March 17, 2025 • 44 mins
Nate Williams and the Dangerous Life Team discuss megachurches. Are they good? Are they healthy? Can a church be too large?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Spicy Nate Coming in hot, coming in hot.
There's a line, guys, and wecan't cross it.
Do you see this line?
Do you see how it goes in alldirections?
Infinity.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And cut.
And go All right, guys, I gotto go.
Y'all have been talking toolong, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Get out of here.
All right, blake, focus, focus,focus, guys, focus, jeez, guys,
focus, jeez.
We might have to edit this out.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Welcome to the Dangerous Faith Podcast.
With me we have Blake, chloe,zeke, spencer and myself.
My name is Nate Williams.
We're talking aboutmegachurches.
What are our thoughts on?
I guess different.
Lots of different subtopicswe'll cover, but different
(01:00):
models.
And are they biblical?
Are they consistent withscripture?
And so I'll just start it offthere.
The definition of megachurch,from what I found, is anything
over 2,000 regular attenders.
So we live in the Coleman areaand I'm not going to mention
specific churches, coleman,alabama.
I'm not going to mentionspecific churches, but I think
we have one or two.
I'm hearing that is over 2,000regular attenders.
(01:22):
So I think we'll have, yeah,one or two megachurches.
So just throwing it out there,from a numerical standpoint, is
there a point where a church cangrow to be too big?
Or do we think, as long aseverything's taken care of
administratively, that churchescan get infinitely large?
(01:43):
What are our thoughts there,spencer?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
I think when a church gets too big to the point where
the pastor can't meet withevery single person that wants
to join the church or learn moreabout the church, then it's
gone too far.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Okay, so the metric you would use is if the pastor
can meet with all the members,all the regular attenders, to
try to meet their needs, if theyhave questions or so more so
from the standpoint of peoplecoming into the church.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
So, guests, newcomers .
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Okay, all right, so that would be Spencer's metric.
Anyone else so?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
wouldn't that metric be like, limited by how many
people come in at once versushow many people are there?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
total.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Or is that what you're saying?
Maybe I'm confused, so like ifyou have a small church, but
then, like, 100 people join atonce.
Your pastor can't meet all 100of them.
So is that now a mega church?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I've just heard of stories people where they come
to a large church.
They get lost in the shufflebecause the way that they can
learn about the church isn'tthrough direct means it's
through like an app or somethingthey put in.
Oh, I'm coming in for the firsttime.
I want to learn more it usuallygets bucked to like an elder or
whatever they call them yeah,administrate like nate said.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So administratively, the pastor just gives away his
responsibility to, like you said, an app or something.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Okay yeah, okay.
And Blake, what are yourthoughts when it comes to
churches growing?
Is there a point where we'relike, okay, maybe this is
unhealthy.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I agree with what Spencer said in that aspect too.
I also think, if you've gottento a point where you can't go up
and critique your pastor ortalk to him about a sermon after
the sermon, when was the lasttime you critiqued, oh?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I mean the rep is.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Beep.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Beep.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Dude that.
Okay, come on, that wasinnocent.
That was innocent.
The Pope is pretty like.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That was not innocent .
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The Pope's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
When was the last time you critiqued your pastor?
I'll ask again.
I'll really.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I think.
I'm just curious if you have ananswer to this.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I'm trying to think I don't think I've really ever
critiqued him or just being ableto ask him.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah almost every, every, every sermon or every
sermon especially if it's like areally good one I like to sit
with him and talk about, likecertain topics as opposed to his
really bad ones.
Well, I mean some of some of thesermons I just don't connect
with and I'm just like I mean,maybe I just got to do some
studying on my own.
But then the ones that I doconnect with, I'm like, hey,
that was really cool, like Ireally like that.
You emphasized that point.
Just any time I want to justpick his brain.
He's also like really busy andalso he's really dry, so like
(04:11):
conversation-wise he's hit ormiss.
I'll let you choose to leave,Look I say this because I know
he listens and he knows my humor, and so this is my chance to
get a dig at him without himabsolutely just crumpling me to
the ground.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
A dig from the distance.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
There's a comment section.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Zeke and Chloe.
What are your thoughts?
Is there a point where a churchis unhealthy due to size?
No, we need to take over theentire world.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
World domination yes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't think there's like a specific number that's
like this is too many.
This is a mega church.
It's unhealthy because I don'tthink that quantity equals like
the health of a churchnecessarily, because I know of a
lot of pastors who I followlisten to their sermons.
They definitely have well overa thousand, maybe even 2,000
people.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
They definitely have over 2,000.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Okay then, yeah, probably, I just don't know, but
I really like their sermons andfrom what I hear about their
church, it seems like a veryhealthy church to go to, and so,
yeah, I don't think there's aspecific number per se, so I'm
not really sure what the other—.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I'd probably take the Spencer route of there's
certain things that when doesthe church become incapable of
doing normal church functions?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And meeting the needs of their congregation.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, and that's why I don't have a specific number,
but more of I don't know.
It's hard to really put wordsaround.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think it's also kind of sad.
I visited like 10 churches whenI moved to Birmingham a few
years ago and a couple of theones I went to I knew it wasn't
a bad church because I reallyenjoyed it when I went and it
seemed healthy and I liked themessages.
But something that really stoodout to me is that I would go to
these churches and nobody wouldsay anything to me.
(06:12):
They wouldn't even know that Iwas new and I think at that
point maybe that's not unhealthy, but maybe that just means I
need to make some changes tomake sure they know who's the
guest and make them feel welcome, because that's kind of what
made me decide to go to anotherchurch versus that one.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I would say that's I'll put that more on the
people coming in, or I mean the, not the people coming, the uh
average attenders.
I think we've kind of honestly,this goes for even churches our
size.
I won't again, we won't nameour churches, won't name our
sizes, but uh, even at churchesour size, I think a big problem
we have is we have kind ofelevated to where all the work
(06:48):
we expect all the work to bedone by the pastoral and uh
ministry staff and we're justattenders.
We're just here to which, to befair, y'all aren't because
y'all work here.
I did work here, rip n Nate.
But I mean honestly though,even as a normal attender, it
should be my burden to.
If I see someone new in theaisle, I typically sit in.
(07:11):
I should like reach out to them, even if my pastor doesn't
specifically see them, or if thesomething like that, or even if
it's a smaller church and thepastor doesn't notice the new
person like me being in theaisle.
I'm just as capable of talkingto that new person as the pastor
, or I should be just as capableof talking to them as the
pastor is.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I was just going to say that was going to be a point
that I was going to make was.
You know, it is up to theattenders sometimes, like you
can't just be somebody that justis a body in a pew, like you're
the body of Christ, yeah, likethis is your family
(07:55):
no-transcript, and I'm notsaying I'm a pastor, but someone
who is in a higher role in thechurch.
There are times where therewill be like old members who
just haven't visited in a longtime.
And you know, I see so manyfaces throughout the week.
Sometimes, when I go to church,like, unless we've specifically
had a conversation, you'regoing to look like a new face to
(08:15):
me and I might.
And I mean that's why I treateverybody it's like it's their
first time, because I mean youmight be disingenuous but it
keeps me from like you know,just being like oh, you know,
it's better to be treated likethat than just not say anything
at all.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I would much rather accidentally, say you know, hey,
I haven't seen you before.
Is this your first time?
It'd be someone who's been here.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
30 years 30 years yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Than to just not say anything at all.
And they never came, and thenthey never did it Exactly yeah,
but, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But that does follow like a lot of response, because
I used to be that person.
I was like, well, I can't youknow, your pastor should know
everybody.
I'm like do you know how manypeople come through this
building Like, and do you knowhow many people like just with
our pastor alone the trail?
So back to the question of whendoes the church get too big?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I again, going to agree with Spencer.
(09:14):
I think there's certain thingsthat whenever it's not a
specific number, but it's moreof, you start seeing signs or
red flags, as the kids like tosay, yeah, certain red flags, as
we're going to get into thisNate's probably going to bring
up that.
When you see these, you knowit's starting to get out of hand
.
Either a they aren't doing itright administratively or, b
it's just getting too big towhere it can't be done
administratively.
One of the two.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Either way, it needs something, needs to change, yeah
, so it's also hard to put anumber on it, because if you do
put a number on it, then whathappens when you get past that
number?
Like, where are you looking at?
Like do you just say, okay,well, we've gotten past 500
people, so let's send these 30people that are coming over to
(09:53):
this church over here.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
The healthy thing to do, spencer, is to stand up on
stage and say guys, those of youwho are newcomers, get out of
this building.
We hate you.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Or we do Hunger Games style and we nominate certain
ones from each generation and wehave a Hunger Games brawl I'm
in, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh dude, we lose half our church.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
But, yes, as soon as you make it about a number, what
happens when you reach thatnumber?
That is a legitimate concern,and so I like what zeke was
saying of just red flags whenyou start to see cracks in the
foundation, when certain vitalthings such as greeting
newcomers, saying hi to visitors, when that starts being
(10:42):
neglected, uh yes, those are redflags.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I think another red flag and maybe this can bounce
us into the next topic of it iswhen signs that maybe your
church is just a little too bigis when there's one guy in
control of several campuses Likethat to me is like a big red
flag.
If you've got one pastor overmultiple churches or they just
come for this one guy, that's ahuge red flag in my opinion.
