October 14, 2025 • 51 mins
Christian leaders often want to do things right. As a result, we sometimes find ourselves influenced by others who, though well-meaning, often send us running in different directions. In this rewind episode from Season 1, Episode 14, learn how God started to deal with Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino about these matters, and just where He has taken her in this unlikely journey. Listen in to learn just what "church runaround" is - and why this church leader walked away from it.(Intro and Conclusion Track "Fire ball" by Yvgeniy Sorokin, https://pixabay.com/users/eugenemyers-40510887/. TRANSform 2025 ad "Gospel Worship Church Prayer Music" by Iergen Poltavsky from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/users/hitslab-47305729/.)
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Episode Transcript
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Are you ready to join in the fun? Join us in the Charlotte, North Carolina area
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November 1 through 2nd for Transform 2025. God calls me friend. We are excited to
share this power packed fellowship filled weekend with all of you. On Saturday for
Friends and Family Day we will feature the ultimate Bible Trivia tournament in
Charlotte, complete with prizes and lunch. On Sunday you can look forward to our
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anniversary service in Gastonia featuring tag team preaching from ministers
Nik Lewis and Charlie Reep and of course yours truly Apostle Lee Ann Marino.
Did I forget to mention on Sunday we will also celebrate the ordination of
Minister Nik Lewis to the office of Pastor. This is one weekend you don't want to
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miss as we explore the virtues of friendship, both with God and one another,
invite you to come for fun, faith and fellowship. Registration is free but required
by October 27th. Want to learn more? Visit welcomeinthisplace.org. I look forward to
seeing you there.
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Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge as we recognize
the Kingdom of God within you. I am your host Dr. Lee Ann Marino,
apostle, Overseer, author, podcaster, blogger, professor and theologian and founder
of Safe Ministries and all the works that go along with it. I am excited to share
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this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture Christianity
present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life. Want to learn
more? Visit KingdomPowerNow.org. And now our program which features a variety of
formats here just for you. Interviews on a variety of relevant topics, teaching
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and preaching taught everywhere from our ministry studios to sanctuary and be on.
And powerful insights here for today as we turn the world upside down everywhere
we go.
[Applause]
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Well good morning, good afternoon, good evening, happy whatever time of day is
wherever you are and to our listeners in hungry, we say, "Szia, we hope that
whatever time of day is when you are listening that you are having a good one."
And I welcome you into this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast and I am your host
Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity where we feature the theme of faith with an edge. And if
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you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel free to
visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org. For our latest rewind, I am taking us
back to season one. I've often said that over the years of this podcast we can see
a lot of my evolution as a minister even though when I started the podcast I was
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definitely not new to ministry. But my episode, episode 14 from season one,
walking away from church run around, documents a lot of where I was at at the
time and a lot of the foundations that led me to lead and to become the minister that
I am even now. So for our latest rewind, I present season one, episode 14,
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walking away from church run around.
Well, today I'm doing kind of a special program and I'm coming here in our
studios in North Carolina right outside of Charlotte for those who are
interested in the exact location to give a little bit of perspective and story of
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something I have gone through the past couple of years and the place that it has
brought me to and where I'm at with it now. And I'm titled this walking away
from church run around. Now that might sound kind of different or unique or
interesting, I'm sure it'll peak curiosity. What am I talking about with that and
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what am I sharing about specifically today with what I'm discussing?
Well, what am I talking about and how exactly does it relate to what we're
going to look at today and what do I mean? Well, the past few years I've kind of
gone on what I call a wilderness journey and in order to explain and to understand
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more of that, I have to back up a bit and kind of start from a different place in my
testimony and my walk. This is not my entire testimony that I'm going to be giving
here, but it is going to be a little part of a very specific aspect of it. I'm
actually going to be doing a two part recording on my testimony in the next couple
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of weeks and so that should be up after this one where you can actually hear my
entire story. But if I'm going to really talk about walking away from the church
run around, I have to go back to about 2013. So as the time when I'm recording
this, it's December 17th and it's 2019 and so about six years ago, almost seven if
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we're going to do the time of year was because it was in the spring when it started.
What happened in 2013 is that the entire world that I felt that I had, the entire
support system that I felt that I had, the entire spiritual system that I felt
that I had started to fall apart. And what do I mean in that type of context?
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Well, obviously my ministry didn't crumble and fall to the ground, but it certainly
did feel like that was the direction things were going and that that was the way
that life was going to kind of start to manifest at that time in my life.
I had gone to Europe and it had been a huge big thing that I wanted to do for many,
many years to go over minister in Europe and I did and I came back and it was
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literally like my entire life changed and people started leaving my ministry
and that was a really good reason. I started losing friends. In fact, I lost a very
dear friend at that point in time who has mostly come back but that's a whole other
story in and of itself. And I found myself in a very difficult and very dark
place as I tried to navigate around what God was trying to tell me or trying to
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speak to me. And the year got worse, it did not get better.
I tried to team up with another ministry and help them out with a project they were
doing where I live, which at the time was just outside of Raleigh North Carolina and
that did not work out the way I'd hoped I wanted to. And things kind of continued
on and on from there and I'm thinking that the year would pass and then we would go
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into 2014 and things would be different or would be better, but stuff just kind
of continued to mount and continued to mount and continue to mount. And given a few
other things that are not really relevant to this part of the story, the years went
on and things kind of moved on towards something else. And by the time we got to
around 2016, the end of 2016, I was in a place where I told God I just could not do
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things the way I was doing them anymore. And if I never preached again or I never
was a guest in another church or I never did anything anywhere else, that then I
wouldn't do anything anywhere else and that was going to have to be the beginning
and the ending of it. And coming to that place was actually really scary because
as a minister who does work part time, I do work on the side, but the predominant
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thing I've done most of my life has been ministry was really very scary to confront
the fact that whatever God was really working in me, I couldn't be what they
wanted me to be anymore. And progressively over the years, what's happened is as I
started to walk away from the runaround, I started to have a better understanding, a
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better definition, a better vision of myself and who I was and what God wanted me
to do in my own life and a better vision for this ministry that he has for me.
But in order to get there, I had to walk away from the runaround. So what am I talking
about specifically in terms of that? As a minister for a number of years, you play a
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role. And I came into ministry very young. I was about 17 when I started out and
when you're that young and you go through many different faces, you're very, very
impressionable. There's a lot of different things that you pick up. There's a lot of
different ideas that come along. There's a lot of things you start to grow and learn.
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And it means that as you kind of go from thing to thing to thing, you become very
impressionable and picking up stuff along the way. And it does not necessarily mean that
it's bad stuff. It's just stuff nonetheless. It's a fact that as we go along, as we
kind of skip along and sing our way and come to the place where we wind up, we're
picking up little bits and pieces every which way that we go. And that was no different
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with me than it was with anybody else who might have that experience. I moved from
different thing to different thing. I started out Catholic. And when I got saved and
born again, which is a whole story in and of itself, I was charismatic for a while. And
when the movement started to gravitate toward more weird and spooky,
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deliberate stuff, I kind of moved away from that. And I had been full gospel in there.
I had been word of faith in there. And I wound up in holiness movements that were very,
very conservative and very, very doctrinally different from where I started. And we're very,
very strict. And all along those ways, I kind of picked up the ways that had to do
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with that. Well, when I reached the point where I kind of walked away from some of
that and let me say here, there's nothing wrong with holiness in the scriptural context.
But when we talk about being in holiness or the holiness movements, we're talking about a
separate movement that started in the 1800s and 1700s and very seriously related to
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the codes of societal change that the church at the time did not like. So for example,
in original holiness codes, as they were called, you didn't drink, you didn't smoke,
you didn't dance, you also did not use things like zippers or fasteners.
Men were not allowed to wear shorts. Women were not allowed to wear pants.
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And men were not allowed to wear neck ties. And so when we're talking about holiness,
we're often talking about that context of holiness, that the holiness movements kind of came to
find for us a specified set of rules that are either fully or partially followed today.
Most of the time, they're partially followed. You don't see the full holiness codes
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often enacted today. But the partial holiness codes are what came to be identifiable for
us as holy behavior or these holiness churches and what defines them and how they operate and how they move
and how they kind of function in terms of the definition of faith and the way that we understand holiness to exist.
