May 16, 2025 • 35 mins
In this second part of our conversation on the local church, Pastors Kent Dresdow, Jeremy Pray, and Matt Rehrer dive deeper into why the church matters—biblically, theologically, and practically. Picking up where Part 1 left off, they explore imagery from Scripture including the church as the bride, the body, the family, and the temple of the Holy Spirit.You’ll hear reflections on the value God places on the local church, the dangers of going it alone, and how the Spirit works within the gathered body. They also unpack the biblical marks of a true church, the importance of church leadership and accountability, and how consumerism and cultural habits can challenge our view of the church.Whether you're deeply invested in your local church or wrestling with its role in your life, this honest and encouraging conversation is for you.🔔 Subscribe for more episodes of afterWord with Pastor Kent, where we explore meaningful conversations about life and ministry.#LocalChurch #HolySpirit #ChurchLeadership #afterWordPodcast #NorthCreekChurch #ninemarks #9marks #podcast
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(00:08):
Welcome back to Afterward, a podcast about extended
conversations with topics that matter in life and ministry.
I'm joined by Matt Rare and Jeremy Pray, executive pastors
here at North Creek. Guys, welcome back.
And we are doing a Part 2 today of what we covered last time
with regard to the local church or the church, and wanted to
(00:32):
pick back up that same topic because we left some things on
the table that I think would be helpful for our people and for
anyone who's listening in. Namely, I think the first
question was helpful. We asked last time, why should I
care about the local church? Kind of a statement of value,
right? Why should I love the church
when there's so many different people who are saying you can
(00:53):
just do your own thing or where two or three are gathered in my
name, there I am in their midst or, you know, those kinds of
things. But we went a different
direction with that and said that the church is of tremendous
value. So do you guys want to kind of
get us back into that flow a little bit?
I mean, where do we go to kind of demonstrate that?
Yeah, I think where we naturallywent down was looking at the
(01:16):
images of the church in the Bible.
We didn't get to all of them, but just to kind of dominant
value. Yeah.
We were walking through the bride, the body, the family.
We start talking about family, which then we dived into
adoption and we didn't hit that very hard.
Ephesians 1, Romans 8, right? There's just so many bastards
(01:37):
that would get us amplified. So that's why we're in Part 2,
because we got pretty excited about that part so.
Yeah, that's good. Can I throw one more in?
I know this is like totally breaking it apart.
We did not talk about the churchbeing the temple of the Holy
Spirit. And I've been like to not talk
about that just for a couple minutes would be, I think some
(01:59):
kind of criminal. So the church as this as the the
dwelling place of the Spirit. So I mean, let me just say like
to me when I read that and Paul talks about that immediately in
my mind with some of my trainingand background, I go back to the
new covenant promise and the newcovenant hope in Ezekiel when
(02:22):
God says I'm going to put my spirit within my people and
basically they will be faithful to follow me because my spirit
will be driving them from the inside out.
Jeremiah would say in his new covenant version of the same
promise, he would say that I'll put my word within them, my law.
And so it's, it's two sides of the same coin, right?
(02:43):
Jeremiah is saying the same thing.
The word I'll put within their heart, Ezekiel, the Spirit, I'll
put within their heart. We have such a sweet resource
within us, not because of us, but because of the new covenant
that was secured by Christ, the cross.
And so here we are now the church and we're the gathered
people of God indwelled by the Spirit.
(03:03):
And so we're a temple, the temple of the Spirit.
So do you guys have any commentsabout why that adds value to the
church? When we think about why we
should care about the church, what kind of value does that
add? Just one real quick and then you
can jump in, Matt, if you have something but good time back to
what we talked about last time is that the value of the church
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is not just for the gathered people, my friends and just this
is where I'm comfortable, but the God values this.
God has sought it best to put his spirit inside us to to to
make himself known through the local church.
And so it's not just a great place, it's going to kind of get
us through this world and some gathered people that's going to
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make it more fun and easy. But instead, this is God's way
of glorifying himself through the gathered local body, through
the spirit inside each individual's.
So it just, it transcends way more than just getting together
because it's life's better with multiple people.
Yeah. And I just think something that
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we highlighted when you walk through the Gospel of Matthew is
when Jesus says these words where he says it's better for me
that I actually go to the spiritwill come.
That's how important it is for the spirit to indwell.
It's like it was better for Christ to actually die and go to
be with his father, ascend for them the spirit to descend upon
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the church, the early church. That's I mean wow, what value?
Like what statement blows your mind?
Yeah, for sure. And that's where the power
resides too. You think about the Great
Commission Jesus saying I will be with you the end of the age
and all authority is given to mestarts with that.
But OK, well then that's coming through the Holy Spirit in US,
us gathered together, glorifyingGod more corporately than we
(04:50):
could as individuals. And so it's it's really God's
glory then is on display or at stake.
You could. Say yeah, yeah, yeah.
And. It's not to say that.
The Holy Spirit doesn't dwell and dwell each individual
believer. We know that's true from First
Corinthians 6, but but it's alsotrue that that that is happening
corporately too. And so man, what another reason
(05:12):
to be like man, Lord, why would we want to?
I think one of the things that we have talked about is why
would you want to just go it alone in the Christian life?
Why would you see yourself as like an independent operator or
just us buddies over here at a coffee shop calling that church
when all of this amazing value is placed by God Himself because
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of the gospel? You know, the gospel made
visible is what 1 author says iswhat the local church is.
And so, man, to ignore that or to devalue that or to not just
love the local church seems likeit flies in the face of the
scripture number one. And then it really is going to
stunt your growth #2 right? I I would even add #3 we don't
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even do that with other things in life.
If we, you see something cool, you watch a game, whatever,
you're looking, really. Yeah, looking, looking for other
people. Why?
Your instinct is to gather otherpeople to celebrate that, which
is whatever you want to say, awesome, celebratory, whatever.
We it, it's worthy of other people knowing You see a cool
video or whatever and you want to show somebody else and
(06:19):
they're not excited about it. Like you should be excited about
this because I'm excited about this.
It's just in our instinct to, tothe way that Lord's made us to
try to rally around that which is most honorable.
Now you're going to throw in God's glory.
Why would you want to do that byyourself?
Like I'll give God glory on my own.
No, I want other people to see this as well.
Yes, Amen. Yeah, you guys know, I mean, I'm
(06:41):
a church history dork. I don't think I'm an expert.
Notice, I didn't say church history expert.
I said church history dork. So the Westminster Confession
gives this definition of the church.
The visible church is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we would want to, you know,
nuance that the house and familyof God out of which there is no
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ordinary possibility of salvation.
That's pretty stunning, isn't it?
And that's not like, you know, the Roman Catholic Church.
That's that's the Westminster Catechism saying that.
And then John Stott says this inhis book on the living Church.
The New Testament knows nothing of an unchurched Christian.
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For the church lies at the very center of the purpose of God.
It's not good. At the very center of the
purpose of God is the church. And the invisible church is only
seen in the visible church, right?
The the, the local church and admittedly the local church is
comprised, we know of wheat and tares, right?
(07:45):
But when we look out at the congregation, the gathered
assembly, we don't know with perfect clarity, God does who
are the wheat that'll be gathered up with him at at the
end of the age And then who are the the chaff or the tares that
will be taken away. But we do know that the
invisible church is seen in the context of the of the visible
(08:05):
church gathered. And so those are some strong
statements right. I mean that's that just goes to
add even more value whether you would even agree with all of
that or not. This has historically been the
view and to go back into church history farther.