(11:09):
Question Answer.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
In the Bible playing Jesus.
Next question, Devil's advocate, Would Paul, Timothy and Titus
as early church leaders?
Would they not be, as they'regoing around choosing elders and
and setting up leaders in thelocal churches?
Were they not traveling pastorsor leaders, or apostles if you
(11:34):
will, going to different localchurches and speaking and
preaching?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, they were, but there's a difference between,
because what they would do islike what you just talked about
is they would set other peopleup to be over that.
It wasn't like it was theChurch of Paul.
They would raise up a leaderand then, as they were traveling
back around, they would comeand they would guest speak.
There's absolutely nothingwrong with that.
I'm talking about thesecampuses that are like
satelliting there, justsatelliting a sermon in.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
So let's talk about that.
One model of megachurch is youhave a central location.
Very gifted, charismaticpreacher is preaching at this
location.
Then you have differentsatellite campuses and
surrounding areas and he isbeing beamed into these local
campuses and the sermon comesfrom the central location.
(12:23):
But at each of these satellitecampuses there is a local pastor
that's situated there.
That pastor doesn't do thepreaching, but is there for
cares and concerns that ariselocally in that area.
What are our thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Why is that local pastor not being trained up to
be a preaching pastor?
And if that's not his skill orhis calling, why are they not
finding someone else to do bothof those things?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Exactly At that point .
He's just a glorifiedbabysitter.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And then, second point being that, okay, if he's
preaching a sermon, if the oneway out there in some other
location is preaching a sermonand someone has a question about
that sermon, and they go up tothis guy and like this guy may
know the answer, but I mean, atthe same time, he's not the one
who prepared this whole sermonand preached it.
Like he may not know the answer.
Yeah, true.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Literally he took the words right out of my mouth and
stole it with a kiss.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Well, a big issue too , and stole it with a kiss.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, a big issue too , that that line.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
I had to process that one.
All right, Judas.
The big issue in society rightnow is pastors that are
celebrity pastors, I think.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Because Was Paul and Apollos and Peter not?
Speaker 5 (13:44):
popular, did we not?
Did the church not need that atthe time?
I mean, what if they need?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
it today Popular preachers.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I don't think we need it now.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Spurgeon preached to many thousands every Sunday.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So did Billy Graham.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Millions and they may be great people, but the church
doesn't need that in this timebecause we have so many churches
split off.
Look at our area.
There's so many churches Ithink it's the most per square
mile in the entire United States.
It is.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
When it comes to all these celebrity preachers.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
It takes away from what the church is supposed to
be in community.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
To come to Spencer's defense on this, I think what
he's saying is absolutely true.
Like we can't help it thatthere are people like Charles
Spurgeons, billy Grahams, peoplewho are just when they speak,
they just grab your attention,they're just amazing speakers
and they create like a massfollowing.
Amazing speakers and theycreate like a mass following.
I don't think there's anythingwrong with having people like
having people like Spurgeons and, you know, like these people
who do get famous celebritypastors, if we'll call them that
(14:48):
.
But I think where we're missingit is we just put them on the
pedestal and every throweverybody else by the wayside.
Like, no, it's good to havecelebrity pastors, but we need
to have local pastors as well.
You can listen to these peoplefor like extra whatever, but you
need to have other people aswell.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Going back to the model, I like what you're saying
.
What's the difference betweenhaving a popular pastor preach
at a location and live streamhis sermons across Facebook,
youtube, the rest of it?
Live stream his sermons acrossFacebook, youtube, the rest of
it.
And because technically that'sbeaming that pastor to just your
(15:28):
home Right Versus saying, allright, instead of doing that,
we're going to beam the pastorto these other satellite
locations, because you don'thave to say who your pastor is,
but does your local churchrecord your sermons?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
and put them out.
The difference is the ones whostream to a campus.
Is you're going to a churchbuilding on Sunday to watch
someone on a screen in anotherlocation and you're calling that
your pastor?
The difference between that?
There's not a difference.
What you're comparing is thatversus a person who just stays
at home and watches someoneonline and says that's my pastor
(16:05):
, but they never attend thechurch.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, oh yeah, there's nodifference to me, they're both
just as bad.
So you would say both are bad.
But there's a third categorythat I would.
I'm going to play.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Nate's advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's not devil's advocate.
I'm advocating for the churchGod's advocate, god's advocate.
God's advocate.
God's advocate.
On this one Can you advocatefor God?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
He advocates for me, so I don't know.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
We are ambassadors for Jesus.
Okay, but he's our advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I'm advocating for the advocate.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Okay, we're going with that.
Yes, Advocate advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So advocating for live streams.
There are those who arehomebound we all have them at
our churches who physicallycan't get out of their house or
nursing home, whatever it is.
It's a good benefit for them sothey can still experience or
listen to these sermons and theworship music and all the events
and keep up with theannouncements and stuff like
that.
It's good for that.
But if we stop it there, it'snot good because at the end of
(16:57):
the day they're getting the samething they could get at any
other church anywhere else andthey're not getting the
fellowship.
So that's why I assume y'all—Iknow y'all have the same thing,
because I know you've done someof it—is we need to have people
in the church who are going outand still visiting with those
who are homebound or in nursinghomes, even if it's not a
specific role of just like agroup, like there's different
groups in the church, whetherit's food ministry or whatever.
(17:18):
We need to have some kind ofministry where people are
getting visited and not justdoing it on their own through TV
, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Now one final thing, and then I'll move to a
different model of megachurch.
What if the argument is thisthe one person from the central
location is just very talented,he's very charismatic, very
gifted, and he will preachbetter than someone else, just
from a skill standpoint.
(17:46):
Because think about it, howmany of us will go to a church
because of the skill of thepreacher?
And so the logic is okay.
If he's going to preach thebest version of a sermon, the
best version of a passage, wellthen don't we want to spread
that to other areas because he'sgoing to do it better than
(18:07):
other people.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Well, I think there's a lot more to being a preacher
than just preaching a message.
Obviously, where we go, ourpreacher is very talented in his
preaching and his messages.
But there's a lot more to himthan just that.
Like I see him going out andserving people, I see him caring
for the congregation andactually following through and
(18:32):
serving and just like I mean Ifeel like a big role is just
caring for the congregation.
You're not just preaching amessage, being like all right,
peace, leaving, see you all nextSunday.
Like he stays behind afterevery service and he will stay
as long as he needs to to talkto whoever wants to come, ask
him a question about his sermon,give him a prayer request, a
(18:53):
praise update, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I think that's a big difference, because if
you're beaming a pastor and youdon't really get that connection
, yeah Right, because if you'rebeaming a pastor and you don't
really get that connection, yeahRight.
And the whole thing about what?
If they're just like wildlytalented?
I'm actually going to likepoint to some like biblical
evidence of like why this is adisaster.
When we're going through Markright now, jesus literally it's
(19:18):
like you know you get to thecalling through 12, like we read
about in Mark, where Jesuscalls the 12 and then he sends
them out and stuff like that.
There have been plenty of timesin the book of Mark where when
it's just Jesus now he does havehis 12 disciples with him, but
when it's just Jesus, theselarge crowds gather around Jesus
and it's overwhelming and Jesusactually has to leave quietly a
lot of the time because thecrowds are so overwhelming.
(19:39):
That's why you see time andtime again throughout Mark,
jesus saying don't tell peoplewho I am, don't tell people who
I am.
But right before the feeding,the 5,000 passage, you get this
passage of Jesus sending out thedisciples and it's the first
time we see the disciples calledapostles.
And you notice that this is thetime in Mark that when Jesus
encounters a very large group,so after he sends the 12 out,
(20:00):
he's built them up and he sendsthem out to go minister to
people and does this kind ofcrowd control thing.
This is the first time that wereally see like Jesus really
have control of this 20, like20,000 plus people when he feeds
the 5,000.
And so what I'm saying is youcan have this great popular guy,
I get it, he's wonderful, right, but the crowd control, the
(20:22):
lack of being able to care, thelack of shepherding that comes
with that because it's allfalling on him, it's
overwhelming and we even seeJesus say that.
We see him just going tosolitary places.
He has to get away from that,because that's how big a crowd
can get.
It's unmanageable.
But when you raise up multiplepeople granted, these disciples
were not Jesus Jesus is like themain character of this whole
(20:43):
thing, right, but he stillraises them up and that's what
we should do.
Yeah, our job is not to be themost popular, the best witty,
whatever.
Our job is to tell the truthand to tell the gospel.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
I think also with talent comes also this human
fallibility, where we justbecome so airheaded, we become
engrossed in ourselves and ifeveryone around you is like, oh
man, you're so, so great, youare so talented, you give so
much energy to the service, itcan turn into this thing where
(21:17):
you don't have the training thatyou need to be the pastor.
When we see it all the time, wesee these people fall that just
aren't ready for what comes andthey are blasted out to
millions of people.
And so what happens is it makesthe church look bad, it makes
them look bad and it also makesthat church look like they don't
(21:39):
know what they're doing.
And so it turns into this bigdeal to where these men fall
they cheat on their wife, theykill themselves, whatever
happens, and it makes it looklike there's this huge implosion
, this huge figure just blew upin front of them, and they were
not really ready for whathappened.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yes, we have to be careful that talent does not
outweigh character.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think, something that we haven't really
highlighted yet is.
