Persecution, Revival, and the Church’s Future

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome back to the faint Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host, Will Harib, joined by Joe and Jack Wilkie. Excited to bring you another episode this week after 4 July week. Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday, spent some good time with your friends and family. We are ready to go with another episode geared up for another great episode. Jack's put together a good outline for us to go over today. We're talking about kind of what does the future of Christendom look like? What does the future hold for? Just kind of the state of Christianity again, the state of Christendom across the world. A lot of good stuff we're going to get into before we do very quickly. If you are a new listener, only be listening to us for a few weeks, maybe a few months. You might have heard us mention something called the deep end. That is an extra segment that we do every single week as a part of our Patreon focus Plus, where subscribers are able to access that. We do video version and then of course the audio version if you just want to listen to it. But we basically rehash the episode. We allow subscribers to ask questions, to comment on things that we discussed. And usually we get some just great questions, things that we didn't bring up in the episode, some questions that really make us think. And so that's, it's basically just an extra, I say shorter mini episodes. Sometimes it's not. Usually they go about 30 minutes, sometimes they go 45 minutes. You just kind of never know. But, um, that's what the deep end is. And man, I do, I wish every single one of our listeners was able to have access to that. So it is part of our Patreon focus plus there's all kinds of stuff going up on focus plus that I won't tell you about right now because we've done it before, but stuff going up every single day, audio, daily devotionals, all kind of stuff. So encourage you to check that out. But again, just for the deep end, because it's extra content, it's another, um, it's a. It's another segment where we get to talk about a lot of our favorite topics that we enjoy talking about. So with that being said, I think I am going to go ahead and turn it over to Jack to get us into the, the direction that we're headed with this episode. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm going to apologize right up front if it sounds like I'm being bombed while this episode goes off. It is July 3. I am visiting my in laws and they live in the neighborhood of the most incredible firework show I've ever seen in my life, which goes on for five nights. And so they are, you probably hear them in the background right now. So I'm going to stay muted. I'm going to stay muted as much as I can, try and speak over it as much as I can. I hope it's not impacting your listening, but it's either no episode or the patriotic firework episode. So here we go. We're talking this week about the future of Christendom, about religion in general, about the direction it's going. Obviously, you could look at it pretty negatively, say things are not going in a good direction, but how and what changes do we think are going to happen in the future? And we did an episode last year called kind of best case scenario. Worst case scenario. That's not what it was called. It was kind of in that vein, and it was about what Christians need to start doing to make a better future. This isn't going to be so much on what you can do, but bigger picture on the community churches, the catholic churches, the orthodox churches, what churches are growing, which churches are dying. What can we learn from those? And I want to start by talking about in European Christianity, Church of England. I was just reading that a quarter of their churches have 20 members or less on a given Sunday. I mean, it's just insane. And then other places over there where, uh, 95% of Europeans at one point identified as some form of Christian, that has dropped down to 70%. Uh, and it's like, well, obviously they're not 95% christian, but, like, it was cool to claim it was just something you did. Yeah, I'm a Christian. Whether you go or not, that's dropped off precipitously, and it keeps dropping year over year. Uh, a lot of the, you've seen maybe these videos of the, the beautiful church buildings over there that have been turned into coffee shops and clubs and, uh, stores and libraries and stuff like that because they just don't have any use anymore. Nobody goes to church anymore. And you look at that and think, that's Europe. But on the other hand, 30, 40, 50 years ago, uh, there they were about where we are here, uh, with compromise, with decline, with things like that, with people saying, boy, if things don't get better soon, we're going to have a problem. And here we are. And so looking at them, it, it should kind of rouse us into action. But maybe it will, maybe it won't. But we can also see again what's working, what's not working. What changes are coming to the world and things like that. But what would you guys have to add? Obviously, we're not going to talk about the european stuff that much. I just wanted to use that to set the table of, like, this is where it could be going. And so I want to keep the focus more here in the US and what we see in our communities and things like that. But anything to add to that point? [00:04:39] Speaker C: What's crazy is we had a young lady come to our church, just visit our church, and she was talking. We happened to know the person that she came with, and they were telling us later that she said she knew more about Osiris than she did about Jesus and she had never heard the gospel. She knew virtually nothing. And she goes to school in Hickman County, Tennessee. That is insanity to me that she's. [00:05:06] Speaker B: The Bible bell, grow up. [00:05:07] Speaker C: You're talking the Bible belt as, as rural Tennessee as you can get. And she, I believe, was 1516 years old and did not really know hardly anything about Jesus Christ. This is where we're headed, this biblical illiteracy where. And Jack, you have your book that came out. I think it's a fantastic resource. Make sure to check it out. Sunday school, catch up. That's really for those that maybe didn't grow up in Sunday school. That's going to be the large majority of Americans going forward, seemingly, of not growing up in Sunday school, not having these basic biblical concepts. Who is Noah, who is Moses, who is Jesus, who's Joshua? You know, like David, they don't know. And so when you see this biblical literacy, it's very difficult to build a strong foundation. And when we talk about elders, we talked about preachers in the last couple episodes. We're talking about those. It's going to be difficult to replenish. We're going to get into this in the episode, but I think it's going to be difficult to replenish the biblical leaders if we're not really trying to reverse the biblical illiteracy. Um, yeah, as well as I see it at least. Well, how about you? [00:06:06] Speaker B: Because. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Because what you have is a growing number of, like, steadily growing number of just agnostics, of people who, you know, would, you know, fall into the statistical none affiliate. They are not, not christian, but they're also not islamic. They're not, they're not Buddhists. They're just none, you know, they're, they're agnostic people who kind of indifferent, don't really know whether they believe in God or in Christianity or nothing. And I mean, not to just spell, you know, doom and be Mister Black pill to start, but I think what's dangerous about that, just about these young kids that as you spoke about Joe not knowing who Jesus is not really having, because you think about 670 years ago, even if people didn't regularly go to church, kids grew up kind of, at least theoretically, believing that there's a God out there, created him, created him or her and whatnot. If you have young people that are just completely ignorant of that or completely apathetic to that, and they grow up in their twenties, 25, 30 year old young people, that's very much going to impact their behavior. And as we've seen, it does impact their behavior. When you believe that you are created by God, that you're here for a purpose, you act differently, you act better, you're a more moral person. Even if you don't go to church regularly, even if you just fall under this Christendom umbrella, as opposed to the people who would disagree with that, who again, may be agnostic or would be in the statistical nun group, is it any surprise that we have, you know, the furries and we have transgenderism and we have school shootings and we have all these problems that we're going to bemoan left and right as a result of kids growing up without any kind of. Again, we're not even talking about Church of Christ biblical foundation. At least I'm not right now. I'm talking more. So just about acknowledgement of God, acknowledgement of a higher power, acknowledgement of, oh yeah, there's something more out there beyond just me. Kids aren't getting that right now. So that, that's, again, not to be Mister Black pill, but that's pretty alarming. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting that the nuns did become the number one religious affiliation in, uh, in the US. And not nuns like the ladies with the funny hats, but like, as you say. Yeah, no. N e the. No, no religious affiliation. But the reports came out earlier this year that it's down. It is starting to come back down. It reached its peak in 2021, 2022. The last two years has started to come down. And so there's your white pill, your optimism of maybe there is a turn here, but what are people going towards? And you do see people going towards eastern orthodoxy, toward Catholicism, toward things like that. So we'll talk about that a little bit later in the episode. But we do have to deal with this. Even as that's going down, people are not claiming none anymore. There's still a tough spot that we're in. I meant to mention as well, another positive thing was about 1015 years ago, the new online atheists were really on the rise. Richard Dawkins was rabid and selling millions of books and all that stuff. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Chris Harris, another guy. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're just hitchens, Chris. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Sam Harris, yes, yes. [00:09:13] Speaker B: And just mean and very evangelistic. And college campuses were just wracked with this new atheism. Now that's looked at as embarrassing, like, as a joke. Like Dawkins is a joke, Neil degrasse Tyson is a joke. I mean, all these guys. And so that's a positive development is kind of, a lot of people went from atheist to agnostic. That's obviously not conversion, but that's a step in the right direction. The nuns are getting away from the nuns maybe a little bit. And so there's positivity. But right, in the meantime, we can't just sit back and be like, well, they're just all going to come flocking back to church, not going to work that way. They're going to come flocking back to where they find truth. Some of them, others are going to go different directions, but the status quo can't continue. And as you consider the status quo and you think about the England problem with those anglican churches turning into coffee shops and all that. We've talked before about having gone to rural churches in Kansas and Iowa and different places around the country. Well, even in Colorado, Colorado where Joe and I grew up, not a Bible belt place and places where we'd go up hunting in the mountains or on camping trips where we'd go and visit them at church. Those churches don't exist anymore. And the people that went there now have to drive an hour and a half to another town to go to church because theirs is gone. It was down to seven members and somebody died. And that's it. That's bad. That is what we are facing down is lifeless churches heading for closure of buildings sitting empty of that kind of problem. And it's very easy for us in the Bible belt where you can throw a rock and hit another church to go, hey, it's not that bad. But when you look at a map of like church buildings in America and where people can attend and you pull out a church directory or whatever it may be, it gets real scarce for pretty big population areas as you go out west. And that's a problem. And even in the Bible belt here there's a decline, but over there there's going to be millions of christians without a church to go to. And so you do have to grapple with this reality. [00:11:10] Speaker A: I think about, ive grown up in middle Tennessee, basically my entire life, lived in Decatur, Alabama for two, two and a half years. And what was a common theme for both of those things is just a ton of growth, a ton of population growth. Decatur installed a ton of new just when I was there, a ton of new restaurants, ton of new things. Just population growth. Live in Spring Hill. Now, I dont know if this stat is true. Its probably a bit of an exaggeration, but its not a huge exaggeration. Theyre putting up four or five houses a day out here in Spring Hill. Like the population is just like it's exploding. And you think about the restaurants that are coming in and all this development, all this development, and yet churches are heading in the complete opposite direction. Again, you have all these restaurants coming in, you have all these businesses, all these houses. Like people are coming at least to this area that I live in currently. And again, when I was in Alabama and then living in Franklin, it was exploding. Churches are doing the opposite of that. So that's, you know, kind of one of the tough realities that we have to deal with, Jack, as you're speaking about, is that there are now even, and even though I'm in the Bible belt where there are a lot of churches around, you would think that along with this population growth along with other things that are coming in, hey, more churches and more, you know, Christianity spreading. And that's just not necessarily, at least it's not keeping pace with all the coffee shops that are coming in, the restaurants and that and that kind of thing. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah, go back to, yeah, I was going to go kind of get into the next section. So if you had another point on there, go ahead. [00:12:38] Speaker C: I just want to go back to what do you attribute, you know, when you talk about people going from atheist, agnostic, you are right. We are seeing a shift because these are kind of juxtaposed. You know, there's a little bit of juxtaposition there of like, on the one hand, it seems the England like atheism is really cool and that's very much where they went. We're seeing a turn from that. Like you said, I think that's a very exciting thing, thing that the Richard Dawkins are now seeing as jokes. So no, they're not converting, but they are seeing something maybe is out there. They're entertaining the possibility. At the same time, we're seeing less church people or more unchurched people than ever before. To Will's point of, like, these metropolitans, there are areas that are just growing exponentially, but the church isn't growing at all. Where are the, I mean, what do you attribute maybe the change to, from atheism to agnostics or agnosticism? And this is, I guess, the rest of the outline as we'll get into. But I am curious, like, how do we grab those people who are asking questions and get them back into church? That will come later, I think. But I want to go back to the initial point that you were making. Like, what do you attribute that change to? [00:13:44] Speaker B: I think Covid obviously was a big life shift for a lot of people, and then it, like, grounded you in reality of, like, mortality is real. And I, like, your people are connected more than ever. And so I think where you've seen political shifts and you've seen people moving across the country, like, I want to be closer to family or I want to be in this place and not that place. You kind of get a sense of what really matters. And so I think that's part of it. I think there's a lot of things that was a very big college movement, as I said, and as people, you come out of college and it's like, yeah, the same way a lot of people are socialists in college. And then they go out and they get their first paycheck, and it's like, well, hang on a second. And I think you go and try and live by the rules of atheism and the prescriptions of atheism, you find out it's really hollow. You also see just how cringy it is. I mean, just how, like, that's all those people have. And so they just get so into it. And it's like when you go out in the real world and you converse with real people and there's love and there's truth and there's goodness and beauty and all that, and you go, ah, nothing matters. We're all just acts that existence seems so empty. Yeah, yeah. And so I think when you, you test it against reality, it runs into a wall really hard. And you have even Christian. Now you got me using the wrong name, Will. Richard Dawkins. They're all Christopher. All the atheists are Christopher. Sorry, guys, which is funny because it's Christ, but, you know, anyway, Richard Dawkins was just a few months ago, was saying, well, I'm culturally a Christian. I don't believe in God. And I think it's been bad, but I think it's better when we have Christmas lights around rather than other things. [00:15:17] Speaker A: So that's such a crazy thing for such a staunch atheist to say, too. [00:15:20] Speaker B: He wants his cake and eat it, too. He doesn't want to submit, doesn't want to live his life that way, but he wants the benefits that Christianity brings. Righteousness exalts a nation, right? And so even he can see, man, there's something to this, that we're better off with it than without it. And so there has been that change. But what I wanted to get into with this is kind of, we're going to take this in two different directions. One is the world's response, like, what's coming from the world? And part of that is the atheism, agnosticism, they've tried. And then the other side is going to be the church's response. And the ways the church is trying to meet the changes we're seeing around them in ways that is absolutely falling on its face. And then things that are working that shouldn't work, that don't make sense that they're working. So we'll put that to the end of the episode. But let's start off with the world's response. And I think the most obvious is they're declaring war. I mean, like, there, there is persecution coming. There is the live and let live tolerance. It's not happening. It's, you got states like California. Hey, anybody who tries to tell a kid, you know, kid comes to church and your church's counselor, therapist says, don't be gay, don't know you're not actually a boy or a little girl, he can go to jail, lose his license, be out of a job and things like that, that's persecution. People go, it's not persecution. That's persecution. Like, if you can't say the truth and I what's right and honestly practice your religion. The guy in Colorado, the cake baker, my dad got to meet him. He was so thrilled about that. He was really excited about the getting to shake his hand and thank him for, in a sense, the guy's honestly taking humongous stands, costly stands with his livelihood and all that of just saying, no, I'm not going to bake the cake for