Dale Partridge - November 21, 2018


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


Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

167.75409

Word count

8,279

Sentence count

342

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk about why biblical church is so critical for biblical marriage and why biblical marriage is so important for biblical church. We also talk about the role that biblical church plays in our family and how it affects our marriage.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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