00:04:18.960Right. Yeah. And like, so that, I mean, that's, you know, if I'm hosting a conference, which I am
00:04:23.500March 1st, 2nd and 3rd, Doug Wilson is coming and we got Foster coming. And so like, I'm going to
00:04:28.560focus on those things because I think that's the right path. But, you know, in the spirit of a big
00:04:33.260content, ecumenical spirit, you know, I think that like, okay, if we can boil things down to
00:04:39.300the common denominator, I think there are three primary characteristics that pop into my mind
00:04:43.660of the type of church that I think would still be around in 50 years. So if I, you know, I'll think
00:04:49.180about the title for this episode, but it'll probably be something along the lines of, you know,
00:04:53.100the type of church that will survive the next 50 years in America. So anyway, so I won't list
00:04:59.740them all up front. I'll just start with one and then throw it to you. But one thing that I think
00:05:04.340is churches that engage the culture, engage society, engage the world around them, they're
00:05:09.820not pietistic. So they're engaging the world, but also they have a certain optimism. They think
00:05:16.000that they can win. And I don't mean by that, that they have optimistic eschatology like
00:05:22.120post-millennialism. Again, that would be like one of, you know, if that's my path, I'm going to try
00:05:27.960to get guys to be post-millennial because I think it's true. But I'm not saying that you have to be
00:05:31.700post-millennial. I'm thinking of like, you know, there were certain things that were wrong with
00:05:36.120this movement, but like the Joshua generation, you know, in a few decades past, you know,
00:05:42.040there was a lot of good things that came out of that. And for the most part, a lot of these guys,
00:05:46.300they weren't Calvinist. They were Arminian, you know, kind of Arminian decisionism Baptist with
00:05:51.080the dispensational pre-millennial ingrained, you know, eschatology. That's just the air that they
00:05:57.560were breathing. And yet they were raising their kids, homeschooling their kids, raising them to
00:06:02.500know the Lord and not just to retreat, but to actually run for political office and to try to
00:06:09.520change the fabric of society with a mindset that not that Jesus is going to come back in 20, 30,
00:06:16.14040,000 years, but that Jesus might come back in 50 years. But they were thinking, okay, but 50
00:06:22.000years, my kids have to live during these next 50 years and I'm going to have grandkids.
00:06:27.560in these next 50 years so i'd like these next 50 years to be good and and so anyway so that you
00:06:33.180know i think like even the dispensational so i'm not making it eschological i'm saying even from
00:06:38.360a dispensational pre-mill standpoint which i would sharply disagree with uh just like post-mill we're
00:06:43.260saying okay the trajectory overall is up but there are dips along the way i think we're in a dip right
00:06:47.920now well you could be pre-mill dispy and say the overall trajectory is down but there are some
00:06:53.040spikes along the way. So why wouldn't you, because we know in the last 2,000 years,
00:06:57.580even if you're a dispensational premillennial, you can't argue with history that in the last
00:07:01.8002,000 years, we've had some good moments. We've had some spikes where things actually
00:07:06.320improved. So there's no biblical argument to say that that couldn't happen here and that it
00:07:10.960couldn't happen now. So no matter where you're at eschatologically, I think that every Christian
00:07:16.500should believe uh that that uh we might be able to win a battle or two and and winning a battle
00:07:23.060or two could make a world of difference for our children and and what kind of life the quality of
00:07:27.940life that they're going to have and so i think you know so i'm not saying every church is going
00:07:32.160to be post-millennial but i think over the next 50 years churches that engage the culture society
00:07:37.580politics and engage it with an attitude that that engagement matters and that it's not just beating
00:07:43.140at the wind it could actually make a difference i think that kind of church will last i think any
00:07:47.440church that's pietistic that doesn't really engage the culture or thinks that there's not even spikes
00:07:52.780along a downward trajectory that there's no victory not even for 10 years or a decade i think
00:07:57.740those churches are going to go the way of the dinosaur what do you think you know i think i
00:08:01.220think um if you think of the next 50 years you know and if you if you think like i do about sort
00:08:07.020of the economy and stuff like that you're not you know you're not doom and gloom necessarily but
00:08:11.480But I think most people kind of agree that the standard of living that we've enjoyed for a very long time is kind of steadily decreasing.