the gay wedding and all the things they're trying to put him through on the other, that's all he's doing is saying, I'm not trying to bake a cake. Like that shouldn't be some revolutionary thing, but it is because of the world we're coming to. So states like California and Colorado and so let's talk a little bit about the world of persecution and what that might look like. [00:17:16] Speaker C: I think it's going to be so, as you already alluded to, we're seeing that on the rise. The interesting thing is we are the silent majority. And that's what's interesting about persecution as it comes is I think you have a lot of Americans who would still identify as Christian. The question is, will they identify as Christian? Like no atheist in foxholes. But there may be few christians in a war, you know, when it, when they really are declaring war against us. And it's going to be interesting to see how many cultural christians there are, especially Bible belt. Yeah, they believe in God, but when, when things get, like, actually real and they really are starting to throw people in prison for these type of things, how many are willing to stand? I think that's going to be a very interesting thing for me. But there are a lot of concerns as you think about what's coming. We already know that they have persecuted us tax wise. You look at the tea party, I mean, that was a big thing from the IR's, right? Ir's. They were going after the tea partiers. So there's that churches are going to be hit hard. There's a thing going on over in Africa is a Kenya that we've been supporting that. Yeah, they just decided, they declared that these preachers had to pay mass tax, I mean, like $40,000. They don't have this money. They know it's going to come from America. Just those type of things could happen. And then you start looking at congregations getting hit. How do they pay the preacher? Like, they have no money. How do they. What happens then when the financial persecution starts? And I think that's probably where it's going to start, is they will financially start hitting you in some way, the same way that they have, um, you know, the, the church's tax breaks might go, things like that. And then I think it's just going to fall from there. But the world is very good at trying to tear down. It doesn't build up because it doesn't know how. It will always tear down because that's what Satan does. God is the one who builds. And so its going to be very interesting to see how many christians are willing to stand up against that. But specifically, as the church starts to get financially persecuted, what that changes things into. [00:19:10] Speaker A: So talking about persecution, the question of unity comes up. And we saw this with COVID That was not necessarily a persecution per se, but what Covid did. Covid was obviously a massive event that really impacted a lot of churches. And what you saw, I mean, you guys remember it very well. Unity suffered a ton. You had christians that were going at each other's throats over masks and vaccines, and should we shut down, should we stay open all these things? And so that was not a very positive thing, unity wise. But again, Covid was not necessarily a direct attack on the church. When we're talking about this persecution, I am curious your guys thoughts. Jack, you've got on the outline here, does, you know, when this persecution comes, financial, maybe, whatever it is, would this result in the growth of unity? Would we see kind of an inverse of what we saw with COVID where during COVID it seemed like the petty squabbles amped up. People were more nitpicky about various things. And of course, they were the big items. Like, I just mentioned the mass and the vaccines. But even beyond that, it just felt like we were at each. Christians were at each other's throats just a little bit more than normal. It was amped up, you know, even on more minor things. And so the question you got on here, Jack, of do these petty squabbles maybe go away? Do we realize that, hey, we've got bigger fish to fry than some of these ridiculous things that we, as congregations argue about? There's the, of course, proverbial at this point, color the carpet, color the pew stuff. But even beyond that, just, you know, maybe differences of opinion here, there not only anything doctrinal, but just things that, again, petty squabbles, just differences, you know, I don't like this person because they did this or they said this or whatever. Does that go away? I'm not sure. To me, it would seem like it should, that you have this idea of, once again, we've got way bigger fish to fry. We need to come together. We need to unite. But to be fair, that's what we should have done during COVID and we did not, um, you know, at all. Wasn't even close. So I'm curious your guys's thoughts to this question. Cause I think the question of unity when talking about persecution is a pretty big question. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I think back to the COVID thing, like you said to Andy Stanley, who? Preacher of what was the biggest church in America? One of the worst preachers, pastors, whatever. [00:21:25] Speaker A: Could hardly be called a preacher, could hardly be called a church. [00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he's an absolute joke, but he had an interview of he was so embarrassed by the churches that insisted on staying open. That man, they just made christians look bad. And so I think there's going to be the political posturing that happens as things get worse because you're seeing it now with Andy Stanley types of, wow, a lot of christians are really trying to, you know, to set themselves apart from the world and really kind of go at the world and call the world wrong and call them out of their sin or, and he's apologizing for that. Oh, yeah, just apologize. The world's been really, the church has been really mean to you guys, and we're sorry about that, basically. Please like us. Please like my church. And we're just nice guys and things like that. And so there's going to be those christians and those churches who look at the others because what that's going to lead them to do and what's led him to do is compromise. Oh, okay. Well, if you're going to get really mad at and persecute or take tax exemption away from churches that preach certain things or take certain stands, okay, well, we just, oddly enough, we restudied the Bible and we just found out that that's not in there. So we, you know, we won't take that stand anymore. You're going to see that kind of thing, and so you're going to see those people look back on just the same way, look back on those of us that don't compromise and be like, wow, wow, you guys are just making Jesus look bad. Look at the world hates you guys. Like, read John 15. I mean, like, it is part of the, part of the deal is when a world hates God, it should hate us. But then, as when you talk about the christians who won't do that, I hope, I would really hope because we're not in the same place as the christians going into the catacombs way back in the day and the coliseum and all the bad stuff that was happening in Rome where it was all pretty much one church. Things are very different now. You've got the churches of Christ across the street from each other that won't talk to each other because one of them put a water fountain in and things like that. You would like to think that if church gets driven underground or churches are really being pressed down or there's legal things or protests or whatever it is, that we'd look and be like, you know what? We are on the same team. I think that kind of goes to my point about the Andy Stanley types. You can say directionally, yeah, he's up there talking about Jesus every week. We are not pointed in the same direction. We are not interested in. We're not talking about the same Jesus, even. Whereas I think a lot of the things. A lot of the things that people have divided with us on this podcast over, given us the grief about man, gunned all of our heads when it comes to that, I would like to think, and not, oh, we all just get soft on doctrine. [00:23:56] Speaker C: No. [00:23:56] Speaker B: We realize what really matters and who's really with us and who's really on God's side and who's nothing. You know, you're going to know them by their fruits in those moments. I would like to think that would be a change that would come out of where things are going. [00:24:09] Speaker C: The way I see it is if this does take place, which, I mean, really pray that it doesn't, but if it does, it already is kind of starting to. I think there will be waves of persecution. I think the first wave will kind of sift through the political, through the ones that are going to stand with the world. The ones that are going to, you know, it's. They're christians. As long as it's expedient, but the moment stops becoming expedient, they're out. I think you have a second way, which will really kind of a lot of infighting still. This is, you know, breaking it down so the church will shrink, in my opinion. Um, but I think when you really hit maybe that second or third wave, the end of the second, maybe third wave of persecution, you will have a unity that is stronger than anything, because at that point, you'll really know, like, this guy has been through it. He is. He didn't. [00:24:52] Speaker A: The chaff at that point, you're saying. [00:24:55] Speaker C: Exactly. I think that's when you'll start seeing true unity. I think initially, no, the church will not be unified in this. There will be way too many political people who just, you know, really want to take a stand and show that they are. That they basically stand with the world while still thinking they're more christians. It's the same thing that happened with COVID