Dale Partridge - Ultimate Marriage #20： House Church What Does it Really Look Like？

00:00:00.000 welcome to ultimate marriage today we are talking about what biblical church looks like we get this

00:00:16.920 question all the time what does biblical church look like we plant and also pastor a biblical

00:00:26.160 house church? And what does that mean? And what does that look like? And how does that help our

00:00:31.540 marriage? And how does that reflect on our family? And so we're going to answer as many of those

00:00:36.440 questions as we possibly can. It's a giant topic. We have a ministry, relearnchurch.org.

00:00:45.740 Ultimate Marriage is a companion ministry to relearnchurch.org. And so there's so much

00:00:52.660 information there. If you want to learn more about biblical church, uh, we have it available

00:00:58.480 there for you and we're continuing to add more content. Yeah. And if this sparks interest,

00:01:03.540 I encourage you to go there because there's no way we're going to be able to cover every little

00:01:07.200 aspect of biblical church in this podcast. It's a big conversation. It's a, you know,

00:01:13.160 we first titled relearned church, unlearned church, uh, but then decided to retitle it

00:01:19.460 because I felt like there was some misconceptions about that name, but there very much is an

00:01:24.020 unlearning and a relearning involved in this process. And hopefully this will be fruitful

00:01:31.000 and possibly challenging for your journey. A couple of things before we get started.

00:01:37.520 This is a YouTube video. If you don't know, if you're just a podcast listener and you want to

00:01:42.160 watch us live, not live, I guess recorded. You can watch us from YouTube and, you know,

00:01:49.920 watch these in your house and watch them on people, watch them on their iPads and watch them

00:01:53.640 as a family. And so we'd love to have you guys there on YouTube as well. And if you're watching

00:02:00.800 on YouTube, then would you subscribe to the podcast? And I'm going to make a big ask for you

00:02:05.280 guys. Would you leave a review on the podcast? Just tap the stars on iTunes. You don't even need

00:02:11.400 to write anything, but if you do write something, we will read it, but just tap the stars, just

00:02:15.860 rating the show. They really do help the exposure of the show. Um, let's dive in to this conversation.

00:02:24.780 Um, I might be talking a bit more than Veronica cause this is, I think more my passion journey.

00:02:32.140 Yeah. I mean, in terms of like, I just feel like I've studied this a lot. Um, but Veronica

00:02:38.040 can bring a unique wifely perspective as kind of following me through this and also not seeing the 1.00

00:02:47.180 same vision or not seeing the vision so clearly. It's a little bit more cloudy on my end. Well,

00:02:53.340 just long ago. Now it's pretty clear, but she followed me through some pretty weird things.

00:03:00.520 So why is biblical church so critical for biblical marriage? Like we're talking,

00:03:06.000 this is a marriage podcast. And so why is biblical church so critical for biblical marriage?

00:03:11.700 The first thing is that the Bible says that our marriage should reflect

00:03:15.680 the relationship between Christ and the church. His bride. His bride. And, you know, if we don't

00:03:23.940 partake in that relationship properly in the physical context, like the actual church in

00:03:30.780 relationship with Christ, we're not going to be able to properly model it in context of our

00:03:36.460 marriage. Because again, if you've heard this podcast, if you started from the beginning,

00:03:39.880 you know that the relationship between a husband and wife is a metaphor, a visual

00:03:46.280 parallel to the relationship between Christ and his bride. You can read about that in Ephesians

00:03:52.380 chapter five. So having a physical experience in the church properly is critical for us to

00:04:00.500 recreate that modeling that the Lord calls in Ephesians 5 in our actual marriage. So that's

00:04:09.500 like the number one reason why biblical church and biblical marriage are so, you can't have one

00:04:14.340 without the other because they model each other. Yeah. And another crucial aspect of biblical

00:04:19.500 church is accountability. Huge accountability. And of course, a lot of people are a lot of

00:04:24.320 our flesh hates that yeah but um accountability is huge there are over a hundred one another's

00:04:30.320 in scripture um we're they're universal to the church um and to be played out locally and so

00:04:38.760 um we're called to know others to bear one another's burdens to be known by them um and

00:04:45.280 the opposite of accountability is autonomy which again our flesh absolutely loves we love the

00:04:50.500 freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want however we want um and so we're a part of one

00:04:55.760 body not independent entities yeah that's that's what the scriptural mandate we are described as

00:05:01.800 one body not like independent christian islands that are around here and i like that you said

00:05:08.780 that accountability because um we need accountability we it's so easy to hide in church

00:05:16.200 in institutional Christianity because you're one of 300 or you're one of 3,000.

00:05:22.920 We came from that megachurch world, and it's just—

00:05:26.520 And it's easy to hide.

00:05:28.040 Yeah, it's just easy to hide.

00:05:29.160 It's just easy to get lost in the sea of people.

00:05:32.120 And so the scriptures call for a much more integrated—

00:05:36.720 Intimate relationship.

00:05:37.980 Yeah, and just deep one-anothering, like just obligation to each other

00:05:45.460 that you don't necessarily experience in the institutionalized Christianity that we know,

00:05:51.360 which I often call churchianity.

00:05:53.800 It's just different than what you see in the scriptures.