I'm even stronger statements aremade about the necessity of the
church in in the life of the theChristian.
(08:26):
And so, yeah, I don't know if wewhat that kind of leads us into
other questions and so. Can I can I ask real quick or
like, even as we're talking about this, I just would want to
confess I'm not walking through the doors of the church with all
these things on my mind like this is I've been thinking about
(08:47):
this in its deepest level. I'm ready to go.
I have to like this is helpful for me to hear even as we're
talking through it like me and Ihave a low like too low of a
view. I, it's not that I don't value
the church, but even hearing youtalk about it, hearing both of
you guys talk about it like I, Istill have some work to do, some
thinking to do on this, to properly understand the church.
(09:10):
But and then maybe even like segue from that.
Can I ask you, so you can speak to it, what the marks of a
healthy church? What are the marks of a, a true
church? Because just because the church
has gathered together the local church doesn't mean that it's a
church from God's perspective orthe way in which he would want
it to be. So what would you?
How would you answer that question?
Yeah, nine of those 9 marks. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.
(09:33):
I've heard that before. It's like I've heard that
before. Yeah.
And certainly someone could could look those up and find
those. Yeah.
So we don't want to. Those have been super helpful.
I think the thing that I would want to just say briefly to that
is historically the the ReformedChurch, the church coming out of
the Reformation and Calvin himself would say what
constitutes, constitutes a localchurch.
(09:56):
And it's the, the proclamation of the Word of God, the
Scriptures at the center, the proper or faithful observance of
the biblical ordinances, meaningthe Lord's Table, and then and
then baptism. And then also the faithful
(10:16):
exercise of church discipline, which really in some cases can
just be seen as an extension of biblical discipleship.
Does that make sense how that could be true?
Like discipline discipleship, I mean, they almost kind of sound
similar, but it, it, it really is aimed at the same thing,
right, Where we're trying to make disciples and, and calling
people to the Scriptures in thatway.
(10:38):
So, yeah, preaching ordinances and you could say discipleship,
biblical discipleship, and then that exercise of it with
discipline. And those really are the marks
of of a true church. Now, there were reasons why back
then they they outlined it just that way, you know, kind of in
some contrast to what was comingout of the medieval period with
the Catholic Church. But but those would be the marks
(11:00):
of a true church. Even calling it ordinances over
sacraments, yeah. Right.
Yeah, as one. Yep.
Yeah, they're not meant to be. Well, that would get into a
different discussion. Actually, you know what?
We're going to have a. Separate talk about that.
I think we're going to have a separate yeah episode just on
that, not to create a firestorm of controversy and that that,
but just to kind of walk throughwhat we'd understand that to be.
(11:22):
And again, this is for our folkspredominantly.
And so we're not looking to, youknow, stir up some kind of, you
know, conversation with people who are in different places.
But let's save that one, if we can, for a different time.
I. Think it's helpful to go through
some of these distinguishments because frankly, you know, we're
talking about why do we not value the church?
(11:42):
I think some of it is cultural context, depending on where you
live. Now here in the Bay Area, I
don't think this is quite as prevalent where there's a church
on every corner. But the concept is that with
cars and multiple churches, you can choose like you can drive
you. So it makes the church seem like
it's an option because I can just leave this one and go drive
(12:05):
to another one. And if you're not doing what I
like, I can just simply get up and and head out.
And so when we start talking about maybe why we struggle with
value, I think it is because culturally, we're not
suppressed. We aren't underground.
We aren't having to hunker down together.
We're not sometimes recognizing the spiritual battle that we
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truly are in. And you have what looked to be
options on a menu. Yeah, at times I think that's
what we are, which is consumerism.
Yeah. Which kind of sneaks in.
Yep, Fair, fair. I mean, I think can you guys
just speak to, I mean, while thereformers would just delimit it
to, to that, and that's I think a fair delimitation.
(12:46):
We could add to that. Even biblically, I think there
are other ways in which we should be thinking about what
sets off a local church from, well, the two or three that
people want to, you know, like my, my small group is my church
polity. How, how does, how does like
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leadership structure and function help establish a local
church and demarcate it from like a small group or a short
term mission strip that's a church for me while I'm away for
two months. And then, you know, so catch me
up a little bit and speak to that if you can, about how
polity helps kind of become a marker of a local church.
(13:27):
Hebrews 1317 immediately comes to mind for me.
That didn't talking about the the the overseers that the the
elders are the ones who are going to give an account for the
souls of the people. So without the Lord will be
keeping someone account. But sometimes you have like, Oh,
this is my church, This is my group.
What who who's your who's your leader?
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And it's all over scripture evento like, you know, first Timothy
3 would be a a major one for thequalifications of elders and
deacons and so forth. But the Lord cares about it, so
we should care about it. So it's not just the fact that
people are gathered, but it's gathered with a sense of
structure. As we were talking about the
family, we were talking about even the body and building and
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other images. Those have structure to them.
So that's the first thing that comes to mind.
Hebrews 1317, primarily. Someone's giving an account for
these people. And who is it?
It's the Overseers. Which also creates
accountability to the church member too.
So it's accountability for the leaders like you're accountable
to God. It's also accountability for the
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members like you're watching over me.
You've been called to take care,to guard, to, to protect.
And so there's an accountabilitynow of like, I can't just do
what I want. Someone's actually watching over
me and cares about me. And it's going to seek to to
correct if I need or encourage like again, in Hebrews, like
that's what we're called. There's so many one another's
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active in the church. And one that comes to mind is
Hebrews 3 that we're called to encourage one another dailies.
It's called today. So we won't be hardened, so that
we are encouraging each other tocontinue on in the race because
again, it's a there's a legitimate spiritual battle for
your soul. Correct.
Yeah. I mean, because the Church is
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the communion of the Saints, it doesn't mean it's the commune of
the Saints. Like it's just this flat,
structureless kind of BLOB. You know, the Lord has been
pleased. I mean, even in, in, in Acts,
when the initial Pentecostomers preached 3000 souls come to
Christ in a day. What happens?
A structure emerges right now the, the Apostolic structure was
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in place, right? But then immediately the elders
emerge and, and then very early,as soon as problems start
cropping up, which, you know, inour local church, are there any
problems? Answer No, no, there's no
problems. It's perfect.
So yeah, no, I mean, in any local church, you, you just live
together for long enough and there's going to be things that
crop up, problems that arise noteven due to sin, but due to sin
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too. And So what happens?
The early church has a structureof all of sudden now appointing
deacons, right. And so the new, the two New
Testament leadership offices emerge almost immediately with
the birth of the church. And so admittedly it's Nacient,
right? It's it's, it's a proto Deacon
structure. You could say in Acts 6, we
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don't have a lot of clarity about what the elders are doing
early in Acts, but they emerge with some authority that comes
online early. And then certainly by even Acts
15, they're they're in play and in place.
And so, yeah, I just think like you don't have to wait very long
with the church to emerge for there to be polity, structure,
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leadership, and that's as it should be.
And I think that marks out the difference, one of the
differences between like, well, why isn't my small group, my
church? What?
Well, it's not just is the word being proclaimed.
It's not just is there the proper observance of ordinances.
It's not just as discipline and play with discipleship as the
goal, but it's also man there. There are no leaders.
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There's no biblical New Testament officers, right?
Not just elders, but deacons. And so I think when you start to
put all this together that I want to ask you guys a question.
