reChurch Podcast

What Happens When Man Builds The Church? | #reChurch Ep. 24

• Justin and Brooke Knoop • Season 2 • Episode 24

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Jesus said, “I will build My church.”

Somewhere along the way, we decided to take that job from Him.

In this episode of the reChurch Podcast, we talk honestly about what happens when man tries to build the church instead of trusting Jesus to do it—and how that shift has shaped modern, business-style church organizations, marketing strategies, growth metrics, and leadership structures.

When the church becomes something we have to manage, scale, and sustain, the weight doesn’t fall on Jesus anymore—it falls on people. Pastors carry pressure they were never meant to bear. Members carry guilt, obligation, and burnout. And the simplicity of following Christ gets replaced with performance and programs.

This conversation isn’t about tearing down the church—it’s about asking a hard but necessary question: What if the burden we feel is the result of doing a job that was never ours?

If you’ve ever felt tired, disillusioned, or overwhelmed by church systems—or wondered why faith feels heavier than it should—this episode is for you.


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SPEAKER_04:

So today, at least here in the West, we're dealing with an epidemic in the church, and that is a man-made system. So basically, man is building the church. I don't think a lot of people talk about this. I haven't heard a lot of conversations around it other outside of you know the circles that we're with. Um but I want to talk about today what is the cost of man taking Jesus' job in building the church? I think it's it's kind of a rhetorical question. Like we'll get into it, but I I think it's I think there's a big price to pay when we do that. I think we are drawn to that model for us to just take over because when we can control things, we feel more safe. Why do you think why do you think that is? Like it wasn't always that. It obviously didn't start off that way with Jesus. Why do you think, and at what point in church history do you think we started taking over, saying, like, I think we can do it better?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I'll answer the first question. The why? Why do you think we did this? Um, from my perspective, I believe it just makes us feel more in control, more safe, you know, because I think if you even look back to just sharing the gospel in general and the foundations of it, it takes a lot of faith to trust that God's gonna do his part. I know even for myself, like I'm tempted to like the Lord gives you a word and then it doesn't come to pass as fast as you think it's gonna be, or the process looks different than you wanted it, then you start to take things in your own hands and get into the flesh. Um, and I think once you think about it, like once one generation gets into the flesh, it just births generations of flesh after it. So, you know, when Constantine came into the church and like institutionalized it, Constantine? Yeah. Um you have the flesh born and it just reproduced itself. And now you get to where you have a modern Roman style of teaching where you're on platforms and pedestals and um where you have, you know, what is it called again? I forgot that they stand behind. Pulpit. Pulpit. Gosh, we've been out too much too long. The pulpit, um, the rows, like where you have like um cathedral type seating and the charismatic person behind the pulpit, it just comes back from that generation of time where things really started to get kind of wonky.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. And I think when you when you study it out, like I think we we put a lot on that time period of Emperor Constantine because it was like the legalization, if you will, or basically widespread acceptance of Christianity becoming the state religion, right? The religion of the empire. And so it was more widely accepted. But I think even before that, it's it's it's crazy how quickly after the life of Jesus we start to see uh man-made religion come in. Um it's really what Jesus was dealing with when he was walking to earth as well, even with the uh with Judaism, as he was seeing like, hey, this is where this has taken you up into this point, and now all of a sudden we start literally adding rules and adding systems and adding all these things that we think we can make it better. And what you're left with is something that is completely void of God. And so I'll go ahead and answer the question right off the bat. What is the cost of man building the church? The cost is that man has to maintain it. That's yeah, deep. And the cost of man having to maintain it, maintain it is burnt out people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And hurt people, hurt people, burnt people. But that's the thing, like either you can control it or God can control it. Like you can't do both. Either God can build his church, that's right, or you can build the church. Like you can't, you can't do both. And I heard something recently that I want to get into, and throughout this episode, we're gonna we're gonna talk about this. This is how we'll basically structure our episodes. We'll kind of do, hey, here's a problem, um, break it down, and it's kind of opening your eyes to see why or to see the how things are working currently in the church system, uh, why it's wrong or unbiblical, and then we can move towards a solution that actually works. Um, but I heard recently I heard a guy talking about uh back when he was in seminary, there was some required reading in one of those books that he was required to read. I can't remember the exact name of something about like uh marketing the church or something like that. And it's so funny. I've never seen the book or read the book or anything like that, but uh it's so wild how things quickly moved, you know, a couple decades ago into the whole idea of using a few, pulling a few tactics from the business realm, from the sales realm into the world of the church, um, and just the detrimental effects that that took. And what I want to talk about is you know, looking at the the tactics that the church is using currently, it it breaks my heart because I was on Facebook the other day, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and say the name of it. I don't know them personally or anything like that, but there's no use in hiding it. You'll probably see it too. But there's a company out there called Church Candy, which to me, just the name of that sounds wrong.

