reChurch Podcast
Welcome to the reChurch Podcast, hosted by Justin and Brooke Knoop.
As we speak, there is a massive number of people leaving the institutional Church...but interestingly, they aren’t walking away from Jesus. Many of us have noticed a significant gap between what we see in the Bible and what we experience on Sunday mornings. Let’s talk about it.
reChurch Podcast
The Church Needs To Go Out Of Business | #reChurch Ep. 05
In this episode, we tackle the bold idea that the modern church has become too much like a business and lost sight of its true mission. We explore how focusing on growth, buildings, and programs has overshadowed discipleship and genuine community. It’s time for a hard reset—discover what it means to strip away the distractions and get back to the heart of the church as Jesus intended.
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When I see pastors, they're exhausted and there's no joy. If you're doing something that is stealing your joy, stop and do something different, because God is not in it. Some of you are sitting there and you're like, oh, I'm so joyful. It's artificial y'all, it's artificial joy. Take the paycheck away, and would you still be happy?
Speaker 2:So not only is it not bearing fruit, I think a lot of times there's the illusion of fruit. We can take a church and we can blow it up on social media or wherever and make it look like something cool is happening. There's all these events and baptisms and all of this stuff and it looks like man, it's really popping off there. But then when you actually get to talking to the actual people, it's either very little or it's not really fruit that remained.
Speaker 1:Get home, get in the Word, find other people around you that are like-minded, who are also having this same wrestle, that really just want to see God glorified, and begin to just meet with them in their houses. And if there's no one around you, you sit with your family. You disciple your family, make them true disciples of Jesus, and God will begin to attract people to you because they see something different about you.
Speaker 2:I keep asking myself I'm like you keep saying that but like, do you really know what you're saying and do you really agree with it? Barely anybody that I understand here or see is speaking out about this. We say a lot of things but we're not actually willing to change anything. With that type of change comes a massive, massive risk and a massive, massive sacrifice. Welcome to the ReChurch Podcast officially. In episode number five, I'm your host, justin Noop. I'm here with my lovely wife, brooke Noop. If you are tired of business as usual Christianity and you're ready to live like Jesus lived in the scriptures, then you found yourself in the right place. Brooke, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm doing fabulous.
Speaker 2:You ready for this one?
Speaker 1:I'm ready for this one. A little nervous, but ready.
Speaker 2:We had a brief discussion talking about what we're gonna get into in this episode.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna make a statement real quick and it's a pretty bold statement, but I believe that it is time for the church to go out of business. Let that sink in. What does that mean? Think about that. And the reason is is I believe that that's what it's what we're experiencing currently. The business model of church is not what Jesus intended. I think Jesus intended the church to live as a family, something that is alive, something that is organic, not something that is structured like a business in a hierarchy, hierarchical fashion, is something that is. Is is very cold. That is product like.
Speaker 2:It's not this mass production machine it's supposed to be something that's living, um, and so we were actually preparing for this episode, and we we don't do a lot of preparation in the sense of of learning a lot of stuff for the episode, because we really want to make sure that what we're speaking out of is is experience, is something that we've actually lived and walked out, and so we're not going to get really super broad on topics, because if it's something that I don't feel like I have an uh, an expertise, if you will on, or I haven't experienced it and seen it work fruitfully, that I don't want to discuss it.
Speaker 2:You know, I have opinions on those things, you have opinions on those things, but for this particular podcast, I felt like we needed to come out even though it's episode five, we're getting into it and just really refresh and let people know if they're in the right place, Like I don't want you to listen to this podcast and be wondering if this is for you or not. 15 episodes in. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:And so that's what this episode is really going to be about. We're going to get down to the nitty gritty of what we feel like God has told us to do and what we feel like the message that God has brought to us Burdened us with, yeah, and so I don't know if this will make sense, but do you remember what we were going to? Can you let people know? Give me the backdrop and the scenario of what we were going through when we realized that the institutional way, the business model of church just wasn't cutting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I feel like it was over a course of time. Sure, there's a few instances that stick out to me during that period of time time. There's a few instances that stick out to me during that period of time. Two in particularly, that I keep kind of rolls in my head is I remember one day we were on our way to church, like the building, the institution, to the institutional building of church, the organization we call church, I guess you would say, and you and I were exhausted, and it was a Sunday, and I'm looking at you like I am so tired, you're like me too Like why do we feel burdened?
Speaker 1:We felt condemned a little bit, that we felt burdened to like go to the church building, um, the institution, and we were trying to, we were processing it with each other, but I think both of you had, both of us had been feeling this way for a while, but we felt bad to even bring it up to each other, cause we're like I don't want to tell my husband like I'm exhausted from the uh, what are the, the checklist of doing church, right? And so we kind of like, we're like, hey, like, are you feeling what I'm feeling? Like why do I not want to go right now, like why do I feel so burdened? Um, and and you and I both begin to talk like kind of wrestle through it, and you're like I'm feeling the same way, like what are we? What are we doing, you know?
Speaker 1:But the reason why we started feeling so burdened, I believe, is because we were actually doing true discipleship in church, monday through Saturday, every evening, in someone's home, in the word, around a table with a meal, with like-minded people who also were either hungry, on fire or extremely interested to know how to be a true disciple of Jesus. But they just didn't have the right tools. So we were like getting into the word, we were seeing the word come to life, we were seeing miracles happen, we were seeing people be baptized in their homes, and like we were doing what the Bible had commanded us to do, monday through Saturday, in people's homes. And then we were going to church and we were, you know, either helping out in the children's service, which is great and all, and we were, you know, doing all these things, but there wasn't any life giving sustaining fruit.
Speaker 1:It became a job you know, and so I think we realized like we were starting to ask ourselves, like why do we feel like this, like why are we exhausted by this system? So that's one thing that sticks out to me.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good point because it's our heart. We had talked about this actually before we started. Recording is, and you may not feel this way, I don't know, but like I enjoy walking people through the process of helping them get language for what they're feeling and working through that and letting them not condemning themselves and letting them know it's okay to feel this way.