So, to the person who would sayokay to your question of well,
what?
Why don't we give the moretalented people these roles, so
like, why don't we give it tothem?
Let them do it, since theyobviously have the talent for it
?
I mean, that's in that kind oflike forgetting where the talent
comes from yeah so like if it'skind of if that that's our
(22:25):
mentality, I'm not saying it'syours you ask, you always ask
questions that you don't agreewith, so it doesn't really
matter.
But if we acknowledge that alltalents, all gifts, all giftings
meaning like the things thatwe're capable of doing, the
different ministries that we'regood at at different points in
our life they all come from theHoly Spirit, it seems like it's
a lack of belief that the HolySpirit can't work in someone
else's life.
It's like it's almost as if wethink the pastor is only
(22:47):
talented because of himself orbecause he's got some special
quality and it's not the HolySpirit working through him.
So it's yes and amen.
I'm glad that the Holy Spiritis working through these men.
But how much more can the HolySpirit work if we would use
other men to raise them up, likeuse this pastor and his
abilities and his talents thatthe Holy Spirit has given to
that man, whether scandal,spencer points out or whatever,
(23:08):
when he's gone, the local churchwill die.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Whereas if we're doing the right thing, we're
mentoring, discipling what Zekehas been talking about.
We're choosing elders anddeacons and we're in the word
and we are empowering others togrow in their gifts and talents.
We're leaving it up to God tobe like all right.
Lord, guide us in a sustainable, healthy, biblical way so that,
(23:59):
when one generation eventuallypasses on, they fought the good
fight.
They've run the race.
They pass on.
The next generation is ready.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I got a question for y'all With churches, big or
small do you think there shouldbe one lead pastor and just
elders, or do you think thereshould be multiple pastors and
one main pastor?
Or what was the format that yousee today, that you think would
be best for a church.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I like the format of our local church, the one that
me and Nate attend, where we dohave a main guy, we do have a
lead pastor, but then we havewhat we call like a council and
it's just like a checks andbalance kind of thing.
What?
I just thought of what you callit the council.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The council of Council of justice, oh, no, no,
no, no.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Council of justice is completely different from the
Council.
The Council of Justice is when.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So what's the Council ?
Speaker 4 (24:51):
So the Council is like our church, would you say
they're just like we have, likea treasurer, a president, and
the way it works for us a littlebit odd, but we have our
council, which would functionbasically as our deacons and
they help to run and oversee theday-to-day workings of the
local church.
And they help to run andoversee the day-to-day workings
(25:13):
of the local church and then ourelders would be the pastoral
staff.
And so we have yes, a seniorpastor, who I guess would be a
leading teaching elder, but thenyou have others on the pastoral
staff who assist with that work, and so I think the most
biblical version is not to havea pastor who's necessarily
(25:34):
distinct from the other elders,but you may have a lead teaching
elder that will preach most ofthe sermons, but he would not be
above the other eldersnecessarily above the other
elders, necessarily.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's kind of what I was thinking of and we've got
we kind of.
I think we have a similar modelwhen it comes to pastor, like
we have a, we have a crap, can'tsay names.
We have our lead pastor samething as y'all have where he's
going to be preaching themajority of the time and then we
have a associate pastor whohandles other stuff but then
whenever?
it's his time occasionally,he'll do it every so often or
(26:10):
when needed.
And then we have a youth pastor, which same thing feels, same
role of when we need a pastor orif he needs he.
I think he preaches X amount oftimes per year probably, if I
guess him as y'all, and then wehave other, we'll have guest
speakers, but I like that thingof like having multiple guys so
that, like you said, if onefalls or something happens, you
multiple guys, so that, like yousaid, if one falls or something
(26:31):
, happens.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
you're not just left in the dust, it's not all one
person.
The church still functions.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
You can have people who pick it up and they're ready
to, because they've beentrained to do it over years.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
It's not just out of the blue.
I also think it's a greatsystem, but it can also be a
system where especially, you see, with the younger people, the
youth they can divert from therest of the church, which brings
it back to the church has to beon the same page.
The pastors the committees haveto be on the same page because
(27:02):
there are times and you see itall the time where the youth
ministry for the most part getsoff on their own thing.
They think they're their ownentity within the church and
that they can start leadingpeople to where they never leave
youth group.
They just they don't leave itand, uh, it's they.
They just, for whatever reason,they don't grow up and it just
(27:24):
turns into this whole big thingwhere the church is divided in
in itself.
So there has to be some sort ofchecks and balances and you
have to see it before it startsyeah, westminster said get rid
of youth group burn it tocommunicate no more as someone
who is a is a technically ayouth pastor.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Burn it to the ground so, with those thoughts, let's
move to another model.
I like it Moving on when okay,still, megachurches are involved
, with different branches anddifferent campuses and all that,
but what they'll do instead isevery location will have its own
preacher or its own pastor.
(28:03):
Yeah, but earlier in the weekthey'll meet up to go over the
same passage, over the samepassage.
So, yes, the central locationwill have its own lead pastor,
but they'll meet up and they'lleach preach on the same passage,
but do it their own way.
And so the different locationsare all linked up, but the
sermon is preached locally byits own person.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
So the only difference between that and
another church is that these twochurches are just agreeing to
go through the same thing at thesame time.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
In principle, I don't have a problem with that I
don't have a problem with thatat all.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
So let's just be Mormons.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Spencer wants us to be Mormons.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
That's what they do.
They all preach the same thing.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's Jehovah's Witnesses, yeah it's Jehovah's
Witnesses, I know the Jehovah'sWitnesses.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
They all follow these same exact, but theirs is like
yeah, but theirs is televised.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I don't even think, well, I don't even think they do
it like that.
They do it to where, like you,read the exact same thing from
the pamphlet that you're givenor whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, they read from the.
So I don't have a problem withthat model, I have a problem
with Jehovah's.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Witnesses clarify.
Let me clarify.
You're good with mormonism.
I hate mormons well, mormonism,mormonism.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I hate the book of mormon.
That's what I was reallythinking of was the book of
mormon and the people and thepeople, and the people who
follow yeah, you know what?
Keep it in.
I hate the people.
I'll stop.
I'll die on the sword all right, anything.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Any other versions of the model of megachurch y'all
want to go over any?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
any different.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, zeke, what do you think about?
Well, we haven't got youranswer or anything.
What do you think aboutmegachurches Nate?
Oh man, I almost got that.
Do you have a number?
What's your method?
What is it?
Speaker 4 (29:41):
I'm thinking similar to what y'all are thinking, and
the analogy I use we've talkedabout this before just more in
private is whether you're afarmer or a shepherd.
When it gets to the point wherethe leadership team, the elders
of a church and or the deaconsof the church, cannot meet the
needs of the sheep, cannot tendthe farm whatever analogy you
(30:03):
want to use there then it's toolarge Because, yes, the word
needs to be preached, communionand baptism needs to be
practiced, but then there arealso just pastoral cares and
concerns that you need to beable to be present, be
physically present, if able tobe on the spot, to visit
hospitals and nursing homes andhome visitations, certain
(30:27):
responsibilities that fall intopastoral care.
If it's one guy with thousandsof people, he can't do that.
But even you might have a fewelders eventually get to the
point where they can't do thateither.
And then Spencer brought up agood point with guests.
Are you able to connect withnewcomers, zeke great follow-up
of also.
Hey, that's not all on thepastor, church members need to
(30:49):
do it as well.
So good clarification there.
But yeah, can you meetnewcomers and visitors and
guests and answer questions andtry to get them connected and
plugged in.
Just good points there.
So for me you're right.
There's not a number, there'snot a magic number.
That is too much.
But instead, if you start tosee those red flags and those
(31:11):
cracks in the foundation, youneed to think, okay, do we need
a church plant, Do we need toget into church revitalization,
which is what I really think weneed to do here in Coleman.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
What do?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
you mean, as y'all alluded to, coleman does not
need more church plants.
I think we might be getting oneI'm not sure from another one
of the major networks, butanyways, I'm not sure about that
CNN.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But yeah, cnn or Fox, just kidding.
Is it a charismatic?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
We can talk about it later.
Anyways so we might be gettinganother one, but we don't need
more church plants.
However, there are a lot ofchurches out there, particularly
if you go out more rural areas,country church types, where you
might have a good church thatjust might be getting a little
older, might be struggling alittle bit, and so church
(32:05):
revitalization projects come inand you take different members
and you try to revitalize adying church.
It can get messy, a lot ofissues related, they can pop up
with it, but I think that's morewhere we need to focus on when
it comes to churches in the areaof Coleman.
But, anyways, zeke you had.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Changed your mind.
Okay, spencer.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
So you're saying we should go to all the liberal
churches around us andreinvigorate?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
No, those would just probably fall away.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, well, I guess—.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
The Reconquista.
Yeah, let's get the mainlinechurch back.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
My question was going to be so when does a church
need to just die, as you've saidin the past?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
And that's where each individual church it's a
discernment process.
There is no one size fits allrule for that, because some
churches if you think about allthe letters that were written in
the New Testament, the churchesthat were mentioned in
Revelation they're all gone forvarious reasons.
A single local church doesn'thave to survive just to survive.
(33:11):
There are natural rhythms oflife and death.
However, some churches can berevitalized.
