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 Institutional Church Is Sinking...Organic Church 101 | #reChurch Ep. 09
What if your church life could be radically transformed by shaking off the traditional structures that many liken to the Titanic? Brace yourself for a provocative journey as we compare the vulnerabilities of established church systems to the infamous ship and explore the potential of smaller, spirit-led gatherings that function as lifeboats.
Misconceptions about organic church communities are rampant, but we aim to set the record straight. Contrary to popular belief, these gatherings are not about rebellion or lack of leadership but focus on mutual submission and authentic relationships. As we discuss the pitfalls of manipulative practices in some traditional settings, we share personal anecdotes from the mission field and how bold steps toward genuine discipleship can ignite spiritual movements. Explore the hopeful message that the Spirit of God is actively stirring change within the church, encouraging believers to embrace simplicity and prepare for a vibrant future rooted in faith.
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In these house communities you don't have one specific leader. You don't have one person controlling a bunch of people. You have multiple, multiple elders in the community who have the Holy Spirit. If there's one community group that gets a little wayward, you have 10 that are misguided, not 2,000 that are misguided.
Speaker 2:I think it's important that the people that you know and the people that lead you, you actually do life with. That's not possible to do with 2,000 people. So we need to drop that mentality of we need to disciple and lead thousands of people and just be faithful with the ones.
Speaker 1:If you just come, you haven't spent your time any time with the Lord and you haven't been manifesting Christ to the people around you. You're going to have nothing to bring. At an institutional church, you can come in like that and no one will ever know. But if you are in a group of people that are going to hold you accountable, you're going to see like if you don't come with anything it's going to be evidence.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the ReChurch Podcast. If you're tired of business as usual Christianity and you're ready to live just like Jesus, you found yourself in the right place. I'm Justin Noop, your host today, and I'm here with my lovely wife, brooke Noop. Brooke say hello, hi, how are you? How are you doing today? I'm good. Well, I hope you are. I'm excited about this episode because I'm going to start it off a little bit different than we've ever started it off.
Speaker 1:Okay, you cool with that, I'm good with it.
Speaker 2:All right, I've put together a little parable for us. That's going to drive the topic of this episode.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, I feel like it's really important for the survival of the church moving forward.
Speaker 2:That's so good, okay, the parable is called the Titanic and the church. You ready? Yeah, all right. It was the grandest ship ever built, towering over the waters, gleaming with polished steel and glistening glass. It was a marvel of human ingenuity. Its builders boasted it was unsinkable. A fortress upon the waves, a monument to progress and security. People clamored to board, confident they were part of something historic, something enduring. But beneath the waterline, unseen and unconsidered, an iceberg loomed. The ship's captain and crew, consumed by maintaining the Titanic's image, ignored the warnings of ice ahead. We're too big to foul, they thought. Even if something goes wrong, we'll manage. This ship is built to withstand anything.
Speaker 2:But then, in the quiet of the night, disaster struck. The iceberg tore into the ship's hull, opening wounds deep below the water line. At first the passengers hardly noticed. The band played on, the lights stayed bright, people danced, drank and reassured one another, convinced the ship could weather the blow. But slowly the truth surfaced the Titanic was sinking.
Speaker 2:As panic spread, people rushed to the lifeboats. They had always been there, small and unassuming, dwarfed by the massive ship, had always been there, small and unassuming, dwarfed by the massive ship. Few have ever paid them any attention. After all, why would they? The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. Oh, I'm getting emotional.
Speaker 2:The Titanic, my friends, is the current church system. For years it's been built with impressive structures, programs and traditions. It's beautiful in its commanding, drawing people, with its promise of stability and safety. But like the ship, the institutional church has its vulnerabilities, the iceberg Spiritual realities the church has neglected for years the growing disconnect from authentic discipleship, over-reliance on human systems instead of the Spirit of God, and the focus on appearance over transformation. The cracks have been revealed and the programs alone can't save lives. Pews and stained glass can't make disciples. The ship is beginning to sink, but, ah, yes, the lifeboats. They're all along small, simple and relational, organic communities of believers gathering not out of obligation to check a box but out of love for Jesus and one another.
Speaker 2:As the Titanic sinks, those who recognize the futility of clinging to the ship will turn to the lifeboats. They're not flashy and their capacity seems limited, but they're meant to save those who are willing to trust in God's original plan so future generations can thrive. For some, they'll still cling to the big ship until the bitter end, unwilling to admit it could fail. They'll scoff at the lifeboat, seeing them as inadequate. The ship has served us well. For so long they'll cry. Surely it can recover. But others will see the truth.
Speaker 2:Clinging to the Titanic meant certain death. With courage, they stepped into the lifeboats, trusting that salvation doesn't depend on the size or the strength of the vessel, but it's on its ability to float. These are the ones who will survive. Now the survivors in the lifeboats begin to see their purpose differently. They aren't just floating aimlessly. They are communities of people bound together by their shared rescue, living proof that life can flourish outside the Titanic. They learn to rely on one another and on the one who calmed the seas. The lifeboats aren't perfect. They're small and sometimes unsteady, but they're alive. They move with the water, not against it, and they carry the hope of something new. The ship may be sinking, but the lifeboats are waiting.
Speaker 1:Cool, that's so good.
Speaker 2:I truly believe that this is the future of the church and I just have this vision in my head, over and over, of this massive iceberg sticking out of the water and just the millions of millions of people ignoring the warning signs. Yeah, and ignoring the warning signs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then looking at what God is truly doing and just deeming it inadequate or something on the side, and I feel like that person just calling up to the ship from the lifeboat, saying like, can you not see it? It's right there, wow. Saying like can you not see it? It's right there. We get a lot of questions in the comments. You know about organic church, what it is. Is it biblical? Stuff like that. What does it look like? People want to know exactly what it looks like and how it's laid out, and stuff like that, and we'll talk about that in this episode. What is organic church? Is it biblical? Why do I see it as the future of the church? If we want to survive in this culture, we're going to talk about all those things. But I want to start off with a question for you. What do you think you grew up in church? Church air quotes I did not. What do you think made you start asking the question if there's more to it than what you grew up with?