00:05:57.400 Proverbs 18.1 says,

00:05:59.000 And we have to realize that is that the church today is kind of built on the doctrines of distance

00:06:09.400 in terms of we are really good at being present corporately,

00:06:14.160 but being alone independently. Like we are just, we're not known. And that's why we're having so

00:06:20.040 many issues in the church, which we'll talk about in a little bit. The other thing I'll bring up is

00:06:24.680 protection. You know, the Bible says there's safety in the abundance of counselors. That's

00:06:30.060 a really prominent theme in terms of just their safety, being known, having transparency, being

00:06:36.400 vulnerable, confessing your sins to one another, praying for one another that you may be healed,

00:06:42.220 it says in James. And so protection on your marriage. We have so much protection because

00:06:52.200 we have so many people that care for our marriage. Yeah. And we're so involved in our church that

00:06:58.520 if somebody were to see a red flag or one of us to speak disrespectfully towards one another or

00:07:06.300 whatever it is, it's very likely that somebody is going to approach us about it. Yeah. And people

00:07:11.220 have in the past. And that's the safety net. Yeah. Because you don't want to start creating

00:07:16.040 a habit of that and that become your new normal. And then before you know it, you guys are just

00:07:20.480 at each other's throats. Well, and you hide it really well. We've seen couples that, you know,

00:07:24.800 yeah, everything's great when you're in public, you know, but when you're, again, the smaller

00:07:30.160 you get in terms of your gathering, the harder it is to hide. You might be able to hide it for

00:07:34.340 a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months. But if you keep coming and you stay committed,

00:07:38.720 you will be revealed for, for who you are. And, and there's safety in that, um, you know,

00:07:45.080 church discipline, correction, being rebuked, uh, being exhorted. Um, these are all God's gifts to

00:07:51.600 us. They are like the bumpers on the bowling lane of life. You know, like you just get to go and you

00:07:58.180 go, boom, like God's saving you with these things. Um, without those bumpers, you fall into the

00:08:02.400 gutter. And that is, you know, sadly people isolate themselves and they just, that's how

00:08:08.260 divorces happen. When you hear in a Bible study and you're in a Bible study for a year and all

00:08:12.060 of a sudden a couple says, you know, we actually decided to get a divorce and you're like, oh my

00:08:15.460 gosh, we had no idea. And it's like, we've been meeting for a whole year every single week.

00:08:20.660 You know, so again, there's, there's some flaws that are going on in much of the,

00:08:24.520 the church as always. Um, and we are trying our best. Um, I want to start with a big

00:08:31.500 clarity point, um, before I go into the stats of the current church and why they need to be

00:08:36.980 talked about. There's a big difference between talking bad about the Bride of Christ, which we

00:08:42.520 are not doing, and pointing out and bringing identification to the problems that are within

00:08:47.820 the church and calling for correction. And that's what we're doing here. We would never talk bad

00:08:54.980 about the Bride of Christ, but we are absolutely to talk about the things that men and people are

00:09:02.600 doing inside the institution and the organism of the church that are not aligned with scripture

00:09:11.220 and to challenge those and go, okay, what we're doing isn't aligning with what he's saying.

00:09:20.180 And so I just wanted to, you know, I think it's 2 Timothy 4.2, it says, preach the word,

00:09:26.000 be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and

00:09:31.320 teaching. We are called to correct one another. And so these things that we're going to talk

00:09:37.060 about, we're not talking poorly about Christ's bride. We're talking about the things that we're

00:09:41.960 doing as humans, as Christians that are not aligning with scripture and the results that 0.90

00:09:47.860 we are creating as a result of them. And so Veronica is going to share some stats here in 0.99

00:09:55.240 a second, but I'm going to just preface this section with, uh, these are the results that

00:10:01.240 we're going to read about of the Western church. Now the church throughout history has always had

00:10:06.120 problems, but we need to face the reality of the results and they're not good right now. Um, I know

00:10:13.080 it's really easy for the church to say, look how much giving's happening and how many people were

00:10:16.260 baptized. And, and we get to hear the, I guess the highlight reel all the time. But when you look at

00:10:24.240 the stats and the research, there is some bad things that are going on. We need to talk about

00:10:28.040 those. And this is in America, which is the most religiously free society on the planet.

00:10:34.940 We are talking about the country. These are the results in the country that has over 50,000

00:10:41.560 church buildings, Christian church buildings. That's like one for every 6,000 people.

00:10:46.620 This is in the country with the most Bible colleges and seminaries in the world.

00:10:53.060 okay so in this country with christianity bursting at the seams in terms of the

00:10:59.660 physical visual presence these are the results and so let's talk about those

00:11:05.940 yeah there's also pretty astonishing and sad um so 79 of children raised in the church

00:11:14.760 leave the faith by the time they're between 18 and 25 just like stop there for a second yeah like

00:11:21.540 that's really sad 79 percent of children raised in the church leave the faith between 18 and 25

00:11:31.780 we're losing 80 percent of the next generation to the world to the other team to satan's camp

00:11:41.800 if that happened in any other institution where 80 percent failure rate whoever was at the top of

00:11:50.900 that organization would be fired in terms of just, we would never allow that to occur anywhere else

00:11:58.160 where 80% are falling away. Jesus chased the one out of the 99. We're talking, it would be like

00:12:07.260 80 of them have left and Jesus is chasing all of them. This is a dilemma, a huge problem.

00:12:14.960 yeah um next one is 42 percent of christians have had a divorce

00:12:20.160 64 percent of men look at pornography once per month this is 64 percent of christian men yeah

00:12:27.560 people men claiming to be christians yeah that are are looking at pornography once per month

00:12:34.400 there this is just mind-boggling to me 89 percent of christians have not read the entire bible

00:12:40.620 76 percent of christians do not know what the great commission is yeah so i want to talk about

00:12:46.520 this this this one so this is a stat this is two stats put together made up of the barner research

00:12:51.100 group and they found out that 51 percent of christians these are regular evangelical christians

00:12:57.500 have never even heard of the great commission i didn't for a long time until probably a few years

00:13:02.580 ago yeah like it's you know the mission i like when it was explained to me i was like oh yeah

00:13:06.840 like, I know that, but I didn't understand that it was titled the Great Commission.

