus literally says, How much longer will I have to be with you? Uh you wicked and perverse generation. Yeah. Which is just like one of these reminders that even Jesus was like, I'm kind of sick of you guys. You know, I'm kind of over it right now. And then he says, Um, because they're coming to him saying we couldn't cast this demon out of this boy, it's not working. We did it with all the others that worked. And he says, Bring the boy to me. He's like, Okay, I'll just do it myself, right? Yeah and um I think there's times where we can be fed up and frustrated, but so much of the Bible is pushing us into fellowship, pushing us into community, reminding us where our heart is, where it's supposed to be, what we're trying to grow to together, that God put us in according to Acts 17 in this particular geographical location with these particular people, like He placed you here in this time in this place for a purpose. And we're like, you know what? I just don't like these people very much. These churches are full of hypocrites. Like, yeah, you'll you'll fit in great, my brother. We have jackets. Come on in. Um, but the purpose of this is um the church, if you think about it, it's essentially a giant family.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

All right. So a dad sits at the table with his kids, we're gonna talk through stuff. Some of them are in great standing, some of them need some work. Uh, sometimes there's a little tension in the room, sometimes it's totally fine and we're having a good time. Sometimes it's the time to be serious and we're having a deeper conversation. Sometimes a kid is laughing so hard that there's water coming out of his nose, and the rest of us can laugh together. No matter what, this is happening. Yeah. And the Bible tells us the church is like uh a household because you can't be an elder unless you can manage your own household. Because he says, How will then he manage the household of God? Which means that a pastor is supposed to be like a father that is overseeing a larger household made up of households. Yeah. So when we get together and we're doing a meal, the goal is like we're being a family. Yeah. You know what I know about families today? Most people hate their family. Most people have been incentivized and encouraged by the whole world around them that families are generally a bad thing and full of trauma. And you should just be do everything that you can to avoid those those darn pesky families. You know what I mean? Also, they're the bedrock of community. So there's that.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

It is wild. Of the things that are socially acceptable to just completely bash on are families, and like somebody saying, Oh, I've got a mom like this, you know what it's like. It's like, oh yeah, those are the worst, like, and just tearing apart your family, like, oh well, my sister is one of those. And like, yeah, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Well, and it's socially acceptable. Yeah, it it marks us. And I'm not saying there's not damage from families and crazy stuff that happens. There is. My point is that um the goal with Covenant Community Church is fellowshipping together, getting after it, is that we're growing and running towards Christ together in that process. It's not without meaning, yeah, it's not without purpose. It's like family. We're growing together, we're getting better together, and we're choosing this because we know that this is better, and this is what Christ chose, yeah. This is what he has called us to. And um, some people think that, like, you know, I can be part of the body of Christ. I'm a finger, I'm just severed and bleeding out over in the corner. It's like you're you're not actually part of the body, you're just dead. Yeah, that's what that's what that is. Either you get connected back soon, or you're a zombie, you're gross. Yeah, you know, get your give your life to Christ, get it together. Um but it's a giant family, and we're working together, growing what Christ has called us to. So much of the Bible, so especially the epistles, is how then do we deal with other people?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

How then are we supposed to do life together in this kind of community? And and when you do it right, it's really cool. Like, I don't think most people realize when the Roman Empire was failing, they were going to Christian communities and asking them, how are you making it work when the whole rest of Rome is burning? That's cool. Like all of it's like we're failing, things are crumbling. How is it that your communities are still thriving and doing okay? And it's because they were learning how to grow through things, how to deal with their own stuff, how to how to walk together, support each other. And they had these little economies that were working within what they were doing to help support them through the difficulty of what was going on. Yeah. And I think um sometimes the the nation that you're in honors God, loves Jesus, is getting after it. Sometimes it's gonna be more like Noah with his family on the ark, and you're learning how to survive and make it through the crazy times by building something that can survive the storm and making it out to the other side where you can rebuild and do something new. Um, I wrote a book about this actually. I gotta, it's not published yet, but later on it'll be awesome. Okay, we'll at some point. That's probably way down the line, but you heard it here first, okay? Um, but but I think there's an importance in like surviving the chaos, yeah, surviving the crazy. And uh I think a lot of people don't emphasize or realize the importance of community for survival. People that are just alone, they die, man, before they actually breathe out. They're already dead. Yeah, they're just in survival. I take care of myself, I do my own stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Can I can I get on a soapbox about this for a little