00:08:19.860And so over 50 years, that might go down even further, you know, and so that doesn't mean we're all going to be, you know, starving to death, you know, or something like that.
00:08:29.180But it's just like even even today, like, I don't know how it is around you in Texas, but like when I go to the store today, it's a lot different than when I used to go to the store five years ago.
00:08:38.880It's like five years ago, nothing was ever out of stock.
00:08:43.280These days, certain things are out of stock from time to time.
00:08:52.200And I think it's more similar to what you see in other countries, where they don't have quite the standard of living that we do in the United States, or at least that we've had.
00:09:00.980so as the standard of living goes down i think people you know you like they they do tend to
00:09:07.820like sort of uh cling to spiritual things a lot more joyfully i don't know if you've ever noticed
00:09:14.220this like you've been on like a a mission trip to a poor area whether it's in the united states
00:09:18.960or outside the united states like the churches are just a lot more optimistic i think than than
00:09:24.320than some of the churches that i grew up in in connecticut you know what i mean um and i don't
00:09:28.440know if that's just because they're charismatic or maybe it's maybe that's part of it but i don't
00:09:33.060know i feel like people like like they they they need a an outlet for positivity when things aren't
00:09:40.000quite going as well as they want them to be and maybe that's part of it maybe it's just kind of
00:09:44.520a natural thing where like you know life's a little tougher so you know you you kind of you
00:09:50.580lean on the church for more of your joy you know you get together with people you hang out you do
00:09:55.900these things that maybe you wouldn't do if things were better for you you know what i mean things
00:10:00.060were going really well i don't know if that's really real but to me i've noticed that when i
00:10:04.800gone into poor areas of churches in poor areas church is a little different you know what i mean
00:10:10.240right yeah it's it's yeah there's more positive but a lot of that does come from what you just
00:10:14.740put your finger on the communal aspect it seems like the communal aspect that's it that's that's
00:10:18.940actually exactly what i'm thinking of yeah because i think we you know part of it is like when you
00:10:23.540so much stuff you're more content to be alone so it's just like i'm just going to spend a quiet
00:10:29.060evening you know like like a lot of americans when they think of like you know even on on
00:10:33.140twitter or social media like describe you know the perfect evening a lot of people like the
00:10:36.820description that they would um that they would you know put forward for the you know an evening
00:10:41.700that they would enjoy would be an evening alone or or maybe an evening just with their spouse it
00:10:46.340would be you know i know i'm like that right exactly yeah it would be a book or a glass of
00:10:50.340wine or watching the sunset or in a hot tub or, but like none of them, one common denominator
00:10:56.580is that it's not this big communal kind of thing. Whereas like, you think of Southern
00:11:01.380slavery, you know, in America and like part of the reason why like the black church would0.76
00:11:05.940have still even historically to this day, you know, the overtones of this continuing,
00:11:11.300like traditionally really long services, you know, like five hour long church services,
00:11:15.700where it's just singing and singing and singing and singing and preaching and preaching and
00:11:19.060and preaching and preaching without getting into any of the theology. Like part of that does come
00:11:23.780over from like, all right, if, if life is hard six days a week, then on the Lord's day, it's like,
00:11:29.120this is a moment of reprieve and we don't want it to end, but they spent it together. You know what
00:11:34.280I mean? Like, it wasn't like, Hey, we just, you would think like, you know, I'm, I'm physically
00:11:38.600exhausted. I'm just going to stay home and sleep all day. But that wasn't the mindset at all. It
00:11:42.240was like, I don't want to waste a minute of daylight. I'm going to get with the saints,
00:11:45.980get with my brothers get with my sisters and we're going to spend we're going to have some
00:11:50.860good old timey church and it's going to be all day long and so so i'm with you yeah and i don't
00:11:57.680think it's a matter like you said it's not really a matter of eschatology because i think of a lot
