Spiritually Engaging in the Church

Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio. Young Thunder, what's the best thing you've ever had a front row seat to?

Ooh, that's a great question.

Best thing you've ever had a front row seat?

Well, I would say the best thing I ever had a front row seat to was I went to a Bulls game with my wife, and we were given.

A front row seat.

I did not I did not purchase these tickets, but we were given 100 level seat tickets. So it wasn't like courtside, but it was like, I don't know, a few rows back, but I've never been that close to any sports action before and that was pretty amazing.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, the closer you get, the better it come becomes. Some of those, specially at something like a basketball game.

Oh yeah. You don't realize how tall those guys are until you get like 100ft away from them. They're giants, man.

Yeah, it's It's fun. All right. We got a front row seat for you. You ready for this? Oh, and I mean this. Seriously, if you take part in what I'm asking you to join, we are going to give you a front row seat, and we're going to add some mustard to it this spring. Share next Tuesday kicks off spring share. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be a madhouse. It's going to be fun. It's one of my favorite weeks of the year. You might say, you got to be kidding me. No, it's one of

He's a sports fanatic with a stat for anything you can think of. Young Thunder is in the crew. It's curling crew on Moody Radio.

I want to thank you, those of you that have jumped in. Grateful for you. A lot of people grabbing that link crew and some of you maybe didn't hear it. You're like, what's that again? Half hour slots during share. Not only are you praying and getting video prayer prompts from us every morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but then prompts for the slot or slots that you

It's very true.

But right now we just got humanoids. So here we go. Just text crew to (800) 555-7898. Okay, I want to prove to you that passion can move us. Little passion in the belly can move us to good. Can move us from going to church to be in the church. And that's our aim this whole week long. Really be in the church. But I want to prove this passion point in the weirdest way. Young Thunder gave me a story and I said, where do you go when you're finding

So, uh, Carl had never heard these stories before, but you might have boom crew. You know, when someone is eating a bag of chips and they pull one out and they go, oh, that looks like Darth Vader, or, oh, that looks like Abraham Lincoln. And they try to sell it because it's a it looks like a famous person kind of kind of looks like a famous person. And people go crazy for it. So the latest.

Something, man?

Yeah, I know the latest one is a hot Cheeto shaped like.

Hold it. What's a hot Cheeto?

A hot Cheeto is just a Cheeto. That is. It's it's flamin Hot, so it's it's like a spicy cheese.

All kinds of preservatives and chemicals. And it will kill you in ten years or less. But anyway, I digress.

Yeah, absolutely. It's for those who are here for a good time. Not a long time. You know what I mean?

So that's outstanding.

I love it.

All right.

Go ahead.

So someone was apparently eating a bag of Flamin Hot Cheetos, and they pulled out something that looked like a a cartoon character from the cartoon or the video game Pokemon. A little, little thing like that. I know the character. It kind of kind of looks like it. It's like a dragon type of thing, but it doesn't really look like it. But they they put it up on auction. They said, oh, let's put it up here. I'll put it up for $250. That's, that's where the auction.

That's where it began.

Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a lot for a for one Cheeto. When a bag.

Of Cheetos, it's a lot for a Cheeto.

Yeah, a bag of Cheetos is, like, $3. So? So one Cheeto, $250. It's a lot. Apparently, the auction went crazy. And where it finished out was someone spending $88,000 for this one Cheeto. And they spent $15,000 in fees. So they spent over $100,000 on one Cheeto. That kind of looks like a cartoon character.

The word unbelievable gets overused, but right now it's appropriate.

I think that's pretty appropriate.

88 K plus 15 K in process fees for the auction house.

Yes.

Oh, for crying out loud.

So what's that? 103 $103,000?

Yeah. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, we do crazy stuff, so.

Yes, we.

Do.

I'm going to give you an opportunity to get a Carl and crew prize pack. Your passion drove you to purchase something. You look back going, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? Cheeto man's going to believe that one day he's going to look back and go, what was I thinking?

