Real Christianity #54： The Four Criteria For Creating Biblical Community
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the 4 criteria for creating a biblical community. We also talk about how we create a biblical oasis in our house church community in Central Oregon, and how that can apply to your life.
Transcript
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Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about the four criteria for creating biblical community.
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This is going to be a good conversation. We're going to really kind of show you our process of how we walk people into community here in Central Oregon in our house church community.
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The questions that we ask, the process that we take, and how that could apply to your life.
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but before we get started a couple things um one this is a video if you don't know that you can
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always watch this at relearnchurch.org forward slash listen this is a video that you can watch
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on youtube and our youtube channel you can subscribe to and we have lots of videos there
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for you as well um you can also listen to this on spotify and stitcher and google play and itunes
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if you guys haven't left a review yet guys these are views i'm reading just if you get a second
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go and read some of the reviews for the show i mean some of them make you cry they're just
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amazing so if you guys haven't left a review um all we're asking is that you just go and tap the
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stars in itunes um you don't need to do anything else if you want to write something we'd love to
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read it um a couple other things before we dive into the top the topic conversation i don't know
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I guess it's both, um, is we are relaunching the ultimate marriage, marriage mentor program.
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Uh, we've turned it from a one year program to a six week program and we're just finishing
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the final filming of it and the new website and it's looking really great.
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If you want to be notified when enrollment opens, just go to ultimate marriage.com forward
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We'll just send you an email or a text and let you know.
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um the last thing i got lots of announcements before last thing is uh my new book real
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christianity i just finished the final manuscript like it's done and done and done and it comes out
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um early september if you guys want to be a part of the launch team or if you want to interview me
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please go to relearnchurch.org forward slash launch.
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and then Veronica will dive in here in a second.
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That's just in a short nutshell, that's what we do.
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Our central mission is to really establish a culture of Christians who are walking out, growing into and conforming with the teachings of the Bible.
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Now, to say this another way, if people ask us, what do you really do?
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We wouldn't just say, oh, we plant house churches or, oh, I'm a pastor.
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You know, what we really do is build biblical culture.
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That's at the core what we do is we build biblical culture.
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We shepherd followers of Jesus to and through the teachings of Jesus.
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We help kind of men and women understand and abide in God's expectation for his children in his community.
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um this is probably close to like a really practical description of what the apostle
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paul did it's just shepherding people to biblical culture it's multifaceted multidimensional
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um and deeply relational um so i'll let veronica dive in yeah just hearing you mention that over
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the years i think um dale and i have probably seen i don't know over 100 families come and go
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um you know some come some go from our biblical communities here in central
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definitely do um from people who are just curious
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about biblical house church or um I should just say just biblical
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church doesn't have to be house church um biblical church or are looking for
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biblical communities in their area and we totally get it we've been there
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before um and we've mentioned it before kind of walk through a desert not really going anywhere
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we don't recommend that um but we totally hear you on that um and from the outside looking in
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biblical community can seem like a spiritual oasis um where the fruit is just overflowing
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and it is um but the reality is from the outside people don't see what is required
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to yield that type of fruit yeah um go ahead yeah they do i mean it's just there's so much
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internal work oh yeah everyone wants the results um but few are willing to adhere
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to the doctrines required to achieve them yeah and i mean when we talk about communities we have
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three gatherings here in central oregon as of now um and uh probably another one soon and maybe
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another one shortly after that and you know we when a church gets too big um to fit a new home
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we we don't go get a building we multiply into another house and uh just so if that question
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comes up in your mind uh but as veronica said since we started doing this in 2014 uh and we
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were really learning just kind of from the very beginning at that point and so it's not like wow
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you only have three communities after 2014 well there was several years of just learning what to
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do yeah before we're still new to us in 2014 so um we had to learn and figure it out we've probably
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seen 30 to 40 families leave the community over the years um just like okay like that didn't work
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for them and um or moving or whatever it is yeah and some of them had clear callings from god
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to move away to move to a different church uh some move because of a career change
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some missions some doing missions but i'd say that um maybe a majority uh definitely at least half
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um have left because they weren't actually interested in conforming to what the bible
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calls Christians to do as the church. Now, we're not perfect, you know, in our churches. And I'm
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not saying that like, man, we have it right. And if you don't get it right, you know, if you don't
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conform to what we're doing over here, then, you know, you're definitely wrong. That's not what
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I'm saying. I've eaten a lot of humble pie over the years and understand what it means to be
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humble. But I think you'll understand what I'm saying as we get through this episode. But my
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experience has shown me that people really struggle to embrace the bible's instructions
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for real christian community they they really do it's it's hard on the flesh it's a struggle
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especially if you haven't grown up in that it is most people haven't yeah and so this show is
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almost like an evaluation like a personal evaluation uh tool to see if you really do
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want biblical community a lot of people say they oh i would love that um but do you really want it
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um you know uh is this something you're really looking for um and at the end of the episode if
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it is something you're really looking for we'll give you a few uh tips to kind of further that
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journey that you might be able to establish a biblical culture or biblical community uh in
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your own hometown because that's a question we get a lot um so let's talk about biblical culture
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building. And when someone leaves your church, the natural inclination of the flesh is to determine
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what we did wrong or what we need to change to prevent people from leaving in the future.
