Hello folks, this is Princess. You are listening to the Millennial Mustard Seed podcast. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to share with your friends. That's tough. We're in a very tough spot. I think that what we're doing right now is a great benefit and virtue because. It's an end. Around between this whole corrupt informational system, media system, we claim to believe in a God who spoke the universe into existence and literally raised himself from
the dead. And yet we're not going to believe that anything else exists in the spirit realm, even though His word tells us that they do. Their bodies weren't permitted to go to sleep like humans do, and they weren't permitted to go to heaven, so they wander the earth. You know, I've seen the eyes turn black to unknown tongues being spoken. These Giants would love way up in the Highland. The young Braves, the young men would might have been the trees.
They wait for one of these 12 footers to come. Walking down the bath and. They would jump on them and kill them, drag them back to the village, and the village would feast on the body. Then people start to get weapons, they start to get armor, they start to build cities, they start to fortify their cities. Now God looks down and there's violence everywhere.
The battle, this war that we are at, is not against each other, it's against these principalities and these rulers and these archons in the high places. It's really worthwhile to read the Bible yourself. Fear is one of the primary drivers of mind control because we have to take every thought captive and resist fear. You're going to have a testimony that is a justice case against
the Kingdom of darkness. Welcome Music to the Days of Noah podcast where we talk all things biblical, supernatural, and strange. Luke, myself and Rod Smith from the Millennial Mustard Seed podcast conclude our conversation on the deconstruction and reconstruction of our church meetings.
Understanding that there is a huge gap between how we were meant to meet and the fully functioning body of Christ and the limitations and the potential sapping man made traditions that have been added to how we meet as believers. We try to flesh out, even just briefly, many of those bullet points that need deconstruction, those man made things, and then contrast that to how we are meeting as some of us are
meeting in homes. Not that the home is a necessity, but that it is conducive for that face to face, eyeball to eyeball, every member participating church meeting. Guys, thanks so much for being out there listening. We do appreciate each and everyone of you coming back week
after week. If you enjoy this content and you would like to support us, the easiest way to do that is to simply take a moment to leave us a five star or positive written review on your favorite podcast platform and then share the link to family and friends. With that, let's conclude our conversation about the fully functioning body of Christ. You know, overarching in the Bible, God tells us subdue the earth, conquer, procreate, right?
So we know that we're supposed to have land, we're supposed to have houses. Doctor Monzo goes through and shows that in the Hebrew, there's the construction that the pictograph at the ancient Hebrew even demonstrates every root letter and meaning equates to the same value of a house, a family and land. So I just want to challenge, and this is not for your individual question, Luke. This is for the zooming out to the macrocosm of this issue.
How many churches own buildings in your local city? Now I want you to start to look at the cities as you travel across your state. You know I'm in literally the population census of New York City to Washington DC, huge population. If I was to do a search on how many churches own a building and what that building generates tax credit wise, the maintenance of that building, right?
And I was to reflect and look for any of that in the Bible, I can't find it. But what I can find is the absence of a highly detailed edifying structure that God has created for the pruning of the perfecting of his body, which is fivefold ministry. So I would start to say things like, if you have a building that's paid off, maybe sell it and get land, right and pop up some small buildings with a rec center in the middle, middle of that land.
Why are there so many churches that own buildings? And I'm saying this with a right heart because literally it's just like being meek, reserving my power, right? I could come for the jugular of so many people and do it righteously and with an anointing on me. But I'm reserving myself in a gentleness to say, listen, let's think about what is wrong here, right?
Because God is, is going to in his perfect timing, move a generation of people to be completely in agreement with this idea that we have been institutionalized and the function of the institution, the tax credit and the dynamic of the what do you call this denominational preferences is is not found in the Bible. So I would say get land. If you have a big building and it's paid off, sell it, get land, get a smaller building and encourage a biblical model of
meet ups. That's from my perspective. Not everybody's going to agree with me. You know, the whole cult thing that you brought up where 12 people. I think that that's a little bit religious and strict. I think there needs to be a period, almost like a honeymoon, where you're figuring out what are the highs and lows. Can I really trust you? You know, I wrote this little quote in my book, Luke.
It's it says trust is built when you're in danger and I get closer to you rather than running away. That's the premises of love. So like when you're going through it, you're in the gutter. And this is what the men's prayer group does that that God has given me. This is why we're so involved.
This is why we're driving to meet and sharpen and just engaging with each other on a daily, weekly basis is because you have the opportunity to show yourself a soldier of Christ Jesus bearing each other's burdens and so fulfilling the law. So like as it grows, we're busting out the seams. You said, OK, well then let's look for land first because there's obviously SRA survivors.
There's real widows out there who have lost their spouses, who have not opened up their legs to any and everybody walking by who are a true biblical widow. And there's true orphans out there who have been disconnected from their their mother and their father. Their bloodline has been cut short of having that role model who need that's good and perfect understanding that God is giving us. So I'm I'm my whole thing. God has been planning into me land and it the land belongs to the people.
We've been usurped. We have abdicated our authority in so many ways that we're sitting here trying to play minus and plus in the construction of what is ensnared us, rather than zooming out and just saying God, are you doing something new? What is happening? What do I do? There's something like 300 billion billion dollars worth of real estate that churches have in, in this country alone, United States.
Do we really think that our couple hours a week and maybe a few midweek activities is worth that, that multimillion dollar mortgage in most cases when there are these people suffering, like Rod says, I mean, our, our group in our living room, there's only two or three of us that actually give to this out of a dozen regularly that is. But I have a savings and we've been able to bless people with benevolence when they have a need or a ministry opportunity. Boom. What do you guys think?