00:13:10.300 Yeah. And like the, the, the mission of the church, right. In Matthew 28. And, um, so 51%

00:13:17.940 had never even heard of it. Um, 25% had heard of it, but didn't know it was called the Great

00:13:25.100 Commission. And so, so this is 76% of Christians don't know what the Great Commission is. They

00:13:31.900 don't they don't even know what they're here to do as a church like they just don't know so for

00:13:38.040 those listening and who don't know can you tell them yeah so going to the you know if you turn

00:13:42.440 to matthew 28 go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptize them in the name of the father

00:13:47.840 the son of the holy spirit teaching them to obey all that i have commanded you and that's something

00:13:52.600 that we need to have memorized it's that is what the great commission is that's what we're here to

00:13:56.500 do okay last one five percent of christians will share the gospel with one person once per year

00:14:04.520 okay like and we can share this even from our own experience like prior to being in

00:14:10.980 biblical community yeah how often were you sharing the gospel with people never not at all yeah and

00:14:17.280 it's it's i think i may have maybe one time ever in my christian walk and it's different from

00:14:24.480 sharing your faith. A lot of people share your faith. I'm a Christian. I just checked that box.

00:14:29.000 I shared my faith. But presenting the gospel. Yeah. You're under God's wrath. And here is,

00:14:35.300 you know, Jesus died for you. Like the full gospel. There's a way out. And that happens

00:14:41.580 relationally. I don't want to say that it's just like street preaching here. But only 5% of

00:14:47.040 Christians are sharing the gospel with one person per year. So you got a narrative here, right? So

00:14:53.560 you go 89% of Christians haven't read the entire Bible, which leads to the reality that 76% of 0.59

00:14:59.520 Christians don't know what the Great Commission is, which leads to the reality that 5% of Christians

00:15:03.800 will only show the gospel with one person per year, which leads to this final point that you're 0.51

00:15:10.220 going to make. Go ahead and read that. Yeah. That 1.5%, we're having a 1.5% decrease in American

00:15:17.900 Christian population per year over the past 10 years. So that's a loss of 4.8 million identified

00:15:24.720 Christians every 365 days. Christianity is shrinking in America. And we don't want to,

00:15:33.180 we don't want to face that reality, but, but there was a study done, I think in 2015 during

00:15:39.000 the census, that every county in America, there wasn't one county that grew an identified Christian

00:15:48.260 population. So they all either stayed the same or decreased. Yes. And so we are, we are absolutely

00:15:55.340 shrinking. These are the results of the current way of doing church. Okay. That's the results.

00:16:04.920 Are we going to sign up for another year of that?

00:16:08.560 You know, that's the question.

00:16:09.540 Are we going to just keep doing what we're doing?

00:16:12.160 I just, you know, I have friends, again,

00:16:14.360 who are pastors of churches that

00:16:16.780 almost every Christian church I go to

00:16:19.060 is 90% the same and 10% different.

00:16:23.100 And everybody's trying to do good things.

00:16:26.720 But I think we have to look, step back and go,

00:16:30.400 wait a second.

00:16:31.520 is what we're doing not working on a grand scale?

00:16:38.820 And do we really need more church buildings?

00:16:41.760 Like, do we need 50,150 buildings?

00:16:44.540 Maybe that'll solve the problem.

00:16:46.240 No.

00:16:46.840 You know, maybe it's because we're not worshiping hard enough.

00:16:50.060 Like, do we need another Hillsong album?

00:16:52.520 Like, is that what it is?

00:16:53.980 We just need more worship music?

00:16:56.420 You know, do we just need better musicians on stage?

00:16:59.260 Do we need better sermon series?

00:17:01.520 Like, is that it?

00:17:02.380 We just need better sermons.

00:17:05.060 You know, we just need people to follow God's word.

00:17:08.200 Yes.

00:17:09.600 And so the solution to biblical or to church revival is going back to what scripture says,

00:17:18.460 what scripture says.

00:17:22.180 And we're reaping what we've sowed.

00:17:25.520 These are the results of a man-made model.

00:17:29.500 A man-made model will never deliver Christ-like results.

00:17:33.240 Okay, I'm just going to let you guys hear that again.

00:17:36.020 A man-made model will never deliver Christ-like results.

00:17:40.380 And if you're simply followed the Bible, like if you just forgot everything and we go, okay, here's a Bible.

00:17:47.760 I want you to read it and then start gathering as Christians. 0.67

00:17:52.120 If you just did that and you use the Bible as your blueprint for how to create a church gathering, 0.95

00:17:58.100 there is no way that you would end up with what we have today would you really end up with

00:18:04.200 a big building with hundreds thousands hundreds thousands of people that are here for the music

00:18:12.500 sitting facing one person one person's talking nobody talks to each other kids get outsourced

00:18:20.700 to children's ministries youth group like you you would never get there and this is the dilemma

00:18:28.620 that we have to to face and and why we're talking about that um francis chan is actually you know

00:18:34.600 he he just came out with a book called letters to the church um and he's on the same journey

00:18:40.700 for the past several years probably very similar to our journey like at the same timeline he's

00:18:45.620 planting biblical house churches and he's trying to figure out what that looks like and we're kind

00:18:50.620 of, I've talked and spoke with his team a few times, and we're doing that with ReLearn Church.

00:18:55.660 We're planting biblical house churches. We're trying to look at the scriptures and go, what

00:18:58.760 does the Bible say? Nothing more, nothing less. And yeah, I just checked that out. Another book

00:19:06.700 that you might want to check out, I think is important to read prior to reading Francis

00:19:11.300 Chan's Letters to the Church, is reading Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna,

00:19:16.320 in terms of the Barna Group, the research company.

00:19:23.220 A couple things before Veronica is going to share our story.

00:19:28.280 Unless you're kind of unaware, 0.99

00:19:31.280 but our experience is that a lot of Christians

00:19:34.640 aren't going to church that much anymore.

