The Mezzanine Floor
The Mezzanine Floor is a podcast that creates a space for conversations concerning the christian life as we walk out living in the tension between heaven and earth.
Join our host, Pastor Malachi Maillot and his guests as they wrestle with how we ought to live with a heavenly mindset in an earthly body.
The Mezzanine Floor
Ep 2 - Is Church Important? | Malachi Maillot & David Kalamen
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In this episode, Malachi and Pastor Dave Kalamen talk about the importance of the community of Church for the believer. They discuss the dangers of deconstructionism that has begun to tear apart the foundations of the christian faith, and western society.
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The early church wasn't into making Christians. The early church was all about disciples.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, wild.
SPEAKER_01And the disciples were called Christians. Why were the disciples called Christians? Because their life was so disciplined to the life of Christ that there was no difference. Exactly. Church is not a do-word. I don't do church. I don't go to church. I am the church. We've got to be become the church. How do you deal with an imperfect spiritual family that is not what you want from a family? Well, you don't deal with it by checking out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You get in and make a difference.
SPEAKER_05Welcome to the Mezzanine Floor Podcast. We are back with episode two. We have Pastor Dave with us today. We're so, so excited. This is the podcast where we talk about living in the tension between heaven and earth. My name is Malachi. I'm your host. And we have Jamin. He's back on the controls. He's doing all the switches. He's running the show back there. And uh yeah, we're really excited to have Pastor Dave. Um you've been in ministry for longer than I've been alive. Ever since Moses. Ever since Moses. Um a long time. Yeah. So it's it's honestly such an honor for us, you know, like even just talking to you beforehand, just kind of understanding like there is a really great depth to who you are as a human being and just like spiritual depth. Um, so we're really honored to have you on our podcast today. And uh honor to be here. Yeah. So how are you doing today? Are you excited for this today? I'm excited about this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. As I was uh telling you about the first time I did something like this was with my brother-in-law Doug Schneider, uh, when we were young men just like you are.
SPEAKER_05Sort of young, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh we were doing a radio broadcast over the summer in Camloose, British Columbia, and everything was just well Doug, well David, well so we're gonna work this all out today. We're gonna have fun. Well, Dave. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um well yeah, let's uh I wanted to jump right into our topic. And obviously I kind of sent you some of my notes, but it's the topic of church. Yep. Uh and the church as a whole. And my first question actually, and I I didn't send this to you because I wanted this to be more, you know, just off the top of your head. What what was, you know, obviously, you know, church for me was probably a little bit different than it was for you, but what was church like for you growing up?
SPEAKER_01It was rather structured. Yeah. It was um more, if I would call it traditional. Yeah. Uh but there was a uh a deep hunger for God uh as it as a child growing up, you were taken with the rest into the prayer room and you just you learn to pray. And you learn to pray through beside older. Sleeping in the pews. Well, we slept on the pews, we slept, uh swept, uh, slept underneath the pews, right? Um, but there was a real sense of presence of God, and it was in that time period of the uh real move of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And um, you know, I I wouldn't exchange that uh for anything in my life. It was just a wonderful childhood growing up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I also grew up as a pastor's kid and I listened through the vents, and I I heard that hey, the world can come in through people whose hearts are still not right with God. And I heard the way they talked about my mom and dad, who are the pastors at that time. And um, and you thought, hey, what what makes the qualitative difference between being a Christian and being in the world?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and uh it was a little bit of a challenge to my faith growing up to go, I I want true Christianity. Yeah, I want real Christianity, authent authenticity, you know.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, the reason I bring that up too is is really just to kind of segue into my first kind of thoughts. Um obviously for you, like growing up, like church was valued, right? Like there was a value in your family. And I would say even for myself, like church wasn't an option. It was like you're not staying home, even with you know, my my childhood of you know, having video games kind of introduced part way through, like I find more and more and more um that there isn't as much of a value on the church. I don't know if you wanted to like touch on that.
SPEAKER_01Back then the church was like the mainstay uh in a community, and and pastors and priests, leaders, spiritual leaders in the community were drawn upon quite often to help with the moral condition or state of the city. And uh I even when I came to Klona here, you know, 42 years ago, I remember sitting a number of sit-downs with mayors and saying to them, Listen, uh, this city would be in a real lot of trouble if it wasn't for the pastors that are standing up every Sunday morning preaching righteousness about how you live as a person, how you work as an employee, how you uh function as a mom or a dad uh or a parent raising children. Um if you don't have that, you remove that salt, right? That salting of society, that light. I said, then the the city gets darker and darker. It just gets darker and darker. So with the loss of, from my perspective, the loss of uh uh church attendance or willingness to kind of raise your child in that environment, yeah. Um we we've seen a loss of cities. Yeah. Wow. Uh degeneration. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And and even with that too, like that's you know, that's a little bit what we were wanting to talk about is that that idea that the the devaluing of church or um people moving more. I I'm on Instagram a lot. Uh unfortunately, like you know, you're you you start you know, your algorithms taking you to different like church churches and uh like sermons, and and then you get into you know a lot of people that are um questioning the church, um questioning faith, uh saying wild statements like um, you know, debating if hell exists and and challenging these like core like foundational doctrines. And it's like more and more and more and more I've seen um like even just in in our youth students, they have questions, but they don't they don't know. They don't know about these things, you know. Yeah. Um, and you know people people feeling that need to detach from the local church, it's it's kind of scary. And and why do you so why do you think um there is so much of more of that? It's so much more prevalent. And and maybe it maybe it's not that it's like a it's not a new thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a cultural trend though. Yeah, it is a cultural trend. Think of dating.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, years ago it was like very different than yeah, you better get to know that person, right? Yeah, and maybe hang out with them for a while to find out what their values are and know them before you marry them, right? Yeah, not just know about them, exactly, yeah. Not just meet them on a telephone call or a Zoom or you know, a dating service. But the same thing goes for the church. The the farther removed people are from personally hanging out with leaders, the Bible says know those who labor among you, get to know them, watch their families, watch their marriage. Um, that's where authenticity starts, that's where relevance starts. Yeah. And the further you remove from that, and you're now connected to somebody who's got a church down in Dallas or Singapore or wherever it might be in the world, but you don't know them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you know about them. Yeah, it's facts.
SPEAKER_01And so the the more separated and removed you are from that kind of accountability, like they're not gonna call you when you're sick and in hospital and they're not gonna make a visitation call.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They're they're not gonna be there when your child needs help. Right. Yeah. So that's been a loss to our culture. And um, I I think that that that that uh reflects itself in the disintegration of family and the disintegration of marriages and the and the the breaking apart of churches where everybody's got their own idea of what they want. And they they they commercialize it and personalize it and customize what they want, yeah, rather than going to the word of God and finding out what he wants.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. And it's it really feels like with you know the you know, we use that word deconstruction. And I don't know if you wanted to just kind of maybe explain that word for our listeners a little bit deeper.