SPEAKER_00:

Like it almost sounds like an adult site for church.

SPEAKER_04:

It's so weird. We'll say it again. Church candy. Church candy. Okay. I thought that's what you said.

SPEAKER_00:

But I'm like, maybe you said something different.

SPEAKER_04:

Um I watched through their little ad and then I clicked on it just to go to their website. You could see all the testimonials and stuff like that. So I didn't go like super deep into it. From what I understand, it's it's basically uh an organization, a company that comes alongside uh church organizations and helps them market to new visitors. So the whole goal, I guess they're deliverable, is you getting more people in your Sunday service. And the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way off the bat is their their the ad that they use is, I guess, a pastor. And he's like, he starts off the conversation. He goes, he goes, Yeah, you know, and this this week and this year, we were running about 200, 200, 300 a week, like running. And I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00:

Are these like business numbers?

SPEAKER_04:

Like and then and then he goes, and then he goes, but after church candy, you're implementing your systems and stuff, like we're running like five to six hundred, like that is like their it's like their product. I'm like, can you if you were a member of that church organization and you came across that ad, and that was your pastor, and he's talking about how many they were running and how many they're running now, yeah. How would that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Like, what are we talking about here? And so that's just uh unfortunate and sm and and then I went on the website and I saw like pastors I know, not personally, but you know what I'm saying? Like you've seen them before, they're well known. Um, advertising or or giving their testimony of how this has helped their their church grow. And I'm like, how far, how blind are we? God. I mean, we get an incredible amount of kickback from the church because of just because of meeting outside the walls or outside of a Sunday or in a living room or just different things that we do, like, oh, you pray, pray for the sick, or you cast out demons, or whatever. But nobody is challenging these mainstream pastors with the fact that they're using this.

SPEAKER_00:

What are you doing? Yeah, it makes me actually very nauseous to think about.

SPEAKER_04:

So it's like, how how far do we go into this business model? Like, how far do we go before people just by the droves? I know there's a lot of people waking up, waking up to the reality of this and realizing something's not off. I had a call with a guy today, an ex-pastor today, and um, he was saying he started feeling the same things. You just start to feel like something's off, and then you're like, I don't, there's gotta be more to this. Like the questions you start asking. But then if you really, really take a deep dive, like you said, you said you think the reason that it gets there eventually is because of it starts off with like one move in the flesh and then two and then three. Next thing you know, is a hundred years of us doing the same thing, and we think because the 10 people before us did it that it's okay. Right. And we never go back where it got where we yeah, we never uh you know that's why I recommend a great book called Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola. To uh, if you want to dig into like the origins of a lot of the activity that we have in church.

SPEAKER_00:

Once you read it, you can't unread it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy I was talking to today, that's what he's like, you can't I can't unsee what I've seen now. No, and so it's very difficult to go back. That's why you even forget what a pulpit is at this point. You're like, what is some people out there are dreaming? They're like, could there be a day where I don't even remember what a pulpit is, right? You're like, what are those things you sit on?

SPEAKER_00:

I know I'm like, well, I can't think of what this is called.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So I mean, it it is wild. Um, but yeah, what we have today, what we have today is this this man-made system, right? Man-made system. Uh, you have a a boss at the top, the CEO pastor, um, the pastors underneath them. And the reason that I think we're having to use marketing tactics in this church organization is because it it is technically a business organization.

