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