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Sadly, many churches begin to focus on how they can better accommodate people's preferences,
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even if they're not biblical and you know god forbid uh the bible's way of doing something
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offends them right um this is bad thinking to kind of accommodate uh and kind of
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cater to cater to some of these desires the reasons that people leave it and you'll
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we'll find out why veronica's gonna explain just a few days ago just since you're talking about
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You actually posted a quote on your Instagram that I wanted to share since we're kind of on that topic.
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And it said, when a church changes their values to match the current culture, they're no longer following the Bible.
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Yeah, I mean, so I think about this is that, you know, the only reason that a church should change based on someone leaving is if the party who left did so because the church was doing something unbiblical.
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And so if someone leaves our community, it's, you know, we're so close and like, oh, why did they leave?
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Like, you want to introspection and go like, what did we do wrong?
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and if it's not anything unbiblical then you know it's not us needing to change
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you know however you know we do not need to change our values or theology in order to make
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people more comfortable like that's that's not what we're here to do as the church if we started
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changing our values in our theology to make people comfortable that's what you get when you have
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of these churches that are doing big, giant concerts
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or just focusing on things that really have nothing to do with the Bible.
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Instead, we really need to focus on creating a culture
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around the Scriptures, around the biblical doctrine.
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And we offer grace and patience and compassion,
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but we do not compromise in order to accommodate to ungodly ideas
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or just because someone doesn't want to conform to a biblical idea.
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um and again this is deep stuff if you haven't heard this before yeah and and the truth is at
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least in in our experience um if you have a strong biblical culture within your community it's going
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to naturally push people away who are not willing to harmonize yeah um meaning when people leave
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they're not leaving because of you yeah they're leaving because of the bible um and they probably
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won't admit that but no they usually come up with another reason um uh and and you know what
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i'm not one to say that that's invalid or valid um but in my experience that they come up with
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we get we're escape artists from accountability and so we come up with these really creative ways
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to kind of um avert our the attention to something else i should say divert the attention to something
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else yeah um and now for us i think the best way uh to limit the coming and going uh the coming and
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leaving experience is to be ultra clear and up front with the families who are interested in
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being part of the communities um in the first place yeah so um to be clear we don't layer on
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any more expectations than what the bible calls for but we also do not accept anything less than
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what the bible calls for either yeah and and so again this is we're gonna talk about um there's
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also grace for people who you you're they're they're eager to grow they're wanting to learn
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they're wanting to grow and they're they're not there yet yeah and so we have grace for those
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people who are on the journey it's not a black and white process right um but we're gonna try
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to give you a somewhat of a format that i think is just helpful for you to guys to go oh wow that
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that's what biblical culture is. And, um, and if you are interested in at some point creating a
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biblical community where you're at, uh, from the five years in which we've been doing this
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every single week, these are some things that we've learned. Um, but when a family is interested
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in joining our community, um, we do what a house church, you know, a house church from China or
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house church from Bulgaria, house church from Iran, house churches all around the world do.
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and we go to dinner or coffee with these people first, okay?
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And, you know, we want to get to know these people.
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In China or any other persecuted church region in the world,
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you don't just let someone come to your house church
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because they're interested in wanting to come to your house church.
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Our entire churches have been killed or martyred because of that.
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No, you go and you attempt to build authentic relationship with these folks.
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They're going to be around your friends' children.
