Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #90： Can An Online Sermon Really Be Church？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today, we are talking about, can an online sermon really be church?

00:00:08.020 In the wake of the coronavirus, many Christian churches are having their congregations do online church or online sermons as their church experience.

00:00:19.320 And it's causing us to ask the question, can an online sermon really be church?

00:00:26.060 Thanks for joining me today.

00:00:27.260 You guys know that Veronica is not here this morning recording with me.

00:00:32.020 She is out watching the kids.

00:00:33.820 We don't have that many babysitters, and we can't do that right now with the social distancing.

00:00:37.360 So I'm doing this show solo.

00:00:40.040 If you're a regular listener to the Real Christianity podcast, thanks for being here, guys.

00:00:44.420 It's a big deal.

00:00:45.840 So many of you loyal listeners.

00:00:47.380 We have probably tens of thousands of loyal listeners at this point.

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00:01:03.300 but if you do write something we read every single review they are very encouraging to us so thank

00:01:08.320 you guys so much for leaving those also this is an audio only podcast so I apologize to the YouTube

00:01:16.620 subscribers that watch our show every week via YouTube. We will still have it up there in audio

00:01:21.500 format, and you can watch it there or listen to it there, but there will be no video for this

00:01:27.040 episode. I wanted to remind you guys that you guys can also listen to this podcast on Spotify. For

00:01:33.880 those who are regular Spotify listeners, you can subscribe that way and listen to our podcast

00:01:37.960 every week. It's automatically uploaded there, and wanted to let you guys know that that existed.

00:01:43.460 So let's dive in, and I'm going to have some great resources for you at the end of this episode.

00:01:50.940 So please do not miss that.

00:01:53.640 There's going to be some awesome resources.

00:01:55.340 They're brand new.

00:01:56.520 We're just releasing them the day that this podcast is released, and you will want to know about them.

00:02:02.920 All right.

00:02:03.260 At the very beginning of this coronavirus pandemic, when churches began to stop meeting

00:02:09.700 and began sending people home to watch sermons online, I released a video on social media

00:02:17.100 to help those who were legally permitted to gather in smaller groups to understand how

00:02:23.600 to conduct a biblical church meeting in their home on Sunday with a few families from their

00:02:29.320 church. My reasoning was, watching a sermon online was not church. And wow, that statement

00:02:37.140 made people very upset. I had about 20 to 30 messages from Christians who expressed their

00:02:44.840 frustrations. And I had one lady actually say, don't tell me that watching a sermon at home

00:02:52.320 isn't church. There was an exclamation point there in her statement as well. So I want to talk about

00:02:59.060 that statement today. I think it's likely a position that many of you hold or have held

00:03:06.740 in the past, and I want to share why I think that that statement is an unbiblical perspective

00:03:14.080 and not accurate to the scriptural definition of the local church. And so I'm going to begin

00:03:21.800 with an analogy. So imagine if a man and a woman had sex, and then the woman said, 0.60

00:03:29.480 don't tell me that sex isn't marriage. Well, I would say, well, sex is a really important part 0.97

00:03:38.660 of marriage, but sex is not marriage. In fact, marriage is much more complex than sex. It requires

00:03:46.960 a commitment before God. It requires gender roles. It requires love and sacrifice and pursuit. 1.00

00:03:54.200 It also requires romance and fidelity and spiritual leadership and a host of other aspects.

00:04:00.680 In addition, a good marriage generally produces children and family and a home culture and trust

00:04:07.540 and a variety of other realities. So to say that sex is marriage is a very superficial and almost

00:04:14.960 silly statement. The same is true when someone says that watching a sermon is church. Now, 0.93

00:04:22.860 sex in a marriage is critical, just like a sermon at a church is critical. But just as sex is not 0.79

00:04:31.620 marriage, neither is a sermon what makes a church. And like marriage, the church is complex and it's

00:04:40.580 robust. It's far more than a sermon. But I can't actually blame most of these people that are

00:04:47.640 writing me these comments, and this lady especially. I can't blame most of these Christians for holding

00:04:52.040 this perspective. And why? Well, the Western church, you know, you guys are aware of this.

00:04:59.320 You're a part of this society. The Western church has absolutely, both directly and indirectly,

00:05:06.240 taught churchgoers that church is a sermon.

00:05:11.360 You know, we built an institution where the sermon is the center of the church universe.

00:05:16.800 Essentially, we've created what I call audience Christianity.

00:05:21.680 And this is when we take the contributor model of church found in the scriptures

00:05:28.940 and turn it into a consumer model of church that we are seeing in our modern era.

00:05:34.400 We basically created a church to be an event. And in that event, we have inactive spectators who sit in a chair or a pew and watch church or watch a sermon or watch a band.