You use the word, I've been using the word.
You've used it as you just read through the New Testament
regarding ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.
What you see is that they're structure.
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OK, So then some churches have more of that than less.
Some churches have what some people think is like way too
much structure. And so they will go somewhere
else, other people will leave churches because they say
there's nothing here by way of structure.
And so then they go to a church that has more.
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So can you guys just kind of kind of help people understand
like from our perspective, and we're not infallible for sure,
but just from like having walkedwith people through these kinds
of concerns, right? How do you help people think
about who we want to be as a church with regard to like
structure programs versus like ministry people?
(18:10):
Because sometimes those are set apart in tension.
How do you guys help people and shepherd people through that
kind of that kind of thinking? Yeah, I think for sure the size
of your church can play a role in that.
And so I think as you grow, programs naturally come out in
structure because you have enough of a certain group that
(18:32):
you like, hey, we need to need to serve this group well and be
able to be intentional with it. And so in some ways, there's a
size there. And so that's what we hear at
our church a lot is more pointedat, hey, you guys are tuned to
programs because the church has expanded and there's ministries
that have formed to kind of address the size of the church,
but also to give oversight in many ways to different groups.
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But but man, you need some program and structure to be able
to care well. And so even watching as we've
kind of brought more and more things on this year to be able
to care for people, it's allowing our staff to really put
thought into specific groups. I'll give you an example,
special needs, for example. So we've been caring for kids
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here and there as as we have needed for special needs, but
there was a lot of now thought put into a what can we do
better? What can we do well?
And frankly, I think we are going to become more of an
attractant as we build out what would be a structure.
So is the program bad? Absolutely not.
The programs allowing us to serve people well and in in
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those programs is relationship and a lot of it, especially for
ministry like that, that is likedrenched in people and
relationship. So it's not programs on one
side, people on the other, it's people serving each other well
with a structure in place to do it maximally and with
intentionality, I think and and and biblically.
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You can definitely fall off the wagon on either side on this.
There's a number of ways to express it.
But if you were, if we're all about even our own church, all
about programs to the detriment of people, then that's obviously
not good. There's also an ability, and it
was interesting hearing from oneof our church planners, it was
talking about starting a very small church by comparison to
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ours. And people are going to that
small church because they don't want the structure.
So you have some people that. Will come to our church because
of the structure in the programs.
That's a draw. Look how much more you can do.
And then you have people that will go to a church with no
structure, no programs, because that's the draw.
And so if either of those groupshold on to those things too
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tightly to the detriment of gospel ministry, what's
happening with people, then we're missing it, right?
You hold on to programs too tightly.
I think that's easier to see. What's maybe not quite so easy
to see is sometimes when people want it to be so organic to
where it's like, don't mess withmy organic group here.
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This is my family. We should all be invited to
everything. Everyone comes.
My kids come to like, it's just that's what I want it to be.
But if the church grows, if the church is really reaching the
community and people are coming to faith in Christ and the
church grows, you can't keep doing that forever.
So sometimes we like our little idols.
We, we want it to be a certain way and we lose focus on, you
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know what? Let's go back to what the church
should be about. How do we care for this group of
people? And it's going to look different
for each context. Yeah, I agree.
I I think you do have like a a bit of a biblical theology of
structured ministry, even as early as Acts 6.
I mean that that the whole problem that was emerging was a
structural problem. It was a programmatic issue.
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How do we care for these Hellenist widows?
Now, there was other things going on too, right?
Some people think that there wassome ethnic tension going on
there between, you know, the Hebrews and the Hellenists.
And so that could be true. But I think you also don't want
to deny that there was a simple structural problem.
We have this pocket of people, and we don't have a systematic
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way, a structured way to care for them because there were so
many of them, because everybody got saved all at once.
You know, they were, if I could say like this, you're trying to
figure out how to care for people at scale.
You think about the, the widow list in First Timothy 5, same
issue, actually. They're struggling now in
Ephesus years later to figure out how to care for widows.
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By the way, who's on the list? Who's left off the list?
It's a roster, right? And that implies, by the way, a
membership roster, if you want to look at the word number in
the book of Acts. So there's we can talk about
memberships some other time. But the the idea too, of there
was a real problem with the Lord's Table in First
Corinthians 11. People were observing it
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inappropriately. So what does Paul do?
He'd give structure to not not communion, but to the meal
around communion. You could say in our context,
Paul was giving structure to howwe eat together at family
gathering. We, we probably got to need some
rules about great family gathering eating.
By the way, maybe we should review 1st Corinthians 1011
about how to eat and wait for one another and share, you know,
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a word for our kids. But you know what I mean, Like
just structure and, and, and as the church is growing and
maturing, Paul sensed the need to provide ministry structure,
right and, and guidance along the way.
I was even thinking about the illustration.
I'll just toss that one last thing.
This is related because like we get this and I, I am, I am not a
(23:36):
policy guy. I'm just not a policy guy.
So like, you know, admittedly I struggle with it.
And, and so, but you think aboutlike, what would happen if we
had a ministry like children's ministries, We have all these
kids and no program for kids. What do we do?
Like we just all 500 of them show up and we just, there's no
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organization, there's no planning, there's no purpose,
there's no program, there's no structure.
And you think of how much policyhas to go into children's
ministry alone to make sure thatour kids are safe.
And even then it's like we just,we're still are a learning and
growing. And you know, you think about
like a, a missions vehicle, a church van and how much policy
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has to be written around the proper use of a church van
instead of just like releasing the van to the general use of
the, the population of the church.
Can you imagine? I mean, it would get thrashed or
left empty on the side of the road or whatever.
You know, we need policies around church vans or church
camps or church ministry, right?There's all kinds of places
(24:41):
where that's good and appropriate, right?
But can I ask you when can when can it go bad?
I think when you lose, you lose focus and purpose, right?
So I think 1 you can over put too much policy on where you
just restrict everything and there's no means for
(25:02):
discipleship evangelism, becauseyou've batten down the hatches
so hard that you've you've stripped out the opportunity for
ministry. But in policy and programs, we
have to constantly ask ourselves, are we performing the
purpose of the church? Are we actually accomplishing
what we've been called to do? Because when you get structure,
you get very comfortable in it and it just can run because
(25:26):
we've been doing it for years. So why, you know, we'll continue
on with our camps and our this, that and the other.
And you, you lose track of why are we doing what we're doing.
And so eventually your camps become pointless.
They have no focus. Your ministries become just
something to do instead of in line with the goal of mission of
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the church. So I think that's a concerning
thing. And when we get to that, so I
think we are constantly asking ourselves, is this fitting the
purpose of what we've been called?
To it's really good. I was just thinking about Act 6,
the structure that they set up to address a specific need
there. Let's just say they came up with
a policy, doesn't say that, but let's just say that they did.
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It's not repeated in the rest ofthe epistles where he said,
look, look what we set up there in terms of that policy.
Now the office, if you want to say that that's when the office
of deacons arrived, that it doesis repeated.
But if you're, if you help too closely to what they set up for
that specific situation, very soon it's just not going to
match your, like you said, the mission of the church, but it
could not even match the contextof what you're ministering in.
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And so pretty soon it's like, well, why don't, why doesn't
your church do that? Because we don't do that.
That's how we do it here. Well, but at some point you need
to evaluate, well, why? Why not?
