00:02:45.280And so it's hard to kind of model properly that relationship between Christ and the bride if you don't understand the real physical relationship between like what church looks like and how it relates to Christ according to scripture.
00:03:00.840The other thing, I don't know, Veronica, if you want to talk about accountability just in terms of how it's important to our marriage.
00:03:08.100Yeah, I think accountability is super vital to a biblical marriage and a biblical house church.
00:03:14.680Before we were in a home fellowship, we were in the institutional church.
00:03:19.440And yeah, people would say, okay, you're my accountability partner and have them keep you accountable.
00:06:38.040So he's writing this letter and he says,
00:06:39.600hey, if I am delayed, I write you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself
00:06:47.380in the house of God. Okay, period for a second. House of God means house of God, like the house
00:06:54.540church, the house of God. Now, there's no doctrinal support that church must be done in a house.
00:07:01.420However, that is the biblical example of how it was done. There's nothing wrong with doing it in
00:07:07.080a building or doing it under a tree or doing it in a garage. But it says, I'm writing you so that
00:07:12.840you ought to know how to conduct yourself in the house of God, comma, which is the church of the
00:07:18.760living God, comma, the pillar and the ground of the truth. And so I want you to like visualize
00:07:27.520for a second, there's a pillar. And what does a pillar do? It supports. It supports. It upholds
00:07:34.360something. Paul is saying that the church is the pillar and the ground, the ground of the truth.
00:07:42.820It's upholding the truth in the world. Christians, pay attention to this. The church's job is to
00:07:49.760uphold all the truth in the world. And it's critical that the way we structure our gatherings,
00:07:58.560the way we do church, affects our ability to uphold truth. And you can see that we're losing
00:08:04.100every single battle on truth politically abortion biblical sexuality conversations around gender
00:08:12.300uh legalization of drugs uh pornography like we're losing because the church is like a sleeping giant
00:08:21.220instead of being a warrior in the world for good and for love and so it's church structure really
00:08:28.900does have an important, I guess, element of us fulfilling our role, which is to be the pillar
00:08:37.080and the ground of the truth. A couple things. There's a big difference between talking bad
00:08:43.820about the church, which is Christ's bride, and bringing identification to the problems that it's
00:08:47.960facing. So we're allowed to correct and rebuke each other in love. And that's what this conversation
00:08:53.260is doing we are not anti-institutional church that's not us um we think the lord's doing great
00:08:59.480work in a variety of different churches in a variety of different ways however we are going
00:09:03.340to call us back to what the bible says and the most we should all be seeking out the most fruitful
00:09:09.760expression of church which is the most scripturally accurate expression of church
00:09:14.540um yeah i think you mentioned it earlier where if you were to read the bible on your own without
00:09:20.200any preconceived ideas without any experience of the church without anybody telling you anything
00:09:25.760about the Bible if you were to read it on your own and then step into a regular institutional
00:09:31.800church I don't think that your definitions would match up yeah what you get is the situation where
00:09:37.240you go I'm reading my Bible in my left hand and I'm looking my church experience in my right hand
00:09:42.160and they're not the same and yeah you you would never get youth age segregated youth ministries
00:09:50.740you would never get evangelism and outreach and the church meeting all blended together
00:09:57.100you would never get one man talking to an audience of an inactive spectators
00:10:03.240you would never get let's go and buy a big expensive building and get a bunch of people
00:10:11.280on salaries. Like you just wouldn't get these things. They're not sinful. Yeah. That's exactly
00:10:17.340what I was going to say. They're not sinful. But if you're having a struggle here, when you're
00:10:22.720listening to this podcast, I'd encourage you to just go read what the Bible says. Yeah. Read what
00:10:27.000the Bible says. Yeah. And there's, there's been some books that have really helped our journey
00:10:30.720of people that have gone before us. One of them is called pagan Christianity. It sounds like a
00:10:36.800crazy book. It's written by George Barna and Frank Viola. And George, if you've heard of the
00:10:42.920Barna Group that does all the Barna research, that's him. And awesome godly men. And then
00:10:50.320Organic Church, Reimagining Church, and then Francis Chan just wrote a really great book.
