Christianity in the West has gone from the center of civilization to the margins. Once it shaped laws, culture, and the moral order, today it s viewed with suspicion or outright hostility. The world we live in is not the same as it once was in the 1950s, and in fact it s not even the same than it was in 2010. The institutions that once carried a Christian foundation have either been conquered or turned against us. And yet, many evangelicals still cling to the illusion that we can engage the culture on neutral ground, as if the world hasn t already chosen sides.
00:27:23.360Sabbatarianism. We want to practice the Lord's Supper weekly. We want to use wine and not
00:27:31.220Welch's grape juice. We want to worship the Lord in spirit, but also in truth, according to what
00:27:38.940he's prescribed. Spiritual songs and hymns and psalms, there was an increase in psalm singing
00:27:45.200and more traditional hymns, and less of a rock band type of style, family integrated worship.
00:27:53.360the kids staying with the adults and instead of sending them off to another room for childcare,
00:27:58.360all these things started kind of emerging in the reformed world. So it wasn't just reformed
00:28:03.360soteriology over the last 20, 30 years, but over the last 10, 15 years, it was reformed worship,
00:28:10.900the regular principle of worship. And in that, one of the big things that was pushed back against
00:28:15.780was pragmatism and saying, you know, it is not permitted to us. This isn't a blank page
00:28:24.900for your own creative freedom and license. These are things that God has explicitly told us in His
00:28:29.900Word. The pastor or the deacons or the congregation for that matter do not have the luxury, God has
00:28:36.320not afforded in His Word the luxury to us to be creative and strategic in the design of our Lord's
00:28:42.860a worship service in order to try to attract people, namely the lost. But rather, church
00:28:49.960is first and foremost, it's for God to bless and honor Him. Second, for the sheep, for God's people
00:28:56.440that we would be nourished and fed. And lastly, for the unbeliever as an evangelistic context.
00:29:04.100But we can't reverse it and put it on its head to where we're thinking of what does God want
00:29:07.900in our worship last um and we're thinking about what do unbelievers want and doing church surveys
00:29:13.600you know like willow creek did you know with bill hybels or rick warren and uh what what would the
00:29:19.300the pagan who hates god how would he like us to worship and then we'll gear things around it so
00:29:23.520so i think you know again to sum it up um the last 20-30 years reformed resurgence with
00:29:29.640soteriology salvation how does god save and and sermons became more reformed and exegetical and
00:29:36.460those kinds of things. And the sovereignty of God became central in many ways in the preaching.
00:29:41.300But the order of service was not liturgical. It was very modern. Not our theology, but our
00:29:50.320methodology was very pragmatic and seeker-sensitive. That's what it was. It was seeker-sensitive
00:29:56.120Calvinistic churches like Mars Hill. And then over the last, that's 20, 30 years, the last 10,
00:30:01.76015 years, then we decide, let's really embrace the Reformed tradition a little deeper, not just
00:30:08.320in preaching the sovereignty of God, but even how, not just what we embody when we do church,
00:30:14.500but how we do church. The problem now, you know, fast forwarding to today, the problem is I think
00:30:20.460there was an overreaction towards pragmatism. Being against mere humanistic pragmatism when it
00:30:29.340comes to how we worship on the Lord's Day is right and good, a good instinct, because God
00:30:36.720actually prescribes clearly how to worship him when the church gathers together on the first
00:30:42.940day of the week, the day that Christ Jesus rose from the dead. And so that aversion towards that
00:30:48.560particular kind of pragmatism, pragmatism in worship, Lord's Day worship, was a good instinct.
00:30:54.920The problem is that reformed guys, a lot of us, we became averse to all forms of pragmatism, all of it.
00:31:04.220So then, you know, you're doing a conference on how to win back the culture.
00:31:09.320And guys are saying, they're applying the regular principle of worship to the political sphere or to business, you know, or the arts or this.