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They're going to have authority to speak and teach in the church gathering,
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um uh according to scriptures uh the scriptures um you know there's a bit of a protective shepherd
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role to play when you invite people into a biblical community um now i know some of you
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guys are thinking but what about like the lost like people that don't know jesus like what if
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they want to come well in in a in a house church experience that's usually not the case because
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we don't have a building we don't have a website we're not it's usually uh not something we're
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dealing with um my my my just quick we're not spending time on this today touch on it touch on
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it quickly yeah just kind of ecclesiology on evangelism in the church is that this this isn't
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a time um the church isn't a time to do evangelism evangelism is an outward work go therefore and make
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disciples of all nations it's an outward work you never see in the scriptures this being an activity
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that happens in the church, it's always an activity that happens outward. Individuals are called to go
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and preach the gospel, baptize people, disciple them, and then bring them to the church. We're
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not supposed to just bring them to the church and outsource our role of evangelism to the paid
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pastor so that he can do the evangelism for us. The idea of church being an evangelism hub isn't
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something you see in the scriptures. Evangelism and the church meeting are separate endeavors,
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and the church itself really is for the meeting of the saints it's the edification of the body
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to do the work of the ministry this is what the gathering is for um if you look uh first
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corinthians chapter 14 ephesians 4 kind of explains this idea uh that it's for the edification
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but side note i digress um and so i'm moving back now to the conversation of the process that we
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have and the heart of the reason to get to know these people through these dinners and through
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these coffees is to understand what biblical community really is and i'll tell you we've done
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it how many i mean we've had hundreds of dinners with families right like that are curious and we
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we you know yeah some have decided to not come actually after those dinners and some have decided
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to come and check it out stay or leave yeah and this you know because the institutional church
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has trained christians to view and understand church in a way that has very little to do with
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the bible um this means there's a lot of unlearning and relearning to do in terms of when it comes to
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church we just met with a couple today who comes from a um baptist orthodox um russian church and
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was asking us all these questions and like i was like well there's there's really nothing in the
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bible that says to do it like that and it was just a lot of unlearning and relearning to do
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and so we all kind of walk in with some of that stuff and so over a handful of dinners we usually
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do two to four dinners uh with families uh here's what i would say the four scriptural requirements
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for christians who want to do church according to the bible and um and they're they're pretty
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heavy and i'm excited to share them with you guys yeah so as we um go through these it might be a
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now would be like a good time it might be a good exercise for you to examine if you would thrive
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or end up leaving a biblical community um so let's dive in the first thing that is central to being
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part of a biblical community is first thing number one do you allow scripture to be authoritative
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yeah authoritative in your life the first thing uh that people generally ask is does the bible
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have authority in your life um i'm sorry the first thing that we usually ask is yeah does
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the bible have authority in your life um do you submit to scripture even if it's unpopular or
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uncomfortable um or do they have a pick and choose relationship with scripture yeah are they pulling
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a theology that's just kind of cherry picking like i like this verse i like that verse i like
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this idea i like that idea i don't like that idea i don't want to talk about that over there though
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that's written in scripture yeah that's that's not my thing uh we have to remember that we received
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the gospel because it was written down in the bible so if you're not going to believe the rest
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of the bible is true then why should the gospel be true it's so interesting to me how people do
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that they go oh i don't want to listen to that verse right there or that verse over there or
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that verse over there but hey i love the gospel it's very illogical it's a very contradictive
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idea um second timothy uh 3 16 through 17 says all scripture is given by inspiration of god and
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is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness
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that the man of god man mean man and woman man of god may be complete thoroughly equipped for
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every good work you combine that with the promise of scripture that god cannot lie
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And you have a dilemma that the Bible is true or it's not.
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And when it says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God,
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You don't try to go do biblical community with families who are not interested
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in having the scriptures be authoritative in how they live.
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And because you're always going to be playing by different rules.
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If you are in a community with people that do adhere to the Bible, is authoritative,
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then you always have something to go back to.
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And you don't need to worry about the emotions that get involved and engaged.
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But at the end of the day, I don't want your emotions to be the arbiter of what we're doing.
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We're going to just do what the scriptures teach.
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And if we're all unified on that, man, you can do community
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And again, what are the purpose of rules in a game?
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whether it's the doctrine of God, sin, salvation,
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then we've lost the very foundation of our faith.