By consensus, not democracy, consensus. That's how you discern where to go with these funds. I, I think we have, I think Satan loves the traditional church model, even though it's doing good, even though God blesses it because people's hearts are willing towards him because it hinders it. And, and maybe this is a good point where we can kind of switch gears to kind of the pros and cons of, of these different deconstruction reconstructing
things. So let me just jump through this list quick and we'll unpack some of these. And then I have a few quotes too from Frank's book Reimagining Church. So these are some things I I jotted down before we recorded last time with Rick Ecclesia versus church, right, or you could say it organic church versus institutional. So as we're just talking about, right, we have the building, we have the cost, we have the function of a stage versus spectators.
So we're creating passivity. We have a over arching, a over reliance on this elder board, this pastor or team of pastors to teach us the right stuff. So what what ends up being, oh, we want to protect against bad doctrine actually entrenches it. We have a professional clergy which you do not see in scripture. That's something that came about man made where they are the ones with the answers.
They are the ones we pay. And just to unlock those funds, if we didn't have to pay for the building, if we didn't have to pay for the pastor, I mean the church here in my hometown. Yeah, I'm still confused on that one though, because like I gave the example of a missionary, what if an individual has the giftings of a of a shepherd and wants to do that full time? So like actually being sent out or his day-to-day? Let's say the the the mission field. Let's let's go back to the missionary.
So instead of me going to Iraq to minister. I do it in my big. City supported by Yes. OK. Then, then, then, then gather around as a body and and pray on that and do it. But do it because you're going to give that guy 60 grand a year and not 60 grand a year plus and an administrator and a youth pastor and $1,000,000 mortgage, right The. Apostle Paul, he even says not all of you should be doing like
getting married, right? So he's talking about because when you get married, your first ministry is your wife and your household before you can minister outside of that. So like these are also things we need to consider with that question because that's an excellent question. And Luke, Luke, you're on point with some of the stuff because I, you're, you're literally going through it in your mind
like and then well. Well, Pete, like if if you're you're home church or you're Rod, you're you're home church. They identified a gifting in you guys where you don't have to go to the 9:00 to 5:00 anymore to make ends meet. The body is going to support you, you know, financially so you can still put food on the table and have a family. But you now you're taking your effort that you were doing at
the 9:00 to 5:00. Now you're devoting yourself to prayer and to praise and to growing in the Lord. You're you're growing those giftings that you have that other people have identified in you because they see, you know what, if this guy could go full time, it's going to benefit the whole group because they are going to sharpen their skills. No, this is fantastic. I've never thought of this this way. Luke, this is awesome.
Think about this. Isn't that what what we're trying to do right now in the traditional church is an individual has not necessarily and. We're not necessarily. Let me let me let me paint the picture here. So at the, the the local non denominational evangelical church that I was on the worship team for 15 years, that's down the street from me that we left four years ago. OK, their budget, I don't know what it is today, let's say a half, $1,000,000 a year, OK, I
guarantee you. Well, let me rephrase that. They paid off the mortgage a few years ago, OK, They still have overhead, they still have staff, all that stuff. The budget for a couple decades was dominated by that building, its needs, and the growing staff for a growing church. What if you took a half $1,000,000 and identified 8 or 10 people that got 50 to $70,000 a year to do those full time things and you didn't have to pay for that building.
Now, instead of a pastor, a youth pastor and an administrator and all the overhead of a building, you just equipped eight people or 10 people to full time. And now think of it this way, too. Do you really get that much value from your pastor sermon? I mean, really? Yeah. If you don't, read on your. Own if you don't read on your own, then you then I I hate it. I'm sorry if anyone says this. I hate it when people say I I'm not getting fed there.
That's not why you're there. You're supposed to give. OK, fed, yes, but give. But no, I I think Luke, you're on to something. Honestly if someone is really gifted. Our listeners that have followed us for a while and heard Tim Bentz talk about money and stuff. So look at it like the way he described, especially that church that that as a body looked at everybody's financial needs, right? And you had that one individual that he testified that got
themselves. She was the biggest giver in the in the church, in the organization. But. But she got herself, she had a need and she went to the traditional route and got shafted, you know, by high interest and stuff. But what if the body you're you're describing your church paid off building. Now they're going to look internal, They look at all the needs amongst the body, but also
there's needs in the community. So now you have this extra revenue because people are still working and and stuff like that now. Now you could turn that on its head and pay off everybody's debts in the whole place. Let me tell you something, Luke. That's why we left when they announced they paid off the mortgage. This was 2019-2020. I think my question at the business meeting was, hey, you've got 15102 grand a month now freed up in cash flow, whatever their payment was.
What are you going to do for evangelism? What are you going to do for the community? Oh, well, we've, we've hired a A-Team and they're going to come look at our campus and they're going to help us project what what we're going to need here in the next 5 to 10 years. I said, what about outreach? Well, you know, 2 Sundays a year, they pretty much come to us, Christmas and Easter. That was the answer I got from the lead pastor and one of the elders. I said I'm out, I can't support
that. So you're absolutely right, Luke, if we did those kind of things when we paid off a mortgage at a building, maybe it would happen if. You look at the books of Acts, there was nobody that had needs, those that had much and those that had little. I mean, in modern terms, it would be like a a culture, you know, was a compound, you know. A commune. A commune. But but in a in a healthy biblical way, everybody sharpened everybody and you
know. And. I I love the scriptural basis where a debt's got erased every 5050 years. You know, that's kind of a. Whole. Yeah, but the early church did exactly what Tim Bents was kind of describing. You know, they internalized what they had, the benefits they could help to their neighbors and every big everyone was a beneficiary of it. That's.