Speaker 1:I think it goes like way, way back. Even before I was a born again believer, I had questions because I lived in a home where we went to church and we played the part. We were at, you know, awanas, and my mom and my stepdad led Awanas and they served in the church and when I would go home, my stepdad was, you know, smoking. He was taking advantage of me in ways that were not holy of any way or shape or form. I saw my mom was like, dealing with a lot of anxiety and different things, and so I begin to question, like, if this is the Jesus that they talk about, like why is everybody the same, even after they've so-called gave their lives to the Lord? And also like, why is my stepdad, who is like not a good man, behind closed doors? Why is he having any position in, especially a children's ministry in the church?
Speaker 1:So I thought it was all hypocritical, because the institution bypasses character and fruit and they just put people in places and positions that need to be filled, because the institutional need is more important than the people and where they're really at spiritually. So that's when I really started questioning it, at probably 16 years old. I started thinking something's not right and I rebelled against the Lord because I saw so much hypocrisy and I know people are like you. Can't blame that on Jesus and you're right. Jesus is the source. I have to look to Him. But if the institutional church is the model of what we're supposed to be doing, there's so many cracks and flaws, because if you look at the institutional church as a whole, the way that it's set up, they can't even obey half of the scriptures and the commands.
Speaker 1:Like you know if someone's in sin, go to them, or whatever. Like you don't even know if someone's in sin. You know how do you tell someone to leave the institutional church when they're in sin, when you invited them and they're steeped in their sin. You know, like so many of the they're steeped in their sin. So many of the different things that are written in scripture you can't even obey with the institutional model. So those things I started seeing the cracks in them at a young age and I would just see people leave the institutional church after a little while and kind of just go their own way and lukewarm and just lukewarm, and you know, just lukewarm, that's the best way to put it. And a lot of them still are and they think they're still Christians because they raised their hand at that church that I went to 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and um, but they're lukewarm, they're not bearing fruit, they're not seeking God, they're just living, you know, these comfortable lives and uh, and some of them are even in disobedience, you know. So it's really sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you. It's interesting because I think you know you, you started noticing that at an early age, but you didn't really do anything about it until later in your life, but you had a. You had a true encounter with God at home, really.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Not in a church setting, church building. But then the only thing you knew to do after having that encounter was go right back into the system that fouled you.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:What were your thoughts then, at first, when you got back into that system? Did you have any hesitancies before because of what you experienced before, or did you think like no, this is the. This is the right way to go.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it was the only way thing I knew. So I went right back into it head first. Um, and the church I left from was extremely religious. And I left that institutional church and there was this mega church that was way more laid back and it had the fancy worship band and the very charismatic speaker and all the things. And because I was so sold out for the Lord, people were drawn to that. So it was very easy to be in that environment.
Speaker 1:But then the more I began to serve in the church and see what was going on behind closed doors, I saw really miserable ministers of the gospel who weren't being treated with love and all these things and you have to question it. But then the Lord's telling them to leave, but they don't leave because of the paycheck. And I'm like what man, whatever God tells me to do, I don't care what it is paycheck and I'm like what, like man, whatever God tells me to do, I don't know, I don't care what it is, I'm going to do it, even if I have a job, don't have a paycheck. Like I'm going to obey Jesus like cause he's faithful and the only reason I know that he's actually faithful is because I actually like allowed him to show me his faithfulness by stepping out in faith in areas where I'm like, lord, if you aren't who you say you are, like I'm really going to fail here, but I'm trusting you.
Speaker 2:And I realized there's a moment or a period of time, let's say a season, where everything's very exciting because it's fresh and it's new, and so you can push through or, let's say, ignore certain signs for a while. But I've noticed that, looking back after over a decade talking to a lot of people that were around the same environment as us, they had all the same feelings, but nobody was talking to each other in the beginning or questioning anything, everything. And I feel like there's this thing in the church where we all put on this kind of happy face mask because there's an expectation. So I see how you are and have this picture of like your amazing life and your walk with Jesus and all that, and so I feel the pressure of having to put my mask on and we're all walking around with these masks on and below the surface. We've all got questions and we're all walking around with these masks on and below the surface. We've all got questions and we're all wondering similar things and I feel like now is the season where the church at large, a good majority of people probably most of the people listening to this podcast are starting to begin to question those things and they're even they're either met with resistance from people because they don't want to interrupt the system. Right, they don't, they don't want to stop everything from where it's going, or they're, you know, meeting people that are confirming what they're believing and so they're pressing in further to kind of figure out.
Speaker 2:Well, you got into it a little bit, but what was that second moment? So you had that moment when you were 16, but you really didn't have a relationship with Jesus authentically. So that was just recognizing the corruption. But then there's a whole different book, brooke, who did have a relationship with Jesus. And then down the road you recognized again You're like whoa, it still isn't the right thing.
Speaker 2:There's got to be more, do you remember?
Speaker 1:when you started to feel that, yeah, so yeah, I had a radical encounter with Jesus at 23. My testimony's in another video if you want to watch the full thing. But I went from living extremely sinful, extremely rebellious to the Lord. But the sad thing is, at the same time I thought I was still okay and I was going to go to heaven. So scary when I look back at that life and that mindset that I had.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I had a really radical encounter with Jesus and it changed everything. But it's so funny, I had this encounter with the Lord and I got baptized. And not long after I got baptized I received the Holy Spirit and I would go back into the institutional megachurch and I noticed that most of the people around me hadn't truly been born again. Because I was seeing God do things in my life. I was watching miracles take place, like randomly at Walmart. He was speaking to me so clearly and I would go tell people about these encounters I was having, or how you know, the other day I'm sitting there with the Lord and all of a sudden I started like speaking another language, like because I didn't know about tongues.
Speaker 1:I was raised in a very Reformed-type Baptist church and I'm sitting there and I'm like, who do I have to tell about these things? So I would kind of throw out fillers to see who was understanding, because I also didn't really fully understand yet and people would look at me strange or be like she's a little weird or whatever. So I started realizing a lot of these people don't have genuine relationships Not all, but a lot of them didn't have genuine relationships with the Lord. So that got my wheels turning. I'm like something's wrong and the sad thing is most of them people have been born again way longer than me, and I'm like and they just don't, they don't know, you know and I just saw a lot of flesh.