00:31:19.580And what I mean by that, by applying it, is they're just poo-pooing on anybody who makes any attempt whatsoever to be successful.
00:31:54.840So that aversion towards pragmatism on the Lord's Day in worship, which was right, became a general aversion towards all forms of pragmatism Monday through Saturday as well.
00:32:07.240And I think that kind of sums up, that leads us to where we are today.
00:32:11.040and uh and i think that's one of the things that we're trying to do in this ministry is push back
00:32:15.680on that and say um no there's things that we can learn pragmatic things not just not just theology
00:32:22.300um but there are strategic pragmatic things practical things that we can glean from guys
00:32:30.540like king alfred or from this over here or that over there um that we can employ um not as the
00:32:37.360church institute, but as the church, meaning Christians, people, Monday through Saturday
00:32:42.860in our weekly lives outside of the Lord's Day worship that are perfectly permissible
00:32:47.940in that sense that God does afford a measure of creativity and strategy to us.
00:32:55.300And there are some things that would be better than other things.
00:32:57.600And one of those things that I'm advocating for is I think that we are currently in a
00:33:01.960moment in the West where we need consolidation, not spreading our forces too thin. Right now is
00:33:08.840not the time to be thinking about how can our local church plant 10 new churches in the next
00:33:15.72010 years. Now is the time to be thinking, how can we bolster, re-fortify? How can our one local
00:33:23.800church be as strong as it possibly can be? How can we start a school in addition to our church?
00:33:29.800how can we see to it in the next 10 years that 10% of the men in our church are seated in public
00:33:36.760office locally in town? And how can we disciple and encourage the men of our church to start
00:33:44.820businesses, to pursue wealth in ethical Christian ways so that our church is a force to be reckoned
00:33:52.240with? Instead of having 10 weak churches, what if we had one significant church? And I think
00:33:59.460that's and so all that being said it requires all the way back to where i started two things
00:34:03.940it does require some lead men and those guys have to be they have to have a certain measure of
00:34:11.200humility but more particularly a willingness to trust to delegate but for everybody else for all
00:34:16.520the other men who don't end up being the primary lead guy it requires an immense amount of humility
00:34:21.780because if it was the 1990s like just to be frank you know or especially the early 2000s with the
00:34:28.220explosion of church planting movements. Um, if it was the early two thousands, if you got a guy
00:34:33.140who would be, you know, your typical right-hand guy in, in one local church setting, um, if it's
00:34:40.5602007, um, that you're sending that guy out. And every, every conference was geared that way
00:34:48.080about, um, it was all about, um, exponential, um, multiplication, not just addition,
00:34:55.320multiplication like i mean the number of talks that i heard at conferences about that it's about
00:35:00.860multiplication are you um are you multiplying and replicating uh yourself and everyone you need to
00:35:06.720do that as an individual you need to do that as a church you need to do like at every single level
00:35:10.700of human society it's all about multiplying but then what happened was all these cells um split
00:35:18.320and multiplied really quickly and um and what you get when that happens is cancer that's how
00:35:24.840it's like anything that grows is healthy yeah well tumors grow um you know and and that's so
00:35:30.540growth is not always healthy if it's a mile wide but an inch deep and then something like covid
00:35:35.720happens and like they've done studies on this the whole keller project um in manhattan i think it
00:35:42.680was literally nathan you might remember this but i think it was like 80 or 90 percent of all the
00:35:48.220churches planted out of the you know uh from from keller's redeemer city to city i think the
00:36:09.580But like 90% of the churches planted over this multiple year time period through City to City, Impact,
00:36:16.800one of the big ministry urban church planning ministry that keller did was all wiped out
00:36:23.100in a year in 2020 with covet none of them had the fortitude none of them had the spine none of them
00:36:29.560had virtue none of them had courage and at the practical level aside from the moral level none
00:36:34.660of them had the resources to be able to weather that kind of storm with those kinds of challenges
00:36:38.860so it's like you you multiplied sure but then you actually lost everything that you multiplied
00:36:46.460And the mothership, the initial church that planted all these churches, she was also weakened because she had given birth 10 times all in a row.
