"Baptists, Pentecostals, and Lutherans, Oh My!" A throwback to 90's church...

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Joe Liles (00:00):
J grant, okay, there we go. Welcome to the TNC

(00:06):
podcast. We are recorded instudio, which is also the
Worship Center at theneighborhood church. We are
looking out at a beautiful day.
Um, outside of these wonderfulcourtyard, doors that we have
facing it looks beautiful fromthe inside. From the inside, the
sun is shining. The hot weatheris coming. It's getting hot.
It's getting humid. Humid. Idelight in this. I went out
human hot and humid. Delightlike it. I grew up in Phoenix,

(00:29):
not humid, but hot, right? So Ithrive in heat like oh, it's a
dry heat. It's a dry heat inPhoenix. Here's the deal. People
don't know that's a real thing.
The difference in heat inArkansas versus Phoenix, I can
be in Arkansas and melt, right?
And go to Phoenix and be fine in110 right? You know?

Tevo Christmann (00:48):
And just be out there humidity and whatever,
yeah, what? Just

swimming.
Basically, when you're walking,you're just swimming. I've been
in multiple places in my lifethat I felt like that. Oregon
was different. When I lived inOregon, you would walk through
what I call the mist rain, so itwouldn't rain, but when you
arrived at where you were going,you were wet, right? So you were
like, walking through, walkingin the clouds. Yeah, in the
clouds, led by a pillar and solittle church. Joe, yeah, that's

(01:15):
great. So yeah, it's gonna beman. The heat's coming. It's
beautiful outside. We got twopodcast hosts joining us today.
Tom hellch is finishing off hisseminary classes, and he said he
has to work on a couple finalclasses and get those things
done. And then he just sent us atext, which was not him working
on his smoking meats. He'ssmoking meats right now, which I
was like, that's not finalclasses. I hope it

is, I hope. But he did say he's on he's bringing
it to youth, he's bringing it to

you. So that was not it was a foretaste of
the feast to come. We're gonnahave those all podcasts that's
just for your listeningenjoyment. So joining me to my
right. If you are enjoying thispodcast via video,

would be same.
O, table, Sam. O, Stage Right.
Stage

Right. You know, I hate that. I however,
many times I've tried to learnthat stage right is facing out.
So as you look out to theaudience, that is the direction
when you say stage right. Sostage right, that is correct.
Stage left of me is the one andthe only. Rosie Roseanne, Oh, do
you remember what we startedlast podcast? Roseanne knows
Rose roseanne's notes. I thinkwe nailed it. Roseanne, do you

(02:25):
have notes today? I

Roseann Bowlin (02:27):
don't. I don't have a lot of notes. Oh

no, Rose happened you don't have a lot of
notes from Sunday? Yeah,

no, it just really didn't hit with me. Oh
well, wow,

it didn't

podcast. It's an

honest, but that's okay, Roseanne, we're
gonna unpack that a little bitand see what was there. So
that's really good.

The way nature is trying to kill me. It's
pollen, heat and humidity, andI'm fat and old.

Oh, okay, all right, yeah, he's trying to kill
you, so you're just now, mindyou, I will say the allergies
are kicking. Can we disown that?
Are they still? Do you haveallergies?

Not usually, no. But when I was camping and
the pollen was so intense, yeah,I was out. And then I learned
why Benadryl is awful. I hadnever taken Benadryl before, and
I took it and, oh my god, didyou crash? Oh my god, yeah.
Like, you really shouldn't takethat. Yeah, no, yeah. And then,
like, if you have things to dostill, I'm like, I'll be fine,

(03:31):
yeah, no, I drink, like Michael,and I just stay up all night.
I'm fine. And I took that thing,man, I had a glass of wine,
which don't mix wine, but ohman, I dropped that glass wine
on the rug, and I broke theglass. No, there's wine on the
rug. And then Carol's like, Ah,I told you not to take the

(03:52):
village. So now we're pullingthe rug out. Wow. Okay, I'll
take the rug over to the to thebathtub, and we're gonna soak
it. So I take it into thebathtub and I fill that thing
up. And I'm like, I did good.
And I look over our Swiffer wasin the bathtub, wow, and wow.
And apparently there'selectronics in the Swiffer.
Sorry, Swiffer was gone. Oh,

wow. That was a disaster camping, though, but
you had a bath in your camper.
Did you say you were campingwhen this

happened? I took Benadryl when I got back
home. Oh, okay, all

right. I had you in a camper. And I'm like,
wow, I was,

I was in the camper. Yeah, camping. Just just
inhaling, dying, yeah, vastamounts of pollen, yeah, and
just dying, yep. So when I gothome, I took Benadryl and didn't
go well, yep.

One of the Bougie memberships that I have,
that I think is bougie, and Iown it, and it's just, I'm going
to say it out loud, I have a carwash membership. Yeah, right.
And, and part of it is because Idon't like looking at the pollen
on the truck, because it makesme feel like I'm going to have
an allergic feel allergic, yeah.
And I was like, so when I goout, I'm like, I need to go wash
my truck so I don't see it. Iwalk out tomorrow, I'm like, Oh
my gosh, there's so much yellow.

(04:58):
Paul, like, eight. On the truck,and I'm like, This is what I'm
walking through. Yeah, it's nogood. Yeah,

it's no yeah, my red car is yellow now, yeah,
yeah, it's the

spawn yellow.
I was really happy this morning.
Went on my run, fine. On therun, the whole run, right? All
all around, kind of like, youknow, South Bentonville type of
deal, and got home sneezed ninetimes in a row and woke up the
kids. Jess talked about it.
Kaylee talked about it, yeah,it's been warm. I'll just sneeze
in the morning, and just kind ofsitting in my chair, are

you a loud sneezer or, like a cute sneezer?
I particularly enjoy

a loud sneeze just saying it out loud. These
were, they didn't have theirlike that. They didn't have that
part. These were very like, justnasally sneezes, right? Went for
it, and I just sat there in mysweat, sneezing. And it was not
enjoyable. I did. I did notenjoy because once I get into
it, and all that means thathappens next is then the
allergies flow. Yeah, right.
That's all that I know is goingto happen. So

your body protection started response,
like, we need to get rid of thisnow.