00:05:50.240 And this is, again, the heart of the modern church experience. It is infotainment driven.

00:05:56.820 And so why should I be shocked when someone yells at me from their couch that watching a sermon online isn't church?

00:06:06.120 Or saying that why should I be telling them that watching a sermon online isn't church?

00:06:11.720 I shouldn't be shocked.

00:06:13.540 She's probably been taught this her whole life.

00:06:16.480 Her experience has definitely taught her that, probably for many years.

00:06:21.720 But the truth is, the church gathering is much more than a sermon. It's regularity. The church is commitment. It's membership. It's communion. It's baptism. It's corporate worship.

00:06:39.120 It's government, church government, right?

00:06:42.000 Through elders and deacons.

00:06:43.520 It's church discipline. 1.00

00:06:45.180 It's gender roles. 1.00

00:06:46.900 It's the exercising of your spiritual gifts. 1.00

00:06:50.140 It's corporate prayer.

00:06:51.640 It's biblical order.

00:06:53.500 It's accountability to scripture.

00:06:55.840 It's protection from doctrinal heresy.

00:06:58.820 It's fellowship with one another.

00:07:01.460 It's mutual ministering through relationship.

00:07:04.720 It's giving and receiving.

00:07:06.820 It's meeting the needs of the saints.

00:07:09.700 And yes, it's the preaching of a sermon.

00:07:13.180 But to diminish the church gathering that happens every week in your hometown,

00:07:18.260 to merely watching a sermon and maybe singing some songs from your couch,

00:07:24.660 in my opinion, is a great insult to the doctrine of the church found in Scripture.

00:07:28.560 I think it would also offend the thousands of martyrs who gave up their lives

00:07:33.600 so that we, here in the West, can meet in person without religious persecution.

00:07:40.260 Now, we're obviously in the middle of a unique time with the coronavirus pandemic

00:07:46.240 that is limiting us from gathering in person.

00:07:50.000 And while a local church can accommodate missing a few weeks of gathering together in person

00:07:57.820 because of public health, because we care for the elderly and the compromised,

00:08:02.480 because we're called to obey the government as long as they don't cause us to sin.

00:08:09.080 Online church is not something, however, that can be sustained for too long

00:08:16.640 without drastically affecting the health of a local church or a health of the flock.

00:08:23.260 And I say this because the church is a living organism with living stones,

00:08:29.960 and the health of the flock is dependent upon the interpersonal relationships and fellowship

00:08:36.300 within the local context.

00:08:39.200 In fact, you know, I would say many of the New Testament commands

00:08:42.540 for how Christians are to behave with one another are difficult, if not impossible,

00:08:46.100 to obey if Christians are not regularly gathering in the local church together.

00:08:52.300 Now, this is just my opinion that I'm going to share,

00:08:55.340 But I don't think pastors are realizing how deeply this pandemic is going to disrupt the church going forward.

00:09:05.360 Now, many pastors are hoping church just goes back to normal in a few weeks.

00:09:12.320 And it might.

00:09:14.540 I don't expect that it'll go back to normal, at least not that quickly.

00:09:19.300 I think it'll go back maybe eventually, but the speed of that return depends on a lot of things.

00:09:25.340 For example, churches in New York City, where they're having tens of thousands of coronavirus

00:09:32.100 cases, will likely not be back in action as a church for much longer than maybe a church

00:09:41.200 in the Midwest that has very few cases of the coronavirus.

00:09:46.040 Now, yesterday, President Trump stated he wants to see public life come back by Easter,

00:09:53.600 and he included churches in his statement.

00:09:58.380 He talked about how he wants to see churches get back by Easter,

00:10:01.200 get together, fill up these churches.

00:10:03.780 But again, even if churches were legally permitted to gather by Easter,

00:10:09.760 I think it's unlikely that we're going to see the crowds

00:10:12.640 that we usually do during this time.

00:10:14.660 For churches, that's a big deal

00:10:17.160 because Easter is generally the largest giving day of the year.

00:10:21.220 um now you know they they're not likely going to see a couple other things uh and this is something

00:10:28.720 that's really important so pay attention here they're they're likely also not going to see

00:10:33.360 the older population and the immune compromised population return for some time if ever um

00:10:43.040 maybe, maybe much later. But we have, for example, an immune compromised situation. I guess it's a

00:10:52.280 respiratory compromised situation. My son is, got a narrowed trachea and he ends up in the hospital

00:11:00.100 even when he gets a cold. And so the idea of getting into a crowd of people right now or

00:11:09.360 anytime soon doesn't seem appealing to me. It doesn't seem wise, actually, to me. At the same

00:11:17.140 time, I know God's sovereign. You guys heard my episode on the coronavirus, but there's God's

00:11:23.120 sovereignty, and then there's man's responsibility to be wise, and we have to sit in the tension

00:11:27.460 between those two realities. But since the church, you know, has made people comfortable

00:11:34.680 in the idea of, you can watch church at home, just watch the sermon at home.