00:36:59.360And so then she wasn't able to weather the storm either.
00:37:03.040And so it's kind of like the four soils, the parable of Christ, the rocky soil, it's shallow.
00:37:08.640What that causes is because the roots can't go, there's no depth.
00:37:11.700The roots can't go down, so the stem springs up.
00:37:15.040but it springs up so quickly without the stability and without the rootedness so that when the sun
00:37:21.760comes out, the thorns that choke a different plant, that represents the cares of this life.
00:37:26.160But the sun, in this context, it represents suffering and challenge, difficulty. So then
00:37:32.040the sun comes out and the plant quickly withers and dies. And I think the church planting movement
00:37:38.420was in many ways, there was good that came out of it, but in many ways, overall, it was a shallow
00:37:44.780rocky soil that gave um quick growth to lots of churches to where it's like oh my goodness the
00:37:51.360whole lots of elementary schools yeah but then the sun came out some kind of providential
00:37:57.040challenge suffering difficulty like 2020 uh whether it's social justice or blm or covid
00:38:04.500and civil tyranny these kind of things and 90 of it was just evaporated like that so you got to
00:38:12.460of the times. There are timeless truths. We're Christians. There are plenty of timeless truths.
00:38:16.900One of the things that we try to focus on with this ministry is looking at some of the timely
00:38:20.800truths. And I think one of the timely truths right now is consolidation. I think the name of the game
00:38:25.940is consolidation. Finding where God is moving and finding a person that the Lord's hand is really
00:38:32.860upon, just in His mercy and kindness and providence, and saying, I could do my own thing, and I'm gifted
00:38:38.300and talented enough. I'm a high caliber man to where I could do my own thing. I could plant my
00:38:42.320own church. I could start my own ministry. I could do this. I could do that. And it would be reasonably
00:38:46.640successful. It would be, I could manage it. But I think that the day of the manager is done.
00:38:54.840It's not just managerial, but it's now looking where are some of the guys who are taking the
00:39:02.960next hill. They're not just managing and sustaining, but they're actually gaining ground.
00:39:08.080And how can I multiply their efforts by going and joining them? That's my thought.
00:39:14.240All right, we'll hit our first commercial break. When we come back, we're going to briefly talk
00:39:17.880about the Spanish Reconquista, and then we'll branch out from there.
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00:43:35.380And it's not just all truncated to John Owen
00:43:38.300and to theology and to small missional evangelism.
00:43:42.480or small group together it's not just the church right like like the church christians perhaps
00:43:47.840christians majority right but there's a distinction between the church institute
00:43:51.600yeah versus the church meaning the collective people of god yeah like there's the church like
00:43:56.400ecclesia the gathering like the as a verb like the church churching together on the lord's day
00:44:01.920ecclesia gathering together uh but then there's also the church um you know monday through saturday
00:44:08.480meaning the people themselves. And I think we in America put so much stock in the church
00:44:14.220institute that we just thought like, yeah, the doors to the church, the church building
00:44:20.680should be open every day of the week. And if they're not, we should still be doing some kind
00:44:26.180of ecclesiastical gathering, small groups, this, that, the other. And then people didn't really
00:44:31.720have any time for anything else. That's pretty much your week. Sunday is the Lord's day and
00:44:37.680that's good and right but then it's you know like what you said wes wednesday is another church
00:44:42.100meeting and then there's a friday prayer meeting and then there's a small group meeting and there's
00:44:45.780a men's breakfast on saturday you know and so that's all of your time and then what you ultimately
00:44:51.860had is that in every other sphere of human society and life the political sphere um economic you know0.68
00:44:59.020the marketplace and business and these um and every other sphere you had christians became subpar
00:45:05.180because everybody else um right the pagan is just um obsessively throwing himself
00:45:12.400at these other endeavors so it's like so you're going to small group and you're going to this and
00:45:16.500you're going to that and he's just clocking in 80 hours at his job and so he's getting ahead and
00:45:22.540he's making more money than you and he's becoming more skilled in his labor um and so the young man
00:45:27.500studying to be a pastor he's trying to catch up without seminary get all his reading in practice0.85