00:12:01.020of people i'm thinking of you know my grandparents for example are one of them you know i used to go
00:12:04.840to their house in the bronx you know and and compared to people in the bronx they were pretty
00:12:09.040well off compared to like some people in the bronx but you know like their eschatology like
00:12:15.160they they didn't share what i what you and i believe about eschatology they thought they
00:12:20.020thought that the world was going to hell in a handbasket you know but they didn't really act
00:12:23.780that way you know what i mean they they had a family they they their family their kids had a
00:12:28.720lot of kids and they they were playing for the future they were setting money aside they were
00:12:32.260doing this they were doing that they were they were had an expectation of you know we you know
00:12:37.500we we need we've got to make moves here you know what i mean even though their theology was not
00:12:42.320that way it was sort of like you know Christ is coming tomorrow probably and I think I've heard
00:12:46.240my grandmother even say that many times um it really wasn't like that it's just
00:12:51.100they were making moves in their own way and they felt like you know like Christ was on their side
00:12:59.080and they could do what they needed to do and they had confidence in the future they had faith in the
00:13:03.620future um so yeah it's it's a very interesting dynamic because you're right it really doesn't
00:13:09.860have a lot to do with their formal eschatology you know what i mean right yeah that's interesting
00:13:16.580i think i think you're right about that you know going into the future the next 50 years1.00
00:13:20.240people are gonna be looking for that a bit more because there's a lot of blackfield people out
00:13:23.380there joel i don't know if you've noticed there are there are a lot of them are christians sadly
00:13:27.580or at least professing christians but yeah so i i think post-millennial eschatology is on on the
00:13:33.040up and up i think there's a resurgence so i think we are going to find more post-millennial churches
00:13:36.940And I'm excited about that because I think it's biblically true, not just because it's
00:13:40.220fun, not just because I think it appeals to young men, which I do think it appeals to
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00:21:02.700America is a country that was founded for the purpose of allowing Christians to do their duty
00:21:06.220before God and not to have their consciences ruled by the doctrines and commandments of men.
00:21:10.620Reese Fund exists in order to see the Ten Commandments properly applied, not just as a
00:21:15.060plaque on the wall, but to actually be used in business as though they're commandments from God
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00:21:35.640right but i think part of that is what you just said in terms of like men needing to have you
00:21:43.220know be practically told what to do i think a lot of that uh was we were able to assume in like you
00:21:48.900know a neutral world where there wasn't quite as much opposition sure and with a better economy
00:21:53.900where it was just it was easier to provide for a family easier to get a job more people you know
00:21:59.320just, it was just what you did. You got married, you know, typically in your twenties, you had a
00:22:03.960few kids, you bought a home, but now like those things aren't givens anymore. Like now it's like
00:22:08.860really hard to find a woman, um, that you trust enough not to ruin your life. That's why like you0.97
00:22:14.960have the whole red pill manosphere, you know, on the secular side of things that is totally not0.89
00:22:19.440Christian. And like their advice, they're, they're giving law, they're giving practical, you know,0.82
00:22:24.160uh, steps for men. And, and those steps are get a vasectomy in your twenties. Don't ever get
00:22:29.560married. And, and I get it. I mean, it's, it's totally there. It's not red pill. It's black
00:22:34.200pill. Like they're, you know, they're totally wrong, but I get the sentiment because what
00:22:37.720they're thinking is, um, if you marry a woman, you've just given her a loaded gun. Um, you,
00:22:43.980you've just like, you have just, uh, given someone the, the authority and the power and
00:22:50.180the ability to completely destroy your life. And statistically speaking, it's more likely that
00:22:56.140she'll do it than that she won't right now, you know? So I think my point is in the world that
00:23:01.240we now live in, because Christendom has been, you know, leaving the port and going out to sea
00:23:07.040because of our rebellion and our apostasy, because of those things and because God will not be mocked