SPEAKER_01I know deconstructionism or Christian disconstructionism is a term that's now being used quite broadly, not not so much as um a word in our vocabulary, as much as a a symptom of the the challenge that and the and to some degree the tragedy of what we're f seeing in the chur in the Christian church. And it's essentially going, um and I'll use a parallel to that. Um the the US has a constitution, and um they've appointed Supreme Court judges to the Constitution. In in the last number of years, those who were appointed there, the biggest argument was are you constitutionalists? Are you someone that is going to go back to the original intent of the constitution for what America was called to be and make rulings on modern issues with in terms of a document that's 200 plus years old, yeah, right? And so there's now a disconnect starting to happen among people saying, well, listen, why are we using a document that was established in another generation to deal with our issues? Like we're not dealing with muskets anymore. We're dealing with machine guns in our generation. So like that's the kind of thinking. And those questions are somewhat valuable and and valid. Yeah, for sure. Um, but it's very much similar to what's going on in the church, because you have you have uh a generation growing up that goes, well, why should I uh let the word of God that was written 2,000 years ago rule me today? It's not religio relevant to me, to my life. And so what they try to do is personalize the the document.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And it's sort of like going to the the Bible and you know, with a black marker, right? Yeah, I like this part, like this one, I don't like this part, and so we're ripping pages out altogether, right? Or books out of the Bible altogether.
SPEAKER_05Well, you see that in the way that people they try to justify their reasoning by saying, you know, even things like Paul was a bigot or he was sexist or what about slavery? Yeah, yeah. Prejudice. He didn't you know condone slavery, and yeah, yeah, it gets it gets so wild.
SPEAKER_01So those are are very real questions that are connected to our culture versus a culture of 2,000 years ago. But there are a lot of commonalities. And the common thing, no matter what generation you look at, is the status of the heart.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, wild. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01To me, that's that's the real key. If if you want to take a look at the real issues, they all go back to the heart. They all go back to the heart. Slavery goes back to the heart, racism goes back to the heart, greed and you know, uh goes back to the heart. Um, selfishness goes back to the heart. So how it's manifesting in a culture is going to be different, possibly, than it was 2,000 years ago. But the root cause is the same. So when people start deconstructing, it's going, well, I'm not sure I can carry all of the ideas of Christianity into my culture and adopt them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so what can I accept? What can I not accept? And I'm going to I'm going to adjust my Christian faith to my opinions or my needs. Yeah. And and we're not we're not going to go look at the Constitution. We're not going to look at the Magna Carta of God's word, right? So that opens the door to some significant challenges.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, particularly for pastors like yourself preaching on Sunday. Yeah. Right? Yeah, because everything gets questioned. Everything is questioned. Yeah. And um and having a a critically um solid faith, a logically established, a fact-based faith is not a hundred percent um possibility because we're dealing with faith. We're talking about uh a level of reality that is beyond just two plus two equals four. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's way beyond that. How do you qualify uh love uh or quantitate it? How do you how do you g give me a glass of love so I can take a look at it? You can't the scientific method doesn't work that way, right? But we know love exists. Yeah, yeah. Give me a proof that God exists. Well, I can give you I can give you logical proofs of who God is, that Jesus is God, he rose from the dead, that the word of God is truth and accurate. Yeah. But that still may not satisfy what you need inside.
SPEAKER_05The person looking for the exact, you know, the two plus two answer.
SPEAKER_01And and all you can do at times like that is say, listen, it's not just facts. It's not just accepting a philosophy or an ideology of how to live your life. It is accepting a relationship to God that is a journey, a journey of faith, if you want to put it that way. Yeah, exactly. You're stepping out, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because you're never gonna be fully 100% confident. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now Kierkegaard said you're it's uh like faith is a step into the dark. Or I think it's a step into the light, personally. Yeah, yeah. God never moves you from where you are into worse, He moves you into something so He can shine a brighter light on the path ahead of you. And uh, you know, so we can't be afraid of deconstructionism. Yeah. But when it reaches the pulpit, then it's scary. And you have pastors, yeah, yeah, pastors that are going through midlife crisis, their midlife spiritual crisis.
SPEAKER_05And how many more of those people are we gonna run into, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then they then they evangelize their entire congregation with their own doubts and fears, right? And or they inject their own personalized religion into the process. Yeah. And that I think is really dangerous. Uh but I think there's an there's opportunity for conver conversation and to dialogue and to come to a greater understanding of our faith by by communicating. But that's not in our culture either.
SPEAKER_05No. Yeah, communication is black or white, right? It's not it doesn't happen without fighting. Or you're wrong, and or we just don't we can't even agree. Yeah. There's certain people that you can't even like one of one of my, you know, when I get into a conversation with someone, the first thing I ask them is like, what do you believe about the Bible? Right? Because if if they obviously if they don't have this like a similar to it doesn't have to be like the same view, right? Yeah. But if they don't they don't view view the Bible as like something that's of importance and authoritative, then how do you even have that conversation with them, right? To begin with.
SPEAKER_01And as we were sharing before the podcast, uh, one of the things that I think is really critical too is that your your concept of salvation, yeah, what is it what does it actually look like? Did you become a Christian on a Sunday morning because you ha felt all warm and you know emotional inside and raised your hand and you know, and then went and reported, hey, I've given my life to Christ? Um we're not the early church wasn't into making Christians. The early church was all about disciples.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wild.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and the disciples were called Christians. Why were the disciples called Christians? Because their life was so disciplined to the life of Christ that there was no difference. Exactly, yeah. They were not only created in the image of Christ, they were actually living it out. They were living Christ out. So, you know, we find a lot of people when they come to Christ, it's it I'm not sure, to be honest, whether or not they're born of religion, born of a feeling, born of the will of man, or whether they're really born of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the and the reason I say that is because there's a key word in the scripture that it must precede salvation, and that's the word repent. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, and the the word repent is not just be sorry for your sins and your lifestyle and all that stuff, but have a change of mind. Now, when we're talking about deconstructionism, we're talking about our mind taking precedence over God's mind.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01That's what we're doing. We're just saying we're going to change the belief system to make it adjust to my reality. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05It becomes more about opinion than anything or it does.
SPEAKER_01And uh the search for truth, when you look at it biblically, truth is not an idea. Truth is a person. Yeah. So Jesus said in John 14, he says, I am the way, yeah, the truth, the truth, and the life. If if you want to know the truth, listen to me. Yeah, exactly. Because I'm the truth speaking, and then you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. You'll be free indeed. So, like to me, it has to start with relationship, not an ideology. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that a lot of people that come to church like on a Sunday, that's my gut sense. I don't know what you know, your generation is much. But do they really understand the cost of discipleship? And have they had a real encounter with the person of Jesus Christ and been saved, been converted? Yeah. When you're converted, it's a powerful.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, there's visible in the way that you live. Yeah. There's an experience with God. It's not perfect, right? Like that's and that's not the that's not the, you know, obviously that's the where we're moving. We're like it's saying we're being made holy, and that's the road of you know, sanctification. It's a daily walk with Christ. We're not going to be perfect every single day. But yeah, you can you could you can tell when there is actual change in someone. You're you should be able to tell when there's actual change in someone.