Speaker 2:What I would call it is the way that it started out for us. Was we started to experience symptoms? Yes, that's okay, right. And so it's funny that you said it started to feel like a job, because the only thing that I could relate that feeling that we had to, that we started getting and you may not get this feeling. That's great. Continue to do what you do.
Speaker 2:But if you're the type of person that that you love Jesus, you love hanging out with other people and talking about Jesus and exercising the gifts of the spirit and minute, you love all those things. But Saturday night or Sunday morning, you start to get this pit in your stomach and you're like, like it feels like something extra to do to go to a Sunday service or whatever. You're starting to experience the symptoms of realizing, of having that revelation of maybe something's off, right. And so when you said before it started to feel like a job, it made me think of. The only thing I could compare that to was what I used to feel when I worked a nine to five job, what I felt on Sunday. That pit in your stomach.
Speaker 1:Or your vacation's about to end and you don't want to go home. Yes, yes, and.
Speaker 2:But I read what I read in Christianity. I'm like I don't remember any of the disciples feeling that way. Now, that's not to say that it's a Christianity is a cakewalk and it should be super easy and super smooth and nothing should ever be difficult. But I shouldn't get that feeling, that pit in my stomach, like I have to do this.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like when you get that pit in your stomach, it's the Holy Spirit trying to show you flesh from spirit he's trying to show because, again, walking with Jesus is difficult. You're going to go through hard things, things that make you uncomfortable. You should be uncomfortable walking with Jesus. If you're not uncomfortable, get uncomfortable my motto in life. But if it's something that is like you've been doing, let's say, if you've been doing something for 10 years weight loss, let's just use that as an example let's say you've been at a calorie deficit for you know, five years You've been working out. You've been. Or 10 years You've been working out, You've been doing all the things but you never lost a pound. There was no fruit of your labor. What would you do? You'd be like, hmm, something's wrong, I need to do something different.
Speaker 1:But we go to the institution every single week, sometimes twice a week, some people six days a week, and they go and they do the same thing over and over and over again and maybe they've only seen three lives changed in five years. But I'm telling you that's what I saw when I was in the institution, and then I got out of the institution and actually just obeyed the word of God and lived by the spirit and did church the way Jesus showed me and demonstrated me and instructed me to do church, and I started seeing people baptized weekly and when I say people, I mean more than one person weekly be baptized and encounter Jesus and give their life to the Lord and actually become fruitful disciples. So where are you going to pour your time and energy energy into not into the business of church, but into God's church.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The kingdom of God.
Speaker 2:And I want to mention too, because I think you're right, but I think also, it's even hard for us to talk and use the language of words like church and stuff, because of what it's become. Yes, and so I was listening to or actually reading through a book that I've read before on an author named Richard Jacobson, and I actually just reached out to him, actually before this.
Speaker 2:We had a conversation, a really good conversation. Who wrote a book called Unchurching? We talked about this before in previous episodes. The term was coined way back when the unschooling movement started to get into homeschooling. Basically, this particular man wanted to get education out of the institution and back into the living room.
Speaker 2:So, you're not removing education but he wanted to get it into the living room, where he thought it would belong, where you could actually learn how to do things through activities, things like that. And so he called his book Unchurching, because he that he believes, and I believe as well, that we need to do the same thing with church. But what he talks about, uh, in his book is this idea of cognitive dissonance, and what cognitive dissonance is is it's like this confusion that takes place when we have two conflicting beliefs at the same time, and here's what I mean by that and where I think the church has these conflicting beliefs. If you ask 99% of Christians what is the church, they're going to say what. They're going to give you the right answer.
Speaker 2:They're going to say it's the people, it's not the building, and then they'll turn around and they'll ask you questions like what time is church? Where do you go to church? Right, and even my favorite example look at that big, beautiful wooden church, right. And so here's where the dissonance comes in. If we took the definition that you just relayed to me and told me that you had, church is what it's people, it's a family. So now use that term in that sentence what time is family? What family do you go to? And look at that beautiful wooden family right.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden it stops making sense, and so when you start to have these conversations with people, it's very difficult to make it anywhere, because we say we believe one thing and then we act a complete different way.
Speaker 1:Well, I can almost hear the thoughts of like people saying like well, this is just semantics, you're, it's a play on words you know, and it's really not.
Speaker 1:A church is not a place. It's a breathing, living organism of human beings, just like the DNA of a family, like you used it. So it's not a play on words, it's not semantics. It sounds like semantics because we have bad thought processes about what church is and so I think that's where people get confused Like it's just semantics, it's not that important. I'm like, oh, it is so important because the reason why what we're discussing is so important is because the business of church is empowering toxic men and women and people to have positions and jobs that were not given to them by God at all leaders and all these things that are actually corrupt. And I think that's why we have such a heart to bring down the institution of church, the business of church, because those who actually pure, true apostolic leaders in the church or I don't even want to use the leaders, apostolic people in the body of Christ they can't actually function like they're supposed to, because we put this emphasis on a position to be filled and then you get a guy who has a good resume on paper but he's actually has no character and he doesn't even really know Jesus, if you really were to press him and his life has zero fruit. But we put these people in leadership and now the church is actually really dirty because we have wolves leading sheep and they're just eating them alive, you know. So I think that's one reason we have such a heart for this topic. But I do want to go back to the second instance that we realized, like, what are we doing with our Sundays, you know, in our lives, in the, in the building?
Speaker 1:And I remember one night Justin and I were helping a girl. She came for help. She was diagnosed with really bad sicknesses that were affecting her entire life, and her whole life was in shambles. And she came to us. She's like, hey, I need help, what do I do? And we shared the gospel with her. She ended up getting baptized and we ended up spending what five, six hours praying for her, and we didn't at the time know much about the spiritual world or the spiritual realm, and we just were going to pray, blessing over this girl, and this girl starts manifesting a demonic spirit, remember, and we're like, oh my goodness. So we ended up praying for her. It takes us five or six hours to get this girl free. She ends up getting healed from this disease that she had and walking in fullness in that. And I remember we had to go to church the next morning because it was a Saturday night but we had been up until two o'clock in the morning with no, we had no voice at this point because we had prayed so long.