of. They browbeat us because it's not loving your neighbor like they thought they were using Christianity in the Bible to beat down those who are still trying to keep the church open. Um, that's a scary thing when you can twist scripture like that. There's a lot of people out there like that, but they won't be there for long when the second and third waves start hitting a persecution. So that would be my thing, is, I think the church does shrink, and I think. But I think the unity gets stronger. The smaller it gets, and that's why we call for small churches. Now, I think big churches. I'm not saying big church should break up, but like the idea of let's get every church to be mega church. No, let's not. Let's keep those local congregations, keep them small and such, and kind of go from there. So, Jack, I don't know. I guess the final question that you have on the outline and that I think is worthy of getting to will good come from that. There's a lot of people that very much feel we need to be persecuted because the church grows under persecution. It is the best thing for a church. It's experienced persecution. And so they think really the only way to kind of sift through the chaff and everything else is through persecution. And that that's is a very good thing. So does good come from this, Jack? And what are your thoughts on that? [00:26:21] Speaker B: I think it would be God's discipline. Where I think I've talked about before, I know I've written about before. It's not persecution so much as it is punishment. It's discipline. It's God saying, get your act together. Because when the church does what it's supposed to do, things go well. We influence society. We are the leaven that leavens the whole thing, the whole loaf. And so when things are getting bad, people are like, all right, this is it. This is what we're called for. It's like, no, this is because we're doing Badlandhouse. We're Israel. And I'm not making America Israel. I'm saying the church is Israel. Going after idols, that needs to be crushed a little bit before we call out to God and say, oh, we've been chasing idols. We're sorry, we're going to get on the right track. And so in that sense, no, it's not a good thing. In another sense, when God did let them be oppressed by the Philistines and the people around them and things like that, it did lead them to turn back to God. And so I think God's discipline always produces its intended result. And so in that sense, it will prove to be a good thing, but it's not. It'll be a good result from a bad thing that shouldn't have happened if we had had our act together. And so, yeah, that, that attitude that christians have of like, all right, we're persecution. Oh, boy, this is, this is what we were waiting for, like, and we're going to talk about this at the end, but I don't think christians realize how influential the church is supposed to be and how it can be. We just kind of think this stuff happens to us. And so, yeah, persecution is good because it's always been good for the church. Like, no, no, this, this discipline that we're about to come under is not a positive thing. And so that's the side of it, of kind of the, the world's response as they start hating us more, as they start financially pushing on us. Is there anything else on this? [00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious real quick, y'all's thoughts on, because we've obviously, there's been a lot of different things that we've tackled issues that we, and we love the church. We love the way the church, the body of Christ, we love the church as it's been formed and as it's been as an institution. Where we have a huge issue is we feel like there are a lot of aspects of the church, the way the church currently functions, local congregations function, that are just quite simply not meeting their capacity. They're not serving the role that they're supposed to do. We've got elderships that are not doing what they're supposed to do. We've got families that are not leading, you know, fathers that aren't leading their families the way that they're supposed to. We've got young kids that are not staying faithful and just leaving the church. Just a lot of things wrong. I'm curious if you guys think that, you know, when we're talking about good coming of this, do you think because this also ties into what Jack saying about kind of this being punishment, you know, with Israel really not having their act together, worshiping other gods, not turning down the high places, and it takes that discipline and takes that punishment to kind of get them to wake up in many instances. Do you guys think that when, you know, let's say this persecution comes and gets really bad, there will be enough rear view mirror looking where people will acknowledge, yeah, there were, there were some things that we as a congregation, there were some things that the church did that we definitely could have done better. You know, that, that, whether it's elderships, whether it's church leaders, whether it's families, fathers, children, whatever, I just feel like so often right now, people look at and go, man, the church is just doing so many great things. It's so great. Everything's just peachy keen. Everything's going really well. Do you think this will cause people to look and to look critically and to look, to be just honestly at the fact that we're just not meeting our capacity in a lot of congregations, elderships again, spiritual leaders, ministers, whatever it is. I feel like that we don't have that self awareness right now in a lot of congregations. Do you guys think good coming of this? Do you guys think that this, maybe some self awareness will be found in this? Like looking back going, maybe, maybe this hasn't been so great the way we've. Again, fathers have led their families and elders have led congregations. Or do you think it will still all be just, man, how on earth did we get here? [00:30:20] Speaker C: For some, I think for some they'll see it and they'll see, boy, we kind of messed up on this one by and large. No. And once again, I hate to keep referencing Covid, but that really is one of the sheerest, like one of the clearest signs that we've seen of how people will react. And there were a lot of people that still didn't get it. There were a lot of people that, you know, even after realizing how wrong they were with COVID Oh, yeah, no, it's, it was pretty bad. Like you were one of the biggest pushers of this and you weren't able to see how wrong you were in this. They're not able to admit it. There's a lot of people that will be looking to save face and saving face sometimes is making excuses and sometimes like we just didn't know or man, I wish we would have seen it come in or things like that instead of we messed up because there is a humility with, we really messed this one up. We should have been paying attention more, should have listened. Whatever it is. There's a humility that comes with that, that I think right now it's couched as optimism and we're couched as the major pessimists and the cynics and everything else of like me and you guys are really hard on the church. Yeah, but we're also realists. And so there are some very positive things. There are some. [00:31:28] Speaker A: And we know what the church can be. Right. [00:31:30] Speaker C: Exactly. Like we're calling it to something better. Everybody else is taking it as it can be and saying that it's great. So I guess my answer to that would be the large majority, in my opinion, will not see it as a learning opportunity. They'll just try to save face. But that's the cynic coming out in me, I suppose. Jack, what are your thoughts? [00:31:46] Speaker B: Jack, I am more optimistic, but I am more pessimistic in the short term and that I think it's going to have to get worse and worse to get rid of some of the chaff, but also to really wake some people up. But where the optimism is is this leads us beautifully into the second half of our outline is like how religion is responding is when people are coming back, they are not coming back for cheap Christianity. They're coming back for real commitment. And even if I don't agree with the direction they're going, they are coming back like, I'm all in on this. I'm not here to mess around. What they need is preachers and elders that are going to tell them what they're looking for and as you say, give them guidance on the home and on fathers and wives and the roles of everybody and all those things. Yeah, that needs to happen. And I think that's the thing where you might need more persecution before people take it seriously. But the people who are seeking, there's not a lot of casual seekers, like, I'll give church a try. I mean, there's still some of that going on, especially regionally, depending on where you are. But the, I think there is some very serious seeking going on. So let's talk about where churches stand. There is a lot of growth in the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church. We'll talk about that in a minute. Let's talk about the community church thing because that's been the big box thing for 30 years. And lots of towns have even towns that don't have very good church presence growing up there in Colorado, Joe, not exactly a stronghold of Christianity or Christendom, whatever term you want to use broadly. We still had some mega mega churches. There was a 5000 member one, two minutes from our house and stuff like that. [00:33:22] Speaker A: Well, and what I've seen just from, I guess, anecdotally speaking, when people leave, when younger people, you know, 35 and down leave the church of Christ, that's where they're going typically, is through these community churches. And it's usually, again, generally speaking, usually because the church of Christ rightfully would not