SPEAKER_01Some some Christians today, I would have to question whether they're actually Christian because they have they have adapted and adjusted their Christianity. It's certainly not on Christ's terms. They've created it a Christianity on their church's terms or their personal terms, and they've they've defined what they're going to believe or not believe. And that process to me is is challenging because uh it the enemy takes our doubts and our questions and he moves them to unbelief. Doubt means to be of two minds. Because you're going, I don't know if I believe this. No, that's okay. That's valid. Every newborn is gonna say, you know, I I raised three children, and it was like, why? Why? You know?
SPEAKER_05So you go, why do I well I'm gonna Because I said so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you can you can't always answer those questions with because, yeah, right. You just can't.
SPEAKER_05Especially as you get older.
SPEAKER_01Right. So so we're to have an answer for our faith to everyone who asks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I think an intelligent Christianity is critically important, an emotionally healthy Christianity is important, but a spiritually healthy Christianity where you actually know when to give way to faith in a process, and that faith is not throwing away your your head, your mind, it faith is actually a leap into the light saying, I I have I believe in you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'll just give you an illustration. When there's a when I was talking to a man one time about fathering and everything, and he said, Well, I had a pretty rough fatherhood or fathering experience in my life. My dad would, you know, take me to places and all that, but that's fine. He says, But I remember this one situation. He said, uh, we were uh walking along this fence, and there was one of those fences where you could you could walk on. And my dad grabbed my hand and I was walking the fence light alongside him, and I thought this was great. I'm tallering him and all that kind of stuff. And then his dad at one point in the fence said, uh jump. And he jumped, and his dad moved back and let him fall. That wouldn't fly in today's parent. And it was like, it was like um, uh, what just happened here? And his dad looked at him and says, uh, that'll teach you never to to believe people. Wow. That'll teach you. Don't don't put your trust like that. You see, at some point in time in our life, we have to be able to live that life of a tr of trust. And trust happens with someone that's trustworthy, that has earned that trust.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, in God, in our relationship to God, the longer we walk with Him, the more trustworthy he becomes, the more faithful he is. And and and and the times then when we have a question and
SPEAKER_04Doubt, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We we're not moved to unbelief as the enemy pushes us to unbelief, but we're moved to faith and say, okay, it's not just a flip of a coin here with you. I I actually trust you. I've seen how you function in my life up to this point. And I'm gonna put my trust on this next step, even though I don't know. I don't understand. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So Yeah, I think it's I think it's hard too because I think we've been and maybe maybe this is just how the way I was raised to like not have doubts. Like it's it's it's a like don't have doubts, like just trust, trust, trust. And then I feel like this next generation is is is being encouraged to question everything, encouraged to doubt, encouraged to, as you were even saying, like there's a difference between critical thinking and critical thinking, right? Like you can either critique something and be just completely critical and just tear things apart, or critically thinking with like an actual conviction that you want the truth and you want authenticity. And I think that, you know, as you're saying, like what you know, what is it like for us and you know, being a youth pastor and with with youth kids in this generation, I I see that they want what's real and they want authenticity, but it's hard for them to distinguish what's real or or or what's authentic. And um, because there's so much stuff out there, they have, you know, Instagram and TikTok, and everybody's a an expert on the Bible on TikTok or Instagram, right? Like you hear something, and you're like, well, that must be true. And and a lot of a lot of I think people in this culture right now, they just take those things because they have a platform or because they're listening to someone with a microphone. Um, I think we were, I think I remember if me and Jamie were talking about this. If you have a if you have a microphone, you can just you you command the room, right? Like people will just listen to you. You say, hey, everyone get up and do a dance, right? And you have a microphone in your hand, most likely they're gonna listen to you, right? And so what would you say to that? Um, how do you get better at critically thinking in in a world that's so full of information and and we don't know if this is right or if this is right or if this is truth, is that if that's truth, how do we become better at, you know, obviously not just like taking everything in, um, but critically thinking and not to a point where we're just like rejecting everything and we don't want anyone else's opinion, but you know, there's like that balance between the two.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's sort of a a fine line in scripture between teachability and argument, argumentation, right? So the Bible says a disciple needs to be teachable. Yeah. Just open your heart, humility, right? Yeah. Like the Bible says that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Christ. So we see a Pharisaical mentality in the law. Well, they the Pharisees they knew the law inside and outside. Like they obeyed every in quotes jot and tittle of the law. But Jesus looked at them and said, You're like, you know, like a tomb, a whitewashed tomb. You look good on the outside, but you're dead inside. Yeah and and and you do all these things, and you worship, you, you, you worship me with your lips, but not your heart, because your heart's far from me. You you you've lost something in the process. So when it comes to a real search, an authentic search that comes out of humility, out of brokenness, out of a sincere desire to know, yeah, then um there has to be a distinction between arguing with someone who's really got a rebellious mentality, is just trying to prove you wrong. I'm just gonna play the devil's advocate with you and just try to push your buttons and make you angry. And another person that says, I I really don't understand. I I really do want to know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um we have a number of factors that are connected to that. Uh for example, Jesus. Um, he could have come at any point in time and died on the cross if dying on the cross was the issue.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, we know it was the primary issue. His eyes were set as a flint to Calvary, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01To die for us. That was critical. Calvary and the resurrection, right? Death and power and resurrection. But there's three years that we find that what did he do? He spent time with with men, twelve disciples. Yeah. Okay. Even some of them questioned him, right? Yeah. Thomas and and and Peter betrayed him, and Judas betrayed him. Um, so you see humanity in the mix of it all, right? Yeah. But but why was it so important for to spend time with them? Is because it's not just a philosophy. It was not just here's a book, read it, memorize it. Here's how you live it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And I want you to watch my life. Yeah, watch what I do. Watch what I do, not just what I say, but what I do. And to some degree that's been lost in the culture today.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01So a lot of questions are answered really quickly. I remember as a kid growing up, there was this one guy who really knew how to pray, man. And when when the prayer room opened up, I went and knelt right next to him, right? Now the kneeling was a traditional religious thing, right? That's what we did after the service. We went into the prayer room and we prayed, right? Yeah, exactly. But man, when I I knelt next to him and heard him pray and crying out to God, uh, there was some things that you can be taught and other things that need to be caught. Wow, yeah. And and the I needed to catch prayer. I didn't need to have a formula of prayer. Yeah, I needed to catch the spirit of prayer. Yeah. And I I think that in the deconstruction movement, there's so much thinking going on. Everything's been taught. Yeah, but it's they have not had an encounter, an experience with God. Because one experience with God replaces everything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05One moment with Jesus can change everything in your whole life, right?