It just depends on thesituation.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So when you said discernment and I think that's
just a cop-out answer, for Idon't feel like giving the whole
answer- it's called followingthe Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, okay, sure, whatever you want to say Next
question?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
My question is we talked about okay, there are red
flags for megachurches.
When they become too big,because they can't handle
everything, what would you say,are some, a couple and y'all can
answer this too what are acouple red flags that you say,
okay, this church may not be?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
I don't want to use the word worth, but it may be
better off not trying to rebuildthis church and let it die.
I've known churches that will.
This is an ungodly, unbiblicalmindset.
They're small and they're ledkind of mafia style by one or
two or three families and theywill literally tell people we
don't want newcomers, we haveour church.
(34:14):
It's become a social club.
We have our church, we have ourregulars.
I don't want anyone new.
It's our church, it's us.
And so those types of churchesthat aren't willing to change,
aren't willing to reflect andrepent, it's become a social
club.
It it's dead.
Those I would say they can go.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Blake, I guess that's kind of what I was going to say
, but I wasn't going to go withlike a mafia style thing, I
think.
Like I agree with that.
Don't get me wrong.
I've seen churches where it'slike, because they're so small
and they're dying, they get themindset that they're the true
Christians and nobody else wantsto come.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
They're doing it the right way.
Other people don't want to doit the right way, which is why
we're so small.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Exactly, and then they get stuck in that mindset.
It's like persecution is theproof that they're doing the
right thing.
But then you go to their churchand you see they don't offer
outreach programs, they don'toffer serve projects, there's no
youth ministry or anything likethat.
So they just come listen to thepreacher, go home.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Are they really that much different from a mega
church who just cares about thecelebrity pastor and then they
go home for the week?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
That's a great point.
Zeke brought up somethingthat's good.
The size of a church hasnothing to do with whether it's
healthy or not.
You have healthy large churchesand unhealthy large churches.
You have healthy small churchesand unhealthy large churches.
You have healthy small churchesand unhealthy small churches.
It's all dependent on whetherthe word is being faithfully
preached, communion and baptismis being practiced.
(35:39):
Is there fellowship, growingcloser to the Lord together in
the community, and then is thereoutreach into the larger
community on the outside.
So that was a good point.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I would really love to see, like speaking of that
Zeke, like I just don't know ifthat's even possible, that if a
mega church being that bigwouldn't, it would just be a
church where you literally justcome in and then you leave.
What do you mean when you'rejust that big and you have that
many members?
I just think it's just.
It would blow my mind.
I just have never met a churchthat wouldn't youth?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh, okay, sorry, let me clarify.
I wasn't saying they don't havethe extra stuff, you're just
saying what it is.
But it gets to the point, towhere the majority of people are
just coming to hear the sermonand then go home.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I thought my bad, I was tracking with.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I mean, if there's a church like that.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
That would be wild.
Imagine having that many peoplein the church.
Well, um, Joel.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Osteen, Sorry I wonder what their extra.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I've never looked into it because they're
heretical but I'm curious as towhat do all their other
ministries look like?
They'll be like you're a youthpastor.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
What that means is they watch Joel Osteen's kids
whenever he's like Can I come onTuesday and get healing at
Benny Hinn's stuff, or is itonly on Sunday?
Speaker 4 (36:43):
It's only when they have carefully planted people
ready to go?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
How do I get carefully planted though?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
So here's how Well, if you have an actual problem.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh, okay, no, no, here's how it works.
Here's how it works okay.
Okay, if you let's say you hadcancer, had cancer right, yeah,
right it's already been healed.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It's already been healed, right, yeah, but what
you do is you go up to the guy.
Oh, so they heal you.
Guys, we'll make a strike onthe channel.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
We're talking about Benny Hinn too much he's going
to try and sue us.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Sorry, sorry, he will try to sue us.
You're going to have to bleepout Benny, hinn, hinn, benny.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Hinn Benny.
Another series off of thattangent Mike Winger is going to
come out soon.
Charismatic preachers.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Can we talk about that on a podcast?
Can we please talk aboutcharismatic movement?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Because there's an uproar or uprising in it and I
think it's just we can talkabout it.
But yeah, he's gone after somepopular YouTube type.
We'll talk about it later.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Spencer, you had some comments.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Yeah, I was just talking about red flags in a
church.
There was a large church anumber of years ago where there
was a breakdown in communicationbetween the elders and the
pastor and it turned intosomeone who was being abused
being called out in front of thechurch as if they were a sinner
.
So I think when stuff like thathappens.
(38:04):
There's definitely, definitelysomething wrong with the size
and with where the focus iswithin the church, and that's.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
At that point would it be safe to say if that kind
of abuse is going on in a church, would it be good with church
revitalization, or would that begood for just to like kind of
shut the doors on that?
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Again, there's not going to be a hard and fast rule
.
I know that frustrates Zeke.
A hard and fast one one sizefits all solution.
But for churches like that,doctrine's off, application of
doctrine is off.
I think there needs to be somesoul searching and some gutting
of leadership.
But that doesn't mean that headout to somewhere else.
(38:57):
So what?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
do you do as the?
Let's say we find out.
Let's say we're trying to dowhat you're saying and trying to
restore these churches.
What would you say is a again,you don't have to get into every
detail, but what's a generalprotocol of what are you doing?
Are you going in?
You're like, hey, you'relooking for a pastor.
I'm the pastor, like, what doyou do?
What would the process looklike of I'm going to try and
(39:18):
restore this church?
And then you get to a certainpoint You're like, okay, well,
how do you help the people whoare willing to be changed and
willing to be malleable, butthey're stuck with all these
other people who run the church?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
In this situation.
The person has been a regularmember Is that what you're
saying.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I don't know, I'm saying either way.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
If you are a regular member of an unhealthy church
and you know it's unhealthy andyou want to change it, you have
to bring your concerns beforeleadership.
Okay, you would talk with thepastors, the elders, the deacons
with the pastors, the elders,the deacons You'd bring your
concerns and scriptural support,maybe some support from the
(40:01):
laity, the church members.
Hey, we're seeing ABC.
This violates all thesebiblical principles.
We need to see some change.
Then what's going to happen istypically there's going to be
some human resistance.
We're not doing anything wrongor you're out of line, You're
trying to cause division andthen from there you keep working
and fighting.
But ultimately, if churchleadership doesn't change, if
(40:21):
there's no meaningful change ofdirection happening, you can
honestly say I did what I wassupposed to do and I'm out.
But it starts with leadership.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
So, yeah, so for anyone listening, if you're in
that position, like you'resaying, like you do what you can
.
If you're already there, youget other people together who
see what you're seeing and yougo to church leaders and if they
are just unwilling to move,you've done the best you can.
But if they are, then that'swhere you start.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Yes, and lots.
That's where you start.
Yes, um and lots of differentthings can happen once you bring
up those concerns, but itdoesn't all end terribly
sometimes.
Churches have actually changedand that's refreshing to see.
It doesn't always happen, butit does at times I feel like one
of the.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
We've talked about a lot about red flags.
I feel like one of the biggestgreen flags for me when I think
of a good leader would behumility, and I think it can be
easily be translated.
Some people would say, oh well,you mean a pushover?
I'm like.
Well, no, I don't want them tobe pushover to where they just
change anytime someone givesthem criticism, but I also don't
want them to be so stuck up andstubborn that they never accept
change.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Someone who's willing to, you know, accept criticism
and actually think about it, notjust brush it off.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I'm the most humble man.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I've ever met Zeke.
Yeah, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
So let's see where do we want to go from here,
Covering megachurches, issuesthat might come from size, but
then we also mentioned justbecause you're small doesn't
mean anything by itself.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, you can suck too.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
You can be bad too, or you can be great.
Anyways, I think the Bible doesnot outline the maximum or
minimum size of a church.
I did a seminary assignment onetime where they said how small
can a church be?
And we looked at therequirements and ultimately it
got down to two people.
You can have a church with twopeople.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
So on a deserted island, you're by yourself.
You can't have a church.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Not a local church?
No, you can be part of thechurch universal.
No, you cannot be a localchurch unless you want to get
some horses and some dogs andsee All right, y'all, let's all
get together and try to dosomething.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Get a volleyball.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I was going to say we're on a deserted island.
Where are you getting thesehorses and dogs from?
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Horses are on islands .
What I like.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Horses are on island horse island, I didn't say horse
island I said horses are onisland, name it okay if you're
just making a broad generalstatement that they're on an
island, like yes, we're on anisland right now my gosh, we're
on a yellow submarine all right.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
You know, australia has horses right that's a big
island.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
What do you mean?
What are you saying?
Speaker 4 (42:52):
you're just saying two true statements north
america and south americacombined anyways, uh, all right,
any other final thoughts onmega churches, things to look
for, observations and all therest of it I guess if you see
joel staying in the the frontrun, run away, run, far away Run
away.
Speaker 5 (43:14):
Just because it's big and popping doesn't mean it's.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Rocking, popping and big Popping and big.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Hold on.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Just because it's big and popping doesn't mean it's
Popping and big.
No.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I was going to say that's what he said.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
That was clever, biblically shocking, biblically
rocking.
This has gone off the rails.
We are signing off.
Spencer, you have rejoined us,and so we will ask you to give
us our parting words.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I don't even know, man, amen.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Todd White, we don't know, but God does Peace out.
White we don't know, but Goddoes Alright peace out.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
We don't know, but God does.