00:23:12.960and a man reaps what he sows and we're living in a worse world because of it, there are a lot more
00:23:17.700men who need direction than they used to. And they don't just need like man up. They need to
00:23:21.880be told how to be a man. What, you know, practically, what does that mean Monday through
00:23:26.300Saturday? How do I get married? How, how do I discern whether or not this, this woman's going
00:23:30.900to marry me and then take half of my stuff, you know, and, and, you know, so anyway, so I just1.00
00:23:36.980think, yeah, I think that trust Jesus, he died for your sin will, will not be enough churches
00:23:44.600that only you know keller always preached the first use of the law so here's the law of god
00:23:49.400and here's how it functions as a mirror that that reflects to you your fallenness your your
00:23:54.840shortcomings your sin and then here's the gospel here's jesus and how he did all those things that
00:23:59.960the very things that you just failed to do um and all that was true you know and then he's like
00:24:04.600here's jesus and this is how jesus fulfilled those things perfectly on your behalf so trust in jesus
00:24:09.480That's almost a great sermon. I wouldn't say that's wrong at all. I would just say it's
00:24:14.120incomplete. Then what I think we're going to see over the next 50 years is churches that then add
00:24:18.920to that the third use of the law that says, so here's the law. This is how you failed. This is
00:24:23.820why you need Jesus. Here's Jesus. This is how you fulfill these things in your place, not just
00:24:28.480substitutionary death, but substitutionary life. Now let's go back to the law in its third use as
00:24:33.920a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, something we delight in that shows us the way
00:24:38.320not to the way to salvation, but the way from salvation to further sanctification that shows us
00:24:45.180not just that we're sinners and we need Jesus, but now that we have Jesus and we're responding
00:24:49.760in gratitude for the free gospel of grace, it shows us how to live. I think that's going to
00:24:55.300become, I think that especially young men will not tolerate a Tim Keller type church 10 years
00:25:03.320from now 20 years yeah yeah and and the thing and the thing about this is that you know up until now
00:25:09.520like guys like tim keller have been very good at um it kind of like not disguising what they're
00:25:17.940saying but but making it sound good because like if you told the person like you know yeah you know
00:25:23.180i'm never gonna i'm never really gonna tell you practically what to do like that's not important
00:25:27.740people would see right through that right so they'll say things like well you never actually
00:25:32.300move on from the gospel you always need the gospel you need to preach the gospel to yourself
00:25:35.720every single day and um you need to every single passage it's just really about the gospel and you
00:25:40.820need to think about that and it's like well that sounds like like to some people especially to new
00:25:45.400believers that sounds okay that sounds pretty good i guess that makes a lot of sense you know
00:25:49.460because i'm always going to be you know fighting against my sin and i still do struggle with my sin
00:25:53.940so i guess i do need to just focus on the gospel every single day and the thing is though that like
00:25:59.020i think you're right like when when when times are somewhat normal you know somewhat you know
00:26:06.040you can kind of assume a certain set of morality i mean i remember when i was growing up you know
00:26:10.940which was not that long ago i'm not that old yet joel you know but but when i was growing up it's
00:26:15.200like everyone kind of knew that like homosexuality was a deviant lifestyle even if they didn't think
00:26:20.480it was a sin they didn't think it was you know anything really wrong with it it was something0.97
00:26:25.280that you want did not want to do you didn't want to do that it was deviant you know even even
00:26:29.840degenerates didn't want to degenerate that much you know what i mean so in the 1960s we knew that
00:26:34.700even a dude a man having long hair was degenerate like that's why a guy would grow out his hair
00:26:39.780exactly 100 so i guess so i guess my point is like when everyone's kind of working with the
00:26:48.520same assumptions you don't like you can kind of get away with some of that stuff but you're right
00:26:53.400Like these, these days, you know, especially men are struggling with like lots of basic, basic stuff and they're turning to YouTube to basically guide them.