That's right.

Leave it out on the counter. And his kid eats it.

88 you better hide that thing. Hide it after you sell it, because.

Oh my.

Goodness, who's got those kind of ducats to do that crazy stuff?

I don't know.

I don't know.

But.

What is that crazy thing that you purchased? And if you call in and are willing to be a little bit self-effacing and you look back and go, why did I do that? I'll give you a prize back. I'm proving a point. Passion drive initiative can be great and it can be not so great. 800 555 7898. Give us a call right now. Light em up. We're going to go lightning round here. Get your stories in. I don't care how many prize packs I give away. You got a crazy story of something you bought. And you're

Money money money money money money money money money.

But it seemed so right. It had to have.

It.

Got to throw my money at it.

Man, I got to have that. My life will change if I can just get that thing.

You just have it.

Uh, so I'm asking you for proving a spiritual point here, because, listen, there is an effort to move from going to church to being the church, and there's got to be something that's enthralling your mind to make that move. And then it boils a passion inside you goes, I got to go. And we're proven the power of passion, both for good and for evil. And it's funny sometimes because I'm asking the question, would you go by and you're like, this

Not so.

Much. Marion, Indiana. What do you say, Mary?

I bought a car a long time ago from an old man at work, and later on I found out it was a beater. Later on, I found out that the engine was held up by a thick chain.

It was held together by a chain hold.

It was it was it? So there weren't mounting bolts anymore. It was a chain holding it to the frame.

It was a chain. It was a thick chain.

Did you try to drive it?

Yeah, I drove.

It, I.

Drove it, but I got rid of it after I found out about the chain. Because I had my kids, I would drive my kids around in the car.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Mary.

Thanks. Hold on the phone there. Hold on. You get a calling crew prize pack. That's why we call you the boom crew. Oh my goodness, why are we getting so many calls? Okay, by the way, chaining a vehicle together, that's an Alaska thing. We had a Willys Jeep on a commercial fishing setnet site on the edge of the ocean. Yeah, and the saltwater got into this Willys Jeep so much when they were driving down the beach and the and the whole thing just broke in half chunk. And so

That's crazy.

Yeah, it was good. It was good for hauling fish around. But, yeah, we chained that sucker together.

It's so good, man.

Oh, Willie. Haven't heard you forever in Illinois. What do you say, Willie?

Hey, man, good to hear you. But I listen to you every day. But I bought some tee tee shirts, 52 tee shirts that 20 something years ago in Utah. And, uh, I paid $15 for them. I got home, and I was bragging to my dad them that I had bought the tee shirts. When I opened it up, it was only one tee shirt in there. The rest of them was baby doll clothes.

You thought you had won the lottery on t shirts. Willie. Oh, Willie.

I thought I had did something. I paid $15 for a t shirt 25 years ago.

He said. He said I'm fully grown. I'm never going to have to buy clothes again. This is a perfect deal. Oh, man.

Willie, 52 shirts was one.

Of them clothes. Baby doll clothes.

It didn't say what size it was for. Oh, Willie, you're a hoot, man.

Thanks for calling in. Willie, how are you doing with the Lord? You walking strong with them, man?

Hey, man. Stay blessed. Hey, man, I'm going to send you a picture. I was a speaker at my home church for the nurses and the nurses, and I was a speaker man, and the Lord really blessed me. I'm going to try to send you a picture. Okay?

Yeah, send me a picture. I want to see it. Willie. That's. Godspeed. Stay on the horn, Willie. We're getting you, Carl and crew prize pack. Uh, Beth Ann, do we have Beth in? Yeah. Beth in New Mexico. What do you say? Beth Ann.

I bought a fancy 2021 organizer calendar planner and had nowhere to go and nothing to do, nothing to put in it.

Because it was Covid.

Oh, that's.

Right.

That's right.

I got this.

This nice new planner, and.

I don't need to write anything. Planner man.