Literally what I was jumping at the seams to say what you just said, Luke, because it says in Acts they all came together and met each other's needs with the likeness of mind. And so it's like instead of the institution having all this money, you have the giver. They go into debt. You know, somebody with the best heart ever goes into debt.
Because I mean, what about even having a system where the the church feeds back into you when you're in hardship and look, looks at your track record like okay, you're not in hardship 3 * a year because you just make poor decisions on everything you do in life. You might need more help than
just a handout. But seriously, something traumatic happens like you've been doing, like, you know, in my case, I was doing good for 10 years on top of the world Dream girl, dream car building, my family. I literally get my employment pulled out from underneath of me and I have to reinvent myself and walk on this this Cliff where it looks like I'm going to fall off. And God is faithful. I'm telling you right now, He
came through. He continues to come through, not because of anything Ioffer, but this is just the testimony building right, But what if the the body, the ecclesia at large was going? You know what, Pete, you've been doing the right thing and good for so long, man. What's an elimination to free up some more of your time? Why can't you fly over to Philly and hang out with Rod into a
live podcast in person? Why can't you guys go, right, because I'm doing this local stuff, going to Ohio, going all around and we're, we're seeing people are getting baptized. People are literally crying and coming out and like, why can't we do that together, right? And it's like, oh, because I have my 9:00 to 5:00 and I have a mortgage and I have so I think allotting the money to the right place and saying, man, you, you've been in the gutter. Like I've been in the gutter
doing this. People have no idea, right? The last four years, especially the last year, Oh, Lord have mercy. If I would have known, I might have gave up. I might have really gave some stuff up on what this calling is. But yeah, I know you want to get back to your list, Pete. But what I'm saying is if we all came together and and the meeting was not about a new sidewalk on the building, but it was about how to free up time for somebody who's been battle
tested and is trustworthy. And he has fifty men who look, who can look you in the eye and say this is a man of God. I've been I've been locking arms with his brother for 18 months. He's fearless. Let's unleash him in California. Let's send him over there that. Is a game changer. That and and that's exactly what the early church did. The apostles identified and they called them elders like these individuals are going to help us so we can focus our time on
prayer in the word. But it was the bleeding of the Lord that led to that decision. And it was the fruit in these individuals lives that got them promoted to the elder. I mean, it, it's kind of a mix of what we do traditionally, but yet it was, I mean, it was a new thing. It was the early church. It had never been done before. So I know that's kind of where we're trying to take this is where have we gone wrong? And how can we fix it and get it
back to its its true. It's we need Elon Musk on the church Doge to bring efficiency and cut out the the excess fat. Yes, course corrections. Essentially what we have guys is we have old wineskins, right? And and like your example, Luke, with the cell church thing and the things that went wrong, they're trying to put new wine in an old wineskin. You can't do that. It doesn't work. You have to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. So let me jump through these things.
So we mentioned the building, we mentioned the clergy lady class, non participatory spectators, the few leading the many ritual versus relational, right? Do you want to stare at the back of someone's head for an hour and a half? Or do you want to look eyeball to eyeball and go, how was your week going? How is your prayer time going?
How can I pray for you? Hierarchy, you know, and there may be some debate about this in in Matthew 23, whether he was talking to his disciples, Jesus was or if this is an instruction for all. I guess I haven't looked into that. But when he said to him, his disciples do not let anyone call you father or rabbi, for you have one father and he is in heaven, nor nor are you to be
called instructors. You have one instructor, the Messiah. We mentioned last time, my last recording on the spirit leading versus the soul. I think a lot of the things that we do in a modern church service are soulish and they mask what may be brokenness in our spirit in our week that we just went through and we got songs and it's like, I can't even talk to anybody. No one knows the real me and I'm just anonymous here sitting in
the back. And a real quick I want to just mention an anecdote as far as that goes because we have a girl who's been meeting with us on our church group for a couple months now who's a non Christian who doesn't have any measure of faith. By her own words. She did it because a significant other had some form of faith, at least enough to say I want this in my future wife.
That was enough motivation for her to come meet with us and she loves it. She this is someone who grew up in foster homes her whole life shows, so she recognizes the spirit of family when we're together and looks forward to it every week, even though we're talking about all sorts of Christian stuff that she doesn't buy yet. And she said when we she first started coming, she's like, yeah, there's churches around, but that's a little too much.
It's intimidating. But she was like, you know what? I could dip my toe in when my wife put out a post on the community page advertising kind of what we do. And we don't do this very often. We've probably only done this three times in a year and a half that we mentioned of the community. Hey, this is what we do. Come, come visit if you want. That's how she found us. She's like, I can do that. I can see myself doing that. Let me keep going down the list here.
Perfunctory order and elements of the worship service once again kind of having everything just polished and perfect and no room for the spirits leading limits. Christ and the spirit instead of the full expression of his body. So we're seeing a lopsided expression of his body where every member is not functioning. The sermon, it's a monologue versus a dialogue. It's meant to be a dialogue.