Labels As Excuses And Modern Gnosticism

SPEAKER_01 33:10

bit? So I uh we cover this a little bit, but the aloneness. I think one of the greatest pieces of damage that has been done with pop psychology is the introversion-extroversion scale scale. And like, all right, so I I would make the claim that it You're about to tell me about the gospel of Enneagram right now. I'm I'm about to tell you that I don't actually believe that introversion and extroversion are functionally real as pop psychology would have you believe. Okay, but that's neither really here nor there to the point I want to make. The point I want to make is the fact that we have let an entire generation be defined as introverts or extroverts or all of these different things, yeah. What we've done is we've given people an excuse not to put effort into the skill of socializing with other people. Sure. Because they can just say, Oh, I'm an introvert, I'm just bad at that. Any other thing, any other thing that you're just bad at, you can learn, you can grow in, you can accomplish that as an as a skill. Yeah um, and we have let our culture tell us that that's not something you can grow in, that's just the way you are.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I was just born this way. So now I'm gonna marry a dude.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Well, Justin, we're going to uh we're going to come across you in community and affirm that no.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, the the I testify to love, right? I'm so sorry. Uh you can look that up later. Yeah. Um yeah, but uh I would agree. I think there's some look, there's people who have different dispositions and all the things. All we do is put labels on it. And there's nothing wrong with like a label say this is more how this person is or this person is. When it becomes a problem, is when we use it as an excuse or a validation for not doing the things that I'm supposed to do or growing into what we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to function.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

That the Bible doesn't make excuses for people with a particular proclivity or tendency. Yeah. Doesn't. It's like this is how you're supposed to live, these are the things to do, this is how it works.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Now, now do these things, and we're like, yes, but yeah, to your to your different to your joke about disposition. And the Bible doesn't say uh a man who lays with another man shall be put to death, except if he really feels he was born that way.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Unless he had a previous disposition, and uh, you know, love is love, and so that that must be okay. Yeah, and it's good because Leviticus 1921. Man on the nose. I think uh I think we are at a time and a place, man, where our um our psychological mumbo jumbo, if you want to just call it the Gnosticism that we live in today, which is the secret knowledge of self. If you really knew who I was or what I was going through or who I am and how I feel, you would just agree with me.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

And it's funny that the people that say that are never willing to sit down and tell you about themselves, like actually engage in that community.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

No, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's just uh it's this it's this belief that if you could understand, you would agree with me. And if you don't understand, or if you don't agree with me, it means you don't understand. And and I'm I I want people to get this you can understand where somebody is coming from and still disagree with what they're saying, yeah, because they can