SPEAKER_01Like that's why he says, uh, you know, I I've I've I've come to be with you. And I'm not going to leave you alone, by the way. When I go, I'm sending the Holy Spirit. He'll be with all of you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? So what is the what is the importance of the with factor? God wants God with us. Yeah. Jesus with his disciples, Holy Spirit in us, but with us and in us. Um, that that factor I think is is missing in a lot of modern Christianity today.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They've lost what it means to walk with God, to walk and be led of the Spirit, a number of things on that level. And those are the things that when God starts showing up, when God, when the sudden leaves start happening in your life, and you go, Wow, what happened there? What it does is it just builds a confidence that the next time I have a question, I'm I'm kind of leaning towards God on the answer and the solution on this. I'm not leaning to the world.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I'm not gonna let the enemy push me this way, I'm gonna let him push me towards um let God draw me to himself. And that's that's where the two minds, the being double-minded become can become one-minded.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, even just listening to you say, uh even just talk about this idea. It's like um the analogy of you know, deconstruction kind of was like uh it's easier to take something apart than it is to build something. Yeah, right? Yeah, it's it's easy to be critical, it's easy to you know find the holes that we think are there in the Bible, or you know, this doesn't match up with that, and that doesn't match up with that, and it just creates more and more doubt. Um, but you were saying like there's there's such a deep need for discipleship in in our world and our churches, and um but not just discipleship through information, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But discipleship through character formation, through transformation. Like those things are gonna information is just the start.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Information has got to lead to an a revelation. Um, and that's where the spirit of revelation can come. God can give you the word, and then all of a sudden, man, that word comes alive to you. It's called a revelation. It's illuminated to your heart. And then that revelation causes a shift in your life, and that shift transforms you, right? And transformation, if you have a lot of people being transformed, it creates reformation, right? It really shifts the entire culture. Right. Yeah, exactly. A culture of a family, a culture of the church, a culture of a city. So it was the disciples, it wasn't just a matter of just teaching them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was a matter of exemplifying what it means to be a Christian. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Like walking it out, yeah. It's amazing. Um, I love that point. Um, I had a few other questions on here, kind of in that same vein. Um, and just uh maybe going back to that idea of the value of church. And I had a question on here because I think that this is a question that it goes hand in hand with you know the deconstruction topic and idea. Um but I've heard this a lot as a you know, as a young guy growing up and even just like moving into church ministry and just having conversations with people and the question of like, can I be a Christian and not be a part of the church? And and obviously that's coming from a place of you know, maybe church hurt, um, maybe offense. Yep. Um, this is something they're just not liking about the structure of the church. Um, and obviously not every church is perfect because we're in it, right? It's not gonna be perfect. But um when someone, you know, when someone says that, how do you um or or what I mean, maybe what's the problem with that, or maybe that's maybe that's possible. Uh what's your what's your take on that?
SPEAKER_01Uh the the illustration that comes to mind was this pastor that was trying to deal with the the attitude of his prisoners towards church on a Sunday morning. He had this coffin out front. And at the end of the service, he opened the coffin and asked everyone in the congregation to come by. And when they came by, there was a mirror in the coffin. So when they looked in, they saw themselves. He said, You guys are a reflection of the state of the church.
SPEAKER_04Holy smokes.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah, it was he was trying to make a statement to them that hey, you um church is what you define it to be in a way, yeah, through your character or lack of character, your hypocrisy or whatever it might be. But uh to get to the very root of it, I think um uh church is not a do word. I don't do church. Yeah, I I don't go to church. I am the church. Yeah, we we've got to be become the church. And um, the church is a family, it's a spiritual family, God's family. That's what we call each other brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. That's all that's language that is used. Well, it's not a perfect family, and if you're looking for a perfect church, you're not gonna find it, you better get out because you're ruining the one you're in, right? Because of course we're we're just not perfect people. Yeah, so our imperfection will be registered there. So um, how do you deal with an imperfect spiritual family that is not what you want from a family? Well, you don't you don't deal with it by checking out, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You get in and make a difference. You you love on people around you, and it's called koinea, it's called community, spiritual community. You deal with your unforgiveness. That's called communion. You got a something at a with someone, deal with it, resolve it. Well, because we're being taught in another environment called the church. But the church is not uh, you know, an individualistic thing. It uh you you may be a Christian, but you the the question you asked about can you be a Christian and not go to church? Well, you can't be a healthy Christian and not go to church. Because in my travels over the years, I've been in communist countries, etc., uh Muslim countries preaching. I've preached in caves, I've preached to the church on a staircase, I've preached in basements, in garages, uh, in uh rooftops, I've I've I've preached in all kinds of environments. Um, in some of those situations, if you were an individual, uh you couldn't assemble with the church. You you couldn't. Yeah. Um was illegal. Yeah, uh, you'd go to prison for it. Um in other situations, you might even die, like in Muslim communities, you you might even die for professing your faith or trying to connect with with God's people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we all understand that element. And can person be a Christian and uh love God and love his word and go to heaven in that environment? You bet. Totally. Okay. But but when God has given you the opportunity to assemble, yeah, the Bible says don't forget, don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together. And so much more so when you see the day of the Lord approaching. And then the next verse that nobody even wants to talk about is for if you go on sinning, well, what's sinning? It means to miss the mark. Yeah. You you think that you can be uh a lone ranger, but even lone ranger needed tonto.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_01You don't you think you can do it your own on your own, but you can't. Uh so the Bible pictures the church as um living stones, not a living stone, but a living stone together, yeah, built together, uh as many members of the same body, all linked together, yeah, as a household of faith, not just uh an individual of faith. Yeah. So it's corporate. And uh we grow in that corporate environment. And God structured the church for that. He structured family for that, yeah. To work out all of those glitches, the good, bad, and evil in our lives uh uh in a family to get us ready for marriage, to have our own family.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because you can't really get rid of family, can't you?
SPEAKER_01Even though you try sometimes, but so so it's a it's a real um uh you know, and you know this as well as I do. If you're a predator um and you want to get prey, you isolate them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And I I love the picture of the muskox all surrounding the young, facing outward when the the wolf pack comes. They don't move.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they protect, right? But the enemy who tries to isolate, and if he can isolate them, yeah, he can take you out. So as you look through the New Testament and read it, you'll find the the one another issue flow uh, you know, is constantly being brought up. Love one another, forgive one another, yeah, you know, be at peace with one another, have grace towards one another. And when you look at all of those flowing together, Christianity is a one-another experience. Yeah, it's it's not an individual experience.