And that's when all the contrarians are like, yes,
that's what I'm doing. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm not saying being contrarian just for the sake of going
against policy, But it's just we, we have to make sure that
the Scriptures are our guide, that the policy is a support of
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what we're trying to do with gospel ministry.
And as soon as it stops, then iteither gets tweaked or gets
dropped. And I'm with you.
I don't like policy. I just want to let Scripture
speak to it. But sometimes the bigger things
get you need to address it. And I don't mean a big church, I
just mean the big some aspect ofthe church.
We do that even in our own life.You know, eventually you collect
(27:17):
enough of whatever you're like, OK, I need to buy something or
come up with something to kind of organize this.
We do that all the time. So just to completely go against
any kind of organization becauseit's not good for ministry, I
don't just don't think is a realistic look, but you're
right, we can get way carried away with it.
And my concern is that what can happen is too is if you have a
(27:38):
ministry, then all people do is refer to it, meaning like, hey,
I don't do that. We only do that over here in
this ministry. Counseling comes to mind.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I can't help you with that. You got to get referred to
biblical counseling or evangelism.
I'm not doing that. That's definitely like, you got
to go talk to Toby or you know what I mean?
(27:58):
Like you. So we have to be really careful
within the structure not to become so tied to it that we
start to lose biblical purpose ourselves because we are called
to counsel and disciple each other.
We are called to evangelize and it's good to get equipped, but
we have to be so careful not to just hit the punt button because
(28:18):
that's, well, that's not my, it's not my ministry.
Yeah, that's really helpful. That's when you know that you
are a specialist, right? You you've specialized so much
that you're actually ignoring the Bible's commands and and
expectations and desires for every Christian.
Yeah, that's really helpful. And I would just add, when, when
the programs swallow up the people, it's time to kill the
program. And we've talked about that.
(28:40):
I mean, we've even, and when, when the ministry does not
proclaim the gospel, we want to move on to another ministry.
That program is no longer effective.
That ministry is no longer doingits job because everything is
about, remember the proclamationof the word, the proper
observance of the ordinances anddiscipleship, right?
And, and then you know that withdiscipline in the mix.
(29:02):
So if it doesn't serve those purposes for being a church,
then we need to drop the program.
And we've done that. I mean, we've done that
sometimes quietly. We've done that sometimes
loudly. But yeah, the, the programs are
not sacred, right? The people of God are sacred in
the sense that they're sanctified.
And so the program serve the people.
(29:24):
And as soon as they stop doing that, they're out, you know,
and. And it's a good opportunity to
say we're not perfect. I mean, so, so we're constantly
having to think through that. Ask Lord for wisdom because the
things that we have in place might need re evaluation,
tweaking, changing because we'renot hitting the button all the
(29:44):
time. Or as you pointed out,
circumstances have changed. Like the original creation of it
made sense. Now it's aged and doesn't meet
the need that I was initially there.
So, yeah, I think one thing you get concerned with is when you
had a church, you start bleedingNorth Creek, not Church North
Creek. Like, oh, well, that's not the
way we do it here. And so I have to be really
(30:06):
careful because that starts to smack of arrogance.
So we have to constantly check ourselves on that because
there's a certain point where you have to go back again, is
this the church or is it North Creek's way, which again, we're
trying to hold to biblical principles, but sometimes we
have to reassess. Yeah, Yeah.
That's good. That's good.
(30:29):
That brings us just for a, a couple of minutes to the, the
mission of the church. If someone has to ask us and,
and just, you know, our church here, if they were to ask us
like, hey, so I'm here. What is this church about?
I mean, we would have historically said that we're
here to build Christians or to make disciples who worship God,
(30:52):
walk in love and witness the world.
Can you guys just give a quick summary of what we mean by that?
I think it's good just to leave our people with a summary of
worship. God falls along 2 lines, Walk in
love falls along 2 lines, Witness the world falls along 2
lines. But those three, those big three
are kind of the Christian life biblically.
(31:14):
But then could you guys just quickly inform those how they
bracket out? Do you know what I'm talking
about? Or am I asking a question that
you're? Build Christians.
I think you brought this up during COVID, so just real
quick, I don't want to divert from what you're just saying.
The church exists to build Christians and even Ephesians 4
is talking about that exist to build Christians to do those
things. Yes.
Meaning there is individual workthat needs to be happening in
(31:36):
terms of evangelism to come backto the program.
Well, the church, Why doesn't the church evangelize and go do
this? Like, what do you mean the
church? The church exists to build
Christians who go and do that. So anyways, just real quick on
that. Yeah, it's good, but you're
bracketing. Yeah.
I mean, I think if what what you're getting at, we've kind of
built out a couple of different subcategories within those.
But in worship we're not. We're talking about worshiping
(31:59):
corporately, which we've been spending most of our time
talking about the corporate setting.
But there's also a private element to worshipping God in
your private life and devotions.Yeah, and prayer come to mind.
And just walking with Christ, right?
Yeah. So that would come to mind on
that. Yep.
And we? Want to make disciples at this
church who are worshipping as a manner of the normal course of
(32:21):
life, right in all of life. And then and then loving to
gather with the Saints to worship corporately.
Yeah, correct. Yeah, in some ways worship is is
tricky to talk about. We we're going to probably have
to carry this at some other timebecause worship is everything
you do, right? Romans 12/1.
So so in many ways we're trying to give some again, lattice to
it. But you know, it's everything.
It's everything you do. You are a worship.
(32:43):
You are a being that worships. That's how God made you.
You're going to worship something.
And so that would be our our first point walk in love.
I don't know. Well, think about in your two
categories. Of course, we're walking in love
with one another, right? So I wanted to throw it.
Back to you, that's going to be the like fellowship, community
life. So we want people to be engaged
(33:03):
in the life of the church at thecorporate level with community.
So for adults, for example, thatcan flush yourself out with
either life stage or community group or whatever, ideally both
because they both have weaknesses and strengths that
complement each other as you engage in both.
And then on the other side, there's service.
We want you to be active in using your gift and serving in
the body. So fellowship or community and
(33:23):
then also service. That's what we would have seemed
to mean in the New Testament context of what it means to walk
in love with one another and then to witness to the world.
There's a local and a global expression to that, right?
Local outreach right around us, our community, our neighbors.
We would say that's biblically neighbor.
Is anybody right? The Good Samaritan is example of
(33:45):
that. But, but what we mean is loving
a neighbor around you and then and then and then reaching out
to the nations all over the world with global outreach.
And so if someone was to ask us like, how do, how would I walk
with Christ here at this church?Well, we think biblically, those
3 categories are, are kind of good for any church, right?
(34:06):
Otherwise we wouldn't have them as kind of planks for us.
But we also would say that in our parlance, we want to make
disciples who are worshipping God, walking in level witness
into the world along those kind of bifurcated lines, right?
And so we want to have our folks, man, just love the
church, the local church, value the church, right as the Bible
(34:28):
outlines what that is. We also want to be careful of
some of the dangers right in ourcontext of over programming or
or you know, like, is there too much structure here?
And so it's good to think about,good to talk through.
And then also when anyone asks us what we're about succinctly,
that's kind of captures it rightand then we can talk about some
(34:49):
other time, which I want to the first part of our mission
statement we just introduced andglad reliance on the Spirit and
the Scriptures. We exist for the glory of
Christ. I think that alone should be its
own thing. So but that's probably a good
for now. So we should put a wrap on this
guys. Thank you.
There's so much as you're talking.
