Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #49： Is it Important to go to Church Every Sunday？

00:00:00.700 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about... 0.85

00:00:05.880 Is it important to go to church every Sunday?

00:00:08.340 Good question. And we get it quite often, and we're going to answer that in this episode.

00:00:13.660 But first, before we get started, a couple things I wanted to remind you of.

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00:00:41.520 Uh, the next thing is I have another book coming out on September 3rd, uh, 2019 titled

00:00:50.900 real Christianity.

00:00:53.180 Um, and it's going to be, I'm just excited about it.

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00:00:58.060 It's literally like five by seven.

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00:01:01.460 If you enjoy this podcast at all, you're going to enjoy that book.

00:01:04.980 Yeah.

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00:02:28.080 Okay, we're diving in to this.

00:02:32.020 I'm going to take the first little section for, I don't know, seven minutes,

00:02:37.820 and then Veronica is going to hit a little section for about five minutes,

00:02:41.580 and then I'll close it up for about five minutes.

00:02:43.880 It's a pretty short show, I think, today, but who knows?

00:02:45.940 We could just go off on a tangent.

00:02:47.940 We'll see.

00:02:49.280 Okay, so it's a common question.

00:02:51.920 You know, is it important for people to go to church every Sunday?

00:02:55.560 You know, why?

00:02:56.800 Like, why is it important?

00:02:57.920 Why is that so critical?

00:02:59.180 And I'm going to break this down for you.

00:03:01.940 It's a common question for members of the modern church.

00:03:05.520 It's actually a question that reveals what I believe is the sad state of the Western church. 0.78

00:03:12.060 You know, when the church becomes a place to go and consume something instead of a people to join and contribute something, Christians only see their absence on Sunday affecting them. 0.85

00:03:30.060 And so we kind of got a distortion of how we should be viewing church right now in America. 0.74

00:03:36.840 And this is why they ask the common question, you know, is it important that I go to church every Sunday, that we as a family go to church every Sunday?

00:03:44.560 They're viewing their attendance or their absence as only affecting themselves.

00:03:51.200 Therefore, you know, if they choose to go or choose to stay home, it doesn't affect anyone else, right?

00:03:58.360 It shouldn't be a big deal.

00:04:00.020 Yeah.

00:04:00.380 So that's how we're viewing church.

00:04:02.980 and it's first it's very self-focused very independent and individualistic thinking

00:04:09.140 right there is that we're just about me if it's just about me why do I need to go and so we're

00:04:14.380 viewing church not biblically but culturally and that's actually the church's fault in terms of the

00:04:20.040 way that we've trained up trained up yeah by by the way that the church operates it's it has very

00:04:27.660 little to do with the Bible. Um, second point I want to make is America has made church centrally

00:04:36.400 a place, um, to consume information. And if that's what it really is, it's like a weekly

00:04:43.820 conference center. If that, you know, just a place to consume information. Um, why go on Sunday,

00:04:49.640 uh, when you can get that same information from the weekly podcast or the live webcast?

00:04:55.340 like why would you go um i mean if we're just using logic here right and for like convenience

00:05:01.740 and america is a convenience culture um and this is why many christian families have kind of

00:05:08.520 limited their attendance um or and and their commitment to the sunday church gathering it's

00:05:16.000 hard to get to church with little kids and on sunday you just want to rest and you want to

00:05:22.020 you know that those are all desires of the flesh right it's like you want to go out and have fun

00:05:26.300 you want to go out and fun it's a free day and and so like church just gets thrown on the back burner

00:05:31.120 um and and again ultimately if church is simply a weekly event presenting information which is

00:05:40.600 recorded for later consumption of which i am an inactive spectator whether i attend

00:05:45.980 in person or online, why should I make it a priority for me and my family to physically

00:05:52.580 attend on Sunday? You know, what's the value of my body being present at the Sunday church

00:06:00.940 gathering if I could do the exact same thing at home, which is listen to a handful of worship

00:06:09.260 songs and a sermon now that is a good question because what we've done is we've we've really