00:39:39.200two extra, in my assessment, two extra years to like John Harris is on that train now. Like he's
00:39:46.120like, no, he wasn't always there though. But he wasn't always there. He wasn't always there. And
00:39:49.880so it, you know, and John, and we could say that about John, he'll watch this and he'll laugh
00:39:53.780because he's a good friend. But like it took him, it took me a little, you know, I wasn't quite as
00:39:58.160much as John, but anyways, it's, you know, it took us a little bit to realize, oh, wait a second.
00:40:03.640The biggest problem with this is not a perversion of the gospel. A perversion of the gospel is a
00:40:09.060huge problem but a lot of guys weren't a lot of them were doing that you're right and and in
00:40:12.640fairness and in fairness to john a lot of these guys the worst of them were definitely doing that
00:40:18.420100 the worst guys were doing that that's true yeah so so yeah there were some dudes out there
00:40:23.880doing that but but a lot but not everyone and the ones that weren't doing it were still wrong
00:40:27.740yeah the guys who were saying the whole gospel that they were doing it they were when you start
00:40:32.720saying the whole gospel, and the whole gospel means reparations and universal income and
00:40:40.840whatever. And you're saying this is the gospel, or that you can't be saved apart from, then that
00:40:47.820is the Galatian heresy adding works to the gospel of grace. And the worst guys were doing that,
00:40:52.500and John nailed them on it, and he was right. Absolutely. But the minions, their followers,
00:40:58.440right? So you've got a few elite guys who are doing that. But most of the guys are the followers.
00:41:04.560And I would say the majority of guys actually weren't doing that. They actually had a clear
00:41:11.380distinction between law and gospel. The problem is that their law wasn't God's law. And it took
00:41:16.540us a while, I think, to figure that out. So anyways, all that being said, I think moving forward,
00:41:21.060you're absolutely right though, that like God used in his mercy, he used COVID, he used BLM,
00:41:26.120He used the whole woke thing from 2017, 18, 19, and then really, you know, climaxing in 2020.
00:41:32.520I think he used that for, we couldn't beat the wokeness by just saying Galatian heresy, Galatian heresy, because that didn't apply to everybody.
00:41:41.420So then what we had to do to beat it is we actually had to go back to the law of God.
00:41:46.580And the beauty is that now coming off of this, you've got a lot more churches like mine, you know, that preach law and gospel.
00:41:54.840so all right that's it guys i tried to warn you the time has finally arrived our early bird pricing
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00:44:19.020let's go absolutely no i i think and and what's interesting about the the two things we've brought
00:44:26.720up so far you can see sort of like there's going to be a dichotomy there's going to be churches
00:44:31.060that are solid that survive and there's going to be some evil churches that survive that are
00:44:35.260doing these things just the like the bizarro like anti-christ version right bizarro superman and
00:44:41.380they're going to be and they're going to be the regime churches they're going to be the churches
00:44:44.140for you know essentially you know the people that are on capitol hill kind of thing you know that
00:44:49.600that kind of thing um and eventually they'll die out too but right that's what's going to happen
00:44:54.580but they'll they'll be the bad ones that last the longest you're absolutely right and we and let's
00:44:58.400explore that a little bit more but with the third one now uh the third one that i was thinking of
00:45:02.740is third characteristic of churches that i think will last for 50 years is uh churches that feel
00:45:08.260old, churches that have like some kind of traditional, historic, you know, old, tried
00:45:18.060and true, trusted, credible sentiment, you know, that, that I think as, you know, this
00:45:24.120gets into like technology, it gets into AI, it gets like, as the world continues to progress
00:45:29.440and more and more things become digital, as the world becomes more digital and, and becomes,
00:45:35.540Michael O'Fallon would love this, you know, digital currency. And, you know, as the world
00:45:39.700becomes more digital, digitized, and, and there's more things that are doctored and tweaked and
00:45:46.240twisted, I think there's going to be a yearning for, for what is true. What is true? What is
00:45:53.020true? What is authentic? What is real? What can I trust? And, and so on the bad side of things,
00:45:58.620the bizarro world, you know, upside down world, but churches that, that mimic God's design,
00:46:03.860but in the opposite sense but they last because they're still mimicking his design um i like that
00:46:10.040would be the perfect example of that would be like um like an episcopalian church where you know
00:46:15.540you're walking in with like like a 400 year old bible you know being carried and there's like
00:46:20.680three altar boys with you know lit candles walking behind the priest and and there's thrones up on
00:46:26.240the stage and stained glass and chandeliers hanging and it's glorious it's this cathedral
00:46:31.060It all looks beautiful. It looks legit. And then the guy gives a 15 minute homily on why
00:46:36.700Paul, you know, when he cast out the demon of the slave girl, he was wrong to do that, you know,0.92
00:46:42.720and whatever, you know, and, and the dude is, you know, and the priest is actually gay and0.94
00:46:48.240his boyfriend is sitting on the front row. And I say that like as some random, you know,
00:46:53.800illustration, but I actually, I actually knew a priest like that when I was pastoring in California.0.85
00:46:58.740When I was pastoring in California, we met at an Episcopalian church in the evening, and the priest was gay. And his boyfriend would sit on the front row, and I remember going to one of the services, and it was a 15-minute homily where he said the Apostle Paul was wrong for these reasons in this particular text.