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what shall the righteous do and so yeah the the first thing that's so critical if you're going to
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do church with other people is that everybody believes that the scriptures are inerrant and
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true and authoritative in the way they live yeah and this conversation about scripture generally
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leads to a flurry of questions um about interpretation and then people these are like
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the first questions people usually ask us um well how do you view women in the church or what about
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head coverings which we've done podcasts on these before um what do you do with the children or um
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do you guys do church discipline uh yeah and giving how does that work and and which we just
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did a podcast on that and so these are common questions actually like 10 of them i i have
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written down because i just i i train church planters and i go man these 10 questions you're
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to get the first questions that people always ask always ask and you got to have the answers for
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them um but then we walk these families through their questions we take them through scripture
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over these dinners and we walk them through and we let them make their own decision we're not
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trying to convince anyone to come and be a part of what we're doing no very i mean almost every
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time we're gathering with people who say you know if this is where the lord's leading you we'd love
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to have you but if this isn't where he's leading you then don't come like that's fine we're not
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going to be offended. If you choose to go to another church, that's totally fine. I'll even
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say we don't want you here if the Lord doesn't want you here. Like don't come for us. Come for
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God's leading you to this place to be with his people. You know, God is building his church.
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Jesus says on this rock, I will build my church. He is building the church. I don't need to worry
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about it. I need to sell the church idea. The Lord is building the church. And we're simply
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called just to be faithful to his word but when people learn how serious we are about the scriptures
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and how much we hold those in in such high honor um they either love it or they pull back
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and so that's why it's it's like the first thing you got to deal with um in in a conversation with
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folks if you're trying to start a biblical community is is the scripture is true and
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interestingly, the people that pull back are sometimes the people who say, man, I want to do
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church like the book of Acts. I want to do the Acts church, man. That's like what everybody says.
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I want to do like that. Yeah, I read that and I want to do that. And man, I'm just here to tell
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you the Acts church, the first century Christians, man, they believed in scripture. It says that they
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labored in the apostles doctrine in Acts chapter two. And so what about you? Is the Bible authoritative
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in your life and how you live um are you excited and hungry for being in a community that loves
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the bible that's the first criteria all right second thing we're going to discuss which will
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be number two are you hungry for god yeah that's it that's the second point first one is do you
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want more yeah do you want more yeah um aw tozer once said uh to have found god and still pursue
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him is the true evidence of love so are you looking uh for a church solution because it's
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something that you know is good for your life or are you looking for a church because you're so in
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love with god that you want to pursue him with his people yeah yeah and this is this is a a great
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discussion that'll kind of naturally reveal um if a person is a christian by philosophy or even by
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what I call bibliology, meaning that they really enjoy the moralism of the Bible, but they don't
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actually have a relationship with Christ. And I think there's a lot of people out there that have
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that. They really love the conservative politics and they really love Jesus, the idea. They really
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love, you know, just the, yeah, you know, hey, no swearing and live clean and don't have sex
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before you're married. They love those boundaries, but they're not actually in a deep saving
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faith relationship with christ and um and so we're looking for people if they're hungry for god you
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could even say man scripture's authoritative it's it's it's there and still not have a hunger for
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god like you kind of go like hey i found him like i'm here like that's all you know um and usually
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what that is in my experience is it's someone who lacks the vision of the kingdom um the bible says
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And man, if you don't see God and his work in the world
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But over the years, we've met many of these people,
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these people that are in this philosophy, Christianity.
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but it's not a daily heart-driven relationship with God.
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and eventually feel out of place in a biblical community and you'll eventually leave or or like
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have a moment with God like where you come closer and I've seen families that do that just like a
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breakthrough and you go oh or they just go I don't get it guys and then they they walk away
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yeah uh Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22 verses 37 through 38 you shall love the Lord your God
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with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind this is the first and great commandment
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it usually takes time for this to become evident um if they're hungry or not yes um but the
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discussion up front usually starts the personal evaluation if it's needed um and so the third
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thing we're going to try to determine when meeting new folks is number three are you eager to grow
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and bear fruit yeah so again i want to just kind of review these real quick um we have number one
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is do you allow scripture to be authoritative number two is are you hungry for god um and the
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third one is are you eager to grow and bear fruit um i'm gonna read a passage in hebrews um actually
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babe why don't you read it hebrews 5 12 through 14 yeah let's start there for though by this time
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you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of
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god and you have come to need milk and not solid food for everyone who partakes only of milk is
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unskilled in the word of righteousness for he is a babe but solid food belongs to those who are of
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full age that is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and
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evil. Yeah. So pretty heady passage of scripture. And what I want to talk about here is the apostle
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is saying when you're a baby, you can't digest anything but milk. And that's fine. If you're
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new to the gospel, you need the gospel. You have to start somewhere. Yeah. You need the milk parts
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But as an adult, you cannot grow on milk alone, right?