And I think Luke, we mentioned on the last recording where there's a section that Paul says if someone is giving a word and someone else has a revelation, the first person is supposed to sit down and let the second person speak. And, and I think it's awesome that you said last time that you've experienced that even in traditional churches. But by and large, that's not, that's not normal. You're going to get scolded by the pastor if you try that one.
This is a big one. This next one, entrenchment of bad doctrine and tradition. You know, some people think if you have a denomination or you have a covering, this whole idea of spiritual covering is not biblical and and it entrenches bad teaching. And we rely on these people that have gone to seminary and learn these, you know, pre agreed on summations of Scripture. They've learned systems instead of learning how to read the Bible.
And now we have outsourced our sense making to someone else, to use Kevin Thompson's term, to do the work for us and go, oh, that's what that verse means. Instead of doing the work for ourselves and going. I don't see it that way, pastor. This is what I'm getting out of it. Another thing, slow moving, institutionalized, difficult to changed, difficult to change and centralized.
You know, I think it was a Chuck missler we mentioned last time that was quoting somebody says, I think the attack on the on the people of God is going to come from the institutional church in the future, that there's persecution coming and we need to be nimble and decentralized consolidated power, which corrupts, right? How much do we know about that creation of the secular versus sacred, you know, having that
religious divide? I think at least in our group Rod, when we meet a chunk of the time is talking about, you know, someone's car breaking down or you know, what went on at work with Co workers. Like we're doing life like that's it's it's funny because it's not spiritual at all for, you know, a good portion, but that's a part of us. We are body, soul and spirit. We're trying to minister to all three, right. The damage to the one man LED church too much to take on there man.
You want to look into pastors getting burnt out trying to care for these flocks is never meant it for one man to take on all of this burden. Here's another big one. Christ is supplanted as the head and his body impotent to function as it was intended. We put a human head, just like Luke you mentioned back in the Old Testament. Hebrews were freaked out by God. Nope. Give us a a human head. You're scary. It discourages real relationships and covers up our
real selves, warts and all. And it's a financial burden and wasteful spending that we've already kind of touched on. So those are just some of the bullet points for what what we need to deconstruct and why. And if I could read just one of these quotes and then you guys jump in with comments. I have a few sections here from Frank Viola's Reimagining Church. He says institutional churches
are a lot like trains. They're going in a certain direction and they'll continue to go in that direction for a good long time, even if all hands try to make them stop. As with trains, the options for turning the direction of institutional churches are limited at best. If a switch or siding is available, the train could turn. Otherwise it's just following the tracks. So everyone on board had best hope that he is on the right train, headed in the right direction.
Organic churches, like those in the New Testament, are different. They're not like trains, but more like groups of people out for a walk. These groups move much more slowly than trains, only a few mph, but they can turn at a moment's notice. And more importantly, they can be genuinely attentive to the world around them. Does that seem like an apartment analogy? You know, you think about institutions, Luke. We talked about it with Rick
last time. You know, the Heart Association, Cancer Society, These things are institutions that are slow to change. You know, if if they, how many years were they telling us, you know, fats are bad. Now they're coming around saying, oh, well, actually natural fats are good. It's like they're slow to change. They're institutions versus a group of people out for a walk. We can pay attention and go, oh, I see a need over there. Let's help that need.
That's that's why I kind of was jokingly talking about Elon Musk and Doge because I mean, he when he bought Twitter, he fired 80% of the staff and it's running better and more efficient because all that extra stuff wasn't needed. And you know, Trump's looking to use him with the federal government. But if but if you're but if you're looking at it from the church standpoint, you obviously
can't fix corporately, right? But if but if from the grassroots in an organization that 150 whatever size church you know, starts to have this epiphany, we want to do something different. We want to do something like the book Acts. Let's change the paradigm. How can we more be a more efficient with our, our, our money and, and the offering that that comes in and, and the outreach and all that type of stuff. You are one individual feeling that at your local church.
But what if you would have had allies that were right next to you in the pews that actually would have got the pastor to listen? You know, then you're then you're actually getting somewhere. I mean quicker you're still getting somewhere, but I get your. Point but that but that's what we're discussing. I mean in year 2 experience you up and left the traditional church and are starting a new thing. That might not be the case for
everybody. No, I don't think it's the case for everybody or nor would I prescribe it. But yeah, if someone is coming across this this information, they read Pay in Christianity and then his reconstructing books on organic church and they go, yeah, I can see this. These are things that are man made that we have added.
You know, having this clergy, this pastor that I pay is actually damaging to me. Having this building in this mortgage is, is damaging me. I mean, there's no substitute that's we've, I can't speak to it to the level that Rod has, but even just some of the things that we've experienced, I can't say has ever happened in a small group or in a church service. You know, some of the things that we're able to really get to the heart of ministering to people and, and insight and
it's, it's so amazing. We'll, we'll have a theme almost every Saturday that will come out. No one planned it. No one planned. This is the topic. This is the sermon. And yet one by one, we're all talking about the same thing, that, that, that is the focus, you know, whether it's a relationship in the family or whatever. And it's, it's just amazing how that comes out organically.
So I think, you know, the last thing that I really want to just get out to both of our audiences is I want you guys to think how many pastors on record stood up in front of their congregations and encouraged the shots over the last few years. And now that information is inverted. It's a it's a no go. Big time bad, bad news,
dangerous. Look at the control and the influence that one person had over each one of those buildings, and I want each one of you to go show me one example of that in the Bible. Wow. Yeah, it's a bit like people saying, oh, Jesus was a socialist. He would want, he would want to us to give our money to the government so we can distribute. The government can distribute it. It's like, no, no, he was what can you do individually out of the goodness of your heart? Yeah.