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And even though I kind of came out of those, then there was a lot of question as to what do you fill
with all that? Because when you're in the holiness movements, you spend a lot of time thinking about
yourself or how your attire is over whether you've got too much makeup on,
whether your hair is long enough or short enough, whether you're closer right,
whether you're acting right, whether you're going to get caught doing something you shouldn't be doing,
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and etc, etc. So when I started to move more into a freedom sense,
I met a lot of different people who were starting to move into more traditional views of the clergy
as was found in what's known as the convergence movement. And for those who don't know about the convergence movement,
it's basically a mix of Anglicanism and Pentecostalism. And instead of just kind of abandoning the whole Pentecostal,
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seeing they kind of work it into traditional Anglican theology, clerical wear,
sacramental right, and things of that nature.
I was never a really big fan of the fullness of convergence.
I felt that there was nothing wrong with Pentecostalism as it stood.
I was always a really big adherent of the Pentecostal spiritual movement,
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and there was nothing wrong with our churches because when I got saved, we did not have half of the conversations that people have today.
We didn't really have bishops. I think that there were a few, maybe somebody had a really big church,
or they sat over a council, they might have been called a bishop, but we didn't have very many.
And we really didn't recognize apostles and prophets and things of that nature at that point in time.
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It was basically pastors and you had elders usually in churches and they were people that typically sat on the church board,
and then you had evangelists. And so that was pretty much what was acknowledged when I came into things.
And it was pretty simple, but nobody wore a collar, nobody wore a shirt, nobody argued over collars of shirts.
There were no robes, there was nothing like that. It was just basically preachers who had been ordained in commission to the gospel,
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had received their proper training and who were now a part of specific networks or circuits.
And as part of those networks or circuits, they were accountable to one another in them.
Now I'm not saying that they were perfect systems. I'm not saying that we didn't have issues because we did have issues.
I'm not saying that things were better than they are now because I don't really think that that's the case.
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I think we just had different complications.
But the way that clergy was approached was very, very different than it is now. And it was much simpler and it was much more down to earth.
And the people who were in leadership were basically just people who were believed to be a part of this church as leaders.
And so there wasn't this kind of association of hierarchy that we have now.
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And somewhere in here we started to add other things to the mix. We read the Bible and we recognized that Ephesians 4, 11 had a model for leadership apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
And I fully believe that I fully accept the apostolic call on my life. I always have reached, once I reached the point where I was comfortable with it and I was comfortable identifying with it, I always have.
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I had no question to the call of God on my life, but somewhere in here between when I got called when I was 21 and when I started walking in it around the top when I was 25 going on 26 when I started to really develop that place in my life.
And today we have really changed the church into a very severe hierarchy.
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And it's something that I never saw when I was growing up. It's not something I saw when I first God saved and it is not something that we would even accept in most of the holiness movements I was a part of.
It's something that's newer. It's something that we're still trying to figure out. And it's something that I just see so much disagreement over.
It really kind of stuns me.
And being who I am and being a professor and being a teacher and being somebody who wants to make sure that I make sure that everyone I lead is led right that I'm not leading anybody into any sort of disdain or in a bad place.
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I really made sure that we all knew about protocol that we know about how you interact with the leader that we know how you are to dress when you are in specific situations that you are supposed to carry yourself a certain way.
I still stand by all of that. I still uphold every word I've ever written. I still very much and very actively support the principles that I talk about in my books in my ministry today.
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I do believe that they are all things that we should know and we should discuss if we are in ministry.
And the major reason why I believe in teaching about all this stuff and educating about all this stuff and delving into all this stuff is simple.
It's because we deal with other leaders. We deal with other ministers. We deal with other ministries.
So we have to know how to present ourselves as part of being all things to all people in a manner that will be received by different groups of people.
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We encourage us to have enough information to recognize and to see that the way that we carry ourselves matters.
And that means that sometimes we need the proper attire, we need the proper clothing, we need to dress a certain way among a certain audience.
And we need to make sure that everything that we do is done decently in an order.
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We cannot just simply say, all right, I'm going to get up now and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it anyway that I want.
What has started to happen to me over the years is I'm seeing first of all how much discord exists about ministry and about carrying ourselves in ministry.
And I've seen that because I have sat off and is the only woman on many different bishops, councils on many different councils of bishops, on ordination groups, on different things of that nature that really make a statement about all these things.
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And so they will be groups of people who are a part of bishops, councils that tend to be very into how you speak to a bishop and how you treat a bishop and how you address a bishop or how you address an apostle or how you address a leader and how the leader attires themselves.
And how they carry themselves and what they do is say in the pulpit and what they feel is acceptable or unacceptable based on their belief systems.
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But being on all those different bishops, councils may be realized that everybody does things differently that for people who often present these issues as absolute or factual or the way that we absolutely have to present ourselves as leaders, they all don't agree about them.
There are people who tell me I should have a red shirt, I should have a purple shirt, there are people who said I should be wearing blue.
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I've been told I shouldn't wear any of it, I should wear black.
And the point of things for me was that I didn't really care about any of that anyway, that as they all sat there and argued in fuss, I'm having to go spend money on other things to make sure that as I sit on their council or am in their circle that I am presentable.
But this is not something that I care about anyway, I don't feel that this makes any difference as to the call of God on my life.
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Whether I've got on a red shirt or a purple shirt or in my case today a gray shirt with a flannel shirt over it, it has absolutely no bearing or changing on who I am as a leader.
And whether or not I want to wear a robe and a pulpit has no basis on how anointed the message is I could get up there in my pajamas and I could preach and it would still be just as powerful and anointed of a message as the word of God would be.
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So while I'm spending all these years trying to figure some of this stuff out and trying to understand it better because I really and truly don't understand where it's going.
So everybody's all hung up and worried about all these things and these things is being the symbols of our authority or the symbols of who we are, the symbols of what we're called to do.
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And I'm trying to measure up to it as best as I can and give the understanding of it in order to recognize and acknowledge what's going on.
But what started to happen for me over time is that it became very tiresome it became expensive it became exhausting and it made me really wonder how many people we were reaching through all this mess through all this behavior and all these things that we keep trying to put on in these errors that we keep trying to put on.
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It felt like it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where some of the leaders that I met moved from worrying about their shirts and their collars and things of that nature to how people spoke to them all the time.
And that if people didn't come at them in a specific way or didn't address them in a certain way they weren't going to talk to them.
Well, first of all, we don't necessarily know where anybody is at in their lives or in their spiritual walk. It's not something that we necessarily are able to recognize or to see for ourselves.
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And somebody may be coming to us and not really recognizing all the run around or all the spiritual fall or all this stuff that we keep trying to tell people to wear or to do or to think or to speak or to say that they don't necessarily know how to respond to a leader in the situation that you are not going to see.
The situation that you might be in or with the stature that you might be in.
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And as a result, they're going to respond to you as best as they know how as best as they can as honestly as they can as honestly as they know how and while they may not come to you calling you your eminence or your holiness or whatever it is that you want to be called in all that mess.
They're still coming in there offering something to you because they know that they want something back. They want a conversation. They want to learn something or to approach something.
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And I am not here defending anybody who comes at us wrong. I have had people who have come at me wrong many, many times and you better believe that I am not talking to them or I'm quick to check them because we do not have to be disrespected.
But there's also a whole world here that became unspoken where these leaders really sit, hearty and high and act like they are just too good to talk to anybody else.
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They're going to delete and block if you don't address them the right way or they're not going to talk to you if you're not kind enough to them or you don't regard them in the way that they feel they deserve to be regarded.
And it started to sound like a really big ego game, but initially sounded to me like something where we were sincerely trying to instill some order or we were trying to instill some authority into the church and to give things some structure.
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It just started to sound like a big ego game that we're all just sitting around and having these conversations and looking at these things from this perspective, not really knowing where anything is going or what things are going to do or how things are going to wind up.
And we're just coming to this place where it just seemed like who can be the biggest one on campus? Who's got the biggest set of balls as they would say?
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And it just started to feel wrong.
It didn't feel like we were genuinely about order. It felt like we were about who could be the most prominent or the biggest or the highest.
And the other time when I started seeing more commentary where people would call themselves things like chief of puzzle or chief is to puzzle or most reverend or super apostle or master of possible or master profit.
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And people are arguing over what garments you can wear when you have on a collar or what garments you can wear when you're called to a certain office.
And when you're more intense as people start saying, well, if you're a woman in your apostle, can you talk at a men's conference or can you do an ordination over a man?
Or can we do this or can we do that?
And everybody wants to know who ordains you and everybody wants to know where your tradition lines through.
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And are you part of the apostolic succession and you were part of this or that or over here or over there and on and on and on and on like this crazy tower of babble?
