How To Find A Good Church - Part 2

do that today. We're gonna answer your questions from the YouTube page, which is what Marshall and I asked you to do when we discussed something and maybe the first of many discussions about what is a good church, what to look for at a good church, different aspects according to the Bible of what a good church would be. And then I said, because this is such a deep topic, I said, go to the YouTube page, my YouTube page and find the video the podcast episode where it's actually

called how Do I Find a Good Church? It's Marshall I talking just ten days ago from when we were record this right now, and comment on that, and then we can go through those comments and double down. So this is going to be just fair game for any of the podcasts I do from now on. You could go on the YouTube page and I'll try to keep an eye on that and make sure that we're kind of getting a pulse of what you're saying on there.

So we're going to do that today. And the main topic we were discussing at that time, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was like multiple services, what's kind of part of it? And we'll make that argument again and where we think that it would be okay to have a multiple service church for sure, and define what we mean by multiple services. There's different, very different ways

to do it. So we'll go down that path. But I want to say I want to kind of start with a clip that I took from that episode that we recorded. I took a clip. Paul got a clip for me. Is the guy that produces this and or edits this, and and I, to be fair, I don't ever really post things on Instagram or TikTok or whatever if it's just very boring and no one's going to really comment on it. So admittedly I will post things to make you think, like, wait, what did he just say?

Because I say a lot of times I say on here that one of my purposes of this podcast is just so we all think together, let's consider things together. Let's because for so long, part of my testimony is as I look back, it's fascinating that I look back and I think I wasn't thinking through that. I wasn't taking anything that I read in the Bible or anything I knew about Christianity to its fullest extent. I wasn't running it out and chasing rabbit holes and thinking where

if I think this, what does that actually mean? Or if Jesus said that, what would the be the implications of my life if he said that? So a lot of you know, just like a general rule of this podcast is I just want people to be let's think about it. I know you believe that, but let's think about what it means to believe that. And so the statement I made was this, I'll just put it here on the microphone so we get all here as grow would.

The goal of the church is not growth. And a lot of times and a lot of people I talked to, I asked them, what's your goal here? And they say to grow? And is that is not the goal of the church. It's not what the Bible says. Go therefore and grow churches. Grow, grow one church and make it really big and make multiple campuses and pipe in all the messages on video. That got a lot of hate. I mean people I had to hide a few because

of like language and just direct assaults on me. I think I do have a little bit of an issue because sometimes when I just pull a clip off this, I think I might sound a little judgmental because of the clip, and people were like, man, who are you? I'm so sick of you judging me and my church. I'm like, why, y'ah, I promise I'm so far from that. I just want to think through things. And here's my caption. What should be the main goal of a church? Comment below,

Let's think about it together. There are parentheses, there are many subsidiary goals. Growth is definitely welcomed as a byproduct, but not a slam dunk indicator of faithfulness. Bad churches can grow with good marketing. And only a few people were like, oh, I see what you mean by this. Most people are like wrong or wrong no matter how you look at it. Growth is the goal. By the way, I'm kind of like throwing Marshall in on this. He's

my pastor. But by no means am I saying like, we didn't talk about this today Marshall and I. He didn't know what I was going to go this direction, so I'm kind of just dragging him into this. But we're really close friends. You're my pastor, but we're also really close friends, and so we know each other well. I kind of when I I might have made a mistake in that by saying go there for. And the Bible doesn't say go there for and make big churches

insinuating Matthew twenty eight. So everyone thought my answer was go make disciples. The church's goal is to make disciples. I don't think that's the church's goal either. And I need to explain this because my point is, what is the main the pinnacle, the main focus point, what is the why behind church? And I think about it in terms of when I was playing music or anything I've done. I want to think about what's the why? Why? Why are we doing this? And of course growing a church

is a goal. Of course, making disciples is a goal. When you planted a mais when you were sent out. If they if they would have said, Marshall, what's the main your main focus? The main goal of a mais you have not you would not have said numerical growth. No, no, And so one person, Charlene with a s H. I think there were a few, but one person said, the main goal of a church is to glorify God. And

I was like, amen. See the idea that I wanted I want people to think about is if your main goal is to glorify God, then then one of your main purposes to do that is to be faithful in it, to be faithful, and and a good byproduct is that God will grow the church through faithfulness and that will glorify Him. So it's man centered. It's horizontal centered ideas

versus vertical centered ideas. I had this, had this epiphany on last Saturday as I was kind of thinking through this and I was looking at a lot of people. A lot of people are really upset with me with saying that the goal is not to grow because they're just like, you're such an idiot. You know, why would you not want to grow a church? Anything that's good grows in this world? You know. I understand all that.