SPEAKER_05It can't be, right? Like it's it's so backwards to the way the world is. Yeah like everything about culture says, hey, you know, you can you can be independent, you can do this on your own, you know, find your own way. And it's and it's always this like it's like a funnel, right? Like pushing people to that. And even just, you know, obviously we don't want to talk about COVID or anything, but like yeah, that was like that was like peak isolation for people too. And and and and I I don't know if you wanted to touch on like you were talking about a little bit about isolation, but the dangers of isolation.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah. Yeah I've seen a lot of people use COVID as a as a justification for deconstructing their faith. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they said, well, I didn't like how the church responded. Okay, but you're the church and you're taught to love. Was there something immoral, ungodly, unscriptural in this in terms of how the church responded? Not really. You can't point to it on that level. Yeah, it was a a governmental policy put on the church that I didn't lose my faith over by yielding to. Did I like it? No. Were there ways around it? Yes. Did I st could I still communicate? And thankfully, by the grace of God, the church adapted itself to new methodologies.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And and all of a sudden, your online presence of the church began to mushroom uh and multiply in it and what forced it was this governmental policy, right? Yeah. Well, we're doing what we're doing today, uh, ultimately, because there was of. Yeah, because of that stuff. And and um and so uh I I I do think that um in deconstruction there are a lot of people that are trying to justify their own sin by just di deconstructing their faith. Yeah. I'll give you an illustration. Years ago, there was a young lady I was uh working with, and she met a uh a fine young guy. Um uh she would she wanted to marry him, but he wasn't a Christian. Well, he she'd bring him to church and he'd come faithfully to church, but he had not really given his life to Christ, and she knew it.
SPEAKER_05It went just for her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And she won, she wanted me to marry them. And I love this young lady. And uh it was the hardest thing in my life to say, I cannot marry you. Well, what are you saying? Um, well, the Bible says that um, you know, you you cannot marry, uh a believer cannot uh marry an unbeliever, that there is a um a significant challenge with that. Yeah, right? There's a there's a mixing that goes on here. Um you're going to have you're gonna be dealing with things in your marriage, and one is gonna go to the word of God as their their plumb line to making a decision, and the other is not gonna have any plumb line than what television gives them. Yeah, right. So they're gonna be in what is called unequally yoked together. And um, and I had to say this to her, I said, You you you say you love him, but God didn't put that in your heart. Wow. And the reason why I can say that is Jesus said, if you love me, obey my word. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay. Well, what does the word of God say? Well, it says you shouldn't do this. It's not what wisdom to do this, okay? If you do it, there are going to be consequences. Uh, so what is motivating you? It was hard for me to say it, that it's lust, not love. Well, yeah, okay, because God would not put love in your heart to marry a young man and cause you to break the moral law of God. Yeah, he wouldn't do that. So you need to wait and give it time until the Holy Spirit does a work in his heart. Wow. And there can be well, they didn't they didn't do that. But it but see, some people would would deconstruct their faith on that principle and they would say, Well, doesn't God teach you to love everybody?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Right? Like uh, what's wrong with me loving someone? Yeah, well, no, uh, there is there is a problem with this in terms of the separation of what is the agape love of God leading you to do it, and what is an erotic kind of love, yeah. A desire and a lust in your heart. A selfish kind of yeah. So deconstruction takes all kinds of different forms, right? Um and for some, when uh COVID hit as an illustration, yeah, they didn't want to come to church anymore. Yeah, now is my excuse not to have to go because they're not doing what I would want them to do. So it justified their withdrawal. Yeah. And I don't know of people that did very well in that environment when they withdrew. Yeah. You can't. I just I see all kinds of damage and collateral uh collateral damage from those that decision to isolate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So do you think that's still like like that, that is still a ripple effect that we feel today in the church?
SPEAKER_01I think that, you know, you talked about the word offense uh as as a key thing to undermining. Um people get offended for every kind of different kind of issue, right? The music's too loud, right, Jamin? The music's too loud. Um the the preacher preached too loud. It's not loud enough. The preacher preached too long, you know, uh the the childcare is not that great, you know, you know, all this kind of stuff. There's always a reason. Um but when they do that, they're actually oftentimes they're using that as an excuse to validate their own withdrawal. And like I said to you, I'm now I've got fifty two years almost of of ministry background, and I have seen very, very few people. Uh recover from their withdrawal from the church over an offense. Offense is probably one of the most powerful things in people recalibrating what they want to believe anymore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, that is a danger. So the bur first thing the Bible says about deconstructionism is test yourself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01To see whether you're in the faith. Take a look at yourself first. Before you judge others, judge yourself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Before you have an opinion about what they should be doing, take a look at yourself. Before you lay hands on their head to cast out some devil, cast out the devils in your own life.
SPEAKER_05Jesus saying take the log out of your own eye before you start judging someone else's speck.
SPEAKER_01That's the first thing you do. Yeah. Is you test you yourself. Yeah. The second thing you test is test your faith. Check it out. There's not a problem. The Brians did that, right? The Bible says that they they studied the scriptures to find out if these things were true or not. Yeah. Well, well, study the scripture. So sometimes I I just get right down to the point with people and they're they're challenging stuff. I said, Well, have you give me the scripture on that? Exactly. Help me understand what you think. Yeah. Where do you find it? Where did you find it? I don't think that, right? Like an any, you know. And that's the problem. Many people operate on opinion and feelings and I think versus finding out a biblical foundation for their thinking. Yeah. And when that's happened, your your danger drifting away from your faith. And the enemy taking your I your ideology rather than your repentance and yielding to his thoughts are higher, his ways are greater.
SPEAKER_05So And that that sounds like it derives too from what you're talking about, where it's just people have just taken information and they've, you know, they've you know, they watched the the preacher on YouTube for however many months, and they've taken in the information, you know, thinking that, oh, this is what church is, or or even just or even today, like when we sit in church and we um, you know, it's almost like you have to be careful you're not just creating consumers, right? Where they just come in, they sit in a seat and they eat and then they leave. Yeah. Right? And and then all of a sudden you have you you have people that just like they don't have a deep faith because they've only ever taken in information and you know what they've heard from the pulpit or what they heard from YouTube or what they heard from a sermon somewhere, and exactly that, like they can't show you where it is because they don't know themselves, they've only heard it.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know how many times in 52 years I heard people say this. I just come to this church. I don't I uh you're not my pastor. Wow. And I've sometimes joked with people and said, Am I your pastor or your pesterer? Because in essence, it's my responsibility to make sure that our faith is clean and pure and authentic. And I need to do that by exemplifying it in my own life. So uh the whole concept on not judging. Well, that's not what the scripture says not to that you're not to judge. You're not to dishonorably judge, you're not to unrighteously judge. Yeah, you're to take a look at yourself first, and then when you have cleaned up yourself, then you have the eyes to see to take the the you know the the the the uh timber or the the uh what is it the speck of another black to help people, right?