00:06:18.040 created that experience uh we've created audience christianity and again it has nothing to do with

00:06:27.860 the bible and so um it's a very sad state of the western church today and we're going to break that

00:06:34.680 down before we look at what the bible says about church and our attendance to that gathering uh

00:06:43.420 let's contrast that with someone like veronica who i believe has a scripturally accurate

00:06:49.860 understanding of church and i just want to ask her why is it important for you to attend the weekly

00:06:58.520 church gathering yeah um this is interesting because years ago before we were even in a

00:07:06.560 biblical church i would ask myself the same question um i liked to sleep in yeah i admire

00:07:13.660 my sleep very much and so this is before we had kids we'd like to sleep in now yeah amen okay but

00:07:19.860 um but today it's so evident as to why i would prioritize sunday morning fellowship going to

00:07:26.060 church meeting with the saints um so when i heard this question i put together a few points that i

00:07:32.780 wanted to share um first and foremost because scripture tells us not to forsake the meeting or

00:07:38.480 forsake the gathering of ourselves together it's super important that scripture tells us

00:07:43.900 to come together as the body of christ and to bear one another's burdens and how are you going to do

00:07:50.880 that if you're not at fellowship or at your church knowing what people's burdens are um so that's a

00:07:56.520 big one um and then second is because it's a gathering of our of your closest relationships

00:08:04.680 at least in our case yeah um we do home fellowship as a lot of you guys know um that is where you get

00:08:09.560 to walk out the one another's which is you know kind of what i mentioned you get to find out what

00:08:13.800 someone's burden is and then you get to walk out the one another's of the script that the scriptures

00:08:19.080 talk about yeah um so this is why i think in my opinion that house church has been so fruitful

00:08:24.160 for us at least um it's not 400 a couple thousand people in one room it's 10 to 15 maybe 20 families

00:08:32.860 together that you get to do life with you get to know them deeply you get to see their family you

00:08:37.960 get to see how their marriage is and how their relationship with their children are um so why

00:08:43.700 would you not want to prioritize a gathering where all of your closest relationships would be um so

00:08:50.180 i would say that because it's not at least in our case not just a gathering of all these random

00:08:57.560 people it is isn't a gathering of strangers it's a gathering of people you love yeah people we love

00:09:03.800 and we care about deeply um and that's that's a place to check in with them not i mean you can

00:09:09.380 check in with him consistently during the week as well but yeah well I think about when people

00:09:13.540 ask this question why is it important to go to church every Sunday it's it's revealing

00:09:17.260 that they don't have the relationships there because you only ask that question when you're

00:09:24.880 going like why do I what you should be saying is is it really important that I go to that

00:09:28.720 Christian conference every Sunday with all those strangers that I don't know that's really what's

00:09:34.400 being said in that question because you don't ask that question when you have when you see the value

00:09:41.920 in your presence being there well yeah and you have lots of deep committed loving christian

00:09:46.900 relationships with everybody that's there in a small deep rich community of people like there's

00:09:55.120 no there's no way you would ask why should i go to that right you know yeah there's a quote that i

00:10:01.120 hear you often say is the church shouldn't be 10 feet wide and one inch deep it should be

00:10:05.200 one inch wide and 10 feet deep and um ultimately the bible calls us to all of these relational

00:10:12.460 duties that can only be accomplished in a small group of people um and so this is why big churches

00:10:18.200 with lots of people don't feel close or they don't see the value in attending church because

00:10:22.760 why go to church when i don't connect with anyone i just again i can listen to the sermon later and

00:10:28.080 just go home yeah um so there's that and then the third reason is because god has a work to do

00:10:35.900 in me and through me on sunday mornings i don't go just to receive that should not be your heart

00:10:42.580 to go to a church just to receive or see receive and get poured into um that's important too it's

00:10:48.000 part of it it's part of it yeah um i'm not there to be a passive spectator i'm there to be an active

00:10:53.860 participant um and so it's where i can hear people's prayer requests um again the one another's

00:11:01.080 bearing one another's burdens from people in our community i get to encourage other mothers and