(35:10):
I'm like, Oh my word, we could do a third, but we've got to
shut it down. So let's not do another episode
of this. We'll come back to something
different other time. But thank you so much for
joining us and thank you for joining us today.
And afterward, a podcast with anextended conversation about
topics like this one that matterin life.
Welcome back to Afterward, a podcast about extended
conversations with topics that matter in life and ministry.
I'm joined by Matt Rare and Jeremy Pray, executive pastors
here at North Creek. Guys, welcome back.
And we are doing a Part 2 today of what we covered last time
with regard to the local church or the church, and wanted to
(00:32):
pick back up that same topic because we left some things on
the table that I think would be helpful for our people and for
anyone who's listening in. Namely, I think the first
question was helpful. We asked last time, why should I
care about the local church? Kind of a statement of value,
right? Why should I love the church
when there's so many different people who are saying you can
(00:53):
just do your own thing or where two or three are gathered in my
name, there I am in their midst or, you know, those kinds of
things. But we went a different
direction with that and said that the church is of tremendous
value. So do you guys want to kind of
get us back into that flow a little bit?
I mean, where do we go to kind of demonstrate that?
Yeah, I think where we naturallywent down was looking at the
(01:16):
images of the church in the Bible.
We didn't get to all of them, but just to kind of dominant
value. Yeah.
We were walking through the bride, the body, the family.
We start talking about family, which then we dived into
adoption and we didn't hit that very hard.
Ephesians 1, Romans 8, right? There's just so many bastards
(01:37):
that would get us amplified. So that's why we're in Part 2,
because we got pretty excited about that part so.
Yeah, that's good. Can I throw one more in?
I know this is like totally breaking it apart.
We did not talk about the churchbeing the temple of the Holy
Spirit. And I've been like to not talk
about that just for a couple minutes would be, I think some
(01:59):
kind of criminal. So the church as this as the the
dwelling place of the Spirit. So I mean, let me just say like
to me when I read that and Paul talks about that immediately in
my mind with some of my trainingand background, I go back to the
new covenant promise and the newcovenant hope in Ezekiel when
(02:22):
God says I'm going to put my spirit within my people and
basically they will be faithful to follow me because my spirit
will be driving them from the inside out.
Jeremiah would say in his new covenant version of the same
promise, he would say that I'll put my word within them, my law.
And so it's, it's two sides of the same coin, right?
(02:43):
Jeremiah is saying the same thing.
The word I'll put within their heart, Ezekiel, the Spirit, I'll
put within their heart. We have such a sweet resource
within us, not because of us, but because of the new covenant
that was secured by Christ, the cross.
And so here we are now the church and we're the gathered
people of God indwelled by the Spirit.
(03:03):
And so we're a temple, the temple of the Spirit.
So do you guys have any commentsabout why that adds value to the
church? When we think about why we
should care about the church, what kind of value does that
add? Just one real quick and then you
can jump in, Matt, if you have something but good time back to
what we talked about last time is that the value of the church
(03:24):
is not just for the gathered people, my friends and just this
is where I'm comfortable, but the God values this.
God has sought it best to put his spirit inside us to to to
make himself known through the local church.
And so it's not just a great place, it's going to kind of get
us through this world and some gathered people that's going to
(03:46):
make it more fun and easy. But instead, this is God's way
of glorifying himself through the gathered local body, through
the spirit inside each individual's.
So it just, it transcends way more than just getting together
because it's life's better with multiple people.
Yeah. And I just think something that
(04:06):
we highlighted when you walk through the Gospel of Matthew is
when Jesus says these words where he says it's better for me
that I actually go to the spiritwill come.
That's how important it is for the spirit to indwell.
It's like it was better for Christ to actually die and go to
be with his father, ascend for them the spirit to descend upon
(04:27):
the church, the early church. That's I mean wow, what value?
Like what statement blows your mind?
Yeah, for sure. And that's where the power
resides too. You think about the Great
Commission Jesus saying I will be with you the end of the age
and all authority is given to mestarts with that.
But OK, well then that's coming through the Holy Spirit in US,
us gathered together, glorifyingGod more corporately than we
(04:50):
could as individuals. And so it's it's really God's
glory then is on display or at stake.
You could. Say yeah, yeah, yeah.
And. It's not to say that.
The Holy Spirit doesn't dwell and dwell each individual
believer. We know that's true from First
Corinthians 6, but but it's alsotrue that that that is happening
corporately too. And so man, what another reason
(05:12):
to be like man, Lord, why would we want to?
I think one of the things that we have talked about is why
would you want to just go it alone in the Christian life?
Why would you see yourself as like an independent operator or
just us buddies over here at a coffee shop calling that church
when all of this amazing value is placed by God Himself because
(05:34):
of the gospel? You know, the gospel made
visible is what 1 author says iswhat the local church is.
And so, man, to ignore that or to devalue that or to not just
love the local church seems likeit flies in the face of the
scripture number one. And then it really is going to
stunt your growth #2 right? I I would even add #3 we don't
(05:56):
even do that with other things in life.
If we, you see something cool, you watch a game, whatever,
you're looking, really. Yeah, looking, looking for other
people. Why?
Your instinct is to gather otherpeople to celebrate that, which
is whatever you want to say, awesome, celebratory, whatever.
We it, it's worthy of other people knowing You see a cool
video or whatever and you want to show somebody else and
(06:19):
they're not excited about it. Like you should be excited about
this because I'm excited about this.
It's just in our instinct to, tothe way that Lord's made us to
try to rally around that which is most honorable.
Now you're going to throw in God's glory.
Why would you want to do that byyourself?
Like I'll give God glory on my own.
No, I want other people to see this as well.
Yes, Amen. Yeah, you guys know, I mean, I'm
(06:41):
a church history dork. I don't think I'm an expert.
Notice, I didn't say church history expert.
I said church history dork. So the Westminster Confession
gives this definition of the church.
The visible church is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we would want to, you know,
nuance that the house and familyof God out of which there is no
(07:02):
ordinary possibility of salvation.
That's pretty stunning, isn't it?
And that's not like, you know, the Roman Catholic Church.
That's that's the Westminster Catechism saying that.
And then John Stott says this inhis book on the living Church.
The New Testament knows nothing of an unchurched Christian.
(07:22):
For the church lies at the very center of the purpose of God.
It's not good. At the very center of the
purpose of God is the church. And the invisible church is only
seen in the visible church, right?
The the, the local church and admittedly the local church is
comprised, we know of wheat and tares, right?
(07:45):
But when we look out at the congregation, the gathered
assembly, we don't know with perfect clarity, God does who
are the wheat that'll be gathered up with him at at the
end of the age And then who are the the chaff or the tares that
will be taken away. But we do know that the
invisible church is seen in the context of the of the visible
(08:05):
church gathered. And so those are some strong
statements right. I mean that's that just goes to
add even more value whether you would even agree with all of
that or not. This has historically been the
view and to go back into church history farther.
I'm even stronger statements aremade about the necessity of the
church in in the life of the theChristian.
(08:26):
And so, yeah, I don't know if wewhat that kind of leads us into
other questions and so. Can I can I ask real quick or
like, even as we're talking about this, I just would want to
confess I'm not walking through the doors of the church with all
these things on my mind like this is I've been thinking about
(08:47):
this in its deepest level. I'm ready to go.
I have to like this is helpful for me to hear even as we're
talking through it like me and Ihave a low like too low of a
view. I, it's not that I don't value
the church, but even hearing youtalk about it, hearing both of
you guys talk about it like I, Istill have some work to do, some
thinking to do on this, to properly understand the church.