SPEAKER_05Like if you can't say something to someone, yeah, how are you ever gonna help them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's called righteous discernment, yeah, right? We have to be in that place. Well, a lot of people don't like pastors in their life, they don't want authority in their life. Yeah, because that moves them from information into transformation, and responsibility just through discipleship, yeah, right? Like how are you changing? Yeah. Um are you going to live this or are you going to just think it? And and pastors have a responsibility to look at them and to create that coinea, that fellowship in the spirit where we can have confidence with each other, that our values are growing together, our our thinking is growing together. Yeah. And we're not afraid to be held accountable that if we call ourselves a Christian, that we we live Christian.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We live like Christ. We represent Him. We represence Him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of people just don't want that kind of accountability. They want an independent, custom-made, commercialized, customized kind of form of Christianity that they say work with their life, right? Yeah. And that's sad. It is, yeah. Yeah. Because they don't know authority is not supposed to be abusive.
SPEAKER_05No. And and maybe that's the way that and again, coming back to like church hurt, right? Like people, yeah. People, you know, there's genuine things. This is kind of a little bit of what we talked about on our last podcast was like there's genuine reasons for some people to be upset. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But but what is it that we're upset with? Sometimes it's just a matter it irks us. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The things that my toes. Yeah. The thing that really should should make us upset is when you cross a moral line, when you cross a boundary of authority in your life. There's there's levels of of authority that operate in us in our lives all and God teaches us that right from the very beginning. I I remember that because the battleground for every life is who's going to have authority in your life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it starts young. And you think when when a child is born, and it doesn't take long before the first word that comes out of the mouth is no. It's like one of the first words. Or me or my or why. Who taught you that? Yeah. But but God puts his light of truth in a child in the form of conscience.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the light of conscience is they know when they've done something wrong. Nobody taught told them, but they know it, they catch it. And it's not just the reaction of a parent or a sibling. There's a God designed trigger that He puts in us right from the beginning. That's how important authority is to God.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, and then what if we don't listen to conscience? Then we're supposed to have godly parents that'll train us up in the way in which we should go and will uh disciple us in a moral code. Well, what if parents don't do it? Well, you hope that teachers will do that. That when the kids go off to school, the teachers will share that. Well, we we're really in a desperate vacuum for those that kind of teaching. That's why we believe so strongly in Christian education.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, what if teachers aren't doing it? Well, pastors better do it. Like hopefully they're going to church. If they go to church, then there'll be a biblical plumb line. There'll be a righteous, like reminding people of how to live, right? Well, what if you say, forget that? I'm not interested in it. Well, then you have secular authorities like police. Yeah. And you break the law with a policeman, there are going to be consequences. And the consequence is authority. Authority is there to help you bring you back into line with what is correct behavior. Well, what if you say, I don't even care about the police? Well, you know the street has authority. You can do what you want down there. Hey, there's people on the street that has this is my block.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You don't do anything with it. I I rule down here. Yeah. The police don't rule. I rule this. That's reality. That's reality, right? And what if you don't listen to that? You know, then you probably have jail.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01As as one of the or or or if you don't want to you go to work and you got you're given a boss, and the boss is given you, well, I'm not going to listen to what you have to say. Well, then you lose a job.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, then you're out on the street. Well, on the street, you either do something illegal to get the money or you've got social welfare saying, This is what you have to do if you want this money from us. So there's authority there, right? But like the ultimate thing is is jail. And if you can't come under authority, then authority will control you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And ultimately it's hell.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. Ultimately the end is death, yeah. Yeah, the end is death. Separation.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, this whole principle of authority is much deeper than just a reaction to a a church or a parent or a school or a boss. It has to do with the principle of authority.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And if you reject the principle of authority in your life, you're going to have a really rough life.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05And it comes back to even like the circles we're doing because we come back to that. The first thing that you said was it comes down to the heart. Yeah. Right. Like and you said it too that uh when when babies they they have that conscience that's like the the scripture says that God wrote morality on the hearts of man. Yeah. Right? He he wrote his law. And so we uh we know when we're doing something wrong, right? Yeah. And yeah, it comes back to that heart issue, which is just so it's so interesting because, and again, like it's it's so funny to me because people, you know, you're you're kind of listing off the different authorities, but it's it's most often people have the biggest issue when it's church authority. Like authority can be everywhere else except for the church. Like, don't tell me what to do, don't tell me how to live my life, you know.
SPEAKER_01Well, that comes down to something. Well, I I grew up um in the Jesus movement, and one of the major themes that flowed out of the Jesus movement. That would have been cool, by the way. Yeah, it was cool. It was cool.
SPEAKER_05I mean, just you have like really long hair back then.
SPEAKER_01Well, I did. I had longer hair. I, you know, I was like uh the beach, the beach guy too. I had my sandals and shorts and guitar and big Bible and Jesus shirt on, and yeah, you know, and um but we saw thousands baptized in um Huntington Beach and down in California. And and a lot of those uh that experienced Jesus in that day actually became pastors throughout uh North America. It was uh it was that generation being reached by their own generation, which is my cry for your generation. Yeah, you you've got to find ways to reach your generation like we did at that point in time. And it was new music, and there were street churches, and there were dancing before the Lord. It was just it was loud music, you know. I went to school with some of the second chapter vaccines love song and you know, Marinatha groups, and it was it was Jesus is coming, and so we're gonna radically reach the world, right? Yeah, so but in that in that time frame, um, I got off on a little bit of a uh Oh, that's fine thing there. But oh you were you were talking, you asked one question, and I missed it. I've given you the answer for it, but um What did I say?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Rewind us back, Damon.
SPEAKER_02I think that you were kind of getting after like people are okay with authority in a lot of places, but it seems like church is Damon. That's why he's here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, one of the key, one of the key phrases there was uh the Jesus movement introduced us to Jesus, not just as savior. Yeah. Because up until that period of time, most people understood when you came to church and got saved, that Jesus was your savior, saving you from your sins. Yeah. Okay, got that. That's a great word. But nothing was being said about lordship. Now, lordship was a totally different thing. And Romans 10 talks about this whole issue of lordship, and in the context of the Roman uh society and culture, yeah. In that day, if you were walking down the street and you met somebody and they went, Hail Caesar is Lord, yeah, uh, your response was Hail Caesar is Lord. Uh that was critically important. Well, the Christian community in Rome couldn't do that because Jesus is Lord. Yeah. And so, but if you went, no, hail, Jesus is Caesar, now you're in conflict with culture. Oh, yeah, right. Because Lordship meant master, yeah, commander, right? So when it came to accepting Jesus as my savior, great, look at all he can do for me. Yeah, yeah, right? He can save me from this and deliver me from that and help me with this. Yeah, yeah. So my it even affected my prayer life. My prayer life was based on uh, hey God, I've got a list here, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, the vending machine. Yeah, here's my list. Heaven.