Speaker 1:And I remember getting out of the car and at the time one of the most spiritual people I knew that I looked up to as like a spiritual mentor in my life was like hey, girl. And I was like hey, and she's like oh, are you sick? And I'm like no, I'm like let me tell you what happened last night. And I started telling her this story how this girl came to us desperate for help and we just went to pray for her and bless her. And the next thing I know she's a demon's talking out of her mouth and I'm like what do we do with this? What she ends up getting delivered.
Speaker 1:And this woman looked at me and she was like and I could tell she did not understand what I was trying to say or what I was talking about. And I'm like, all the sudden, a ministry that Jesus has asked us to do is weird. Like it's a command in the scriptures, like why is this weird, you know? And it just kind of made me. I saw life giving in this woman.
Speaker 1:And then I get to church and I tell somebody who says they're of the same spirit and they're of the Holy Spirit and they want to obey the Bible. But when we actually obeyed it in that situation, we weren't looking for it, it just kind of landed in our laps and now she's like judging me and I was like huh, maybe we're not like doing the same thing, Maybe we're both not following Jesus the same way, you know. And so it just showed me like maybe the building's not for me, Maybe it's not really where it's all at is in that building. I'm tired of singing four songs, I'm tired of listening to a 30 minute message, I'm tired of going to eat chicken afterwards because that and taking a nap, you know, after Sunday service. Like where's the fruit in that? Where do you see that in scripture?
Speaker 2:So that was a big one for us. It was, and I think what was happening is we started to experience the authentic Christian life, and when I say that, I'm describing exactly what you were saying, and that is, we started to see fruit. We started to see real fruit. We started to see our lives begin to look like the Bible, to look like what we saw in the book of Acts taking place, the Bible to look like what we saw in the book of Acts taking place.
Speaker 2:And when you see that fruit, you start to wonder oh you know, maybe this is what the Christian life is supposed to look like and the first thing I noticed was I started to feel excited about that.
Speaker 2:Joy came in, I started to experience life from that, but then we continued to do the other things because we thought well, that was what was required, and so now we're doing both things and one of them is extremely burdensome, and one of them is life giving, and it had to take us to the point to where we recognize those symptoms and we were like we've got to deal with these symptoms because I can't, I can't just keep doing this. This is wearing me out, but this other thing that I'm doing is actually four or five days a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the craziest thing was the life-giving thing, which was meeting with people in their homes for hours at a time, monday through Saturday was giving more life than the three hours I spent Sunday morning in a building. It was like a manufactured church, you know what I'm saying. Like what gave life was when it was actually real and organic it wasn't. I kind of think of like school lunch, like hot lunch, like you know, everything at the public school came from a factory somewhere. It did not come from like the grass fed chicken outside or the grass fed eggs or whatever. And I'm like sitting there and I'm thinking like that's what it felt like, like it gave me. It gave me like um, uh, you know, when you eat a really healthy meal, you feel like, oh, that feels so good.
Speaker 1:I don't feel gross and disgusting but then you eat something that's made from GMOs and stuff and you're like, Whoa, why do I feel like garbage?
Speaker 1:And you're sluggish, you know and that's kind of what I felt like I would leave the institution, like why do I feel so exhausted? But I would leave these organic and organic settings that the spirit ordained and like put you in these places where people are actually hungry, and you leave like life giving, like you don't even want to go to sleep and it's midnight, because you're like stirred up in the spirit, Because you're like stirred up in the spirit.
Speaker 1:You just want to stay up and pray all night and read your Bible, because how stirred up you just got with the people you were with who are actually running after Jesus you know, and not just there to be spoon fed.
Speaker 2:So yeah it reminds me of you know. Going back to the example of, say, weight loss or whatever, Say, you were that person that experienced that for 10 years and then you tried something different and it immediately worked Right. What would you do?
Speaker 1:You would stop doing the other thing.
Speaker 2:Well, you would stop doing the other things, but what would you do to the people around you that? You do struggle with the same thing right, you would tell everyone, and so that's what we're doing here. Yeah, that's all is we're saying. Hey, this was our experience and we know that this is not.
Speaker 1:We're not the only ones, no, and again church, or I don't even like to call it house church, organic church. It's not even we've been doing this for a year or two years or three years. We've been doing this almost nine years, justin, and we still are just as passionate about it. It's still life-giving and we're still just as excited and seeing fruit. Since the first year, we did it Like I couldn't say that, at the institutional church. At the institutional church, you know what I was looking for? The next promotion to keep me excited. That's what I was looking for. We were in it, we were doing youth, we were doing worship, we were doing all the things and we were looking for the next promotion. Okay, we're assistant youth pastor. Now I want to be the youth pastor and then we're going to work our way to associate and it was just this ongoing. Justin's going to school to become a pastor and we're like what are we doing with our lives? Nobody knows Jesus more because of what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that way it was almost like climbing the ladder of spirituality and that's that's all you knew to do. That's right, because even if you were one of the people that were were not satisfied with just sitting there staring at the back of someone's head for an hour singing a few songs and leaving. If you were not satisfied with that, then you had to do something about it, and that was oh you, just you need to get plugged in, right? That's church language for start to serve and do more. That's why you're unfulfilled. So you would do that, and then you would eventually work your way into some sort of position, maybe with the church, or maybe even a paid position or something like that, and then you had to continue to kind of work, work your way up the spiritual ladder.
Speaker 1:It kind of work. Work your way up the spiritual ladder. It's like you know, okay, you get in there and you're like, like you said, I'm going to volunteer and then hopefully they'll see my good works, and then they're going to ask me to do this and this and then it's just performance. There's no, there is no spirit in that. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I agree with you and I think you know we want to be even bolder about our stance on this, because I think it's going to set a lot of people free. Our stance is bold enough to say like we believe the entire institution and organization should go out of business, yeah. The church should go completely out of business. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The institution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying, like church as in the building, and even the churches and the people should go out of business. That's right.