And got it for 149. Was it a Franklin Covey?

Uh, no. It was one of those happy planners with the little clips in it, I customized it.

Oh, the customizable jobbies man.

Oh my word.

Yeah, that was the year I was going to get everything together. And then the world fell apart.

Isn't that always how it goes? This is the year. This is it. And then something like that happens.

Oh my goodness.

Listen to Jane.

I missed you, I missed that, you hear I lost her. Anyway, Beth Ann, stay on the horn. Your connection to strings broken somewhere over Texas between here and New Mexico. All right. Stay on the horn. Um. Oh my goodness. Young thunder. Go!

Yeah. So for me, I I'm a big sports fan. I love my sports teams and I can get really crazy about them. And my my most favorite sports team is the Chicago Bears. And so a couple years ago, I'm not going to say the name of the player. I, uh, we, we drafted really high and got a player that I was really excited about. And I said, this is it. This is the player. He's going to change everything. We're

You bought.

A Justin.

Fields jersey.

I'm not saying the name of the player.

You bought a fields Jersey?

I bought a fields jersey. And and I said, this is it. And I bought before he played a game. And I was like, this is my confidence to show that that he's going to do it and this is it. This is our year. And then like three years later, he was off the team and and we traded him.

He got a late round pick, $50.

What you got is $150, uh, garage rag.

For.

Your car cleaning.

I still wear it, but I'm like, you know, so I don't buy jerseys until they play a game anymore because I need him to stay around here a little longer.

This is so funny. See, a little bit of passion boiling in your soul will cause you to do something.

Sometimes it's for.

Good, sometimes it's for not so good. Or is line six ready?

Line six is ready.

Lewis in Illinois, first time caller. What do you. What did you do? Lewis?

Hey, all the gamers out there, I ended up buying for my PlayStation four a mod controller for this Black Ops. I was really into the game and so this thing was supposed to make me faster. I was supposed to get drop shots. I was supposed to like get all these reward points, and no matter how hard I tried, I still did not was not a winner on that. So and that was about 500 bucks. I might have fired it like the the buttons were actually like little

So all the gaming metaphors, all the.

Gaming, all those gaming words you were saying, it makes no sense to me at all, dude.

I mean.

I.

Played.

Ping pong back in the day. Did anyone else play pong? I had a first generation pong game. My folks pop for it. It was black and white. You change, you.

Could change.

The size of the paddles and the speed of the ball. It was amazing.

Lewis.

Do you remember.

Pong?

Atari? Uh, yeah. I had one of my first game games. Was like an Atari, and I grew up with the Nintendo. Then I got, you know, all of them, the Super Nintendo and, you know, so I was always a gamer throughout my whole, uh, younger life. And now now it's just, uh, an expensive, uh, it's an expensive DVD player. My daughter plays it every now and then. I don't have time for that.

I love it.

I'm not leveling up in that game. I need a level up in the reality.

We got to level up in Jesus, man.

Hey, man.

I love it.

I know exactly what he's talking about. All those little behind the scenes words and stuff, and that's hilarious. Five.

What was he saying? What was he talking about?

He's basically saying you can buy controllers. That the main controller that you can buy for a video game console now is like 60 bucks. That's about what it cost to get a normal one. But you can pay to modify controllers to add extra buttons and put them over here to where your fingers can press them faster so you can.

Play.

It better. But I guess a waste of 500 bucks it was.

Trust me. It doesn't say in the word well done, good and faithful gamer. Don't say.

That. No it doesn't.

And by the way, I don't want to denigrate all gaming.

I know I love video games.

I mean, yeah.

It's so wild to me. So I've got, you know. I've got people around me who are like, you know, they're like blowers and goers in industry. They're in their 30s. And, you know, I'll talk to them. I go, what are you doing tonight? And I'm. Oh, I'm going to I'm in a game and I'm like, it doesn't even make sense to me. What do you mean? You're going to.

Game.