Speaker 1:I saw a lot of programs. I saw a lot of like striving in the flesh on how to get the youth excited about the Lord and how to put on the best next camp and how to do this and how to do that. But and you would see these kids because we worked in the youth ministry the most, and you would see these kids because we worked in the youth ministry the most, and you would see these kids have this encounter with the Lord and then next summer it's the same kids having the same encounter, but through the school year you're also with them and they go right back to the same behaviors right after and there's not a whole lot of change. That's not all, but it's most. It's most of what's being produced, um, and so I'm looking at that and I'm like, huh, I got a little questions in my mind.
Speaker 1:And then we go overseas and I think for us, like when we really saw the corruption of it all, is when we went overseas. The interesting thing that most people don't know is that we went to multiple programs to be trained as disciple makers. Um, we went to two different, two different equipping schools and then we got a. We were part of like a, not a part of a ministry, but kind of worked alongside of a ministry. And when we went overseas but when we ended up going overseas full time we, the Lord, told us not to go as a, as a corporation, with a group of people like in the sense of like a ministry that was already there, but to just go as a family that that would be the best way to reach the people, to not go in the name of something you know, uh, little hands, big heart, ministry.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I just made something up, yeah, under the umbrella of an organization yeah Of an organization but just go as like a true family and just be Jesus in the streets and that would be the biggest impact. So the coolest part with that is we got to go into places like a lot of people might not be welcome because we're just a family you know and like there's no strings attached.
Speaker 2:Yes, very neutral.
Speaker 1:And so we started to get into relationships with people where we were seeing testimonies or hearing stories or getting to know people where, like the church, had become extremely corrupt in these countries. Because what was happening was we were having these big Western ministries come over there with a ton of food, a lot of money, and they were throwing on these, you know, big evangelistic events and serving tons and tons of food. And then after the evangelistic events, these men who raised their hands, you know, to respond to the sinner's prayer at the altar were then kind of collected and put into these homes where they were taught how to be pastors and then, once they felt like they were ready for them to be pastors, they would send them all around and they were paying them pretty hefty paychecks for that standard. So for them, like $10,000 a year is a ton of money, you know, when they're used to making like a dollar a day normally, or maybe $2 a day if they're lucky kind of situation.
Speaker 1:So when we were meeting with these people, there was pastors who were like abusing their congregations, pastors who were taking advantage of their wives and their children and controlling and manipulating and sexually abusing their children and controlling and manipulating and sexually abusing and yelling and screaming and violently dealing with the people. And they were submitting to it because, first of all, they didn't have anywhere else to go. They thought this was what church was. And the second thing was, you sat down with a pastor and really asked them where they're at, and they would tell you like no, I don't really know Jesus, I just the paycheck was better than what I was doing before. And so I think that's when our little minds started like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Something's not right.
Speaker 2:I think too that we saw the broken system in America. But then when I think what hit us was, we went overseas and we saw when you reproduce that system in other places it was really causing damage, because it was mixing together also with some unhealthy attributes of the different cultures.
Speaker 2:That's right so when you're in like an honor-shame culture or a very highly authoritative hierarchical structure, you know, a culture or a culture where there's already caste systems, where people are already divided. That's right. Like that, now you add in this unhealthy church system and it's a recipe for disaster. That's right. And so we started to ask ourselves, I feel like if this is truly what Jesus wants, number one, why is it not actually bearing fruit in America? And then why isn't it transferable or translatable around the world? If it's the gospel and it's what Jesus instructed us to do, then it should work everywhere regardless.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where we both realized that the system needs to be simplified and a lot of parts of it need to be removed if they're unbiblical. Which started our journey, even when I was on the mission field. That's when I really started my journey of starting to dig in. I mean, I was reading the Bible, of course, but the book of Acts, but I was also reading books on discipleship. You know DMMs, discipleship making movements and what are some of the movements of church that are rapidly reproducing and they're also bearing a lot of fruit, and I would see some of them that rapidly would reproduce, but they were very superficial, so discipleship wasn't very deep, but they were able to spread far and wide because of the simplicity of it right.
Speaker 2:And then you would see other ones that were a lot more deeper discipleship, but they for some reason were not reproducing. And it was almost like I started to Frankenstein you know these things and then read scripture and see where it applies. And then that's when we actually came back to America and started applying some of the things that we were using, almost in a way of like testing it out, Like, does this actually work in real life?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 1:You know, and one thing I want to say like it's so hard to take, like it would be really really hard to take a animal that is raised in the wild, or let me say an animal that's raised in captivity, and put them into the wild and see them survive because they've been raised a certain way. It's the same way for people when you take them out of the institutional church and try to put them in house church. It's very uncomfortable at first. It takes many years to kind of unprogram the mind around what you've been institutionalized for so long, just like taking a child out of public school and trying to homeschool them.
Speaker 2:It's very hard, honestly, it's like uh, if you've ever seen the movie Shawshank Redemption have you ever seen that? And there's a older man that basically spends the majority of his life in prison and he's released and he ends up hanging himself, you know, in the end of the movie, because he just can't take the outside world, because he's been institutionalized.
Speaker 2:Like that's what he's used to, and I feel like I feel like we need to do a full episode on what it looks like to you know to deep program, to unchurch, but you know we can talk about that more in depth, but it's just like that.
Speaker 2:We're so used to these systems. That's why our last episode was on. The trap that many house churches fall into is because if we're not careful, out of our comfort and what we're used to, we'll begin to implement some of the same systems and processes and programs in the walls of our home or wherever we might meet, because that's what we're used to. It's what we fall back to when we don't know what to do, when we're uncomfortable and we've got to press in and really say, lord, what we're used to, that's right.
Speaker 2:It's what we fall back to when we don't know what to do when we're uncomfortable yes, and we've got to press in and really say Lord, what do you want to do with this? Even when people are looking at us like we're crazy or when we don't actually know what to do next. Right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So getting into, like, what is organic church a lot of people want, again, they're going to want a system and a process and a program. Oh well, what does organic church look like? Oh well, it looks like this, and for the first five minutes when you meet you do this, and for the next 15 minutes you do this. But again, unfortunately we can't do that, we can't say that for you, because a spirit led meeting is going to be spirit led. It's going to look slightly different every time, but there are certain principles. The first one I want to talk about is simplicity. We already kind of touched on it a little bit. So organic church gatherings are simple meaning.