SPEAKER_00:

And what if, you know, just a food for thought. What if your business model wasn't making new converts? It was just shuffling the deck of cards. You see what I'm saying? So, like your new church candy model is just a bit more attractive than the last church's model. So people are just hopping churches, but we're not actually converting and making disciples. We're just shuffling the deck. And we're sitting here saying Christianity's at the all-time high, or we have these fake statistics and numbers that aren't realistic. Um, because again, just your marketing scheme got a little bit better. Like, is it truly bringing in healthy, born-again new converts? Right. So, and again, the way you know if those converts are actually true, can you harvest them in a couple of years and let them plant a church or community of their own? You know what I'm saying? Like if you look at your church at large, if you can't do a harvest every few years, that means you're actually not discipling them.

SPEAKER_04:

No, because what happens is they usually stick with you for a few years. And if you're not entertaining them or you know, feel like they're being quote unquote fed, they're shuffling on to the next one. So there's a problem on both sides with the people that are in that system, but then also the leaders in the system that is breeding that type of stuff. Like our kids, um, I don't know how much you're getting into this, but our kids just recently there was a they're on a football team and one of the coaches left and stuff like that. And this is this this could be anything. We have, or I'll give you a better example. The um uh church uh organization we used to be part of back home. Uh, the pastor left.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_04:

And he went and he started a whole new church organization and very much so like a mimic of what he had before with the same uh uh a church, uh school, a Christian school, all that stuff. And mass amounts of members flood from one to the other. Now you could look at that and be like, we grew 500% in one month. Like we have all these people, like you're looking at all this fruit, and really it's just warm bodies moving from one building to another. That's right. Is that what is that what Jesus intended? Like, was he just shuffling?

SPEAKER_00:

And here's the thing half of those people that shuffled had already been under him for 15 years. They should already be out multiplying, they shouldn't be sitting under him anymore.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

They should be out there doing the work of the gospel, not just sitting back in a different building.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it reminds me, the picture I get is like uh grandma at her house, you're there for Christmas dinner, and she's got a fruit basket in the living room and one in the kitchen, and you move all the apples from the kitchen to the living room and then back to the kitchen, like and then back to the living room. You didn't multiply apples, you just shifted apples. You just move the the same apples, yeah, right? Yeah, that is not fruit, right? So, in no way, shape, or form should we be measuring attendance or growth by attendance, yeah. At all, but we can't get out of this mentality. And I'm honestly so sick and tired of people when you confront this issue, people saying, like, it's not about the numbers and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. But then everything you do, I'm getting some of these responses on Instagram. Everything you do points to that. Yeah. And then when you finally challenge them on that and you get down to the facts of the situation and the model, then the response that I get is, well, I know it's not perfect, but God's using it.

SPEAKER_00:

He's working with it. I would say right now, God's tolerating it, but I don't think there will be a day where it's tolerated anymore. Just like when Jesus came, he tolerated a lot of things before he came, right? He tolerated the Israelites not wanting him to be king of them, you know, over them. So he gave them a man when he's like, No, I want to be your God and I want to be your king. Um, so he gave them an accommodation with Saul, which we all saw how that went. A man should not be in charge of people. It drives you mad. Um, and then after that, you know, he the law didn't exist because he wanted to be in relationship with them. And then instead of them wanting to be in relationship, they wanted a mediator, Moses. So now they're given a law instead of it being written on their hearts because they're in direct relationship with him. You know, all these accommodations throughout. And then when Jesus came, like he's like, okay, I'm done. I'm flipping the tables, I'm destroying this system. And then a hundred years later we resurrect it, and now we're back to where we are. And like, what if there's a time judgment comes again back on the system that we've resurrected? The honestly, it's the old temple system model. Like, what if it gets destroyed and there is no megachurch anymore? What would people do? I think 80% of the megachurch would like they would go back to their old ways or they'd just be stuck, you know, or maybe, maybe it would actually drive people to read the Bible and obey if we took away the the crutches that we've developed in the in within the system.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. And but if you look at history, especially in the church, like this is what was taking place in the Catholic Church before Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door. Um, the Catholic Church decided based on their needs of the system in the building. So it was, it was needs driven, like the system's needs to continue, the machine. They had to figure out how to get money. Well, the way they figured out how to get money is because they took something they know people deal with on a regular basis, which is sin, and they began to sell indulgences. And so they started to uh basically provide ways where you could pay them money for sins to be forgiven and family members and different things like that. And uh, and quite literally the church became a business. That's right. Right? It's the same thing that was taking place in Judaism when Jesus flipped the tables, and now we revert back. So we're starting to see this cycle, and it's been hundreds of years. Not everything was fixed perfectly, obviously, uh, by Martin Luther. There were so many things that were left in place that are wrong, but the system was eventually reformed because it got to this tipping point. And I feel like the the tipping point is coming again. So if you want to call yourself the people waking up are kind of early adopters of recognizing that the system, it it has it has to be reformed, but it really has to be like when are we going to be done with this? And recognizing that we're getting to this this point. That's right. Um, and so we're we're reaching that tipping point again where it's starting to get so silly that people are starting to wake up.