(09:10):
But and then maybe even like segue from that.
Can I ask you, so you can speak to it, what the marks of a
healthy church? What are the marks of a, a true
church? Because just because the church
has gathered together the local church doesn't mean that it's a
church from God's perspective orthe way in which he would want
it to be. So what would you?
How would you answer that question?
Yeah, nine of those 9 marks. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.
(09:33):
I've heard that before. It's like I've heard that
before. Yeah.
And certainly someone could could look those up and find
those. Yeah.
So we don't want to. Those have been super helpful.
I think the thing that I would want to just say briefly to that
is historically the the ReformedChurch, the church coming out of
the Reformation and Calvin himself would say what
constitutes, constitutes a localchurch.
(09:56):
And it's the, the proclamation of the Word of God, the
Scriptures at the center, the proper or faithful observance of
the biblical ordinances, meaningthe Lord's Table, and then and
then baptism. And then also the faithful
(10:16):
exercise of church discipline, which really in some cases can
just be seen as an extension of biblical discipleship.
Does that make sense how that could be true?
Like discipline discipleship, I mean, they almost kind of sound
similar, but it, it, it really is aimed at the same thing,
right, Where we're trying to make disciples and, and calling
people to the Scriptures in thatway.
(10:38):
So, yeah, preaching ordinances and you could say discipleship,
biblical discipleship, and then that exercise of it with
discipline. And those really are the marks
of of a true church. Now, there were reasons why back
then they they outlined it just that way, you know, kind of in
some contrast to what was comingout of the medieval period with
the Catholic Church. But but those would be the marks
(11:00):
of a true church. Even calling it ordinances over
sacraments, yeah. Right.
Yeah, as one. Yep.
Yeah, they're not meant to be. Well, that would get into a
different discussion. Actually, you know what?
We're going to have a. Separate talk about that.
I think we're going to have a separate yeah episode just on
that, not to create a firestorm of controversy and that that,
but just to kind of walk throughwhat we'd understand that to be.
(11:22):
And again, this is for our folkspredominantly.
And so we're not looking to, youknow, stir up some kind of, you
know, conversation with people who are in different places.
But let's save that one, if we can, for a different time.
I. Think it's helpful to go through
some of these distinguishments because frankly, you know, we're
talking about why do we not value the church?
(11:42):
I think some of it is cultural context, depending on where you
live. Now here in the Bay Area, I
don't think this is quite as prevalent where there's a church
on every corner. But the concept is that with
cars and multiple churches, you can choose like you can drive
you. So it makes the church seem like
it's an option because I can just leave this one and go drive
(12:05):
to another one. And if you're not doing what I
like, I can just simply get up and and head out.
And so when we start talking about maybe why we struggle with
value, I think it is because culturally, we're not
suppressed. We aren't underground.
We aren't having to hunker down together.
We're not sometimes recognizing the spiritual battle that we
(12:25):
truly are in. And you have what looked to be
options on a menu. Yeah, at times I think that's
what we are, which is consumerism.
Yeah. Which kind of sneaks in.
Yep, Fair, fair. I mean, I think can you guys
just speak to, I mean, while thereformers would just delimit it
to, to that, and that's I think a fair delimitation.
(12:46):
We could add to that. Even biblically, I think there
are other ways in which we should be thinking about what
sets off a local church from, well, the two or three that
people want to, you know, like my, my small group is my church
polity. How, how does, how does like
(13:06):
leadership structure and function help establish a local
church and demarcate it from like a small group or a short
term mission strip that's a church for me while I'm away for
two months. And then, you know, so catch me
up a little bit and speak to that if you can, about how
polity helps kind of become a marker of a local church.
(13:27):
Hebrews 1317 immediately comes to mind for me.
That didn't talking about the the the overseers that the the
elders are the ones who are going to give an account for the
souls of the people. So without the Lord will be
keeping someone account. But sometimes you have like, Oh,
this is my church, This is my group.
What who who's your who's your leader?
(13:48):
And it's all over scripture evento like, you know, first Timothy
3 would be a a major one for thequalifications of elders and
deacons and so forth. But the Lord cares about it, so
we should care about it. So it's not just the fact that
people are gathered, but it's gathered with a sense of
structure. As we were talking about the
family, we were talking about even the body and building and
(14:09):
other images. Those have structure to them.
So that's the first thing that comes to mind.
Hebrews 1317, primarily. Someone's giving an account for
these people. And who is it?
It's the Overseers. Which also creates
accountability to the church member too.
So it's accountability for the leaders like you're accountable
to God. It's also accountability for the
(14:30):
members like you're watching over me.
You've been called to take care,to guard, to, to protect.
And so there's an accountabilitynow of like, I can't just do
what I want. Someone's actually watching over
me and cares about me. And it's going to seek to to
correct if I need or encourage like again, in Hebrews, like
that's what we're called. There's so many one another's
(14:52):
active in the church. And one that comes to mind is
Hebrews 3 that we're called to encourage one another dailies.
It's called today. So we won't be hardened, so that
we are encouraging each other tocontinue on in the race because
again, it's a there's a legitimate spiritual battle for
your soul. Correct.
Yeah. I mean, because the Church is
(15:12):
the communion of the Saints, it doesn't mean it's the commune of
the Saints. Like it's just this flat,
structureless kind of BLOB. You know, the Lord has been
pleased. I mean, even in, in, in Acts,
when the initial Pentecostomers preached 3000 souls come to
Christ in a day. What happens?
A structure emerges right now the, the Apostolic structure was
(15:33):
in place, right? But then immediately the elders
emerge and, and then very early,as soon as problems start
cropping up, which, you know, inour local church, are there any
problems? Answer No, no, there's no
problems. It's perfect.
So yeah, no, I mean, in any local church, you, you just live
together for long enough and there's going to be things that
crop up, problems that arise noteven due to sin, but due to sin
(15:54):
too. And So what happens?
The early church has a structureof all of sudden now appointing
deacons, right. And so the new, the two New
Testament leadership offices emerge almost immediately with
the birth of the church. And so admittedly it's Nacient,
right? It's it's, it's a proto Deacon
structure. You could say in Acts 6, we
(16:15):
don't have a lot of clarity about what the elders are doing
early in Acts, but they emerge with some authority that comes
online early. And then certainly by even Acts
15, they're they're in play and in place.
And so, yeah, I just think like you don't have to wait very long
with the church to emerge for there to be polity, structure,
(16:38):
leadership, and that's as it should be.
And I think that marks out the difference, one of the
differences between like, well, why isn't my small group, my
church? What?
Well, it's not just is the word being proclaimed.
It's not just is there the proper observance of ordinances.
It's not just as discipline and play with discipleship as the
goal, but it's also man there. There are no leaders.
(17:01):
There's no biblical New Testament officers, right?
Not just elders, but deacons. And so I think when you start to
put all this together that I want to ask you guys a question.
You use the word, I've been using the word.
You've used it as you just read through the New Testament
regarding ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.
What you see is that they're structure.
(17:23):
OK, So then some churches have more of that than less.
Some churches have what some people think is like way too
much structure. And so they will go somewhere
else, other people will leave churches because they say
there's nothing here by way of structure.
And so then they go to a church that has more.