Speaker 2:I love how Neil Cole puts it in his book Organic Church. He says we need to raise the bar of discipleship and we need to lower the bar of what it looks like to gather as the church People would be like. Well, why would you lower the bar on anything? Well, because we've raised the standard such above what God requires that hardly anybody can meet the standard, and so it's not easily reproducible. And again, we've talked in previous episodes If the goal of discipleship is maturity and reproducing disciples that make disciples, why would we want to make something so difficult for somebody that it's near impossible, or they need a degree in church planting for them to actually reproduce and multiply.
Speaker 1:That's right. I even think of the example you use a lot. It's like the elephant and the bunny or the rabbit. You know, if you put two elephants in a room, 22 months later, you get a one single elephant 22 months later because it's such a big complex thing. But you put a couple bunnies in a room and you go back 22 days later you're actually going to have like thousands of bunnies.
Speaker 1:By the time you go back in that, or 22 months later, you'll have thousands of bunnies, because the kingdom of God was designed that way. It was designed to be extremely reproducible. But I think because our standard now is churches, institutionalization, education, four-year degree, maybe seven or eight year degree, and then you find the right people, it's just too complicated. You have to have money and all these things, when Jesus had none of those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He just went out, found 12 men whose heart was turned towards God. One went astray eventually, but he just gave everything that he had learned to them and they just did life together day by day, asked questions, hung out, held each other accountable, and then he told him. And then he showed him a few cool things like hey, this is how you cast out a demon, this is how you heal the sick, this is how you share your faith, this is how you don't speak sometimes when you're challenged or asked a question. Or this is how you actually meet the woman at the well. They went away, the disciples went away and Jesus has this encounter with the woman at the well and he tells her her whole life, life and it changes her whole life. And that one woman transformed a whole town. Because they're like come, listen to the man who told me everything about myself. And the disciples get back and Jesus is just like, so satisfied. And they're like did somebody bring him food? Because I know he's got to be hungry. And he taught them like I only do what my father is doing.
Speaker 1:Like how many pastors are teaching the congregation how to only do what the father is doing? Or have we set up a ton of man-made things that make people think they're doing the will of God, but really it's just fleshy things we've created out of. Really it boils down to we don't trust the Holy Spirit to move among our meetings, so we man-make things and institutionalize things, but those things don't give life in the long run. If you have something that's man-made I think of, like a man-made fish tank, that piece of plastic coral can never grow and reproduce anything but an organic one could. That's out in the wild. And it's like we are called to be in the world, not of the world, but to transform the world. And we cannot transform the world with manufactured Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, yeah, so I think, when, when? If people are wondering, like, what does a gathering look like? Well, what are the, what are the principles? And the principles are, it's simple it's relational and it's reproducible. That's right, and the gatherings are centered around Jesus Christ, like him actually being present in your meetings and the truth of the word of God. Okay.
Speaker 2:So if you just think about those things like are we gathered around the actual presence of Jesus? Are we gathering to talk of Jesus on this earth? And so when we gather that's why it's so important for it to be a gathering of Christians, because how can you express Christ Right?
Speaker 2:With unbelievers, that's right, you know what I'm saying. So that's why these small, intimate gatherings are so important because it obeys the scripture in the sense of 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, where it says every one of you, like, when you gather, every one of you have something to bring to the table. So the idea is that the individuals, the people when they're not together, are spending time with Christ, being filled up by him. So when everybody comes together in unity, we are expressing a different aspect of Christ to one another. And as we come together, expressing different aspects of Christ together in unity, something amazing happens, like we see Christ in his, his, just in his fullness and in his glory when we gather together.
Speaker 2:So that's what I think he means about uh being in our midst. Um, and so that can look different every together.
Speaker 1:So that's what I think he means about being in our midst, and so that can look different every time.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like me asking you the question like, what does family look like? You could go a million different ways and we can also share. I think it'd be helpful. I think people want to know like we can give you insight on, like, maybe what it looked like in the beginning, some ways that it kind of morphed and changed, and then the difference between some different organic fellowships.
Speaker 1:I think one thing you were talking about and you just didn't mention it was when you come yes, you've spent time with the Lord you have something to bring to the table. You're not coming to be fed, you're coming to manifest Christ to one another, and everyone has a part to play, but it comes with, yes, spending time with the Lord on your own time, outside of your community group, but also manifesting Christ to people around you, in your jobs, in your workplaces, in your home or your family, whoever your audience is, and bringing those testimonies to how you shared the gospel with Bob at work, or how you shared the gospel with your children, or how you shared the gospel with your parents, or how you shared the gospel with your sister or your aunt or whoever, because those testimonies stir people up. You know, um, you come with. You know sitting with the Lord but also obeying his commands on a weekly basis, and then you'll come back with testimony and those sitting with the Lord but also obeying His commands on a weekly basis. And then you'll come back with testimony.
Speaker 1:And what did the disciples and them talk about when they got together? They didn't have a Bible to read. They had some scrolls, but the scrolls were in the church, in the synagogue, like you had to go to Sunday school to hear the scriptures. So what were they doing? They weren't reading a Bible, which, again, I'm not saying you don't read your Bible, please read your Bible in your community groups. But what you do have is you have them communicating about what God was doing in them and through them on a weekly, daily basis.
Speaker 1:So if you just come, you haven't spent any time with the Lord and you haven't been manifesting Christ to the people around you. You're going to have nothing to bring. And the sad thing is is at an institutional church you can come in like that and no one will ever know that you're dry inside and you're bearing no fruit because you're just a number on a pew, even if the church is only 75, 100 big. But if you are in a group of people that are going to hold you accountable, you're going to see like if you don't come with anything or you're not stirred up in the spirit, cause you haven't been stirring the spirit throughout the weekends, in your time just between you and the Lord, like it's going to be evident, and we can be like hey, billy Bob, what's going on with you? You seem off or whatever, and then we help in God that person get back to the, to the right, to the right place and their relationship with the Lord.
Speaker 2:But you did ask me a question. I went completely off. What was your question? No, it's okay, cause I was just thinking, uh, getting back to the original, how I don't want to lose the thought of how we started this episode in talking about the Titanic, because I think the reason that I want, the reason that I'm making the statement so strong, so strong that I think this is the future of the church If we want to survive is because what I mean by that, what I see as the Titanic sinking when it sinks it just becomes part of the ocean, right in the church at large, in the traditional church model is we're trying to become so culturally relevant, so culturally relevant that eventually you're not going to be able to tell the difference and it will no longer transform. So if we continue to head in that direction, I'm not saying it won't exist.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:It'll exist, but it will become a literal social club and there will just be people there that are just there to entertain and they're deceived into thinking that they're actually walking with and obeying Christ Okay. So that's why I think it's so important that we understand the purpose of the lifeboats and where we're heading.