I'm not from planet Mars here. But I had this epiphany when I was watching college game Day and Nick Saban, former head coach of Alabama, was talking and he said he said, was they were talking about Florida State and how bad they're doing, and they were like, what happens to a school A team like to state, how does

the coach lose the team? And he said, well, I remember in my old days when I was a transactional coach and my goal was winning and everything revolved around winning and losing, and I started to lose my team because of that until I learned to be a transformational coach. He said. This happened in nineteen ninety eight for him. He became a transformational coach and instead of winning and losing as the goal, the goal, instead of outcomes is

the goal. Instead, it was the process. It was transforming men, modeling someone that they would want to emulate and be like so that they could succeed not just in the game or the season, but in life as young men, and they could grow as young men and be someone that was equipped for all the suffering and afflictions that if brought. And when he did that and focused one play at a time on the process based on virtue and character that he set forth as the coach, they

started winning, and they started winning a lot. And I thought, man, that is such such a good example of the church. Because if the pastor goes in and says I want to I want to grow the church numerically, then he will if that is the top pinnacle goal, he will sacrifice faithfulness for marketing, for topical sermons that attract people, for a new building. Someone really close to me right

now is in a church that is in debt. They're losing members, and they have this advisory board that's coming in saying, in order to stop the leak, we need to build a new sanctuary that attracts more people, that attracts younger people, because sanctuary kind of looks old, and then that'll put us in more debt, but that that'll grow. That's an example of a church with the main priority is grow. Anyway, I'm kind of rambling now, but this

is my point. I'm looking at through all these comments and as many people as we're really upset with me, I want them to know that. Of course, I think growth is a great thing for a church. I hope a Maya's grows.

celebrate that. Even if we stay at whatever number we're at, or you know, we only grow by a couple people and they're grown by one hundreds, it's we're gonna We're gonna celebrate what the Lord's doing there because that's the growth we want. So it's not anti growth, it's it's it's it's pro positive growth spiritually, which then leads to

numerical growth. But also if people are growing spiritually, it makes some of the things that we're arguing for easier and kind of goes against some of the comments against why it's harder to do some of the things we were pushing for.

just really good marketing. I think you said that this is really good marketing.

think anyone look and go failing. That guy's failing because he's not numerically growing. And I think about those guys a lot. And there's a lot of those guys out there, some of them listening to this podcast that are just in very small churches that numerically on paper that they don't they don't stand up, they don't, they wouldn't look like you would want to replicate that idea. But these

are faithful men. So yeah, so that's the kind of the beginning, and I think we should get we should specifically get into some of these comments on the last video talking about multiple services. And here's the idea behind that. Marshall and I talked about how replicating identical services on a Sunday I guess on Saturday night too, Sunday night

as well, starts to split the family up. Starts to split the body up so much so that you have people attending church that don't know a fellow brother or sister that's in the same body that attends the nine am service and you attend eleven and you've never even known them. And so, in a nutshell, that's one of the problems of splitting up these services. Another problem is the Bible, UH is encouraging us to to grow multiple churches,

not multiple services. So in the idea of a mais the church we attend, it was it was an extension. It was we were sent out from another church that was growing. And instead of that one church being all about itself, UH, it's sit down and replicated another church, not another campus, not an identical name, not piping in the message through a video monitor, but it's a completely autonomous church. A mais sent out from another one that

was growing. Do you want to start anywhere particular with these comments, because there's some good ones on here and there's some good things to think about.