SPEAKER_00:

Church candy. I mean, just say it out loud. I want you as you're sitting listening to the screen, especially if you're naysay or just interested in what we're talking about, just say church candy. And how does that make you feel? Just feels wrong. It feels almost blasphemous in a way.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, yeah, because we argue against sugarcoating the gospel. This is actually a step worse because we're not even giving them the gospel. We're not even giving them the gospel sugarcoated. We're solely focused on the church as an organization. When they say church candy, they I sure hope you don't mean the people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

The people are candy?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

No, you're talking about the church organization and candy that draws people in. And so the angle I would imagine most people take on this is they're like, oh, we're just using these methods to bring people in. And then once we bring them in, right, then we can turn them to Christ.

SPEAKER_00:

The true gospel, it will grow without any fleshy thing alongside of it. Like, am I right? Like, we can't even maintain what we're doing because the real gospel just reproduces. Yeah. And the beautiful part is I don't have to build the church. That's God's job. I'm just called to make the disciple. And if you make a healthy disciple, you're not bur bearing this burden on your own. You have other people to bear this burden with you. You're not the cool guy and on the block, you know? So you don't have to worry about getting burned out. Now, is there a burden to carry when you're maybe like the flag waiver, like red flags? Yeah, for sure. But one day that won't even exist because we will all be mature in Christ Jesus if we continue to uh preach this message.

SPEAKER_04:

I realize after the conversation I had today, I realized where the burden comes from too. The the burden and the weight that you feel to kind of like, because a lot of a lot of pastors and leaders are in performance. We were in performance. Oh, yeah, and we were in ministry. Yeah. You know, and you know what I'm saying? And that was like leading small groups and worship for a middle school. The burden comes from uh knowing that if you don't do this certain thing and keep the people, the machine won't run, you'll lose your job, the system will crash, all of that stuff. Like it's it's dependent on that. But with what we're seeing now and what we're experiencing now, like church in a more organic way, there's no system to keep running. There's no machine to feed. So it does not matter. And it doesn't matter if the person stays or if the person goes. Like everything you do is just serving people with no strings attached. That's right. And if you leave, I don't lose my job.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right.

SPEAKER_04:

If ever if money stops flowing, that well, money doesn't flow, but it is like no, right? I can still pay my light bill. You're not paying my light bill. Do you know what I'm saying? And so the I'm sure he'll listen to this, but the gentleman I I I spoke with, he was like, um, you know, when he made the connection between like the tithe money coming in and his paycheck, just something within that connection point just like started to feel wrong or dirty or whatever. And I'm like, I think I just I hope a lot of people begin to see that when their eyes are open to that. And again, it goes back to the fear of like what happens? What happens if my eyes are open to that? Red pill, blue pill. Like, I think really it's not that most people don't think something's wrong. It's that they don't want to deal with the repercussions if they recognize it is.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. Well, I mean, I heard recently, I'm gonna put his name out there, Rooslan. He did a you know conversation with a friend of ours, and he's talking about how which I don't think his statistics were accurate, but the average pastor only makes fifty-six thousand dollars a year. That's like nothing in the scheme of it all, and in the big deal or whatever. And it's like, no, I hear what you're saying. That seems like not a lot of money. But why in the world are you gonna sit here and charge people to come listen to a free message? A free message, like Jesus never charged anyone for anything. Was his needs met? Yeah, they were met supernaturally, right? But why are we sitting here charging, even if it's just for sixty thousand dollars a year, whatever the statistical number is? When you could literally just work a job, make probably three times that amount if you really just worked, and then have the freedom to preach the real gospel and actually see real fruit, instead of trying to build your kingdom here for$56,000 measly thousand dollars. You know what I'm saying? Like you can't pay your bills on that in today's economy now. You have to have two jobs, you know, which is great if they work a part-time job. But we're sitting here saying it's a small number and they should and it should be acceptable and okay. But$56,000 could feed a lot of poor people. It could bless a lot of single moms, it could do a lot of things, right? But if you culminate in America, let's say a hundred thousand of those people are making$56,000 a year and you add that up. Like we could literally feed all poor people and homeless people and take care of the widow and the X, Y, and Z for that amount of money because all these people are able, able-bodied people to work a job.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's just, what are we doing? Like, do you really need to get paid to like create a sermon every month? And I know pastors do more than or every week, but but pastors do more than that in the sense of like they go to hospital calls and things like that. But like, shouldn't the body at large be doing that? Like, why is it one man doing those jobs when we're all called to serve the body in that way?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, that's the key because people will hear what you first said and they'll be like, well, my pastor does so much, like he deserves to at least make a living off of this. But the problem is, is not them being how much they're being paid. Like, that's not the issue. The issue is that they're doing stuff that was meant to be spread out through the body of Christ.

SPEAKER_00:

But because they're being paid, they feel like they have to do it all by themselves.

SPEAKER_04:

Correct. And the people paying them feel like they don't have to have to do anything. So why would you like if you hired a trainer, would you go there and then would you start training yourself while the trainer's there? Right. No, you hired a trainer to do this. And so we don't want to use that language. We're not gonna be like, well, I hired a pastor to spiritually feed me. We it sounds weird when we say it like I uh my pastor gets paid to shepherd me, right? Or to like spiritually feed me. It sounds weird when we say it like that. We won't. Um, but we'll say it like that for like a trainer or whatever. And it and that goes back to what we talked about earlier is we've turned the church, if we've turned the church into a business, that means that we've what we have to do is we have to hire professional Christians to provide a professional service, like we even call it a service to us in exchange for money. So no matter what you want to call it, people are coming in. Okay, and you could say, like, well, only this percentage of people actually tithe. Yeah, but there's still an expectation that eventually, if you're receiving some kind of service or benefit from them, that you'll eventually pay the system. So there, there, there's not like a uh forced obligation. There is in some churches, but not every church is forcing that uh obligatory giving or whatever, but it's expected enough to where you feel weird if you don't and you've been going there a year and you've not given any money because of the setting you're in. You're in a setting where there's literally a pot being passed around, people are putting in money and then someone hands it to you. So do you not think every single Sunday the person is thinking like, Oh yeah, if I don't do this, there's something wrong with me, right? That's right. So tell me this how you can have a person that is hired receiving a paycheck, providing a service for people that are passive recipients in a building which is an organization, and say that that's that's not a business transaction. Okay. So now that we understand that we are operating in the church under business transactions, spiritual transactions, how can we not call that some sort of spiritual prostitution?

SPEAKER_00:

It is.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you know what I'm saying? That's right. And so what that then they're like, well, what how does the pastor live and survive? What are you talking about? Do we hire evangelists? Do we hire prophetic people? Do we hire apost? What is this obsession with the pastor? Yeah, what is this obsession with this position? Okay, if you look in a congregation of a thousand people, I guarantee you there's gotta be more people who are gifted and shepherding in there than just that one person or the five, you know, the parking lot pastor and the connections pastor and the small groups pastor and the big groups pastors and the middle groups pastors and the the shoe pastor, the bookstore pastor. You know what I'm saying? Like these giftings, there's there's there's people with different giftings in the body of Christ, but because they're passive recipients, they're not actually using their giftings, which means all of the burden goes on one man or a group of small people, and they feel the weight of that. And so obviously they they feel and the people feel they should be receiving some sort of of uh uh monetary benefit because of what they're doing. Okay, do you see how this do you see how we can't now make the argument? Like because it's it gets blocked by this idea of oh, logically they're doing a lot. So they they this is this is the least that we can do. Okay, let's go back to the root of the problem is they shouldn't be doing all that.