Popping and locking.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Stopping and dropping .
Thank you.
Spicy Nate Coming in hot, coming in hot.
There's a line, guys, and wecan't cross it.
Do you see this line?
Do you see how it goes in alldirections?
Infinity.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
And cut.
And go All right, guys, I gotto go.
Y'all have been talking toolong, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Get out of here.
All right, blake, focus, focus,focus, guys, focus, jeez, guys,
focus, jeez.
We might have to edit this out.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Welcome to the Dangerous Faith Podcast.
With me we have Blake, chloe,zeke, spencer and myself.
My name is Nate Williams.
We're talking aboutmegachurches.
What are our thoughts on?
I guess different.
Lots of different subtopicswe'll cover, but different
(01:00):
models.
And are they biblical?
Are they consistent withscripture?
And so I'll just start it offthere.
The definition of megachurch,from what I found, is anything
over 2,000 regular attenders.
So we live in the Coleman areaand I'm not going to mention
specific churches, coleman,alabama.
I'm not going to mentionspecific churches, but I think
we have one or two.
I'm hearing that is over 2,000regular attenders.
(01:22):
So I think we'll have, yeah,one or two megachurches.
So just throwing it out there,from a numerical standpoint, is
there a point where a church cangrow to be too big?
Or do we think, as long aseverything's taken care of
administratively, that churchescan get infinitely large?
(01:43):
What are our thoughts there,spencer?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
I think when a church gets too big to the point where
the pastor can't meet withevery single person that wants
to join the church or learn moreabout the church, then it's
gone too far.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Okay, so the metric you would use is if the pastor
can meet with all the members,all the regular attenders, to
try to meet their needs, if theyhave questions or so more so
from the standpoint of peoplecoming into the church.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
So, guests, newcomers .
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Okay, all right, so that would be Spencer's metric.
Anyone else so?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
wouldn't that metric be like, limited by how many
people come in at once versushow many people are there?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
total.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Or is that what you're saying?
Maybe I'm confused, so like ifyou have a small church, but
then, like, 100 people join atonce.
Your pastor can't meet all 100of them.
So is that now a mega church?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I've just heard of stories people where they come
to a large church.
They get lost in the shufflebecause the way that they can
learn about the church isn'tthrough direct means it's
through like an app or somethingthey put in.
Oh, I'm coming in for the firsttime.
I want to learn more it usuallygets bucked to like an elder or
whatever they call them yeah,administrate like nate said.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So administratively, the pastor just gives away his
responsibility to, like you said, an app or something.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Okay yeah, okay.
And Blake, what are yourthoughts when it comes to
churches growing?
Is there a point where we'relike, okay, maybe this is
unhealthy.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I agree with what Spencer said in that aspect too.
I also think, if you've gottento a point where you can't go up
and critique your pastor ortalk to him about a sermon after
the sermon, when was the lasttime you critiqued, oh?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I mean the rep is.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Beep.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Beep.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Dude that.
Okay, come on, that wasinnocent.
That was innocent.
The Pope is pretty like.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That was not innocent .
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The Pope's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
When was the last time you critiqued your pastor?
I'll ask again.
I'll really.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I think.
I'm just curious if you have ananswer to this.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I'm trying to think I don't think I've really ever
critiqued him or just being ableto ask him.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah almost every, every, every sermon or every
sermon especially if it's like areally good one I like to sit
with him and talk about, likecertain topics as opposed to his
really bad ones.
Well, I mean some of some of thesermons I just don't connect
with and I'm just like I mean,maybe I just got to do some
studying on my own.
But then the ones that I doconnect with, I'm like, hey,
that was really cool, like Ireally like that.
You emphasized that point.
Just any time I want to justpick his brain.
He's also like really busy andalso he's really dry, so like
(04:11):
conversation-wise he's hit ormiss.
I'll let you choose to leave,Look I say this because I know
he listens and he knows my humor, and so this is my chance to
get a dig at him without himabsolutely just crumpling me to
the ground.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
A dig from the distance.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
There's a comment section.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Zeke and Chloe.
What are your thoughts?
Is there a point where a churchis unhealthy due to size?
No, we need to take over theentire world.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
World domination yes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't think there's like a specific number that's
like this is too many.
This is a mega church.
It's unhealthy because I don'tthink that quantity equals like
the health of a churchnecessarily, because I know of a
lot of pastors who I followlisten to their sermons.
They definitely have well overa thousand, maybe even 2,000
people.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
They definitely have over 2,000.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Okay then, yeah, probably, I just don't know, but
I really like their sermons andfrom what I hear about their
church, it seems like a veryhealthy church to go to, and so,
yeah, I don't think there's aspecific number per se, so I'm
not really sure what the other—.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I'd probably take the Spencer route of there's
certain things that when doesthe church become incapable of
doing normal church functions?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And meeting the needs of their congregation.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, and that's why I don't have a specific number,
but more of I don't know.
It's hard to really put wordsaround.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think it's also kind of sad.
I visited like 10 churches whenI moved to Birmingham a few
years ago and a couple of theones I went to I knew it wasn't
a bad church because I reallyenjoyed it when I went and it
seemed healthy and I liked themessages.
But something that really stoodout to me is that I would go to
these churches and nobody wouldsay anything to me.
(06:12):
They wouldn't even know that Iwas new and I think at that
point maybe that's not unhealthy, but maybe that just means I
need to make some changes tomake sure they know who's the
guest and make them feel welcome, because that's kind of what
made me decide to go to anotherchurch versus that one.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I would say that's I'll put that more on the
people coming in, or I mean the, not the people coming, the uh
average attenders.
I think we've kind of honestly,this goes for even churches our
size.
I won't again, we won't nameour churches, won't name our
sizes, but uh, even at churchesour size, I think a big problem
we have is we have kind ofelevated to where all the work
(06:48):
we expect all the work to bedone by the pastoral and uh
ministry staff and we're justattenders.
We're just here to which, to befair, y'all aren't because
y'all work here.
I did work here, rip n Nate.
But I mean honestly though,even as a normal attender, it
should be my burden to.
If I see someone new in theaisle, I typically sit in.
(07:11):
I should like reach out to them, even if my pastor doesn't
specifically see them, or if thesomething like that, or even if
it's a smaller church and thepastor doesn't notice the new
person like me being in theaisle.
I'm just as capable of talkingto that new person as the pastor
, or I should be just as capableof talking to them as the
pastor is.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I was just going to say that was going to be a point
that I was going to make was.
You know, it is up to theattenders sometimes, like you
can't just be somebody that justis a body in a pew, like you're
the body of Christ, yeah, likethis is your family
(07:55):
no-transcript, and I'm notsaying I'm a pastor, but someone
who is in a higher role in thechurch.
There are times where therewill be like old members who
just haven't visited in a longtime.
And you know, I see so manyfaces throughout the week.
Sometimes, when I go to church,like, unless we've specifically
had a conversation, you'regoing to look like a new face to
(08:15):
me and I might.
And I mean that's why I treateverybody it's like it's their
first time, because I mean youmight be disingenuous but it
keeps me from like you know,just being like oh, you know,
it's better to be treated likethat than just not say anything
at all.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I would much rather accidentally, say you know, hey,
I haven't seen you before.
Is this your first time?
It'd be someone who's been here.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
30 years 30 years yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Than to just not say anything at all.
And they never came, and thenthey never did it Exactly yeah,
but, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
But that does follow like a lot of response, because
I used to be that person.
I was like, well, I can't youknow, your pastor should know
everybody.
I'm like do you know how manypeople come through this
building Like, and do you knowhow many people like just with
our pastor alone the trail?
So back to the question of whendoes the church get too big?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I again, going to agree with Spencer.
(09:14):
I think there's certain thingsthat whenever it's not a
specific number, but it's moreof, you start seeing signs or
red flags, as the kids like tosay, yeah, certain red flags, as
we're going to get into thisNate's probably going to bring
up that.
When you see these, you knowit's starting to get out of hand
.
Either a they aren't doing itright administratively or, b
it's just getting too big towhere it can't be done
administratively.
One of the two.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Either way, it needs something, needs to change, yeah
, so it's also hard to put anumber on it, because if you do
put a number on it, then whathappens when you get past that
number?
Like, where are you looking at?
Like do you just say, okay,well, we've gotten past 500
people, so let's send these 30people that are coming over to
(09:53):
this church over here.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
The healthy thing to do, spencer, is to stand up on
stage and say guys, those of youwho are newcomers, get out of
this building.
We hate you.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Or we do Hunger Games style and we nominate certain
ones from each generation and wehave a Hunger Games brawl I'm
in, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh dude, we lose half our church.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
But, yes, as soon as you make it about a number, what
happens when you reach thatnumber?
That is a legitimate concern,and so I like what zeke was
saying of just red flags whenyou start to see cracks in the
foundation, when certain vitalthings such as greeting
newcomers, saying hi to visitors, when that starts being
(10:42):
neglected, uh yes, those are redflags.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I think another red flag and maybe this can bounce
us into the next topic of it iswhen signs that maybe your
church is just a little too bigis when there's one guy in
control of several campuses Likethat to me is like a big red
flag.
If you've got one pastor overmultiple churches or they just
come for this one guy, that's ahuge red flag in my opinion.
(11:09):
Question Answer.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
In the Bible playing Jesus.