00:45:32.060preaching and teaching which if you're going into the pastorate is fine right but you're not all men
00:45:37.640in a church should be going into the pastorate right but the problem is that we basically acted
00:45:41.940as though they were yeah and treated every young man as though he was going to be a pastor and i
00:45:47.580did that i like because i felt called to be a pastor because i wanted to be a pastor i couldn't
00:45:52.340imagine anybody not wanting that to be a pastor yeah i couldn't i just i couldn't i couldn't
00:45:56.960imagine any any young man not wanting to be a pastor and um and so then i elevated that as the
00:46:04.160end all be all just assuming that that's what every guy wanted to be and and for me at the time
00:46:10.580i was in san diego and and this was you know i so you're talking san diego with uh predominantly a
00:46:18.080young church young people because i was young you tend to attract people who are like you so
00:46:22.000you've got all these young men living in a place where there's not there wasn't a whole lot of
00:46:27.160opportunity right they're all a little bit discouraged um outside of the church everybody
00:46:32.740was excited wages in the nation are in san diego especially for cost of living san diego has been
00:46:37.440rated at least twice in the last five to ten years as the number one worst city in america
00:46:43.780for building wealth in terms of like there are other places that are a higher cost of living
00:46:49.020like san francisco or dc um but um but in terms of the ratio between wages and cost of living
00:46:56.080san diego was rated number one so if you're in that context um with you know predominantly um
00:47:02.740younger demographic and so all the men are in their you know mid and late 20s you know early
00:47:08.800mid and late 20s and um and they're all like clockwork experiencing certain discouragement
00:47:16.240outside of church life in their vocation. None of them are making that much money. All of them
00:47:23.060are paying an exorbitant amount on rent. All of them have student debt. And then you're holding
00:47:28.940out to them the hope of, but what really matters in life is the church, which is true. And the
00:47:37.420best thing to do in the church is to be a pastor. And so then you start doing eldership training
00:47:43.440you know um programs you know and you've got half of the men in the church training to be elders
00:47:49.020you know and meanwhile um and and it's working as kind of like an assuaging of their conscience
00:47:55.520like it's it's just a consolation like it's just helping them to sleep at night right so like i
00:48:00.560just um i'm not making money i'm building somebody else's wealth by renting a two-bedroom apartment
00:48:06.780for twenty five hundred dollars a month um i have student loan debt but i'm training to be
00:48:13.340a pastor whereas like what really needed to happen is um they all needed to leave
00:48:20.400get get out of san diego go move um to some place that has jobs and a lower cost of living
00:48:28.560um and be successful like obviously be a christian so find a good biblical church attend
00:48:35.060that church on the Lord's day, be a member in good standing. But Monday through Saturday,
00:48:39.360you don't need to go to three different eldership training classes. Not that we ever did that many,
00:48:44.580but instead what you should be doing is you should be working, you're in your 20s,
00:48:49.720you should be working 50, 60 hours a week. You should, and be the very best in your vocation
00:48:54.920so that later in life, when you're in your 40s and 50s, you're the guy who has accrued capital,
00:49:01.780not just financially but um you have you have a you know your rolodex your metaphorical proverbial
00:49:08.340rolodex of networks and relationships and all these kinds of things you're the guy um who would
00:49:14.240stand the best chance of um of winning uh city council or like you have power you have power
00:49:22.200so i want to interrupt you real quick there because i just want to speak directly to any
00:49:25.940young men who were listening i wish i had been given that advice when i was 18 19 20 i worked
00:49:32.740hard right but i had no idea what working strategically meant like whatever i did i
00:49:37.360would work hard at i would work as hard or harder than anybody else but that idea of like why are
00:49:41.660you doing this like if you're a young man heed what joel just said yep yeah okay back to you
00:49:48.920michael all right so believe it or not um alfred was not the worst that had happened in history
00:49:54.920They were able to beat back the Viking invasion and through various other providential circumstances, you know, Alfred in England won, and they went on to establish a great dynasty and nation.