You're gainfully employed. You have a wife. You have children. What do you mean? You're going to game? Do those things go together? I know I'm sounding old now.

They do. I love.

It.

Too funny. Thanks for staying on the horn, guys. That's the boom crew right there. Proven a point. And here's the point I want to prove. We've been talking about being the church all week long. You know what? There's got to get and get on your knees and pray. Because there's got to be enough boiling passion inside you. Akin to we've heard the funniest stories today. Buying something that it's that same like, yes, let's pray for that passion that caused us to do something stupid with some money,

Yeah. It is.

Uh, give us a quick hit. News. What do we got going on out there? Anything great?

Uh, no. Well, yeah, we got some good things going on out here.

Give me.

A good.

Thing.

Okay, I'll give you a good thing. So I think this is, uh. Let's see. Hold on, I gotta I'm going to skim through my stuff.

So, in other words. No, no, we don't.

We're doing news live here.

No, I think you know what I'm going to say. This one. It's it's important because of who the countries are. All right. President Trump is warning Hamas that it must release the hostages held in Gaza.

This is a good story.

Or, in his words, it's over for you. A six week Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas expired on Saturday. There have so far been no discussions on a second phase of the deal, which calls for the release of remaining hostages. The reason I say that's a good news story is because enough already Hamas has been holding these hostages for now, almost two years, about a year and

Yeah.

Oh, man. You look at the world and I mean, sometimes you just shout out, come, Lord Jesus. My goodness.

Yeah.

No doubt about.

That.

Um, listen, as the Lord tarries, meaning that's an old term for he's waiting, willing that none should perish, by the way. God's delay is not because he is slow to move. It's that he is extending his arm of grace to people who you love. And you want to see him saved. Quick shout out here. We're needing. I'm trying to get a head count on this. We we got super died down with a horrible flu bug. Like chills. Like shaking chills.

Yeah.

Ali's got the same. And Young Thunder's feeling sketchy. We're out of. I mean, I feel like we need some lug nuts around here to get the wheels back on.

Yeah, I.

Know, I know.

We're going to make it. So here's here's what we're going to need. We need you to pray because next week is a crazy, fun spiritual circus around here. It's awesome where we watch God do amazing things, leveraging resources to his glory and and our satisfaction, quite candidly. But if you haven't gotten a seat yet at the table to pray half hour slots, we're going to send you updates as it's leading up to your slot. We're going to give you early morning videos, the whole everything you need.

She was trying to earn her way to God, but God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.

All right, guys, this is, um, an important question. You shifted from going to church to being the church. Somebody needs to hear your story right now. How did that work? What did God do? Give us a call right now. Simple to do. 800 555 7898 800 555 7898.

Carl, you know, in your testimony, you you share openly that you grew up in church, but you didn't get saved until your, your early 20s. How was it going to church for you? Because you went to church for your whole childhood. What was the difference when when you came to Christ about how you went to church and now how you're being the church?

Yeah, I think the difference was that, you know, I had a Pretty common problem. I was lost, so I was I was known, but I wasn't known at a deep heart level. So I was in church a lot, so I was going to church. But my shift was when I was radically transformed by Jesus.

Yeah.

Then I had this urge to open up my heart and be known by others. And it was it was a powerful thing. It's it's a fascinating it's a fascinating thing because the dichotomy is we are not to effort in our own strength to prove anything to God or like we're earning. But the work of getting from the pew or the chair into the hoop and work for the church, that's a that's a work.

Yeah. And you know, yeah.

What you said made me think about it because I grew up in the church, too. I think that this can really it's a difficult problem for everybody. But I think about those, especially who grew up in the church. It's so easy when you're learning the motions as a kid to just kind of think of them simply as motions and not as anything different than that. And so it's so important that we understand what being the church really is, because if we're not given that greater vision,

Yeah.