And when I started to step back and notice that absolutely nobody was getting what they needed in church.
People were getting a lot of lectures. Nobody wanted to come. Who wants to come to that?
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Who wants to come and be part of that complete and total disregard and mess when you have a leader you cannot even approach?
Who wants to talk to somebody when you can't even talk to them like a human being? Who wants to talk to somebody when you're so worried about whether or not your outfit is right that you're not listening?
And what happened to me is it started to feel like the holiness movement. It started to feel like all this stuff that I left from when I'm worried about if I look right, sound right, feel right, act right and the part and not the part in the part over here and this and that whatever.
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That I'm worried that I'm not doing everything right and that somebody's going to find out and they're going to question what I'm doing that sounds exactly like the marks that we had in holiness movement.
That if you don't have your hair right or you cut your hair a centimeter or you had on makeup or your skirt was a little bit above you need or you had on a pair of pants that you're going to go running into a pastor and you're going to get called in under a tribunal.
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So all these leaders became this abomination. It just became this complete and total mess that was so far removed from what Christianity was supposed to be about.
I reached a point where I said I don't want to be that kind of leader. I don't want to be the kind of person that nobody can talk to.
I don't want to be the kind of leader that nobody feels like they can come to when something's going on. I don't want somebody to not reach out to me because they're afraid that they're not going to call me by the right title or that they're not going to call me by the right name or that they're going to think they're not dress right or I'm not going to be dress right.
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So I feel like I can't hear them.
And it made me start to think and wonder about what we are supposed to be about as church and about how in every generation and in every era we seem to keep having all these run-arounds.
Whether nowadays it's the politics or it's the close. It's a concern about whether or not you got on the right shirt or the right color or the right outfit or the right ring or the right hat or the right whatever.
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Whether you're not they like your translation in different errors and in different days it was that the men's hair was too long or the women's hair was too short or they didn't like your outfit which seems to be a continuing thing.
So when do we get back to the point where we're not so worried about all those things that we're able to focus on what we're supposed to be doing.
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I think that that was the day or the moment when I had that revelation is that all of these things are distractions.
They are there. They're things we should know about. They're things that we should be aware of. They're things that we should be able to stand in a circumstance and handle no matter what may be going on.
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The difference between doing all that and really upholding where you are and upholding what God has for you to do and really upholding all of it.
And what I realized is that I really was not interested in upholding all of it.
There are times in our organization when yes I may throw on a robe or yes I may throw on a collar.
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There are a few reserved experiences and incidents.
But the majority of the time when I'm up in the pulpit I'm wearing whatever I want to wear.
And I believe in dressing respectfully and I believe in dressing appropriately and I believe in making sure that whatever it is that we have on is not inappropriate and distracting to people.
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But I am not wearing a collar every single time I get up in that pulpit because first of all it's not always appropriate.
And second of all I'm now in a place where I'm dealing with a different audience that needs to be able to relate to me as me and me is not that color.
Me is just as anointed whether I have that stupid thing on or not.
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Me is me whether I'm sitting here as I am in my 90s flannel or if I'm all dressed up in a pulpit with my hair done and I have on a suit that looks pristine and perfect.
Because the anointing comes through me we had this treasure in earth and vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us that it may be of God that it may be of him that it is not about me and it does not matter.
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Whether I have that on or what I have on the word is more powerful and I should at least be up there and be able to be comfortable with the person that I am and the ministry that God has given to me and that should not be dependent on that outfit.
I should be able to be me whether or not people call me lian or they call me a possible marino or they call me a possible and or they call me doctor lean or they call me doctor marino.
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They call me a possible doctor marino or they call me anything else that they want I am still called to be an apostle I am still who I am and it does not matter what they're calling me it doesn't change it because that is who God has called me and that is who I am and my ministry is still apostolic my ministry is still the real deal whether I have on a color or short or rogue or big ugly stupid hat or any of that mess.
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It's still who I am I'm still me I'm still myself I'm still who God is called me to be as me and I think that that's what we're not getting I'm starting to wonder sometimes in these churches if one of the reasons why we are so focused on all these exteriors is because these people are really not called and they're really not doing what God has called them to do they're doing something else they're doing something else they're doing something else.
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They're doing something outside of themselves that is a standard structural church work they're acknowledged by their church they're acknowledged by their denomination they're acknowledged in their network but has God called and acknowledged them because if God called and acknowledged you I am all for respect I am for all of us following rules of respect I am for all of us following certain guidelines of protocol but it shouldn't matter and it shouldn't matter.
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And it shouldn't be such a crisis if everybody does not acknowledge you as the Grand Lord of your church it shouldn't matter that I have chosen not to be a part of church culture you should still acknowledge me because where I am at I have had enough of all that I've had enough of being asked while how was church today and I've had enough of being asked well did the spirit move today look the spirit can move any day of the week at one.
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And I can promise you that I have at times where the spirit of God move more powerfully in a car than it did in some of these churches I was in where everybody had all their regalia and their names and their big fancy ugly outfits and called themselves the grand pruba of the church.
We're still who God has called us to be if we are genuinely called to that and we take away all those things we can do the work more efficiently than if we don't.
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Now what am I getting at that with that in the first century in the New Testament at Pentecost there were no shirts and collars there were no colors for everybody to follow.
There were no robes there were no staffs there were no rings there were no fancy ordinations there were people who were called by God who were acknowledged as such who changed the whole world.
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Because they didn't need all these attachments to define who they were yes they were acknowledged for what they did they were acknowledged as apostles they were addressed as such they were identified though with a certain sense almost of intimacy with those that they taught and that they led.
It wasn't this distant weird thing that we see today where everybody wants to be acknowledged but nobody wants to work.
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And I'm to the point if you cannot properly see that what we have made of the bishops office is not accurate to the scriptures then I don't even want to talk to you if you cannot see that then you shouldn't be in any position anyway.
A bishop is an overseer not the Lord of the universe not the prince of the church the prince of the church is Jesus because he is the prince of peace.
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And the rest of us are servants of different roles of different works of different purposes.
And if we cannot see that for what it is if we cannot embrace that and hold onto that and recognize and acknowledge our servanthood for what it is and see that this model see that what they did in the New Testament worked then we shouldn't be in leadership then we should not be in position because if our whole world is worrying about what color shirt I got on or what the people who are handing out communion are wearing or you're worried about whether or not everything is falling in line with the Lord.
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And if you're just falling in line with what you're comfortable with in another church then we've got a problem.
Can you just go out and minister and witness to somebody without all that other stuff?
Can you have a Bible study that is just what it is?
And it not be church part two and it not be hooping and hollering part two and it just be done and be simple and be enjoyed.
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We've lost the joy of ministry. We've lost the contact of it, the contact between people that yes we touch God.
And we come in contact with God and we experience the spirit.
But also at the same point in time we touch one another that's a part of the unity of the body that's a part of the unity of the spirit.
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And if we are so busy running around in circles over all this stuff that really isn't church then we are missing the point of what church is.
Luke 10:38-41,42 is a very very off-quoted passage.
But as I started to walk away from church run around it started to sound very different to me.
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And I'm reading from the NIV 84 edition.
As Jesus and His disciples were on their way he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.
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Martha Martha the Lord answered you are worried and upset about many things but only one is needed or is the footnote says but few things are needed or only one.
Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.
What I want us to look at and take note of here is that Martha was doing what was culturally expected of her.
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It was expected that when you had a guest in your house you went overboard making sure that certain things were met certain protocols were met certain responsibilities were met.
That was a part of what being in their cultures represented and for women it was especially relevant.
So Martha had been told by her culture that she needed to do certain things for Jesus.
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And she didn't ask if Jesus wanted any of them.
She just went to work assuming and doing what Jesus wanted and needed and trying to be ahead of the game on that expectation.
I'm sure that if Jesus wanted something Mary would have gotten up and would have gotten it for him.
I'm sure if he asked for something Martha would have been more than happy to do it.
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But Martha was trying to anticipate she was trying to be ahead of something.
She was worried about what other people were going to think if Jesus was in her house and she didn't perform right or she didn't do right or she didn't do whatever she was supposed to do.
And often we hear a rebuke in here and I guess there is a little bit of one but what I hear more from Jesus is concerned that Martha is worried about too many things.
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Martha wasn't too many different directions. Martha was thinking in so many different ways that she was developing anxiety.
Martha was doing something that wasn't healthy. It wasn't beneficial. It was not good for her. It wasn't benefiting her.