about one service. And the only two churches in town that I can find that are close to me that have one service. You know, I think they preach the gospel most of the time, but maybe not all the time. And you know the pastor, you know, last Sunday, he really didn't even open his Bible. I was really encouraged by the message, but he didn't even what it was Bible. I would say, go to the three service church immediately. So this is not like a don't ever touch a

church that has multiple services for me. This is a this is a find a church that preaches the gospel and will hold you accountable to your profession of faith. But the argument is is if the church is doing that, well, there's a way they can do it without having multiple services. And so I'm kind of taking or we're taking the step after that. Yes, if if somebody's going to say the only church in town that preaches a gospel has four services, I'm going to always tell you to go

to that church. You need to be hearing the gospel, not somebody's opinions on stuff. And so this is not well, just because it's got one service it's a better church. That's not always true. And with that being said, we're also not saying, or at least I'm not saying smaller means better right at always in theory that's true, But smaller does not always mean better. Smaller does not always

mean less problems. I got a friend who is a member of a church and they're going through some really rough stuff right now and they only have about fifty members. And so it's not smaller means better church. It's it's it's it's the same issue actually in both sizes, is what's the spirituality happening there? What's the what's the uh, the discipleship look like, what's the faithfulness to Jesus look like?

In all the members? And so this this discussion around multiple services or one service really isn't specifically answering just that question, because it's there's probably four or five layers underneath that question that have to be answered first, right, because you won't go to the scriptures and find something says, look, you're only supposed to have one service that versus not there. And so what you have to do whenever you come to a situation like that where you're trying to think

of what's the Bible say about this issue? Because it doesn't say a specific verse or passage on this issue, you have to go, Okay, what's what are the underlying things under there? So for this issue, it's well, what does the Bible say the church is? What does the Bible say the church does? What does the Bible say I'm supposed to do as a what does what does the Bible expect of me as somebody who is a

member of a church? And when you answer those questions, the understanding of one service seems to make the most sense based on those things. So one of the things I noticed in all the comments that we got on that video, which I actually enjoyed reading those comments, even the ones that disagreed with us, because it made me think about my own position. Right, So the best way you can articulate your position is when you understand why people disagree with it, because it forces you to think

through it. And so even in reading the comments a couple of days ago, I was having to think through, Okay, well how would I think through that? Or what is my answer to that? But in reading all the comments, not one of them said well, here's what the Bible says about this, and why I think multiple services are Okay, it was all experiential stuff. Well, here's my situation, so therefore multi services have to be right, or here's what's happened,

so multiple services have to be right. And I'm not saying we have to ignore our situations in our circumstances, because those are things we have to think through and address and figure out how to navigate life around those. But those shouldn't be the main reason and why we say, well this makes it right? Is scripture supporting what you're

saying or is it just convenient for you? So I'll say all that before going specifically into comments, because I think those there are some helpful things to think through. Of one, we're not saying just because you're a member of a church that might have multiple services, or maybe you're a pastor of a church as multiple services, you're lesser than or you're completely ignorant of everything that the Bible says on these issues.

goal of the church? And if you could answer by glorifying God, then then we can understand different whys behind the multiple services.

or trying to raise up in leadership? Nobody in seventeen years. You know that is a huge problem because if you of seventeen years of ministry, say, if you've been raising up young men and you're at your fourth service and you're busting at the seams, at some point you say, this kid right here is ready. He's twenty seven years old, he's been and older for me for seven years, he's been on staff for five whatever, and he's ready to go start a church over here in this area. And

that's going to help. We're going to be able to send some people out from that fourth service. And so these are, just like you said, things to think through. And a lot of times when there's not a plan, that's an indication that the main goal was numerical growth. And the thruth is when you get there, sometimes you look back and go, now that I've gotten my goal, I don't know what to do with it because it's not sustainable.

eight hundred people on a Sunday. That Sunday morning after nine to eleven, over three thousand people showed up. And so they made the split decision in that moment, Hey, we're going to add two services to this thing and try to figure this out. And they had never done multiple services before, so they were trying to, you know,

on the learn on the fly. But it was so they could share the gospel with all those for coming who had questions about what God was doing and how he was involved in all this and how they should rightly think about it. And I wouldn't say that church was in sin for doing that. I think that's an excellent idea. If something like that happened to us, Like you know, our room can only see maybe three fifty max.

If we had fifteen hundred people show up on a random Sunday, we wouldn't say sorry, we only got room for like three fifty and then we got some standing area for another fifty of you the rest make it early next week. We probably would throw a quick second service in there and try to figure it out third if we needed to. But then the next week we'd be figuring out what's the long term plan. This is not sustainable. We're not sticking at three services. What can we do?