00:11:05.740 wives and have people pray over our family or and i get to share as well things that we might be

00:11:12.380 struggling with or whatever it is um and it's busy and it can be sometimes really overwhelming

00:11:17.740 especially for somebody that's an introvert like myself but it is the most fruitful thing that I

00:11:25.640 have ever seen and actively have had played out in our lives and in in my life and then lastly

00:11:33.040 we've made the church about entertainment or infotainment as Dale likes to call it that if

00:11:40.960 people aren't amused and they're not entertained and they don't see the then they don't see the

00:11:45.840 value and then they just leave again church is not a place to go to be entertained it's not a place

00:11:52.640 to just be poured into poured into poured into that's a that's a part of it again but that's not

00:11:58.140 all it's for um and again the church in america has sadly turned it into that it is a one-sided

00:12:06.500 monologue it is not a dialogue um and i think francis chan says this great quote um let me

00:12:14.000 pull it out of my brain uh we need to make church less about less like going to the movies and more

00:12:19.320 like going to the gym and i thought that's a good that's a good quote yeah so yeah so it's not about

00:12:25.180 what what can i receive it's also about what can i give uh and how the lord may use me in that day

00:12:32.060 to minister to the body yeah to presume why should i go is again revealing that you believe that

00:12:41.340 you're not being going to be used in any capacity yeah there have been there have been times at

00:12:45.780 fellowship on sunday where somebody or maybe i was struggling with something or whatever it is

00:12:50.040 having you know a harder week whatever it is and somebody just said a little bit of an encouragement

00:12:56.640 to me or brought something to my attention that i may not have seen before and it really blessed

00:13:02.360 my life and impacted my life at least for that week and changed my thought pattern or perspective

00:13:06.660 and had that person taken the position of I just don't want to go to church today like no they did

00:13:13.560 their work greatly benefited and blessed my life by them ministering to me and I've had you know

00:13:19.620 it's vice versa we all have something to bring to the body so I rarely uh talk about what I'm

00:13:26.840 about to talk about but I want to mention it because I think a lot of people are going to

00:13:29.380 be listening to this and they're going to say I really want that you know relearnchurch.org

00:13:35.200 is our ministry for helping people understand what biblical church is and how to help people

00:13:40.940 plant churches. We are hoping to build a curriculum, an online church planting school,

00:13:49.380 seminary level, but also lots of resources, which we already have lots of resources there too, but

00:13:57.120 more and more resources for people to learn and understand biblical church so they can plant it.

00:14:02.800 church planting is a regular Christian activity. This idea that we need to have a non-profit and

00:14:09.840 a seminary degree and a, you know, a smoke machine and a worship band, it has nothing to do with the

00:14:17.740 Bible. And we can put together small biblical communities quite easily if we know what we're

00:14:22.680 doing. I do believe that we need to be trained, and that's why an online church planting school

00:14:26.500 is what we're trying to put together. But people, this stuff costs money to put together.

00:14:32.240 um our our ministry to be honest like it just barely pays our bills and a handful of hours from

00:14:42.660 some independent contractors that work with us and so um if you guys are blessed by this podcast

00:14:48.440 and would like to be part of you know having access to that curriculum in 2020 we need people

00:14:57.220 to be willing to be generous and give to the Lord's work in that. Um, and the Lord has come

00:15:04.200 through every single time and this past year has been so tough for us. And, you know, just last

00:15:09.160 night, someone made a $500 donation. Like I just go, praise God. Um, and, but most donations are

00:15:16.740 five bucks, 10 bucks, $15 every single month. You know, those things really help. Yeah. So if you

00:15:24.260 can do 10 bucks a month or 20 bucks a month like that's a big deal to us and it really does give

00:15:30.140 us security and stability so that we can go build stuff for the kingdom um and so if you're just a

00:15:37.900 consumer of this content every single week um and you can actually afford to give which again i

00:15:44.220 believe everybody can afford to give um especially in america in terms of you know the lord is your

00:15:49.520 provider i just want to encourage you guys we can't do this stuff without without the funding