So now that you've enjoyed our very much
full of information podcast,we're going to jump into some
scripture. So not not that itwas profound for Roseanne this
week, but we talked about the90s church. So we went back and
had a 90s Sunday on Mother'sDay. And so a table, can you
just walk back through a littlebit part of 90 Sunday which

(06:21):
people were really excitedabout, were the songs on 90
Sunday, songs that people grewup with. And here's the deal, we
haven't sang those too often.
No, right? There's maybe one ortwo that we probably did
previous, right, that we kind ofbrought back in. We haven't done
them in a couple years, right? Ijust have to say, right, when
you started singing right whenthe band hit up, still hits,
still slaps. Like I was backthere going, Yeah, as much,

(06:44):
because I grew up in this phaseof music, and even though, like,
Hey, we've moved on and thingsare there, it still hits, yeah,
like, it's still there. So whatwas your what were your thoughts
around the songs that we chose?
Like, what songs we play onSunday, like, what were some of
the ones

that hit? Was a delicate balance, because we're
trying not to make this make,make, make fun of the 90s
Sunday. We're trying to honorright, a time frame of the
church. Now, admittedly, there'sa strong element of nostalgia,
yeah, which it's still up fordebate. To what degree nostalgia
needs to make its way intoworship? Isn't it good? Yeah,

(07:22):
warnings, but maybe that'ssomething we'll learn down the
road. But um, so there was astrong degree of nostalgia about
these songs. But, like, I hadto, we had to, like, pick around
to some 90 songs have have grownto, to to experience the degree
of sort of comedic effects tothem. Like this is true. Like,

(07:44):
one of the songs we definitelydid not do was shine Jesus. You
did not want that one. ShineJesus. Shine, you know? Because,
yeah, yeah. So it's, like a lotof these songs, like, would,
because they're, they were, theywere so overdone in the 90s,
they were, like, we sang them somuch, because we all love them
so much. Now they're a littlebit of the butt of the joke,

(08:06):
yeah? So a little bit ofnavigation. But a lot of these
songs, I mean, we're stillenjoying them. We don't do it
anymore, and I don't think we'regoing to bring them back, yeah,
but it was, it was fun to kindof relive that.

I agree, uh, my Redeemer lives. Uh, glad we
enjoyable.

They were all great. The music was enjoyable
and

unknown. What still hits and was great for the
kids. Message was, Laura, liftyour name on high. Lift your
name. Totally forgot that therewere hand motions. No, they went
for it. Like I would I wouldsay, what I would say, 25% of
people out there were startingto do the hand motions. Right?
Hand motions, right. Handmotion. Just fantastic. And
yeah, grew up in that youthgroup, yeah. Grew up in that
youth group, every beach camp,every mission trip, like sitting

(08:50):
by the campfire, like justsitting around acoustic guitar,
and we're just singing, Lord, Ilift your name on I right, and
just going for it. So, so it wasenjoyable. So we went through
that. We talked through 90schurch and kind of this mega
church movement, this multi sitemovement, we introduced a giga
Church, which is churches over10,000 people, and so we've seen
this advance. And then we talkedabout, kind of where the growth

(09:12):
came from early 90s, there'sonly, like eight to 10 multi
site churches. By the end of the90s, there's 100 right multi
site churches by 2012 there is5000 multi site churches. By
today's current standards,there's about, I would say, I
think the number was 10,000 5000No, 8000 right now. There's 8000

(09:32):
right now, and expected to be2000 more in the next five
years. So that trend is growing.
And we talked about, really, thesizes of different churches. And
was great, but we really wantedto get through like, what were,
what were we looking at in the90s? That changed as we grew
from the church. And we kind ofuse this text from John three as
the as the element, to talkthrough this, like, what was

(09:54):
increasing, because we weretalking about numbers and church
sizes. So we talked about whatwas in. And where other parts
were decreasing. And so wejumped into John three, which is
a great text about Jesusbaptizing people, and John the
Baptist, baptizing people, whichwe're going to get into a second
after our a,

one, a, two, A, 1-234-793-6722,

85, neighborhood church. There it
is. That's the church phonenumber. You can call it anytime.
Amen, who's going to answer it?
Give us your phone. Answer thatwhen people call and I say,

Thank you for calling the neighborhood church,
this is Roseanne. How can I helpyou today

that don't you just want to call now? Just to
say, if you need someone to talkto, you can call Roseanne
anytime during the day, andshe'll answer from the church,
which is, put

it to you straight,

if somebody has a concern, you're gonna somebody
has a concern, she's gonna say,You know what? That didn't hit
with me? Yeah.

That is what, yeah. That came across just
straight out. No notes thisweek, neither. I mean for us
launching a new segment lastweek, and then coming this I was
excited,

pressure, sitting there going, now, do you

know? So just side note, is talking to my
parents. They are in Phoenixright now with my sister, who
just had a baby, and it wasMother's Day. And so I called
her for Mother's Day, and I waslike, Oh, Happy Mother's Day,
Mom. And so we just chatted forabout half hour, 45 minutes, and
she's like, Oh my gosh. Like wewere listening to the podcast
during Sunday because we putlike, three minutes of the
podcast up during our prayertime, and so that goes out while

(11:28):
we're praying in here, right?
And people can listen to thepodcast. And she was, oh my
gosh, you guys were talkingabout roseanne's notes, right?
When the three minutes ended,like, it was like, we're gonna
do this new segment, Roseannezones. And they're like, it's
the one time of like, where'sthe podcast at? Like, I want to
go hear Roseanne notes. And Isaid, Don't worry, it'll happen
every week. And then we findourselves here, possibly,
possibly, that's every week.

(11:49):
It's really good. So we're goingto jump into Scripture. We're
going to be reading about Johnthree and before we do that, I
want to really because we'regoing to break down this
scripture, and then we're goingto go back into John the Baptist
baptizing Jesus and that kind oflanguage too, from the book of
John. But I wanted to talk about90s church and how we grew up in
90s church, because, like yousaid, there's a lot of nostalgia

(12:10):
there. We have three verydifferent experiences here that
we're just chatting about alittle bit before the podcast.
And then we decided to be agreat conversation on the
podcast. So I grew up intraditional Lutheran Church in
the 90s. My dad was the pastorof the church, right, um table.
You grew up in a differentexperience. What was your
experience? What what church didyou grow up in the 90s? I grew
up

in a Baptist church. I mean, this was Brazil,
so not America, so slightlydifferent than whatever you know
Baptist or essentially looseassociation of church. It's kind
of like church of Christ. It'snot, you know, it's not a top
down hierarchical structure likeLutheran Church, yeah. And so
Baptist, in fact, they just callit a convention, okay, right?

(12:52):
And so, like the SouthernBaptist Convention here in
Brazil, too, it's just aconvention. So does that mean
there's more autonomy on thelocal church level? There's
quite a bit of autonomy in thelocal Yeah. I mean, there, like,
there's a sort of a doctrinalunity among these churches, and
they get to do things together.
But other than that, like a topdown, there's not that much that
they can do. Okay, the polity ofthe church is very
congregational in that sense.