budge on a marital situation or a sin they had in their life. They go to this community church magically, nobody seems to have a problem with whatever sin they have in their life. So, cool, we'll just go here. So I see that with people that have left the church of Christ and then also with young people, just young people in general are kind of moving towards, um, these community churches. Um, it's the entertainment, it's the, the feel good. I just feel really, really spiritual. I feel close to God. And so Jack, you got these questions on here. Is it good and is it sustainable? Obviously, the first question being, is it good? I don't think it's good in the sense that a lot of the times, as I just referenced, you have folks that are going to those churches because they are very light on doctrine, because they are not going to hold anybody's feet to the fire on. How many marriages did you say you've been in or hold anybody's feet to the fire on, you know, what clothing they wear, what, you know, literally anything. It's just show up. The Andy Stanley thing you referenced should show up. We really are happy you're here. We hope you get a good experience from our worship, and we hope you come back next time. That's what you know. So is it good? Is that part good? No, absolutely not. And then is it sustainable? This is what you just referenced of. There is some level of just kind of cheapness to that, fakeness to that that I think a lot of people do see through. And I think once this persecution comes, I don't think this community church model, you might say, is all that sustainable, because the die hard, you might say, are not usually not the ones going to those community churches. And so when the persecution comes, how easy is it going to be to just drop out and say, yeah, okay, you know, I've really only been here for the show and to, quote unquote, feel spiritual. If I'm going to get persecuted, I can feel spiritual at home. So I don't know. Those are my thoughts on those two questions and just kind of my personal experience with what I've seen. People migrate to community churches. What are y'all's thoughts? [00:35:29] Speaker C: I very much agree. I have seen some community churches that are, especially on the smaller front, they'd call themselves community churches, non denominational. Some of those are very on fire for God, by and large. I very much agree with you. It's few and far between. I think most of them, because it's about a show that they put on, especially the ones in Colorado that we saw. We're painting with a broad brush. But from what we see, it's a lot about the rock band and it's a lot about the feeling. And the one thing they get right that I think we don't is they do inject a lot of the feeling. The thing they get wrong is they go way light on doctrine or no doctrine at all to get that feeling. Um, there is a blend. There's. There's a happy medium, I think, to be found in that. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Well, I don't think they're there. I don't think their feeling would ever be the kind of feeling we need to infuse. Theirs is all artificial, the, the smoke machines and the dimmed light. I very much agree that the musical, like it's all very manipulative to get to a feeling. [00:36:24] Speaker C: But I would say having seen this with some, and some of the clients I've worked with who go to community churches, they do have a, like had one guy who had the men in the congregation put their hands on him and pray over him and it's a very, very moving thing where again it was just, it's small, but the men came together, went over to this guy's house at one point, but even at the congregation like there's a touchy feel. Ain't no chance we're laying hands on somebody like that. But it made a huge difference in this guy's life where it really felt like they were behind him, it felt like they were there, like they cared about him. We don't have that level. So I agree with you, the, the manipulative like rock band and put your hands in the air like this is a concert. Absolutely not. That's all manufactured and fake and really detrimental ultimately. But the true connections on some of those where we would stand firm on doctor and go well does that even work? And that seems liberal. There are some things like that. But by again I'm talking like the 5% man. Like by and large I very much agree with what you guys are talking about. I don't think it's good. I really don't think in the long term it is sustainable for all these young kids that are doing it. Because at some point you have to sink your teeth into doctrine. You can't just kind of float through the whole there's got to be religious thing, there's got to be substance to it and they're lacking that. [00:37:43] Speaker B: I think some of the stuff we're about to talk about you're seeing people like go deep dive into the catholic faith, the orthodox faith, reading the early church fathers, reading councils, reading stuff like that, creeds and confessions. They go back almost 2000 years and really getting into it. And so this thing of, and these are people that are very committed to the religions they're joining. Nobody does that for the community church. You might like be an enthusiastic participant but as far as like man I want to know more about. They don't have anything for that for you. They've got maybe a what we believe page, very minimalistic, very little doctrine and so as lessons we can learn in the churches of Christ is, I think some people look at those and that is the lesson they learn. Like, okay, let's just downplay doctrine and distinctions as much as possible because people don't really care about that. And it's like, yeah, that's a great way to get people in the door. That's not a great way to ground people. That's not a great way to really give people a strong setting in the. [00:38:40] Speaker C: Faith to create followers. [00:38:42] Speaker B: Right. And so that's something that you, you really do need to explain that and make that red meat, like the deeper parts of the faith available for people to show. We really have something here versus. Let's just keep this. We've talked so many times about the shallow unity, where as many people as possible can get in this door and feel like they're having a good time and close to God and all that. So there's that. Uh, is it sustainable? Again, I, I don't think a lot of these are going to be open in 2030 years if things continue down the current trend just because of that, because it's the cheapest thing in the world. It's consumer Christianity, as I wrote a whole book about. Come in. What we can do for you. And I want to go a little bit of a different angle about this because this is something I've seen and I want to get your guys take on it. We've talked before about Aaron Wren, a very interesting writer, wrote about the three worlds. There was the positive world, where people were viewed. Christianity, positively neutral world was, okay, you're a Christian. I don't really care, that's good for you, whatever. And then the negative world, which is, oh, you're a Christian, you're one of those gay haters, you're one of those bigots, whatever else it may be. And then we currently live in the negative world. A lot of these community churches are running neutral world software, which is, hey, you think it's okay that we're christians, you just don't want to be a part of it. But let us show you how nice we are. Let us show you what a good place we are, how cool we are. And one of the things that you will see very consistently in these churches, whether it's the community churches that, you know, the, the faith church, the, the hope church, the, you know, they don't have a real name on the door. It's just kind of a description, vague description. But you also see this in a lot of churches of Christ. Almost everything the church does is for the outsider. We're going to put on a big community meal. We're going to go down to the marathon and hand out water. We're going to have a toy drive, and we're going to have things like that, obviously charitable things. You seem like the biggest jerk in the world to be like, hey, don't give stuff away to people. But so much of, hey, it's like, come be a part of our church. We're going to try and recruit you through these means. And then when you get in the door, we've got some stuff for you that you might enjoy to keep you happy. But the real thrust here is to let the community know we're here and we're really nice people. A, again, I think that's a neutral world strategy. We don't live in a neutral world anymore. But b, I'm not sure that's what the church is supposed to do. What do you guys think about those kinds of things? [00:41:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is textbook think deeper podcast material in the sense that we've been preaching this message of this neutral world software not working for the longest time. Jack, you brought up the kind of outside events. I'm sure we brought it up in one of the last two preacher episodes. Our sermons are structured that way. Our worship is structured that way of just, hey, man, please just come visit us. We really want you to like us. And what's interesting about that, guys, is so obviously, yes, Jack, I agree with you. [00:41:36] Speaker B: I want to, like, specifically on the, like, doing nice things for the community thing. Like, yeah, it seems very weird to criticize that, but I think that is some. Is the question at hand here. So that that specific angle of it. [00:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead, Joe. [00:41:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not fully against the idea if you're using it as a. I think of our congregation, sometimes people don't know where we are. We're kind