Satan himself. This is just what based on what Scripture saying the church is supposed to do and be, which are these two examples promotes that the best and that's why I would say one service does and this. So this kind of goes a little bit to the comments. A lot of the comments were specifically addressing Sunday morning. And while I would say Sunday morning is the most important thing the church does together, it's not the only

thing the church does together. And so there's a sense of like, well, if I can't get there on Sunday morning, you're hindering me from being there on Sunday morning because my job or something which I know you talked about in the last episode, which we can talk a little bit more about that. But the church itself is bigger than Sunday morning, and so again that your understanding of the church will influence how you think through your Sunday

morning attendance. Now, you should not neglect gathering, and I think that is talking about Sunday morning when the church gathers. But if somebody only came on Sunday morning and never got together with other church members, never was having church members in their home, never going into other church members' homes, never doing things with other church members outside of Sunday morning, I would say that's a problem. That's not good. And so this is not just a Sunday morning service issue.

This again goes back to who is the church and what is the church supposed to do? Yes, in the world large evangelize share the Gospel with anybody who will listen to you. But the church also there's more instructions about what the church are supposed to do with each other in scripture than there's what we're supposed to be outside of the church. And so it's how are you able to do those things faithfully in the church that

you're in. And the reason that multiple services comes in is because multiple services tend to mean much larger churches, which again and of itself, does not mean it's sinful, but it makes some of those things really difficult that we know we're supposed to do according to scripture, and so one service kind of prevents that. Now you can say, well, well, our church meets in a stadium that can see twelve thousand people, so you're say, if we have one service,

that would be good. No, that's why we also said one service doesn't mean automatically better situation, and I know of a church that does that. So that's the reason why.

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selling today Shopify dot com slash granger. Okay, so a big issue we had, I think was the people saying that their jobs didn't align with the time. What are your thoughts on this? Got Yes, I did. I did bring it up in the last podcast. What are your thoughts on this?

those situations, our interactions with them are different. So one, we've encouraged them and they've all been able to do this to my knowledge, Yeah, all of them have been able to do this. None of them miss every Sunday every month. They've been able to work it out with their job where they can at least hit one or two Sundays a month. So for some people who say, my job will never let me take a Sunday off.

I really want to push against that. I don't know if that's true in most jobs, and if it is, then that's when I would encourage somebody to maybe consider a different job, not a different career, but maybe just a different job. And that doesn't mean quit today, and hopefully you'll find something that just means start thinking through it. Because when we had a guy joined who was working every Sunday, could not be there every Sunday, and we pushed on him gently and encouraged him, showed him the

importance of being there on Sunday mornings. And after a couple of months of talking to his boss and kind of working things out. Now it required him to get creative and stuff like that, he came to us said, hey, I can make two Sundays a month, and we're like, praise the Lord, that's amazing, Like that's great. Occasionally there's a random month where he has to work three Sundays, but he did everything he could to make it to

where he could attend sometimes. But in those situations, we know all the people who are in those situations, and so the pastors are regularly reaching out to them. How are you personally doing they'll tell us, hey, this month, you know, I can't come to the first two Sundays, but I'll be there on the second too, So just so you know, you'll see my family, you won't see me. So they're letting us know so we know how to be praying for them, how to care for their families

during those times. Just this past Sunday, saw the wife and kids of one of our members who works on some Sundays and just said, hey, how's he doing? You know, how's work going. Was able to encourage them while they were here with us. So one if somebody were to say there's never a Sunday where I'm available, I would either say one, then start thinking through what it could look like months from now, after making some decisions about maybe a different job and not necessarily different career, but

maybe a different job. But have you really exhausted all the opportunities to ask for at least a couple Sundays off to make it work some But that being said, all of our members who do have that situation where they work on Sunday mornings and they're limited on how often they can be on Sunday mornings, they really prioritize the other things. We encourage it. They come to our members' meetings, they're coming to Wednesday night Bible study, they're having people