Speaker 2:Meaning. Jesus does not teach a business model in the Bible, in scripture. There are things that work in business institutions that are great, that work for those types of things, but this is not the way. It's like trying to. It's like for any CEO, because we do this all the time and we try to use that language. I hear what you're saying, though, but like it's the same with family. It's like for any CEO, because we do this all the time and we try to use that language.
Speaker 1:I hear what you're saying, though, but it's the same with family. Again, you don't come into your home and the husband brings out a systematic plan of how you're going to have dinner tonight and how you're going to do X, Y and Z. You can have a calendar. You can have some ideas.
Speaker 2:There's structure. You can have structure.
Speaker 1:There is order. We're not talking about getting rid of proper, healthy structure, of how the church should function. What we're saying is taking out the unholy business model that's been established and now we're running the church like you would run Wall Street.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nothing, and that's the thing. That's. The challenge is, you can bend and twist the scripture all you want, it's not in there. It is not in there. So not only is it not not bearing fruit, or at least real fruit, right, I think a lot of times there's the illusion of fruit, right, because we puff it up to make it look like lots of stuff is happening. Right, we can take a church, congregation, building organization and we can blow it up on social media or wherever and make it look like something cool has happened. And there's all these events and baptisms and retreats and all of this stuff and it looks like man, it's really popping off there. But then when you actually get to talking to the actual people and you try and see what actual fruit is there, it's either very little or it's not really fruit. That remains right.
Speaker 1:Well, this image just popped in my head. Last weekend we took our kids to a fall festival in Texas. Here, and just to give you some context, it hasn't rained in Texas, but how many times since we've lived here.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness three.
Speaker 1:Maybe three, to the point where it rained the other day for five minutes, like real hard, for literally just five minutes, and I called my friend and I'm like girl, look outside, it's raining. She's like I thought you were calling me, like to say it's snowing, like you know, but it rains so little here. So we ended up going to a fall festival last weekend. It's 94 degrees in October and it hasn't rained in months. Right, when we got to that fall festival. On Facebook, when I saw the advertisement for this festival, it looked so amazing and so fun. But, justin, when we got there, how dry was it?
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, it was so dry, like you would walk and it was just dust clouds everywhere, like my kids who had black shoes on. Their shoes were completely white and their legs were white from all the dust. By the end of the time we were there and it's like I think that's what happens in the institution. They put this stuff on social media, they talk it up, they do all these things and then you get there and you find out it's dry.
Speaker 1:There's no spirit in it. Yep, like you can only entertain people so long with bouncy houses and events. Yeah, there's eventually going to be a time where they're like the fluff and the smoke has got to die down and I just really need to get to business and about my father's business.
Speaker 2:So and again, I think people are recognizing it because I see language, I see even people that are in pastoral positions and uh, things like that, making comments on Facebook saying you know that there's a change coming, and all this stuff. But I keep asking myself I'm like you keep saying that, but like do you really know what you're saying and do you really agree with it? Because nobody is, or barely anybody that I understand here or see is speaking out about this we say a lot of things but we're not actually willing to change anything.
Speaker 2:And we talked about this before, because with that type of change comes a massive, massive risk and a massive, massive sacrifice. But are you willing? And that's why I believe they don't truly believe what they're saying, because they're not willing to make the sacrifice in order to see the change. So it's either you don't actually believe what it's, either either you don't actually believe what you're saying, or or, uh, you don't actually know the real fruit that would come from you making that change so good.
Speaker 1:I even dare to say just an experience and I think as a prophetic word when I look at the church building, the institution of church, and I look at the people running that thing, the pastors, the associate pastors, all the people that it takes to run this machine that Jesus never asked us to do.
Speaker 2:You mean there's no senior pastor in the Bible?
Speaker 1:Or worship leader, associate pastor or creative pastor or creative? Where is that? Yeah, missions pastor, we build a whole institution on something that's not even in scripture and pastors only mentioned once, and the entire system is built around that one person. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why is that? It's in there one time, but there's a lot of other things that's mentioned multiple times and ain't nobody doing that. Come on, let's talk about that for a second. But I go back and I like, I see these people, I see these pastors and I'm telling you, when I see pastors, they're exhausted, they are worn out, they're exhausted and there's no joy. If you're doing something that is stealing your joy, stop and do something different, because God is not in it. And I'm telling you, some of you are sitting there and you're like oh, I'm so joyful, I'm so excited, I'm so happy. It's artificial y'all, it's artificial joy. Take the paycheck away, and would you still be happy doing what you're doing for the next 25 years?
Speaker 2:Right now it's become a career and you know it's. It's like I I can hear people say because I and I understand it. You know, I hear people's response to this going cause I cause I get the responses on Facebook and stuff whenever I pose a question or something like that, just to see where people are at and they're like not my church, not my pastor, and I'm like maybe you know, maybe, maybe you know I'll give you some credit.
Speaker 2:Maybe you've got one of the outliers. That is just. It's just an amazing community and stuff like that. But not at large. Not at large, and the question I would like to propose is do you think those people are like that because of the institution or in spite of it.
Speaker 1:That's a thought.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of those people are going to be hungry. They're going to be those things, no matter where you put them, because they're just hungry, passionate people. We talked about this before. There's people that we've seen serving the institution for 10, 15 years and you're like you go back and they're still doing the same thing, but like with love, and they're amazing people.
Speaker 2:This is not us. We didn't say anything about people. We're talking about the system that puts people in bondage, right, and is restricting fruit. That's all we're talking about. We're talking about remove the business, put it out of business, love the people, encourage the people, train the people, equip the people, like the people, have it in them. There's so many people that if you took them out of this this uh, uh, when you would call it hamster wheel that they're in serving the institution, because that's what they're doing. They're serving the institution. Usually, most of the serving that they're doing is helping the machine run. If you took them out and actually had them doing what Jesus called us to do discipleship, you know, prayer, intercession, preaching the gospel, fasting.
Speaker 1:Do you know how much?