00:47:14.640So anyways, all that being said, but the, the aesthetic looked trustworthy. It looked, you know,
00:47:21.360and so when you're, when you're sitting on YouTube all day, you know, and, and, and watching TikTok
00:47:26.000and, and your work is, um, is, is in an office bunker underground where you don't see the light
00:47:32.420of day, you know, no sunlight and it's everything was on the computer and AI and virtual reality and
00:47:38.880all this kind of stuff and it's progressing. And then you can go to the sun gloriously cascading
00:47:45.860through a stained glass window of a church that's 300 years old, the building. And there's these
00:47:51.800old rituals that they've been doing for centuries. Even though the actual content of what's being
00:47:59.300preached is antithetical to the Bible, the veneer feels legit. It feels legitimate and
00:48:05.780uh, and, and it'll, that'll be take longer to, to come down. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I think
00:48:12.680that's, I think that's interesting. I also think, um, even besides just the aesthetic of the actual
00:48:18.440physical building and stuff like that, um, the, the liturgy like actually is going to make a big
00:48:24.360difference too. Like if you have a solid, you know, you know, somewhat ancient liturgy, you
00:48:31.440You know, where you do things like, you know, you sling the Gloria Patri or you do catechisms questions or, you know, I don't know what people are doing.
00:48:41.020But what I'm saying is like, as the world gets, at least it seems to get more chaotic, you know, at least what you see online, what you see on TV and what they push is more chaotic anyway.
00:48:53.540um i think that people are going to be attracted to having a sunday uh lord's day that is predictable
00:49:01.020that is beautiful that is uh constant that has the feel of constants you know it's like it's just
00:49:08.040this is what we've been doing for a long time you know people have been singing you know the glory
00:49:12.920patry for hundreds of years people have been singing you know um doxology for however long
00:49:19.480you know i don't even know when these songs were invented but i'm just saying like i think people
00:49:24.080are going to be attracted to that as things get more and more chaotic especially online because
00:49:28.420a lot of the things that are happening online with ai and this whole idea of like trying to get
00:49:34.020people to to plug into this metaverse thing i don't know if that's ever going to work but
00:49:37.860it's something they're trying you know all this digitization of everything it's it's it's a way
00:49:43.480to introduce all kinds of chaos you know what i mean it's just it's just a crazy anyway um
00:49:49.040yeah i think so i think people are going to be attracted to that kind of thing they're not going
00:49:52.340to want to to go to the the the the the church where like anything can happen and so there's
00:49:58.300like there's like uh skits and in concerts and stuff because that's just like everything else
00:50:02.300that they know you know what i mean and the world always does it better you know and so yeah um
00:50:07.120yeah i yeah this is a spectacle for spectacle's sake it's not really like for anything it's just
00:50:11.800right so you're you're copying the spectacle in a place where it's inappropriate there's no way
00:50:17.520you're going to do that right right yep so i think liturgy and like that kind of feeling of of a
00:50:23.980connection to the past is going to be important you know what i mean i think and actually a lot
00:50:29.180of the things that are happening right now they're trying to disconnect you from the past they're
00:50:32.760trying to disconnect you from your ancestors they're tearing down the stats statues of your
00:50:37.560ancestors they're renaming buildings or renaming you know bridges you know all this stuff and that
00:50:43.760all is intentionally disconnecting you from your history. And I think that there's going to be