When “My Truth” Replaces Meaning

SPEAKER_00 36:49

just be wrong. Yeah, Hans George Gottimer, uh man. He he's the father of ruining the way that we interpret literature. He talked about the the fusion of horizons, he talks about how how is it that you can know actually what one person is saying to another person? How is it that you can know? And his argument is something along these lines. You are your own person, and you know, language is this strange thing, right? It's a social construct, and I see where this is going. And the experiences I've had when I go to read what somebody else has written down. How is it that I could ever know what it is that they actually mean when they write this? And what's funny is that you can read what he's writing, and you could ask the question, Am I understanding what you're reading? Or is this a story about an elephant on a trampoline? Like what like he's writing something that sounds intelligent, and at the same time, he's refuting the very ground that he walks on. But he's the father of this kind of thinking, which is each individual person doesn't truly have the ability to communicate with somebody else in a way that they can fully understand. And so we're just trying to touch the horizons of our thinking to try to communicate the very basics, but we can never possibly understand the depth of understanding that somebody else has. How could we ever truly understand them? This is why when people write essays today in high school or middle school, or whenever you start writing essays, probably middle school, um, although I maybe elementary. My kids are writing essays in elementary.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Well, your kids, your kids went to a good school.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yeah, anyways. They'll write, like, okay, you read this book or you read this thing. It's uh either a book report or an essay on a topic, and it's what does this mean to you? Not what does it mean when you're saying what was this article communicating? It's what do I think it means? It doesn't actually matter what they meant, the significance is actually caught up in what you see and perceive it to mean in this particular circumstance. And and think about what this does. It validates people in their own feelings, it helps them feel comfortable in creating their own world. And if somebody disagrees with them, it gives them the ability to retreat and say, You just don't understand. And uh that's why I think people hate the Bible. Yeah, because the Bible is the thing that's saying, I do know. Yeah, you don't get a free pass, you don't get to say yes, but my circumstance or yes, but my identity or my you know, whatever it is. This is just giving statement after statement that is true, yeah. And you have to deal with that. And if you don't like the um the light breaking into the pleasant fiction that you're you know currently living out, uh you're gonna run from that every opportunity that you can. And and I think um what we have with community today is a bunch of facades, um, these fake communities that people have built, where it's like I don't actually, in fact, if I can engage with people as little as possible uh and only engage with them in realms where I can create the perception of the identity or the perception of the circumstances that I want, this is actually something that will help me continue to feel good about this lie that I am sitting in in a way where I can't be hurt by other people, or of the second that they try to shed light or call me out on something, I just click delete, swipe, you know, whatever it might be to avoid those things. You know when you can't do that when you're in a community with a bunch of people you have relationships with. Yeah. If you're actually in relationships with people, you actually love each other and want to walk with each other, it's valuable, you don't want to lose it. So you actually have to work hard at like fighting through these things and knowing each other and having to deal with one thing that I think is butting up against what somebody else thinks, and now we actually have to bring the Bible in and work through this stuff together.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

You have to deal with the fact that you might be offended and not be able to do anything about that other than grow. Other than be offended.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's um it's not a bad thing to be.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

I can't tell you the the amount of times I've I've interacted with people in different internet circles or whatever, playing different games or or something where uh you know I said something that was innocuous to a Christian or innocuous because it was true, um, and yet it was something that caused them great offense. And instead of working past it, sometimes people work past it, but sometimes it's like, oh, well, that offends me, you shouldn't say it. And if I've ever said, well, I'm going to say it because it's true.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

I'm not actually Jesus is really gonna make you angry.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

I'm not actually going to apologize for something I haven't done wrong. Yeah, um people split, they run, they hide. Yeah, and it's it's sad because there's people that I'd love to continue to engage with, to, to build relationships with, to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

And we've created a culture where everybody can hide. Yeah. Everybody can hide. You can functionally disappear, have your groceries and anything else you need delivered straight to your door, so you never have to come out. You know, you can get health care to your house, people will come and visit care. You'll have whatever you need can be done in such a way that as minimal um people as possible can actually intervene in your life, the better. And we call it convenience. Yeah, right. Um, I think uh community is not convenient, growth um what is not expedient, you know. It's all it's all going to take time, and this is why so many analogies in the Bible are like vineyards and trees, the growth of a plant, like all of it. This is going to take time. We're gonna have to grow together, and there's gonna be wheat, and there's gonna be tares, and there's gonna be good ground, and there's gonna be bad ground, and that the the the goal is to walk together into something that actually looks like Christ, that represents Christ. Um, when Augustine was talking about the Trinity, his his one of his arguments for the Trinity is that God has to be a multiplicity um before he's a singularity, yeah. Simply because he's love. God could be power and then be love uh if he created the other uh parts of the Godhead. But if he is love first, then what that means is there has to be a multiplicity, there has to be Trinity first for there to be fellowship um overflowing uh before anything else happens. And so what we see in the Trinity is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all eternally existing, um, one God, three persons. You could say uh one in one one in nature, or one in essence, three in nature if you. You want to there's a million. There's a million different ways to say it.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

