REWIND: Lines of Fellowship and Church Autonomy

[00:00:00] Speaker A: FOREIGN. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Hey, folks, Jack Wilke here once again with the last week of our hiatus, we're running back one that very pertinent, especially for members of the Churches of Christ, on fellowship issues and exactly how far church autonomy extends, what a sound congregation is, things like that, a really fun discussion that we had. And so that's what we've got for you this week. We do plan on being back next week, Lord willing, maybe Even with a YouTube short discussion here by the end of the week. So keep an eye out for that, make sure you're subscribed, and as always, check out focus. Focus.org/plus, lots of stuff still going up there. And we'll be coming back with the Think Deeper and Think Deep End episodes starting next week. So we look forward to that. But in the meantime, here is another rewind lines of fellowship and church autonomy. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Foreign. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Let'S go ahead and get into this episode. It is not a part 2. It is a segue, I guess, from what we talked about Last week, Romans 14, matters of opinion, keeping fellowship even when we disagree, things like that, into a, maybe a broader discussion of church autonomy, of getting along. And so I'm going to pass it to Joe to kind of explain what we're doing here. And, and again, kind of the transition away from Romans 14 and into what we're talking about this week. [00:01:27] Speaker C: Sure, sure. So Romans 14 is about matters of conscience, opinion, things like that. Some things aren't Romans 14. Some things are, are, you know, there, there's a hard and fast line. And I think, I think that's really kind of what we want to get into, is we want to get into church autonomy, but we also want to get into when does somebody get to enter? When does somebody leave the church? When does, when does somebody stop becoming a Christian or when does somebody stop being a Christian? They've, they've gone too far, right? When does a person get disfellowshipped? Is this a matter where every church should be the same down the line on what gets you disfellowshipped, or are there certain matters where elders can put it in place and say, at this church, this is what we're going to do, even if it's, you know, something that's not explicitly laid out in Scripture, but this is what we're going to do here at this church, this is how we're going to do it. And if a person doesn't comply, do they get disfellowship? So we wanted to get into some disfellowship, but it's not all that it's church autonomy, it's elderships, but it's also, how do we know when a person has once again taken basically taken the stronger brother, quote, unquote approach too far, where now they're just in sin, it's no longer a conscience issue, now they've really delved into sin. So I don't know if I'm doing it justice. There's a lot of questions, I suppose, inherent in church autonomy and kind of what makes a Christian tick, so to. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Speak, and where this matters, or I guess I should say why this matters, is because we've belabored before or bemoaned, I guess, before the fact that we have so many congregations who. You've got a wide range of people who don't really act the same, don't really look the same, don't really talk the same, don't really dress the same. They just all come to the same building because there's no guidelines, because there is no, you know, clear picture of this is no. At this church as. As a Christian. This is what we do here. This is the way we dress. This is the way that we speak. These are the things that we do. This is where we are on Wednesday nights. You know, whatever it is, it's kind of an every man for himself. It's, you know, again, for the most part here, I'm generalizing, of course, but for the most part, it is very much a, you know, without these. Without the answers to these questions of, okay, when does a person stop being a Christian and when do we need to start enacting church discipline? Because we always think church discipline of like, oh, if somebody, you know, does a major sin, you know, turns to homosexuality or cheats on their spouse, you know, unrepentantly. Those are kind of the. The big ones that we. That we look at. What about some of the other ones? But what, again, what we. What it ends in is a big. As a congregation full of people who don't really look the same. Some are super spiritual, some are not. Some are raising faithful kids, some are not. You know, and, you know, we've communicated this idea in many congregations of, again, kind of we're all equal and when we're not. And then these questions need to be answered of when do. When do shepherds need to step in, when do elders need to step in? [00:04:25] Speaker B: Where. [00:04:25] Speaker A: How far does church autonomy extend? So, Jack, where do we want to head next with this? Just to set the stage there for the episode. [00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, one of the other things I want to Talk about is like on a broader church fellowship issue of, you know, if heaven's going to be the big family reunion, you don't want to get there and have there be clicks like, how weird would it be to go to a family reunion? And it's like, well, these, these cousins. Don't talk to these cousins, these cousins of you. This, these cousins with skepticism. And, and we kind of do that with churches is, well, they're brothers, but we're, we're not friendly with them. We, you know, like, we, we think they're saved, but barely kind of thing. And, and you want to be united with everybody who saved, every church who saved. Even if there's somewhere you're like, I'm kind of skeptical of how they do things. I wouldn't do those things that way myself. But it's really hard on. You've got this progressive conservative spectrum and there's a point at which you can go too far in either direction for sure, but everybody within that are brethren. And so how do you deal with that? In fact, we, we got some good messages on this from a few different people asking kind of about why can't we get along, why can't we? And so you've got on the individual level, the church discipline thing. What is a church going to tolerate? And then that kind of extends to groups in the church. And there's the famous quote, in essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, in all things charity, or in all things love. That's a great quote. Here's the problem. Who decides the essentials and non essentials? To a degree, every church decides the essentials and non essentials which determines who you're going to have fellowship with. Who determines your, your church autonomy is, is your ability to make that choice. And so again with, within your own members, you're, you're going to draw lines on what you tolerate. And then within other churches you're going to say, well, we're not going to fellowship them. We don't think they're in the right. We don't think they're saved. This is really complex stuff that we kind of do without acknowledging that we do it. And I think acknowledging it helps us do it better, I guess, is what I would say. [00:06:24] Speaker C: You kind of talked about the, the eye test last week of that Senator. Whatever, talking about pornography. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:30] Speaker C: And I know when I see it, and there is an element of that of like you can walk in a church and know if the church is what we would call sound, quote unquote, but it is very Difficult to say. At what point do they stop becoming sound? You know, we. And, and so we're going to get into specifics, I think a little bit later on on the outline of. Of what we're talking about. What sort of church do you fellowship? There are churches of Christ that have women preachers. I'm sorry, they're not brethren. Like, they're. They're clearly against scripture. Okay, but what about a church who is, you know, holds a candlelight vigil for something, you know what I mean? And I've seen that in a church of Christ where they did a Christmas visual. We want to get into some of the specifics. [00:07:08] Speaker A: Or they mic up the audience or something like that. [00:07:09] Speaker C: Or they mic up. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Some people call it a fellowship issue or would call a congregation not a sound congregation if they have a Christmas sermon next week. And, and like, there are some that believe that's beyond fellowship. And so again, everybody draws these lines. Every church draws these lines somewhere. And we, I mean, we've used the term, but that's kind of the crux of the matter. You hear people say, is that a sound congregation? Well, what does that mean? Is it possible for an unsound congregation to be saved? What. What. Like this is. We're kind of shining the spotlight on these terms we use without really defining. [00:07:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to look at, is we just want to more define what a sound look like. And so with that, I want to jump into kind of the right and left side of this. The conservative liberal, if you want to say. But on the right, there's this tendency toward exclusion. Right. This tendency toward, like, we. We are clearly not going to just include everybody because we really feel like that could be. We would be going against God if we fellowship these people and that people and. And whatnot. And I think we can get very carried away with this. However, I think there's good to that, which is we are attempting to protect doctrinal purity. We don't want a lot of craziness in the church because that's going against doctrine. And, you know, I, I would say there is something to the slippery slope element of it. Okay. We may be able to fellowship a church that mics somebody. Why would they. Right. You know, the, the slippery slope. And I'm talking people in the audience or, or, you know, certain people that sound better and so it makes the, the music sound better. Are they going to hell for that? I don't think so. At the same time, why are they. What. What one of the congregations used it a long time ago that my parents went to and said, hey, why are we doing. Pushing the envelope? Just pushing the envelope. Well, no, we're not doing that. So my parents left. But there is that element where some people, I think they need to push the envelope. And this will get to the left's tendency. But I think the right, the good part of being more exclusionary is exclusive. Exclusionary. Is that a word? Exclusive. The good part is the doctrine of purity, I would say, really trying to keep scripture. Scripture making sure we have a solid foundation and we're not just rocking with the world and doing whatever the world wants. So I do think there's. [00:09:22] Speaker A: And that is a very good thing. Yeah, correct. [00:09:24] Speaker C: But I also would say there's bad to that. Well, I guess I'll let you get us into the bad since I keep talking. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Well, I want to say just on that, you bring up something like praise teams. These things don't happen in a vacuum. And I think a lot of times people have seen the trajectory, oh, we're going to add this, we're going to add that. And you see this where a church is like, well, we're going to appoint, you know, women's ministry leaders or some deaconesses. [00:09:46] Speaker C: We're not going to have elders. [00:09:47] Speaker B: We're not going to have women preachers. We're going to do this. And it's like, all right. Nobody comes out and goes from, you know, a pretty biblical, strong congregation. And then next day it was like, well, we're having women preachers. What they do is they do this. They do one step at a time. They boil the frog slowly or whatever. [00:10:02] Speaker C: And. [00:10:03] Speaker B: And so I think there is. Anytime somebody makes a move in a certain direction, you see a lot of members of the churches of Christ be like, well, we know where that goes. And I think there's that, well, why does it have to, like. It's not that it has to. It's just that. [00:10:16] Speaker C: It's just that it pretty well always does. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like, why are you doing this? Why? Otherwise, if it's not a move towards opening that door and it's again, this is kind of like the. You're still in. Maybe in the realm of fellowship, in the realm of, you know, in the safe territory. You're within the fence of fellowship. Right. But you're. You're kind of eyeing it. You're kind of putting a step ladder up next to it just in case. And it's like, okay, but this is the hard part, you know, of. For Churches to consider another congregation sound. You look at the trajectory thing, you look at where they currently are, and it's really, really hard to parse out, you know, to. To allow somebody to be different than you when you see. When you've seen a trajectory. And so against your point about the purity, I. I think this is a decent instinct in a lot of ways. [00:11:06] Speaker A: There's so many elements to this question of what makes a congregation sound real quick and briefly about the good of this tendency of kind of the. The right, you might say, to protect the doctrine of purity is. I think there's a bit of a I'd rather be safe than sorry element to it, which I'll admit, I. I grew up under kind of that. That mindset. And to be perfectly clear, I would be pretty uncomfortable if a congregation started miking women. You know, like, I'm not used to that. That's not something. Or, you know, not just Mikey, Mike, and anybody in the audience. That. That's. [00:11:39] Speaker B: It is. [00:11:39] Speaker A: It is kind of a. I don't. I don't really know what to think about that. There's something about it that feels off. So I would just rather not do it. And I think that's a good thing, again, for the most part, because we don't want to change for the sake of change. We don't want to. You know, man, if it's. If it's anywhere close to the line, man, we should stay away from. I think that's a very good thing. Here's the problem with it, and we talked about it last episode, so I'll be brief. The bad side of this tendency towards exclusion is it's almost like congregations. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna focus more on individuals. To me, it's less congregations and more individuals who are looking for things to exclude people based off of. It's not a matter of, oh, wow, I. I discovered that such and such does this or. Or this conation does that. What do we think about that? It's. It's almost like they're going around looking for things to disagree about. And so it's. It's exclusion based on secondary issues. But again, to me, it's. It's even more so just the mindset and the attitude of, like, I want to be as far to the right as I possibly can. And so therefore, anything that I can find to kind of beef with somebody over. Pardon, you know, pardon. That's kind of a young. Young person's term. But to. To argue about or to disagree about, man, I'm I'm going, I'm going to take that stance because I'm a conservative Christian. I'm a conservative Christian as well. I'm also not actively looking for things to disagree with people about. And so guys, I don't know what you have to. To add to that point. That's just what I pull from this, is that it's not just the, the tendency to exclude based on secondary know, you know, tertiary even issues. It's that the mindset of looking for things to disagree with, the mindset of looking for things to exclude people over. [00:13:17] Speaker C: Well, Jack had a great article on this a little, little bit ago of, you know, what does each side get out of it? Of being exclusive and being more inclusive. And I would say the right, the. It can turn so pharisaical for that exact reason, which is we feel more pious and more holy when we go to exclude people. Oh, you do that. And so what it leads to is a workspace salvation. Well, I do this and this and this and this. So. Oh, I'm sorry, you use King James Version or you, you don't use King James Version? Well, you're done, right? You're. You're excluded. Like there are specific things like that. But then you could also get to. I used to think, and I don't know that I still disagree with this fully. Churches that use PowerPoint for their songs and not the books is the dumbest thing. But I always looked at that as an unsound congregation. [00:14:03] Speaker A: I don't know why. [00:14:04] Speaker C: I don't know why. But what I will say is, by and large, There was about 10, 15 years ago when a church did that. What it showed is they were ahead of the time and they were more quote unquote progressive. [00:14:14] Speaker B: So the church being technologically savvy, isn't it horrible? [00:14:18] Speaker C: Isn't it horrible? But this is what I'm saying is. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Are the saved the only saved has to be book? [00:14:25] Speaker C: It has to be this specific songbook. But it is that ridiculous sometimes in the pharisaical approach of the workspace, like, but do you do this? And when you're comparing everybody, by what standard are you comparing to the Bible or are you comparing them to you? And most of the time where this goes wrong is you're comparing them to. Well, of course I'm right. I mean, I know I'm standing on God's word, I know I'm sound and I don't get anything wrong. So let me start looking at who's doing what wrong and comparing them to me. And Most people don't have that exact thought. I really don't think that's a conscious thought. I do very much think that's a subconscious thought that is drilled into us from a young age. [00:14:59] Speaker B: Well, it's the Pharisaical impulse, because, you know, Matthew 6 and Matthew 23, where Jesus criticizes their way of doing the Jewish religion. I think of the one where he says they broaden their phylacteries and as you know, the thing they wore on the head or whatever. I never get all the Jewish garments right, but, like, kind of the. Oh, yours is this big. Well, mine's even bigger. Like, look at that. Look, I'm even holier than you because look at this. I pray even louder than you. I pray longer, fancier prayers than you. And it becomes a competition. Because the starting point of Pharisaism was there was some good to it. In the same way we talked about this, of the purity of. They come back from the Babylonian captivity, and immediately by Malachi, you see, man, these people are already back off the rails again. They're already offering God bad sacrifices and things like that. And so the Phariseeism was this reaction of, like, we're going to get this