This is another section from Frank, Frank Faiola's Reimagining Church that kind of paints another analogy to how God has a design for how he wants his body to function. And again, we said at the very outset here, the disclaimer that a lot of good things do happen in the institutional church. A lot of wonderful people are doing amazing things for God's Kingdom. We're not saying they're not.
But here's an analogy that kind of paints this picture of maybe how we're missing the mark from how our church gatherings are supposed to be. So he says, imagine a general contractor, and I believe he got this from a friend of his, I think it was Hale Miller. Imagine a general contractor who purchases 20 acres of land by which to build a housing complex. And after the houses are built, he wishes to have a landscaped garden at the entrance. This is his goal. So he hires someone to plant
beautiful trees. Another one to lay large rocks, another to plant beautiful flowers, another to plant shrubs and bushes. And so the person who plants trees comes and plants them randomly throughout the complex. The one who lays rocks does the same. So does the person who plants the flowers. The person who plants the shrubs and bushes also does the same. When the contractor observes what they have done, he's very disappointed. His goal was a landscaped
garden. Instead he sees the flowers, rocks, trees, shrubs and bushes are all disconnected and scattered about haphazardly. Is it good to plant trees? Yes. Is the planting of flowers a positive thing? Certainly. But these things in themselves were not the contractors goal. He wanted a landscaped garden and that describes the Kingdom of God today in the institutional church.
Many good deeds, but an overwhelming disconnection from God's ultimate goal, which happens to be from Him, through Him, and to Him. Thoughts on that at all guys? I don't know me, I was kind of picturing, you know, the traditional church and the landscaping that you might have there and stuff. And like you said, you know, how much do we really get out of one day service, you know, hour or
two or whatever. So to me it, it, it seems like it's, it's more important that relationship wise with your fellow believer in your community that you're connecting on a, on a regular basis, more regular basis than once a week. Because that's where in my mind, there's more value than coming to 1 central place once a week. Because if you don't have those type of relationships throughout the week, you, you show up, it's
just small talk. How many people really come early, stay late, really get to the heart of the matter when it comes to talking to your brother and sister. It's, it's all chivalry, you know, it's all just fluff. And then you leave there and you might leave there still wounded or your needs are not met and the need could have been met by your brother and sister sitting next to you. But if you had that relationship throughout the week, you know,
you can help one another. So I think that I think that's a failure in traditional churches and probably in the untraditional churches that you guys have experienced, that you need that relationship to to flourish and to grow. And hopefully it it, it, it happens, you know, more than once a week. Yeah, that that's the goal. And we're so broke and busy these days. It's so hard and. We got and we got limited time.
You know, I get it. I mean, even Pete, our own family, you know, I live out of state and how often do I talk and connect with which I, I, I saw this, this TikTok and this individual had epiphanies. Like, yeah, when you get married, your your spouse is your immediate family, your parents and your brothers sisters are now your extended family. You know, so you do get consumed in that bubble of who you're around the most. It, it, it, I don't know. That's just what I was picturing
when you were describing that. Sure. Well, let me mention this too. So we have probably half of the group that meets with us go to a traditional Sunday church and they actually meet with us because of the connections that we have, the things that we are free to talk about that they can't and don't have on Sunday. And you choose to meet on a day that doesn't interfere or actually benefit. Yeah. So I mean, you guys could have met on a Wednesday potentially. And and that's, I think that's
awesome. It brings an added benefit to the the body of Christ in your community. I think what what you're mentioning there, Luke, you're touching on is, is the unity. You know, Jesus prayed. I wish that that they would have the same unity that I have with you as the Father. And then the Trinity has right one of equality, but varying roles. And I think that's that's kind of what we're all talking about is, is a lot of these things, they're good, but the good can
be the enemy of the best. And you know, we want Jesus to be the central figure, figure and functionally head of his body, But we can quench it when when things are are man made structured there. There was a quote I heard, I think in in Frank's book. I don't can't remember someone famous said this God made man is in in his image and man returned the favor we we made him in our image.
You know we make the church like a business or all these different models yeah you know there there's just so much damage to to denominations. Think about that guys, where we craft a statement of faith like Rod you were mentioning, and this is what we adhere to. And if you join, then sometimes strictly, sometimes not strictly, you're expected to believe these things, affirm these things and we divide, you know, even the word denomination. Think about like a fraction, right?
In math class, you have a numerator denominator. The denominator is what divides. So this denomination says, oh, I think baptism saves you literally salvifically. Oh, I think that the body and blood literally becomes Christ when the priest says something. All these denominations has has divided us. And I can say maybe this is a good question for you, Rod. I can say in our group we have very different differing opinions on some big, some big
theological issues. We try not to talk about those because they're not the central thing. We don't want, you know, when it when before we kind of launched this experiment to do this church out of our home. And I don't even consider myself a church planter, but maybe that's what happened when we did this. I was reading a lot of Frank's stuff because I was trying to figure out what are the pitfalls, what do I need to watch out for? And he had a lot of good
information on that. He said, don't let it become, you know, church mini, you know, where you you just try to find a pastor. And now he's going to give a sermon right in the living room. Don't make it about like a pet doctrine, like, oh, everyone's got to be into the end times. And that's what we're all going to talk about. So we keep the main things, the main things, and we don't want to get into that statement of faith, 'cause it divides.