in their homes for meals. They're trying to go into other people's homes for meals. The guy was just talking about he goes to lunch regularly with guys during the week because his week schedule is a little more flexible than other guys, so he works around their schedule. So he's meeting with them so that the church knows how and he knows the church. So yes, he misses a couple Sundays every month, but he's still actively involved in

the church. If we had to bring him up at a members meeting to say, hey, he's he's got a health situation, so please be praying for him, we wouldn't say his name, and most people go who's that. They would all go, oh, yeah, I know, his work schedule is really difficult for him to be on Sundays. But man,

that guy's always involved doing stuff. He's had a lot of people over, He's got to know a lot of guys, and so there's a sense of he still feels like part of the church even though he's not there on Sunday mornings because of his intentionality with getting to know members and letting members get to know him. But then he does whatever he can to be there on Sunday mornings. So he never has a Sunday morning off of work and goes, man, today is just gonna be a nice day.

He will get up and he will come to work and say this is important for me.

to be there to care for people. But at the same time as their pastors, we would be saying, have you talked to your supervisors about seeing if there's some Sundays you can get off? We recognize you can't do every Sunday and we need people in the medical field working, but can you get one Sunday off a month? And then what are you doing outside of Sunday mornings with the church to ensure that you're still connected to the church.

And so what's really cool is we for the members that we do have, who are you know, we have probably like three or four cops in the church, maybe more, no, three or four, a few nurses, and then against some of those two firemen and some other people in jobs that require them to be away on some Sundays. But when those people are missing on Sundays, there's other members calling them. Hey, you know, we record our sermons, so

they'll listen. All those people will listen to the sermons as soon as they can, but we'll have people reach out, hey, you know, how do the sermon encourage you? What do you think about the third point that was brought up in the sermon? It made me think about that situation talked about a couple of weeks ago. How do you

think that connects to your situation? And so they're actually talking about the sermon with other members, so they're they're living life together as I think scripture would call them to, even though they can't be there every single Sunday morning. And then there's some people who would claim that their job requires them work every Sunday morning, but if you really do some digging, it doesn't. So we had we had a guy visit the church and he came in he said, Hey, I love this church, but this is

like the only Sunday I'm off this year. But I really want a place for my family. And we said, oh, man, you should really be in church, Like what what's preventing you? And the way he described his job, we thought, there's no way that that job requires you to be there every Sunday. And so after meeting with them a few times, he finally said, well, they don't require me to be there, but I just get a lot of work done on Sundays because nobody else is there, so I'm able to

focus really intently. I just get a lot done. And we said, well, that's that's not that's very different than than the than the cop who has to work on Sunday mornings, or the labor and deliver nurse who has to work on Sunday mornings. And so sometimes it's really digging in is does this job actually require me to be here on Sunday mornings? And then that's when you start asking questions of if that's true, does that mean every Sunday morning or is there a way I can

work around it. So another example, this was from the last church I was at. The last church I was in, there was somebody who did need to work on Sunday mornings. She was a nurse, but the reason she had to work every single Sunday morning was because she was requesting Friday nights and Saturday Saturday nights off. And if she'd only taken two of those a month, she could have replaced them, replaced those Sunday mornings with those two. And

so there is showing the priority. I'd rather have my Friday nights and my Saturday nights, then two Sunday mornings.

they go home and they go straight to sleep. But both of them talk about how important it is for them to be there, like but I gotta be and really, over time they said, like this is kind of a nice way to end my shift, like showing up here, yeah, and finishing with people of God and worshiping and so and again. If they said, but you're our service at ten am, they said, your service at ten am, I don't get off till nine thirty. There's no way how to make it in time. But if y'all at ten thirty,

I might be able to make it. We would say, well, you being with the gathered church is so important, you don't need to come to our church like we have five other churches in town that we would happily send you to. I know these three meet at ten thirty. We would encourage you to go there. And so this goes to the question about growth earlier too, is we have no problem encouraging people to go to churches closer

to where they live. So every Sunday we'll meet somebody because I stand at the doors, try to greet as many people as I can as they're leaving or before service, as they come in. And every time it's a first time visitor, I'll say, I'll ask how do you hear about us? And then two I'll ask, well, where do you live? And if somebody says, oh, I live in Cedar Park, I'll say, oh, have you tried out this church?