Speaker 2:faster? Yeah, it would not even about speed, but do you know how much multiplication would take place and how much kingdom?
Speaker 1:And how much purpose people would have yeah, actually, knowing they're doing exactly what Jesus did and he commanded of them to do.
Speaker 2:Because I'm like, if they can do it with like I watch what they do and I'm like I would be miserable. And if they could do it in spite of that, imagine what they could do if they were being fully used by God and seeing like miracles take place because of their efforts.
Speaker 2:Not, you know what I'm saying, not just like I'm not trying to put this down, but I know there's the gift of serving. But you know, I just made the most amazing burgers and fries or spaghetti at the church Wednesday meal. I think those people have a genuine heart to serve, but I think they're severely limited by the institution that they've been placed in.
Speaker 1:Well, they've been told. Like you have the gift of service, so now you have to stack chairs or mop the building, when truly what the gift of service is in the body of Christ does not have to do with about holding a door, stacking a chair. It's about the gift of service is bring somebody into your home who has no food and cook for them, or who has no home, and give them a place to stay for a minute. Who has no one to talk, to sit down and listen to them.
Speaker 1:The greatest of servants are some of the best listeners and you're actually probably a shepherd at heart because you not only want to serve physically but you'll listen to what they have to say. And then you hear where they're at and you get to speak into that and all of a sudden not only are you serving them physically but you're also serving them spiritually. You know that's what it means to serve the body of Christ or to serve the lost Like okay servants. Service could also look like in your community, I think of ours specifically is when somebody's in need, we meet that need. If there's a mama who needs help, we meet that need, but we're not so burdened and exhausted by what we've done all week at the building that we can actually have the time and energy to go actually serve the people.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And I think it takes me back to this is another moment that came back to me. I was sitting, we had already left the institutional church, but we hadn't told anybody yet, right? And so we were going like once a month because we didn't want it to be too obvious that we were stepping out of the institution. And I remember one Sunday morning the Lord woke me up at like 5 am and he's like you're going to church and you're going to give this person X amount of dollars, and it was a large amount of money. And I was like, and I'm like okay, so we're doing it though, cause I'll obey whatever Jesus has I got. I have faith for that. So I wake up, justin, I'm like hey, you don't even have to come because I got to give such and such money for X, y and Z. And Justin's like well, if you're going, I'm going, so let's do it together.
Speaker 1:So we get there, and at this particular church they had offering boxes that would sit up at the front and it was like a box and you would have to walk up to give your offering. It wasn't like a plate passed around, right. So you had to walk up and he calls the offering and everybody starts walking up to give the money into the box. And so I get up and I walk up, but I don't go to the box. I go to the woman. I have the money rolled up in my hand and I said the only reason I am here today is to give you this, because God woke me up this morning and said give this amount to her. And like, this is why you're here today. And so I give it to the woman and she sits down and she's wrecked and I see her counting it and I'm like, oh Jesus, like I don't want her to say anything, anything like that.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting there and that Sunday at that church they had testimonial Sunday and so they're like OK, open mic, you can come share a testimony. What's happening this week or this month or whatever. And she was the first person to go to the mic. And she was the first person to go to the mic. She's like I was sitting here about to be evicted from my apartment because I cannot make ends meet, and somebody literally just walked up to me and gave me the exact amount of money that I needed to pay my rent.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting here thinking that is the body of Christ at work, when everyone just went up to that box and put money into that box so that the pastor can get a paycheck and a salary. He already has a really cool car, he already has the fanciest of equipment when he's preaching, with his iPad and his headset, you know, and all these things, and his wife has nice stuff. You actually have somebody in the body, in your body, that is about to be evicted, and everyone in that body knew her financial situation and nobody was doing anything about it. So he had to get somebody who had stepped out of the. Everyone in that body knew her financial situation and nobody was doing anything about it Right.
Speaker 1:So he had to get somebody who had stepped out of the institution to go back into it to obey the true commands of Jesus and the word, to serve one another and to give to the body of Christ when there's actually a need and there's a lack. And that just wrecked me and we never went back after that. We never went back to the institution after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, went back after that. We never went back to the institution after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it reminded me of when we discovered that, like tithing is not a new Testament principle, like it's an old Testament principle and it's uh, there's multiple tithes. And we started, I started to study that out and understand, like it, what, what that was about. It was like a temple tax and they would actually not give financials but they actually gave spices and things like that and understood that we are not under the old covenant, you know, we're under the new covenant, we're not. We're not required over into modern Christianity to be used to. I'm not saying everybody does this, but generally to guilt people into making sure that the establishment has enough money to run the machine, the lights and the paychecks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now you are commanded to be a gracious giver and not let your left hand.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying Most people hear that and they're like, oh, you just want to teach people to be stingy and stuff like that, I'm like absolutely. I they're like oh, you just want to teach people to be stingy, and stuff like that. I'm like, absolutely, I give more now than I ever did. You give way more than 10%. First of all, the tithe was not tithe means 10th, but the tithes multiple tithes was not 10%, it was like 22, 23% or something like that when you look at all that they were called to give.
Speaker 1:Old.
Speaker 2:Testament. You know Israel was, but we're not required to be generous.
Speaker 2:So what happens when we teach, like something like that in the institution. It's just people non-Christians, know about that. I'm like this this is what we're portraying to people. They know that you're supposed to give 10% of your money, and so people will fight that and be like, oh, is it bad to be generous or bad to give to the organization or whatever? I'm like that's not even. That's not even the question. The question to make is that there's so many people that are giving that writing, that check to the institution, have no idea where it's going to and think that they're settled and that's all that they have to do.
Speaker 2:And so when a need actually comes up and the Holy Spirit says, give to this person or whatever they're less likely to actually obey the Holy Spirit or to do that, because they've already done this or now they're in kind of a pinch. I remember reaching out to a person within the church, a leader in the church, and asking him the question about that, and I'm like, what do I do? Because right now we're in debt. I'm trying to pay off our debt. It was when we were like getting out of debt.