(17:46):
So can you guys just kind of kind of help people understand
like from our perspective, and we're not infallible for sure,
but just from like having walkedwith people through these kinds
of concerns, right? How do you help people think
about who we want to be as a church with regard to like
structure programs versus like ministry people?
(18:10):
Because sometimes those are set apart in tension.
How do you guys help people and shepherd people through that
kind of that kind of thinking? Yeah, I think for sure the size
of your church can play a role in that.
And so I think as you grow, programs naturally come out in
structure because you have enough of a certain group that
(18:32):
you like, hey, we need to need to serve this group well and be
able to be intentional with it. And so in some ways, there's a
size there. And so that's what we hear at
our church a lot is more pointedat, hey, you guys are tuned to
programs because the church has expanded and there's ministries
that have formed to kind of address the size of the church,
but also to give oversight in many ways to different groups.
(18:56):
But but man, you need some program and structure to be able
to care well. And so even watching as we've
kind of brought more and more things on this year to be able
to care for people, it's allowing our staff to really put
thought into specific groups. I'll give you an example,
special needs, for example. So we've been caring for kids
(19:16):
here and there as as we have needed for special needs, but
there was a lot of now thought put into a what can we do
better? What can we do well?
And frankly, I think we are going to become more of an
attractant as we build out what would be a structure.
So is the program bad? Absolutely not.
The programs allowing us to serve people well and in in
(19:37):
those programs is relationship and a lot of it, especially for
ministry like that, that is likedrenched in people and
relationship. So it's not programs on one
side, people on the other, it's people serving each other well
with a structure in place to do it maximally and with
intentionality, I think and and and biblically.
(19:59):
You can definitely fall off the wagon on either side on this.
There's a number of ways to express it.
But if you were, if we're all about even our own church, all
about programs to the detriment of people, then that's obviously
not good. There's also an ability, and it
was interesting hearing from oneof our church planners, it was
talking about starting a very small church by comparison to
(20:20):
ours. And people are going to that
small church because they don't want the structure.
So you have some people that. Will come to our church because
of the structure in the programs.
That's a draw. Look how much more you can do.
And then you have people that will go to a church with no
structure, no programs, because that's the draw.
And so if either of those groupshold on to those things too
(20:42):
tightly to the detriment of gospel ministry, what's
happening with people, then we're missing it, right?
You hold on to programs too tightly.
I think that's easier to see. What's maybe not quite so easy
to see is sometimes when people want it to be so organic to
where it's like, don't mess withmy organic group here.
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This is my family. We should all be invited to
everything. Everyone comes.
My kids come to like, it's just that's what I want it to be.
But if the church grows, if the church is really reaching the
community and people are coming to faith in Christ and the
church grows, you can't keep doing that forever.
So sometimes we like our little idols.
We, we want it to be a certain way and we lose focus on, you
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know what? Let's go back to what the church
should be about. How do we care for this group of
people? And it's going to look different
for each context. Yeah, I agree.
I I think you do have like a a bit of a biblical theology of
structured ministry, even as early as Acts 6.
I mean that that the whole problem that was emerging was a
structural problem. It was a programmatic issue.
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How do we care for these Hellenist widows?
Now, there was other things going on too, right?
Some people think that there wassome ethnic tension going on
there between, you know, the Hebrews and the Hellenists.
And so that could be true. But I think you also don't want
to deny that there was a simple structural problem.
We have this pocket of people, and we don't have a systematic
(22:08):
way, a structured way to care for them because there were so
many of them, because everybody got saved all at once.
You know, they were, if I could say like this, you're trying to
figure out how to care for people at scale.
You think about the, the widow list in First Timothy 5, same
issue, actually. They're struggling now in
Ephesus years later to figure out how to care for widows.
(22:28):
By the way, who's on the list? Who's left off the list?
It's a roster, right? And that implies, by the way, a
membership roster, if you want to look at the word number in
the book of Acts. So there's we can talk about
memberships some other time. But the the idea too, of there
was a real problem with the Lord's Table in First
Corinthians 11. People were observing it
(22:50):
inappropriately. So what does Paul do?
He'd give structure to not not communion, but to the meal
around communion. You could say in our context,
Paul was giving structure to howwe eat together at family
gathering. We, we probably got to need some
rules about great family gathering eating.
By the way, maybe we should review 1st Corinthians 1011
about how to eat and wait for one another and share, you know,
(23:13):
a word for our kids. But you know what I mean, Like
just structure and, and, and as the church is growing and
maturing, Paul sensed the need to provide ministry structure,
right and, and guidance along the way.
I was even thinking about the illustration.
I'll just toss that one last thing.
This is related because like we get this and I, I am, I am not a
(23:36):
policy guy. I'm just not a policy guy.
So like, you know, admittedly I struggle with it.
And, and so, but you think aboutlike, what would happen if we
had a ministry like children's ministries, We have all these
kids and no program for kids. What do we do?
Like we just all 500 of them show up and we just, there's no
(23:58):
organization, there's no planning, there's no purpose,
there's no program, there's no structure.
And you think of how much policyhas to go into children's
ministry alone to make sure thatour kids are safe.
And even then it's like we just,we're still are a learning and
growing. And you know, you think about
like a, a missions vehicle, a church van and how much policy
(24:21):
has to be written around the proper use of a church van
instead of just like releasing the van to the general use of
the, the population of the church.
Can you imagine? I mean, it would get thrashed or
left empty on the side of the road or whatever.
You know, we need policies around church vans or church
camps or church ministry, right?There's all kinds of places
(24:41):
where that's good and appropriate, right?
But can I ask you when can when can it go bad?
I think when you lose, you lose focus and purpose, right?
So I think 1 you can over put too much policy on where you
just restrict everything and there's no means for
(25:02):
discipleship evangelism, becauseyou've batten down the hatches
so hard that you've you've stripped out the opportunity for
ministry. But in policy and programs, we
have to constantly ask ourselves, are we performing the
purpose of the church? Are we actually accomplishing
what we've been called to do? Because when you get structure,
you get very comfortable in it and it just can run because
(25:26):
we've been doing it for years. So why, you know, we'll continue
on with our camps and our this, that and the other.
And you, you lose track of why are we doing what we're doing.
And so eventually your camps become pointless.
They have no focus. Your ministries become just
something to do instead of in line with the goal of mission of
(25:46):
the church. So I think that's a concerning
thing. And when we get to that, so I
think we are constantly asking ourselves, is this fitting the
purpose of what we've been called?
To it's really good. I was just thinking about Act 6,
the structure that they set up to address a specific need
there. Let's just say they came up with
a policy, doesn't say that, but let's just say that they did.
(26:07):
It's not repeated in the rest ofthe epistles where he said,
look, look what we set up there in terms of that policy.
Now the office, if you want to say that that's when the office
of deacons arrived, that it doesis repeated.
But if you're, if you help too closely to what they set up for
that specific situation, very soon it's just not going to
match your, like you said, the mission of the church, but it
could not even match the contextof what you're ministering in.
(26:30):
And so pretty soon it's like, well, why don't, why doesn't
your church do that? Because we don't do that.
That's how we do it here. Well, but at some point you need
to evaluate, well, why? Why not?
And that's when all the contrarians are like, yes,
that's what I'm doing. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm not saying being contrarian just for the sake of going
against policy, But it's just we, we have to make sure that
the Scriptures are our guide, that the policy is a support of
(26:55):
what we're trying to do with gospel ministry.
And as soon as it stops, then iteither gets tweaked or gets
dropped. And I'm with you.