00:11:41.860 It shouldn't be a shock to us to see that many people adopt that way of meeting as a church

00:11:49.360 as their new mode of church going forward.

00:11:55.940 I don't think this should shock us, especially to see the older population

00:11:59.440 and those that have an immune-compromised individual in their family doing that. 0.77

00:12:03.220 Now, what's scarier about that for churches is that the older population is generally the group that gives the most.

00:12:13.920 And if they don't return back to where they were in the frequency and in the capacity that they were prior to the coronavirus, we're going to see a drop likely in giving.

00:12:27.660 that could cause many of these small and medium-sized churches

00:12:32.380 to, you know, financially struggle if not close their doors.

00:12:38.320 Now, again, I don't think any of this is a shock to God.

00:12:41.540 In fact, I believe that the Lord is ordaining

00:12:43.740 and even directing this disruption in the church

00:12:46.760 that it might purify the flock and bring him glory.

00:12:52.620 But the question a lot of people are asking,

00:12:55.460 and i get this regularly especially like the last couple weeks and i'm getting it more and

00:13:03.020 more from the older population again with those people that have an immune compromised family

00:13:07.560 member is how can christians meet in a way that upholds the fullness of the biblical church

00:13:14.280 experience while protecting themselves from the potential health risks of larger crowds

00:13:19.840 So this is an important question.

00:13:22.880 And because the current online solution is, again, insufficient as a long-term solution

00:13:29.420 and is very isolating for the individual Christian, again, we are a body.

00:13:34.380 That's how the scriptures define the church.

00:13:38.140 We're a body, and that means that we are connected,

00:13:40.540 And we need to find a format that permits connection without permitting or inviting the health risks associated with larger crowds, especially during this era of time that we are in right now.

00:13:58.120 Now, as many of you guys know, Veronica and I serve and lead a biblical house church planting ministry called relearn.org.

00:14:08.800 And we've been gathering as a church of five to 15 families for about seven years now.

00:14:17.700 And I say five to 15 because just over the last seven years, sometimes there's 10 families and a family needs to move away.

00:14:25.500 And sometimes there's seven families and sometimes we're packed for two years straight with 14 families.

00:14:32.680 But over the past few weeks, I've been just mentally overwhelmed with trying to help people figure out a solution during this coronavirus pandemic.

00:14:48.620 And I've been working around the clock to try to prepare a few resources for those of you who feel that the Lord is calling you to a more intimate expression of church.

00:14:58.640 And interestingly, I wanted to point something out.

00:15:01.800 I thought it was fascinating, I'm seeing a correlation between homeschooling and home

00:15:06.400 churching. And the more that people find themselves comfortable with homeschooling,

00:15:12.620 the more I'm seeing people find themselves comfortable with home churching. And they drive

00:15:18.760 from the kind of similar causes. The reason people don't like public school is the size,

00:15:28.360 the lack of attention that's given to their child.

00:15:32.000 They also don't like the risks of school sickness,

00:15:35.780 the government management.

00:15:39.340 They don't like the school shootings.

00:15:42.620 And the same is true for churches.

00:15:45.620 You know, many are looking for smaller,

00:15:48.200 more intimate gatherings of people.

00:15:51.140 They want it to be a safe place from sickness

00:15:55.280 and from church shootings,

00:15:57.140 which have somewhat been a thing over the last several years.

00:16:01.560 I want you guys to know that I'm not anti-institutional church.

00:16:06.080 Not at all.

00:16:06.900 I actually think there are many great biblical churches

00:16:11.100 who meet in traditional church buildings.

00:16:15.520 And they might be becoming more scarce, but they do exist.

00:16:23.820 I think they're harder to find in today's culture

00:16:26.660 But they are there, and I am in full support of those biblical churches.

00:16:34.180 However, in our ministry, our hope is to keep that same biblical ecclesiological integrity

00:16:42.800 that you would see in a doctrinally sound traditional church in your city

00:16:47.760 and move that into the format of a home with a handful of families and or singles.

00:16:55.080 And so this week, we're releasing three really important resources for those of you who are interested in exploring the idea of planting, starting, pastoring a biblical house church.

00:17:13.420 And so I'm going to tell you about these three things and where you can find them.

00:17:15.520 So first is a free, and again, it's really free, 10-page PDF that's called The Basics of Biblical House Church.