Yeah, I mean, I set except on the essentials, but even on that, it's like we have an unbeliever in our midst. But maybe Rod, you can speak to kind of how do you guys? No, you, you're asked. I want to hear your question, but it popped into my head. Some of these groups in in Asia that were we're doing house church and they would they would have an ashtray in the center of their their meeting because you had all kinds of different people that would show up.
And it wasn't about excluding anybody. It was except about accepting everyone, but focusing and leading everybody to the truth of who Christ is. And even if it's not establishing, this is our mission statement and everybody must adhere to this at some point. You know, it's got to be
welcoming enough. And it seems like, Pete, you've done that in your home with the community posts and stuff that people that were on the fringe are afraid of traditional church is willing to, you know, go through your doors, which is which is awesome. And in fact, in fact, even the first people, when I very first put it out there a year and a half ago in kind of, I kind of put it out in a provocative way, like is the way we do traditional church not the best?
And I, I forget how I put it. And, and the, the couple ladies, one of them still still comes. The other one decided that her family wanted to go to a traditional church. So she's doing that now, but they weren't going at all, which is why she started joining. But the other one's still coming. Both of them felt ostracized and alienated from the traditional church. They hadn't gone in years and but they but they enjoy the
fellowship that we have. A third person used to go to the the church in town that I used, used to go to, used to be on the worship team with me in the band. And and she too kind of felt cast aside, didn't fit in, you know, no one to really talk to, no one to really understand her
situation in life. So, yeah, there's a lot of people that are slipping through the cracks that we're not ministering to because we've got a service, we have a program that needs to run Florida State. But yeah, I was if you want to comment on that, Rod. Now I was just going to ask about kind of how how churches for you with different beliefs or or how you deal with it, but. Well, so I don't want to, I don't want to really do this, but I'm going to. I'm going to answer with a question.
OK. Now I'll save that for the the last part. Actually, this is a this is a point that I can put in front of that Peter talks about first. Peter 2, four and five is talking about these living stones that that builds the spiritual house, the church.
And he says as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus. So each believer is a living stone. We're contributing to the construction of a spiritual house, a body that God dwells in.
He moves in and threw us. If the same spirit reside in you that raised Christ from the dead. So the diversity is fine. I have no issues with that. You know, my question really just to put in the audience's ear. I'm going to build this for all of us. If you are attending a building, OK, Luke, maybe you are right on on the regular, Would you feel comfortable taking once a week the list of people you've interviewed on this podcast over the years?
Say every week you're taking a guest with you and you have to go through the list of people that you've interviewed. You got to take Ryan Peterson. You got to take Gary Wayne. You got to take me at some point in time. Don't let me get the microphone if I show up. Just kidding. Would you feel comfortable doing that at your location? Right. And and now to Pete, it's in, it's in your court too. And the listeners, it's in your court too. I'm only asking you guys this so that you'll evaluate.
Do I have to live in a dual manner to be true to my calling? Is there a limitation on the building where my creativity, what God has put down inside of me, the the function of my living stone, is it being hindered or restricted by any means? The Bible has a lot to say about that. I'm going to spare us the time to go through all those verses, but I've done that. I'm not 200 episodes into most of you guys on Air Lord, the first podcast. I think we did like 50.
I can't even tell you how many conversations I've had. I can't even tell you how many times I've went to church with a simple question to a building and and was ran out myself. I don't know if I could take Gary with me. So do you know? If I could take LA with me. Let me let me clarify just so I understand your question. Are you saying take them with you and have them experience what goes on? Or are you more saying take them with you and introduce and let them be a speaker and let them
talk on the things they talk on? Would the church, would the church welcome him, her or her? However you see it OK, however that affects the listener who's listening to this and you 2 as individuals. I know if I took, let's say, Gary Wayne with me and we're sitting there in service and you're doing a meet and greet, let's just say if he's being genuine to who he is, as is an encyclopedia for the weird, let some questions fly, you know, and then I believe Gary would be
true to himself. I don't think he would put on a different face because he's in a building, although I mean, you never really know. But for the benefit of the doubt, I would imagine, 'cause if you get me in church or out in the Walmart parking lot or on a podcast, you're getting the same person regardless. Like I, I don't have a different face to put on when I go to the, the corporate building versus at home. And, and it took development for that because I felt small, insignificant.
It's not important. I'd ask or make statements and it would literally be cast to the wayside. But I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. God told me this was important. And instead of me getting angry with you, I'm going to move on. And I played that game for so long. I was just over it. I was just like, done with it, right? But the question really holds true. Taking guests or close friends of yours in this fringe space into the church environment, to the building and keeping them in
their genuine natural state. How? How many times could you take a guess there before you may be asked not to not to protect? No, I think you bring up an interesting concept as I'm thinking about your question that how much, how much of going back to the train analogy, right, The institutional churches on these tracks, you, Frank says you better hope that that church is going the right direction, the right destination. How much of the body of Christ is actually being prepared for
what's coming in the earth? Who has a worldview that is compatible with reality, even if it's weird? Because guess what? Truth is stranger than fiction, right? You had supernatural questions, Rod, that were Pooh poohed at best. People don't have a place to deal with these deep dark things. So how much are we failing by having this single person LED institution for preparing the
body of Christ? How much are we not teaching people how to fish by actually looking at their Bible inductively and observing the text, not bringing their own biases to the text? How much are we trying to tell them? Oh, here's a system of thought you can apply to the Bible instead of just reading for what it says. You know, we, we boiled everything down. So I think to your question, how much damage has been done by we hope the guy up front has the most important word for this week.