00:10:56.040The Letters to the Church. Yeah, Letters to the Church, which again, you know, he's doing the
00:11:00.300same. He would say the exact same thing that we're saying today. He's challenging people to go,
00:11:05.380if we just read this book how did we get from this book to here and he has that story of even
00:11:12.060being a megachurch pastor um and so yeah he's doing something left and he left and now he's
00:11:18.960planting plants home fellowships yeah house fellowships now and so it's very similar um
00:11:24.360we're not ultra connected but we have talked on both of our organizations and
00:11:28.600i i expect the lord will bring us unified together in some time in the future
00:11:32.220um a couple notes we're looking at here um yeah on our journey just of this process we're going
00:11:41.160to answer some questions for you guys that common questions but we had to unlearn a lot
00:11:45.540you know before we could relearn it was this process of having to kind of deconstruct
00:11:52.680um before we can reconstruct and it was so weird do you remember feeling weird
00:11:59.180i remember feeling weird and just like okay well then what do i do yeah like if all this is wrong
00:12:07.520yeah then what am i supposed to do yeah and and i remember you had said this is years ago but you
00:12:15.020you're like i just feel like like i was lied to yeah for so long and now i'm just trying to figure
00:12:22.160out truth well we trust what happens is you just go man i don't got a seminary degree like
00:12:28.300I'm an average guy like I expect that those guys the pastors there at the church are going to do
00:12:34.660everything correctly according to the book I'm putting my faith in them and again the Bible
00:12:39.820warns against that for all of us to actually know the word so that we can judge lovingly
00:12:45.920our actions in each other according to the word be diligent to show yourself approved to God a
00:12:50.900worker who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth we are called to that
00:12:54.620so just don't expect that just because your pastor went to seminary that you're doing church according
00:13:00.760to the scriptures a lot of us are doing church according to how americans do church because
00:13:06.400we've done it that way for so long and it's at least previously been successful yeah previously
00:13:13.380yeah and again not so much anymore yeah exactly we've we've it's changing it's morphed i mean even
00:13:18.160if you just do a study on like where did sunday school come from it's amazing when you see where
00:13:22.800it came from and what it is now. It's an amazing story. A quote that I said last week is a man-made
00:13:32.920structure will never deliver Christ-like results. And so if you want to, Jesus said to Peter,
00:13:38.220on this rock, I will build my church. He's going to build it. We don't got to do the big marketing
00:13:44.760thing. The Lord is going to build his church. And again, when you have a man-made structure
00:13:54.100versus just a spirit-built structure, you can see the difference. People that are committed,
00:13:59.560loving, encouraged, and they're so fruitful, so small, and so fruitful. It's amazing.
00:14:06.840So I feel like we've given a good testimony of how it's changed our lives
00:14:14.520in a good way i mean it's increased our maturity it's it's we wouldn't we wouldn't have this
00:14:19.420podcast if we hadn't joined a home fellowship we wouldn't be teaching an ultimate the ultimate
00:14:24.900marriage uh program program if we had not entered that like no we wouldn't have any of these tools
00:14:32.020um had we not entered a biblical fellowship yeah veronica spent like a couple hours yesterday and
00:14:38.500this morning studying the Jehovah's Witness faith so that she can help defend the truth against some
00:14:45.520of those things for conversations that come up. I'm doing that with Islam. Our friend who's in
00:14:52.460our gathering is doing that on Mormonism. There's just a sense of ownership of your faith that you
00:14:58.060go, I'm here to learn the truth so I can defend the faith. I have my own ministry that the Lord's
00:15:04.060calling me i'm not a passive spectator yeah and another thing about just since we're on this topic
00:15:10.040biblical house church um as a lot of you guys a lot of you listeners know this last year has just
00:15:16.480been crazy trial after trial um and we probably this year probably had 50 meals brought over to
00:15:22.940our house yeah like the church body is caring for us in the season when we can't and we've had
00:15:29.640multiple members in the and the body offered to watch our kids and come over and help clean the
00:15:36.340house and come over and fold my laundry for me stack the wood and stack our wood yeah and just
00:15:41.500just care for us and a and a like a few weeks ago we were sick you were getting over bronchitis and
00:15:48.760our friends their children were with their grandparents a couple of hours away they were
00:15:54.360staying the night for the weekend and this couple called us and asked if they could come over and
00:16:00.900watch our kids while we went and just rested and watched a movie in the room in our bedroom in our
00:16:06.600room we were home yeah they came over and just hung out and watched our kids just because we
00:16:10.440were so burnt out and tired on their time off yeah um but they loved us so much and cared for
00:16:18.240us so much that they're like oh we don't have kids we can come over and watch your kids totally
00:16:21.440Totally. Yeah. And if you can hear some airplanes flying over our studio, it's because it's, I think there are there. We have like an F-14 fighter jet pilots like sometimes fly over our house. So that's them. But yeah, I mean, that is exactly true. I mean, it's just deeper. Biblical fellowship, because you're so close to the word of God. You're so close. You're allowing the spirit to lead the relationships in the meeting and the gathering times. You get to know the word. You have a better understanding of the word and you learn how to do real relationship.