And I know there's a lot of I mean, we got scores of texts that came in and the majority by slightly. It's about a 5050 split going to church versus being the church. But then I've got text messages I've got to respond to here, people that want to know how in the world am I going to do this? And let me just tell you right now, it's going to take a little risk. It's going to take a little risk. You're going to get you're going to have

Hey, Carl. Yeah. So, uh, first of all, uh, you know, it just took a long time of prayer. My bride was, uh, continue praying for me, and, uh, I just totally committed myself to Jesus Christ, uh, here a few years ago. And, you know, I've always attended church, but it was. There is a big difference attending and being the church. Uh, you know, you do have to have that, you know, a little bit of risk, you know, out of your

Lewis.

Lewis. And we need all the believers.

Yeah. Lewis, this is this is you're a poster boy for this man. This is great. But here's here's the deal, isn't it? Lewis, you've got to make a move. You can sit there till the cows come home, baby, but you've got to some. Sooner or later, you got to take that step into the body of Christ. You got to go to em. To em. You got to get there. You got to open your heart. And that's an effort that takes you said it risk. And that's a good word. Lewis. Hey thank you man. Boom. This is why we call

Let's go.

She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super dei is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.

Well, going to church, that can be hard, especially post Covid. Being the church. Oh, that's another step. But what if that all came together with me right now, Jonathan Griffiths. You might have heard him when we had him down in Dallas, Texas. This guy, it's in his wheelhouse when we're talking about getting gathered up for the good of each other and for yourself. Good morning, my man. How are you?

I'm doing well, Carl. Great to be with you again. How are you doing?

Ah, we're doing great, man. We're doing great. We're looking at some numbers. We've been using these over the past several weeks. 22% increase in Bible purchases year over year. Last calendar year. Pretty amazing statistic. There is a hunger for God out there. It isn't always translating to the church. And I just want to begin with a tough question. What are the obstacles to getting people to even go to church? And then we'll talk about being the church.

Well, I think I think there are a few of them, you know, we're naturally consumers and we're thinking about what's convenient and what works for me. And that that attitude just spills over to church life. And so if I've got something else going on, some something that makes it inconvenient to get there one weekend, I might just be disinclined to go. I think that's more and more common.

Yeah, that's a tough one. Jonathan Griffiths, my guest. He serves as lead pastor of Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa, Canada. You're a little bit in front of us. We were talking about this, but you're a little more European than us in that it's more post-Christian. How would you describe where you're ministering in Ottawa?

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think all that's coming down the pipeline for the United States, culturally, we seem to encounter it just a little bit more quickly in Canada. Uh, and, and, you know, it's not it's not vastly different, but we're a bit further ahead. We're a bit more post-Christian. Uh, and one of the factors in our particular context in the city

Jonathan, let's linger on this point because, you know, my goal here isn't to get people to go to church. I often tell parents with wayward kids, pray that your child comes to a troubled point in their life when they cry out to God and say, My God and my Savior, Jesus Christ, because we want them in Christ more than we want them in church. What's going on that it's caused people, especially post Covid to just say

They well, they're all issues of the heart. And, you know, Covid was a great disrupter. And, you know, post Covid, actually, we're seeing a new wave of people come to Christ. And that's interesting. And we could maybe circle back to that. But I think one of the things that Covid did for, you know, cultural Christians, people who had a cultural reflex to show up at church, maybe to maybe to please an earlier generation in their family or out of habit

Yeah, I see that as well, both on our church campuses here in Chicagoland. And I hear it from pastors around the country, here in the States. How do you pray for people like that? There's a lot of people that are hurting. They might have a spouse that doesn't join them any longer. They might have wayward kids. It seems to me that yes, we pray that their heart condition would change more than they get to church.

Yeah. You know, I think the great prayer is that spending some time at a distance from the people of God, and maybe not hearing the word of God would generate a hunger in their hearts. And that and that does happen. I mean, you know, you spend too much time just out there in the world and imbibing the culture and, and and it's it's not an encouraging experience. You discover

Coming up here. What I want to hit with you, Jonathan, is being the church, because it seems to me that if we become a group of people, and I want you to cast a vision for us, a group of people who are really becoming what God intended, that we're bearing one another's burdens, that we're all expressing our gifts in the body of Christ. Give us a vision. Coming up more with Jonathan Griffiths moving from just going to church and praying for those that aren't. But being the church. Hang on.