I don't like policy. I just want to let Scripture
speak to it. But sometimes the bigger things
get you need to address it. And I don't mean a big church, I
just mean the big some aspect ofthe church.
We do that even in our own life.You know, eventually you collect
(27:17):
enough of whatever you're like, OK, I need to buy something or
come up with something to kind of organize this.
We do that all the time. So just to completely go against
any kind of organization becauseit's not good for ministry, I
don't just don't think is a realistic look, but you're
right, we can get way carried away with it.
And my concern is that what can happen is too is if you have a
(27:38):
ministry, then all people do is refer to it, meaning like, hey,
I don't do that. We only do that over here in
this ministry. Counseling comes to mind.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I can't help you with that. You got to get referred to
biblical counseling or evangelism.
I'm not doing that. That's definitely like, you got
to go talk to Toby or you know what I mean?
(27:58):
Like you. So we have to be really careful
within the structure not to become so tied to it that we
start to lose biblical purpose ourselves because we are called
to counsel and disciple each other.
We are called to evangelize and it's good to get equipped, but
we have to be so careful not to just hit the punt button because
(28:18):
that's, well, that's not my, it's not my ministry.
Yeah, that's really helpful. That's when you know that you
are a specialist, right? You you've specialized so much
that you're actually ignoring the Bible's commands and and
expectations and desires for every Christian.
Yeah, that's really helpful. And I would just add, when, when
the programs swallow up the people, it's time to kill the
program. And we've talked about that.
(28:40):
I mean, we've even, and when, when the ministry does not
proclaim the gospel, we want to move on to another ministry.
That program is no longer effective.
That ministry is no longer doingits job because everything is
about, remember the proclamationof the word, the proper
observance of the ordinances anddiscipleship, right?
And, and then you know that withdiscipline in the mix.
(29:02):
So if it doesn't serve those purposes for being a church,
then we need to drop the program.
And we've done that. I mean, we've done that
sometimes quietly. We've done that sometimes
loudly. But yeah, the, the programs are
not sacred, right? The people of God are sacred in
the sense that they're sanctified.
And so the program serve the people.
(29:24):
And as soon as they stop doing that, they're out, you know,
and. And it's a good opportunity to
say we're not perfect. I mean, so, so we're constantly
having to think through that. Ask Lord for wisdom because the
things that we have in place might need re evaluation,
tweaking, changing because we'renot hitting the button all the
(29:44):
time. Or as you pointed out,
circumstances have changed. Like the original creation of it
made sense. Now it's aged and doesn't meet
the need that I was initially there.
So, yeah, I think one thing you get concerned with is when you
had a church, you start bleedingNorth Creek, not Church North
Creek. Like, oh, well, that's not the
way we do it here. And so I have to be really
(30:06):
careful because that starts to smack of arrogance.
So we have to constantly check ourselves on that because
there's a certain point where you have to go back again, is
this the church or is it North Creek's way, which again, we're
trying to hold to biblical principles, but sometimes we
have to reassess. Yeah, Yeah.
That's good. That's good.
(30:29):
That brings us just for a, a couple of minutes to the, the
mission of the church. If someone has to ask us and,
and just, you know, our church here, if they were to ask us
like, hey, so I'm here. What is this church about?
I mean, we would have historically said that we're
here to build Christians or to make disciples who worship God,
(30:52):
walk in love and witness the world.
Can you guys just give a quick summary of what we mean by that?
I think it's good just to leave our people with a summary of
worship. God falls along 2 lines, Walk in
love falls along 2 lines, Witness the world falls along 2
lines. But those three, those big three
are kind of the Christian life biblically.
(31:14):
But then could you guys just quickly inform those how they
bracket out? Do you know what I'm talking
about? Or am I asking a question that
you're? Build Christians.
I think you brought this up during COVID, so just real
quick, I don't want to divert from what you're just saying.
The church exists to build Christians and even Ephesians 4
is talking about that exist to build Christians to do those
things. Yes.
Meaning there is individual workthat needs to be happening in
(31:36):
terms of evangelism to come backto the program.
Well, the church, Why doesn't the church evangelize and go do
this? Like, what do you mean the
church? The church exists to build
Christians who go and do that. So anyways, just real quick on
that. Yeah, it's good, but you're
bracketing. Yeah.
I mean, I think if what what you're getting at, we've kind of
built out a couple of different subcategories within those.
But in worship we're not. We're talking about worshiping
(31:59):
corporately, which we've been spending most of our time
talking about the corporate setting.
But there's also a private element to worshipping God in
your private life and devotions.Yeah, and prayer come to mind.
And just walking with Christ, right?
Yeah. So that would come to mind on
that. Yep.
And we? Want to make disciples at this
church who are worshipping as a manner of the normal course of
(32:21):
life, right in all of life. And then and then loving to
gather with the Saints to worship corporately.
Yeah, correct. Yeah, in some ways worship is is
tricky to talk about. We we're going to probably have
to carry this at some other timebecause worship is everything
you do, right? Romans 12/1.
So so in many ways we're trying to give some again, lattice to
it. But you know, it's everything.
It's everything you do. You are a worship.
(32:43):
You are a being that worships. That's how God made you.
You're going to worship something.
And so that would be our our first point walk in love.
I don't know. Well, think about in your two
categories. Of course, we're walking in love
with one another, right? So I wanted to throw it.
Back to you, that's going to be the like fellowship, community
life. So we want people to be engaged
(33:03):
in the life of the church at thecorporate level with community.
So for adults, for example, thatcan flush yourself out with
either life stage or community group or whatever, ideally both
because they both have weaknesses and strengths that
complement each other as you engage in both.
And then on the other side, there's service.
We want you to be active in using your gift and serving in
the body. So fellowship or community and
(33:23):
then also service. That's what we would have seemed
to mean in the New Testament context of what it means to walk
in love with one another and then to witness to the world.
There's a local and a global expression to that, right?
Local outreach right around us, our community, our neighbors.
We would say that's biblically neighbor.
Is anybody right? The Good Samaritan is example of
(33:45):
that. But, but what we mean is loving
a neighbor around you and then and then and then reaching out
to the nations all over the world with global outreach.
And so if someone was to ask us like, how do, how would I walk
with Christ here at this church?Well, we think biblically, those
3 categories are, are kind of good for any church, right?
(34:06):
Otherwise we wouldn't have them as kind of planks for us.
But we also would say that in our parlance, we want to make
disciples who are worshipping God, walking in level witness
into the world along those kind of bifurcated lines, right?
And so we want to have our folks, man, just love the
church, the local church, value the church, right as the Bible
(34:28):
outlines what that is. We also want to be careful of
some of the dangers right in ourcontext of over programming or
or you know, like, is there too much structure here?
And so it's good to think about,good to talk through.
And then also when anyone asks us what we're about succinctly,
that's kind of captures it rightand then we can talk about some
(34:49):
other time, which I want to the first part of our mission
statement we just introduced andglad reliance on the Spirit and
the Scriptures. We exist for the glory of
Christ. I think that alone should be its
own thing. So but that's probably a good
for now. So we should put a wrap on this
guys. Thank you.
There's so much as you're talking.
(35:10):
I'm like, Oh my word, we could do a third, but we've got to
shut it down. So let's not do another episode
of this. We'll come back to something
different other time. But thank you so much for
joining us and thank you for joining us today.
And afterward, a podcast with anextended conversation about
topics like this one that matterin life.
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