00:17:28.040 And it's a beautiful little document that I wrote and spent several days writing.

00:17:36.180 And I cover the seven fundamentals of a healthy house church.

00:17:40.340 And I also, on the last page of it, I include the order of worship template that we use

00:17:47.780 at Our House Church that really creates the structure for how we meet inside the home.

00:17:52.920 And you can get that at relearnchurch.org forward slash house.

00:17:59.840 And you can download that.

00:18:01.420 If you fill out the form, please fill out the form with your real information.

00:18:05.660 Don't put like your spam or fake email or that kind of stuff.

00:18:08.220 Just put in your real information. We want to know who you are and so that we can support you.

00:18:14.200 The second resource that we're releasing is a new 110-page book that I just finished.

00:18:23.620 I've been working on this for about six months, titled House Church.

00:18:28.200 The subtitle is The Doctrines, Convictions, and Order of Worship of a Biblical House Church.

00:18:33.080 And that's only $12.99 if you buy it from our store or buy it on Amazon.

00:18:40.380 You can also get it on the landing page that I just mentioned, relearnchurch.org forward slash house.

00:18:50.080 You can get it as a PDF there for $9.99 and just download it immediately if you want to.

00:18:55.980 if you want to support our ministry buy it from our ministry's website the links are there again

00:19:04.220 you just go to relearnchurch.org forward slash house and this little book is going to be an

00:19:10.640 awesome foundation for you to understand the doctrine and how a church should operate in a

00:19:21.420 home. When we talk about the idea of relearning church, we don't mean relearn the ecclesiology.

00:19:27.700 We don't mean relearn biblical church. We mean take the same historic evangelical

00:19:37.780 ecclesiology that you would see in any great church and relearn the format. Relearn how to

00:19:47.480 apply that doctrine in a home, and that's what we're trying to do. And so we break that down

00:19:55.520 in that book, and it's a great little resource, and it's a great way to support our ministry.

00:20:01.240 Third, and this is probably what I'm most excited about, we just launched our all-new

00:20:08.540 Biblical House Church Planting School at stjustins.org, and that's stjustins, plural,

00:20:18.660 dot org. And this is a one-year seminary grade online diploma of ecclesiology, and it's a program

00:20:28.160 for men. And classes are not going to start for several months, but the wait list for open

00:20:34.460 enrollment is open today. And so if you're interested in planting a house church and

00:20:42.100 becoming a house church pastor, that's what this is for. If you know somebody that is maybe already

00:20:49.200 a pastor or is interested or is a high character, you would already vouch for them to be an elder

00:20:57.740 at your church. They know the Word of God. They might have the gift of teaching and are interested

00:21:05.220 in pursuing this. We would love to have you send them to stjustins.org. And you can read about why

00:21:14.100 we've called it St. Justin's. Not all of the pages are up yet, but enough of the site is complete

00:21:20.020 for you to go there and visit that. We're still working on a handful of other pages, but our

00:21:24.520 story page is up and the curriculum is up the home page is ready there's a lot of great things

00:21:32.440 available for you guys there bottom line we really want to serve the church not just in this time

00:21:39.720 with the coronavirus pandemic but all the time and we're not trying to compete with the traditional

00:21:45.880 church we're trying to complement it and for those that are looking for a more intimate expression

00:21:51.400 of church, there is a biblical solution and we want to help you understand it. And so if you're

00:21:58.060 one of those people that is at home and you feel like you might be at home for a long time because

00:22:03.600 you're immune compromised or because you're elderly or for whatever other reason, you might

00:22:10.980 not be getting fed at your church or you just are looking for an intimate expression of church

00:22:16.240 with a handful of families.

00:22:18.460 We would love to serve you in that way.

00:22:21.800 So if you have any questions about these resources,

00:22:24.320 you can email us, and I will see these,

00:22:27.360 at support at relearn.org.

00:22:30.160 Again, that's support at relearn.org.

00:22:34.000 I know some of those domains are relearnchurch,

00:22:36.220 and one of them is relearn.org.

00:22:37.980 We're transitioning over to relearn.org,

00:22:41.120 but currently the site's still operating on both.

00:22:43.860 So you can email both of those right now.

00:22:46.360 But support at relearn.org is the best way to get a hold of us.

00:22:50.700 Again, thank you for joining this episode of Real Christianity.

00:22:54.780 I pray that the Lord bless you and your church with wisdom in these very strange times.

00:23:01.640 We'll see you guys next Wednesday.

00:23:03.080 Take care.

Dale Partridge - March 25, 2020

Real Christianity #90： Can An Online Sermon Really Be Church？

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