And sometimes he does. I mean, there's some there's some superstars. I mean, Luke, you got John Kilpatrick. He's awesome. OK. I'm sure the people that go to Jonathan Cahn's church are, are pretty well blessed with his messages. There's great people out there. We're not saying they're not, but you better hope they're
filling in all the blanks. And that's why I think it's such an exciting thing to be in this day and age with podcasting Rod, that we can bring on the Gary Wayne's, the LALA Marzulli's and the Tim Benz's and go, OK, tell me about your walk with the Lord. OK, tell me about UFOs. Well, I think. From one episode, I think we've we've covered the fact that you can't get all that you need in
one Sunday service. You know, even my pastor, John Kilpatrick, for the first time in his ministry, how many decades he's been a pastor, has taught the whole Book of Revelation. And he did it on a Sunday morning, which he knew was going to be controversial because he's never done that before. He did that at Brownsville before, but it was like a midweek service. But to do it as the main message, you know what I'm
saying, He's never done that. So and there's all these different, you mentioned, you know, these different guests, would we bring them into our our fellowship? I think they if, if they're good guests, if they're asking the the right questions, you know, whether it's on a Saturday morning or a midweek or something with it, you should have a healthy environment where you bring in those conversations because we talk about it all the time.
The supernatural has been lost or pushed out the door by traditional church. They don't want to talk about the things they don't understand. They, you know, but OK, then let's meet on a Tuesday night and let's discuss it. You know, let's break the mold. Let's do something different so. Yeah, and that's what we hope to do on our show, right? Right. Let's have those conversations on your show, Rod.
Let's have those conversations. Yeah. So I mean, hopefully, you know, everyone listening, you guys have some food for thought if you haven't considered these concepts of of what institutional versus organic church. And I think even the phrase organic church, I think it was T Austin Sparks that coined that. If I remember Frank saying that correctly. And I got I got to dig into hit some of his stuff. I guess Watchman Knee was mentored by T Austin then those.
It was the other way around. T Austin was the other T Austin Sparks was went meant. Did you say T Austin Sparks was mentored by Watchman Knee? No, no, he mentored Watchmen. I thought, I thought, didn't Watchmen learn? I thought it was the other way around. I think Watchmen was But anyways, yes, they did have a connection. Yeah, there was a connection
and. And Pastor Doug Riggs, who really dug into T Austin Sparks and used his material methodically in his messages because he just, he was one of those individuals in the body of Christ, like Watchman Knee or the Apostle Paul that just got amazing downloads of revelation and was able to expound it. And I, I need to get into it as well, But I know we don't have much time left.
Pete, let's let's kind of recap some of the deconstruction because I know you wanted to do a Part 3 on construction. Is there anything else that we need to hit on bullet point wise that we didn't deconstruct? I tried to take it from a basic standpoint of 150. Congregation, how would you break it down? Yeah. But I don't know, is there anything else that we need to talk about on the deconstruction side?
Well, let me let me mention a few things and Rod, feel free to jump in. You know, I just, I want to hit on and we'd have talked about it, just the damage that has happened and we can't possibly encapsulate the damage that has happened over hundreds of years of of doing church in this way. But some of the things that have happened in the past, If anybody knows about this, look up the persecution of the Anabaptists. They were literally killed. They were zealous for God.
They didn't have all of their theology perfect, but they were literally killed because they were going against the establishment of traditional doctrine. Similar abuses happened in the prior to the Reformation where common people were not allowed to read the Bible. They only had ordained ministers to do that. You know, I think of, if you guys know the band Primus, they had a song called to Defy the Laws of tradition. It's a crusade only of the brave. He said. Such a great lyric.
That's that's kind of what we're talking about. If you've ever seen fiddler on the Roof tradition, we're we're going against tradition here. The the status quo does not like this stuff. And we said this last time, Luke, that that that wonderful quote that somebody came up
with. It's very difficult to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it. So this kind of stuff is not going to be popular if you talk to your traditional pastor about it. But yeah, I think the biggest things for deconstruction, if we were to recap, is that the body of Christ is meant to express Christ in his fullness with him
being the head led by him. And when we meet, we, we want to have the freest, fullest expression of that with the Holy Spirit's discernment. So essentially when we meet as believers, each one of us with the Holy Spirit, all of those Holy Spirit in dwelt people come together and their collective discernment helps guide and direct what happens in that meeting. What's said, what's not said, what's song, what's asked, you know the direction of it. It's discerned as a collective body.
And we've touched on a number of the damage that looking to a single person or group of people can have. You better hope they're going in the right direction. And are you free to have your gifts function if you're if you're kind of passive and waiting on that person. So that's kind of how the every every member functioning meeting is supposed to work. And when you have a sermon?
Which comes from Greek rhetoric. When you have a pastor, a clergy, which is a holdover from the priesthood of the old covenant. When you have a building that is faced like an auditorium where the action happens up front and everyone else is passive. When you have a burden of seventy, 8090% of your church budget is going to overhead with 10 or 20% left for actual ministry. You really have to question how much are you getting out of
those two hours? You know, I used to think, and I still kind of do. Wow. I've listened to thousands of sermons over the years. That's pretty good. I I bet I've got a lot of truth out of that, and I probably have. But is it worth what I paid? Was it worth me not doing my own work? Probably not.