(13:14):
So, yeah, I grew I grew up in aBaptist church. That particular
convention was a charismaticchurch, not a Cessationist
Church, which is typically inBaptist world, where the split
is you can be Cessationist,meaning the Spirit did miracles
and works of the works of theSpirit, the charisma ties that

(13:35):
happened in the time of theapostles and when The Apostle,
the one, the last apostle died,the gifts of the Spirit also
died. Oh, okay, yeah, that's aCessationist perspective. Was
not a succession, okay? I didnot grow up in a cessation
perspective. I grew up in acharismatic perspective. And so
the idea that God, sort of likespeaks to you, that you can hear

(13:59):
God's voice and be led in thatway, that is one of those
things. The idea of prophecybeing still alive is one of
those things. The idea even aphysical healing being possible
is one of those things that

great. And that's not typical. Baptist like
this is interesting. Socharismatic Baptist, correct? I
was a charismatic Baptist,right? In Brazil, okay, were
those things practiced in thechurch, like healings and
different things like that,

and they're there. I think all that means is
that we're open to it, yeah, butwe were shy of being
Pentecostal, okay, which is,aside from a couple other
doctrinal differences, is theactive, central pursuit of these
things, correct? Yeah. In ourcontext, we weren't actively,
centrally pursuing these things.
We were open to it. So there aremoments where somebody had a

(14:45):
prophecy and we were very opento it, and like, somebody felt
that, that that makes sense, andstuff like that, but it wasn't
the centrality of the localchurch. No. Okay,

so we'll get back to like, what was your
experience? Because we. Talkabout, like, during that time
you were 10 years old, right?
So, like, you had a kind ofalmost a child experience coming
up through church in the 90s,which was great. Roseanne just a
tad bit older. What church didyou go a tad bit? What church
did you grow up in in the 90s?

Well, I was fully an adult in the early 90s,
so, and I had a child so, but Iattended a family owned, I
guess, Pentecostal church, okay,what do you mean by that church
in Wesley, what was it called?
Cobb Creek Church?

Cobb Creek Church, okay, and what do you
mean by family ownedPentecostal? Well, so

my father in law's mother was the first
pastor, okay, but my father inlaw was actually my husband's
great grandfather. Okay, holdon. So, yeah. So yeah, that
family tree split, but yeah, I

try and Okay, okay, father in law's mother was
the pastor, but yeah, yes, okay,

my Yes, well, whatever. Okay, it, it was, it
was a church that was started bythe family and continued by

the family, generationally through the
family, yes, okay, yeah, andthen Pentecost that when it was
open to other people, yeah,that's great. Yeah, absolutely.
Now, when you say Pentecostal,like, what was your experience
inside the church? Immune

moment, okay, so good. This is interesting,
because I came into thePentecostal church from a
Catholic background, yeah, sothe first time they clapped, I
shrank, oh, okay, because I wasafraid the building was going to
fall in, yeah, literally, yeah.
And I was told I had to wear adress. Oh, interesting. That was
different for me. I mean, Ididn't mind. They told you when

(16:50):
you showed up, my my thenboyfriend, my daughter's dad,
later on, yeah, he told me thatplease wear a dress. Okay? I
mean, he invited me to church.
Yeah,

you know, you have to grow your hair and stop
wearing makeup. Also, I did

not okay. I don't know if it was against the
rules or not. I well, I did growmy hair long and then realize
that's why I was having had itanyway. It doesn't matter. It
was, yeah, I did grow my hairout, and no one asked me to,
okay,

yeah, but yeah, okay, no. What was your
experience of church? What waschurch like on a Sunday morning?
I

loved it was the old hymns. Okay,

it was, but there were my imagining a choir
up front or like,

no, no, no, no, everybody who wanted to sing
went up on stage and saying theydid have instruments. I don't
know if there were drums, butthere were definitely guitars
and stuff, because, because myhusband and his brother, my
first memory of my daughter'sdad was going to that church

(18:05):
with my cousin, and these twoboys, dressed exactly alike,
were up front playing so and Ididn't realize anyway. I didn't
realize who he was until afterwe'd been married a while,
anyways. But yeah, so they spokein tongues. They danced around.
Okay, the church,

do they have a shofar? The what the shofar?
What's the shofar? The shofaris, so they say the, the when
the Bible talks about trumpets,yes, it's the bulls horn. Oh.
There you go. And so at somepoint in Pentecostal world, the

(18:46):
shofar got brought back into Oh,wow, service, and people would
just blow the shofar.
Interesting, somewhat randomly.
I don't mean to make fun of theshow, yeah,

I don't recall having that experience, okay,
but there was definitelyspeaking in tongues. There was
the dancing in the spirit andthat type of thing. Can you?

Can you share with us just real quick? I we're
not in a church that hasspeaking of tongues that is an
act of participation, right? Notopposed to understanding that
that's a reality in Scripture,right? And that's there. And so
it's not outside of Scripture,but we're not in a space where
that happens on a Sundaymorning. And so it might be
unfamiliar for a lot of people,and there might be some
skepticism around speaking intongues. And so what was your

(19:29):
experience from being in thatchurch like? What was it like to
experience speaking in tongues?
What happened, when it happened?
And then what was

it like? Well, it didn't personally happen to
me, but there would be variouspeople in the church that would
start speaking a language thatnone of us understood, okay, and
then someone maybe opposite fromthem in church would then
interpret,

okay, alright, which is also scriptural, right?
They say speak in tongue. Shouldalways have an. Interpreter was
speaking,

and it was an interesting experience, like it
was, it was, I would say,biblically based, because it was
prophecies, Mm, hmm, that typeof thing, not anything that was
going to happen now, but I toldyou it would be, like I told you
this would happen, yeah,

type of thing.
So you said you shrunk when theyclapped

Unknown (20:21):
because the first

time, yeah, from a Catholic background, yes,
this also doesn't happen in theCatholic Church. So what was it?
How did you feel when you firstheard speaking in

tongues? My eyes were biggest saucers, but I was
also very Yeah. Oh, but it wasin it was interesting. And of
course, my personality, beingwhat it is, it can happen to
other people, yeah, the HolySpirit, don't you getting me?

(20:54):
Yeah, so, but it was interestingto observe.

Interesting to observe. Was it something that
you, over time, came toappreciate and trust in and
different things like that, notjust observe? I mean, we know he
didn't participate, right in thesense

of right, um, I, I did appreciate. I did come to
appreciate it. I didn'tunderstand it. I didn't it
wasn't an element of everychurch service. So, like it was

(21:41):
nostalgia, you know, just justjust being in that moment and
appreciating it. But as far asany revelations for me that came
from more reading the Bible

that, yeah, great, great. And you said there
was dancing in the Spirit also,oh, yeah,

I saw my sister in law, who was actually my
husband's grandmother. I

love how you lit up when we said this, like
you did right in this game. Shewas

dancing all around, and my eyes were biggest
saucers for that too.

Okay, Alright, great. Did you ever participate
in the dancing I did?