00:19:37.120 And if they are, they're feeling usually some type of tension

00:19:41.300 in their spirit about how it's done in some way or another.

00:19:46.320 And they're not hyper-committed.

00:19:48.560 Like they're going if everything worked out.

00:19:53.140 You know, everybody got eight hours of sleep.

00:19:55.680 Nobody's sick.

00:19:57.060 There's nothing better to do.

00:19:59.040 You know, that's kind of what's going on in the church.

00:20:02.320 And that's just our experience.

00:20:05.100 The interesting thing is that while thousands of Christians are actually leaving the church

00:20:10.260 in search for the biblical church, these people that are leaving the church,

00:20:16.520 these Christians that are leaving the church, they don't want less Jesus.

00:20:20.260 They want more Jesus.

00:20:22.720 They're just not finding him there.

00:20:26.700 And so this is an issue, guys.

00:20:28.620 What I'm saying is that the very place that is supposed to represent the Good Shepherd,

00:20:34.440 the church of Jesus Christ, the very place that represents the Good Shepherd 0.93

00:20:38.320 is leaving Christians, leaving sheep hungry, lost, and morally confused.

00:20:46.260 Like, what are the most pressing moral issues of the day?

00:20:50.600 I'm going to say them.

00:20:53.240 Homosexuality, gender, abortion. 1.00

00:20:57.380 Pornography. 1.00

00:20:58.040 Pornography, suicide. 0.99

00:21:00.620 Okay, these are the issues of today.

00:21:05.640 How many pastors are talking about those on the weekends?

00:21:08.320 I mean, very few. I mean, I don't want to say that none of them are because there are some

00:21:14.760 out there, but it's few and far between. Yeah. And we, and the reason that we're afraid to talk

00:21:20.480 about those things is that in the institutional model, you don't know if the guy in the back row

00:21:25.580 is from the New York Times. And so when you want to take a stand biblically on one of these moral

00:21:32.440 issues, the fear of man falls in and that happens. And so what we have here is we have an institution

00:21:42.680 that's a little bit more, it's more extra biblical than it is biblical. And it's more like a

00:21:48.800 corporation than it is the Church of Jesus Christ. We've made this that way. There's a quote, I don't

00:21:54.180 know who said it. I wish I did. I tried looking it up before, but this quote says, the man in the

00:22:01.400 beginning builds the institution, but then the institution builds the man. And we've built the

00:22:07.900 church and now the church is building us. And, um, um, we just, this tradition, it's powerful stuff

00:22:16.720 that doing the same thing over and over, it's hard to even question the system. Like, am I doing

00:22:22.760 something that's actually not in the Bible? You know, the idea of one pastor preaching week after

00:22:28.280 week after week. You're not going to find that in scripture. Sunday school, age segregated

00:22:34.260 ministries, they don't exist in the Bible. And there's a quote from R.C. Ryle. He says,

00:22:40.580 this is, I think he's late 1800s. When traditions are first called into being,

00:22:46.260 they are useful. Then they become necessary. And at last, they are too often made idols

00:22:53.140 and all must bow down to them or be punished.

00:22:58.300 One last thing I'll say before we share our story

00:23:00.460 is Matthew chapter 9, Jesus says to his disciples who are saying,

00:23:05.480 look at those other people over there doing other things that are different than us

00:23:08.940 in your name.

00:23:11.800 And Jesus said to the disciples,

00:23:14.680 if they're not against us, they're for us.

00:23:17.620 and so a heart of unity without desiring uniformity is important jesus is doing work

00:23:28.340 in the institutional church by no means am i saying that whatever thing's going on over there

00:23:33.500 is wrong but as christians we should be looking to do what the most biblical and most fruitful

00:23:40.720 expression of gathering that is our aim and so that's what we're going to talk about

00:23:46.520 so I'll let Veronica share a bit of our story here yeah so yeah I'll just I guess start from

00:23:54.560 the very beginning um Dale and I when we started dating um I was going to a mega church down in

00:24:01.020 Southern California and you're going to a smaller mega church yeah um but when we started dating

00:24:08.040 I'd go and visit your church a couple times you'd come and visit mine and that very first time you

00:24:14.300 came and visited you're instantly just kind of like taken back and looking around and you just

00:24:19.660 kept saying like something just doesn't feel right something is off and i was just like oh okay like

00:24:24.500 whatever remember those lanterns on the walls yes i remember sure about that um there was these

00:24:30.160 massive lights on all over the church building this is a brand new building our church had just

00:24:35.680 moved into that building um massive massive building and these lanterns were all over the

00:24:42.580 church building and they were probably like as tall as me i'm five one so like five feet and

00:24:48.580 three feet and die in like circumference or something and it was just they're just these

00:24:53.920 huge lanterns yeah there's like a hundred of them yeah and he's just like this one lantern probably

00:24:58.420 costs i don't know five thousand bucks yeah something like that so anyway he just kept

00:25:02.640 and then you know he'd come and visit a few times here and there and you're just like i don't know

00:25:06.660 like something my spirit just doesn't feel right about it and i was just very less like okay like

00:25:12.140 well this is this is i didn't like i didn't see it at that time and neither did i you so you knew

00:25:17.780 something was off but you didn't know what it was yeah um and so yeah we dated um we got and then

00:25:24.780 once we got engaged got married we decided to go we were we came from mega churches and you were

00:25:32.120 just like you know we just need to go to a smaller church that'll fix the problem like we should go

00:25:35.720 a smaller church um so i went to a smaller church and then with like 100 people maybe 200 people

00:25:43.740 max no probably like 100 150 anyway so then we went to a smaller church and you're just like

00:25:50.040 okay this feels more right but it still doesn't feel right yeah because the problem with every

00:25:54.120 small church is that they really want to be a big church and and and so that dna rooted down