00:50:09.160But one interesting example to look at where things actually were quite, quite dire is in Spain in the 700s.
00:50:17.620and so what had happened was the moors were coming across if you know the geography actually matt
00:50:22.880nathan you can put up the image of of spain i think it's image one it's the fourth one that
00:50:27.700i sent you um so if you see the geography there um that little tip down at the bottom where the
00:50:33.900green is i mean the gray part down there is africa and the moors controlled northern africa
00:50:38.200and it was not hard to send little ships across and they were raiding spain and and it was this
00:50:44.940was the Muslim invasion of Spain. And by the 7, 8, well, by the 900s, most of all of that had been
00:50:54.200totally taken over. So if you look at the image, by 914, all that Christian Spain owned of the
00:51:00.380Iberian Peninsula was that bright yellow spot in the very north, right? And so the Muslim invaders1.00
00:51:07.720had made great inroads. They'd basically taken over the entire peninsula, which now is two1.00
00:51:13.460countries, Spain and Portugal. But this was a time that Christian leaders, and it took a long0.94
00:51:21.660time, it took like 800 years to beat this back. God willing, we're not going to be in struggle
00:51:28.220that long here in the United States. But this is a sobering perspective because the Muslim1.00
00:51:33.960Moors took control of that country and had it for a really long time. There's a couple1.00
00:51:40.160interesting things, though, and this is the point. Spanish Christians may have lost the majority of1.00
00:51:48.340control to Islamic invaders, but they did not disappear. What they did was they fortified.
00:51:53.620They rebuilt Christian civilization locally, and they slowly overtook and retook territory0.63
00:52:00.340over the centuries. And one of the things that I think we all know intuitively, but0.97
00:52:06.240But when we talk about Christian boroughs and capturing back the nation, one of the things that is happening organically, but that we need to, yes, and let's do it intentionally, is the Christians in Spain, they had to zealously guard their cultural and religious identity and heritage.0.84
00:52:26.500because as the Moors were pushing north and north and north,0.74
00:52:31.660those who remained Christian and were moving north
01:15:30.200and interstate commerce and maybe we don't need every borough to have a blacksmith and an armor
01:15:36.020in it um so expand on that idea well you'd mentioned different areas like defense ownership
01:15:41.600and economics but like defense like right now so david reese has a great company a big company
01:15:46.580this is not just like mom and pop you know in the back like hand stitching together uh armor
01:15:51.300armor plating no a great company uh armored republic david reese and his children and wife
01:15:57.080are in a back for yours personally they are for the handmade for you for the patrons but um but
01:16:02.900no it's a big company and but the point is he's not just outfitting armoring guys there in phoenix
01:16:08.120arizona where he lives all across the country non-christian some but most certainly mostly
01:16:13.620christians christians are getting his armor uh they're using it they're training with it so he
01:16:18.480is this outfitter but not at all constrained to a geographic location i think of also like
01:16:23.160economics like well we got to win at economics we got to build businesses well newfounding
01:16:26.920they're not just funding businesses in dallas they're funding businesses all across america
01:16:31.640right some things have to be local you have to touch grass you have to see people face to face
01:16:36.140so don't think every single category i have my group chat that's my kind of like whatever it's
01:16:40.340just i own property in the metaverse some things you have to physically own then supplemented
01:16:45.280with what you're importing nfts or whatever etfs yep yep i got my my rare painting i got my
01:16:51.560collectible it's worth money some things have to be in person but you are just you are behind the
01:16:56.080curve if you think and i've got to do all of this in person all of my funding all of my research all
01:17:00.600of my armor all my protection all my legal aid i got to try to grow them up in-house no you don't
01:17:05.840you have to form formal informal networks friendships networking all these things and
01:17:10.780that is how you actually get things done well said so let's take you know this this question
01:17:18.920came up in that in that group that we had a couple weeks ago um let's take a guy who uh is