Speaker 2:That's right and that's what I think you know is uh is happening and so, um, we talked about, uh, them being simple, relational, reproducible. One of the things that I think a lot of people will say like well, isn't your, isn't your organic church or your house church the same thing as a small group? So in their head immediately they think it's just, it's an offshoot program. It's like, oh, we do that too. We gather on Sundays and we have small groups same thing, right? How would you say an organic church differs.
Speaker 2:I have an answer for it, but I'm curious of yours how it differs from a small group.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it differs from a small group because, first of all, like when we come together, it's not because we were like pureed fed on Sunday morning. We're coming together because, like we are the body of Christ, we have truly been born again in him. We're all like mind of one spirit, one truth. We're not just people that normally don't know each other. These are organic groups that birth out of the influence that I have in my life. So we come together and we actually intentionally come together to seek the Lord, to encourage one another, to practice the gifts on one another, to teach people how to obey Christ and then hold them accountable to righteousness, to the teachings of Jesus and actually make sure that they are becoming mature in the faith.
Speaker 1:Like a lot of Bible studies or community groups at churches, institutional churches are either just an offshoot to what the pastor preached about and you've got questions that you sit and answer, or you're going through a Bible study by somebody who wrote something and half of you might not even know each other that well.
Speaker 1:So you don't really truly feel super comfortable to get open with one another. But I think for us in our communities, our heart is that people will reach their sphere of influence, People they already know in their workplaces and things like that, who know them that whenever you invite them over to dinner or have them over to share the gospel and they respond, when you start doing life together, it just becomes organic and natural. You're not dealing with the weird awkward relationships or the prepped sermon or booklet that you're doing. Actually, the Holy Spirit comes in and either exposes hearts or unites hearts and actually the gifts of the body begin to manifest this self in a community. Um, there's nothing and there's nothing really prepared normally because we really trust that the Holy spirit is going to show up and like lead the meeting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that's good, and I think I would say. The only thing I would add to that is I think small groups lack apostolic mission and that too that's the biggest part of it. They lack mission, so they're not looking to reproduce. They're not looking to be missional. Nobody's baptizing somebody in their small group typically, and so that's where the big change is.
Speaker 2:I love how I mention all the time, but how Neil Cole talks about the DNA of the church, divine truth, nurturing relationships and apostolic mission, and so organic fellowships, house fellowships, simple churches, stuff like that they see themselves as like authentically a community, a fellowship of believers that is looking to multiply outward, not just point people to the main. You know, church gathering and stuff like that. Um, I want to hit a few things and then we can. We can end this episode with a practical like. I'm going to. I'm going to shoot a couple scenarios that people might be in the listeners might be in, and then you can kind of advise them.
Speaker 2:What would you do if you were in that scenario?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, uh, I'm going to. These are some common misconceptions about organic church, about simple churches. Okay, and I'm going to shoot them at you and you respond Okay, let me put you in the hot seat. Aren't organic churches just a rebellious movement? Aren't they just anti-church?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not. I think they're actually more passionate about the real church than the institutional church is passionate about, because I think our goal and our mindset is to actually reproduce mature believers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So no, it's not rebellious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, aren't these organic churches? Aren't they just anti-leadership, so they don't want to submit to anybody, and that's why they go rogue just start meeting on their own.
Speaker 1:No, I think that if we really understood true leadership in the body of Christ like we, would understand that we're submitted to one another. So in my house church community I'm submitted to three times the amount of people that I was I'm submitted to now than I was in the institutional church and the institutional church I was just submitted to now than I was in the institutional church and the institutional church I was just submitted to really just like one man and maybe a couple of elders. But in the house church movement, with what we're doing, there's no hierarchy system. We are submitted to one another. So any brother and sister in Christ can call us out, can call Susie out, billy Bob out, sarah out, whoever out, and we're called to listen to what they have to say and wait before the Lord. So we're submitted to one another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I found that it's actually easier and it's easier to receive because the people that are calling you out, really is just calling you higher or, you know, holding you to the standard that you want to be held to.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:They actually do life with you Right and they actually know you behind the scenes in the day to day, and so of course you're going to be more apt to receive from them. That's right what they're saying, and I've noticed that in the large setting it's kind of awkward if somebody random that you don't know, even if you look at like a leader like your, your typical senior pastor, comes to call you out, which typically doesn't really they don't do, because they don't even know you exist.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Um, they'll just speak in general and maybe, if it hits, a few targets. Then it hits a few targets, um, but I think that's what you're getting at with with leadership. Like it's not. That's not true leadership.
Speaker 2:True leadership is not some random person that I don't know, uh, teaching me something every week that doesn't know I exist and he's my leader. Um, I don't know his life, I don't know what he does behind closed door and, honestly, after the last few years of seeing all this stuff come out, uh, about the quote unquote top leaders in in Christianity, how the heck can we trust anymore?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And so I think it's important that the people that you know and the people that lead you, you actually do life with. And now for the person, the shepherding person in your life, the leader in your life, that's not possible to do with 2000 people, right? So we need to drop that mentality of. We need to disciple and lead thousands of people.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And just be faithful with the ones. Otherwise Jesus would have had 2,000 apostles. That's right. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he said he only went deeper with the three. And so you see, the deeper he went with people, the less people he had to have around him, the less people he went deep with because, because he understood that as a, as a uh uh, Jesus was, was fully God, but in his humanity, fully man, uh, he had the limitations that man has, and so we have to recognize that, and I think that's why it's so important to be led by the spirit and to pour into relationships, not because they have potential right.
Speaker 2:Everyone has potential right. Bearing fruit. That's right, right, people that are bearing fruit, and so you're, you're being led of the spirit, uh, in that way, the last question I'll have for that is uh, aren't you scared that it's going to become a cult, right, these little gatherings like, aren't they? Isn't there a risk that they just become cults?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think anything can become a cult if it wanted to be, to be honest with you. But one thing I've noticed in cult movements is these cult movements find a very large following pretty quickly and there's one man in charge and that one man begins to deceive a large group of people, which then he begins to dominate and take control over those people and you're submitted to him and if you try to leave or do anything, you are highly chastised or punished in some way, shape or form. And I think with the house church movement you've got to think about it. If you have a mother church, let's say an institutional church, for instance, and there's 2000 people in that mother church and the pastor is heretical or doesn't understand or is misguided and he begins to teach information that is heretical, you have 2000 people well, maybe 200 might see. So now you have 800 people that are now deceived by one man's teaching.