00:26:00.360 they they don't want to multiply and and split they want to they want to keep getting bigger

00:26:04.220 and a bigger campus and a bigger building maybe grow yeah and so yeah you were still like and so

00:26:08.700 after that then we went back to a different mega church massive church um and we were there for i

00:26:16.940 don't know a year maybe um and then it finally got to did you read the book first before we stopped

00:26:24.460 going there i did so then yeah so then he this book pagan christianity caught his attention you

00:26:29.080 read it and then you're just like, okay, like we just can't go anymore. You almost felt like

00:26:34.160 convicted for even going. Yeah. I was just really struggling with, and I'm not saying that's

00:26:40.240 correct, but I really do feel like the Lord called us at that point specifically called us out. I

00:26:46.120 don't think he calls everybody out the way he called us out. So yes. Um, so we stopped going

00:26:53.360 to church altogether for probably three years, two or three years. Um, and it was just a season

00:27:00.120 of just kind of walking in the desert of not really knowing what to do and kind of trying

00:27:06.260 to do Bible studies and trying to do a home church, but we had no example of what a home

00:27:12.320 church was. And so it just kind of disintegrated and fell apart. And then, um, we had shortly

00:27:18.940 after we had moved to Oregon um and we went to our friend's son's birthday party um and we had

00:27:26.700 heard about their authors and her literary agent um was a pastor of a home church and we had heard

00:27:34.400 about him multiple times and then we're just like oh yeah like we'd love to meet him because it's

00:27:39.040 definitely something that we had we'd already been on this journey for several years um just

00:27:43.760 didn't know how to get. Yeah. Like I had the head knowledge, but you can't, it's very difficult to

00:27:49.400 create what you haven't seen or experienced before. Yeah. And that's why I said when every

00:27:53.580 time we did, it just kind of fell apart. And so we're like, yeah, we'd love to meet him and love

00:27:57.480 to get to know him. Like he's been doing this for years and years, like show us the way kind of

00:28:02.440 thing. And so we met him at our friend's birthday party, um, got to know him. His daughter started

00:28:08.460 babysitting aria because we only had aria at the time um and then got to know him and his wife

00:28:17.020 been to several several dinners um and eventually got invited to go um several months later um and

00:28:25.420 then we joined the home fellowship and we were there for probably three years and then

00:28:33.660 And in those three years, you especially were being discipled by this gentleman that I'm speaking of in the home fellowship.

00:28:44.640 And he was training you up and then you started having this desire on your heart to plant churches.

00:28:49.600 And so he started training you up specifically in that area.

00:28:53.600 And then there was countless Bible studies in that, too.

00:28:56.660 I was being discipled by his wife.

00:28:59.100 And then eventually we were sent off to plant a home church.

00:29:04.420 Yeah.

00:29:04.620 And so we were trained and discipled specifically to multiply off and to create another church,

00:29:10.100 to grow other people and to multiply and create another church and multiply and create another church and multiply and create another church.

00:29:16.460 Yeah.

00:29:17.100 And so we, Dale, now kind of pastors our home fellowship.

00:29:22.980 and it started off with just us and another family that was with the other fellowship came with us

00:29:30.640 um and dale's parents and it started off with just us three oh and then there was another

00:29:36.160 couple there they had left and yeah and then they had left um and then it's just slowly grown

00:29:42.520 right before we started the home fellowship you were teaching an apologetics class for young

00:29:48.020 adults and so um a couple of the young adults from that came and so it's a very small home home

00:29:55.000 church gathering there's probably i don't know eight eight families or so families and a yeah

00:30:00.820 a couple singles and so it's it's very small and and uh you know if that doubled in size we'd be

00:30:08.100 really thinking seriously about multiplication and figuring out a way to like intimacy what the

00:30:14.100 the job of a, of a overseer, a shepherd, a pastor is to sense when intimacy is lost,

00:30:20.120 when you can no longer fulfill the one another's, just for an example, let's just say that you're

00:30:26.420 in a church with 12 families. Okay. I'm using families because it's easier for the example,

00:30:32.360 12 families. If you wanted to have one dinner per month with everybody in your church,

00:30:38.720 you'd have to have 12 dinners that's three a week and that's not even counting if you want to have

00:30:46.080 a dinner with anybody else or anybody that's outside of your church like that's a lot that's

00:30:50.780 just to see each other once so keeping it small and intimate is again you know we see that model

00:30:56.060 with jesus having 12 disciples he spoke to thousands but he discipled 12. yeah and so

00:31:02.520 looking back on the earlier days of our journey with ending up in a home fellowship, we had

00:31:10.760 realized that we just kind of became inactive spectators in this weekly event. And we would

00:31:17.740 look at the Bible and read what the scripture says, and then look at church the way we knew it

00:31:22.800 and said like, this, this doesn't seem to make sense. This doesn't add up. And so that, that

00:31:28.280 was kind of what drew us more into this journey. Yeah, it felt like audience Christianity. Like

00:31:35.480 that's really what I think it feels like. And the reason what happens when it becomes audience

00:31:39.840 Christianity is because you eventually start to realize, I don't actually have a role to play here

00:31:46.380 in this body. I come and watch something. And sure, you might be the greeter, you know, the very small

00:31:54.180 percentage of people that might be a greeter or you know you might be on the worship team or you

00:31:59.440 you might have helping children's ministry or whatever it is but again um for the most people

00:32:06.240 it's i have no role here and it for if you go through that for enough time you eventually

00:32:11.780 realize you know what they record these let's just watch them from home or there's a simulcast

00:32:18.180 or a live let's just watch it from home or listen to the podcast on tuesday and you eventually stay

00:32:23.220 home. And this is perfect. Satan's so good at his job in terms of just this isolate you, boom,