Probably not. I think we all have to take responsibility for our own learning, our own growth, and realize that this clergy system, this building, these denominations, God doesn't approve of this stuff. He blesses it. He does, but he doesn't approve of it. This is not how his body is meant to function. And to deconstruct to Luke's question, if you have 150 person church, I don't know where to start. That's a tough one. You'd have to ask God. But for me and my family, it was
the right time to do this. I was actually, I actually came across Francis Chan letters for the church and Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity probably like 8 years ago. And I was convinced at that time, but my family wasn't ready. I wasn't ready and it was more recently when as I mentioned that that church meeting, that budget meeting, hey, we paid off the mortgage where I, I started
to dig into this again. At the same time, I came across the book that from Tim Kurtz called Leaving Church Becoming Ekklesia, which I highly recommend, where he mentioned that among other mistranslations in the KJV, the King James translators mistranslated ekklesia as church, and that was what we're meant to be as an ekklesia. It's a ruling body, a an assembly, a ruling council
taking dominion on the earth. And when we supplant Christ by having these human heads, we're missing quite a bit. So yeah, it's messy. We're only a year and a half in. We're still figuring it out. But I would, I would, I would preface that I mean, God uses people, God uses human heads, and God uses the frailties of all of us. And there's a lot of good individuals in the traditional
church. So God grace the body of Christ to fulfill its mandate and to be fiscally responsible, you know, because we talk about money a lot and this subject, you know, because it's supposed to be his, you know, from the family's budget to the church's budget, it's supposed to be God's. And we want to be good stewards with, with said funds. So I think I think the best thing out of this is we're asking the questions. You know, you asked the question
to your old pastor. Maybe if he would have gave you a different answer, you guys would still be there, you know, Or at least, hey, let's have a discussion about this as a body, as a church, what we should do with the funds. And that and that. Let me say this real quick, Luke, that's what I wanted. I didn't want to jump ship. I would rather fix the ship and repair the holes now. Now I see it with new eyes that no it's old wineskins.
It couldn't have worked, but I. But that's why I asked the question. You know, the 150 church from the top down, they want to re they they're willing to deconstruct the whole thing, the whole shit. How how do you do it? And I don't know that Frank, I don't know that this author has all the answers, but he asks a lot of questions that are that are valid. Yeah, and he and he's lived in this organic setting for something like 3-4 decades now. So it's really just a wealth of
information. So I highly recommend going through his books. Neil Cole is another one that that does this kind of thing. And then someone that my wife and I have gotten to know personally, I forget his last name, but Gavin and his wife Carla. And they have a something called simple Church, I believe it's called. And he's been a mentor to us. So kind of a shout out to to him. But Rod, why don't you give us any final word there as we wrap up? Appreciate you coming on.
Yeah, well, thank, thank you both for inviting me. I always enjoy the opportunity to sharpen and learn from each other and and grow. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who was subjected to it in hope, Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and laborers with birth pangs together until now.
Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Romans 818 through 23. It's always an honor to be here with you guys. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Rod. Thanks, Luke. This was great. I hope that this was interesting and edifying and and thought
provoking for the audience. If if it was, if you guys have questions, comments, disagreements, or yeah, just good questions to really dig into this and say what about this in this situation? What about that? E-mail us the days and old podcast@gmail.com or e-mail Rod head over to the Millennial Mustard Seed podcast and check out his stuff. So thanks so much guys.
And hopefully we can do it again with a Part 3, focusing more on the reconstruction of of what it is from both personal experience and things that we've gleaned from those like Frank and Neil that have gone before us to do this kind of thing. And even not that the New Testament is a blueprint per SE, that would be a mistake to think of it that way. But there are plenty of good clues to how they met and what sort of things were going on that we can take from and learn
from. So with that, we will wrap up. Thanks guys. God bless. Straight from the heavens, you really owe me. All of my life I was beating up. All in my life I didn't handle hope. All in my life I was stuck in no trap. All in my life I didn't handle rap. I didn't know why my life was away. I didn't know why my life was alright. I didn't know why I couldn't get up. I was so stuck. And the monkey was stuck till I found out. And I broke everything till I found out.
And they took everything until I was hurt. My heart was straight. Yeah, I was broken. I had all this pain. Held on home. It got harder. Then I went to the side of the smoke. I had no truth but to look to my guy. He gave me to me. Your foam in my eyes. He gave me earrings. And he told me I'm blessed. He told me he just believe in this time. I told him I can't change all of my ways. He said I got you to look at this time. I looked at him and he showed me
his ways. Then he just told me how I am this time. Then he just told me you're not. He told me I'll come from the heavens above. I'm a new creature. I come from the sun, from the one and only straight from the heavens. You really owe me. I came from the sun. I was really with them. And heavenly places I'm sealing. Y'all can't even go that way. Y'all don't even know that way. Y'all want to play like Patty Kay, but this ain't no game but
the star, right? You wipe this on bake when you walk under me and I know you're a snake. You think you can beat me but you got no power. You all in a way I take out that chopper, I'll put on your chopper and I'll prank on your face. I see you laughing. You think that you got me but you got no way. The evil you said for my life is OK because it's made for my good. My God is created. He created you so you really is
good. I said all these things because I know what is true and you know you don't like when I know the things that's going to happen to you when you die. You didn't live in your life because you know you can never go and get safe. You know it's crazy. His mercy was too from you when you're my son in the pot. I thought you can take on my God's spot now, but you can die hot. You was really tweaking. I come from the sun, from one and only straight from the heavens. You really owe me.
I came from the sun. I was really with him and heavenly places I'm still living.