Speaker 1:But in these house communities you don't have one specific leader. Sure, you don't have one person controlling a bunch of people. You have multiple, multiple elders in the community who have the Holy Spirit. And if there's one community group that gets a little wayward and starts to do something funky, you have 10 that are misguided, not 2000 that are misguided, and it's easier to correct 10 than it is to correct 1800. So I think that that's where people get afraid. But it's like where we were. They called Jesus a cult leader, you know like. But we see now, looking back, like he was the real thing. So yeah, at first it might seem weird and outside your box and cultish, because really you just don't understand it.
Speaker 1:That's what people call nowadays the word cult has lost its meaning completely. It's really what we just call something that we misunderstand or we just don't like, or we were there at one point and maybe we did house church for a little while and Bobby Joe hurt my feelings, so I left an offense and now I just call something a cult. You know that's, that happens all the time. But no, I'm not worried about um organic, true church led by the Holy spirit, around the presence of Jesus, turning into a cult because Jesus is the one leading the meetings.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And people have such a hard time with that. No, brooke and Justin are the one that leads these meetings. We moved away to prove the point. We don't control anything, and I think that's a good point to make too. That's one thing.
Speaker 1:Moving here I really questioned with the Lord was like Lord, why did you ask us to move away from a thriving community of believers? Why did you ask us to move away from a thriving community of believers? And he said to me he's like anyone who has the gifting to create movement in the body of Christ. They're never supposed to stay in one place because people get dependent on them and not on Jesus. So it's healthy for people to move away and start new works in different places and let the people who are still there begin to mature and grow after you've given them everything you got, you know. So I question sometimes pastors I'm like, should they stay in one place for 25 years? You know? Because, like, have the people who've been under you for 25 years actually reproduce? Because if not, there's a problem, or maybe you're actually supposed to step back so they don't depend on you and they actually have to depend on Jesus.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, I don't think a lot of pastors think that that's their responsibility to actively do something to stop people from coming to them from depending on them. That's right and it is because you even see in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus talks about not taking on titles, he tells them do not let people call you.
Speaker 1:You master servant teacher. So it's so interesting he puts the responsibility on them.
Speaker 2:He also says do not call because he's instructing his disciples like don't call people by titles, giving them positions. But he says you do not be called. I'm like dang. Like we read right over that?
Speaker 2:We don't realize it's our responsibility to take ourselves off the pedestal Right. I want to read this definition until we move on, before we move on to the practical part of this. A cult is generally and I didn't ask, you, didn't know, I was going to ask you that question, so it's interesting the point you brought up A cult is generally defined as a group or a movement with shared set of beliefs okay practices or goals, often led by a single charismatic leader that exercises a high degree of control or influence over its members. The term can have different connotations depending on the context, whether sociological, physiological or religious. Okay, so here's some key characteristics Centralized leadership.
Speaker 2:So here's some key characteristics centralized leadership and it's funny as you start to go through, like the true definition of what is deemed a cult. It actually looks a lot more these little isolated groups of people. But that's not what organic church is. It's not a bunch of isolated groups of people that are out in the wilderness and don't want any, you know. It's a bunch of shared lives where people are open to. You know there's not one single leader at the top, like you said. So centralized leadership that that demands unquestioning obedience and loyalty. So a lot of times you know that centralized leader in the system can't be challenged right. Seemingly they can be challenged right, but they're really untouchable. Like, who in the congregation has the right? Say you're in a 5,000 member church. Like, do you think you can really challenge the pastor Right? Right, you know, to control it's led by control and manipulation. So the use of psychological, emotional or physical tactics to maintain their authority and influence over members.
Speaker 2:Sheesh Some witchcraft going on in the pulpits right. Members are often isolated from outside influence, including family and friends, to foster dependence on the group. I wouldn't say a lot of churches fall into that category, but when it comes to different denominations and stuff like that, we experienced it on the mission field that you were also attending the church down the street you know stuff like that.
Speaker 2:We've experienced it where people got mad because they were attending one congregation but also meeting with us and having conversations with us, and so it's either break that relationship off or, you know, leave the group or whatever Coercive practices. So members may face pressure, guilt or fear to conform unquestionable beliefs and then, here, financial or emotional exploitations. So they're listen to this members may be manipulated into giving excessive time, money or resources to the group. I feel like, unfortunately, like we felt that way too, because you you'll go above and beyond to do things you typically wouldn't do to serve, because you actually think that's what Jesus expects of you, right, so you're doing it with a good heart, to serve Jesus, but you're actually being used to serve the system. So most of your time and your resources are actually going towards the maintenance of the system that's right Instead of what Jesus has actually called us to do and that's make disciples, uh, and and multiply church. You know churches and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So, um, give you a couple scenarios, cause there there could be people and there's, I've seen in the comments in different scenarios, uh, different situations. So say, there's a person that is still attending the Sunday service, right, but they're having this revelation of like this is not what, it is, kind of where we were. But when they look around, there's nobody else around them that is really understanding or getting it Um, and they want to know what do I do? Do I stay where I'm at? Do I just step out? But if I step out I'm kind of alone in this. Like, what would you recommend for that person?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we understand because you know, the Lord told us to come back to um, our hometown, for from the mission field we came back and we had all these miracle stories and we were on fire for the Lord. And we got back and like nobody was feeling so excited like we were. They were kind of in the rat wheel of like work and family and you know the monotony of it, but like the true obedience to Christ was kind of dulled and nulled and they didn't even know that there was a great commission to fulfill. So I just began to pray and seek the Lord and just ask the Lord, like, show me people who are actually hungry, who are questioning their hearts, but they don't even know like where to begin.