00:50:48.220pushback there for sure. Yep. I agree. So as a recap, the three things, you know, one is guys
00:50:54.520who believe engaging the culture, the world, politics, society matters, and that you could
00:51:00.060actually experience success. And it doesn't necessarily, you know, necessitate that you're
00:51:04.900post-millennial and your eschatology. But if you think Jesus is coming back in 20,000 years or in
00:51:10.68020 years. Um, the post-millennial believes the trajectory overall is up, but there are dips
00:51:16.100along the way. The Disby pre-mill guy, you know, on the opposite, you know, of the spectrum of
00:51:21.200eschatology, he believes the trajectory is down overall, but even he believes there could be
00:51:26.760spikes along the way. And so anybody who believes, um, that, that, uh, even from a Disby pre-mill
00:51:32.320standpoint, anybody, regardless of eschatology, if they believe that engaging the culture matters,
00:51:36.680that pietism be damned engaging the culture matters and that it could actually be successful
00:51:42.900that our engagement it matters because it actually by god's grace could make a difference
00:51:48.420i think that's going to be um a big factor the second one law and gospel not just uh jesus was
00:51:56.180jesus so that you don't have to be jesus thank god for jesus let's go home um but but uh no here's
00:52:02.120the law. Here's how you're a sinner. Here's Jesus. This is how he fulfilled it. In light of his free
00:52:06.540gift of grace for you, fulfilling the law in your place, you now love him as a response. And those
00:52:12.080who love him will obey him and he has commandments and here they are. And so in gratitude, not trying
00:52:18.900to earn his salvation, but in response of gratitude for his salvation, we're seeking to obey in order
00:52:24.740to demonstrate our love. We show our love to Christ through obedience. If you love me, you will
00:52:29.100obey me. So preaching law and gospel, particularly the third use of the law,
00:52:32.840not just the first that reveals that you need the gospel, but then the third use of the law
00:52:36.840as a response to the gospel. And then the third thing is churches that have some kind of history,
00:52:44.520some kind of tradition. I think confessional churches will do particularly well. I think the
00:52:51.700building, the cathedral, if you got it, great. Praise God for that. But I think if you're meeting
00:52:57.580in a barn, like a Western hoedown country line dancing place where I'm currently meeting
00:53:03.140in Wahlberg, Texas, with cows around and stuff like that, but having a robust liturgical
00:53:16.700Angels in the architecture, I'm down for that, but it's just what we have right now in the
00:53:20.380providence of God, and we're grateful for what we have.
00:53:22.580But even if it's simple church in terms of the building, you can still have robust, historic, rooted, grounded church in terms of just your liturgy and your worship, your order of worship and the way that you preach and those kinds of things.
00:53:38.000And I think that with technological advances
00:53:41.000and people constantly pulling the wool over you,
00:53:44.160institutions constantly, everybody's lying to you.
00:53:46.360All the time, people are lying to you.
00:53:48.200So to have something that feels rooted and timeless
00:53:50.980and tried and tested and true will go a long way.
00:53:54.600So I think those are the three things that I thought of.
00:53:57.560Any final thoughts on that or final word?
00:54:04.440I think people are going to be looking and they're already doing this, looking for like an authenticity to everything.
00:54:13.200You know what I mean? Like I know lots of people still go to mega churches.
00:54:16.400I don't think that that kind of thing is going to survive into the future.
00:54:20.740And one of the big reasons is because it's very difficult to do the community thing or even to to to to to be quite honest, like it's very difficult to to to to to even like really pastor people or even like to even do the basic stuff right in that content.