SPEAKER_01And Jesus, Jesus became my servant to fulfill my wishes and my desire. Well, when the Lordship of Jesus was established, it says that at the cross he was called Christ, uh Savior. When he was resurrected from the grave, he was called Lord. Over heaven and hell, over death and life, he was Lord. So he had the right to command in my life, the right to speak into my life and say what needed to be done. And uh there was a time, I mean, with his own disciples, he said, uh, unless you can eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, unless you can walk this walk I'm going to the cross, you can't be a disciple. And they were all ready to leave him. And he was willing to let them go. Yeah. Because literally, if you can't walk this walk where Jesus is Lord of your life, and so Romans 10 says, you know, uh, we if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, you're saved.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So true salvation is rooted not just into Jesus, our Savior, but it's rooted into whether or not we accept his lordship in our life. Our allegiance to him, our loyalty to Christ. So I go, yes, sir. If you said it, I go, yes, sir. And that is missing in this generation because they feel that they have a right to their own opinion. And really the word opinion, the root opinion in scripture is the word heresy. Wow. You you create your own, you go your own way. But the way that of lordship is a very narrow way.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And not everybody follows it.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, that's the cra that's so crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's a broad way that leads to death and destruction, but there's a narrow way that says, hey, um, I gave uh I died.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And now you are in me, and my life is to live the life you lived and to express it like you would you would if you were alive through me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So there's an identity shift, right? Christ in me. Exactly. Yeah. That's what it means as a Christian. Christ in me. Yeah. Right? Living out our faith.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Do you think like I I hear I can I hear like the the pendulum? I don't know if you've ever heard of that that idea of like the the swinging of the pendulum and culture. And you know, obviously during the Jesus movement, it was kind of like He's my Savior, and the God is like God is love. Yeah you know, like viewing everything as, you know, don't judge and God is love and and and that kind of swinging that pendulum back into like, okay, well, we need authority in our life. Yeah. Where do you think we are right now in that? Because it does feel like, you know, we go through the the waves of that and the the kind of the shifting of the cultures. And it feels like I think uh as Nathan Finocchio was saying, uh, he's a guy we listened to a lot of. Yeah, he was saying that the church is kind of slow to get on board with the pendulum of of what needs to be kind of emphasized, like where um obviously like he he had this analogy of like, you know, people didn't have a problem with saying there was evil people in the world when Hitler was around. Like judgment was not an issue, like there was needed there needed to be judgment, and and and and war was judgment, right? And and people were okay with that. They were okay with say, hey, there are evil people in the world and they need to be dealt with.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then you have this, you know, maybe this is kind of where we are right now, where it's like, well, nobody is really that bad, right? No one's really, you know, inherently evil. Like we're all just, you know, just trying to be good. Like I've had I've had conversations with people.
SPEAKER_01Which leads actually to a victim mentality.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because if there is something wrong with my life, it's not me. Yeah. Somebody else did it to me. The trauma was my trauma environment that I grew up in, or the trauma I've experienced. Yeah. So not taking personal accountability or consequence. Well, you do have that pendulum happening in society today as it's gotten more and more lawless, yeah, and you see people being hurt through the process. That's right. Tremendously hurt, and you see culture going back and forth in this. There's a natural correction in culture. But let me put it this way to you. I I don't believe as the church we should be uh connected to the cultural swings. That to me is what I would call a fad or a season or whatever it might be. And I I talk about the truth train flowing on two tracks. I like that, the truth train. And the two train t-shirts. Yeah. The truth train to me is is truth in scripture is not melded together into one.
SPEAKER_05That's right.
SPEAKER_01We don't compromise God is a God of love with God who is a God of justice. Yeah. Like the Bible says, behold the goodness and the severity of God. Okay. So when God is severe, he's 100% severe.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When God is love, he's a hundred percent love. Yeah. We don't mix it into this half and half. Yeah, he's not half and half. Exactly. It travels on two tracks. There's tension between two and two. There's tension, there's a divine tension between the two. Okay. Uh, it's the same with uh the the principle of predestination. Yeah. Uh is it the sovereign will of God or the will of man, the free choice of man? Well, God doesn't violate either one of them. Yeah, God affirms that both are operating at the same time. Yeah. It's sort of like uh when, you know, a number of years ago we sang this song uh we're coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about you. It's all about you, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a truth. That's a truth. But that's only one side of the track. The other side of the track is it's all about me. Now I'm not trying to be you know self-centered in saying that, yeah, but heaven is not about him. He created it for you. Wow. The cross was not about him, he didn't need the cross for himself. Yeah, it's for you. Wow. And and when you be so from my perspective, as I look at my Christian walk, it's all about Jesus. Yeah. Look at what Jesus has done in my life and for me and through me and gonna do to you know to me. But from God's perspective, it's all about you. Wow, you are the apple of his eye, you're the center of his thinking. Yeah, well, he's the center of mine. So is it is it either or is it a both and?
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_01And so a lot of religion stresses one or the other. Seriously.
SPEAKER_05But that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, but religion stresses one or the other, and when you do that, you get out of whack, yeah. Like predestination. Yeah. Okay, you're predestined to either heaven or hell. Yeah, we're not responsible for anything now. We just Well, that doesn't make sense to me with the character of the God I know. Yeah, God doesn't do that, He doesn't do that. Um, but when you do that, it affects evangelism. Well, why should I go out and try to reach the world when I don't even know if they're gonna be saved or destined to hell anyway? Yeah. And if I do nothing or I do something, they're all gonna go where the God wants them to go anyway. I have no part to play. Yeah. And then you have this free will thing that's on the other side of the equation that can be extreme.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's all about me and my will and God. No, listen, God can sovereignly intervene. And he's done that throughout history. He's intervened, whether you like it or not. So, so, but it's not a both, it's not an either-or, it's a both end.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, Christianity, in the midst of these cultural paradigm or pendulum swings that are going on, if we swing with the culture, we we lose the the fulcrum of what uh that that stabilizes us, that anchor that stabilizes us in the middle. And so we're not moving that way, and we're not going that way. We're gonna keep on preaching and teaching the stuff that that's gonna stabilize, yeah. Stabilize life. If you can get people into that, it's not a middle and it's not a compromise.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01It's a divine tension of life, and this is where life happens in this environment. Yeah, it's neither male nor female, it's both end.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01How do you how do you live that outright?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's a that's an amazing point. That's really what this podcast is about, is talking about that tension, yeah, right? Yeah, and that in between space.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and for some people in deconstruction, is that they just don't see that God fits into that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, but in reality, when you start studying the scriptures, you find out that God fits into everything. As a matter of fact, Everything fits into him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? For we know that all things work and synergize together for the good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So it's not about us anyway. Yeah. And yet it is. Yeah. Right? Yeah, there's that both and our purpose is hidden. Our life is hidden with Christ and God. So it's it's like, how do we now fit into what the Lord is doing?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think when we live like that and ask the Lord to help us understand, um, if we actually really search for Him with all of our heart, we'll find Him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. If you want to know, you really want to know. You will find. You'll find Him. Right? So, and for He's not hard to be found. And yet God scratches His head in the scripture. You see this where He said, Uh I'm here, but you've created gods in your backyard.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01Ears uh made of ears that cannot hear, eyes that cannot see, hands that cannot touch, and yet my heart my arms are extended to you all day long, and yet you will not come. Wow. So I think even God's heart sometimes wonders at the mentality of humanity that wants to create their own religion and their own way because they will not yield to God's way. So yeah, but we're we're facing some stuff in the church today. Yeah. And I my prayers for you young leaders because um the tension and the pressure to shift and change and you can adapt methodologically. Your method of reaching the world is change the method, but don't change the message. Don't change the message. Yeah. Even how the message is drafted can be shifted. Yeah. But you don't change the DNA of the uh of of what God intended.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's so good, Pastor Dave. Thank you. Oh man. I we could just sit here and talk for like till tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01I'm enjoying this.