Speaker 1:And I actually had a dream of one specific woman and I found her on Facebook. I reached out, I said, hey, I had this dream, I need to talk to you. And I briefly knew her Not great, but I knew her and she was like, yeah, let's talk. So I call her, we get on the phone, we plan a coffee date and I sit down across the table from her and I just challenge her with like hey, do you know the Great Commission? And she looked at me kind of like huh, not sure if I do. I'm like, well, let's open our Bibles. And we opened our Bibles to the end of each gospel and we started reading the Great Commission. And she's like, I didn't really know this, was in here, nobody's ever told me about this. And I said, well, what if you never fulfill this? Like, are you truly a disciple of Jesus? You didn't fulfill His last words and His first commands to His disciples, his disciples before he leaves. And it just wrecked her. And so I saw the way it challenged her.
Speaker 1:So I just continued to be that bold with friends and family members and and things like that, and the Lord would just start bringing people. Because I was asking him Lord, bring, show me where the harvest is, because you say it's plentiful, but where is it, you know? And so I started praying, like that, and I just took every opportunity just to share and challenge and ask. And people were just like what? Like I didn't even know that I could baptize somebody.
Speaker 1:I thought that was only for the pastor, or I didn't know that I could, you know, meet in a house and read the Bible and that could be church, you know, and things like that and I didn't know that, like I had this mandate on my life to actually be a disciple maker and share the gospel myself and it just started happening around me. I didn't have to muster it up. I'm telling you, if you are truly connected to the vine, jesus will bring people to you. You don't have to muster it up, jesus just oozes out of you and people know there's something different, so they're just drawn to you.
Speaker 2:And I would say it could happen with. It could happen with other Christians, that's right. Or it could happen with unbelievers.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Like you just start to build relationships and share the gospel and then boom, something is birthed. That's right. I would say also just be willing to kind of learn as you go, that's right, and don't be scared that it's got to look like something specific or there's any timeline or even being like you said, being afraid.
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid of there being a season of God making you holy and purifying you and making you a true disciple of Jesus, before he brings a community around you. I think of Paul. Paul was taken away from the groups for a little while. What? For 14 years, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Or three years. I can't remember A large amount of time where, like he just sat with Jesus and became a disciple himself, it's okay just to be with him. People are like, oh well, then you're neglecting the gathering, you know, and you're in sin. No, somebody neglecting to come together is because they're intentionally not coming around the body of Christ for some reason. It's another thing to be sitting with the Lord letting Him do some open heart surgery, because then that means me and you were in sin when we went to Nepal because there wasn't a body around us.
Speaker 1:When we went to go be missionaries, we were at an unreached country, right. So were we in sin because we didn't go to a church service every Sunday? No, like we were there to share Jesus. So if your heart is not like I'm not going to be with them because I don't want to be at the church and I can do this on my own, then you're in sin, you're forsaking the gathering. But if you truly love the Lord and you're like I want nothing more than community and gathering, but I cannot find what's genuine and pure and what the scriptures demonstrates as true biblical church, then I'm going to sit with the Lord. Make sure my heart is good. Make sure I look more like Him, make sure I'm abiding and remaining and bearing much fruit, and people will begin to come around you. You know, or He'll bring community to you or you'll begin to just share your faith with boldness because you can't contain what you've been experiencing in your own time with the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're experiencing it. So when it comes out there's, it's authentic, because it's what the Lord is doing for you and a lot of people will. Um, let me ask you this so do you think why wouldn't somebody just go? Do you think they should go into their pastor's office and just challenge them and try to fix the system from within?
Speaker 1:We get that a lot Like why don't you stay?
Speaker 2:in the church and fix the system.
Speaker 1:You cannot fix the broken system. Yeah, it needs to die, let it die. Okay, just let that system die Because you can't fix it, because its DNA and its foundation is not scriptural, so you can't just sprinkle a little scripture in there and make it more scriptural. It needs to die. Did the Lord use it? Has he used it for some time? Yes, to do things. But just like the Lord kind of accommodated Israel there for some time and let her do her thing build calves and do silly stuff to get them to the point they needed to be at, doesn't mean he was pleased with what they were doing. He tolerated it for some time. But now we're seeing this shaking in the church Again. You can't tell me I don't care if you are the best pastor in your area that God is not shaking the church right now with the amount of exposure and leadership and all the things, that there is not something being shaken right now with the amount of exposure and leadership and all the things that there's not something being shaken right now.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:You would have to be completely ignorant if you don't see it, If he wasn't shaking something like he's shaking things up, guys like there's a reason. Not because he hated the institutional system, he used it for a time. But there's a better way and he's trying to shake away what's not of God and let it crumble, so that what is actually pure and holy and remains will actually be what's left behind.
Speaker 1:And that can be what reproduces and multiplies. That's why, like you, if, if you have incest in a family, you don't want that to keep reproducing. You need to let that generation, that part of it, die and then create what's new, healthy and pure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Hebrews 12, it's what it's what he originally spoke about. The old covenant, like, was being shaken away so that all that could remain was what cannot be shaken.
Speaker 2:That is the things of the kingdom and I think the reason that we have to go through another shaking is because Jesus came. Okay, jesus didn't go into the synagogues and try to restructure the system and be like no, it's good guys, we've just got to like, we just shift this here and we just change this program up a little bit. Is that what he did? No, he came to bring an entirely new covenant, new relationship. That's why so many rejected him, because they couldn't understand. And he said you cannot use the old wineskin. It will burst. If you continually try to move forward into the future when Jesus is doing something new with the old wineskin, you will burst Right. And it's like that's what we're seeing is we're trying to hold on to the old way because it's so comfortable and it's old way. It's not even. It's something that we continue to rebuild out of the old Testament. So we pull our principles out of the old covenant and the synagogues and those things.
Speaker 2:If you there's a, I wish I had it with me, but there's a segment of a book I read and it went through. It's actually an old, I'll have to bring it up in another podcast, but it's a description of the synagogue gathering and it talks about the. You know the, the them standing up and reading scripture and interpret, interpreting it, and then they went out and they had a meal afterwards and it sounds more. This old Testament description of a synagogue gathering sounds, or a temple gathering sounds, more close to what we experienced on a Sunday than what Jesus was doing in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:That's right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Now this is really good. I guess you know we did that one scenario. Another scenario would be I think a lot of people are in as they've kind of exited they're done and they've exited the Sunday gathering, the church system, and now they're meeting together, say with one or two other families, and they've been meeting for five, six months and it's going well and stuff. But maybe they're starting to feel like they're hitting a lull and they don't know where to go next. There's nobody new coming in the group.