Next question, Devil's advocate, Would Paul, Timothy and Titus
as early church leaders?
Would they not be, as they'regoing around choosing elders and
and setting up leaders in thelocal churches?
Were they not traveling pastorsor leaders, or apostles if you
(11:34):
will, going to different localchurches and speaking and
preaching?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, they were, but there's a difference between,
because what they would do islike what you just talked about
is they would set other peopleup to be over that.
It wasn't like it was theChurch of Paul.
They would raise up a leaderand then, as they were traveling
back around, they would comeand they would guest speak.
There's absolutely nothingwrong with that.
I'm talking about thesecampuses that are like
satelliting there, justsatelliting a sermon in.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
So let's talk about that.
One model of megachurch is youhave a central location.
Very gifted, charismaticpreacher is preaching at this
location.
Then you have differentsatellite campuses and
surrounding areas and he isbeing beamed into these local
campuses and the sermon comesfrom the central location.
(12:23):
But at each of these satellitecampuses there is a local pastor
that's situated there.
That pastor doesn't do thepreaching, but is there for
cares and concerns that ariselocally in that area.
What are our thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Why is that local pastor not being trained up to
be a preaching pastor?
And if that's not his skill orhis calling, why are they not
finding someone else to do bothof those things?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Exactly At that point .
He's just a glorifiedbabysitter.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And then, second point being that, okay, if he's
preaching a sermon, if the oneway out there in some other
location is preaching a sermonand someone has a question about
that sermon, and they go up tothis guy and like this guy may
know the answer, but I mean, atthe same time, he's not the one
who prepared this whole sermonand preached it.
Like he may not know the answer.
Yeah, true.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Literally he took the words right out of my mouth and
stole it with a kiss.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Well, a big issue too , and stole it with a kiss.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, a big issue too , that that line.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
I had to process that one.
All right, Judas.
The big issue in society rightnow is pastors that are
celebrity pastors, I think.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Because Was Paul and Apollos and Peter not?
Speaker 5 (13:44):
popular, did we not?
Did the church not need that atthe time?
I mean, what if they need?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
it today Popular preachers.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I don't think we need it now.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Spurgeon preached to many thousands every Sunday.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So did Billy Graham.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Millions and they may be great people, but the church
doesn't need that in this timebecause we have so many churches
split off.
Look at our area.
There's so many churches Ithink it's the most per square
mile in the entire United States.
It is.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
When it comes to all these celebrity preachers.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
It takes away from what the church is supposed to
be in community.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
To come to Spencer's defense on this, I think what
he's saying is absolutely true.
Like we can't help it thatthere are people like Charles
Spurgeons, billy Grahams, peoplewho are just when they speak,
they just grab your attention,they're just amazing speakers
and they create like a massfollowing.
Amazing speakers and theycreate like a mass following.
I don't think there's anythingwrong with having people like
having people like Spurgeons and, you know, like these people
who do get famous celebritypastors, if we'll call them that
(14:48):
.
But I think where we're missingit is we just put them on the
pedestal and every throweverybody else by the wayside.
Like, no, it's good to havecelebrity pastors, but we need
to have local pastors as well.
You can listen to these peoplefor like extra whatever, but you
need to have other people aswell.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Going back to the model, I like what you're saying
.
What's the difference betweenhaving a popular pastor preach
at a location and live streamhis sermons across Facebook,
youtube, the rest of it?
Live stream his sermons acrossFacebook, youtube, the rest of
it.
And because technically that'sbeaming that pastor to just your
(15:28):
home Right Versus saying, allright, instead of doing that,
we're going to beam the pastorto these other satellite
locations, because you don'thave to say who your pastor is,
but does your local churchrecord your sermons?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
and put them out.
The difference is the ones whostream to a campus.
Is you're going to a churchbuilding on Sunday to watch
someone on a screen in anotherlocation and you're calling that
your pastor?
The difference between that?
There's not a difference.
What you're comparing is thatversus a person who just stays
at home and watches someoneonline and says that's my pastor
(16:05):
, but they never attend thechurch.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, oh yeah, there's nodifference to me, they're both
just as bad.
So you would say both are bad.
But there's a third categorythat I would.
I'm going to play.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Nate's advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's not devil's advocate.
I'm advocating for the churchGod's advocate, god's advocate.
God's advocate.
God's advocate.
On this one Can you advocatefor God?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
He advocates for me, so I don't know.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
We are ambassadors for Jesus.
Okay, but he's our advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I'm advocating for the advocate.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Okay, we're going with that.
Yes, Advocate advocate.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So advocating for live streams.
There are those who arehomebound we all have them at
our churches who physicallycan't get out of their house or
nursing home, whatever it is.
It's a good benefit for them sothey can still experience or
listen to these sermons and theworship music and all the events
and keep up with theannouncements and stuff like
that.
It's good for that.
But if we stop it there, it'snot good because at the end of
(16:57):
the day they're getting the samething they could get at any
other church anywhere else andthey're not getting the
fellowship.
So that's why I assume y'all—Iknow y'all have the same thing,
because I know you've done someof it—is we need to have people
in the church who are going outand still visiting with those
who are homebound or in nursinghomes, even if it's not a
specific role of just like agroup, like there's different
groups in the church, whetherit's food ministry or whatever.
(17:18):
We need to have some kind ofministry where people are
getting visited and not justdoing it on their own through TV
, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Now one final thing, and then I'll move to a
different model of megachurch.
What if the argument is thisthe one person from the central
location is just very talented,he's very charismatic, very
gifted, and he will preachbetter than someone else, just
from a skill standpoint.
(17:46):
Because think about it, howmany of us will go to a church
because of the skill of thepreacher?
And so the logic is okay.
If he's going to preach thebest version of a sermon, the
best version of a passage, wellthen don't we want to spread
that to other areas because he'sgoing to do it better than
(18:07):
other people.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Well, I think there's a lot more to being a preacher
than just preaching a message.
Obviously, where we go, ourpreacher is very talented in his
preaching and his messages.
But there's a lot more to himthan just that.
Like I see him going out andserving people, I see him caring
for the congregation andactually following through and
(18:32):
serving and just like I mean Ifeel like a big role is just
caring for the congregation.
You're not just preaching amessage, being like all right,
peace, leaving, see you all nextSunday.
Like he stays behind afterevery service and he will stay
as long as he needs to to talkto whoever wants to come, ask
him a question about his sermon,give him a prayer request, a
(18:53):
praise update, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I think that's a big difference, because if
you're beaming a pastor and youdon't really get that connection
, yeah Right, because if you'rebeaming a pastor and you don't
really get that connection, yeahRight.
And the whole thing about what?
If they're just like wildlytalented?
I'm actually going to likepoint to some like biblical
evidence of like why this is adisaster.
When we're going through Markright now, jesus literally it's
(19:18):
like you know you get to thecalling through 12, like we read
about in Mark, where Jesuscalls the 12 and then he sends
them out and stuff like that.
There have been plenty of timesin the book of Mark where when
it's just Jesus now he does havehis 12 disciples with him, but
when it's just Jesus, theselarge crowds gather around Jesus
and it's overwhelming and Jesusactually has to leave quietly a
lot of the time because thecrowds are so overwhelming.
(19:39):
That's why you see time andtime again throughout Mark,
jesus saying don't tell peoplewho I am, don't tell people who
I am.
But right before the feeding,the 5,000 passage, you get this
passage of Jesus sending out thedisciples and it's the first
time we see the disciples calledapostles.
And you notice that this is thetime in Mark that when Jesus
encounters a very large group,so after he sends the 12 out,
(20:00):
he's built them up and he sendsthem out to go minister to
people and does this kind ofcrowd control thing.
This is the first time that wereally see like Jesus really
have control of this 20, like20,000 plus people when he feeds
the 5,000.
And so what I'm saying is youcan have this great popular guy,
I get it, he's wonderful, right, but the crowd control, the
(20:22):
lack of being able to care, thelack of shepherding that comes
with that because it's allfalling on him, it's
overwhelming and we even seeJesus say that.
We see him just going tosolitary places.
He has to get away from that,because that's how big a crowd
can get.
It's unmanageable.
But when you raise up multiplepeople granted, these disciples
were not Jesus Jesus is like themain character of this whole
(20:43):
thing, right, but he stillraises them up and that's what
we should do.
Yeah, our job is not to be themost popular, the best witty,
whatever.
Our job is to tell the truthand to tell the gospel.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
I think also with talent comes also this human
fallibility, where we justbecome so airheaded, we become
engrossed in ourselves and ifeveryone around you is like, oh
man, you're so, so great, youare so talented, you give so
much energy to the service, itcan turn into this thing where
(21:17):
you don't have the training thatyou need to be the pastor.
When we see it all the time, wesee these people fall that just
aren't ready for what comes andthey are blasted out to
millions of people.
And so what happens is it makesthe church look bad, it makes
them look bad and it also makesthat church look like they don't
(21:39):
know what they're doing.
And so it turns into this bigdeal to where these men fall
they cheat on their wife, theykill themselves, whatever
happens, and it makes it looklike there's this huge implosion
, this huge figure just blew upin front of them, and they were
not really ready for whathappened.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yes, we have to be careful that talent does not
outweigh character.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think, something that we haven't really
highlighted yet is.
So, to the person who would sayokay to your question of well,
what?