01:17:26.260at a good church maybe not a church that's thinking boroughs though um what what should
01:17:32.560a young man with young kids um working a job that that supports his family but maybe not making a
01:17:38.360lot of extra money um like let's let's let's try and give some practical what should what should
01:17:43.840christians be doing right now and i'm even rethinking a little bit like like i my my oldest
01:17:51.300son is uh the plan he graduates this year the plan is for him to go get a technical degree
01:17:56.880in aircraft aviation um mechanics and so he would be able to be an aircraft mechanic
01:18:03.120now i'm thinking well like that'll support a wife and a kid but is that going to build
01:18:10.160any sort of empire most likely not okay so i mean what are what are the what are the things that we
01:18:15.820should be thinking about um as far as building and not everybody can build um i think one of
01:18:22.220the principles that we've been talking about is you need to attach yourself attach attach yourself
01:18:27.520to someone who is building and um people who are building they they can't do everything on their
01:18:35.260they need help they need people who will realize the mission they will uh willingly and gladly work
01:18:42.900like obviously getting paid for it um but we we live to your point west we live in a point in a
01:18:50.360time where we can be very isolated and still be connecting on some levels economic or production
01:18:55.360or things like that but also um how important is it i don't i don't want to go down to the move
01:19:02.560place again we've talked about that a lot on this show but how important is it to be like like like
01:19:09.200what size of here's the question what size of united men or families trying to build a borough
01:19:17.620would you think is a bare minimum too small cut your losses go find somewhere else join two
01:19:24.300together i mean like what are what are some practical thoughts you guys have on this i'll
01:19:29.420i'll give a practical example uh there's about three or four families at church so i got this
01:19:34.980five of us total in a group chat none of you are in it for the record so it's not this little right
01:19:38.500response click but i got about four four or five families and we just get along really well and
01:19:43.440that's really who we're really close with so especially the guys these are the guys i work
01:19:47.760out with we you know go to sports games and stuff hang out in the back porch so that's about the
01:19:52.800size that it is our families will get together if it's some type of bigger event you know sometimes
01:19:56.900two or three families do one thing or another and that's about the size we can maintain it i can't
01:20:01.060be great friends with 10 families and constantly host them and they host us and everything like
01:20:04.940that and if it was just one family it would that would be all you do like well i go to their house
01:20:09.420this week they come to my house so at about two to three families and let's say maybe you're not
01:20:13.800married or maybe you don't have families that you click with like that could it be two to three men
01:20:17.260and let me say this about men men are very much so like you challenge them and say come do this
01:20:22.780come like a lot of these guys that I got together with we started doing jujitsu together so that's
01:20:27.320why we're good friends we said guys let's I want to take this up I want to try it some of us had
01:20:31.360done it before some of us hadn't but they were down for it they were they weren't signing up
01:20:35.260for a lifetime like absolutely for the rest of my life I'm going to commit to this hobby commit to
01:20:38.960this thing but they said I'd be down to try that and then someone suggested what about you try this
01:20:43.420and do that that's how the friendship grew and so even if you're somewhere you're like man I don't
01:20:47.320have close friends I don't have a brotherhood I'm not moving we've we've crossed that option out
01:20:51.000already man for other men just come try to do this with me let's let's go shooting let's go
01:20:57.380hiking let's do this there's something and a lot of men i just they really love to do it you're
01:21:02.760telling me i get to get out of the house i get to break out you know break out of my cycle get to
01:21:06.780challenge myself some type of competition men really love that so practically speaking you're
01:21:11.440a man you want to build a brotherhood have a burrow you got to start somewhere one of the
01:21:15.780biggest things let's just do things together it doesn't have to be christian doesn't have to be