00:32:28.760 pull you out and pull you away. So now you don't even, you're not even connected and you're listening

00:32:33.320 to the podcast pastor. Well, then you realize that, you know what? John Piper and Tim Keller

00:32:39.620 are actually better pastors and teachers than my pastor. I'm going to just start listening to them

00:32:44.380 instead. And then you just, all of a sudden, now you're listening to just some teacher that you

00:32:49.620 have no relationship with at all, no local ties with anybody else locally, and you become this 0.79

00:32:55.580 isolated Christian, which is like a wolf separating someone from a flock. Like, you just isolate one, 1.00

00:33:02.920 and that's exactly what's happening, is that all these Christians are isolated, and they don't

00:33:07.080 know what to do. Well, and it's just like the scripture that you mentioned earlier on in the

00:33:10.460 show, a man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. Yeah, and I know it's stressful,

00:33:17.160 because there's nothing more stressful

00:33:18.420 than thinking about a problem

00:33:19.420 that doesn't have a solution.

00:33:21.240 And so a lot of families are like,

00:33:22.580 I don't even know what to do.

00:33:23.340 Like, what am I supposed to do?

00:33:24.540 What other alternative is there?

00:33:26.260 For sure.

00:33:26.720 We're definitely gonna get people emailing us this

00:33:28.440 after they listen to the show.

00:33:29.600 Yeah, and I get people all the time.

00:33:30.600 Where do I, how do I find a house church?

00:33:32.960 Where are they at?

00:33:33.980 Well, they don't have websites.

00:33:34.940 I'll tell you that.

00:33:37.060 But relearnchurch.org, again,

00:33:39.120 is all about helping people figure out how to do this.

00:33:42.420 um so um this is a little bit longer of a show we're going to just keep going just because it's

00:33:51.420 i think important um so what is what does our biblical church look like i'm going to kind of

00:33:57.260 give you guys a rundown on that um you know so we look to the book of acts but we have to remember

00:34:03.120 the book of acts is descriptive of what happened it's historical it's not prescriptive doctrine

00:34:07.720 and compared to like Timothy

00:34:10.340 has got lots of prescriptive doctrine

00:34:12.780 and it's prescriptive, not descriptive.

00:34:15.200 Now, does that mean that we don't like highly regard

00:34:18.180 that example that we see in like Acts chapter two?

00:34:23.540 No, we totally respect that and look at that.

00:34:27.200 But we look at the book of Acts for our reference points.

00:34:29.360 We look at book of first Corinthians,

00:34:31.640 chapter 14 specifically, first Timothy, Titus.

00:34:35.160 These are all books that have a lot of ecclesiology, doctrine about the church, how to actually do that, among the rest of the New Testament.

00:34:44.260 But those are the main books that I think we reference a lot for structure and what it's to look like.

00:34:49.980 And, you know, there's a quote that I say often, and it's probably not even mine.

00:34:54.960 I probably got it from someone else, and it's been blended, but I've been using it for so long.

00:34:59.440 It's, what you win people with is what you win people to.

00:35:03.880 What you win people with is what you win people to.

00:35:06.480 And the institutional church is really good at winning people with really good design,

00:35:11.460 really good positive messages, really great music, really good childcare, really cool buildings.

00:35:16.460 What you win people with is what you win people to.

00:35:20.360 And you get yourself in the situation that you have to keep entertaining these people

00:35:23.960 more and more and more to keep them there because you want them with that.

00:35:28.940 the biblical church wins people with three things.

00:35:34.180 It wins them with the gospel.

00:35:36.040 It wins them with the Bible and it wins them with the covenant relationship with

00:35:40.860 the body of Christ,

00:35:41.820 the other church members,

00:35:42.940 the relationships.

00:35:44.940 And that's critical.

00:35:48.400 And so we,

00:35:50.680 we,

00:35:50.860 we try to win people with those things and then we meet in homes.

00:35:53.820 If you want to talk about that.

00:35:54.740 Yeah,

00:35:54.840 we meet in our house or whoever's house and,

00:35:57.880 um we start since you know when we multiplied off and started a home fellowship we started in

00:36:04.300 our own home just because that's what made sense um but every eight weeks or so we will switch to

00:36:10.560 somebody else's house and that's just kind of our own thing that's not like you have to do it this

00:36:15.100 way um so it gives other people to serve and it also gives the person who's hosting a break

00:36:20.720 yeah um and then we also do like um a potluck after fellowship and so that's that's more the

00:36:28.860 fellowship time um we eat together we talk hang out like a thing of chairs and stuff comes and

00:36:35.460 yeah we have chairs um we have like our song books yeah and you know like you might put a

00:36:43.380 thing together of plates and cups and like dishes that might go back and forth whoever the host is

00:36:47.760 these are again things that we've done that just make practical sense but um you know but why

00:36:52.180 meeting in homes you know so meeting in homes forces us to have a uh that kind of really

00:36:58.720 connected deeply intimate relationship that i think is missing in the church today that family

00:37:04.600 like call that you see in scripture homes offers the environment for that like if you're going to

00:37:09.920 want to bear your soul down and cry in front of people do you want to do that in a building or do

00:37:15.320 want to do that on someone's couch in their living room there's something

00:37:18.560 about a home that that does lend itself to a more private safe environment to

00:37:29.060 be vulnerable to be connected to be like that is the central focus of our lives

00:37:35.540 as home and so beyond that it's just practically speaking house gatherings

00:37:42.740 They alleviate the incorporation, becoming a nonprofit, like, you know, all that stuff, the legalities of that.

00:37:52.200 It reduces the risk of persecution.

00:37:54.420 It is a universal structure.

00:37:56.380 Everybody on the planet can do that.