SPEAKER_02Maybe um because we've talked a lot about like deconstruction and about the need for authority, um, the need to come under lordship. Maybe it could be good kind of to wrap up on um how like what role can or should or does ideally the church play in preventing those destructive tendencies of humanity to kind of tear apart, to deconstruct, to go their own way, to subject kind of the scriptures to their own desires and devices? What role should ideally the church or does the church play in that dynamic that makes it important for the believer? That's a good question.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've always felt that the the pastors who are on the team ought to be a team. They need to be in one heart, one mind, one one accord, one doctrine, one faith, one God, one baptism, one spirit. Yeah. I mean, the whole the principle of that is all the way through scripture. So it's really important that the team develop their own vocabulary and that they're in agreement with how they approach the gospel. Um now I know that there's gonna be nuances and difference of emphases and priorities. Uh I get that. That we're different personalities. Yeah, exactly. Different ways it's gonna come out, right? Yeah. Okay, so that's important. But to me, really importantly uh in the life of leading a spiritual family is that there's unity in the leadership, is in how we deal with life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And if you know that this person is no longer getting along with that person, you just let it happen, and they're sitting on that side of the church, and the other's sitting on that side of the church, and they never talk to each other, and we allow it. Yeah, well, if we all what we allow will ultimately control us. Well, it'll start happening, it it'll create a c its own culture.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if you just let it let it be and don't deal with it.
SPEAKER_01So, what does a true pastor do? He goes, Hey, I love you, and I love you. You know, with me at times in my past, I just brought two couples together, brought them into my office, put out the chairs, and then left the room and locked the door. Just facilitate the atmosphere. Guys, you need to make things right. Yeah, you need to make things right. Here's some communion here. You need to make things right. You need to clean it up. You need to get on your knees and start praying for each other because you can't pray for each other without starting to fall in love with each other and understanding each other's gut, their idiosyncrasies, but make things right because if I allow this to fester, it'll affect this person and that person and that family and everything. And now then we don't have the kingdom of heaven, we got the kingdom of hell.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, pastors say, Well, man, if I do that, they're somebody's gonna leave the church. They're gonna well, our goal. Maybe it's a good thing, but our goal is not numbers.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, our goal is conformity, yeah. Our goal is maturity. We want to see people grow up in God. Yeah, not wide. Yeah. So um it's been hard uh for me over, you know, 50, like I said, 52 years of ministering. Which is incredible, by the way. It it it was hard to watch watch people walk away. Or because I confronted it, thought I was an authoritarian. And I went, okay, but I'm really trying to do my best to train you in righteousness, um, and to preach the whole gospel to you and not be not be uh prejudicial. Um I would ask someone to do that to me to get me into line with God so that I can be the best Christian I can be. So people have walked uh with that kind of confrontational Christianity, but um we don't see that so much anymore because we the the word tolerance is has become the code word of our generation. Yeah you had to tolerate, tolerate, accept, yeah, kindness is the highest standard of morality and yeah, but uh toleration um oftentimes leads to uh tyranny. And you have uh the uh in our culture today, the form of tolerance that's preached or taught not just in the church but in the political and the educational and the legal element is actually a form of power to silence. And it actually is a form of intolerance. And so you see you see free speech becoming less and less capable of happening, uh free dialogue between people, uh code words for how you're able to talk and or not talk, even to the point of being um maybe legally uh prosecuted prosecuted for uh a speech that does not fit that. So it's really not a culture of tolerance, it's a culture of intolerance that is being created. And um we we we have got to be able to have a culture that says like right is right, wrong is wrong, yeah, and we're living in a culture that basically says right is wrong and wrong is right. Everything in between is gray, and everything is mixed up. It's like one kid said to me, It says, like everybody went into the store and changed, put put different, you know, price tags on everything, and the things that are really valuable, they put nothing on them. And yeah, you know, we've got a culture that is struggling.
SPEAKER_04It's literally doing that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, to try to find out what's valuable, what's not valuable anymore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I think we're we're in some serious states about um as we look at at how how church is being generated today. And hopefully that we'll see uh not not a pendulum swing, but yeah, as much as people just coming back to biblical Christianity.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, a shift, and I think we see a little bit of that shift in people too, because you you deal with lies and in in kind of like the fluffs for so long that you just want something real. Yeah, you want something that you could stand on. Yeah. Um, and I think I do I truly do believe that people are coming back to that place because they see everything around them as just like crumbling. Yeah. And it's like we don't have gravity on the earth. Well that's flowing.
SPEAKER_01Why it's so important for leaders to be good leaders though, and and not be abusive, not be injurious and hurtful, yeah. Um, to know how to do it in a the appropriate, godly way. Yeah. Um, but like Hebrews says, obey your spiritual leaders, those over you in the Lord. Obey them. It doesn't say listen to them. Yeah, says obey them. Yeah. Based on what? Because you've looked at their lives, yeah, and they're living what they're telling you to do. They're not asking you to do something that they're not. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So how do you obey a leader uh when you don't know them? It's very difficult. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh, but when you know them and they're like like a spiritual father, like a spiritual mother, like a like an older brother, older sister in the Lord, and and they're walking it, it's very much you know, easier. It's evident as well. Yeah. To just to say, okay.
SPEAKER_05And you have to be willing to stick around. Yeah. Right? Like, because how do you know someone else they spend yeah time with people?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Right?
SPEAKER_01So this has been uh I really appreciate the opportunity to kind of vent with you. Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_05I love it so much. I can't wait for the next episode. Um, well, thank you so much, uh, Pastor Dave. Um, we're gonna wrap this up today, and we're just about out of time. Not that we really have a time limit because this is a podcast, we could do what we want, but uh thank you thank you for being here genuinely this week. Thank you, Malachi. It's been incredible.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jamin.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we we really appreciate it, and we can't wait to tap into the well again because there's so much in you. And like I said, we're just really um excited to you know keep doing this as uh we just keep going forward. So uh like and share this podcast. Yeah, it's not just a video, but podcast wherever you're listening, Apple, Spotify, uh, YouTube. If you enjoyed this topic, if this encouraged you today, because that is really what we want. We want to equip, we want a resource, and we want to encourage. Uh, subscribe to the channel, and we'll see you next time on the mezzanine floor.