00:54:40.760I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very difficult.
00:54:42.300um and so um and and i think that a lot of i think automatically some of the uh kind of like
00:54:49.360traditional feel of church goes out the window when you have 10 000 people in your church you
00:54:54.900know and video screens everywhere like a stadium so anyway um all that to say is that i think people
00:55:00.580are gonna the the stuff on like internet is part of real life that i'm not gonna say to do the
00:55:06.780thing where it's like internet's not real life but with ai content creators and you know all kinds
00:55:13.700of lying content creators there's like a there's one there's one common uh carnivore diet content
00:55:20.060creator that presents themselves as a man but it's actually a woman oh okay okay and anyway
00:55:25.640whatever like the point the point is like there's all kinds of lying going on and deceptions and
00:55:30.220things like that people are gonna i think rebel against that to some degree and they're going to
00:55:35.820They're still going to consume online content, of course, but the voices that are too easily manipulated by or copied by AI, like, you know, if I type in AI right now, chat GPT, you know, give me an article about the latest event, you know, in the style of Gospel Coalition, it will be identical to what you'll find from Gospel Coalition.
00:55:54.720That's going to go the way of the dodo.
00:57:37.380I think one thing on the megachurches, I was just thinking, you know, megachurches really became a thing in the Bible Belt and Southern California would be another hotspot.
00:57:48.520But megachurches became like the church growth movement, Bill Hybels, you know, like large.
00:57:53.700Like, I mean, technically, you know, like Charles Spurgeon,
00:57:55.580you could argue that he had a megachurch,
00:57:57.200you know, the London Metropolitan Tabernacle.
00:58:01.040Like, so there have been some big churches.
00:58:03.260I think the Church of Antioch was probably pretty big,
00:58:21.120However, what I was going to say is that one thing that's radically changed is the internet. A lot of reason why the megachurch appealed to people is because they wanted to be able to slip in and slip out and have an experience without the community.
01:05:09.080Yeah, this got so bad that they weren't even singing.
01:05:11.740They didn't even sing. They said, well, you just got to hum to yourself
01:05:14.740because you don't want to get the aspirate, you know?
01:05:16.740Exactly. That's exactly what this church in town, they're OPC.
01:05:20.740They're not woke, but yeah, same thing. They bifurcated.
01:05:24.740They went to two services intentionally, not because they had so many people,
01:05:28.740but they had a mask-required service and then a mask-optional service.
01:05:32.740But then, you know, the mask service, there was no singing allowed in that service.
01:05:38.740And, and so, you know, and so people just saw that, you know, and, and it's, you know, and I'm talking like it's 2021 now we're getting closer to 2022 and that's still going on. And so people are like, all right, well, yeah, Joel's not going to baptize our infants. And so we got to figure that out. You know, we'll, we'll get them baptized in the middle of the night by some Presbyterian minister, but we're going to go to a church that we're going to go to a church that has some, some faith and, and some spine.
01:06:04.700yeah so yeah 100 yeah but it's but it's it's a solid little church and i'm pretty excited
01:06:09.800to have a uh a five minute drive and i can actually hang out with people in fact we did
01:06:14.260last sunday we hung out with people after church because awesome we didn't have an hour drive back
01:06:18.260home you know yeah that's awesome how long did you go to the other church the one that was an
01:06:22.860hour away how long were you there yeah for like four or five years oh i i've been telling them
01:06:28.040that i'm leaving to to go closer to home for like three years but they were they were probably still
01:06:34.080really sad when you finally pulled the trigger yes they definitely were um and they didn't believe
01:06:39.240me because i just been saying it for three years you know right um but finally we did it and i had
01:06:44.600a chance to preach there one last time and i'm sure we'll be back up for like you know picnics
01:06:48.960or things like that because they're a solid group of people it was it was a really kind of a bittersweet
01:06:54.040thing for us to be honest but you know had to happen well enjoy this church for you know six
01:06:58.520months or so until you move down here and uh join the bible church well god bless man all right later