You can take him out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.

With.

Me right now. Jonathan Griffiths, lead pastor of Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa, Canada. He's got a great vantage point, and frankly, one of the great advantages that we have having Jonathan on. Is there a little more European there, a little ahead of the curve with regard to people leaving the church? But it's good because you were mentioning this. It's with the people that are coming to church post-Covid and in this season that we're in for all kinds

Well, that's what we're seeing. And and particularly with our young adults. I mean, I think this is my greatest encouragement, seeing the waves of young men and women, like college age or early career who are showing up. And I'll tell you, I think I've mentioned this in conversation before with you, Carl, but but it is our young adults who seem to have the most intense hunger for the Word of God. You know, gone are the days that they're interested in a cultural Christianity or a form of

Yeah it is. Give us a vision for what it looks like. And I'm going to give you a link here in a little bit. Uh, Jonathan Crew has a book called gathered for Good God's Good Design for the local church. What is God's good design? What should it look like? Give us some descriptions.

Well, you know, in the great salvation plan of God throughout the Scripture, and we won't have time to trace all this. But but our salvation is not merely an individual thing from my soul. God saves us into a community and a family and a and an eternal kingdom, and he saves us so that we can be part

What's the best practices for a person identifying their spiritual gifts? My estimation is that we've probably got, oh, in most churches, I would guess 20 to 30% of people can clearly identify. This is my spiritual gift according to Romans 12. First Corinthians 12. How do you help people discover those gifts that God has given each person who is born again?

Well, of course, you know, there are tools and surveys available and those can be a help. But I think what I always want to give as an encouragement to people is to, um, discern these things and pray over these things, uh, in conversation with your church leaders. Whatever your structures are in your local church, you don't want to simply be doing this on your own and then show up at church and say to your leaders, my gift is this, and I want you to allow me

Love it. Jonathan Griffiths, my guest right now. And, Jonathan, there's a river that runs through it with you. And I can sense that. That's why I love to have you on here. This I've been wrestling with the inability to make disciples that the church seems to struggle with. And I know that our primary metrics for church success often default to how many people are coming and how much money is given, and we can do so much

You know, I think we went through in our church a season post-Covid when we realized that, you know, we had we had the numbers of people showing up on Sunday, but the number of those people who were with us on Sunday who were actually being discipled in a discernible way, that we were really confident of, that that was a more discouraging number. And we came to realize again that discipleship is going to happen in the context of vital relationships.

Yeah, that's.

A wise words. You know, I want to call you if you're a leader, pastor, small group leader, member. But you got a passion for discipleship, really discipleship. And to be the church gathered for good is Jonathan Griffith's most recent book, gathered for Good God's Good Design for the local church. This might be what God's Spirit is prompting you with right now. It's easy to get just text the word gather to 800 555 7898. Just the word gather g a t h e r. Just gather to

Well, I think one of the things we really need to understand is that our own Christian discipleship and growth in Christ likeness is, at the end of the day, going to be severely inhibited if we have not invested ourselves in the local church? And I'm sure there are a lot of people listening today, even to this, even to this broadcast, who are in a place where you know they love the Lord, love the Word of God. But for whatever reason, you've decided to sit loose to church.

That's why we call it the boom crew here, and that's an amen. Grab this link. Uh, if especially. And I'm I'm calling you as a pastor. If you need a fresh read, something to reorient yourself around what the church can be. Small group leader member who's got a passion for this? Get a copy for a friend or another leader or your pastor. It's called gathered for good. God's good design for the local church. What a work. And I'm asking you to grab it. Text the word

Thanks so much, Carl. Great to be with you.