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You need something else to provide the sustenance for growth.
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And sadly, the vast majority of the Western church
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And so, again, this topic that we're talking about is, are you eager to grow and bear fruit?
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And, you know, you need meat to digest to produce growth and maturity.
00:27:45.700
And with growth and maturity comes fruitfulness.
00:27:49.920
You don't have a lot of fruit that comes from the growth from milk.
00:28:25.160
is when the fruit appears yeah i mean think about some of the things that you're reading romans
00:28:31.700
right now right and it's hard because romans is hard for me to read sometimes i'm like dang this
00:28:36.380
is heavy stuff i have to go back and read it a few times back and read a few times but
00:28:39.660
you know we were talking uh when we were a night away and you were mentioning just some
00:28:44.040
like wow this is some some heavier deeper thinking content and it's moments like that
00:28:49.940
that you go you're expanding your understanding of who god is you know your your faith and just
00:28:56.240
this desire to even go and look at romans and to even go sit and reread a section because you want
00:29:03.340
to know god more i mean is that something that you're just kind of enjoying that expansion
00:29:08.180
experience when you go through the bible yeah definitely i think at first um naturally in my
00:29:14.300
flesh it's intimidating um but i i love the lord and i want to grow and i want to understand his
00:29:20.220
word and so yeah it is enjoyable and i'm grateful that you're my husband because you have to explain
00:29:26.240
it to me well and i i think you know the cult of the cultivation of growth does not occur alone
00:29:34.060
just as veronica said right there like i'm involved as her husband um there might be other
00:29:39.780
women involved in her life in that journey of growth as well. It doesn't occur alone, and this
0.52
00:29:45.820
is an important element of this kind of section. Are you eager to grow and bear fruit? Because
00:29:51.820
cultivation of maturity, of Christian maturity, does not occur alone. And we're part of a body,
00:29:57.700
as what the scriptures tell us, that is called to relational accountability, and I would say
00:30:02.820
purification. And I'll explain what purification means. Galatians 6.1, brethren, if any man is
00:30:09.340
overtaken in any trespass. You who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. We
00:30:15.140
have a responsibility to restore, to correct, right? 2 Timothy 4.2, preach the word, be ready
00:30:20.980
in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. There's
00:30:24.460
a purification, a growing element, a kind of nurturing element that goes on in the body of
00:30:31.000
Christ. James 5.19-20, brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him
00:30:39.400
him back. Let him know that he who turns a sinner
1.00
00:31:06.880
we nurture and bear fruit with one another and it's a not an independent isolated my relationship
00:31:13.360
with jesus over here in the corner type thing yeah and so what this means is that the health
00:31:19.400
of your marriage is my concern yeah like the health of that those people's marriage over there
00:31:24.120
in our community uh it's our concern yeah and the health of our parenting is your concern yeah like
00:31:31.660
if you see something off have a conversation about it and we're willing to hear it right
00:31:37.320
totally and yeah and so it also means that overlooking sin which is injuring to your soul
00:31:42.380
is not loving um so this this is biblical community um so that leads us to our fourth
00:31:49.440
and final criteria which is are you willing to participate if you don't have this last piece
00:31:58.540
it just doesn't work it just doesn't work we've had many people over the years like leave just
00:32:06.280
because there's just not willing to participate and not even maybe because they don't want to
00:32:14.260
or they're just there's just you know sometimes it's an introvert thing sometimes it's like a
00:32:18.000
it takes a lot of growth to kind of participate um so let me i'll walk you guys through this one
00:32:24.680
too um but again number one is do you allow scripture to be authoritative in your life
00:32:29.840
are you hungry for god even though you've already found him do you still pursue him
00:32:33.660
are you eager to grow and bear fruit um and then the last one are you willing to participate
00:32:41.120
because we talked about before in the previous point it's together that we grow um sure the
00:32:49.480
lord's teaching you one-on-one but together there's a lot of growth to be done community
00:32:54.280
we this word community man this generation loves the word community it takes a village yeah they
00:32:59.300
have no idea what the word community really means in the biblical sense but but community does not
00:33:04.700