00:15:55.740 to do it and we'll be faithful with that money but would ask that you would be faithful in giving

00:16:00.880 so um moving on to uh this the scriptural discussion around why should we go to church

00:16:09.000 every sunday um so i'm going to read you hebrews chapter 10 24 through 25 and remember that this

00:16:17.080 statement was being written when um nero was uh was raining and uh he was burning people

00:16:25.200 alive they called roman candles because he was burning christians alive sorry guys um we have a

00:16:33.120 this happens pretty often now third episode in a row it's happened we have a bug zapper a bug zapper

00:16:37.820 gets a bug in here every time we should probably turn that off um do that next time so why haven't

00:16:42.800 we thought of that anyways um king nero is running and he's he's burning christians and

00:16:49.320 they're going and swarming into houses looking for christians to kill and to persecute and so

00:16:54.660 yeah there's a pretty good reason to go i don't know if i want to show up to that christian meeting 0.90

00:16:58.140 today um and then this scripture was written in that time it says and let us consider one another

00:17:04.780 in order to stir up love and good works not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together

00:17:11.900 as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more, as you see the day,

00:17:18.120 capital D, approaching. That means the day of the return of Christ. And so, I want to point out a

00:17:24.300 couple things he says here. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good

00:17:29.860 works, not forsaking. So, he's saying, first, when you feel like you don't want to go,

00:17:35.640 it's because you're thinking about yourself. When you consider others,

00:17:40.020 you go, Lord, I'm going to show up, not because I feel like showing up. I'm going to show up

00:17:45.820 because I'm considering others and I might have a work that you have in me to stir up love and

00:17:51.980 good works in their life. And so, Lord, I'm going to be a vessel that is faithful and I will be

00:17:56.680 there. I'm going to make a commitment. And so that's one thing I just go, that's what that

00:18:01.220 passage is saying. That's why you don't forsake the gathering. It's your, what you're really

00:18:06.500 saying is Lord I don't want to be used today to strengthen your body I'm going to actually give

00:18:12.980 into my own desires and sit back home and hear us out we're talking to the people that are taking

00:18:18.640 that approach there's definitely moments in time where you're sick and you totally can't go to

00:18:23.320 church but I would say this last year his year and a half has been the hardest year and a half

00:18:28.340 that we've ever walked through and we've missed church maybe two or three times and it's because

00:18:33.620 we're legitimately sick or our kids are sick and we can't spread that um but trust me there have

00:18:40.080 been many times where we had sleepless nights you know i'm not going to church because my baby

00:18:43.500 didn't sleep you know multiple nights in a row i get that but you can push through you know i mean

00:18:48.740 it just just honestly evaluate yourself there was one night years ago that i didn't sleep the entire

00:18:55.220 night i had insomnia real bad and i didn't sleep the entire night and i was having i was hosting

00:19:01.000 We were hosting church at our house.

00:19:02.620 We switch houses for like every eight weeks.

00:19:05.640 And I actually called the guy that was discipling me, Matt Jacobson.

00:19:12.240 I said, hey, Matt, hey, I didn't get any sleep last night.

00:19:14.960 Would you be willing to lead the meeting today?

00:19:17.160 So I was going to go, but I just didn't want to lead.

00:19:19.320 And he goes, well, Dale, sometimes we get to be faithful, even in imperfect circumstances.

00:19:23.840 I expect that you'll be able to be a man of God

00:19:27.280 that you can actually lead

00:19:29.020 regardless of how tired you are

00:19:31.200 and I remember going, oh dang, okay

00:19:33.140 and so I led that day with no sleep

00:19:36.800 I was faithful regardless of the circumstances

00:19:39.880 and I've taken that and learned from that

00:19:43.040 Just have an honest evaluation of yourself

00:19:47.680 Where is your heart?

00:19:48.520 Is it truly because you are exhausted

00:19:51.400 and you just can't do it

00:19:52.500 or you're actually sick?

00:19:53.840 Or is it just because you just really don't feel like going and you're going to use the fact that you didn't get sleep as an excuse?