I did not, okay, but prayer calls to the front.
Yeah. My stepson was acceptedthe Lord in in an altar call.
Yeah. And that was a veryspecial moment. Okay, alright,
that's

wonderful. I was just thinking about the
spirit led dancing, right? And Iwas thinking back, and I was
like, oh, it'd be interesting towitness in a church. And then I
realized we're, we're notoutside of spirit led dancing,
right, especially when we goback to like Easter, when all
the kids came front at the end,not called front or anything
else like that. They just cameforward and started dancing,
right? And people got now, and Iwas like, Oh, this is a
beautiful expression of, kind oflike just being filled with

(22:50):
worship, right? And wanting toexpress that. And the kids are
great at it, because they don'thave any we credit, to try to
create the safe space rightwhere the front of the church is
at, and so the kids can feelcomfortable there. And they feel
welcome, yeah, they feelwelcome, right, to kind of live
out that fullest expression oftheir faith. So table what was
like for you on a Sunday morningat church? Like, talk us through
what it was like to attend. AndI love how you described before,

(23:12):
you said it was like a nonCalvin, Calvinistic, right? And
you said Pentecostal, Baptist. Iwouldn't

say Pentecostal, but I would say
charismatic, Charismatic.
Charismatic.

Sorry, charismatic was Where do you
Yeah, yeah. Charismatic,Baptist. So what was a Sunday
morning like when you attended achurch in the 90s?

Um, well, to begin with, the Baptist Church
has somewhat strict requirementsaround membership, yeah, okay,
and one of the requirements formembership is that you are able
to recount your conversionstory, your testimony. Everybody
has to have a testimony, and ifyou don't, then you need to wait

(23:48):
around until you get one, andthen you can join, you know,
kind of a thing. And that'sbecause, I think the idea is
that, like, obviously, you canhang around. But who we call
members are people that we thatwe know and and trust to have
experienced something, yeah,that we share with God. And so

(24:09):
that's kind of where it comesfrom. And so the expectation of
engagement and worship on aSunday morning was was very
rich. And so the hands raisedthe sing along, yeah, and, and
emotional engagement in worshipwasn't exactly optional. I mean,

(24:32):
okay, obviously. I mean, if youwant to stand there and be a
loop, that's totally fine. Noone's gonna yell at you, but,
but we'll be concerned. Yeah,you know, like, what's going on?
Is your faith not pulsating?
Yeah? You know, because are younot resonating with this? You
know,

just like Roseanne with my message this
week, yeah, yeah, she really

resonated. Was she and a pulsating? Yeah? So
that's, that's kind of theexperience so, and that's also
part. Of the charismatic side ofit, because the the the what in
Brazil would they just thedivision, the names they gave
one for one was renewed Baptist,the other one was traditional
Baptist. Okay. And so thetraditional Baptist was, of

(25:14):
course, much more stoic, yeah.
And and much more like theAmerican Baptist expression,
where they really hang on to theidea that your heart's
desperately wicked, as it saysin Jeremiah. And so you have to
distrust your emotions at everyat every step of the way. And
that's you know, that's stillthe case in many, yeah, in many

(25:35):
baptism, especially reformedcontext, you distrust your
emotions, you downplay youremotions, and you rely heavily
on your intellect andrationality and so that you
know. So in those kinds ofchurches, you're unlikely to see
a whole lot of hands raised, orin a whole lot of emotional
engagement. You're very likelyto see very wordy hymns. Oh,

(25:57):
interesting what I'm saying,yeah. And in the more
charismatic church, because theemotions are so very present,
and, and, and, and integral tothe expression of that Church's
doctrine, you're much morelikely to see the kind of music
that is almost mantra like thatrepeats, because you're just
kind of settled into this sortof, you know, emotional,

(26:21):
mystical experience, right,most, right? And then, and so
that was more like ourexperience. Okay, we didn't the
90s. We hadn't the movement of,of spontaneous singing, yeah,
hadn't started yet. Oh, that's2000 so

you're talking like, when, like, for example,
we as a church will stop, buthey, let's sing that again,
right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yousang the song as it was, as it
was written, and then you wentthrough it,

okay? But the thing where it's just a two hour
song, where you just are makingup the song on the spot at,
like, Bethel Church, kind ofrepeat it over, and you're
almost like, in the trance thathadn't started yet, okay? And so
very emotional, very richlyengaging, but not to that extent
yet, okay? And then, but with atime, a very clear time, like

(27:09):
the song, where the songs aregonna go for a half hour, and
then it's done, yeah? And thenit's always done. And it's like,
there's a clock at the end,yeah. You're gonna go from seven
to 730 Yeah. And then you'redone from with that. And then we
get the word communion once amonth, of course, okay, yeah.
And that's kind of how we wentnice, okay,

and what was your experience with that? Did
you enjoy that was that, youknow, something that you felt

as a child? So I didn't know that you
obligated. Were other options?
Okay, yeah, exactly. I justunderstood that to be the way
church was,

yeah. So I shared similar experience, just
I grew up traditional Lutheran,right? So Lutheran all my life,
right? Coming through, which isinteresting, because in
seminary, when you get there,they say, Hey, I'm glad you're
here. Most of you think you'reLutheran, but you've only heard
from one or two pastors yourentire life, and think you now
know the theology. And theysaid, Hey, we're going to break
you all down in order to get youto a space to say, Are you

(27:59):
Lutheran right type deal. Andso, so grew up, my dad was a
pastor at the church, right?
Grew up in the 90s at MountainView Lutheran Church in awatuki,
Arizona, which is like SouthPhoenix. Fun name, yeah, it's
fun, yeah, it's fun. Super hardto spell. And so we got into
this church, really wonderful.
And it was a growing church,large church, 1500 to 2500,
members, right? Yeah. Bigchurch, huge, you know,

(28:21):
sanctuary coming in and, and inthe back of the sanctuary, you
had all these glass panelsleading into the narthex, right?
And the narthex was an area thatwe would call our fellowship
area, right? And this was thenarthex where people gathered,
and there was coffee there, andeverything else. And I was
always there, because my dad wasthere. And so this, this
probably the 90s, I'm looking,yeah, probably in the range of

(28:41):
being, you know, I would say seteight years old, all the way
through 18, right? You know,it's like 2000 so, like, kind of
all my teenage years. And Iwould show up, and if they
didn't, if someone canceled,which I'm realizing now, a lot
of people canceled, because Ialways got asked to do things
anyway. It's just the nature ofthe church. They would throw a

(29:02):
robe on me, give me an acolytecandlelighter, and say, Hey,
you're the acolyte today. They'dsay, hey, we need help, you
know, stacking Styrofoam cups,like the classic, like Styrofoam
cups with the coffee, you know,everything else like that. So I
would stack all those, and thenI got to be like a really good
stacker of coffee cups. And so Iwould do designs at the coffee
station, right for people tocome in. I was really proud of
myself and and our church wastypical ELCA Green Book, right?