And he wanted her to know that she didn't have to do all that. She did not have to meet up to this exterior cultural expectation to be perfect, to be the best hostess, to be the best at everything that she did.
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She could sit and relax and just enjoy being with him.
And Mary is mentioned because Mary got that. So this is an instance where the two sisters had a chance to learn from each other. Martha could learn from Mary.
And Mary sat at the Lord's feet because that was the better choice because Jesus wasn't always going to be there.
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And so she wanted to sit at his feet in order to get as much as she could from him because she knew somewhere inside of her that he was going to go home eventually and that there was this amazing teaching that could be deposited within her at this point in time.
So Martha and Mary made two different choices and it's not that Martha did a bad thing. It's that Martha did not pick the eternal thing. Martha picked the thing that was going to give her the reputation down here that was going to sustain her for however long it was going to be.
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But Mary picked something that was going to last into eternity.
The church today with all these things are being Martha. It's not that they're necessarily bad people that are funding and fueling and firing all these movements up.
It's not that they're people that have an evil inherent motive.
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They're people that believe in certain levels of protocol. I think that a lot of them really do believe that they are promoting order.
I think that many of them really do believe that they're moving to a better place or that they're trying to move the church into something that's structured and ordered but it's misguided.
Much like Martha was misguided. Martha meant well, Martha's intention was good. Martha's intention was to make sure that she did right.
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But at the same token it was also to make sure that everybody knew that she was doing right.
At some point in time we have to lay that down for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of sitting at Christ's feet.
Because we can spend hours as ministers in church run around and worrying about church run around and afraid to church run around and concerned about all these different things that happen and go on and go on and go on and go on.
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In these circumstances and situations where worried in the end about what people are going to think of us instead of what people are going to think about Christ.
Because if we are genuinely able to step back and walk the walk that Christ asked us to walk, it's not an easy thing.
It's not easy to be an apostle prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. It is not an easy thing to be a bishop and elder or a deacon which are the appointments.
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They help out the fivefold. They are there for that purpose to take us into that place where we are able to have all the needs of the church met.
It's not easy but at the same vein we cannot lose sight of who God has called us to be and who we are supposed to be because we are so caught up and so crazed with trying to meet with the expectations of what does everybody think of us.
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Whether or not we have visible signs on us of our faith and of our calling we are still called.
No matter how we are addressed we are still called and I am all for correcting abuses and people who are rude or people who are out of line.
I have no problem with any of that but I think we need to go back and re-examine what exactly is rude from what exactly is just not knowing better or what exactly is people being in a place where they are not sure how to respond because we want somebody to worship us.
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That is not how this is supposed to be. We still have to be people. We have to be relatable. One of the things that I think stands most about the early apostles and the fact that we have these writings from Peter and Paul and John and James is that they were people that we can still identify with them even all these centuries later.
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I am going to be really honest. I am a clergy member. I am ordained. I have been ordained as both a pastor and an apostle.
I don't identify with some people who have the same titles as me. I don't identify with the ministries of some people who claim that they have the same callings.
They look different. Am I saying that they are not called and I am? Well no. I can't really answer that definitively. I am not there. I don't know who is called and who is not. That is not my case to make.
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But I do know that there needs to be room for us to be people again. And being people doesn't just mean posting a million selfies on Facebook.
And it doesn't mean showing off your spouse if you are married or wanting about getting married if you are not or showing off your children or posting all your Christmas presents or your birthday presents or your anniversary presents or your 15 titles.
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It means being a human being. It means being approachable. It means that somebody should feel comfortable coming and having a conversation with us.
It means that somebody should be able to feel like they consider our feet and not feel that stigma of cultural expectation as we talk to them.
It means that we should be able to ourselves sit at the feet of Christ because it says follow me as I follow Christ. So we should be able to sit at Christ's feet and not be so worried about expectation and identity and things that relate to that that we forget who we really are.
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It says in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10. Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Who are we serving? What are we serving? And why are we doing it? And where does this run around get us all? It might make us feel good. It might make us feel okay for a while. It might make us feel exclusive and special.
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And like we're on this special mission to fix the church and to align the church the way we want it to.
It might be that we really think that that's the way it ought to be. But in the end we are just super imposing more things that are not a part of the early church that don't look like the early church and that don't give us an often place for how we can make that applicable and real today.
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One of the major reasons why all those years ago I said I don't care if I never preach again is because I could not stand anymore of the fake plastic attitudes and behavior that I saw underneath all those colors and those robes.
That as much as everybody might talk about one and it be visible representatives it was nothing more than just trying to get people to follow them and to worship them and to idolize them in different ways.
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There are so many ways that we can reach out to this world that hurts and there are so many ways that we can take the basics that we find in the Bible that we find in the basics of the early Christian community and that we can apply even now because they're timeless.
They're wonderful things that bring us together. They're things that bring us to where we're supposed to be. But we can't get there if we're not willing to walk away from the church run around. If we're not willing to lay these things down and become something more and better and more important.
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Then we keep leaving ourselves to be and that answer is that we have to become servants again and we have to see that we are called to serve no matter the day, the hour, the time, the outfit or the situation that we are just as much called to do things in other places as we are called to do a church.
We cannot live at church. We have to live our faith but it doesn't get lived at church.
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In the book of Acts chapter 2, I'm skipping down to verse 42.
It says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with all and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
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All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with gladdened sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved."
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So what's the key here? What does the church look like and what should the church look like without running around? It should be devoted to the apostles teaching.
So what's being taught should be scriptural, should be understandable and should be brought by the revelation of the apostle.
People should be devoted to fellowship, to connecting one to another, to communion, to breaking of bread and to also sharing in meals and to prayer.
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And those should be filled with all and there should be wonders and miraculous signs done by those in leadership specifically it says here the apostles.
And all the believers were together and had everything in common.
And then it talks about selling possessions and living together and giving to those who have need. I think that that's about giving to those who have need.
I don't think we necessarily apt to sell everything in an all-go-live community. I don't think that that's the point, but the point is that we are there to meet need.
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And that we should be willing to meet as we need to eat together, to share communion together, to be glad and sincere and to praise and enjoy God.
And enjoy the favor of those who come and receive of this word. And then the Lord will add to the number daily those who were being saved.
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Christianity does not grow. Churches do not grow because we are not willing to grow them. We are not willing to do what it takes in order to get to that place where we humble ourselves and we seek God's face and we put aside all these issues and matters and things that really don't.
We need to stop the church run around. We need to stop making church about us, about our comforts, about our protocols, about things that have nothing to do with Scripture.
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And we need to start bringing back a true sense of biblical honor, of restoration of the churches it should be, of the honor of the offices and coming to a place where we recognize that God has moved among us.
Run around excluded.
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I thank you for listening to the program today and I do pray that it has been a blessing to you.
If you would like to learn some about church protocol, I encourage you to get my books, Ministry School Boot Camp, which is one of my long time bestsellers training for ministry, helps appointments and beyond.
And it is available on Amazon.com as well as my book Awakening Christian Ministry, the Cult of Servant Others as we serve Jesus Christ. Both books are available if you put my search name in Amazon.com or you look for me in any major books, tell her those books will come up and you are more than welcome to get your copies because I do believe that they will help to look into implement structure without making it about us but making it truly about service.
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Also, if you would like to learn more about the work of Apostolic Fellowship International Revival Ministries, better known as a firm and about the way that we are turning the world upside down.
Feel free to visit my website at kingdompowernow.org. That's kingdompowernow.org. And this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino saying thank you for listening to the program today and I hope that until next time you will seek the face of the Lord in a more profound way.
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Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today and we pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
Do you desire to learn more about this ministry, have a prayer request or desire to hear a topic covered on this program, to learn more, to send feedback or to donate to this ministry as our podcast is sponsored by people like you.
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Visit our ministry website with links to other points of connection all over the web at www.kingdompowernow.org. Also, if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle, sift, visit www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
Until next time, this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
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Thank you for joining us on Kingdom Now. I pray that it is proven to be a blessing in your life offering an on time word for you.
To learn more about this work, ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, order suggested items, be a guest or donate to support this work.
(51:02):
As our podcast is supported by people like you, visit my website which contains essential information, projects and other points of contact around the web at www.kingdompowernow.org. Also, if you would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle, sift, in one of our North Carolina or South Carolina locations, check out "Welcome in This Place" at www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
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Until next time, this is Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
(dramatic music)
Are you ready to join in the fun? Join us in the Charlotte, North Carolina area
(00:07):
November 1 through 2nd for Transform 2025. God calls me friend. We are excited to
share this power packed fellowship filled weekend with all of you. On Saturday for
Friends and Family Day we will feature the ultimate Bible Trivia tournament in
Charlotte, complete with prizes and lunch. On Sunday you can look forward to our
(00:29):
anniversary service in Gastonia featuring tag team preaching from ministers
Nik Lewis and Charlie Reep and of course yours truly Apostle Lee Ann Marino.