00:19:59.420 Totally.

00:20:00.160 And this is a prioritizing of God's people and of God's work and of God's body.

00:20:04.980 And yeah, like we try to move all of our vacations and all of our times out of town away from Sunday.

00:20:10.940 Like if we can, and we build that culture into our church, we have a very committed body.

00:20:15.660 Yeah, sure.

00:20:16.220 And if, you know, it doesn't work out that way, then it doesn't work out that way.

00:20:18.680 But we definitely try.

00:20:19.660 We'll leave even Sunday night or Monday morning and come back Saturday or Sunday, get back early enough so that we were there.

00:20:26.680 Totally. Yeah. And so, again, we don't want to become legalistic about it, but it's one of those things where you just love God's people so much and God's work so much that you want to be there.

00:20:35.620 The word exhort means strongly encouraged.

00:20:38.800 And it says, but exhorting.

00:20:42.560 So one, it says not forsaking the assembly of yourselves together, as is the manner of some.

00:20:46.580 Like some people, they forsake the gathering.

00:20:48.460 but instead exhort one another so strongly encourage one another you're there to encourage

00:20:54.320 people like what matt did with you exactly yeah he exhorted me and so much more as you see the

00:21:00.000 day approaching the next scripture i want to read that's important for i think just the understanding

00:21:04.520 of ecclesiology which is ecclesia as the church and the study of the church ecclesiology um

00:21:11.860 Ephesians 4

00:21:13.840 11 through 13

00:21:16.120 he says

00:21:18.300 and he himself

00:21:19.860 as in Christ

00:21:21.000 he himself gave

00:21:22.080 some

00:21:22.840 these are called

00:21:23.740 the fivefold ministries

00:21:24.700 to be apostles

00:21:25.660 some prophets

00:21:26.920 some evangelists

00:21:27.740 some pastors

00:21:28.520 and some teachers

00:21:29.280 and so these are all

00:21:30.440 ministries

00:21:31.520 not spiritual gifts

00:21:33.040 they can be

00:21:33.980 kind of construed as both

00:21:35.160 but these are

00:21:36.060 different ministries

00:21:37.160 he gave some apostles

00:21:39.160 that have apostolic ministries

00:21:40.060 some prophetic ministries

00:21:40.980 some evangelistic ministries, some pastoral ministries, some teaching ministries.

00:21:45.420 Spiritual gifts are Ephesians 12 and some other spots, but, or sorry, 1 Corinthians 12.

00:21:51.180 And then it says, for, this is the reason that he gave us these five-fold ministries.

00:21:58.300 For the equipping of the saints is what it says.

00:22:00.840 For the work of the ministry.

00:22:03.020 For the edifying of the body of Christ.

00:22:05.460 So I'm going to read this one more time so you can hear it all at one point.

00:22:07.840 And I'll stop interrupting my own line of thought here.

00:22:11.600 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers

00:22:16.200 for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,

00:22:22.440 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man,

00:22:27.440 to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

00:22:31.100 So again, why does he do this?

00:22:33.980 There's two points he says.

00:22:35.020 for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.

00:22:38.420 The purpose of the church gathering

00:22:40.580 is for the equipping of the saints for the purpose of ministry.

00:22:44.420 So when Veronica and I come to church

00:22:46.840 and this church gathering, we get together

00:22:49.480 and we hang out with these people and these families.

00:22:51.720 The Holy Spirit is leading this meeting

00:22:53.380 and we're hearing this encouragement, exhortation

00:22:56.040 and teachings and revelations from other people and prayer requests.

00:22:59.100 And we are being edified, which is to be built up.

00:23:03.640 For what reason?

00:23:05.020 Well, it's for our, for our personal ministry.

00:23:08.000 So we leave that meeting going, oh, and we all have a ministry.

00:23:11.980 If you don't have a ministry, then you should question.

00:23:15.760 Everybody has a ministry.

00:23:17.200 That's what I'm saying.

00:23:18.160 It's just acknowledging it.

00:23:18.840 Yeah.