There's a million ways to say it and no way to actually understand it this side of heaven.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Yeah, I mean you can draw it out. You can't logically get there and still not like, I don't know, comprehend is ah man. I'm trying to think of the right words there. So like my point is my point is there's community there that when when Jesus is saying that they'll know us by the way that we love each other, yeah, ultimately saying they'll know they'll see God when we love each other that way. When we're that that fellowship and community and love is pouring out on each other and the way that we care for each other and do things, yeah, um, is huge uh and should reveal

Order Of Loves And Rebuilding Local Life

SPEAKER_00 44:45

God. What what's funny is that our world, because it's so obsessed with the ether instead of the immediate community, yeah, loves the immigrant, loves the person that's on the other side of the world that they don't know but they can read about from a distance and they don't actually have to be up close to and see and care about. They advocate for people uh and believe them to be saints and have demonized the people next door. Yeah. You know, we have this thing called the Order Amoris, like the order of loves that I'm supposed to have. And it's like, God, it's my family, it's my church, and then it's the community around me, and then it's my own nation. Like there's this picture of how God is saying, these are the priorities that you have, and we've almost flipped them on their head in a lot of ways. Well, I don't like God. I definitely don't like my family. They're the reason for all of my issues. I don't like my community because they're not doing the things that we should be. Uh, but who am I gonna love? Well, the people that I don't know closely and I have no relationship with, I will project onto them my circumstance and then want to be their savior. Yeah. You know, and it's um actually showed this, I think. There was a graph that was done with people on the right and people on the left.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

And these two political mindsets. And the the graph for the people on the right was like family, community, nation. Oh, it's that red, blue left. Yeah, yeah. It was like everybody but us. Yeah. And I brought this up in our um honor your father and mother podcast back when we were talking about the Ten Commandments. This this idea that we honoring your father and mother doesn't just mean your immediate family, it also has to do with your community and your nation and like having a desire to fight for those things and build strong communities. It is funny that if you have a super leftist mindset, your tendency is to be more online, more with the outskirts, and project your idea of victimization on everyone else and save those people, but avoid it all uh at every chance you can, the um, the people that are immediately in front of your face. Yeah. Yeah. So we look, churches are incredibly important. When I say churches, I don't mean just an event. Yeah, I mean people meeting people under godly teaching, the love of Jesus, growing together in fellowship community, carrying each other's burdens, helping each other grow, whether we like how that feels or not, um, and sticking with it. Yeah. Like membership is this thing that a lot of people struggle with, but ultimately it's this thing where it's saying, okay, I'm going to stick with these people. Yeah. I'm going to stay here. I'm going to fight for this. I want to be a part of this. And we need more churches. We need more godly churches that are doing this and getting people together. And the the rates of like suicide and depression freaking plummet when people are actually engaged with other people at churches in their Bible, praying together, doing life. These things, uh, most of the psychological illnesses and wellness stuff that we're dealing with on a massive scale in our country today, uh, evaporate when people are just doing the stuff that the Bible said from the beginning to do. Yeah. And so uh I say all of this to say those potlucks, you know, as weird and cringe as they may have been at some point, actually are a better attempt than anything that we're putting together today. In the same way that marriage, as much as it is fired at by people, and I talk about this and talk about that, is far better than any of the stuff that people are putting together today. The Bible has been right every single time and will continue to be right every single time. And if it's not working, you're the problem, not the Bible. Yep. So that's just that's for free. You're welcome.

Final Takeaways And Listener Questions

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Well, I hope uh I hope this helps make some sense. And if um yeah, some of you guys are stuck and frustrated by this, man, send in some questions, send in some thoughts. We'd love to hear from you. And man, if we can answer those things and help you guys get to a healthy place and get into some community, we'd love to do it.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

So right on. All right. Have a good week, everybody. Thanks, guys.