SPEAKER_00:

And honestly, I would say a 40% of what they're doing is not even biblical, like fruit. No, it's like time fillers to make them feel productive because they feel like if I'm not super busy and burnt out, I'm not worth what I'm getting paid. So I'm just gonna fry myself out. I'm not gonna ask anybody for help because I'm the one paid for this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, which again, it just breeds immaturity, it breeds burnout, it breeds sin, it breeds complacency for others. Like this whole transactional relationship breeds destruction.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. And uh the next thing I want to get into before we talk about talk about practically what it looks like when Jesus builds his church is the marketing tactic the church is currently using. So um, you know, you run a business, you understand a little bit of of like sales, and we've all seen the millions amount of Instagram videos that we have now on teaching business. There's influencers all over, and they talk about this thing called like pain point selling. That's right. Um, and we know that businesses, the point of a business is to fix a problem. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Every business fixes a problem. Amazon, the reason you go to Amazon is they fix what problem?

SPEAKER_00:

Convenience.

SPEAKER_04:

Convenience, inconvenience, they fix it with convenience. Like you have a you have a problem, you don't want to drive all the way to the store to get what you want or whatever, and you want it quick. So they solve that. That's why they make a lot of money because they solve a big problem. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's a problem that exists forever, like it never goes away. Like people always are gonna need more convenience, right? Right.

SPEAKER_04:

But that's what I want to get into. So, in the business model, if you fix a problem permanently, you're in trouble. You're out of business.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_04:

So there's a little bit of like understanding certain businesses can slip into manipulation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, because they know that they need to keep re-introducing new problems or uh or offer some sort of subscription model. And uh, or else they won't they won't have money coming in, they won't have customers coming in.

SPEAKER_00:

Hence like your Easter production and your Christmas production, your New Year's Eve production.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. So really the product is the Sunday service. Right, if you will, you know, spiritual product that they're selling. Um, but they're a different TV series.

SPEAKER_00:

Come back for part two of Moses' exiting Egypt.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. But it's it's even more than that because that's not gonna just because I know I'm gonna get a Sunday service as a product every Sunday, that's not gonna keep me coming necessarily. Um, and honestly, that's what makes a lot of people switch churches and stuff. But the what they're doing kind of subconsciously, whether they know it or not, is they're projecting this message that if you don't come back, like if you're not regular regularly a part of this, then you're either in sin or something's bad, like you're bad. They won't outright say that, but the reason I know that, but yeah, the reason I know that for sure is because when I talk to people that have not been like they could have grew up in the in the church organization and they haven't been in 10 years. And I'll talk to them about Jesus. And one of their first response, this guilt response is, I know, I haven't been to church in a long time. I'm like, who said anything about going to church in a long time? That is literally, I'm I'm sure you you listening have heard somebody say, I know, I, you know, I haven't been to church in a long time. Like, I need to be better about that. I know, I know we need to get back into church. And I know what are you talking about? What are you talking about? We need to get back into church. No, you need to get in relationship with Jesus.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_04:

So if you're telling me that what we're communicating is not a message of you need to be in church and that's what connects you to Jesus, then why do people automatically feel like that is the thing that connects them to Jesus? Because we say a lot of things with our mouth and our words, right? And then, and then, and then, but what we're actually acting out is this system that we've we've created. I know this has come off sometimes. Some people can watch this and come off as if I'm I'm frustrated. I'm not frustrated at like the body of Christ or the church or anything like that. The frustrating point is that we won't just wake up to this, that we'll fight tooth and nail to defend this system. Not pastors, not people, not people you love and individuals. I'm not talking about the people. I'm talking about what we've created and what we're what we're pushing.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_04:

It's like when do we wake up?