00:23:19.100 If you don't have a ministry, you should question if you're following Christ.

00:23:21.560 Right.

00:23:21.820 Okay.

00:23:22.180 Yeah.

00:23:22.380 That's what I'm saying is that because we're, we all have some ministry to do.

00:23:26.420 And so we go on Sunday to be encouraged and go, oh, look, I mean, edified so that I can

00:23:31.620 fulfill my ministry the rest of this week.

00:23:35.020 and the second part is for the edifying of the body of Christ,

00:23:40.300 and we are edified as a body being strengthened and bringing,

00:23:44.140 and it says, till we all come to the unity of the faith.

00:23:46.920 We're being unified.

00:23:48.300 That's why we do communion together.

00:23:49.980 It's this symbolism of our unity together,

00:23:52.340 and the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

00:23:56.460 We're learning about the knowledge of the Son of God

00:23:58.560 so that we can become a perfect man.

00:24:01.200 This idea of anthropos, perfect,

00:24:02.760 meaning like understanding the word of God fully to the measure of the stature of the fullness of

00:24:08.380 Christ to its completion. And so there's a lot going on. God doesn't put the stuff in the

00:24:14.920 scriptures so that you can go, you know what? I don't really see the value of church. Now I do

00:24:18.500 empathize because if you're going to a big church that is audience Christianity, inactive spectator

00:24:25.600 Christianity, how much involvement can you have? It's designed to make you incapable of being

00:24:34.420 involved. You're an active, passive spectator. You can't even participate. And so I understand

00:24:42.360 that problem. Now, I'm going to say still remain faithful until you can put together by the leading

00:24:50.220 of the Holy Spirit in the training of the Holy Spirit. Don't just go and say, we're going to go

00:24:54.860 plant a house church without being trained. I really, really say Jesus didn't go to his people

00:25:02.360 and say, hey guys, I'm going to just talk to you guys about this really cool idea called the church

00:25:07.040 and then you guys are going to go just do stuff. And we spent three years training them before we

00:25:12.380 went out and did that. They went out and did that ministry. And so I just want to encourage you guys

00:25:17.720 to be trained and read up and study up on that before you do that. We did a podcast just, I don't

00:25:24.160 know two or three episodes ago titled the seven criteria for finding a biblical church i would

00:25:29.760 listen to that um and see if how much of the criteria your current church meets and if not

00:25:34.500 find a an institutional church that meets most of those criteria while you're maybe considering if

00:25:40.700 you want to if you feel called to plant and establish a biblical community um and again

00:25:48.000 we're going to try to come out with more resources on this for you guys last point i want to make

00:25:52.220 is based off of the idea

00:25:56.500 that John Wesley made this statement.

00:25:59.240 He said,

00:26:00.560 the church changes the world

00:26:01.700 not by making converts,

00:26:03.560 but by making disciples.

00:26:06.480 And the church's work,

00:26:08.260 another reason why you come to church

00:26:09.760 is because you're there to be discipled.

00:26:13.760 Now, sadly, most people aren't being discipled.

00:26:15.780 They're being evangelized to,

00:26:17.820 and Sunday has turned into an evangelistic outreach,

00:26:20.540 not necessarily a focus on discipleship

00:26:23.500 where you walk away going,

00:26:24.980 ooh, now I know the word of God more.

00:26:27.720 It's more like, oh, I've actually heard that message before.

00:26:31.020 It's called lowest common denominator preaching.

00:26:33.420 You preach to the guests

00:26:34.400 because it's their first time here.

00:26:36.380 And the problem is,

00:26:37.280 is that people that have been there for 10 years

00:26:38.900 have heard these messages over and over and over again.

00:26:41.460 They need meat.

00:26:42.660 They're only serving milk.

00:26:44.400 And you get this dilemma.

00:26:46.180 And so you want to find, again,

00:26:47.900 this church function

00:26:48.940 where you can have a discipleship focus.

00:26:51.560 If you focus on making disciples,

00:26:54.080 you can't stop people from talking about Jesus.