Why don't we give the moretalented people these roles, so
like, why don't we give it tothem?
Let them do it, since theyobviously have the talent for it
?
I mean, that's in that kind oflike forgetting where the talent
comes from yeah so like if it'skind of if that that's our
(22:25):
mentality, I'm not saying it'syours you ask, you always ask
questions that you don't agreewith, so it doesn't really
matter.
But if we acknowledge that alltalents, all gifts, all giftings
meaning like the things thatwe're capable of doing, the
different ministries that we'regood at at different points in
our life they all come from theHoly Spirit, it seems like it's
a lack of belief that the HolySpirit can't work in someone
else's life.
It's like it's almost as if wethink the pastor is only
(22:47):
talented because of himself orbecause he's got some special
quality and it's not the HolySpirit working through him.
So it's yes and amen.
I'm glad that the Holy Spiritis working through these men.
But how much more can the HolySpirit work if we would use
other men to raise them up, likeuse this pastor and his
abilities and his talents thatthe Holy Spirit has given to
that man, whether scandal,spencer points out or whatever,
(23:08):
when he's gone, the local churchwill die.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Whereas if we're doing the right thing, we're
mentoring, discipling what Zekehas been talking about.
We're choosing elders anddeacons and we're in the word
and we are empowering others togrow in their gifts and talents.
We're leaving it up to God tobe like all right.
Lord, guide us in a sustainable, healthy, biblical way so that,
(23:59):
when one generation eventuallypasses on, they fought the good
fight.
They've run the race.
They pass on.
The next generation is ready.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I got a question for y'all With churches, big or
small do you think there shouldbe one lead pastor and just
elders, or do you think thereshould be multiple pastors and
one main pastor?
Or what was the format that yousee today, that you think would
be best for a church.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I like the format of our local church, the one that
me and Nate attend, where we dohave a main guy, we do have a
lead pastor, but then we havewhat we call like a council and
it's just like a checks andbalance kind of thing.
What?
I just thought of what you callit the council.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The council of Council of justice, oh, no, no,
no, no.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Council of justice is completely different from the
Council.
The Council of Justice is when.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So what's the Council ?
Speaker 4 (24:51):
So the Council is like our church, would you say
they're just like we have, likea treasurer, a president, and
the way it works for us a littlebit odd, but we have our
council, which would functionbasically as our deacons and
they help to run and oversee theday-to-day workings of the
local church.
And they help to run andoversee the day-to-day workings
(25:13):
of the local church and then ourelders would be the pastoral
staff.
And so we have yes, a seniorpastor, who I guess would be a
leading teaching elder, but thenyou have others on the pastoral
staff who assist with that work, and so I think the most
biblical version is not to havea pastor who's necessarily
(25:34):
distinct from the other elders,but you may have a lead teaching
elder that will preach most ofthe sermons, but he would not be
above the other eldersnecessarily above the other
elders, necessarily.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's kind of what I was thinking of and we've got
we kind of.
I think we have a similar modelwhen it comes to pastor, like
we have a, we have a crap, can'tsay names.
We have our lead pastor samething as y'all have where he's
going to be preaching themajority of the time and then we
have a associate pastor whohandles other stuff but then
whenever?
it's his time occasionally,he'll do it every so often or
(26:10):
when needed.
And then we have a youth pastor, which same thing feels, same
role of when we need a pastor orif he needs he.
I think he preaches X amount oftimes per year probably, if I
guess him as y'all, and then wehave other, we'll have guest
speakers, but I like that thingof like having multiple guys so
that, like you said, if onefalls or something happens, you
multiple guys, so that, like yousaid, if one falls or something
(26:31):
, happens.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
you're not just left in the dust, it's not all one
person.
The church still functions.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
You can have people who pick it up and they're ready
to, because they've beentrained to do it over years.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
It's not just out of the blue.
I also think it's a greatsystem, but it can also be a
system where especially, you see, with the younger people, the
youth they can divert from therest of the church, which brings
it back to the church has to beon the same page.
The pastors the committees haveto be on the same page because
(27:02):
there are times and you see itall the time where the youth
ministry for the most part getsoff on their own thing.
They think they're their ownentity within the church and
that they can start leadingpeople to where they never leave
youth group.
They just they don't leave itand, uh, it's they.
They just, for whatever reason,they don't grow up and it just
(27:24):
turns into this whole big thingwhere the church is divided in
in itself.
So there has to be some sort ofchecks and balances and you
have to see it before it startsyeah, westminster said get rid
of youth group burn it tocommunicate no more as someone
who is a is a technically ayouth pastor.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Burn it to the ground so, with those thoughts, let's
move to another model.
I like it Moving on when okay,still, megachurches are involved
, with different branches anddifferent campuses and all that,
but what they'll do instead isevery location will have its own
preacher or its own pastor.
(28:03):
Yeah, but earlier in the weekthey'll meet up to go over the
same passage, over the samepassage.
So, yes, the central locationwill have its own lead pastor,
but they'll meet up and they'lleach preach on the same passage,
but do it their own way.
And so the different locationsare all linked up, but the
sermon is preached locally byits own person.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
So the only difference between that and
another church is that these twochurches are just agreeing to
go through the same thing at thesame time.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
In principle, I don't have a problem with that I
don't have a problem with thatat all.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
So let's just be Mormons.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Spencer wants us to be Mormons.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
That's what they do.
They all preach the same thing.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's Jehovah's Witnesses, yeah it's Jehovah's
Witnesses, I know the Jehovah'sWitnesses.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
They all follow these same exact, but theirs is like
yeah, but theirs is televised.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I don't even think, well, I don't even think they do
it like that.
They do it to where, like you,read the exact same thing from
the pamphlet that you're givenor whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, they read from the.
So I don't have a problem withthat model, I have a problem
with Jehovah's.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Witnesses clarify.
Let me clarify.
You're good with mormonism.
I hate mormons well, mormonism,mormonism.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I hate the book of mormon.
That's what I was reallythinking of was the book of
mormon and the people and thepeople, and the people who
follow yeah, you know what?
Keep it in.
I hate the people.
I'll stop.
I'll die on the sword all right, anything.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Any other versions of the model of megachurch y'all
want to go over any?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
any different.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, zeke, what do you think about?
Well, we haven't got youranswer or anything.
What do you think aboutmegachurches Nate?
Oh man, I almost got that.
Do you have a number?
What's your method?
What is it?
Speaker 4 (29:41):
I'm thinking similar to what y'all are thinking, and
the analogy I use we've talkedabout this before just more in
private is whether you're afarmer or a shepherd.
When it gets to the point wherethe leadership team, the elders
of a church and or the deaconsof the church, cannot meet the
needs of the sheep, cannot tendthe farm whatever analogy you
(30:03):
want to use there then it's toolarge Because, yes, the word
needs to be preached, communionand baptism needs to be
practiced, but then there arealso just pastoral cares and
concerns that you need to beable to be present, be
physically present, if able tobe on the spot, to visit
hospitals and nursing homes andhome visitations, certain
(30:27):
responsibilities that fall intopastoral care.
If it's one guy with thousandsof people, he can't do that.
But even you might have a fewelders eventually get to the
point where they can't do thateither.
And then Spencer brought up agood point with guests.
Are you able to connect withnewcomers, zeke great follow-up
of also.
Hey, that's not all on thepastor, church members need to
(30:49):
do it as well.
So good clarification there.
But yeah, can you meetnewcomers and visitors and
guests and answer questions andtry to get them connected and
plugged in.
Just good points there.
So for me you're right.
There's not a number, there'snot a magic number.
That is too much.
But instead, if you start tosee those red flags and those
(31:11):
cracks in the foundation, youneed to think, okay, do we need
a church plant, Do we need toget into church revitalization,
which is what I really think weneed to do here in Coleman.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
What do?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
you mean, as y'all alluded to, coleman does not
need more church plants.
I think we might be getting oneI'm not sure from another one
of the major networks, butanyways, I'm not sure about that
CNN.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But yeah, cnn or Fox, just kidding.
Is it a charismatic?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
We can talk about it later.
Anyways so we might be gettinganother one, but we don't need
more church plants.
However, there are a lot ofchurches out there, particularly
if you go out more rural areas,country church types, where you
might have a good church thatjust might be getting a little
older, might be struggling alittle bit, and so church
(32:05):
revitalization projects come inand you take different members
and you try to revitalize adying church.
It can get messy, a lot ofissues related, they can pop up
with it, but I think that's morewhere we need to focus on when
it comes to churches in the areaof Coleman.
But, anyways, zeke you had.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Changed your mind.
Okay, spencer.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
So you're saying we should go to all the liberal
churches around us andreinvigorate?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
No, those would just probably fall away.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, well, I guess—.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
The Reconquista.
Yeah, let's get the mainlinechurch back.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
My question was going to be so when does a church
need to just die, as you've saidin the past?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
And that's where each individual church it's a
discernment process.
There is no one size fits allrule for that, because some
churches if you think about allthe letters that were written in
the New Testament, the churchesthat were mentioned in
Revelation they're all gone forvarious reasons.
A single local church doesn'thave to survive just to survive.
(33:11):
There are natural rhythms oflife and death.
However, some churches can berevitalized.
It just depends on thesituation.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So when you said discernment and I think that's
just a cop-out answer, for Idon't feel like giving the whole
answer- it's called followingthe Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, okay, sure, whatever you want to say Next
question?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
My question is we talked about okay, there are red
flags for megachurches.