And this church and this church all use three churches that I know are either in Cedar Park or between them and us that are much closer, faithfully preaching the gospel, like minded. And if they say no, I'll say, look, we're not saying you can't come here, but it would be really beneficial for you if you go to this church, because it sounds like this church is five minutes from where you live, and we're thirty five minutes from where

you live. So if you decide to come here, we're not going to tell you no, but I think you should at least go check out a service over here. So that's not me saying, hey, I don't want this church to grow. That's me saying, what's going to be most beneficial for your soul to be at a church that's close to you. Now, if they're coming from somewhere where I can't think of any solid church between them and us, I'll be like, look, come here and maybe one day we can plan a church closer to you.

could always find one that fits my schedule. Yeah, I was smiling earlier because thinking about the Jewish religion, when they have their Sabbath, they give everything up, they stop everything, but they still expect to be served on by the people that aren't in their faith. And so it's interesting the contrast between you at the hospital with Hoseiah and if that was a Jewish baby, it would be born, and they would they wouldn't think twice about the people

working the third shift or the medical field. But in our faith, it's it's always about the heart. Jesus was always about the heart of the people. Where is your heart, What's what's the process, the transformational process, not the outcome.

And the Jewish religion is always about the outcome. It's you have to you have to block off the Sabbath, and then we're still hope that our power grid stays on, that non Jewish people are working, and we hope that, you know, the the food is still being cooked by non Jewish people, and we hope that the hospitals are opened by non Jewish people. It's very interesting. I remember one time, that's not just Jewish people too, No, it's not, it's not. That was just fresh on my mind.

to hurry. And I do have a problem with that.

each other up, and call out sin where needed. I find your point nitpicking when we are looking for a church. This is a minor issue. This is this is this is a great comment because it's so common. That is a very common. In fact, a lot of people listening right now probably go, yeah, that's what I was saying. These guys are just nitpicking. These guys are overthinking it. I get called out for that all the time. You're just overthinking things, man. So what do you say to that?

What do you say to we don't have to know all two thousand people that attend the same church. That's why it's important to have small groups to know each other, build each other, build each other up, and call each other out. We're needed. And there's three comments that agree with them.

I'm not anti them. I think churches are fine to have them, but usually they're put in place to kind of force community. And the concern that I have with small groups when it's to force community. So this is how you can know that you're connected to the church because you know these people that are in your small group. That's a that's a program of the church that is meant to build community. And to me, that's ironic because the Bible has already given you something to have community,

and that's the church. So that's saying the picture that the Scripture's given us of the church wasn't enough. So now I need this one ministry to make me feel connected. And that's so that might sound nitpicky because some people will say, well, now you're saying I can't you know, be friends with a smaller group of people in my church. That's not true. I'm closer to some members than I am to others. But I know all of our members.

I know where all of our and this is as a pastor, I know we're all If our members are open with us and and being honest with us, then I know where all of our members struggle and how I can help pastor and shepherd them well. And we have we have four pastors right now for you know, I'm a staff pastor. We have three non staff pastors, but they each know member all the members as well. But that means Steven will know some members better than

I do. So this is where multiple pastors is helpful. Right, I'll know them, I might know some things are going through, I'll know their life situation. I'll know how to pray for them and care for them as one of their pastors. But Steven might have a better relationship with them, and he might be able to say, so, here's some updates on what's going on, here's this, and so that that

allows us to care for them well. And so when you when somebody says, well, you know, there's no way to really know two thousands, so and we there's no way to know two thousands. So therefore we don't have to know two thousand. I just don't see that in scripture. Like I see when Paul and First Corinthians is talking about disciplining somebody out of the church. He doesn't say, Hey, those of you in the church who know this guy, can you let the other people know why he shouldn't

be a part of the church. He talks to the whole church and says, this isn't like y'all are all putting up with this and you shouldn't be. You need to remove him from your mist because he's not acting like a Christian. He's doing things even non Christians would be ashamed of and look down on, and you're just letting him be here. So there's a sense of this church knew who this guy was. And then you know, and picking elders, the church knows who its leadership is.

And so with that, you said, you have four elders, four pastors.