(29:26):
If you know the books, right,you're a true Lutheran, right? I
had someone message me thisweek, and they said, What color
are we doing? Which meant, like,what color of the Lutheran
worship are we doing? And theysaid, Is it red? I was like,
well, Red was back in the like,60s, right? And then you had the
LBW, and each of these last forlike, 25 years. That's crazy to
me. Like the Lutheran worship,these books are not updated,

(29:49):
like every year. Like, they stayright, and they go,

like, textbooks in Oklahoma, oh, textbooks.

That's really good. Yeah, that's great. Oh
yeah, whoa. Oh. Shots fired, um,so here we go, um, but so we
were in the green book, beloved,right? Was wonderful. Every
every pew, right? So there's allthese pews. Every pew had
agreement, pew, pew, pew, everypew had a green book, right? And
we'd always open and we'll beginthe convention forgiveness found

(30:16):
on page 94 in the front portionof your hymnal, right? And we'd
open that up. And it was abeautiful space. It was a
beautiful space to kind of comein and experience this liturgy
and come through and, andhonestly, it was every single
Sunday. It was communion. Youcame forward at the altar, you
had this you had a kneeling spotwhere you would share communion.
And, and it was great. I mean,it was just but, I mean, a large

(30:36):
part of that is that what Iremember from the 90s is Sunday
only church, right? Like that.
That was the expression that welived into. And then you had
people out in the courtyard,fellowshipping, doing different
things, like that, and so Andhonestly, great memories from
it, right? Love that time. Ithink there was seeds being
planted, kind of in thispastoral ministry, pastoral
heart of what this could mean ingrowing up in the church. And

(30:57):
then in the late 90s, right? Dadwas called to plant a church in
Vegas, right? So we made theshift, kind of like 99 to plant
a church in Vegas, and that wasa whole different experience,
right? Because we went from verytraditional church only, knowing
that type of traditional church,to very clear structures, right?

(31:19):
Everything else like that, likeno questions to to the library
at a Lutheran School in LasVegas with boom boxes and, like,
CDs, where we had to play music,right? Like, and just, you know,
40 chairs, kind of a gamble. Oh,very much so, very much so, oh
yeah, gamble Vegas. It's reallygood look. There's your third

(31:41):
joke for today. It's amazing.
We're bringing it so so veryinterestingly. But we also saw
that in the church on Sunday, wehad all these different
experiences, right? That camethrough, and that's what we
heard about in the text a littlebit. Which is why I drew from
this text. Is because you havepeople who have all these
different experiences seekingafter a relationship with God,
but one of these does not looklike the other right? You have

(32:01):
these moments where this doesn'tyou're growing up in the 90s in
church didn't look like mine. Itdidn't look like yours, right?
And yet, we all found ourselvesnavigating, even after that, to
many different churches, towhere we find ourselves today.
And

so you liked that expression so much that
when you set out to plant thechurch, you decided to do it
exactly.

So that's interesting. So, so I grew up
traditional, grew up traditionalthrough that expression, had the
church plant experience, right?
But still, only new traditionalin seminary was taught
traditional church taught tolead Bible studies, eight to 10
minute manuscript sermons, howto guide a church, how to do a
budget, how to chant, how tochant, yeah, that's great. Not
Can't we learn that? Okay, yeah,don't. Can't it is a cantor,

(32:40):
right? And it is a canticle, butit's not cancer.

Cantor leads the chance, yes,

right? So it's not a Yeah. So how much would a
cantor can't if a cantor, that'sgood, but no. The the
interesting part was that as Icame out of this, I realized
that really, where God wascalling my heart was into this
space of what was the churchthat was needed into the future,

(33:08):
right? And what were we seeingin elements of how the church
was growing right into what itwas going to become. And as we
are seeing this, we're in thestate of the seminary, which I
was in seminary, 2007 to 3011where we're watching the decline
of the church. We're seeingthese things decline, right? And
we're seeing these moments goingand and in seminary, I was

(33:29):
asking questions like, Well, howdo you get people to a Bible
study, you know, like, what if?
What if the pastor is not thepastor that goes into a church
that already exists? It was oneof my major questions during
seminary, is like, what happensif it's not just handed to you?
Like, how do you grow this? Andeverything that we are taught
was how you lead something thatalready exists. And I was like,
Well, if the church isdeclining, you're leading

(33:50):
decline, right? Like, we'rebeing taught how to lead through
this, and that's wonderful, butwe're not being taught how to
grow through this. And so thesequestions, and honestly, some of
the answers I got back inseminary were like, hey, well,
that's not what's going tothat's not what's going to
happen. You're going to walkinto a church that has a Bible
study. You're going to walk inchurch that has a budget and a
council and all these things.
And I'm like, but what if it'snot there? Like, what if we're

(34:11):
going out into these so thatquestion that we pondered was
really an identity of saying,What's what is the church going
to look like in the future, andwhat do the families coming into
the church need to see in thechurch in the future in order to
continue to sustain what thechurch reality is. And then some
of the some of the firstexperiences I had here in
Bentonville guided the churchtoo. So we're attending all

(34:31):
local Lutheran churches beforewe planted. And we're in a
church locally, and traditionalchurch, traditional worship,
wonderful. Still Still have aheart for that love it and and
our kids were in the church atthe time, right? And we had
Kaylee, and Kaylee's loud vocalready to go right, want to talk,
right? Everything wonderful. Andone of the members of the Church
turned around and shushed us,like, right in church, I was

(34:56):
like, oh, oh, never. I was like.
Right? This is a child that's inchurch that's like, in mind, she
wasn't, she wasn't over the top,wasn't going crazy, right? Just
enough to have this person infront of us turn around and say,
quiet down, right? And I waslike, Man, there should never be
a place where we make peoplefeel uncomfortable, right? In
church, right, for theexpression of children or
anything else, which is why yousee that our church is so child

(35:18):
focused, is because I really hadan experience at the start that
turned me off entirely to goingto church, right? And I was
saying, Oh, I hope no, no familyever experiences this, that they
would feel shame and guilt andthey would feel nervous about
going to church for the sake oftheir children, right, and to be
there. So we celebrate childrenin church. And so some of those
experiences are guided post.
Some of them were guided duringseminary. I think a lot of the

(35:40):
seeds were from my dad plantinga church, and just seeing that
church could be donedifferently, right? And then
experiencing those two kind ofdichotomies. So, yeah, that's
really interesting, just kind ofhow it came up through but it
kind of guides into like thisJohn three text. The John three
text was like, Jesus wasbaptizing and John was baptized,
and saying, Hey, this doesn'tlook like us. It's not helping,
and more people are going here.
And what does that mean? Solet's break into the text. Open,

(36:01):
the text, open that up a littlebit, and we love to just kind of
pause for a moment and to settleour hearts right, taking the
Scripture right, groundourselves in the Word. And so
we're going to be in Johnchapter three, and we're going
to be reading verses 22 through30. And the title of the section
in Scripture is Jesus and Johnthe Baptist, and that was it.
Why don't you start us off?