00:37:59.000 Not everybody can do the big box church. 0.99

00:38:02.020 It doesn't work in persecuted areas. 0.99

00:38:03.580 Go try to build one in Iran and see what happens. 0.93

00:38:06.520 And so houses are a universal solution. 0.91

00:38:09.460 And because we already have houses, we don't have to use the money to build buildings.

00:38:14.900 And instead, we can redistribute that money to spiritual needs and to needs of the church.

00:38:22.880 Members of the body and things for the church as a whole.

00:38:27.600 Yeah.

00:38:27.840 And so just the overview, again, our church gathering, it's contributor-focused, not consumer-focused.

00:38:37.080 It says you're not, it's contributor Christianity, not consumer Christianity.

00:38:41.360 And so people are coming to contribute, to bring something, to bring a song.

00:38:47.360 Yeah, you're not coming to just be poured into week after week after week after week after week.

00:38:52.660 Like you also come prepared to share a testimony or a teaching or whatever it is that a song, whatever the Lord has placed on your heart.

00:39:01.440 It's not just all about you receiving.

00:39:04.520 yeah you are also there to give and to serve yes and and it's this beautiful kind of relationship

00:39:10.860 holy spirit led meeting that doesn't have this pre-programmed schedule or agenda um and

00:39:18.680 it's highly committed um there's a scripture that we're going to read later um i'll read it right

00:39:23.960 now it's hebrews 10 24 to 25 um it says and let us consider one another so again just it's a call

00:39:34.160 to consider one another, to care for one another,

00:39:36.280 to stir up love and good works,

00:39:38.640 like care for one another so that people

00:39:40.220 start loving each other, so that people have good works,

00:39:42.840 and not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,

00:39:48.040 as is the manner of some.

00:39:52.080 So I want to stop there for a second,

00:39:53.620 is that this is the reason they were not assembling

00:39:57.460 is because they were afraid to die.

00:40:00.080 They were afraid of the persecution of assembling together.

00:40:02.420 and the author of Hebrews is saying not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the

00:40:10.400 manner of some but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day capital d approaching

00:40:17.260 and so we're we're I would say we're hyper committed um to our gathering and and like we

00:40:24.060 how often do we miss a church gathering like somebody has to be sick if we're missing like

00:40:31.560 yeah we plan a couple times a year we plan our vacations our everything is around this because

00:40:37.460 the priority of our life is the church gathering now can we miss a church gathering sure but

00:40:42.400 everybody knows that the priority yeah but exactly you can the body knows that that our heart is to

00:40:49.580 be with them yeah so i'm going to give the schedule outline and then i'm actually going to close and

00:40:54.760 i think i'm going to move these questions that i have at the end to our next episode because i think

00:40:58.820 you guys will really enjoy the answers we'll just do a small series on part two part two on this

00:41:02.900 yeah so i'll give you the schedule of what we do so we we get together uh at 9 30 um and everybody

00:41:12.160 comes and hangs out and everybody brings their food and we we fellowship um we we fellowship and

00:41:17.800 fellowship is different than friendship fellowship is we have something in common and that's christ

00:41:22.380 and we we participate with one another and we love each other for about a half hour and then

00:41:28.300 we start our meeting. That's, you know, the meeting of the saints, the gathering of the saints

00:41:33.560 for the edification of the body to do the work of the ministry. These are the scriptural

00:41:37.320 references that we're seeing. We start our meeting at 10 o'clock. And then our meeting follows very

00:41:43.980 much so a outline of around 1 Corinthians 14, verses 26 through 40. And this is an

00:41:55.540 Every member functioning body, we'll have the man of the house, we'll open up the meeting

00:42:00.100 and prayer, and then we just go, hey, does anybody have a testimony, a prayer request,

00:42:06.160 a song, you know, any of the men have a teaching, anything, you know, let all things be done

00:42:12.140 for edification, for the building up of the saints.

00:42:15.300 That is what it says in scripture.

00:42:17.560 And you just be quiet.

00:42:20.180 And talk about those moments of quietness.

00:42:22.420 uh yeah i think if you're new there it probably feels really awkward yeah because you're just

00:42:29.260 like sitting there and five seconds go by 15 seconds go by 30 seconds go by and nobody has

00:42:36.800 said anything and you're just like sitting there staring but then we're so used to it we don't

00:42:39.940 realize it anymore um but yeah i mean they're gonna be a minute a couple minutes going by

00:42:44.940 without anyone saying anything and then all of a sudden somebody will be prompted and be like okay

00:42:49.580 I want to share this

00:42:51.280 or whatever it is

00:42:52.040 you let the Holy Spirit

00:42:53.200 do the heavy lifting

00:42:53.960 and fill the silence

00:42:55.400 in the room

00:42:55.860 it's not my agenda

00:42:57.260 or anybody's agenda

00:42:58.820 of what's going to happen

00:42:59.780 and it's amazing

00:43:00.880 when you step back

00:43:01.840 and you let the Holy Spirit

00:43:02.780 all of a sudden

00:43:04.120 you know

00:43:04.520 20 seconds in

00:43:05.500 someone says

00:43:06.160 well this week

00:43:07.200 we had a hard week

00:43:08.300 and I want to share

00:43:09.240 what happened

00:43:09.760 and what we learned

00:43:10.820 and then all of a sudden

00:43:12.300 off of that

00:43:13.100 yeah and the testimony

00:43:14.060 from it

00:43:14.720 yeah someone shares

00:43:15.940 an encouragement

00:43:17.840 someone says

00:43:18.560 you know what

00:43:18.880 hey

00:43:19.080 I've been through that before

00:43:20.760 let's open up the scripture and read it

00:43:22.540 and then you read the scripture

00:43:24.020 and then all of a sudden someone's over here saying

00:43:25.680 can we sing a song that I think really lines up

00:43:27.640 with what we're talking about

00:43:29.080 and then a prayer request happens over here

00:43:31.600 and then it moves on to someone say

00:43:33.460 hey I prepared a teaching

00:43:34.420 and it's interesting because this teaching

00:43:37.040 actually goes along with what we just talked about

00:43:39.240 there's this beautiful

00:43:40.200 cohesion

00:43:42.480 with the meeting

00:43:44.140 not always

00:43:44.760 but there's just this

00:43:46.940 we've even had moments that

00:43:48.600 yeah people are like like an undeniable string that was woven through the meeting