Did I forget to mention on Sunday we will also celebrate the ordination of
Minister Nik Lewis to the office of Pastor. This is one weekend you don't want to
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miss as we explore the virtues of friendship, both with God and one another,
invite you to come for fun, faith and fellowship. Registration is free but required
by October 27th. Want to learn more? Visit welcomeinthisplace.org. I look forward to
seeing you there.
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Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge as we recognize
the Kingdom of God within you. I am your host Dr. Lee Ann Marino,
apostle, Overseer, author, podcaster, blogger, professor and theologian and founder
of Safe Ministries and all the works that go along with it. I am excited to share
(01:38):
this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture Christianity
present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life. Want to learn
more? Visit KingdomPowerNow.org. And now our program which features a variety of
formats here just for you. Interviews on a variety of relevant topics, teaching
(02:00):
and preaching taught everywhere from our ministry studios to sanctuary and be on.
And powerful insights here for today as we turn the world upside down everywhere
we go.
[Applause]
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Well good morning, good afternoon, good evening, happy whatever time of day is
wherever you are and to our listeners in hungry, we say, "Szia, we hope that
whatever time of day is when you are listening that you are having a good one."
And I welcome you into this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast and I am your host
Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity where we feature the theme of faith with an edge. And if
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you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel free to
visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org. For our latest rewind, I am taking us
back to season one. I've often said that over the years of this podcast we can see
a lot of my evolution as a minister even though when I started the podcast I was
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definitely not new to ministry. But my episode, episode 14 from season one,
walking away from church run around, documents a lot of where I was at at the
time and a lot of the foundations that led me to lead and to become the minister that
I am even now. So for our latest rewind, I present season one, episode 14,
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walking away from church run around.
Well, today I'm doing kind of a special program and I'm coming here in our
studios in North Carolina right outside of Charlotte for those who are
interested in the exact location to give a little bit of perspective and story of
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something I have gone through the past couple of years and the place that it has
brought me to and where I'm at with it now. And I'm titled this walking away
from church run around. Now that might sound kind of different or unique or
interesting, I'm sure it'll peak curiosity. What am I talking about with that and
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what am I sharing about specifically today with what I'm discussing?
Well, what am I talking about and how exactly does it relate to what we're
going to look at today and what do I mean? Well, the past few years I've kind of
gone on what I call a wilderness journey and in order to explain and to understand
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more of that, I have to back up a bit and kind of start from a different place in my
testimony and my walk. This is not my entire testimony that I'm going to be giving
here, but it is going to be a little part of a very specific aspect of it. I'm
actually going to be doing a two part recording on my testimony in the next couple
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of weeks and so that should be up after this one where you can actually hear my
entire story. But if I'm going to really talk about walking away from the church
run around, I have to go back to about 2013. So as the time when I'm recording
this, it's December 17th and it's 2019 and so about six years ago, almost seven if
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we're going to do the time of year was because it was in the spring when it started.
What happened in 2013 is that the entire world that I felt that I had, the entire
support system that I felt that I had, the entire spiritual system that I felt
that I had started to fall apart. And what do I mean in that type of context?
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Well, obviously my ministry didn't crumble and fall to the ground, but it certainly
did feel like that was the direction things were going and that that was the way
that life was going to kind of start to manifest at that time in my life.
I had gone to Europe and it had been a huge big thing that I wanted to do for many,
many years to go over minister in Europe and I did and I came back and it was
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literally like my entire life changed and people started leaving my ministry
and that was a really good reason. I started losing friends. In fact, I lost a very
dear friend at that point in time who has mostly come back but that's a whole other
story in and of itself. And I found myself in a very difficult and very dark
place as I tried to navigate around what God was trying to tell me or trying to
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speak to me. And the year got worse, it did not get better.
I tried to team up with another ministry and help them out with a project they were
doing where I live, which at the time was just outside of Raleigh North Carolina and
that did not work out the way I'd hoped I wanted to. And things kind of continued
on and on from there and I'm thinking that the year would pass and then we would go
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into 2014 and things would be different or would be better, but stuff just kind
of continued to mount and continued to mount and continue to mount. And given a few
other things that are not really relevant to this part of the story, the years went
on and things kind of moved on towards something else. And by the time we got to
around 2016, the end of 2016, I was in a place where I told God I just could not do
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things the way I was doing them anymore. And if I never preached again or I never
was a guest in another church or I never did anything anywhere else, that then I
wouldn't do anything anywhere else and that was going to have to be the beginning
and the ending of it. And coming to that place was actually really scary because
as a minister who does work part time, I do work on the side, but the predominant
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thing I've done most of my life has been ministry was really very scary to confront
the fact that whatever God was really working in me, I couldn't be what they
wanted me to be anymore. And progressively over the years, what's happened is as I
started to walk away from the runaround, I started to have a better understanding, a
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better definition, a better vision of myself and who I was and what God wanted me
to do in my own life and a better vision for this ministry that he has for me.
But in order to get there, I had to walk away from the runaround. So what am I talking
about specifically in terms of that? As a minister for a number of years, you play a
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role. And I came into ministry very young. I was about 17 when I started out and
when you're that young and you go through many different faces, you're very, very
impressionable. There's a lot of different things that you pick up. There's a lot of
different ideas that come along. There's a lot of things you start to grow and learn.
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And it means that as you kind of go from thing to thing to thing, you become very
impressionable and picking up stuff along the way. And it does not necessarily mean that
it's bad stuff. It's just stuff nonetheless. It's a fact that as we go along, as we
kind of skip along and sing our way and come to the place where we wind up, we're
picking up little bits and pieces every which way that we go. And that was no different
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with me than it was with anybody else who might have that experience. I moved from
different thing to different thing. I started out Catholic. And when I got saved and
born again, which is a whole story in and of itself, I was charismatic for a while. And
when the movement started to gravitate toward more weird and spooky,
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deliberate stuff, I kind of moved away from that. And I had been full gospel in there.
I had been word of faith in there. And I wound up in holiness movements that were very,
very conservative and very, very doctrinally different from where I started. And we're very,
very strict. And all along those ways, I kind of picked up the ways that had to do
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with that. Well, when I reached the point where I kind of walked away from some of
that and let me say here, there's nothing wrong with holiness in the scriptural context.
But when we talk about being in holiness or the holiness movements, we're talking about a
separate movement that started in the 1800s and 1700s and very seriously related to
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the codes of societal change that the church at the time did not like. So for example,
in original holiness codes, as they were called, you didn't drink, you didn't smoke,
you didn't dance, you also did not use things like zippers or fasteners.
Men were not allowed to wear shorts. Women were not allowed to wear pants.
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And men were not allowed to wear neck ties. And so when we're talking about holiness,
we're often talking about that context of holiness, that the holiness movements kind of came to
find for us a specified set of rules that are either fully or partially followed today.
Most of the time, they're partially followed. You don't see the full holiness codes
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often enacted today. But the partial holiness codes are what came to be identifiable for
us as holy behavior or these holiness churches and what defines them and how they operate and how they move
and how they kind of function in terms of the definition of faith and the way that we understand holiness to exist.
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And even though I kind of came out of those, then there was a lot of question as to what do you fill
with all that? Because when you're in the holiness movements, you spend a lot of time thinking about
yourself or how your attire is over whether you've got too much makeup on,
whether your hair is long enough or short enough, whether you're closer right,
whether you're acting right, whether you're going to get caught doing something you shouldn't be doing,
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and etc, etc. So when I started to move more into a freedom sense,
I met a lot of different people who were starting to move into more traditional views of the clergy
as was found in what's known as the convergence movement. And for those who don't know about the convergence movement,
it's basically a mix of Anglicanism and Pentecostalism. And instead of just kind of abandoning the whole Pentecostal,
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seeing they kind of work it into traditional Anglican theology, clerical wear,
sacramental right, and things of that nature.
I was never a really big fan of the fullness of convergence.
I felt that there was nothing wrong with Pentecostalism as it stood.
I was always a really big adherent of the Pentecostal spiritual movement,
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and there was nothing wrong with our churches because when I got saved, we did not have half of the conversations that people have today.