01:21:19.740theological doesn't have to be political doesn't have to be running for city council but can you
01:21:23.420do something together that's not just sitting in the same aisle in church on sunday so start there
01:21:28.960add one thing add two things add a couple guys if that's where you're at build from there i would
01:21:33.280say that's good all right another question let's say you are thinking of buying a house and for
01:21:40.300the last five or so years it's been homestead have property be outside of the reach be able to
01:21:48.940support your garden and generally if you buy something in town it's going to be a much smaller
01:21:54.460plot but it's going to be close to people that you can have relationships with maybe the same
01:22:00.300money would buy a larger piece of land outside of the town but you're going to be pretty removed
01:22:06.920what are you guys uh in general i know there's a lot of specifics there but like given the time
01:22:11.820that we live in and given that buying a house is not a four-year thing i think it's like seven
01:22:17.140years if you're if you're going to buy it's good to own it for seven years is the number maybe i'm
01:22:20.640off on that um so this could extend you know if jd vance runs and doesn't win um buying a house
01:22:27.680is something that's more than the four-year window but what are you guys thinking in light
01:22:31.880of building christian boroughs what do you think the needs of the time are i'll let joel go but i
01:22:36.700will say those families we're friends with we all live with the exception of one within 10 minutes
01:22:40.940of each other yeah that's why we can't hang out as frequently as we do yep yeah um i mean i i still
01:22:49.280think it's um it's helpful to be um you know if you can afford to not have to live you know in
01:22:58.700like i i would strongly advise no one to live um in an urban setting right right right um i don't
01:23:05.800think anybody needs to be living in a big city that said you don't want to just abandon all the
01:23:11.460big cities where that continues to be the center of commerce and influence and all these things
01:23:16.560and so it's just entirely now shaped by pagans because every ounce of christian influence has
01:23:21.140been removed from it but you can still influence big cities and things like that without living
01:23:26.000there so part of the reason why you know the um you know the strategic context you know like that
01:23:33.700concept. Part of the reason why we chose Williamson County is because Williamson County
01:23:38.980has big city access. We're adjacent to Travis County. That's where Austin is. That's the
01:23:45.480capital of Texas. So you're next to a big city that has lots of economic activity and opportunity,
01:23:52.080but it also has a lot of political opportunity, right? Because that's the capital of our state.
01:23:57.120so williamson county is strategic because it's close enough to where guys can um they can live
01:24:03.820in williamson county have a lower cost of living they can find some acreage and and some land and
01:24:08.480they can still uh within 40 minutes you know by hopping on one of the tolls they can go and they
01:24:14.060could work for elon musk if they wanted to they could work for oracle tesla apple dell is uh is
01:24:21.740headquartered in um in round rock which is in williamson county so there's a lot of different
01:24:26.680industries um where they can they can work and uh and simply commute to work and so they can still
01:24:33.380influence you know um the city politically um economically all those kinds of things and take
01:24:38.980advantage of those opportunities while still having um a a more secured quiet life um living
01:24:45.860a little bit out of the hustle and bustle um so i think i think part of it you know all that back
01:24:52.180to your question of like, you know, is it, is it, uh, urban? I would say no, in terms of where you
01:24:56.380live. Um, you can work there, but, uh, in terms of where you live, uh, suburban, I think it's,
01:25:02.080it's fine. Um, or is it rural? Um, I think I like, uh, the rural lifestyle and I would advocate for
01:25:08.680that. Um, but if you do make that decision, you have to, you and your spouse, I think have to
01:25:15.740make, um, a very intentional commitment that you're going to drive. Like you're not, um,
01:25:20.740Because for a lot of people, like honestly, there's a lot of people, predominantly Christians, who are very conservative, but have just basically resolved to be content that the entirety of their social network would just be their family.
01:25:36.300Like their family is an isolated unit.
01:25:38.720Like it's just, it's me and my family.