(36:24):
Alright?

After this, Jesus and his disciples went
into the Judean countryside, andhe spent some time there with
them and baptized. John also wasbaptizing at anon near Salem,
because water was abundantthere, and people kept coming
and were being baptized.

John, of course, had not yet been thrown
into prison. Now, a discussionabout purification arose between
John's disciples and the Jew.
They came to John and said tohim, Rabbi, the one who is with
you across the Jordan to whomyou testified. Here he is
baptizing, and all are going tohim.

John answered, No one can receive anything
except what has been given fromheaven. You yourselves are my
witnesses that I said. I am notthe Messiah, but I have been
sent ahead of him, he who hasthe bride is the bridegroom, the
friend of the bridegroom, whostands and hears him, rejoices
greatly at the bridegroom'svoice. For this reason, my joy

(37:31):
has been fulfilled. He mustincrease, but I must decrease.
And so that was our text fromSunday. And I really
concentrated on verse 30, Hemust increase. But I'm was
decreased. But before we getinto that, I was kind of stopped
as you were reading Roseanne,because what I had not read
through in the text, and kind ofstopped on before, but it got me
today was verse 23 John was alsobaptizing in a non near Salem,

(37:55):
because water was abundant,right? And I was like, Oh,
that's great. Like, hey, itlooks like there's a lot of
water over here. We're going tobaptize over here. That's
beautiful, right? Just a littleside note in the text, I'm like,
Yeah, choose this spot becausewater is abundant. When you live

in the desert, it matters, and we're

Unknown (38:09):
not opposed

to it, because we baptize them at kiss Creek,
right? Yeah, and I literallyhave to go walk and make sure
the creek is at a level wherethe water is abundant. Baptism,
right? I've gone up to Taggart,not Taggart tenured, tenured
Creek, right up in Belle Vista,beautiful space, but we had to
walk like it's not deep. We hadto walk like probably a mile and

(38:31):
a quarter into tenured Creek inorder to find a place where we
could get to the side, wherepeople could stand, beautiful
space, but not deep. And so justreconcile

so humid that you could effectively just walk
outside and be baptized, prettymuch it right? Like it'll just

sweat through it. It'll be great. So we talked
about this in the text, that Hemust increase, but I must
decrease. And this identity thatJohn's disciples. So it's, it's
very interesting that John wouldhave disciples and Jesus would
have disciples, right? Fullydevoted followers of Christ. Is
kind of how we name a disciplefor Jesus. The same thing was
true with John. John was beforeJesus, so John is paving the way

(39:06):
for Jesus, right, and announcingthe way. And before we get into
that, I just want to read thattoo. I think there's a great
scripture that happens in thebeginning of John, and it's
actually in every gospel thattalks about Jesus's baptism. So
you can hear a little bit aboutwhere John's coming from, and
John's disciples are coming fromas we get into this. So this is
the testimony of John theBaptist from John chapter one.

(39:28):
And it says, this is thetestimony given by John when the
Jews sent priests and Levitesfrom Jerusalem to ask him, Who
are you? And he confessed, anddid not deny it, but confessed.
And here's where the text comefrom, I am not the Messiah. And
he knew what they were asking,even though they asked it not
pointed blank out there, he knewwhat they're asking. He says,
I'm not the Messiah. And theyasked him, What then are you

(39:48):
Elijah? He said, I am not. Areyou the prophet? He said, No.
Then they said to Him, who areyou? Let us have an answer for
those who sent us. What do yousay about yourself? And he said.
I am the voice of one crying outin the wilderness. Make straight
the way of the Lord, as theprophet Isaiah said, now they
had been sent from thePharisees. They asked him, why?

(40:09):
Then are you baptizing if youare neither the Messiah nor
Elijah nor the Prophet? And Johnanswer them, I baptize you with
water, abundant water wherethere's abundant water, nor I
baptize you with water among youstands one whom you do not know,
the one who is coming after me.
I am not worthy to untie thethong of His sandal. This took
place in Bethany, across theJordan, where John was baptizing

(40:30):
the next day. And I love thisline. The next day he saw Jesus
coming toward him and declared,here is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world.
This is he of whom I said, Afterme comes a man who ranks ahead
of me because he was before me.
And I love that because it saysthat John comes before Jesus to
prepare the way. And then Johnis saying, hey, no, this
happened before me also, so I'mjust here in a moment to guide

(40:53):
and open the way in thewilderness, right? I love that
language. I myself did not knowhim, but I came baptizing with
water for this reason that hemight be revealed to Israel. And
John testified, I saw the Spiritdescending from heaven like a
dove, and it remained on him. Imyself did not know him, but the
one who sent me to baptize withthe water, said to me, he on
whom you see the Spirit descendand remain is the one who

(41:16):
baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
And I myself have seen andtestified that this is the Son
of God, and it's a beautifultext. This is a little bit
different than the otherSynoptic Gospels, right?
Matthew, Mark and Luke. And inthose Synoptic Gospels, they
actually talk about, you know,the heavens are open. This is my
son, the beloved, with whom I'mwell pleased. And we get that

(41:36):
language from there. And thenalso John, sending John's
disciples to Jesus, and saying,follow him, right? He actually
sends in some of those gospels.
And so that's where we findourselves today, that the
disciples of John are going,hold on a second. Jesus is
baptizing too, and they'resaying, and all the people are
going to him. And this is a andwhat I kind of took it as is a
church relationship, right? Hey,all the people from our church

(41:56):
are leaving to go to thatchurch, right? And we don't want
that, even though it's Jesus,right, even though they're
seeking after Christ, right?
They're going and I think we'veexperienced a lot of that, just
in our church culture, right? Sojust in a pause moment, what has
been your experience, or whathave you heard before about
people leaving churches andgoing to other churches, like,

(42:18):
what's a rhetoric that kind ofexists in our society around
that, that you've maybe beenfamiliar with,

I think I've heard that people go to other
churches because it's moremodern, It's less traditional.
It you know, it's variousreasons. But what I hear from
people who are looking forchurches is, is it biblically

(42:49):
based, yeah.

And what do you mean? So what do you think
they're asking when you say, isit biblically based?

Are they reading the Bible? Are they following
Jesus?

Yes. So yeah, it typically what that means in
the when I receive thosequestions from people searching
for churches, it means, do youread from scripture, right? Are
you opening the word, readingfrom Scripture and teaching from
the Word? Which still blows mymind, because I have, personally
have not attended a church wherethey have not opened scripture
and taught from scripture, but Ihear more stories of churches
who do not open the Scripture. Iheard a story from Easter of a

(43:21):
person who attended a churchservice on Easter where they
never opened the word, theynever read scripture, they never
read the gospel, and the storywasn't about Jesus, like and I
was like, what is happening,right? And so I've never been in
a church that hasn't opened theword and read from the word on
that and say, Well, what's yourexperience? What have you heard
about people that kind of go toanother church or think about
that and what the local churchresponds to in that.