of behind the hill. Our sign's not great. So using it as a way to let people know that you're there, I suppose using it as a way to. Because a lot of times with those churches that very much want to show how nice they are, they are a little bit squishier on something. They have programs that are just for you, programs that are, you know, as you get them in or they're squishier a little bit more on the LGBTQ or whatever it is. And the phrasing they use, you can always tell they always use those phrases. So it kind of depends on the church. I don't think it's a tell, per se, for a church to get out there in the community and do things. I, I think it's okay for them to do it, but I fully understand your point of, like, just showing how nice we are. There's multiple ways we go about it. So I'm, I'm on the fence. I think a church can do it. Well, a church can sponsor those things just so people kind of know, like, oh, wow, okay, there's a church there. Maybe that would attract a seeker. In reality, probably not, but it's one of those, like, see if it works. [00:42:55] Speaker A: I think, I think a church, I think a church has to answer the question when we're doing, when, you know, considering doing these things, what is our end result here for a disciple, as we've said before, is it just somebody who will come and show up twice a month, maybe three times a month if we're lucky, show up to worship? We'll drop money in the plate if that's the goal. I think that's what this neutral world kind of strategy. I think a lot of times, even though churches will never say that, I think that's what they're satisfied with, is we'll just get them to show up. Maybe we'll get them, you know, not, not to, you know, be cynical here, but we'll get them baptized and, you know, maybe they'll, they'll attend, you know, fairly regularly if that's the goal. I do think it's, it's pretty pointless and futile. I think using something like that as the absolute basis foundation for, hey, we want to make you a disciple. We want you and your family to be faithful, faithful disciples who were showing up to church regularly is the bare minimum. I still think that can be done with the starting point of the clothing drive or the things like that that you said, jack. But I do think typically that's not, you know, churches are like, well, that'd be great if we could get that. But the end goal for a lot of churches is just kind of, let's get them to show up fairly regularly. And so this neutral world software stuff I think is, but I'm curious if you guys think like, using the neutral world stuff of, hey, please like us, you know, we just really want you to like our church. How committed of a disciple can you make from that? Like what, what is the, what is the, the ceiling, you might say, of somebody, and I guess that's really what you're asking, Jack, is what is the ceiling of somebody who comes in from, from that perspective. Like, oh, man, maybe it really would be cool to worship here. These do really seem like nice people. What is the ceiling of their discipleship? I guess, would be another question that you have to answer. [00:44:38] Speaker B: Well, that's where you get to choose your own adventure. Christianity, we've talked about before of like, boy, we really hope you come in and just want to plug in and teach kids Bible class and go on mission trips and all that stuff. But if not, if you just want to show up on Sundays, okay. And so that kind of thing gets allowed a lot, you know, we really hope you'll plug into your small group. We assigned you to one, and we're going to kind of nudge you to do it. But there's that. But to the issue of kind of the charitable things and things like that, again, like, you're not saying don't do nice things to people. I think, number one, there's an element of do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And when you're always telling people how much nice stuff you're doing and patting yourself on the back and Matthew six and everything Jesus said about giving to the poor and kind of blowing your trumpet, I think there is some of that to it. And so you do have to consider that of, like, are we telling everybody how charitable we are? That's. That's something we were told not to do. The other thing is, my father in law works, used to work in marketing for sprint cell phones, and he pointed out that, I mean, like, his entire job is trying to get somebody from Verizon to sign up for Sprint, to try and get from at and t to sign up for Sprint. And when you look at what those companies do, when you've been with Sprint for five years, who cares? Pay your bill. The guy that's not with Verizon, Sprint loves that guy more than anything. Sprint wants that guy to know how important he is. We'll give you an iPhone, we'll give you a month free. We'll give you whatever else. We'll give you unlimited minutes. Back in the day, when it was a big thing, we'll just throw the kitchen sink at you to let you know how valuable you are as a customer to us. We'll bring you in. You've been here for a year. Pay your bill. There's no discounts for you. There's no perks. There's nothing like, I kind of think a lot of these churches do this to their people. We care so much about you. Out while you're out. There because you are the focus of this church. And when you come in the door and you become part of the family and just keep showing up, like, yeah, we're, yeah, but like, you're already here. We got you. We put so much effort into getting people that when you're here, all we really care about is that you keep coming. And so we'll just do that. And we just need you to stay on as a customer. But our real efforts are to the people outside and letting them know how great and how nice we are and all that. I don't, again, hearing myself say this, like, man, people are going to think, well, Jack said, don't, don't do anything nice for anybody ever. No, not at all. I think there's ways for the churches to be charitable and much quieter, more effective, more individual reaching people ways, rather than, and I think we should be taking care of the household of faith, first of all, like make sure all of our own people are taken care of. If there's anyone unemployed or old widows and things like that, like do all of that before you look outside for a single dime. But especially these toot your own horn kind of things. That is this community church mindset that really much like we're pointing to the people on the outside way more than the inside. [00:47:26] Speaker C: I think you make some very, very good points in that that are difficult to argue with. You're going to have people argue with it. You're going to have people that look at all the good we can do, the clothing drives and things and, yeah, I think the church can do a lot of good helping orphans. [00:47:39] Speaker B: I'll be very interested to hear in the comments, like, what do you think of, because it's not, lots of churches do things like that, but there are some that are just very oriented to that. Like they're monthly. Here's what we're doing. Community kind of thing. [00:47:52] Speaker A: And it's very publicized. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's announce it. They want their blog, social media and all that stuff, and just their outside signs, things like that. So because. Yeah, go ahead. [00:48:03] Speaker A: I was just saying, is there a level two? You kind of said a second ago, but Jesus in Matthew six, more so to the individual. But I think it could so apply as, could also apply as well. The congregations of, like when you do your charitable deeds, you're not doing them for everybody else to see. You know, you spoke to kind of the left hand, the right hand dynamic. I think Jesus, they're talking to individuals, could very much still apply to the church of like hey, if your main banner on your website and you're renting out billboards and all this about, hey, come to our clothing drive, come. That's kind of just kind of the example we keep using. I do. I think that's a great point. I think there is a level of you're trying to broadcast how charitable and how nice and how kind you are when that's not necessarily the recipe that's laid out well. [00:48:44] Speaker B: And the benefits of this relationship are for the church. A lot of times people point to Matthew 25, did you do it to the least of these, the least of these of my brethren? He's talking about christians. And basically how you treat the church is how you're going to be viewed on those things and supporting the missionaries and things like that, and those that are persecuted, whatever it may be, and the same in John 15, well, you're going to be known for your love, your love for one another like that. There's this internal love that this is an unbreakable family. This isn't stuff we just kind of shell out all over town. Hey, you get this for free whether you come in or not. You get all the benefits and none of the requirements. And I think that's a dangerous road to start going down when you, you kind of tie your evangelism to it. You tie all this stuff. It's very outward focused and nothing. This is what you get for being part of the family. [00:49:33] Speaker C: That's very interesting. Yeah. Will you ask a question earlier, getting back to that, of, you know, how deep can somebody go into this? Like how, how, what's their threshold, what's their ceiling, uh, in all of this. And this ties into Jack's point, uh, of just everything's geared toward getting the new customer, the new guy in, and then, but you see the guys that do excel, and this is unfortunately where we're starting to see them go into the catholicism. Like they want to sink their teeth into something. They're just very driven and their wheels are constantly turning. Like, I want to