00:16:49.920Yeah. I feel like it, there's no masks. All the masks are removed. It's like going into your
00:16:56.380friend's house and you're just like, Hey, are you up for a visitor? She's like, yeah, sure.
00:17:01.580And then she texts me and he's like, Hey, by the way, my house is a mess. I'm just like, okay,
00:17:05.080I don't care. And I get there and I was like, Oh wow. Your house is a mess. I didn't say that,
00:17:09.300but I'm like, wow. Okay. But like, but I didn't care. Like this is my house looks like that
00:17:15.060sometimes too. Like it's just, it's just life. Like I don't feel like you have to put up a front
00:17:21.700like kind of thing. It's very much instead of being 10 feet wide, one inch deep, it's one inch
00:17:27.300wide and 10 feet deep. And I think we're longing, we're built for that. Psychology proves, science
00:17:32.660proves that we're designed to only be intimate with up to about 12 people. After that, you just
00:17:37.100can't be super known by more people than that. And so it really does help that. So we're going to
00:17:43.160answer four questions and we're going to try to be brief about that and then we'll jump into
00:17:47.680these are the questions that we get most often most often yeah yeah what do you do no question
00:17:53.220number one what do you do with the children in an institutional church i'll let you take it
00:17:58.360you just put them in the backyard and shut the door yeah right just the kids are with us they're
00:18:05.800generally sitting at our feet and they're part of the meeting even the young kids even the young
00:18:11.400kids yeah valor's with me are all three of our kids even we've got four and a
00:18:15.160half two and a half and one and a half yeah and they're all with us it's funny
00:18:18.660when you read the book of Ephesians Paul's talking to the like so this is a
00:18:23.560book a letter written to the church at Ephesus and it was to be expected to be
00:18:29.180read to the church aloud and he's talking to the married couples and he's
00:18:36.400talking to the fathers, you know, don't, don't treat your children, raise them up in a nurturing
00:18:43.100admonition of the Lord. And then he turns to the children, just addresses the children,
00:18:46.880children, obey your parents, right? And, and so it's, there was an expectation that the children
00:18:52.300are there. But also in the Old Testament, you see this is like, you know, when they would read the
00:18:57.320law in the sitting of all the Israelites, it would, it would say, even with the suckling babes,
00:19:01.240like the children are there they're not outsourced you don't outsource your spiritual
00:19:07.040responsibility of your children to some other ministry you know the Old Testament in the New
00:19:15.600Testament and Malachi to Matthew it talks about turning the hearts to the fathers and turning
00:19:22.880the children's hearts to the fathers and the father's hearts towards the children
00:19:25.840And this idea that a lot of youth ministers become the children's pastor, like instead of dad being the pastor of the home or mom upholding that spiritual growth in the child's life, we've outsourced that spiritual headship to somebody else.
00:21:42.000And to be honest, when they come of age, whatever that might be, they're to be expected to be participants in that meeting.
00:21:49.160And so, you know, especially like some of the young men who, you know, we have a coming of age kind of thing for the guys that, you know, their father gets to make that determination, 13, 14, 15 years old.
00:22:00.800And at that point, those guys are expected to bring something to the meeting, a prayer request, an encouragement, a song, revelation, a teaching, something.
00:27:31.000Well, it's not audience church, so we're all participating.
00:27:35.580And so there's kind of like a, I feel like especially with the men,
00:27:39.480there's the desire to really always be on guard against false theology.