When we've approved them as a teacher, we know what they're going to be teaching because we feel like we're held responsible for what's going to get taught. Now, ultimately, the church itself is responsible. Paul mentions this in Galatians one when he rebukes false teaching coming to the church, which again I think argues the whole church needs to be involved in this. Paul rebukes the entire church for letting false teaching come in and persist. Now, the elders,

the pastors are the front lines of it. But elders pastors are fallible men who make mistakes and can be deceived themselves, and so false teaching could get past them. And that's why Paul says to the church, this is on you. And then even the letters that John that are given to the seven churches in the book Revelation, they're addressed to the church, so all the people in the church, and so they're all being held accountable for

what's happening in the church. And so so ministry the word so overseeing, and that means they're doing the bulk of the preaching a prayer, So elders should be praying immensely. If if a pastor never prays, that is a huge red flag for a church. And then third soul care, so specifically pulling from Hebrews thirteen, you know where pastors will have to give an account to the Lord for

the souls of which they're shepherding. Acts twenty. I think I mentioned both these passages last time on the podcast. But Acts twenty shepherd the flock among you, So there's a sense of their they're watching over their souls and caring for them spiritually. And so there's a sense whereas the elders, we need to know all the members.

big fights going on, things must be going well. I got a big problem with that. I got a real big problem with that because there's some guys who love to preach but hate to pastor, and that is not a thing in scripture. Somebody who can just preach and not love the people. So, because the best preaching is the preaching that flows from the pastoral care that's been done throughout the week. So when I'm prepping a sermon, I'm not just like, what does this passage say? That's

where I start. But then I think, what is this passage saying, and how's what it's saying going to benefit the people I'm supposed to be shepherding. So we record our sermons. I don't preach a sermon assuming people are going to listen to it later. So there might be things I say in the sermon that are specifically for our congregation. I have to know our congregation in order to be able to say those things. And there's certain things I won't say because our congregation is not struggling

with that. They're not going through that.

pastor means, what the Bible says that a pastor is. Instead, it becomes a title that's put on any kind of leadership in the church. Multimedia pastor, uh, sports pastor, I saw that before.

struggling with. I don't know what the Bible says about it, and a pastor. Pastor could at least give a foundational understanding of how scripture might speak to the situation they're going through. And then because of the trust built between the member and the pastor. And I'm saying pastor, I'm not necessarily saying the one lead guy. So when I'm saying pastor, I'm saying it could be any four of our guys.

this issue. I'm happy to I'm happy to reach out to them and give you give them a heads up about why you're reaching out, or Hey, what you're going through is like, I can give you a foundational understanding what Scripture says, but this is a really big issue. I know somebody outside of the church who will give you a biblical perspective on this, who's dealt with this a lot more than I have. I'm not passing you off to them, so that I cleared up my calendar.

I'd actually like to walk alongside you as you talk with them through this, just because they have a little more experience in this specific issue than I do. But I can at least tell you what scripture says at a foundational level about what you're going through, and I can point you to Jesus in it. If that's not happening in churches, that's a problem. And again, that doesn't have to be me as the lead guy, if you know, Brad, one of our elders said, yeah, somebody one of our

members reached out to us asked about this. I was giving them some counsel, and I'm thinking about connecting them with them. Amen, I would not be like, why didn't they come talk to me? Or oh, I'm so glad they went to you. I didn't have time for that this week. We tell our members all the time we will make time for our members because you are our primary responsibility, and so you need to know that you can reach out to us.

I think churches, many churches, should be more open to planning a church ten minutes from them if they're getting too big and they can't care for the members. Because again, if it's about building the Kingdom of God or highlighting the Kingdom of God. Then it doesn't matter if we have a thousand. Yeah, you know, it's just are we being faithful with the with those who have who've been

entrusted to us by the Lord. And so we have to constantly ask ourselves as pastors, are we being faithful to the souls that the Lord has put under our care? Or are we sacrificing that for something else, whether it's building our name bigger, whether it's we want to be the biggest church in town.

as the foundation of our thinking. I've run out of time and so appreciate you. Appreciate you. Man. I'm laughing because we didn't have anything to talk about and we ended up talking for an hour. So if there needs to be a part three, let me know. But we'll continue regardless. We'll continue the discussion about what it looks like to have a good church. And that sounds bad. That sounds like we're claiming Amaas is the good church.