We didn't really have bishops. I think that there were a few, maybe somebody had a really big church,
or they sat over a council, they might have been called a bishop, but we didn't have very many.
And we really didn't recognize apostles and prophets and things of that nature at that point in time.
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It was basically pastors and you had elders usually in churches and they were people that typically sat on the church board,
and then you had evangelists. And so that was pretty much what was acknowledged when I came into things.
And it was pretty simple, but nobody wore a collar, nobody wore a shirt, nobody argued over collars of shirts.
There were no robes, there was nothing like that. It was just basically preachers who had been ordained in commission to the gospel,
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had received their proper training and who were now a part of specific networks or circuits.
And as part of those networks or circuits, they were accountable to one another in them.
Now I'm not saying that they were perfect systems. I'm not saying that we didn't have issues because we did have issues.
I'm not saying that things were better than they are now because I don't really think that that's the case.
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I think we just had different complications.
But the way that clergy was approached was very, very different than it is now. And it was much simpler and it was much more down to earth.
And the people who were in leadership were basically just people who were believed to be a part of this church as leaders.
And so there wasn't this kind of association of hierarchy that we have now.
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And somewhere in here we started to add other things to the mix. We read the Bible and we recognized that Ephesians 4, 11 had a model for leadership apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
And I fully believe that I fully accept the apostolic call on my life. I always have reached, once I reached the point where I was comfortable with it and I was comfortable identifying with it, I always have.
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I had no question to the call of God on my life, but somewhere in here between when I got called when I was 21 and when I started walking in it around the top when I was 25 going on 26 when I started to really develop that place in my life.
And today we have really changed the church into a very severe hierarchy.
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And it's something that I never saw when I was growing up. It's not something I saw when I first God saved and it is not something that we would even accept in most of the holiness movements I was a part of.
It's something that's newer. It's something that we're still trying to figure out. And it's something that I just see so much disagreement over.
It really kind of stuns me.
And being who I am and being a professor and being a teacher and being somebody who wants to make sure that I make sure that everyone I lead is led right that I'm not leading anybody into any sort of disdain or in a bad place.
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I really made sure that we all knew about protocol that we know about how you interact with the leader that we know how you are to dress when you are in specific situations that you are supposed to carry yourself a certain way.
I still stand by all of that. I still uphold every word I've ever written. I still very much and very actively support the principles that I talk about in my books in my ministry today.
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I do believe that they are all things that we should know and we should discuss if we are in ministry.
And the major reason why I believe in teaching about all this stuff and educating about all this stuff and delving into all this stuff is simple.
It's because we deal with other leaders. We deal with other ministers. We deal with other ministries.
So we have to know how to present ourselves as part of being all things to all people in a manner that will be received by different groups of people.
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We encourage us to have enough information to recognize and to see that the way that we carry ourselves matters.
And that means that sometimes we need the proper attire, we need the proper clothing, we need to dress a certain way among a certain audience.
And we need to make sure that everything that we do is done decently in an order.
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We cannot just simply say, all right, I'm going to get up now and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it anyway that I want.
What has started to happen to me over the years is I'm seeing first of all how much discord exists about ministry and about carrying ourselves in ministry.
And I've seen that because I have sat off and is the only woman on many different bishops, councils on many different councils of bishops, on ordination groups, on different things of that nature that really make a statement about all these things.
(17:36):
And so they will be groups of people who are a part of bishops, councils that tend to be very into how you speak to a bishop and how you treat a bishop and how you address a bishop or how you address an apostle or how you address a leader and how the leader attires themselves.
And how they carry themselves and what they do is say in the pulpit and what they feel is acceptable or unacceptable based on their belief systems.
(18:00):
But being on all those different bishops, councils may be realized that everybody does things differently that for people who often present these issues as absolute or factual or the way that we absolutely have to present ourselves as leaders, they all don't agree about them.
There are people who tell me I should have a red shirt, I should have a purple shirt, there are people who said I should be wearing blue.
(18:22):
I've been told I shouldn't wear any of it, I should wear black.
And the point of things for me was that I didn't really care about any of that anyway, that as they all sat there and argued in fuss, I'm having to go spend money on other things to make sure that as I sit on their council or am in their circle that I am presentable.
But this is not something that I care about anyway, I don't feel that this makes any difference as to the call of God on my life.
(18:47):
Whether I've got on a red shirt or a purple shirt or in my case today a gray shirt with a flannel shirt over it, it has absolutely no bearing or changing on who I am as a leader.
And whether or not I want to wear a robe and a pulpit has no basis on how anointed the message is I could get up there in my pajamas and I could preach and it would still be just as powerful and anointed of a message as the word of God would be.
(19:16):
So while I'm spending all these years trying to figure some of this stuff out and trying to understand it better because I really and truly don't understand where it's going.
So everybody's all hung up and worried about all these things and these things is being the symbols of our authority or the symbols of who we are, the symbols of what we're called to do.
(19:39):
And I'm trying to measure up to it as best as I can and give the understanding of it in order to recognize and acknowledge what's going on.
But what started to happen for me over time is that it became very tiresome it became expensive it became exhausting and it made me really wonder how many people we were reaching through all this mess through all this behavior and all these things that we keep trying to put on in these errors that we keep trying to put on.
(20:08):
It felt like it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where some of the leaders that I met moved from worrying about their shirts and their collars and things of that nature to how people spoke to them all the time.
And that if people didn't come at them in a specific way or didn't address them in a certain way they weren't going to talk to them.
Well, first of all, we don't necessarily know where anybody is at in their lives or in their spiritual walk. It's not something that we necessarily are able to recognize or to see for ourselves.
(20:39):
And somebody may be coming to us and not really recognizing all the run around or all the spiritual fall or all this stuff that we keep trying to tell people to wear or to do or to think or to speak or to say that they don't necessarily know how to respond to a leader in the situation that you are not going to see.
The situation that you might be in or with the stature that you might be in.
(21:02):
And as a result, they're going to respond to you as best as they know how as best as they can as honestly as they can as honestly as they know how and while they may not come to you calling you your eminence or your holiness or whatever it is that you want to be called in all that mess.
They're still coming in there offering something to you because they know that they want something back. They want a conversation. They want to learn something or to approach something.
(21:33):
And I am not here defending anybody who comes at us wrong. I have had people who have come at me wrong many, many times and you better believe that I am not talking to them or I'm quick to check them because we do not have to be disrespected.
But there's also a whole world here that became unspoken where these leaders really sit, hearty and high and act like they are just too good to talk to anybody else.
(21:57):
They're going to delete and block if you don't address them the right way or they're not going to talk to you if you're not kind enough to them or you don't regard them in the way that they feel they deserve to be regarded.
And it started to sound like a really big ego game, but initially sounded to me like something where we were sincerely trying to instill some order or we were trying to instill some authority into the church and to give things some structure.
(22:22):
It just started to sound like a big ego game that we're all just sitting around and having these conversations and looking at these things from this perspective, not really knowing where anything is going or what things are going to do or how things are going to wind up.
And we're just coming to this place where it just seemed like who can be the biggest one on campus? Who's got the biggest set of balls as they would say?
(22:46):
And it just started to feel wrong.
It didn't feel like we were genuinely about order. It felt like we were about who could be the most prominent or the biggest or the highest.
And the other time when I started seeing more commentary where people would call themselves things like chief of puzzle or chief is to puzzle or most reverend or super apostle or master of possible or master profit.
(23:13):
And people are arguing over what garments you can wear when you have on a collar or what garments you can wear when you're called to a certain office.
And when you're more intense as people start saying, well, if you're a woman in your apostle, can you talk at a men's conference or can you do an ordination over a man?
Or can we do this or can we do that?
And everybody wants to know who ordains you and everybody wants to know where your tradition lines through.
(23:36):
And are you part of the apostolic succession and you were part of this or that or over here or over there and on and on and on and on like this crazy tower of babble?
And when I started to step back and notice that absolutely nobody was getting what they needed in church.
People were getting a lot of lectures. Nobody wanted to come. Who wants to come to that?
(24:02):
Who wants to come and be part of that complete and total disregard and mess when you have a leader you cannot even approach?
Who wants to talk to somebody when you can't even talk to them like a human being? Who wants to talk to somebody when you're so worried about whether or not your outfit is right that you're not listening?
And what happened to me is it started to feel like the holiness movement. It started to feel like all this stuff that I left from when I'm worried about if I look right, sound right, feel right, act right and the part and not the part in the part over here and this and that whatever.