mean i'll engage with you as long as i don't have anything better to do um and so that's how like
00:33:12.400
most people view church it's like i'll be there if i have nothing better to do but if my family's in
00:33:17.200
town, then I won't be there. If, you know, we have, uh, an opportunity to go do something fun for the
00:33:24.340
day, then we won't be there. And I'm not saying that we need to have this, like, cutthroat
00:33:29.760
legalistic, you gotta be at church every Sunday. But again, our heart should be, man, we want to be
00:33:36.380
there because it's the people of God. We want to be there with them. Um, biblical community is built
00:33:42.020
on commitment and obligation to one another uh hebrews chapter 10 is it 10 or 13 oh geez
00:33:49.740
um i think it's 10 no it's maybe it's 13 anyways you have to look it up guys not forsaking the
00:33:55.380
gathering of yourselves together as is the manner of some um but instead we're to be exhorting one
00:34:02.040
another um until the day of the lord appears i'm paraphrasing slightly um but you cannot read the
00:34:10.780
New Testament. See the nearly 100 one another's of scripture and start to view those as optional
00:34:19.440
behaviors and moments of convenience. That is impossible to do if you read the Bible. Love one
00:34:24.940
another. Have peace with one another. Pray for one another. Forgive one another. Bear one another's
00:34:29.520
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another
00:34:34.880
that you may be healed. I mean, this is a call to deeply engaged relationship. When you start
00:34:40.700
looking at these, Paul writes 60% of the one another's in the New Testament, but there's lots
00:34:44.680
from Jesus, there's some from Peter and James, and you get through there and you go, wow, you cannot
00:34:49.240
do Christian life alone. It is a participatory activity of one anothering in scripture to carry
00:34:58.540
out those doctrines in real life. Yeah, we've been trained to view church as a place to go and to
00:35:05.340
consume when in reality it's a people to join and contribute yes um so and we also have to realize
00:35:13.260
that friendship is not fellowship we confuse those things a lot um yeah it's it's not fellowship um
00:35:22.760
we have lots of we we want to kind of take the experience of the world my friends and apply it
00:35:29.940
to church my friends there's a the bible calls for a different sure there is friendship within
00:35:36.280
fellowship but fellowship is different fellowship the word of the greek means koinonia and that's
00:35:43.900
the new testament greek word for fellowship is koinonia and it means to participate with those
00:35:50.560
in which you have something in common and that thing in common is christ
00:35:55.000
um are are you willing to participate are you willing to enter into relationship on somebody
00:36:03.000
else's terms when it's inconvenient for you um i'll tell you what pastoring is all about that
00:36:10.280
you get to enter into a situation a relationship you don't have a natural affinity maybe
00:36:15.820
they have a problem that you have to deal with that is not convenient it's all about entering
00:36:21.340
in on relation on relationship on someone else's terms because you love them because you want to
00:36:26.460
shepherd them or seek the best for them um are you willing to be known this is another thing
00:36:32.800
people if you want to be in biblical community you're not willing to be known
00:36:37.340
it's never going to work you got to be willing now it could take time it's okay if it takes a
00:36:43.620
little bit of time to get there right but you got to eventually be known and are you willing to be
00:36:49.240
exhorted and corrected are you willing to give exhortations and corrections um it's awesome
00:36:56.140
we've been corrected so many times over the years and we've corrected others what a what a loving
00:37:02.060
thing to do if someone saw something in our marriage or our parenting and didn't bring it
00:37:07.420
up to us what a that is not loving so we love when someone comes to us in a with the truth
00:37:14.760
in love and presents us a correction. Are you willing to care for others? Are you willing to
00:37:21.340
leave margin in your schedule to have time for other people? Are you willing to serve and labor
00:37:29.060
in people's lives? If you are, it's because you love people. That's why. Because it's not easy
00:37:38.320
on the flesh to do that. It's because you love people. And if you love people, you're going to
00:37:42.320
do great in biblical community and what the church is really about and but if you're concerned about
00:37:51.320
your needs um only if you're focused on what you get and what you want out of the church experience
00:38:00.760
um or you're too busy to engage with others because you're not prioritizing uh the family
00:38:08.660
you have no margin you can't serve anybody um you leave no space for anything else
00:38:15.220
um you're you're never going to experience the beauty of biblical community um and
00:38:23.540
i i'd say this is why it takes so much to be a church planter of one of these types of
00:38:30.440