know, I want to know, I want to know. But what they're finding, and especially in the community churches, I think, but even in the church of christ, they're finding a lot of fluff. They're getting a lot of fluff sermons, they're going to have fluff bible classes, and I want to know. They're ravenous. This is the choose your own adventure to what Jack talked about. And so what we've left them with is like, basically stick to the key doctrines, stick to what we know they're wanting to go deep. They're wanting to really learn, and we. We stifle them in those moments. And this is why we have a lot of people, I think, leaving for those. And this is, to Jack's point, at the beginning or toward the beginning of, like, there are a lot of people that are really starting to come around, are really starting to be curious about these things and dig in deeper than they maybe ever have before. And we do them a grave disservice when we do the bait and switch of pulling them in and then not caring about them. And when we're pulling them into the niceness, we're pulling them into this neutral world, Christianity. They're ready to go all in. They're ready to take on the world and the persecution and everything else. And we just want you to be nice. We just, you know, we really want the world to know that we're nice people here. Like, that's no longer appealing to them. They've grown beyond that. And if we're not careful, we have nothing to offer them. In reality, we do. But so many churches aren't willing to present the meat of the gospel. And this goes to Hebrews five, right, of, like, you guys are still on milk. And I think there's a lot of churches that are still on the milk of niceness instead of really going to the meat of, like, what does it mean to fully be a Christian, and how do we give them something to sink their teeth into? So. [00:51:27] Speaker B: Well, this goes to. We asked about the optimism earlier. Why I'm optimistic is this we've talked about before. The fancy term is moralistic therapeutic deism. Basically feel good religion. That doesn't require much of you. And there are shades of that. I mean, there's obviously the extreme versions, like Joel Osteen, but there are lots of shades of it that are maybe less blatant, but it's essentially that. And it's found in a lot of community churches. It's found sometimes, unfortunately, within the churches of Christ. That's going away. And you think about Joshua. Choose this day whom you will serve. There was the gods your father served, or there's the real God and Elijah Mount Carmel. Pick one. Stop limping back and forth between two opinions. Moralistic, therapeutic deism is riding the fence, is, I want the benefits of God without committing to goddess. You don't have that anymore. In this negative world where being a Christian is starting to be persecuted, starting to alienate you from your friends, to really take a stand, you don't have that and so you're growing away from that. And as you say, it's leading people, unfortunately, to the Greek Orthodox and to the Roman Catholics. You guys did a godly young man episode on Greek Orthodox converts and why people are going there. And so we'll just kind of do a brief recap of that, of things that are drawing people to that. And as you said, joe, part of it's the depth. You had a point. Before we get into it, you go ahead. [00:52:45] Speaker A: I've got a point I want to make, but it can wait. [00:52:47] Speaker B: I think one of the others is structure, like from a. When you're a new person, it's not. All right, we'll see you next Sunday. It's here. You're going to be catechized. You're expected to show up to these classes, learn these things, know these basics, have a prayer life. We're going to instruct you on how to do it. They make disciples. They teach people how to live out the faith that they have, rather than. Well, we're going to have a new Christians class for you for a few weeks, and that ought to cover it. Like, there is an expectation there. There is a. If you're gonna be part of this family, you better show up. And for the, you get linked with. [00:53:16] Speaker C: A mentor, check in on your prayer life. [00:53:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:53:19] Speaker B: The orthodox, the Catholics, not as much. They're very much that. Right. They invented choose your own adventure Christianity. But even at that, if you want to get into it, you can be catechized, you can go to confession. You can, like, really, there's stuff there, there's guardrails, there's. There's a path for you to really grow from day one that people want. [00:53:38] Speaker A: I think for me, the biggest point with this, and I made it in the Golly Men podcast episode, is the seriousness behind it. And obviously, for the Golly, I'm in podcast, we're talking to young men, and I made the point that men, and especially young men, want to be a part of stuff that feels important, stuff that feels serious. Most guys, again, if it doesn't feel important, if it doesn't feel serious, it's not going to be worth our time. Again, for most guys, like, sorry, that's not worth my time. The way that the modern american church of Christ is set up, is set up to make it feel, especially for guys, like, it's really not all that important. All that important. Again, put your two or 3 hours in. Just tune into a sermon, shake some hands. It's not important. It doesn't feel important. Again, especially when you consider the fact that they are not. There's not really much instruction on, here's what Monday through Saturday looks like. Here's what your mornings should look like. Here's what your evenings should look like. Here's what your family life, your work life. All these things should look like. There's a level of seriousness. There's a level of importance to that. That, again, just biologically, guys want to feel. Guys want to feel like stuff that they're involved in is important. And so we're, you know, it's no surprise that guys check out in church. They check out, you know, with their church life or their spiritual life because this is, I guess, a spiritual leadership thing. We haven't made it feel important for them. We haven't made it feel serious for them. And so it is this seriousness with the greek orthodoxy specifically. It's the kind of like, hey, you're a part of something very important here. I mean, anytime you know that it's the idea of an exclusive club. If it doesn't feel important, like, who wants to be a part of this club? And nobody. But when it feels really important, it's like, man, I want to be a part of that. That. Man, I want to feel important. I want to feel really serious about what I'm doing. I think I gave the analogy in the episode of like, walking into, you know, a job interview at a place and everybody's dressed really nice. There's a lot of structure. It's really, you know, it's really serious. It's very. You can tell, you know, law firm, for instance. Man, this feels really, really important. As opposed to the job where everybody's just in slacks and just, you know, kind of loosely. [00:55:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:55:43] Speaker A: It just doesn't feel as important for guys specifically. I think that's the biggest reason why greek orthodoxy is taking, you know, so many young men by storm is they're offering an importance and a level of seriousness that the Church of Christ is just not, at most places. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Had to look at this while you were doing it. Just. Just so I had my facts right. I didn't want to make this claim and be wrong. The church that's closest to the one we attend. We. It's a church. It's a community church. Like a mile away. Literally. Their logo on their sign is a couch, basically. Like, come on in. It's comfy here. I'm sorry. When you come before the living and holy God you shouldn't be all that comfortable. There should be a level of discomfort. And again, like, you're saying, willow, of the seriousness of it, and they're telling you on their sign it's not serious here. It's up to you. Like, just come on in and just slide on in. It's real comfy here. That why, again, as we get into a world where evil becomes more and more apparent day after day, where the stakes of it all, like, you're really, people are getting a sense that, man. [00:56:46] Speaker A: Not just that, but more stuff is like bidding for your time. [00:56:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:50] Speaker A: And so it's like, I'm going to give my time to the important stuff here. [00:56:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And where people are really looking for grounding. A couch is not grounding. Like the come on in and you can do whatever you want kind of thing. That's not grounding. And so I'm very optimistic about this. Even if, unfortunately, I don't want people going to the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek orthodox church, I want them coming our way. We've got to rise to the occasion and offer them the kind of things they're looking for and not faking it, not pretending to be Catholic, but saying, hey, you can find meaning and ritual and purpose and seriousness and all that here. And, I mean, we had to, we had to have a big argument and do a whole podcast episode over whether it's important to not wear slippers to church. Like, wake up, man. We're having this argument where people in the world are looking for something real. [00:57:39] Speaker C: Well, this is what I was going to say. It's just with the ritual and the beauty and the, I mean, some of these people are having masses in Latin, and it feels so important, and they're coming out in the robes and it's like this matters. This is, this is holy. This is something different. We got guys dressed like