(24:35):
That I'm worried that I'm not doing everything right and that somebody's going to find out and they're going to question what I'm doing that sounds exactly like the marks that we had in holiness movement.
That if you don't have your hair right or you cut your hair a centimeter or you had on makeup or your skirt was a little bit above you need or you had on a pair of pants that you're going to go running into a pastor and you're going to get called in under a tribunal.
(24:59):
So all these leaders became this abomination. It just became this complete and total mess that was so far removed from what Christianity was supposed to be about.
I reached a point where I said I don't want to be that kind of leader. I don't want to be the kind of person that nobody can talk to.
I don't want to be the kind of leader that nobody feels like they can come to when something's going on. I don't want somebody to not reach out to me because they're afraid that they're not going to call me by the right title or that they're not going to call me by the right name or that they're going to think they're not dress right or I'm not going to be dress right.
(25:35):
So I feel like I can't hear them.
And it made me start to think and wonder about what we are supposed to be about as church and about how in every generation and in every era we seem to keep having all these run-arounds.
Whether nowadays it's the politics or it's the close. It's a concern about whether or not you got on the right shirt or the right color or the right outfit or the right ring or the right hat or the right whatever.
(26:05):
Whether you're not they like your translation in different errors and in different days it was that the men's hair was too long or the women's hair was too short or they didn't like your outfit which seems to be a continuing thing.
So when do we get back to the point where we're not so worried about all those things that we're able to focus on what we're supposed to be doing.
(26:33):
I think that that was the day or the moment when I had that revelation is that all of these things are distractions.
They are there. They're things we should know about. They're things that we should be aware of. They're things that we should be able to stand in a circumstance and handle no matter what may be going on.
(26:54):
The difference between doing all that and really upholding where you are and upholding what God has for you to do and really upholding all of it.
And what I realized is that I really was not interested in upholding all of it.
There are times in our organization when yes I may throw on a robe or yes I may throw on a collar.
(27:15):
There are a few reserved experiences and incidents.
But the majority of the time when I'm up in the pulpit I'm wearing whatever I want to wear.
And I believe in dressing respectfully and I believe in dressing appropriately and I believe in making sure that whatever it is that we have on is not inappropriate and distracting to people.
(27:36):
But I am not wearing a collar every single time I get up in that pulpit because first of all it's not always appropriate.
And second of all I'm now in a place where I'm dealing with a different audience that needs to be able to relate to me as me and me is not that color.
Me is just as anointed whether I have that stupid thing on or not.
(27:58):
Me is me whether I'm sitting here as I am in my 90s flannel or if I'm all dressed up in a pulpit with my hair done and I have on a suit that looks pristine and perfect.
Because the anointing comes through me we had this treasure in earth and vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us that it may be of God that it may be of him that it is not about me and it does not matter.
(28:27):
Whether I have that on or what I have on the word is more powerful and I should at least be up there and be able to be comfortable with the person that I am and the ministry that God has given to me and that should not be dependent on that outfit.
I should be able to be me whether or not people call me lian or they call me a possible marino or they call me a possible and or they call me doctor lean or they call me doctor marino.
(28:55):
They call me a possible doctor marino or they call me anything else that they want I am still called to be an apostle I am still who I am and it does not matter what they're calling me it doesn't change it because that is who God has called me and that is who I am and my ministry is still apostolic my ministry is still the real deal whether I have on a color or short or rogue or big ugly stupid hat or any of that mess.
(29:24):
It's still who I am I'm still me I'm still myself I'm still who God is called me to be as me and I think that that's what we're not getting I'm starting to wonder sometimes in these churches if one of the reasons why we are so focused on all these exteriors is because these people are really not called and they're really not doing what God has called them to do they're doing something else they're doing something else they're doing something else.
(29:53):
They're doing something outside of themselves that is a standard structural church work they're acknowledged by their church they're acknowledged by their denomination they're acknowledged in their network but has God called and acknowledged them because if God called and acknowledged you I am all for respect I am for all of us following rules of respect I am for all of us following certain guidelines of protocol but it shouldn't matter and it shouldn't matter.
(30:22):
And it shouldn't be such a crisis if everybody does not acknowledge you as the Grand Lord of your church it shouldn't matter that I have chosen not to be a part of church culture you should still acknowledge me because where I am at I have had enough of all that I've had enough of being asked while how was church today and I've had enough of being asked well did the spirit move today look the spirit can move any day of the week at one.
(30:51):
And I can promise you that I have at times where the spirit of God move more powerfully in a car than it did in some of these churches I was in where everybody had all their regalia and their names and their big fancy ugly outfits and called themselves the grand pruba of the church.
We're still who God has called us to be if we are genuinely called to that and we take away all those things we can do the work more efficiently than if we don't.
(31:23):
Now what am I getting at that with that in the first century in the New Testament at Pentecost there were no shirts and collars there were no colors for everybody to follow.
There were no robes there were no staffs there were no rings there were no fancy ordinations there were people who were called by God who were acknowledged as such who changed the whole world.
(31:46):
Because they didn't need all these attachments to define who they were yes they were acknowledged for what they did they were acknowledged as apostles they were addressed as such they were identified though with a certain sense almost of intimacy with those that they taught and that they led.
It wasn't this distant weird thing that we see today where everybody wants to be acknowledged but nobody wants to work.
(32:11):
And I'm to the point if you cannot properly see that what we have made of the bishops office is not accurate to the scriptures then I don't even want to talk to you if you cannot see that then you shouldn't be in any position anyway.
A bishop is an overseer not the Lord of the universe not the prince of the church the prince of the church is Jesus because he is the prince of peace.
(32:36):
And the rest of us are servants of different roles of different works of different purposes.
And if we cannot see that for what it is if we cannot embrace that and hold onto that and recognize and acknowledge our servanthood for what it is and see that this model see that what they did in the New Testament worked then we shouldn't be in leadership then we should not be in position because if our whole world is worrying about what color shirt I got on or what the people who are handing out communion are wearing or you're worried about whether or not everything is falling in line with the Lord.
(33:12):
And if you're just falling in line with what you're comfortable with in another church then we've got a problem.
Can you just go out and minister and witness to somebody without all that other stuff?
Can you have a Bible study that is just what it is?
And it not be church part two and it not be hooping and hollering part two and it just be done and be simple and be enjoyed.
(33:40):
We've lost the joy of ministry. We've lost the contact of it, the contact between people that yes we touch God.
And we come in contact with God and we experience the spirit.
But also at the same point in time we touch one another that's a part of the unity of the body that's a part of the unity of the spirit.
(34:09):
And if we are so busy running around in circles over all this stuff that really isn't church then we are missing the point of what church is.
Luke 10:38-41,42 is a very very off-quoted passage.
But as I started to walk away from church run around it started to sound very different to me.
(34:34):
And I'm reading from the NIV 84 edition.
As Jesus and His disciples were on their way he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.
(35:00):
Martha Martha the Lord answered you are worried and upset about many things but only one is needed or is the footnote says but few things are needed or only one.
Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.
What I want us to look at and take note of here is that Martha was doing what was culturally expected of her.
(35:26):
It was expected that when you had a guest in your house you went overboard making sure that certain things were met certain protocols were met certain responsibilities were met.
That was a part of what being in their cultures represented and for women it was especially relevant.
So Martha had been told by her culture that she needed to do certain things for Jesus.
(35:54):
And she didn't ask if Jesus wanted any of them.
She just went to work assuming and doing what Jesus wanted and needed and trying to be ahead of the game on that expectation.
I'm sure that if Jesus wanted something Mary would have gotten up and would have gotten it for him.
I'm sure if he asked for something Martha would have been more than happy to do it.
(36:16):
But Martha was trying to anticipate she was trying to be ahead of something.
She was worried about what other people were going to think if Jesus was in her house and she didn't perform right or she didn't do right or she didn't do whatever she was supposed to do.
And often we hear a rebuke in here and I guess there is a little bit of one but what I hear more from Jesus is concerned that Martha is worried about too many things.
(36:46):
Martha wasn't too many different directions. Martha was thinking in so many different ways that she was developing anxiety.
Martha was doing something that wasn't healthy. It wasn't beneficial. It was not good for her. It wasn't benefiting her.
And he wanted her to know that she didn't have to do all that. She did not have to meet up to this exterior cultural expectation to be perfect, to be the best hostess, to be the best at everything that she did.
(37:18):
She could sit and relax and just enjoy being with him.