SPEAKER_00:

Like this doesn't even have to do with the individual of a pastor. It has to do with the artificially inseminated role of a pastor that's not biblical, the system that is creating corruption, the system that is creating the church to be a business. That's what our problem is. If you're a true shepherd, be a shepherd, be a good shepherd, but don't manipulate your people. Don't use your your sheep. Like, what if you went into a pastor pasture right now as a shepherd with a hook, you know, like a staff, and you're like, sheep, by the way, when you walk out that gate, I need you to drop some money in the bucket. That does not make sense. Like a pastor, uh a sheep, sheep can't give their their shepherd anything. Yeah, like they're just there to serve. Like we shouldn't expect them to like give us something, right? Other than more sheep to grow the flock. But does the does the pastor go in there and like, well, nowadays artificial insemination is a thing in the farming world, but like, no, sheep just naturally mate and reproduce more sheep. So just keep being a good servant and it will multiply without the paycheck. Stop asking, like you're putting burdens. It's just like the Pharisees. You're putting burdens and yokes on people that they can't bear.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So that you can have a paycheck. So that you don't have to work a real job. Like I sit here and think, like, we have seminary schools. We have people who give up four years, five years, eight years of their life for seminary school. So when they get out, they get out in debt most of the time. So now they expect to have a job to pay off the debt and to provide for their family. But if I told you your ministry degree cannot even translate into the real world where you can have massive impact if you just went into the world, don't be of the world, but be in the world. Like we're in it, but we're not of it, right? Two different things. You actually might find yourself like reproducing way faster, having way more legit disciples. And you're not frustrated. You're actually really fulfilled.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so fulfilled in what we're doing with ministry, should we call it, even though I don't even see it as a ministry.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, what would we even call it? Like, there's not even a name for what we do. In Jesus' time, it was just follow me. Yeah, imitate me. And now it has to be called ministry. Like, I feel like sometimes when I'm talking to certain people, if I don't say ministry, they wouldn't even know what I meant by what we do.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, yeah. Like there's no legitimacy. No, you could say we are so not legitimate.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, what organization are you with?

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll say that, and that's the next question. I'm like, uh what?

SPEAKER_04:

It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it like nullifies it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

It is so wild. Like that's how far we have come from the actual truth. So my question to you as we flow into the last part of this episode is uh if it's not church candy, what is it? What do we need?

SPEAKER_00:

Every time you say it.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, I had I I put all of my investments into church candy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

What do I do now? Like, what do I do? So I've I've stepped out of I've stepped out of the church organization, but I still want to make disciples, which means I need people. Like, what is it? Let me, this is a better question. What does it look like when Jesus builds his church instead of man?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think that's a two-part question. If you are a man or a woman, again, that could probably cause a whole bunch of issues, like women pastors or whatever, that's a different topic for a different day. But if you are a person who is shepherding a flock and you're getting a paycheck for it, and let's say you have children at home, quit your job. Go find something you're passionate about and you love that you could do every day for the rest of your life in a business. Whether it's open a business or a nine to five, whatever it is you want to do, go put your heart and soul into that thing in the sense of I'm gonna work as unto the Lord. He's gonna provide through this, and I'm gonna be a light in this place. Start making disciples of the people within your home walls, your children and your wife. After that, make disciples of the people in your workplace. And I promise you, you're gonna have more disciples than you ever thought possible. And just invite them over for a meal. We have so many people, strangers. I met a girl at the we went to the skating rink last night. Girl asked me a simple question an hour later, shared my whole testimony. She's coming over for coffee on Friday. She's getting baptized. I shared my testimony with her at the skating rink. She's like, you know what? God's been telling me I need to be baptized. But I didn't even know what it why. Like, why is baptism even important? So we broke it down. We talked about it. We're going to discuss it on Friday, and she's ready to be baptized. Like, I don't know this girl. I met her once. Like, open up your home. Don't be afraid. Like, God is with you wherever you shall go, you know? So I think it starts there. Now, let's say you're not a person that has children. Let's say you're a single individual. Get a job and spend every waking hour outside of that job and while in that job, building the kingdom of God. You have more time than you need. Work out, pay your bills, make disciples. And that's all you need to do. And you too will reproduce mature disciples. It's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_04:

I would say I know because you said building the kingdom of God. I know that's like terminology that we use. What do you mean, but what's the difference between building the church and building the kingdom?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you're building individuals. You're building people.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's how you build the kingdom of God. And if you build people, God will build a church around you. If you build individuals, the church just naturally takes place around you. So that's what that looks like.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, for sure. I know we use this analogy before of like the bricks, but like the only time it talks about the church being a building is it talks about being like living stones being placed together.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_04:

So we're stones that are alive. And when those stones come together and they unite, they can create that structure that God dwells in. I shared the scripture. Uh, I think it's Acts 7.48, talks about God, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

He left the building.

SPEAKER_04:

He does not dwell in temples made by human hands.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. What how more clear do they need?

SPEAKER_04:

And then we walk into a building, the sanctuary on Sundays, and the first thing we hear is, it's good to be in the house of God. And it sounds so right. But if you actually test it against the Bible, the Bible says the exact opposite. Um, God doesn't dwell in physical buildings made by human hands, right? Which means he also doesn't dwell in your church made by human hands. Like if we try to build something ourselves, like he doesn't dwell in that thing. Like it's the spirit's job to build something. So we need to look in the scriptures and understand what our role is in this mission, right? It's not our mission that we tag God onto, but it's God mission, God's mission that we become part of, right? The great co-mission. We mission together, but it's his idea and he's driving it. He's the one that's building it, he's growing the fruit. He's given us the message and empowered us by the Holy Spirit with signs, miracles, and wonders to go out and to place that message as a seed in the hearts of people. And then we just recognize, like Jesus did, where the Holy Spirit was moving and working, and then we partner with what he is doing. Jesus said, I only do what I see my Father doing. So that's what was actually driving him and helping him discern and navigate which person he should talk to, how he should respond, what he should get involved in, when he should stay silent. Like these are things that happen with Christian maturity as you grow. You learn how to move with the Holy Spirit. It's not like over-spiritualized and all this different stuff. No, it's just recognizing where God is moving, where the fruit is. That's right, partnering with that and letting him do the heavy lifting. Right? Because he literally says, you know, to cast your burdens upon him, right? Because his his his uh his burden is light. But yet we're walking around as leaders in the church heavily burdened, not asking why, just saying we need to stick to it and we need to work harder. I'm like, you're heavy burdened because you're trying to do it. And you're calling a Facebook ads agency.

SPEAKER_00:

And here's the thing like, this isn't about buildings. I don't like when we meet and gather, we're in a home that is brick and mortar. Well, ours is tin and mortar, I guess. Our house is made out of tin. Anyways, um, but I sit here and I think this is not about the space or the place, it's about a living organism, yeah, the living body of Jesus Christ. Like, let's go back to the simple simplicity of W W W J D. What would Jesus do? Did he build a building? Did he gather people in that place? Or did he go into those buildings and like flip the tables upside down and cause mass chaos in a good way, which pushed people outside of the building. So they would actually go into the world. If it's truly of the Lord, the Lord created corn to grow and reproduce itself. We as farmers or as I'm not a farmer, but if I was a farmer, I could go out there and plant a seed. I don't have to go out to the corn and be like, do your job. You better do it well. Grow really tall, be yellow, produce five corns on a stock. You know, you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_04:

Was that a shot at my shirt?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. No, I'm just kidding. Like we don't have to do that because the seed will reproduce after its own kind. So if the true gospel goes in the hearts of people, you don't have to put it in an artificial inseminated space and place to do what it's supposed to do and to grow.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You just water it a little bit and it does what it's supposed to do. Stop it. Just stop it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh goodness. All right, guys. So the moral of the story is stop using people's tithe money to advertise on Facebook. Stop building your church and let him build his church. His church.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so good.

SPEAKER_04:

See you in the next episode.