I mean, there's, I guess there's many. I
guess if you're looking for achurch, the question you have to
ask for yourself is, first, whatare you looking for? Yeah,
precisely. And I would hope thatanybody looking for church is
looking for church becausethey're looking to find God, and
they think that they'll find Godat church, yeah, and it's true,

(44:06):
even though God doesn't live inthe church building, yeah. But
if, whether you're looking tofind God or you have found God,
Your destination is the church.
Regardless, you have to end upin a church. It's not optional
in any walk of Christianity tonot be part of a church. You
just want to dismantle the crazymyth that exists out there.

(44:28):
Hebrew says, Do not neglectgathering together. It is not
optional to try and live outyour Christianity on your own.
And so ultimately, then you haveto then ask, what are your sort
of theological commitments,right? And I think the only
important thing, I thinkthere's, there's a scourge in

(44:50):
American Christianity, which isnominalism, the the idea that
you can just say you'reChristian. Yeah, because you
attend church, but the Christianstory doesn't galvanize your
spirit, you know, and that is,that is, to me, the exact same

(45:12):
thing as the Pharisee, thePharisee movement that Jesus was
speaking against in the firstcentury, because that it creates
a worse off scenario where wesomehow sit around, especially
here in the Bible Belt, and weall tell each other we're
Christians and how Christians weare, without actually living out
Christian things or beingcommitted to living and pursuing

(45:36):
the life of Christ. Yeah. And sothat's that, to me, is a big
danger. And so ultimately, then,like, what are you what are the
sort of the doctrine that thedoctrinal commitments that you
have, obviously, you want toland somewhere, where you align,
because otherwise things getcomplicated. Yeah, but, but
ultimately, if you're justchecking a box, go somewhere

(45:59):
else, frankly, because you canjust, just go play golf. There's
so many better things to do ifyou're not, yeah, if this isn't
something that is meaningful toyou, yeah, right, you know. And
so then the last thing is, ifyou're walking with Christ and
you're looking for a church, areyou at the point now? And I

(46:20):
think that's really the case ofChristian maturity in general.
Are you at the point now whereyou can stop thinking about,
does this church meet my needs,right? And do I meet this can I
fill the gap in this church?
Yeah. And when you get to thatlevel of mature, it's totally
fine if you're not there yet,yeah, right. It's how many

(46:41):
people come to the churches,right? Exactly. Churches, right?
Exactly. But when you get to alevel of maturity, you start to
thinking, how can I be anambassador of God's Kingdom in
this city, in my workplace andin this church and everywhere
that I go? So I think that'skind of how I would approach,
yeah, like church shopping inthe first place? Yeah,
absolutely.

And that's a part of the way that I ended the
message right on Sunday, as Isaid, if you're coming into this
church and you're not asking thequestion is, what is my next
step? Right? If you're notcoming here actively looking at,
how am I taking the next step inmy relationship with God through
this church, then you're justattending, Yeah, but you're just
coming into one maybe appreciatethe church, one that maybe
you're in a season where youjust need to be filled and it is

(47:20):
a lot of

funding. You make a lot of friends at church.
Oh, it's great. Yeah, it can bea fun social exercise, but if
that's all it is, yes, I thinkyou're missing out big time.
Yeah,

because not just the church, but a
relationship with God providesso much more than Sunday
morning, right? Like thatcontinues throughout the week.
And so we really challengepeople at the end of the message
to say, hey, ask the question,what's your next step when you
come in here, right? And it'snot that the next step doesn't
exist, right, but it does take apersonal investment in that next
step, right? We can't force you,like, so it's hard. Like, when

(47:51):
you said, hey, they asked me towear a dress, I'm like, Oh, man.
Like, if I put language out likethat in the church, like, Hey,
if you're female, you gotta comein and wear a dress, right?
Like, wow, right. Same thing.
Like, what does it mean that youwould come in and have a
testimony? Hey, if you want tobecome want to become a member,
you have to have a testimony,right? And I think, dang, it's
really hard to come in and havethis commitment, but you do have
a personal choice, like you havea choice to take the next step.
And we cannot demand that. Wecannot command it. What we can

(48:14):
say is, hey, if you truly wantto deepen, if you truly want to
have a relationship with Christ.
It needs to be a personalrelationship with Christ, and we
can help guide that. We are hereto celebrate it, support it,
have community to surround it,to help you deepen in many
different ways, but thatpersonal choice on a
relationship with Christ needsto be a question every time you
come through these doors, what'smy next step in that

(48:36):
relationship? And so that wasthe first question. Then I said
the second question is harder.
The second question, I think,does deal with spiritual
maturity. The second questionis, okay, now, who are you
discipling? I truly believe thatif you're in a relationship with
Jesus Christ, that God, throughJesus Christ, is sending people
in the work of the Holy Spirithere on this earth into your
life to disciple so that theycan hear your testimony. And I
believe that everyone has atestimony. I really believe that

(48:58):
people walking into church,every single person here has a
testimony. Part of the church'smission should to be to bring
out those testimonies, right, tohear those stories. So we can
say, oh my gosh, I know someonewho's going through that, right?
They would need to hear yourvoice, right? They wouldn't hear
how you got through this, right?
And then the place those twopeople together, right? In a
really incredible way. And so wesaid, hey, if you're, if you're

(49:18):
in a place where you come intothis church and you're asking
those questions about what thenext step, great. Next step
great, if you're walking out ofthis church, you should be
asking, who you're discipling,Mm, hmm, right. You should be
asking, Who is God sending in mylife? Who am I speaking this to
that we have a faithrelationship in this and and I
think it starts to get away fromthe church being siloed and
really becoming the localchurch, right? Where we can all

(49:38):
be local church, where, if it'snot here, that's okay. We'll
guide you somewhere where yourfaith can grow, and that's the
hope. And in fact, there was onetime that people came to me and
they said, Hey, so and so leftthe church. And I said, Yeah,
I'm aware. And they said, Hey,we need to go get him back. And
I was like, Well, what do youmean get him back? And I said,
ride a horse. And laughs. And Isaid, What do you mean getting

(49:59):
back? And they said. Well, weshould go seek after them. I
said, Aren't they attendinganother church right now? And
they said, Oh, absolutely. And Isaid, Great. I said, That's
awesome. I said, that might bewhat they need, right? They
might need that presence rightnow to deepen their
relationship, and that's great.
But if they have questions orthey want to talk about
something, Oh, awesome. I said,I'm totally in but if they feel
connected, right? It's not justabout the neighborhood is the

(50:19):
only sole place where people canhave faith, right? Great. I I
hope they're connected, or ifthey have questions about that
church, I would love to talk tothem about it wonderful. But
that reality says, Hey, yourrelationship with Christ is more
important than the neighborhood.
Your relationship with Christ issomething that we want you to
continue to seek outside ofthese doors on a Sunday morning.
And so, so we kind of grewthrough that. We kind of grew
through the 90s. And use thistext as in a good example of

(50:42):
like, how we see people going todifferent areas, even John's
disciples after he claimed, I'mnot the way. I I'm not I'm
preparing the way, but I'm notthe Messiah. His serve. The
disciples were going, but canthey go to Jesus? You know, all
our people are going to Jesus.
And he said, Jesus mustincrease. I must decrease. It's
a beautiful, beautiful languagein Scripture. So any final,
closing comments?