00:43:56.960 and we do that for an hour or so maybe an hour and a half yeah probably close to an hour and a

00:44:04.200 half the kids are a little longer the kids are at our feet kids are with us um and all ages all

00:44:10.440 ages yeah and then we we kind of just sit in the living room do this and then we um we when it's

00:44:17.340 clear that the meeting's over you know we will do communion and we trade off on guys leading

00:44:26.940 communion for the church and we let the men serve their own families and then that's just something

00:44:33.900 we do based off of the extrapolation of scripture that we've studied and then we close with some

00:44:39.160 announcements and then we do fellowship and lunch and potluck for several hours yeah a couple hours

00:44:46.200 usually and that's sometimes longer i think that's actually where the heart of the ministry is

00:44:51.160 yes it's pretty much an all-day thing not all day but it definitely takes up most of our day

00:44:56.860 on sundays three to five hours and and you just really get deeply connected and private

00:45:03.880 conversations can occur and you know groups of people walk this way and guys are playing with

00:45:08.560 the kids and i mean it's just it's just a fun time and then it doesn't stop there we actually

00:45:13.220 at the end of the week we'll schedule coffees and date nights yeah or you do them you have a

00:45:19.260 weekly men's meeting with the men from the body yes um you guys will do weekly men's meeting the

00:45:24.040 women will generally get together um most of us are mothers and so it's harder to get together

00:45:29.400 as often as the men um but we'll meet once a month with all of us together once a month and

00:45:35.520 then we'll you know have those one-off coffee dates or dinners here and there yeah it's a real

00:45:40.240 biblical community you look at the book of acts you look at the scriptures and you're you're

00:45:44.620 actually seeing people committed deep rich relationships of people loving each other

00:45:52.160 yeah and we're in day almost daily communication as well through like text message or we have a

00:45:58.220 app slack through slack whatever it is um yeah and we're praying for one another and um

00:46:05.220 you know i'm there's a young woman in our fellowship who is married but they don't have

00:46:12.260 children yet and a lot of times she'll offer like hey can i watch your kids this week or hey can i

00:46:16.300 bring you dinner like yes yes you can that would be a huge blessing thank you yeah and this happens 0.95

00:46:21.620 all the time and she's actually watching our daughter right now baking a pie with her because

00:46:25.860 she invited she invited her over to do that and so there's just that beautiful committed

00:46:31.180 participatory relationships that I think people are yearning for.

00:46:35.860 So part two of this, we're going to talk about answering a couple questions.

00:46:40.020 We'll probably add one more question, but what is, what do you do with the children

00:46:42.500 and what does that look like in a biblical church?

00:46:45.380 How does giving work?

00:46:47.420 That's going to be a big one.

00:46:48.500 What does that look like?

00:46:49.440 And we'll probably maybe ask another question or two.

00:46:53.880 But again, more information if you want to learn about ReLearn Church and our ministry

00:46:58.640 and what we do on teaching people

00:47:00.600 how to plant and establish biblical churches,

00:47:03.300 just go to relearnchurch.org.

00:47:05.440 Again, this is the kind of umbrella ministry

00:47:07.420 of ultimate marriage.

00:47:10.400 And we'll leave you with a memory verse.

00:47:14.660 Veronica can read.

00:47:15.940 Hebrews 10, 24, and 25.

00:47:17.820 And let us consider one another

00:47:19.460 in order to stir up love and good works,

00:47:21.740 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together

00:47:24.260 as in the manner of some,

00:47:26.020 but exhorting one another

00:47:27.280 and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

00:47:30.800 Awesome.

00:47:32.380 I want to remind you guys,

00:47:34.080 Tuesday is coming up and it's Giving Tuesday.

00:47:37.340 I've never, ever marketed a Giving Tuesday

00:47:40.680 because I've never been in the nonprofit space.

00:47:42.540 This is the very first year

00:47:43.800 that we actually have something to give to.

00:47:46.680 And we really do believe that the Lord

00:47:48.760 has put us in this ministry

00:47:50.660 to teach people how to have biblical marriages,

00:47:52.540 how to do biblical church.

00:47:53.620 and if you are interested in supporting what we're doing,

00:47:59.600 you can go to relearnchurch.org forward slash donate

00:48:03.700 and we would be blessed by that.

00:48:06.060 If you guys want to learn about the show notes of this episode,

00:48:09.160 this is episode number 20

00:48:10.380 and it's available at ultimatemarriage.com.

00:48:12.620 Just click on the podcast section.

00:48:13.840 There's the video.

00:48:15.140 There's the actual audio of the show.

00:48:16.900 You can download everything you need,

00:48:19.120 references to scripture.

00:48:20.160 It's all there for you guys.

00:48:21.140 um until next week until next week thank you guys for joining us we'll see you guys next time

00:48:27.560 take care thank you for joining us on this episode of ultimate marriage if you're homesick

00:48:32.460 for a stronger marriage visit our website at ultimate marriage.com and consider enrolling in

00:48:36.740 our one-year online marriage mentor program also if you're interested in learning more about

00:48:41.060 building a better marriage follow veronica and i on social media where each week we share tips

00:48:45.420 tricks and lessons on building a biblical marriage

00:48:51.140 Transcription by CastingWords

Dale Partridge - November 21, 2018

Ultimate Marriage #20： House Church What Does it Really Look Like？

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