Speaker 1:We started snowballing all our debt and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I had a question for him. I'm like I had a question for him. I'm like, do I, am I going to get in trouble if I don't give exactly 10% when I'm trying to be responsible for my family?
Speaker 1:Well, because God was telling well, what did the wrestle was, is God told.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give context to the story because God told we just had been born again. You may be three years at the time, maybe me one year, something like that and the Lord told me to quit my job and homeschool my kids. And in that same breath he said not only do I want you to quit your job and homeschool your kids, I want you to get out of debt in a year is what he told us. We didn't know he was going to call us to the mission field. It was all preparation for those things and I think it's good to be debt free.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's good to be debt free, you know, I don't think it's good to like have a bunch of medical bills and credit card debt and stuff like that. So he was telling us to do that and at the same time we're going down to one paycheck and one income and we just cut our income in half. But then I still had this burden of I've got to give 10% to this mega church who makes multi-million dollars a year and is about to build a multi-million dollar business and new second campus, and I can't even feed my kids beans and rice because I'm trying to obey God, tithe and get out of debt and do all these things. And so you reached out to this man and you're like, hey, we're struggling. And what advice did he give you?
Speaker 2:Honestly, he didn't even really know what to do.
Speaker 1:He didn't know what to say.
Speaker 2:He didn't have like a straight answer. He kind of fumbled around.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And was then like well, you know, because I read to him a scripture, and the scripture was talking about providing for your family.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And all of those things, and also the fruit of your labor, and I gave him a couple of scriptures that I was confused about because I'm I'm being told that I need to give a percentage of my money to a church organization, but but if I do that, then I'm also not actually taking care of my family correctly, and I was just in this mind. And that's not to say God can't provide for both. We're not saying that. But again, I think all of these things are in spite of, and so many people are taking it and going well, god can do both and he's doing this, or why not do both? And you hear that all the time. But we couldn't do both. That's the problem. But it's like stop, stop with the both thing. Like let's just do it all. Let's do institutional church and organic church, let's do this and this. It's like why are we? It's like we're holding on to those grasping on to those broken systems in man-made religion and saying let's do both.
Speaker 1:The reason you're holding onto these crutches so strongly is because, if it was removed, you would not know how to be the body of Christ on your own. Not on your own, as in like not a part of the body, but you wouldn't know how to be the body of Christ apart from the institution.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. Yeah, and it feels scary to let it go.
Speaker 1:And you're literally walking on water in that moment and you're not sure if you're going to sink or float, you know. So that's why they're holding onto these broken systems the way that they are and they're like, well, people get changed in the system. I'm like, yeah, people get changed, but I can tell you times 10, people get more injured than change to the one change. You've got 25 being injured by the, the broken system.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I'll be on, you know, working and doing lawn care and stuff, and these thoughts come through my head and I'll, whenever I have a thought of an, of an idea or a revelation or understanding for some reason, I'll challenge myself with that. So I'll think of the best rebuttal and I'll ask myself that. So I'll go ahead and start debating myself before I ever project an idea to somebody else.
Speaker 1:Playing the devil's advocate to yourself? Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2:Because then I know I'm settled in something and I'm not going to be like say something and then somebody just breaks the argument down in one second.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh crap, I never thought of that and so I was thinking about those arguments. Well, people get saved in the institution. People like good, like we experienced good things within the institutional church setting, so that must validate it Right. And I thought I said I don't know if this is, maybe I shouldn't say this, but maybe some strip clubs have great buffets Do you know what I'm saying? Like maybe they've got the best baked chicken right, but I'm not going to take my friends and kids there because you can actually get a little bit of nutritional food there. Does that make sense? I know that seems kind of harsh, but just because something decent can take place in an atmosphere doesn't mean that thing is overall healthy or sanctioned by God.
Speaker 1:I just heard my spirit when you said this the reason why people like artificial church is because a lot of them in their homes had artificial family. I don't even know what that means, right, this second, I'm just going to sit here for a minute but I think the reason why people are so okay with the manufactured church, the GMO meals and all the GMO yeah, gmo meals and all of that, is because, honestly, family is so unhealthy so they don't even know what healthy looks like that's right. What true nutrition looks like.
Speaker 2:So it's like the girl that has always been in abusive relationships and she keeps going into the next abusive relationships and she won't get out of the cycle because it's what she's used to.
Speaker 1:That's right. People get out of the broken cycle. That's all I got to say is get out of the broken cycle.
Speaker 2:So we talked about this earlier let people know, because some people might be having the revelation that they're in the broken system but they don't know where to go from here. And and I don't want people to think that we're here to push you to make huge decisions or to do one thing or another we're just having dialogue and discussion about what we've experienced and what we've found to be true in the scriptures and what we see as Jesus's ideal, according to how we interpret the scriptures Right.
Speaker 2:That's all we're doing. We're not telling you what you have to do.
Speaker 1:We've experienced something that is life giving and it's sustaining. Why wouldn't you tell people about that?
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, and so part of our goal is to bring to make people aware of that, and then you kind of do it, do with it as you will, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, if you're in this place right now, where you're like, oh my gosh, like I'm having a revelation, I'm stuck in the system, I'm stuck in the cycle. I want to get out of it, what do I do? I can only give from what we experienced and we-.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about you just mentioned it not trying to get out and go straight into doing something but the idea of detoxing from what you just experienced.
Speaker 1:So I'm a homeschool mom. I've been homeschooling for 12 years and when I became a homeschool mom 12 years ago, I thought I was just supposed to erect a institution in the home of school. So I was just supposed to manufacture what they did in the school system in my home. And I did it for a little while and I wasn't seeing. Now my kids could pass the test. They were scoring outrageously high on every test they were taking for the state. Their grades were great, but I saw no hunger and desire to truly learn. They were just trying to pass the test.
Speaker 1:So I started to have to ask myself, like why is it that they're exhausted First of all before even half the school year's over, and that they are more important on, they're more interested in knowing did they make an A, b, c or D whether or not they actually knew it. Because this is where it got me. I would give them a spelling test. They would make an A on the spelling test and then, five months later, I'm like, just for fun, let's do those same words again, but with no looking over it and they couldn't spell the word. They were just learning to pass the test. And I'm like they're not actually learning, they're regurgitating. And if you regurgitate, you actually don't become what you've learned or use what you know.