I was reading out of acts this week, and I
read a passage that I hadn'tremembered reading before,
great. And I was like, Kara,have you read this before? Yeah,
I honestly don't remember that.
Yeah, there's a couple littleverses in there. Acts 19, I
believe, where Paul is inAchaia, so he's in Ephesus, and
he's traveling, and he gets to anew town, and there he discovers

(51:26):
some disciples, yeah, of John,yeah, great. And they're like,
What are you guys doing here?
Yeah, it was like, Oh, we'redisciples of John. It's like,
but don't you know about Jesus?
They're like, Oh, is he, is hearound? Is it a thing? It's
like, Yeah, have you guysreceived the Holy Spirit? Yeah?
There's like, No, not yet. We'dlove to, yeah. I think to me,

(51:47):
that was a fascinating impactthat, like, sometimes we don't
understand the impact that weeven have Greg on other people's
lives, especially when yourattitude is that you must
decrease, yeah, and Christ mustincrease. This is like, this is

(52:08):
years down the road. The churchhas already exploded, yeah, the
Council of Jerusalem has alreadyhappened. And Paul's traveling
preaching to Gentiles, they'vealready made their determination
on circumcision and kosher laws,and he shows up somewhere, and
there's some disciples that arestill hanging out there, yeah,
that are disciples of John theBaptist, and they're unaware of

(52:30):
anything that's happened, andthey had to be caught up. But
these the seeds we sow with ourconduct in our life. They go
further than, than, than we cansee, yeah?

And I love that definitely. I love that
language, because being John'sdisciples, this is much like
people who never attend adifferent church, yeah? And they
have no reality that there areother things out there that
exist, right? And all of asudden they're like, hold on a
second. You've gone to adifferent church. Well, what's
that like? And they'd say, like,oh this. And this, like, Oh my
gosh. That might fit, like mylife at this point, a little bit
better to hear from thatperspective, right? And it's

(53:05):
great. And then all of a sudden,the world opens up into this
personal faith. And I've seenthat a lot in this last probably
1015, years of the church, isthat this personal discovery of
faith again is coming back, notobligation to church, not
loyalty to church, notgenerational identity. It's this
personal discovery of faithagain, coming back, or people
going, Oh, I don't. I want totake a journey of my faith. And
that might not look like thesame church I've always been at,

(53:27):
right, and it might lookdifferent from that. So I kind
of celebrate it. I love it. Sothat's an interesting text. Acts
19,

yeah, you're 18, or I love it. Just imagine
how much easier what with John.
John was just the ripple effectsof what John was doing. How much
easier that made Paul's life.
Yeah, absolutely in most townsthat Paul got to, he ended up in
prison or chased out or beaten.
Yeah, in this town, because theseeds of John, many years ago,

(53:54):
were had been growing. All hehad to say, Have you heard about
new developments? And they werelike,

Yeah, that's good. That's great.

So I reviewed my notes, and I do have a couple of
notes. Oh so,

oh yeah, roseanne's notes.

So I wrote that

note number one,

Jesus must increase. I must decrease. So
good. Note, people need to bediscipled from whomever fills
their cup. So they need to gowhere their cup is filled. And
why is that? So they can takethat cup and share it. Yeah,
it's great. So the important is,the important thing is to follow

(54:43):
Jesus. So fill your cup withJesus and then go disciple
others with Jesus. And my othernote was,

well, no, we decided that we're not going to

do every note.
No, we gotta do note number two,

I guess we're done. It's.

So what is your next step? If you come in asking
the question, you are indiscipleship, and that's when we
grow in Christ, and then who areyou following? And I was
thinking as you were talkingthat we're all apostles. We're
all teachers. We teach, maybenot with our words, but with how

(55:21):
we conduct ourselves. And thenwe are all disciples, too. We're
all learning and growing andchanging. I'm not the same
person I was in my 20s,definitely not the same person I
was in my 30s. So so we grow andwe change, and our paradigm

(55:43):
shifts, and we start thinking indifferent ways, and our vision
that said every Sunday is changechurch. So everyone who walks in
here changes church because theycome in with their perspective
and their cup gets filled, andthen they go out and they create

(56:05):
relationship to share, yep, andthat's what church is.

That's what church is. I love that that
well, thanks for pulling up yournotes. I appreciate that. I'm
glad you got a little bit out ofthe message. That's really
wonderful. That's really good.

I just I feel like the the 1990s when
churches, I think I might havealready said that when churches
were growing and growing, itbecame easy to be a consumer. Mm
hmm,

yeah, right, just to come in and take from
church. Mm hmm, right, insteadof get back to church, yep. So
we're going to go back intoSunday in a very traditional
way. So now I haven't talkedabout how we grew up and
everything like that. We'regoing back in traditional
Sunday, which we're callingsacred Sunday, and we're
bringing out the elw, theevangelical Luther worship,
which is the cranberry hymnal,not the red hymnal to be

(56:51):
confused with. We're doingsetting four, and we will have
acolytes. We'll have a choir.
We're going to walk the wholeliturgy. We're going to have
canticles, right, sung by Kentchanter, a chanter that was
close enter the cantor. Yes, we

chant the canticles along with the cantor,
yeah,

along with the cantor. So the person is a
cantor who chants, the one thingwe don't do is, can't we do

Unknown (57:16):
not, can't we can't, no, we can't,

can't, can't, but we can chant,

yes, well done. So this Sunday is going to
be a wonderful exploration. Iwas talking to a pastor this
week, Luther pastor, and I wassaying, Hey, we're, you know,
we're doing these things. And hegoes, Oh, is this like a service
change, like you're adding atraditional service? And he
says, or is it one time deal?
And I was like, Well, right now,like, it's a one time deal. I
was like, that's what.

It's a reverse proof of concept, yeah.

What do you guys think of that? And people
like, we love the experience,yeah. So, so this Sunday is
going to be a great and thennext Wednesday is Tom's
ordination, right? So we got thecongregational meeting after
Sunday, then Tom's ordination,and then he'll be preaching on
graduation Sunday, sure, whichwill be really, really
wonderful. So that is your TNCpodcast for today and all guys,
people said, Amen, alright,computers stayed on the.

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