right. We're going to put up all these guardrails and we're going to, you know, have the rabbis come in and tell us, you know, how to make application of every last thing and the Sabbath and all this stuff. And you see that where they apply it with Jesus, well, your followers are violating the Sabbath. He's like, yeah, no, they're not. You guys made that up. And they were just adding all of these things because it's kind of like, oh, oh, you do this on the side. I don't even do that. Oh, well, let's write that down. And like, that gets really, really, really tight. And so your fellowship as a church needs to be, oh, well, you do that. Well, you do that. You do. And you just see the ridiculous things that people consider a line that makes somebody a heretic or a false teacher or an unsound congregation. Because it's like, well, I'm so holy, I won't even tolerate that. And tolerance, in a lot of ways, is a bad word in another sense. You have to have a certain level of toleration of one another. I mean, literally, it's a command. Tolerate one another in love, and that's allowing for some disagreement. That's allowing for somebody to be a little different than you. And so that Pharisaical impulse, we're going to get to the, the progressive side and then Sadducee, I guess, is the word impulse in the other direction. But you can, you can see it play out in Jesus's day and you can see how we are, we have that same tendency if we're not really careful. [00:17:08] Speaker A: So let's, let's switch gears and talk about kind of the left's tendency towards more inclusion, towards more openness. Joe used the word progressive, towards pushing the lines on things. You know, I've, I have been around congregations before where it definitely seemed like there was kind of a, like a need to be edgy, kind of a need to, to, to push that envelope. And so what do we do with those? When it comes to church autonomy, when it comes to fellowship, when it comes to considering sound congregation? We talked about the good and the bad for kind of the right side of things, for the left side of things. The good is that, you know, it's, it's the bad of the right, it's the good of the left is that you're not going to draw lines too tightly. You're not going to bind where the, you know, maybe the Bible doesn't bind. You're not going to, you know, cut somebody off and label them as a, as a heretic or a false teacher or an unsound congregation when you don't really have any business doing that. That's pretty obvious. Let's talk about what the bad is, though. And the bad is that you could open the door to something based on you trying to be inclusive, based on you trying to be open or progressive or whatever. You could very easily open the door to things that God does not allow. Joe, I, I don't think God personally has a problem with PowerPoint, so I don't think that would be one of those things. But, but, you know, you can also, we can all see, and this gets to the point Jack brought up, you start miking women, that leads to, you know, in the audience, that leads to a praise team, and that eventually leads to a, you know, you know, basically a more entertainment driven worship. [00:18:47] Speaker C: And it's just kind of the slippery slope instruments. Which leads. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, which leads to, which leads to all kind of things that we, of course, don't believe that, you know, God has authorized us to use. And so that's the good and the bad guys. What do you have to add to that? I mean, it's pretty obvious that we see a lot of congregations that pretty much open the door to anything and everything for the sake of being open and inclusive. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Have you Guys seen the Rick Ashley chairs sermon? [00:19:13] Speaker A: Never seen it, but I've heard about it. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Okay. I don't know, it's, it's well known. A lot of folks in the church seem to have seen it. When I've talked about with folks before, that's Rick. I think it's Rick. Actually. I always get it confused with Rick Astley. The. [00:19:27] Speaker C: I was gonna say. Are you ready? [00:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah, the Rick Roll guy. No, it's not him. It's a preacher in North Richland Hills, Texas. They're, they don't call themselves the Church of Christ anymore, but they did when he preached the sermon. They were, they were one of the biggest. Yeah. And Will's holding it up for those Focus plus subscribers. You can see it was the biggest church of Christ in America. I don't know if they even call themselves that anymore. And they went instrumental 10, 15 years or 15 plus years ago at this point, I guess. And he preached this sermon where he has a bunch of chairs on stage about fellowship and you know, like this guy, oh, yeah, we agree on this. But, oh, you're over here. Oh, I don't do that. I don't have, you know, I don't have instruments. I don't let women preach. I don't, you know, I don't remember what all illustrations use. And it keeps going to the right and kind of the absurdity of. You can get into this fellowship hole that we just talked about, the purity cycle to where nobody's pure enough and I'm the only one and everybody else who thinks they're a Christian who I agree with on 95% of things, they're not saved. Oh, you have a Bible class. Well, I guess you're not saved anymore. We're not talking anymore. And so he accurately described that issue. The glaring lack of self awareness in the sermon is. All right, Rick, where do you draw the line? Where's your line of fellowship? At what point is somebody unsound for you? And he kind of hints at maybe there's something, but it's that thing like, it can be so broad. And you can see this in progressive Christianity where they're getting to the point where they're so inclusive. They're so, you know, kind of that whole our we're so open minded, our brains are falling out kind of thing. And we're so loving that we will accept any, you know, every wolf is welcome in this sheep herd, you know, like, no, that's, that's bad. You know, you see the open door towards LGBT stuff and, and I'M not saying his church. I'm just saying in progressive Christianity, you're seeing these things happen because they don't draw a line. There is no the impulse in that. You know, the impulse in the one way is, look how much purer I am than you. The impulse in the other way is, look how much more open I am than you. And it's kind of funny the stories that get emphasized on the one side about Jesus and on this side it's always the woman at the well, it's the woman caught in adultery. And look at how accepting Jesus was. It's like man, he was. But there's also the go and sin no more. There's also, I mean, very hard lines drawn. The John 6, he turns away thousands of people like he wasn't just a come as you are, do whatever you want, but that becomes what it is if you're really not careful on that side of things. [00:21:57] Speaker C: Well, they look at the fact that Jesus was hardest on the Pharisees. See, see those who are basically the religious right, the conservatives, the ones that don't want to budge, those are the people that Jesus goes after. Those are the people he had the biggest problem with. And he called out. And so Jesus was pretty much progressive. Like no, he wasn't. He was getting back to, they had taken it too far. He was getting back to scripture. Jesus. I don't think, I don't see Jesus as pushing the envelope when he goes, hey, you've, you've been told, don't murder. Hey, if you're calling your brother you, you know, if you're saying you fool to your brother, you're guilty before God, hey, you've been told, don't commit adultery, but. [00:22:32] Speaker A: Or keep my father's house holy. [00:22:34] Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. Like some of the things Jesus said were very hardline and more difficult than even maybe what the Pharisees were saying. Like this comes down to the heart. And so for those that want to point to Jesus as this great progressive leader, that's, you know, going up against the religious elite and the conservatives, I think they're misunderstanding the entire point of Jesus. Now again, we do like rule keeping. We do go to the Pharisaical end a lot in the churches of Christ, but there is a line somewhere. And so fellas, this is what I want to move into the outline is kind of coming to this church cooperation point and getting to the nitty gritty. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Well, I want to talk a little bit about the Sadducee thing. We didn't get into the Pharisees on the other side, we don't have as much about the Sadducees. In fact, I was reading that they didn't. They kind of left Jesus alone because, like, whatever. But with the Pharisees, they were so binding. Extra doctrine and tradition, like, hey, this guy's subverting all of our teachings. We've got to do something about this. And the Sadducees were so lax. Who cares? Until he was a threat, until he was drawing Roman attention, or until they, they thought, you know, in John 11 that he was going to bring the Romans down on them. And so it's like, all right, we'll team up with our arch enemies, the Pharisees. Let's. Let's come together to get this guy killed. But the thing about the Sadducees, they're most known for denying the resurrection, but they were just hyper literalists. Well, there's not a command there. You can't bind that. And, and you can see, I mean, we talked about that last week. Like, when you do that, you can't bind that. And yeah, the Pharisees went too far in binding things that shouldn't have been bound. But then you end up with this minimalist thing. And the thing about the Sadducees is they were the ones who cooperated with the Greeks and Romans, accepted Greek and Roman culture and society, and became more and more like that. And you see that with the progressives today. They look like the culture, the kind of America that the news media portrays. That's what these progressive churches end up embodying. You kind of saw it over the course of COVID You know, the, the messaging that was put out from on high is the messaging they parroted. They, they kind of are gatekeepers for the regime in a sense, in the same way the Sadducees were. That's really bad stuff. Like, you have to look different from the culture. And the Pharisees did, but they went too far. And so, like, you see the good impulses in both of these sides that if unchecked, end up in a really bad place. And again, you fellowship everybody or you fellowship nobody. [00:24:51] Speaker C: And I think it is fair and needed to say what you just said, which is there is good to both sides. When you grow up in, like, hyper Pharisaical conservatism, you don't see any good side from the progressive. They're just trying to take us away from the Bible. No, there is a good side. And I bemoan this point before, and I know, excuse me, a lot of people have the progressive churches, the ones that are kind of doing that are the ones that are going out and serving the homeless, you know, serving the poor. They're really, they have celebrate recovery. They're doing things that are really helping the community and helping those around them, helping those in the church. They have very active ministries. And maybe we don't agree fully with the, you know, just stick a program there and throw programs at it. But at the same time, they're highly active in the community around doing things that you'd expect the church to do. But then they're the same people that are like, well, we just, you know what, one Sunday a month we give up worship to God so we could go out and serve the community. And we just find that that's so impactful that on Sunday morning we're out there at the homeless mission, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, you don't give up worship to God. We can do this after. Right? But this is kind of the progressive thing. So on the one hand, you step inside the church doors and go, holy cow, that's not good. And on the other hand, you step outside the church doors and go, wow, they're incredible. You flip that with conservatism. A lot of times where you step inside church doors, this is accurate. This is what we're supposed to do. And they're as dead as a doornail. They don't do anything in the community. They don't do anything to, you know, to help the brethren. They don't do anything to help other people around them, the homeless, anything like that, orphans, widows. So I know, I'm just kind of bemoaning the point, but I think this is why it's so important to see the benefits of both sides, because it keeps our mind open to, you know, there are some really good things that that progressive church does that maybe we could do here. We're not going to skimp on doctrine. We're not going to come off of the purity of the doctrine. Right. But at the same time, could it be that they're doing things that we could learn from, and I would say vice versa, from the progressive side. So it's important for us to keep an open mind in seeing and basically not to vilify the other side. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Well, and to use the example I keep using of the, you know, micing the women, maybe say, well, you know, we're not going to do that. However, how can we improve our singing service? How can we improve our worship and our. And our praise to God? What are some things we can Do. Yeah, yeah, I like that, Joe. Using it as kind of a springboard to what are we not doing? Well, that we could maybe do better. Not for the sake of just changing it, for the sake of change. But, you know, I like that a lot. I am very curious about this next question that we have on here as we kind of move into the church cooperation. [00:27:18] Speaker B: I'm gonna make a 10 second disclaimer here to everything we just said. We're painting with real broad brushes. We know that not every progressive church is Sadducees and letting everything go. Not every conservative leaning church is pharisaical. You know, like there's tendencies here and we're talking about the dangers that both face, like the, the where, where both of these can go wrong. There's a lot of them in this spectrum that are fine and that's what we really want to get to is this cooperation thing of a lot of them are fine. So we've got to find a way to live together. But yeah, so I just wanted to say, yes, we know we're not calling you a Pharisee or Sadducee just because you consider yourself one way or the other. [00:27:52] Speaker A: I appreciate that. That's, that's much needed clarification there. So this question that I, I've been staring at it on my outline over here. I think I've got my answer. But I'm curious, is there a difference between fellowship issues and salvation issues? You know, I'm sure most of our listeners have heard the term of, you know, oh, well, that's a salvation issue, you know, meaning we believe their salvation is in jeopardy essentially that they are on their way to hell for a belief in something, for an act, you know, for whatever it is. And then we have fellowship issues where that's more so a congregational term. I, I guess the difference to me is fellowship issues might be a bit more of a congregational term and salvation issues is a bit more of an individual. But the fellowship issues thing is once again, oh, they do X, Y and Z at their congregation. We don't have fellowship with them. We're not gonna, you know, host a youth area wide with them. You know, if they have a youth area wide, we're not going to attend theirs or we're not going to go to their gospel meeting or, or whatever it is. And so guys, I am very curious about that question of is there a difference? I'll give my kind of off the cuff answer that. You know, I've never really thought about this question before. I think it's A good one. I'll kind of give my answer. To me, those have kind of always been synonymous in my head, again, just on a different level, one being more so congregational, the other being individual. To me, I don't really see how you can have a fellowship issue without it being a salvation issue, simply because of the point Jack brought up earlier. Let's say we have an issue that's not a salvation issue in our head, but it's a fellowship issue. Well, so when we all get up to heaven, are we. Are you still going to have the fellowship issue? You know, are you still going to be. You know what? I'm going to stay in this corner. You know, obviously, I don't know what heaven's going to be like exactly, but I'm going to stay in this corner with the people that agree with me on this fellowship issue. And the people. I mean, you're in heaven at that point, you know what I mean? And so that's, to me, where you can get into dangerous territory of splitting between. Oh, you know, I don't really think it's a salvation issue, but it's definitely a fellowship issue. What's the difference? I guess I don't know if one of you guys has a different position than me and would. Would kind of how you would counter that, I guess, because to me, they've kind of been. Always been fairly synonymous. Like, I don't want to have a fellowship issue with somebody if it's not a salvation issue. Guys, what do you have to say? [00:30:12] Speaker C: I would actually disagree. I. I do believe there is a difference. And the reason why is we don't know why people do what they do fully. And if they fully believe that they are in obedience to God on a situation, I may not be comfortable doing it. I'm trying to use this without getting fired because. Because there's an illustration that comes to mind. But, you know, boy, it's. Yeah, I. I think there are certain things, certain elements of. Of worship or whatever else that maybe somebody does. And I would say I don't. And I'm not talking like women leading or something, but like trying to come up with a good illustration for this where they may look at it and go, this is more pleasing to God. I really feel this is more pleasing to God. And I look at that and go, I don't believe that's the case. Here's my scriptural backing. They feel they have scriptural backing for it. They feel they're more pleasing to God. Would I fellowship them? No, I don't believe That's. That's correct. Am I condemning them for it? Not necessarily. I think they have the right heart in trying to please God. They may not understand fully what they're looking to do. So there are some that are blatant. I don't care. I'm just going to do what I want to do. And there are others that really feel this is what's pleasing to God. And again, I'm not comfortable with it. I'm not going to fellowship them in the fact that I don't. But am I saying that they're going to hell for it? Not necessarily. I don't know their heart. I feel like if their heart is correct. So maybe I'm off on that. There are churches that, once again, don't care. Community churches, things like that. Yeah, let's do the full concert venue type thing where just everything is about entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. Clearly, that's wrong. Clearly the reason they're doing that is to get people into the doors. But there are smaller congregations that I would say of, you know, whatever, that I may disagree with how they do it, but they really do have the right heart in pleasing God. I'm less. I'm not going to fellowship them, but I'm less likely to send them all to hell because I don't send them to hell. Personally, I disagree with them, but they have their own reasons for it. I don't know if I'm making this clear at all. And it's very difficult that me delving into, like, specifics. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Well, okay. I think a safe example, because using. Yes, thank you. To the right, it makes this a lot easier than using people to the left, because the nature of this whole thing. Let's say that you didn't believe in having a kitchen in the church building, which some of our listeners might believe that. I'm not mocking that belief at all. I'm just saying this is one that I think they're, you know, it's further to the right, so it gives a little bit more of a spectrum. And so, you know, somebody else has a kitchen in their building, you might say, well, that person's not saved. But I'm not. I'm not going over there. Is that kind of what you're getting at? [00:32:53] Speaker C: Yeah. You're saying that the person. The person is saved. Like, I'm not saying that they've lost. [00:32:57] Speaker B: You're saying, yeah, that you don't believe they should have a kitchen. You will not have one in your building. They do have one. Well, they might be saved, but I would not do that way. And I'm not going to go. That's not going to worship with them. I'm not going to their building. [00:33:09] Speaker C: There you go. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Is that kind of how you're saying it? [00:33:12] Speaker C: Yes. I'm not saying. Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm not saying they're going to hell for it. But I am saying I'm not comfortable going to a congregation that has a, you know, for. For that instance or for that example. Yeah, that has a. I get that. [00:33:23] Speaker A: But where. Where I struggle with that is the inconsistency of it, of, you know. Well, I think it's wrong, but I guess it's not that big a deal, you know, is the implication, I guess, that you could get from that. [00:33:35] Speaker C: I think this is the full extension of Romans 14, though, which is you're separating yourself from the person that could potentially make you stumble while at the same time recognizing Romans 14, though, to. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Me, is not talking about fellowship issues. It's talking about matters of opinion that we need to live with each other on. Right? Sure. [00:33:54] Speaker C: But I'm talking about congregation to congregation. I do think there are matters of opinion that we may feel very strongly on. Let's say kitchens. You know, we could study Scripture and come to the conclusion the kitchens are. Are wrong to have in the building. At the same time, that is kind of secondary issue, in my opinion. That's not a. [00:34:13] Speaker A: That's right. So I think personally, though, what I'm saying is I think fellowship should still be extended at that point. [00:34:20] Speaker B: So hold on. Let's define fellowship. Are we talking about, like, I will call them a brother. I will go to lunch with them. I'll, you know, sit and study the Bible with them, list of things, and I will go worship with them in their building, or I'll draw the line at worshiping with them, but I'll do all those other things. What are you guys using Fellowship as. [00:34:40] Speaker C: Worshiping with them is. Is main. Mainly mine. Like, I would still go to lunch. [00:34:45] Speaker B: With these people, brother. [00:34:47] Speaker C: And I still call him a brother. I still think that I probably see them in heaven, but I'm not. [00:34:51] Speaker B: What's your definition on that? [00:34:52] Speaker A: Will a fellowship. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Yeah, like, how are you using it. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Here, considering them a brother? I would, I would add in worshiping with them, but basically, like, again, I use the example of like, would you. Would you support their gospel meeting? Would you support their youth area? I consider them a. A fellow congregation. Essentially, you just have it. Because you could use the same example with Christmas. Like, oh, we're not. We don't celebrate Christmas here as a congregation, but this other one does. You know, that, that doesn't mean we're not going to, you know, support them in their again, gospel meeting or youth area wide or whatever it is. That, that's to me like, because you have congregations that will not basically will not support anything the other congregation does because of their view of that congregation. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Not in fellowship, you know, that's what I'm talking about. Having lived in three different major cities and then having pretty strong familiarity with another one. The standard seems to be that kind of division. You've got your conservative churches, your progressive churches. There's like the summer youth series that the conservative churches go to and the summer youth and the camps that the conservatives go to and the camps that the progressives go to. And like you over here, us over here, and you might consider each other Christians, but like arm's length kind of thing, like we're talking about Oklahoma City. I'm gonna give them credit from what I've seen there, you know, I've got family that lives there, I've worshiped at a couple of congregations there and my brother in law preaches up there. They're incredible in that, in that there is a pretty broad spectrum. And you've got Oklahoma Christian and if you're in the know, I mean, you know which kind of side of things they're on. But they also, there's the very strongly conservative side of the city and they have an annual lectureship affirming the faith in which pretty much all of the Oklahoma City area congregations support and come together. And the preachers that they bring in to speak at that lectureship or conference they assign to different pulpits around the city. And I know for some people that's abhorrent because they're extending fellowship maybe where it shouldn't, but, but I think, and I mean, again, you got to draw the line somewhere. There's certain somebody's not going to get invited to that. I get that. But on the other hand, I think that's a really positive example of what Will's talking about of man. We don't do things alike at all, but we are still all brothers. And so we can put that stuff aside. To have the family reunion every now and then is I, I think that's a positive of what we're talking about here. [00:37:15] Speaker C: See, I think Christmas is a perfect example of this, the Christmas sermon. You may be very strongly against a Christmas sermon while at the same time fully recognizing him as brothers in Christ. Would I go to. If I was very against Christmas sermons, would I go to the congregation, you know, on Christmas that has the Christmas sermon? No, I'm not saying you're going to hell for it. I'm saying I don't believe I'm not going to go to that congregation now. [00:37:40] Speaker A: But, Joe, to me, you're not making that a fellowship issue either. You're just not comfortable with it. You see what I'm saying? Like, I'm drawing the distinction between a fellowship issue. Like I, I have a fellow, I have an issue with that congregation, fellowship wise. Oh, but I don't consider it a salvation issue. That's to me, the inconsistency. I don't think the Christmas thing kind of lines up with that. [00:37:58] Speaker C: But I would say if it was, and I'm not talking every, I'm saying every week, if that was the case, where every week you walked in the church going, this is not how I think it should be done. But this is also part like, I'm not going to fellowship them from an individual basis saying, am I, am I sending them to hell? No. Am I comfortable with what they're doing? Yes, you're correct. There is a level of comfort. But this is to my point of fellowship. Am I comfortable worshiping with them? No, I'm not. Am I sending them to hell for it? No, I'm not. We come to different conclusions on a specific scripture about things. I don't feel comfortable going to that congregation and saying, I'm going to gladly place membership and worship here. [00:38:39] Speaker B: So that's where you're bringing it to a level of Romans 14 stuff. You're saying it's a matter of conscience for you. They're still your brother, but you are not going to. To join in with them with it. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Correct. Correct. And I would say on a conversation. [00:38:51] Speaker A: Different definitions, we probably are right. [00:38:54] Speaker B: We probably kind of what I was trying to parse out there. I, like I said, I think the. [00:38:58] Speaker A: Jack, where do you side. I don't know that you've necessarily come down on it either way. [00:39:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think I get what you're both saying. Like I said, I think the Oklahoma City thing is a really good example of congregations across the spectrum getting along. And I mean, some of those congregations I know preach things that I, you know, I'm not going to call it like false doctrine that makes them heretic stuff that I would not sit and listen to their sermons or, you know, like, I'm just not going to attend there. On the other hand, I think they're still Christians And I think it's good that they can do stuff together. And so whether you want to call that fellowship or not fellowship, I mean that. [00:39:32] Speaker A: See, that's the thing. And I think what, why this kind of rubs me the wrong way is Joe, something me and you have actually talked about before. I think on this podcast of the tendency that people can have to call something false doctrine or oh my God, you're gonna have a problem with that. But oh yeah, you know, pat on the back. I guess we'll talk next week. Like they just kind of like to have that position of, well, you know, I, I'm the correct. I'm correct on this position and I'm gonna call it false doctrine and whatever, but you know, I'll pat you on the back and we'll see you next time type of thing. Like, no, if you're going to call something false doctrine, act like it's false doctrine. And I guess that's where my brain is going with this of like, if something's going to be a fellowship issue, you better make it a salvation issue. You see, I'm saying like, basically, I guess kind of my point here and why my brain is going this direction of like a congregation chooses to not fellowship another congregation. And again, my definition is supporting them in their, you know, viewing them as a fellow congregation. If you're not going to do that, it better be over. You know, in my, in my perspective, something that's a pretty big deal versus just the kind of minor, like to sit on our moral high horse type of thing. [00:40:34] Speaker C: So, so that's the question. What is the big deal and what is doctrine? Because doctrine for some people, this is where we get down to. [00:40:41] Speaker A: That's the heart of the episode. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Example. Let's use a less safe example. Church puts in a praise team or a church installs deaconesses. [00:40:53] Speaker C: This is what this is exactly. Not the deaconess part. The praise team is exactly what I'm talking about. Am I going to a church or the praise team? No, absolutely not. Do I think you are going to hell for having a praise team? I think the heart matters. I think if the praise team is to bring more people in because you want to make it more entertaining. Yeah, I think you're in sin. If you really think the praise team is bringing you closer to God and, and it's a way to really emphasize worship, I am not at all comfortable with that. And I do think that that's. [00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah, this is where you description makes a lot of sense. [00:41:23] Speaker C: Correct. This is where I could point to scripture and go, well, here's no praise team. No, I can't point to scripture and say that. I can point to principles and say, maybe this is where it's at the heart of the matter is key. [00:41:34] Speaker A: It makes sense. I still think it's very inconsistent is the problem. And I'm not saying, of course it is very. [00:41:40] Speaker C: It's insanely inconsistent. [00:41:42] Speaker B: All right, so let's step back one step again from our convictions to church level convictions. This is kind of a dirty little secret that we're of the, of the Church of Christ approach this that we're throwing out in the open. We say churches are autonomous. We believe that to a like a degree. And then it stops because. And it would have to at some point because, you know, if a church says, all right, well, we're going to start reading the Quran, that's going to be our text. Well, okay, there. So you don't have the autonomy to do that. You have autonomy within a range. And that defined range. The hard part about this is everybody's defining their own range, which is, you know, what makes a fellowship issue make a salvation issue, which makes somebody too far to fellowship or whatever else. And so what is the range of autonomy within which a church is allowed to differ? And I think we just got to that sum of like, you know, is a praise team too far. And I'm not taking a position on any of these things right now. I'm just saying for a lot of people that would be. All right, that's it. You're. You have exceeded the levels. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Jack is conveniently not taking a position on anything yet. [00:42:47] Speaker C: I love how he's asking the question. [00:42:50] Speaker B: Man, this comes out a week before Christmas. I do not want to spend my holidays getting hate mails and podcasts and articles written about us. And please. [00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah, this is a very con convoluted subject. Like, we are. [00:43:03] Speaker C: These are this, these are the things. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Exactly that, that the Church of Christ, everyone, it's the elephant in the room, right? And I, I'm big. I'm coining this term. I'm putting it out there. I've been writing stuff on it. No indoor elephants. I don't believe in indoor elephants. Okay, name the elephant in the room and talk about it so everyone can come. So everyone's positions are out in the open. You might not come to an agreement, but you got to put it out there in the open. And if we're the guys who have to put an elephant, you know, like, point out the indoor elephant and say, let's get that elephant out of the room. You probably take flack for doing that. Well, somebody has to. Okay. And so like this whole church autonomy thing, there's, you know, we can get up and preach. Well, and the churches of Christ, you're autonomous. And the minute a church makes a decision, we wouldn't, you know, again, for some people, oh, that church has a Christmas sermon. They're not a sound congregation anymore. Like, so you don't believe in church autonomy, you don't believe they have the. Or you believe that isn't a limit to church autonomy, that they're not allowed to make that decision. And I, okay, it's fine if you believe that, but you need to define what decisions are they allowed to make. Are they allowed to make decisions only about what their building is going to look like and what times on Sunday they're going to meet? Are they allowed to, like what, what are the levels of decision making that are allowed within church autonomy? That's a real challenge. [00:44:23] Speaker C: Again, the question you have to answer is what constitutes doctrine? What constitutes the, the, the rules by which we're to live? And yes, this is the problem here. And I know you're kind of, kind of laughed about it. [00:44:37] Speaker B: No, there's a word that I'm not allowed to use that I want to, I want to use here is this is the creed and confession that's in everybody's head. [00:44:44] Speaker C: Catechism. Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Well, no, it's not a catechism. It's. So a creed is a basic statement of doctrines. A confession is kind of how you flesh out those things. And, and so your creed is basically, here's what we believe and you have to believe this to be saved and be a member and all that. And a confession is, here's how we're going to practice this within our church. And again, literally every church has one of those, whether it's written down or not. You can say you don't. You do. Because if a church does something and you say, well, they're not a sound congregation anymore, they're out of fellowship, that means they have violated your creed. That's just what it means. And I know people get really upset when I use that word because it carries so much baggage. But it's. Words mean what they mean and it's a meaning that here's your, your list of absolutely non negotiable beliefs that you must hold and meet. And when you don't write that down, then it can get to the point where everything is a non negotiable belief that if you do one thing That I wouldn't do. You're not saved anymore. And that's really dangerous. [00:45:41] Speaker C: But I'll give a little pushback on it. In the fact that Church of Christ has a name. We could say we're not a denomination, we're non denominational. I understand that. But at the same time, when I go out of town, I look for a Church of Christ to attend and then, you know, you do the due diligence to understand is this, you know, not a united Church of Christ or something. We have to decide across the board what the church. Like, what are the key doctrines of the church if we're going to do a confession and decree. [00:46:10] Speaker B: Because to your point, that's what they would be. [00:46:14] Speaker C: But my point is we would never agree on it. You would have a church deep in the south that would say if you, we've used alcohol enough, things like that, that absolutely not. King James only, right? Absolutely not. So they would have that as a part of their creed. Now you would say from a congregational standpoint, supposedly they can do that, right? If the elders, if