Speaker 2:I think we need to stop there for a second, because I'm just digesting that in that so many of these principles not only work in every area of life. That's what we're literally experiencing in the system and organization of church. People are doing whatever they need to do to the passing. The test would be to get to heaven to be considered a good Christian right. Memorize the verses, serve, do all the things, check all the boxes, but are those people going to stand before Jesus and he's like? I never actually knew you, you never actually. You never actually did anything. You never became Christ.
Speaker 1:You just regurgitated what you heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I started to see this pattern in my children. They were just regurgitating and they knew all the right things to say and they looked really smart and they are smart kids. I have really smart kids but I realized they had no love for learning and they didn't have a ability to teach themselves. It was they only knew how to do it if mom sat them down and spoon fed them information. And so I started questioning myself like what are you doing? What are you doing, brooke? And at the same time, I would get really excited at the beginning of the school year, just like all of us right when the school year started. We have our cute pens, our new our back to school clothes, our new notebooks and all the things, and you're super excited for six weeks and then, after six weeks, I'm like I do not want to do school anymore.
Speaker 2:I'm ready for summer break.
Speaker 1:And it's only six weeks in and I got eight more months or seven more months of school and I'm like there's something I'm doing wrong. There's something I'm doing wrong. And after a couple of years of this, I had to start questioning some things like what am I actually doing? So we went through this unschooling process with our kids and so we started unschooling them and telling them hey, you know what You're actually going to tell me, what you want to learn about, and we'll build around what you want to learn, what's interesting to you, what makes you tick. And I started doing that and my kids look forward to school every single day because it's organic. It's actually what feeds their, their minds, truly feeds their mind. And I'm telling you, we'll sit at the dinner table together and I'll ask the boys to share with dad what did you learn today? And they're talking about things that I'm like I didn't even teach them that, but they figured it out. They have the tools now to teach themselves.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Not that they're left to themselves all day long for school, but I've, I'm giving them the tools to make them want to learn and be hungry to learn, but also not just be hungry to learn and do it for themselves, but actually where it becomes who they are. You know, like I can't take away something that's a revelation for somebody, but if I just spoon feed you my revelations, you'll forget it. Tomorrow they're coming up with their own revelations inside of school.
Speaker 2:And I don't know how far I want to go into this but If you understand, you understand. If you know that the public school system and their agenda right the type of people they're trying to create.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a system that's built to manufacture those types of people that's right, people that can't think for themselves, no creativity. There's no creativity. They're not taught to actually be who God has created them to be.
Speaker 1:And then you wonder why you have lukewarm children.
Speaker 2:Right. Because you've just institutionalized them in Sunday school youth group, whatever the case may be, Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say is, not only does it not actually teach them to be who they're called to be, it makes them hate learning.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:It teaches them that learning is boring.
Speaker 1:It teaches them because of the way that they're tested and the way that they have to memorize things. It's just to pass a test.
Speaker 2:It teaches them to not love reading. I came out of school and I hated reading. You know what's crazy? I wasn't in my 20s until I discovered I love reading.
Speaker 1:Yeah Y'all. This man has more books, so many books that he broke two bookshelves in the past couple of months, and then the next day there's more books on the on the front porch. I'm like just say, where are?
Speaker 2:we going to find these books. Yeah, but I never finished a book until I was in my twenties.
Speaker 1:Well, I really. You never finished a book until you met Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know the first book I finished was crazy love by Francis. I remember that that was a good one. I was so excited I read that last page. I'm like I finished a book. Yeah. And then I went to Bible college and had to read a 1,000-page theology book.
Speaker 1:What do you remember in that book?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not much.
Speaker 2:Not really, because I was forced to read it. I'm like, oh, I got to read 48 pages today, yeah, wow. But yeah, it shows you when you're forced into something and it's not something you're interested in.
Speaker 1:And so I would correlate that, not to say that. Oh, in, in, in the let's finish this thought so unschooling so if you're in this position where you're like, hey, I've just been fed to the machine, my fire is gone because I'm burnt out.
Speaker 2:I'm realizing I'm that. I mean, I guess it just depends on what you consider heretical, but I think in many ways it's not biblical, right.
Speaker 1:The model we have doing, megachurch or the church institution is not biblical. So if you are stuck in that and you're right now having a revelation about it, unchurch yourself for a minute, get out of the building, get into the Word of God, get you a comfy blanket, a cup of coffee, sit in your Bible, read the Word of God for yourself, taking off the lens of what you've been told by a person. Read the Bible for yourself with no lens. Told by a person. Read the Bible for yourself with no lens. Read it and then begin to obey it. And when I say snuggle up and read, it's not because church is going to be easy or doing church is going to be easy. You're actually going to start to obey Jesus and see fruit in your life. So unchurch yourself for a minute.
Speaker 1:I remember there was for a minute I could not sing another flipping worship song. I was like, if I hear another worship song about, like oh, he loves me so much and I'm just this broken thing, but he loves me so much, I'm like I'm so sick and tired of singing worship songs, like I almost could not do it for a while, or even listen to worship in a car, because I had a revelation that worship wasn't a song but it was obedience to Jesus and all of a sudden, worship music became very different for me. Now is there times now that I listen to worship music and it pricks my heart and the spirit of God comes all over me. Yes, because it's in its proper place now, when before it was just I wanted an emotional experience, thinking that it was God touching me, but really I got goosebumps because I was in my emotions not in the spirit.
Speaker 1:So you got hundreds of people singing they're free when they're in bondage, yes, so I like even that I had to stop listening to worship music for a while and just get into the word of God and be like, where am I? In disobedience. And when I had a revelation that Abraham, when he looked at his servant and, um, what book is it? Is it ex, uh, deuteronomy, where Abraham goes on the mountain?
Speaker 2:No, it's Genesis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Exodus. Is it Exodus?