Speaker 2:They've been meeting together, reading scripture, praying together. It's been good, but they feel stuck. What would you advise? Go out and share your faith.
Speaker 1:Like it all goes back to the mission. Like you can't get stuck if you're seeing the gospel work in people's lives around you. Like you can't get stuck, you just can't get stuck. And if you've been meeting in a group for one year, two year, three year, four year, five year, six years and you've gone through the scriptures and the people in the group, they get it. There's nothing new to really be had. Not that God can't teach you new revelation throughout your walk with the Lord. That's what I'm talking about. But there's no new, different commands we need to really work on and settle in our hearts. People are walking in holiness. It's okay for that community, that group, to dissolve and even meet maybe once a month and get the people in your group outwardly focused on the people, the lost people or even the institutionalized people who are questioning things, like going and like helping them and starting new community groups outside of your original group. Like these groups don't always have to last forever, just like my children are not going to live in my home forever.
Speaker 2:I want to slow down there for a second because this might be a huge revelation for people and I don't want to blow past it. But we realize that and that's a big statement your church, fellowship, your house church is not meant to last forever.
Speaker 1:Well, think about it. Jesus is like we got three years, guys, and then I'm going and you got to go out. He didn't say y'all keep meeting together, you 12 or you 11 or whatever.
Speaker 2:He went away and he said now go out two by two into the communities and create. I did a short form video years ago that was called uh, the church must divide to multiply. That's right and it's uh. It's not division as in like we grow inwardly until we get too big and then we split. It's not that. It's that what we have learned over time is that if you don't multiply, it will grow stagnant. If there's no mission, you'll get inwardly focused, just like you would in the four walls of a church building, a traditional church building. You will grow stagnant and you will start to criticize each other and everybody will feel unfulfilled and they think it's because so-and-so is not doing something right or they're doing something wrong, or we need to add music to our group or we need to add this, and you get back in the same mindset. But really it's because you've had your eyes on yourself too long and you're actually not obeying Jesus and letting his, his, his word and his gospel flow through you into other lives. And I've realized this.
Speaker 2:That struggle is mostly with churched people. Like you said, it's the institutionalized people that move into an organic setting, it's not the brand new believers, like they understand immediately how to share and evangelize with other groups. And so I would say, start building some relationships with, like brand new Christians. Or say you lead somebody to Christ that doesn't have a church background, a religious background, don't wait. Don't wait too long, don't extract that person out of their environment, bring them into your church bubble and then separate them from everybody else. Yes, they shouldn't be doing the same things with the same group of friends, but you don't want to break that relationship, that connection that they have, because that could be a person of peace into a whole nother group of people. That's how you see rapid multiplication and rapid movement.
Speaker 1:I think what you're saying too, like I want you to hear us. I advise people all the time, like, if you are, you know, coming out of your old life of drunkenness or whatever, please don't go hang out with those people right now, because you need to get your sea legs, you need to walk in holiness, you need to bear fruit worthy of your repentance that you've, you know, expressed to God through repentance. But once you've got your sea legs, go back into that community and begin to challenge them, like Like hey, let me tell you how my life was changed. If you're still struggling and you don't feel like a new creation and changed yet, don't go back yet, okay, but don't wait 10 years either, because if you wait 10 years, all that relationship's dead.
Speaker 2:You've lost all relationships, yes, and so like for me.
Speaker 1:I think of my life like I had a radical encounter with Jesus. And you know what happened? Right after I gave my life to the Lord, I went to one of my good friends. Her name's Morgan. I'm going to give her a shout out. Um, I went to her and I'm like hey, guess what happened to me in my bedroom the other night, like I had this radical encounter with Jesus. And she's like oh, that's cool. She didn't fully grasp what I was trying to say at the moment, but she's like oh well, I go to a Bible study every like Tuesday or Wednesday night and it's a bunch of girls we went to high school with.
Speaker 1:You want to come with me. And I was kind of intimidated because some of these girls, like did not like me in high school. And so I was like I mean, I guess so. And so I get there and I begin to share my story. I began to share with them what happened to me. I began to share revelation and things that were going on in my life. And I continued to go and share more and more and more.
Speaker 1:And these girls were like what are we doing with our silly little Bible study? Like this girl's got something going on in her life Like she actually knows Jesus and it affected a lot of them. And then they began to challenge and question their own walks with the Lord and sit before the Lord and some found out they weren't as far along as they thought or genuine as they thought and received the Holy Spirit. And some think I'm crazy, which is fine. People will think you're crazy if you truly follow Jesus, you know. But a lot of them responded and now those are some of the women I've gotten to pour into over the past three, four, five, six, seven years. And now, like they're doing it on their own and where we talked about last week, you know, like we're seeing these people reproduce a second and third generation disciple outside of me. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, no, that's good. I circling all the way back around to the beginning. The system is sinking. And if you notice when I talked about it, if you've ever watched the movie or anything like that of the Titanic, they continued to play music as the ship went down. It was like everybody was kind of for a while like no, it's all good. Yeah, it's all good, right.
Speaker 1:Well, you want to know why they were that way. It's because their flesh was so overstimulated they couldn't see there was danger in front of them because they were filled, they were fat and happy, good to go. Their ears were being tickled. So when you're in that position and your flesh is so stuffed and overstimulated, you can't see when the spirit's like red flags. Red flags, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But the beautiful thing is, and the encouraging thing is, is that the spirit of God is waking people up all over the place. That's right In the church. Outside of the church, people are realizing that the way forward is, like we said before, simplicity, simplicity, the simplicity of the gospel. For simplicity, simplicity, the simplicity of the gospel, the real forged relationships with one another, reproducible. Every single believer feels equipped to do it.
Speaker 2:That's right, okay, the DNA of the true church. Why do I think it's imperative that we get this or we die Is because those are the ingredients of a church that thrives, no matter what the culture looks like around it, no matter who is in charge in the government, no matter if they make Christianity illegal or not. We have to think these things through.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:What will survive? And not only survive, but thrive and multiply no matter what. That is the way forward, so good, and I'll spend the rest of my life preaching from the lifeboats. That's right, get off the ship Get in. It's going down and I truly believe that in generations to come it will be normal. That's right, it will be normal and it will be fruitful. So thank you guys so much for joining us today. I hope this episode was helpful. I hope it was practical and a little bit alarming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit of a wake-up call.
Speaker 2:To wake you up.