gatherings. I really do think that you need to be trained for an extensive period of time before
00:38:39.200
you want to go out and plant a church community doing this. And it's something that our ministry
00:38:45.860
really hopes to do. Next year, 2020, we're going to try to build a curriculum on church planting
00:38:50.860
training. What I would say is a seminary grade curriculum. You're going to have to fly out to
00:38:55.960
central oregon and spend some time in our communities here and really get a chance to
00:39:00.500
experience it go to dinners with people feel it online books to read to read papers to write
00:39:07.080
videos lectures interviews whole thing that's something that we've been praying about and lord
00:39:12.580
willing it comes next year but ultimately when people behave like jesus and think like jesus
00:39:21.740
the natural result is biblical community and so when you come into a community like this
00:39:29.400
small gathering just like jesus is gathering which is you know his 12 guys maybe a couple
00:39:34.660
more people here and there and you start just walking and living that way it's amazing it's
00:39:40.340
like wow this is like the environment for the christian this is like where i need to be
00:39:43.820
um but it's hard it's difficult um it's not a culture that's friendly to the flesh
00:39:50.140
uh it's a spiritual culture it's it's ran upon the economics of god's kingdom
00:39:57.140
and not the world system and so this idea of like it's spiritual and it feels good in the spirit
00:40:04.200
it's it's not going to feel good in the flesh let me tell you why galatians 5 17 says for the flesh
00:40:08.760
wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh and these are contrary to
0.79
00:40:13.920
one another so that you do not do the things that you wish and so man these cultures you walk in
00:40:20.020
you go, wait, you're going to correct me. Oh, I have to conform. Oh, I have to mature. Oh, I have
0.94
00:40:23.960
to grow. Oh, I have to pray. Oh, I have to sacrifice. Oh, I have to serve. That stuff's
00:40:28.500
hard in your flesh. But if you have a kingdom perspective, you go, oh, I'm so excited to serve.
00:40:32.700
I'm so excited to give. I'm so excited to pray. I'm so excited to worship. I'm so excited to
00:40:36.460
be a part of that person's. I'm so excited to help. You shift everything into spiritual
00:40:40.720
perspective because you have a view of God's kingdom. And again, this is what shepherds are
00:40:46.640
called to do. This is what we do as a couple. This is what I do as a shepherd is, is we build
00:40:52.720
biblical culture by the grace of God and the patience of God, uh, and the humility of God.
00:40:57.980
I aim to help establish biblical culture in these community kingdom cultures, I guess a good way to
00:41:03.500
put it. Um, I said at the beginning, if you're interested in doing something like this,
00:41:08.620
it's so big you know like there's so much um i do offer uh calls like i do weekly calls with
00:41:19.320
a handful of guys all around the world who are trying to establish a biblical community in their
00:41:24.160
area um that's something that i do i only have limited time we do it in trade for donations to
00:41:30.800
our ministry um if you're a pastor and you have like some theological training maybe already
00:41:37.500
if you don't that's fine but I really lends itself to a faster experience if you have the theology
00:41:45.180
kind of established already you can email my assistant christy at relearnchurch.org and she
00:41:54.860
will facilitate that conversation if that's something you're interested in the other thing
00:42:01.180
is you can go to relearnchurch.org and we got lots of articles and things like that podcast videos
00:42:07.180
that might help you on that journey you can also start by going to relearnchurch.org forward slash
00:42:12.420
biblical dash church and i wrote kind of like a white paper on what is biblical church we have a
00:42:18.880
little bug zapper in our studio and it doesn't freak me out at all but veronica flinches every
00:42:23.740
time and uh it's summertime guys so it's starting to get some three times during this
00:42:28.560
we're starting to get some more bugs um we should probably turn that off during our
00:42:33.400
are filming um anyways guys hopefully this is helpful and quick review biblical culture is
00:42:42.800
are you going to allow the scriptures to be authoritative are you hungry for god are you
00:42:48.680
eager to grow and bear fruit and are you willing to participate if you are man biblical culture
00:42:54.960
is going to be great for you you would love that so anything else to add no it's nine something
00:43:03.360
o'clock over here it's 10 o'clock here guys we are recording at night so we're gonna check out
00:43:09.380
for the night anyways thanks guys for listening to this episode um if you guys have any questions
00:43:14.820
you can always get the uh podcast notes and the scriptures that we reference at realearnchurch.org
00:43:19.900
forward slash listen and we will see you guys next week on the real christianity podcast take care