that's what the elders decide. The problem is if that, that really gets into. Every church is autonomous. But, but at what point? What if they don't put the, the doctrine of the Trinity in their creed? What if they're kind of like lax on that? Are they actually a church? Are they, are they the Church of Christ? You know, the, the actual Church of Christ? Like what has to be part of their creed to still have them be part of the church. Once we have that, then it's a universal thing and we've started to lose autonomy again. So this is where, you know that. [00:47:06] Speaker B: That'S the limit of autonomy is like, all right, within this, this, you know. [00:47:10] Speaker A: You like, essentially you have to agree on these things, right? [00:47:13] Speaker B: Okay, let's not. What do we have to confuse business in the church, but McDonald's. If you're going to be a McDonald's franchisee and put the golden arches out front, you don't get to serve sesame chicken. Okay, you better have burgers and fries and, and they do actually, you know, Will works at Chick Fil A. You don't get leeway. You serve what they serve. Like they don't get to make up their own menu. Some franchising companies like that give the, the operators a little bit of leeway. You can introduce certain things, you can do certain sales or whatever. You know, you've got some room to do what you want on that. And so they do. I think that's kind of what we're talking about is like your, your franchising of the churches of Christ. If you're going to have Church of Christ on the door, on the sign, there's an expectation that it's going to mean no instruments, it's going to mean a man in the pulpit, it's going to mean male elders, it's going to mean baptism of sins, you know, like. And that's what I'm saying is that's your creed is you've got this stuff. And how long does that creed get before when you say, all right, if somebody doesn't do one of these, if in their franchise, quote unquote, they introduce something else or they do something a little different than I would, their franchise tag is revoked. [00:48:18] Speaker C: Here's my point. Who gets to determine what is part of the franchise? Who gets to determine what's on that list? As to this is absolutely. You keep saying, like, well, we need to agree on it. We're not going to. [00:48:30] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying is a congregation has to come up with this for themselves so they can determine. But no, like an individual congregation determines here's what makes another church fellowshipable. And so they can. [00:48:42] Speaker A: And I think Joe's point is, like, what if that list is wrong? Wrong biblically is not correct. [00:48:47] Speaker B: That's what the point is. Like, there's, there's no. And this is again, how the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox solve this problem is you just go all the way to the top and one guy makes the decision. But then you see if one guy goes rogue, then you got a lot of problems. I mean, there's, there's problems with that system, too. You're right, you know, that, that a church can go wrong. And I think that we're going to run out of time here. But brings us. [00:49:07] Speaker C: We got plenty of time. Don't worry about it. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Well, hold on. It brings us to the New Testament. Corinth is a train wreck. The seven churches of Asia. There's some train wrecks in there that are still churches. Right, that, that have got beliefs wrong, that have got practices wrong. There's sin in the camp. There's things like that. And there is the threat of I'm going to take away your lampstand. I think we have to be careful of not trying to preemptively yank a lamp stand away from a church because we don't like what they're doing or because we not even don't like. We disagree with. We think what they're doing is wrong. It's not really up to us to write them out of the church's will. But we're also not in the first century. We're not fledgling churches. I mean there's a lot of math that has to go into something like this. [00:49:51] Speaker C: My struggle with the creed, I agree with you that we do need that. If it is on an individual basis. [00:49:58] Speaker B: You'Re walking into, there's never going to be a broad Church of Christ creed. By definition, there just will not be. [00:50:03] Speaker C: There just won't. And yeah, you're not an idealist, you're a realist. Like that's not going to happen. My point is you. We would never be able to travel and know what we're walking into. But this is also part of the church crisis. Sometimes we don't. You travel across the church Christ. This is one of the biggest issues with not having sisters are still mad at. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Mad at me for accidentally getting them drinking out of one cup one time. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Oh man, that was classic. That was disgusting. [00:50:25] Speaker B: But look on the people. [00:50:26] Speaker C: We had other visitors and you knew they had been there because they sat at the front, right? And I thought that's weird for visitors to sit all the way at the front. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Sure enough, they had been there before. [00:50:35] Speaker C: That's exactly where they started. They knew what they were doing. But this is one of the issues with the church is, you know, you could walk into the church Christ. There's five different Church Christ, one Mike, women, one are, you know, the, the non institutional. Right. They don't have kitchens and head covers, things like that. You walk in another one, it's. It's pretty much what we would consider ours. You walk into another one where it's kind of a mega church type thing, but it all has Church Christ on the door. How do you know which one's which you get into? Each congregation should be able to determine. But that makes traveling and understanding who is fellowshipable that much more difficult. I don't know the creed by which you operate. The only way I would know the creed by which you operate is if we are in fellowship. [00:51:13] Speaker B: You know what people put on their websites? [00:51:15] Speaker C: No. Yeah, I mean that's, that's about what we believe page. But that's not always, that's not always accurate because you could look at a southern church, what we believe, and they don't have anything on there on King James. But the moment you step in there with like your niv Bible, better watch out. They don't have that on the what to believe, but that's absolutely what they believe. So it's A little bit. I agree with you. That is our version of a creed. At the same time, this is where it breaks down, is the autonomy of the Church of Christ would make traveling and everything else very, very difficult. And really even understanding who is who. Because your creed and my creed could be drastically different. How would we know? There has to be sets of rules that. That bind us together. As you started going down the list. [00:51:56] Speaker B: There'S not going to be that. [00:51:58] Speaker C: But there is to a certain degree. There is to certain. [00:52:00] Speaker B: There's an unspoken one. But it's also in. It's in everybody's head, because within any given congregation, the members of that congregation have different standards for what they would go worship with, fellowship with whatever, than what even their own leadership has. I mean, like, this is the challenge of Protestantism and the Reformation that led to the restoration, that we've trickled all the way down from the Pope thing, which was they were rejecting the Pope accurately, you know, saying, look, this guy, he's not over us. And that's true. But then you get to the whole. Everybody gets to interpret for themselves. This is some of the. These, the spoils of that victory. It was the right move. I'm not saying it was wrong, but this is some of the stuff you deal with is the level of subjectivism. And not that there's not subjectivism when one guy in Rome gets to make it up, but then it's a million subjective data points rather than one. [00:52:56] Speaker C: So a couple questions arise out of this. First off, if an eldership says, we are going to go visit and worship this congregation, and an individual doesn't, I do think it's the individual's right to say no, I'm not going to. However, at what point are you serping your own eldership, your eldership as a congregation, is fellowshipping another church, you individually or not, do you fall under the headship of that? I'm assuming this is the same Christian. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Christmas question as last week, is if your church decides to celebrate it but you don't want to, do you go worship? [00:53:22] Speaker C: Sure. I'm saying if they're fellowshipping another congregation. [00:53:24] Speaker B: Like, I'm just the same thing. Are you throwing off the. The yoke of your elder's leadership by disagreeing on a personal conscience? Man, I don't think so. [00:53:33] Speaker C: And here's the second question. So that's good. And, and yeah, I don't disagree. Here's the second question. Where's our role in policing one another? Do we have a duty to other churches to kind of police them and go, whoa, they are going way off the rails here. They're starting to allow a woman, a woman pastor quote unquote instead of male preacher. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Right? [00:53:53] Speaker C: What duty do we have to our brothers in Christ to go to them and go, this is flat wrong. And you're messing with, you know, you're messing with things that are salvational or that are, whatever it may be. Like, how much do we police one another within this? [00:54:08] Speaker A: Are you talking about like once word gets to us or like preemptive policing? Like, you know what I mean? I'm assuming, I would say once, like. [00:54:17] Speaker C: Once it comes down, that's like, hey, did you hear such and such church crisis, you know, is having a women preacher. I went there and a woman got up and gave the Lord supper talk. And you go, whoa, hold on a second. Like, how much should we. [00:54:28] Speaker A: So this is where I, and I always say it, I don't like putting myself in the shoes of being an elder. But for the sake of this question, I will. If I was an elder and you know, and I'm just going to refer back to when I was in Decatur because at Decatur we had like five or six churches of Christ within a, you know, 15 minute, 15, 20 minute radius that, you know, all went to the same church camp and youth events and stuff like that. So let's say hypothetically that while I was down there, I'll say I'm an elder and one of those congregations introduces a woman pastor or something like that. Joe, as an elder, I personally would feel the need to take, you know, maybe another elder or the whole eldership over to. I, I don't do letters, I don't do emails, forget that. Out to eat, over to the, to their church, to their, to their building and to the other elders, hey, let's meet, let's talk about this. What led you guys to do this? Why are you doing it? Here's where we stand on the matter. The issue with this, because Joe, use woman pastor. I certainly would do it for the, for a woman pastor. The issue is, okay, what about if it's not to the, to the extent of woman pastor? What if they start mic in the audience. What if they introduce the praise team? What if, you know, fill in the blank here. To me, that is where there is some autonomy with you as an eldership. Like again, I can just speak from what I would do if I was an elder. They introduce a praise team. I'm still going over there to meet with them and saying, hey guys, why are you doing this? Why do you Think you have biblical backing too. Here's what, here's what I believe. And start miking the audience. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, there's so. There's so many things you could, you could point to here. But as far as. Should we, you know, interfere, police, whatever word you want to use. To me, and this is where I stick with the consistency of the fellowship and the salvational. If a church goes from we're in fellowship to doing something that in our eyes would jeopardize that fellowship, in my opinion, we have every right as an eldership to go to them, study with them, talk about it. Why are you doing. You know what I mean? Like, I think we're within that right. What do you guys have to say? [00:56:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great thing to recommend. And I think churches should be more connected. Would help with a lot of this. And unfortunately, just because of the nature of it, a lot of times it's through the preachers, they're connected. But for the elders to know each other, you know, to exchange notes, you know, to. To have that kind of relationship where it's not like, well, okay, I heard these guys, you know, just instituted this thing. We don't agree with what are their names and you know, like, who are they? I think it would help if, if there was kind of inter church fellow. We don't have apostles. You know, Paul was writing to these churches, doing some of this policing of guys, don't do this, this is wrong. You need to clean this up or whatever. No, there's not an Apostle Paul who's in that authoritative role over churches like that. But I think looking out for one another because that again, it was established through apostles, then it was passed to church autonomy, ruled by elders. That's what Paul sent Timothy and Titus to do, was set up elders and, and so to acknowledge that. Yeah, I think that that is part of that role is helping each other when, you know, helping each other maintain fellowship as Will just described. [00:57:31] Speaker C: Fellas, I think we asked more questions than we answered. Brought up a lot. [00:57:36] Speaker B: I think we pointed out the elephant, you know. [00:57:38] Speaker C: Yes, we. [00:57:39] Speaker B: And this is conversations I've had with members of the Church of Christ all over the country. Literally is these things, fellowship issues of supporting each other, of acknowledging each other, of who's in, who's out. I mean, these are the real questions. Books have been written on them. I know Lagarde Smith's done work in this area. Who is my brother, I think was the original name of the book and then it's titled something else. Now there's. There's interesting resources out there. We were never going to solve it in an hour, but I think we put a lot of interesting considerations out there, some of them which will probably get us killed. I don't know. I. Merry Christmas, everybody. Please leave me alone. Please don't send me emails. Please don't. Don't call us up with hate mail. [00:58:17] Speaker C: I love being on social media. [00:58:19] Speaker A: This is conversation. Yeah, Jack. Jack is not a fan of us. [00:58:22] Speaker B: For, for that, I have to bear the brunt. No, go ahead. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah, but to that point, Jack, this is. This, this is needed conversation. These are questions that need to at least be asked. I mean, I would say they need to be asked and answered, but to your point, Joe, I don't know that we necessarily answered them, you know, to the. To the capacity to which they deserve to be answered, but to me, it illustrates just how convoluted this is and just how much we have been kind of ignoring the elephant in the room and not really talking about these things because. I know. And hopefully our deep thinkers that are going to comment for the deep end segment are going to echo this. I know these are not just questions that the three of us have that we're the only ones that are asking these things. [00:58:59] Speaker B: Honestly, everybody has two different deep thinkers submit this subject over the last few months. [00:59:03] Speaker A: So, yeah, so these are questions that need to be answered and conversations need to be had. So I would just encourage everybody listening, Elder preacher, whatever. Don't, don't have the shutting down discussion of, you know, of just kind of ignoring these things, because these are. Yes, it is difficult. Yes. You might come to a different conclusion than somebody else. We still got to have the conversation. Joe. [00:59:24] Speaker C: I was just gonna say from an individual perspective, you know, study, show thyself approved. [00:59:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:29] Speaker C: You have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So there is the James 4:17. To the man who knows the right thing to do and doesn't do it. It's sin. Right. So there's a conscience element to the church. We do push more for autonomy, and we do push for leaders to take a step up and to say, this is what we believe in, this congregation. This is what we're going to stand for. I know this doesn't help the discussion out of discussion all that much, but just from a individual and a congregational standpoint, we can't solve all the woes of all the churches across America, and the fellowship issue will continue to be discussed. All I know is if we have a strict, like, if we have a better set of this is what we're looking for here. This is what we do at this congregation. I do think stronger leaders stepping up and really spelling out for their folks, like, what it looks like on a day by day basis and what they believe would eliminate a lot of these questions. Not all of them. There's still a lot of that. But I do think strong leaders setting the tone for what we believe instead of letting every man just kind of leaving every man for himself and having biblical backing for those things, I think would solve a lot of. Not, like I said, not all, but a lot of these questions. [01:00:34] Speaker B: Well, in church cooperation, places that have congregations coming together to worship together, you know, once a month or once a quarter, that's so healthy that. [01:00:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:44] Speaker B: If you don't have that push for that because it makes such a big difference. [01:00:49] Speaker C: It's a great point. [01:00:50] Speaker B: All right, well, fellas, anything else? [01:00:52] Speaker A: I've got nothing else. No. [01:00:53] Speaker B: All right. It's gonna be all for us. We will see the Focus plus subscribers on the deep end on Friday and then we will be back, as I mentioned, a Tuesday episode. So we hope everyone. [01:01:02] Speaker C: Merry Christmas. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Merry Christmas. And yeah, just enjoy the holiday. Be safe traveling if you are as. As I will be. And again, we will talk to you guys next week. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Sa.