00:26:58.100 If you focus on making converts,

00:27:00.400 you're going to create a church 1.00

00:27:02.020 filled with immature believers

00:27:03.640 who are swayed by their emotions and false doctrine.

00:27:07.000 And so we need to,

00:27:09.100 if you just focus on discipleship making,

00:27:10.980 and the Great Commission people

00:27:12.380 doesn't say, go therefore, make converts.

00:27:15.100 It says, go therefore,

00:27:16.580 and make disciples of all nations,

00:27:19.480 baptizing in the name of the Father,

00:27:20.620 the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

00:27:22.020 teaching them to obey all that I commanded.

00:27:24.240 There's a lot of work to be done.

00:27:26.060 It's discipleship making that we're supposed to be doing.

00:27:28.580 That's the Great Commission.

00:27:29.580 It's not evangelism.

00:27:31.020 Evangelism is part of it.

00:27:32.420 It's part of the ministry.

00:27:33.400 You need to do that.

00:27:34.420 Part of discipleship is evangelism,

00:27:36.420 but we want to focus on the church,

00:27:39.140 on a deep-rooted discipleship of people.

00:27:43.140 Evangelism happens in everybody's personal ministries,

00:27:45.600 out on the streets

00:27:46.580 walking around town

00:27:47.560 in your own personal life

00:27:49.040 in the dinners

00:27:49.500 and the parties

00:27:50.520 at the park

00:27:51.780 and all these moments.

00:27:53.860 I wrote this quote

00:27:55.060 and then I'll close us out here

00:27:56.380 in regards to evangelism

00:27:59.220 and discipleship.

00:28:01.680 I wrote,

00:28:02.220 In our efforts to meet

00:28:03.160 the needs of the lost,

00:28:04.780 we are failing to meet

00:28:06.180 the maturity need of the saved.

00:28:08.480 The scriptures are clear.

00:28:09.740 Some need milk

00:28:10.320 and some need meat.

00:28:11.540 The Western church

00:28:12.320 is living on milk 0.99

00:28:13.040 because we have made

00:28:14.020 our time on Sunday

00:28:14.980 centrally about the visitors and in doing so have neglected the committed so i understand if you

00:28:20.300 don't want to come on sunday and you've been a christian for 10 15 years the content is for is

00:28:26.720 milk um you're not getting a lot of deep rich discipleship you can't participate um they're

00:28:35.660 strangers we have a problem in the church there's a need for church reform deeply and we're working

00:28:44.140 on that um pray about just your heart and this posture stay committed even though it might not

00:28:52.480 make sense to you right now the lord will make a way to be used if you're faithful

00:28:57.000 and also just since you're still listening to this um if you could be praying for us too

00:29:03.720 as we're on this journey um trying to get these ministries and resources up um it seems like

00:29:10.160 every time we take a step forward,

00:29:12.260 Satan wants to attack us big time.

00:29:14.320 And so just be praying for us

00:29:16.600 that we would be faithful

00:29:17.920 with what the Lord has called us to do

00:29:19.320 and that we would not grow weary

00:29:21.640 in doing good.

00:29:23.080 Oh, amen.

00:29:24.160 Yeah, we, guys,

00:29:25.700 we fight a battle over here.

00:29:26.740 It's like swimming upstream constantly.

00:29:29.580 And so, yeah, we'd appreciate that.

00:29:33.580 Show notes, again,

00:29:34.640 at relearnchurch.org forward slash listen.

00:29:36.820 You can see everything

00:29:37.600 that we talked about today.

00:29:39.080 And if you want to be, again,

00:29:40.160 part of our launch team for my new book you guys can do that just go into relearnchurch.org

00:29:46.060 forward slash launch and you fill out that form and we'll get in contact with you and if you guys

00:29:51.160 would be so kind to leave a review of the podcast they really do help the exposure of the show

00:29:55.800 on that note we will chat with you next week yeah see you guys next wednesday all right guys take care

Dale Partridge - June 12, 2019

Real Christianity #49： Is it Important to go to Church Every Sunday？

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