And Mary is mentioned because Mary got that. So this is an instance where the two sisters had a chance to learn from each other. Martha could learn from Mary.
And Mary sat at the Lord's feet because that was the better choice because Jesus wasn't always going to be there.
(37:44):
And so she wanted to sit at his feet in order to get as much as she could from him because she knew somewhere inside of her that he was going to go home eventually and that there was this amazing teaching that could be deposited within her at this point in time.
So Martha and Mary made two different choices and it's not that Martha did a bad thing. It's that Martha did not pick the eternal thing. Martha picked the thing that was going to give her the reputation down here that was going to sustain her for however long it was going to be.
(38:19):
But Mary picked something that was going to last into eternity.
The church today with all these things are being Martha. It's not that they're necessarily bad people that are funding and fueling and firing all these movements up.
It's not that they're people that have an evil inherent motive.
(38:41):
They're people that believe in certain levels of protocol. I think that a lot of them really do believe that they are promoting order.
I think that many of them really do believe that they're moving to a better place or that they're trying to move the church into something that's structured and ordered but it's misguided.
Much like Martha was misguided. Martha meant well, Martha's intention was good. Martha's intention was to make sure that she did right.
(39:10):
But at the same token it was also to make sure that everybody knew that she was doing right.
At some point in time we have to lay that down for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of sitting at Christ's feet.
Because we can spend hours as ministers in church run around and worrying about church run around and afraid to church run around and concerned about all these different things that happen and go on and go on and go on and go on.
(39:39):
In these circumstances and situations where worried in the end about what people are going to think of us instead of what people are going to think about Christ.
Because if we are genuinely able to step back and walk the walk that Christ asked us to walk, it's not an easy thing.
It's not easy to be an apostle prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. It is not an easy thing to be a bishop and elder or a deacon which are the appointments.
(40:09):
They help out the fivefold. They are there for that purpose to take us into that place where we are able to have all the needs of the church met.
It's not easy but at the same vein we cannot lose sight of who God has called us to be and who we are supposed to be because we are so caught up and so crazed with trying to meet with the expectations of what does everybody think of us.
(40:35):
Whether or not we have visible signs on us of our faith and of our calling we are still called.
No matter how we are addressed we are still called and I am all for correcting abuses and people who are rude or people who are out of line.
I have no problem with any of that but I think we need to go back and re-examine what exactly is rude from what exactly is just not knowing better or what exactly is people being in a place where they are not sure how to respond because we want somebody to worship us.
(41:07):
That is not how this is supposed to be. We still have to be people. We have to be relatable. One of the things that I think stands most about the early apostles and the fact that we have these writings from Peter and Paul and John and James is that they were people that we can still identify with them even all these centuries later.
(41:29):
I am going to be really honest. I am a clergy member. I am ordained. I have been ordained as both a pastor and an apostle.
I don't identify with some people who have the same titles as me. I don't identify with the ministries of some people who claim that they have the same callings.
They look different. Am I saying that they are not called and I am? Well no. I can't really answer that definitively. I am not there. I don't know who is called and who is not. That is not my case to make.
(41:57):
But I do know that there needs to be room for us to be people again. And being people doesn't just mean posting a million selfies on Facebook.
And it doesn't mean showing off your spouse if you are married or wanting about getting married if you are not or showing off your children or posting all your Christmas presents or your birthday presents or your anniversary presents or your 15 titles.
(42:23):
It means being a human being. It means being approachable. It means that somebody should feel comfortable coming and having a conversation with us.
It means that somebody should be able to feel like they consider our feet and not feel that stigma of cultural expectation as we talk to them.
It means that we should be able to ourselves sit at the feet of Christ because it says follow me as I follow Christ. So we should be able to sit at Christ's feet and not be so worried about expectation and identity and things that relate to that that we forget who we really are.
(43:04):
It says in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10. Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Who are we serving? What are we serving? And why are we doing it? And where does this run around get us all? It might make us feel good. It might make us feel okay for a while. It might make us feel exclusive and special.
(43:34):
And like we're on this special mission to fix the church and to align the church the way we want it to.
It might be that we really think that that's the way it ought to be. But in the end we are just super imposing more things that are not a part of the early church that don't look like the early church and that don't give us an often place for how we can make that applicable and real today.
(44:05):
One of the major reasons why all those years ago I said I don't care if I never preach again is because I could not stand anymore of the fake plastic attitudes and behavior that I saw underneath all those colors and those robes.
That as much as everybody might talk about one and it be visible representatives it was nothing more than just trying to get people to follow them and to worship them and to idolize them in different ways.
(44:32):
There are so many ways that we can reach out to this world that hurts and there are so many ways that we can take the basics that we find in the Bible that we find in the basics of the early Christian community and that we can apply even now because they're timeless.
They're wonderful things that bring us together. They're things that bring us to where we're supposed to be. But we can't get there if we're not willing to walk away from the church run around. If we're not willing to lay these things down and become something more and better and more important.
(45:08):
Then we keep leaving ourselves to be and that answer is that we have to become servants again and we have to see that we are called to serve no matter the day, the hour, the time, the outfit or the situation that we are just as much called to do things in other places as we are called to do a church.
We cannot live at church. We have to live our faith but it doesn't get lived at church.
(45:37):
In the book of Acts chapter 2, I'm skipping down to verse 42.
It says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with all and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
(45:58):
All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with gladdened sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved."
(46:19):
So what's the key here? What does the church look like and what should the church look like without running around? It should be devoted to the apostles teaching.
So what's being taught should be scriptural, should be understandable and should be brought by the revelation of the apostle.
People should be devoted to fellowship, to connecting one to another, to communion, to breaking of bread and to also sharing in meals and to prayer.
(46:47):
And those should be filled with all and there should be wonders and miraculous signs done by those in leadership specifically it says here the apostles.
And all the believers were together and had everything in common.
And then it talks about selling possessions and living together and giving to those who have need. I think that that's about giving to those who have need.
I don't think we necessarily apt to sell everything in an all-go-live community. I don't think that that's the point, but the point is that we are there to meet need.
(47:14):
And that we should be willing to meet as we need to eat together, to share communion together, to be glad and sincere and to praise and enjoy God.
And enjoy the favor of those who come and receive of this word. And then the Lord will add to the number daily those who were being saved.
(47:35):
Christianity does not grow. Churches do not grow because we are not willing to grow them. We are not willing to do what it takes in order to get to that place where we humble ourselves and we seek God's face and we put aside all these issues and matters and things that really don't.
We need to stop the church run around. We need to stop making church about us, about our comforts, about our protocols, about things that have nothing to do with Scripture.
(48:07):
And we need to start bringing back a true sense of biblical honor, of restoration of the churches it should be, of the honor of the offices and coming to a place where we recognize that God has moved among us.
Run around excluded.
(48:28):
I thank you for listening to the program today and I do pray that it has been a blessing to you.
If you would like to learn some about church protocol, I encourage you to get my books, Ministry School Boot Camp, which is one of my long time bestsellers training for ministry, helps appointments and beyond.
And it is available on Amazon.com as well as my book Awakening Christian Ministry, the Cult of Servant Others as we serve Jesus Christ. Both books are available if you put my search name in Amazon.com or you look for me in any major books, tell her those books will come up and you are more than welcome to get your copies because I do believe that they will help to look into implement structure without making it about us but making it truly about service.
(49:13):
Also, if you would like to learn more about the work of Apostolic Fellowship International Revival Ministries, better known as a firm and about the way that we are turning the world upside down.
Feel free to visit my website at kingdompowernow.org. That's kingdompowernow.org. And this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino saying thank you for listening to the program today and I hope that until next time you will seek the face of the Lord in a more profound way.
(49:39):
Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today and we pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
Do you desire to learn more about this ministry, have a prayer request or desire to hear a topic covered on this program, to learn more, to send feedback or to donate to this ministry as our podcast is sponsored by people like you.
(50:07):
Visit our ministry website with links to other points of connection all over the web at www.kingdompowernow.org. Also, if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle, sift, visit www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
Until next time, this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
(50:36):
Thank you for joining us on Kingdom Now. I pray that it is proven to be a blessing in your life offering an on time word for you.
To learn more about this work, ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, order suggested items, be a guest or donate to support this work.
(51:02):
As our podcast is supported by people like you, visit my website which contains essential information, projects and other points of contact around the web at www.kingdompowernow.org. Also, if you would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle, sift, in one of our North Carolina or South Carolina locations, check out "Welcome in This Place" at www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
(51:27):
Until next time, this is Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
(dramatic music)
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