Bob the builder preaching from the pulpit. Like, excuse me. No wonder why people wanted to, oh. [00:57:58] Speaker A: We'Re spending four minutes on the Lord's supper and just rushing through it. [00:58:01] Speaker C: That's exactly it. And they are putting the Lord's supper as the pinnacle. Like, this is what we are here for. And we have break a little chip off, you know, and then even the styrofoam little pieces, like, and we think that's holy to God. We think we're doing our due diligence because what difference does it make? It's all the same. We worship God like, but it's different. And I'm not, look, I'm not going to orthodox, I'm not going to Catholicism or anything like that. But we have to realize we had a buddy who's looking to go, you know, we're trying to pull in church Christ, and he's kind of going back between that and Catholicism, which is an interesting split. And one of the things he talked about is I can show up to mass every single day. I can go to the church building and feel that holiness and really ground myself with God every single day. No, we can't. We're not going to offer mass or anything like that. But there is a level, like we have to realize what is being offered out there of this everyday commitment of growing closer to God. And as I referenced in the orthodox church, getting a mentor who's going to check in on your prayer life. Like they set this up. We need to get serious about what we're doing. There's a reason this is, this resurgence is coming back around. We don't want to miss the boat of everybody coming back toward God, you know, or a lot of people coming back toward God. And we're too busy, you know, with making a joke or a mockery of the Lord's Supper, making a joke of the pulpit and not taking ourselves seriously. We're offering the greatest thing possible and we're too busy trying to be nice guys instead of just saying this is the gospel and here's what it's all about, and here's the depth in knowing. Spiritual warfare is taking place, and we're prepping you for that. And instead of spiritual warfare, again, we're too busy trying to figure out how we're going to navigate. Like we can't say anything about get your kids out of public schools, things like that from the pulpit lest we get fired. And yet they're preparing for spiritual warfare. These people are very, very aware of the times and nobody in the church, very few people in the church legitimately seem to be aware of the times that we're in. And this is exactly what we're talking about, the neutral world. Like, we are up against it. We got to wake up. [00:59:57] Speaker B: Well, when you talk about spiritual warfare, even demons and aliens thing like we did the episode on last year and things like that, they've got answers. Like, especially the Orthodox are. I mean, they got book after book after book that they can point you to be like, look, we've known this stuff for a long time. This is where we stand on this, and this is spiritual warfare kind of stuff. And I mean, all that the evangelical world has is Michael Heiser. And he gets a little bit, I'm not really fully on board with what he's doing, but people are starving for even that. Like, we're just somebody who will talk about angels and demons in the spiritual realm around us and things like that. And so with all of these, I think you guys have said the word a few times. I think it's a good one to kind of wrap. What we're doing with this episode is you look at the path forward, it is grim, it's dark, it's not in a good place right now. Persecution is possibly there. Seriousness is the answer. Is taking this serious enough to live it out, taking it serious enough as a church to just stop throwing ourselves like, please like me, please like me, please. Serious churches don't do that. When you see people going for, I want depth, I want ritual, I want gravity to what I'm doing. Be serious and looking at ourselves and thinking, are we serious? And not the serious, like, I can't ever make. Make a joke. I can't ever lighten up. Like that guy that we've all been around, that guy who's just kind of mister stone face. [01:01:17] Speaker A: Like, no, not talking about taking God seriously. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Right. Like realizing there is a weight to. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Everything we do matters. [01:01:24] Speaker B: Yes. Treating it like it matters. I think that's the biggest thing in the community church thing. Boy, a lot of that treats it like it doesn't matter. A lot of youth group activities, a lot of crazy things that you just read about and things going on in churches and the sermons, the ideas that get floated out there. People treat God like he doesn't matter. And it's no wonder when people inside the church do that. The people outside the church go, yeah, no, I'm good. I'll be a nun. I'm not going to affiliate myself with the church. And then it's also no wonder when some churches are like, this matters like crazy, and we've been doing it every day for 1500 years, people go, I'm listening. Tell me more. And no, we can't offer. And we can say we offer back to 33 ad. I mean, we can get into the ins and outs and all that. But like, what we do have is seriousness. If we will be. [01:02:12] Speaker A: The last thing I'll say is, like, it does feel like in a way, we're wanting to give people a chance to kind of straddle the fence. Hey, you want to be sort of partially committed, go for it. We've got that. You want to be fully committed? Sure. You know you want to be partially committed. We can do both of those things because as you described that, Jack, you have those who are not committed at all. The nuns, the. No, you have those who want something where they're fully committed. The greek orthodoxy. And it does feel like sometimes the church is trying to give people the option to ride the fence a little bit, maybe give God a couple days, couple hours. But that's really all you have to do to just sum up everything you just said. That cannot be our path forward. That cannot be our solution. That cannot be our answer. [01:02:57] Speaker B: Could you imagine some of these types, Andy Stanley types or whoever, following Jesus around? You know, if you do not pick up your cross daily and follow me, you know, deny yourself and follow me, you can't be my disciple. Well, I mean, you probably take Saturdays off, right? I mean, he didn't mean all of that, right? Or if you don't need my flesh and drink my blood, you can't be considered. You know, you can't be one with me there in John six. Like, all the people are like, Andy Stanley's. [01:03:20] Speaker A: He's apologizing, those people. [01:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, guys, I clearly. I mean, he said what he said, and I think that so much of this unserious Christianity has been trying to tell people in the same sense you look at, like, theistic evolution and political compromise. Well, abortion. Well, we don't have to take too long. Let's not talk too much about that. It's. Yeah, the Bible says this, but you don't like it. So let me figure out a way to tone this down just enough that you'll come in the door. We're done with that, right? Just be serious about God. And I think is the path forward. [01:03:50] Speaker C: And people have a. They're detectors for lies and for garbage there. That's coming on a lot more. In this woke world, in this post Covid world, I think people kind of have these detectors of like, hey, I can sniff out when this is a joke. I can sniff out when this is garbage. And that's why you have to have legitimate substance. The reason why you don't go orthodox is because they have just as many problems. They got a lot of problems. We can have the seriousness of them. We can have the, you know, everything we just talked about, the structure of them, the depth of them, because we do have that. But we can also have correct doctrine. We can also have things right on our side. So it's about fixing what we have here because we do have the bones around it that are so, so good and that we do have the doctrine. Right. We got to go out and show it. We got to let people know what we have here. And so to wrap it all up on this white pill. I do think by and large, you're seeing a younger generation that wants to know God. They want to know something's out there. I asked the question, Jack, of why we think that is. It could have been the death, you know, all the deaths of COVID like that wakes you up as to I could have died. I have friends that are dying. I have people that are dying. That wakes you up to what comes next. And this is an exciting time, could be an exciting time for the church. We have to make sure that we land, stick the landing on this, that we're recognizing the time that we're in, we're recognizing the resurgence that we're seeing, and to offer something radically different, offer something that it matters to them. And so, yeah, I'm white pilled about it overall. Yeah, there's some cynicism, there's some depressing thoughts overall, I think it will come back. You're seeing the rest of the world. You're seeing Africa, you're seeing even Europe, places in Europe you never thought would be the case, where they're coming back to Christ, Poland and things like that. It's happening. So don't just look at America when you're looking at the state of Christianity, Christendom. I know we focus mainly on that, but obviously, I think Christ will reign. He is reigning, and I think he will continue to reign. It's just christians have to point to that and show that on a day by day basis. So, fells, anything else you'd say to wrap up? [01:05:55] Speaker B: I don't think so. [01:05:57] Speaker C: All right, well, thanks for listening, and we will talk to you again next week. Our.