00:27:45.420it's very rare that you can get something false past 10 men who are independently mature
00:27:54.500and all study the scriptures yeah in their own timing as well as meeting with the men throughout
00:28:01.040the week and praying and they're very strong mature believers and the women and you know like
00:28:06.940there's just some godly women in our gathering that just know theology and you know you're not
00:28:12.380going to be able to get stuff passed independently, 10. And so that's one thing. And then, you know,
00:28:19.640it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, I forget which verse it is. It's between 26 and 40, but it says,
00:28:24.220you know, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, meaning that the spirits
00:28:30.780of the teachers, those that are prophetically forth telling God's truth, are subject to the
00:28:37.660other teachers um and we've seen this right i mean what does this look like in a someone's
00:28:43.420teaching something uh i mean i can i use you for an example i mean when you were being trained up
00:28:49.760in this a couple of years ago if you would be standing up and preaching and giving a sermon
00:28:54.740when we were a part of another home fellowship before we were sent off to plant the current one
00:28:58.960that we are a part of um if you said something that maybe sounded even a little bit off or you
00:29:04.500meant to word it a different way, but it didn't. Or just said something straight wrong. Or said
00:29:08.440something wrong. You would definitely have one of the elders or older men interrupt you. Not in a
00:29:14.080rude way, respectfully. But be like, Dale, can you maybe explain that again? Or tell me what you
00:29:19.360actually meant by this? Because what you're saying sounds like this, but what it, but what I think
00:29:25.860you mean is this. Yes. Or, you know what? Actually, that's not what happened. It's this what, this is
00:29:32.120what happened it's a common mistake but we need to make sure and and this is again this is good
00:29:36.860the last thing you want to be doing is preaching false theology so there's there's safety and in
00:29:44.480that um and so yeah she said the word elders um not every church we don't have elders at our church
00:29:52.440right now we're a new church plant praying for them praying for them could could i be appointed
00:29:57.520as an elder, if I meet the requirements according to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus 1, which I'm
00:30:04.740constantly aiming for, then yeah, but we haven't done that yet. We haven't. It's one of those
00:30:10.940things I think that the congregation naturally comes to do. I'm still relatively young, you know,
00:30:17.320and so, but having elders, a plurality of elders ideally, is great. And you might even have elders
00:30:24.740that oversee, you know, a gathering in a new plant, but church elders are the, like, elders
00:30:31.680and deacons, if you look in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus 1, they're the only church governance
00:30:37.000thing you see in the entire Bible, or sorry, the entire New Testament. And so what I'm saying here
00:30:44.080is that, like, the idea of, like, cardinals and bishops, and, well, I guess a bishop is another
00:30:47.920word for an elder, but, like, these, like, other types of roles that we've kind of created to be,
00:30:53.960they're generally helpful but the only real biblical protection against false theology is
00:31:00.320elders and deacons um so again you can read first timothy chapter 3 titus 1 you want some of those
00:31:06.700dudes in your church that's a good thing um last one why don't you read the question and start us
00:31:14.660off how do people find out about it how do people find out about a home church gathering people ask
00:31:20.820us this all the time um because people are craving it they desire it um and that's it's hard yeah it
00:31:28.460took us several years to find the one that we were a part of um but a lot of it is just organic
00:31:34.720relationship just meet somebody and get to know them yeah i mean you know we've blended in the
00:31:42.800institutional church we've blended evangelism and the meeting of the saints so they're like two
00:31:49.940they're two separate things like evangelism and the scriptures and outreach is always an outward
00:31:54.800work and the meeting of the saints is always like a gathering of christians to talk about christian
00:32:01.020stuff we've made them one of the same and that's why we have what's called lowest common denominator
00:32:07.000preaching where you're constantly at the institutional church having to preach to the
00:32:10.640guy that's on his first day there because it's his first day he's a visitor and so the preaching is
00:32:15.160always at least palatable for the guy that's on his first day um and uh that creates a dilemma
00:32:23.080because for the guy that's been there for 10 years it's always milk i mean you were a believer
00:32:28.880for how long before 12 years 10 years so yeah it was just but you were still a baby a very yeah
00:32:38.120baby in your faith because you didn't know a lot until you know five years ago yeah once you get
00:32:43.960into a biblical community it is like rocket fuel for your spiritual maturity um and so yeah how do
00:32:51.880we we share the gospel with people if we get a chance to share the gospel we do it i had a guy
00:32:57.580over here not too long ago in this very room talking about the gospel and so you share the
00:33:03.600gospel it's an outward work you build a relationship you disciple them you baptize them you take them
00:33:08.480to church that's what you see in the scriptures you don't outsource your spiritual responsibility
00:33:14.300to share the gospel to your pastor by inviting your friends to come to church who don't know
00:33:18.680the lord and that's just not what happens hopefully they get saved hopefully they get
00:33:23.360saved no no that's your job and so oh not that the holy spirit couldn't work that way too because
00:33:31.680yeah i mean you and i both became christians in a institutional church and got baptized in
00:33:36.900It was a two-stall church, so again, not bashing that.
00:33:40.860Yeah, the Lord uses our junk and our misinterpretation of Scripture in spite of us.
00:33:48.540He'll still use it, and that's beautiful.
00:33:50.900It doesn't mean that what we do is right, meaning just because good things happen inside of wrong things doesn't make the wrong thing right,
00:34:00.940because good things happen in wrong things all the time.
00:34:02.680There's people that are getting saved inside of a war.
00:34:04.280doesn't mean that we should do more war
00:34:06.560because people are getting saved there
00:34:07.580no, it's that the Lord uses this stuff