Speaker 2:Genesis, yeah, genesis.
Speaker 1:In Genesis, abraham is walking with his servant and his son. God tells him before he gets to the mountain you're going to sacrifice your child to me today. And he looks at his servant and he says to his servant you cannot go with us, you must stay at the bottom of this mountain and me and my son are going to go up to worship and we're going to come back down and we'll meet you. When I heard that in that what I heard, obedience is worship to God, not a song.
Speaker 1:So these are moments of unchurching in your mind. You're renewing your mind saying me singing another song is not true worship to God. It's actually obedience to Jesus to the point of I would lay my child down on the altar. I got to rethink what I'm doing. So just get home, get in the word, find other people around you that are like-minded, who are also having this same wrestle, that really just want to see God glorified and true disciples made, and begin to just meet with them in their houses. And if there's no one around you, you sit with your family. You disciple your family, make them true disciples of Jesus and God will begin to attract people to you because they see something different about you.
Speaker 1:When we came back from the mission field and we had actually been doing real church and we were like, hey, guys, we're not doing church, right, we had no one to talk to about it. But you know what we did? We started calling friends who had been in the church for 13 years that we knew were probably burnt out, and we just started having dinner with them and asking them hard questions like hey, where is this model of church in the Bible? And some of them had eye-opening experiences and was like, wow, this is in there. Some people thought we were crazy and told us we were crazy and then talked about us. It is what it is. But we actually began to develop community around us of like-minded people.
Speaker 1:And I'm telling you, husbands, it's statistically proven that if a child gets a revelation, only one to 9% will the family jump on board. If a mother gets a revelation or starts something new in the family, like a new diet or whatever, maybe 20% of the family might join on. But if the father begins to lead the home and has a revelation, it's in the 90th percentile that the family will follow suit. So, husbands and wives, get yourselves together, get into the word of God, begin to disciple.
Speaker 1:Your children have church in your home. Be the church to one another in your home, pray for those around you and be actually a light. A city on a hill outside of your home. People will be attracted to that because the presence of God will rest upon you and all of a sudden, community and church will start to happen around you because God will begin to build the church. That's what it looks like. It's uncomfortable and it might take a year before you have one person outside of your home even want to hear what you have to say. But stay faithful to Jesus, to the Word of God and to your family. And making them disciples and then display that outside of your home.
Speaker 2:God will draw them and making them disciples and then display that outside of your home. God will draw them. Yeah, we're in a generation, right now, that I believe is pivotal for the future of the church. Agreed, unfortunately, what that means is, right now, there's going to be a lot of people that listen to this. In a couple of years, that may be thousands of people that are listening to this and they're saying the same thing. We're going to get tons of emails and they're going to say I hear what you're saying, I agree with what you're saying, I want what you're saying. I can't find that anywhere around me. Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't have that to give you, unless you live around here Do you know what I'm saying. Like I can't magically make that appear for you, okay, but what I can say I don't know if you have something to say on this is like hang in there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like be faithful. Maybe you're not like an apostolic type of person and you just can't create that around you. Right, you can't be a person that establishes a work or something like that, but with the internet and stuff like that you can get, you can do something. Okay, where what she just explained was not to to, to say uh, to unchurch means to distance yourself from community.
Speaker 1:You still need to gather with people that know Jesus, and if it's just your family, that's okay.
Speaker 2:If it's just your family, if it's just one person, two person, don't be scared of that. Don't be scared of that. That is not. You are not disobeying scripture by consistently meeting with two or three people, praying together, ministering to each other, each other together, reading the Bible together. Paul was imprisoned. Who was he with? Do you know what I'm saying? And so don't condemn yourself. That's what we want to say. Don't condemn yourself. Like you have to have it. You've realized this. You've had this revolution revelation. You've stepped out and now you're tagged rebellious, but you genuinely love Jesus. Like. We're not trying to create rebellious people. It's people that are hungry for truth and hungry for the real thing. They want to experience the authentic Jesus. So take that into prayer. Pray Luke 10 to Lord of the harvest, send laborers into the harvest right, and either God will begin to place those people in your life or actually equip you and give you the grace and the capacity to start something where you're at.
Speaker 2:Just find those people, get around them and, if you don't have that, create something around you. But I feel like I know what we're going to talk about in the next episode because you mentioned it just briefly in the last part, and that was, I think, something that can be a big fear of people as well, especially people with families that are getting this revelation, this understanding. They understand the system's not right, but, hey, I want the best for my kids and what am I going to do? It was when a lot of people started joining the community that were part of their grandparents were so scared. Why were they scared for their grandchildren?
Speaker 1:Oh, because they wouldn't be in in um.
Speaker 2:Sunday school and a youth grade yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you are kidding me, right? Your biggest fear is that they're going to go wayward because they don't have Sunday school. I'm thinking that's a supplement Disciple your kids. Right? If we were discipling our kids at home, then we wouldn't have to worry about Sunday school doing anything for them, right? So if you've got that question in your heart, if that's something that popped up, you thought what do I do with my kids? Stay tuned for the next episode, because we're going to get into what it looks like to disciple your children to truly, truly chase after Jesus. You don't have to worry about. Are they going to walk away from the faith?
Speaker 2:when they get older, but thank you so much for tuning in with us today. This was a hard one, guys. It was a tough one, but we love you. It's one that we're going to refer a lot of people to, because, if you want to know whether or not this podcast is for you, you want to hang with us. You want to continue on this journey, in this conversation with us. If that didn't offend you, congratulations. If you made it, all the way to the end.
Speaker 1:What if it did offend you? But you're thankful. Like Hebrews 12 says, when he disciplines his child, it doesn't feel good in the moment, but if you receive the discipline, it'll bear the greatest fruit in your life. Y'all. The reason why we're doing what we're doing is because we were spanked nine years ago by the Lord and he said don't do anything until I tell you what to do, and we had to rethink some things. So it's a good place to be, guys. It's good to be stretched and uncomfortable for a minute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thanks for rethinking with us. See you guys in the next episode.