When they become too big,because they can't handle
everything, what would you say,are some, a couple and y'all can
answer this too what are acouple red flags that you say,
okay, this church may not be?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
I don't want to use the word worth, but it may be
better off not trying to rebuildthis church and let it die.
I've known churches that will.
This is an ungodly, unbiblicalmindset.
They're small and they're ledkind of mafia style by one or
two or three families and theywill literally tell people we
don't want newcomers, we haveour church.
(34:14):
It's become a social club.
We have our church, we have ourregulars.
I don't want anyone new.
It's our church, it's us.
And so those types of churchesthat aren't willing to change,
aren't willing to reflect andrepent, it's become a social
club.
It it's dead.
Those I would say they can go.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Blake, I guess that's kind of what I was going to say
, but I wasn't going to go withlike a mafia style thing, I
think.
Like I agree with that.
Don't get me wrong.
I've seen churches where it'slike, because they're so small
and they're dying, they get themindset that they're the true
Christians and nobody else wantsto come.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
They're doing it the right way.
Other people don't want to doit the right way, which is why
we're so small.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Exactly, and then they get stuck in that mindset.
It's like persecution is theproof that they're doing the
right thing.
But then you go to their churchand you see they don't offer
outreach programs, they don'toffer serve projects, there's no
youth ministry or anything likethat.
So they just come listen to thepreacher, go home.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Are they really that much different from a mega
church who just cares about thecelebrity pastor and then they
go home for the week?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
That's a great point.
Zeke brought up somethingthat's good.
The size of a church hasnothing to do with whether it's
healthy or not.
You have healthy large churchesand unhealthy large churches.
You have healthy small churchesand unhealthy large churches.
You have healthy small churchesand unhealthy small churches.
It's all dependent on whetherthe word is being faithfully
preached, communion and baptismis being practiced.
(35:39):
Is there fellowship, growingcloser to the Lord together in
the community, and then is thereoutreach into the larger
community on the outside.
So that was a good point.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I would really love to see, like speaking of that
Zeke, like I just don't know ifthat's even possible, that if a
mega church being that bigwouldn't, it would just be a
church where you literally justcome in and then you leave.
What do you mean when you'rejust that big and you have that
many members?
I just think it's just.
It would blow my mind.
I just have never met a churchthat wouldn't youth?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh, okay, sorry, let me clarify.
I wasn't saying they don't havethe extra stuff, you're just
saying what it is.
But it gets to the point, towhere the majority of people are
just coming to hear the sermonand then go home.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I thought my bad, I was tracking with.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I mean, if there's a church like that.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
That would be wild.
Imagine having that many peoplein the church.
Well, um, Joel.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Osteen, Sorry I wonder what their extra.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I've never looked into it because they're
heretical but I'm curious as towhat do all their other
ministries look like?
They'll be like you're a youthpastor.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
What that means is they watch Joel Osteen's kids
whenever he's like Can I come onTuesday and get healing at
Benny Hinn's stuff, or is itonly on Sunday?
Speaker 4 (36:43):
It's only when they have carefully planted people
ready to go?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
How do I get carefully planted though?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
So here's how Well, if you have an actual problem.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh, okay, no, no, here's how it works.
Here's how it works okay.
Okay, if you let's say you hadcancer, had cancer right, yeah,
right it's already been healed.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It's already been healed, right, yeah, but what
you do is you go up to the guy.
Oh, so they heal you.
Guys, we'll make a strike onthe channel.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
We're talking about Benny Hinn too much he's going
to try and sue us.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Sorry, sorry, he will try to sue us.
You're going to have to bleepout Benny, hinn, hinn, benny.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Hinn Benny.
Another series off of thattangent Mike Winger is going to
come out soon.
Charismatic preachers.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Can we talk about that on a podcast?
Can we please talk aboutcharismatic movement?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Because there's an uproar or uprising in it and I
think it's just we can talkabout it.
But yeah, he's gone after somepopular YouTube type.
We'll talk about it later.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Spencer, you had some comments.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Yeah, I was just talking about red flags in a
church.
There was a large church anumber of years ago where there
was a breakdown in communicationbetween the elders and the
pastor and it turned intosomeone who was being abused
being called out in front of thechurch as if they were a sinner
.
So I think when stuff like thathappens.
(38:04):
There's definitely, definitelysomething wrong with the size
and with where the focus iswithin the church, and that's.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
At that point would it be safe to say if that kind
of abuse is going on in a church, would it be good with church
revitalization, or would that begood for just to like kind of
shut the doors on that?
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Again, there's not going to be a hard and fast rule
.
I know that frustrates Zeke.
A hard and fast one one sizefits all solution.
But for churches like that,doctrine's off, application of
doctrine is off.
I think there needs to be somesoul searching and some gutting
of leadership.
But that doesn't mean that headout to somewhere else.
(38:57):
So what?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
do you do as the?
Let's say we find out.
Let's say we're trying to dowhat you're saying and trying to
restore these churches.
What would you say is a again,you don't have to get into every
detail, but what's a generalprotocol of what are you doing?
Are you going in?
You're like, hey, you'relooking for a pastor.
I'm the pastor, like, what doyou do?
What would the process looklike of I'm going to try and
(39:18):
restore this church?
And then you get to a certainpoint You're like, okay, well,
how do you help the people whoare willing to be changed and
willing to be malleable, butthey're stuck with all these
other people who run the church?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
In this situation.
The person has been a regularmember Is that what you're
saying.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I don't know, I'm saying either way.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
If you are a regular member of an unhealthy church
and you know it's unhealthy andyou want to change it, you have
to bring your concerns beforeleadership.
Okay, you would talk with thepastors, the elders, the deacons
with the pastors, the elders,the deacons You'd bring your
concerns and scriptural support,maybe some support from the
(40:01):
laity, the church members.
Hey, we're seeing ABC.
This violates all thesebiblical principles.
We need to see some change.
Then what's going to happen istypically there's going to be
some human resistance.
We're not doing anything wrongor you're out of line, You're
trying to cause division andthen from there you keep working
and fighting.
But ultimately, if churchleadership doesn't change, if
(40:21):
there's no meaningful change ofdirection happening, you can
honestly say I did what I wassupposed to do and I'm out.
But it starts with leadership.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
So, yeah, so for anyone listening, if you're in
that position, like you'resaying, like you do what you can
.
If you're already there, youget other people together who
see what you're seeing and yougo to church leaders and if they
are just unwilling to move,you've done the best you can.
But if they are, then that'swhere you start.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Yes, and lots.
That's where you start.
Yes, um and lots of differentthings can happen once you bring
up those concerns, but itdoesn't all end terribly
sometimes.
Churches have actually changedand that's refreshing to see.
It doesn't always happen, butit does at times I feel like one
of the.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
We've talked about a lot about red flags.
I feel like one of the biggestgreen flags for me when I think
of a good leader would behumility, and I think it can be
easily be translated.
Some people would say, oh well,you mean a pushover?
I'm like.
Well, no, I don't want them tobe pushover to where they just
change anytime someone givesthem criticism, but I also don't
want them to be so stuck up andstubborn that they never accept
change.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Someone who's willing to, you know, accept criticism
and actually think about it, notjust brush it off.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I'm the most humble man.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I've ever met Zeke.
Yeah, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
So let's see where do we want to go from here,
Covering megachurches, issuesthat might come from size, but
then we also mentioned justbecause you're small doesn't
mean anything by itself.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, you can suck too.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
You can be bad too, or you can be great.
Anyways, I think the Bible doesnot outline the maximum or
minimum size of a church.
I did a seminary assignment onetime where they said how small
can a church be?
And we looked at therequirements and ultimately it
got down to two people.
You can have a church with twopeople.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
So on a deserted island, you're by yourself.
You can't have a church.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Not a local church?
No, you can be part of thechurch universal.
No, you cannot be a localchurch unless you want to get
some horses and some dogs andsee All right, y'all, let's all
get together and try to dosomething.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Get a volleyball.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I was going to say we're on a deserted island.
Where are you getting thesehorses and dogs from?
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Horses are on islands .
What I like.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Horses are on island horse island, I didn't say horse
island I said horses are onisland, name it okay if you're
just making a broad generalstatement that they're on an
island, like yes, we're on anisland right now my gosh, we're
on a yellow submarine all right.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
You know, australia has horses right that's a big
island.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
What do you mean?
What are you saying?
Speaker 4 (42:52):
you're just saying two true statements north
america and south americacombined anyways, uh, all right,
any other final thoughts onmega churches, things to look
for, observations and all therest of it I guess if you see
joel staying in the the frontrun, run away, run, far away Run
away.
Speaker 5 (43:14):
Just because it's big and popping doesn't mean it's.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Rocking, popping and big Popping and big.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Hold on.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Just because it's big and popping doesn't mean it's
Popping and big.
No.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I was going to say that's what he said.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
That was clever, biblically shocking, biblically
rocking.
This has gone off the rails.
We are signing off.
Spencer, you have rejoined us,and so we will ask you to give
us our parting words.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I don't even know, man, amen.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Todd White, we don't know, but God does Peace out.
White we don't know, but Goddoes Alright peace out.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
We don't know, but God does.
Popping and locking.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Stopping and dropping .
Thank you.
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