01:25:47.960and um and we want strong families um but we don't want families to the exclusion of uh communal
01:25:55.540life in in the church uh with other believers outside of your immediate family and i do think
01:26:01.880that you know like we're we're all you know we'd all prescribe to patriarchy we hate feminism we
01:26:06.800hate egalitarianism i hate feminism with a perfect hatred uh that david would say you know do i not
01:26:12.520hate those who hate you with a perfect hatred, you know, and, uh, I feel that deep in my bones,
01:26:17.660a, a perfect, complete, some translations say complete hatred for feminism and egalitarianism
01:26:23.240because they run completely, you know, contrary to God's natural order. So, um, so we, we are
01:26:30.680patriarchal, but what I've noticed within the patriarchal types that, you know, movement for
01:26:35.540a lack of a better word is, um, a lot of them are family centered, which is wonderful, but sometimes
01:26:41.800are family myopic. They're family, not just centered, but family obsessive to the point
01:26:47.460where there are a lot of patriarchal Christian families that love Jesus. They're absolutely
01:26:51.680Christian, but they haven't idolized the church, which is good, but they've gone so far to where
01:27:00.780the church doesn't really mean anything. I know there are a lot of families probably who listen
01:27:06.020to this podcast um that are probably like i'll just i'll say this as a pastoral admonition um
01:27:12.820some of you guys who listen to this podcast um i get it finding a good church is hard and and i
01:27:19.060understand that you might be uh geographically in a context where there's not a single faithful
01:27:23.840church within a 50 mile radius um and it's not hyperbole like that's actually true um but you
01:27:29.720need to hear from from me probably because you you follow me and you've followed me and been
01:27:35.400content to do that as a substitute to church life. You need to hear from me. You are too content
01:27:43.480with not having a church. You're doing family worship in the home. You're catechizing the
01:27:49.660children. You're washing your wife in the Word, and you're listening to Stephen Wolfe and Brian
01:27:55.660Sauve and Joel and Andrew Isker. All those things are great, but opting out of church
01:28:03.540is not an option for christians it's not um and it's like yeah but we we've lived here for 10
01:28:11.600years and we have you know we have 40 acres you know and and we've and we've worked hard you know
01:28:17.580for for the last 10 years that we've been here and you know we bought it you know um cheap and
01:28:23.780and we've made it more valuable not just because it's appreciated over time but like we've worked
01:28:28.800the ground and we built you know uh this structure over here on this portion of the property
01:28:33.440and we've got horses over here and we've done this and we've done that and we've tilled the
01:28:37.040soil and we've planted gardens and we like um yeah but all that's incredible i don't want to
01:28:44.880disparage that but if you have done that at the expense of like to where now it's um well there's
01:28:51.700no good church nearby um but but we have our family and our homestead and and we built this
01:28:59.380house with our bare hands, you give it up. You give it up if it means that without a church.
01:29:07.220Seriously, it's the people of God. It's the church of Jesus Christ. It's non-negotiable.
01:29:14.240It's non-negotiable. There is no Christian category for being churchless. You can't do it.
01:29:22.800You can't do it. I don't care. I have no doubt. Your children, it's like, well, who are their
01:29:27.260friends. Their friends are each other. They're brothers. And I love that. Like, I understand
01:29:32.060that. And in early American days, pioneering days, you had deeply Christian families. And the next
01:29:37.620person, you know, like you had a ton of land. The next person, you know, there wasn't another human
01:29:42.220soul outside of your immediate family for, you know, the next neighbor was two miles down the
01:29:47.040street and you didn't have cars. But here's the thing. Even in those early days, they would get
01:29:52.400up and they would pack the wagon and they'd pack a lunch and a dinner for that matter and all these
01:29:56.700things and maybe, you know, and they would get the dog and the cat and the eight children and
01:30:02.360they would go to church on the Lord's Day and they would spend all day there. All day. They
01:30:09.220would ride into town and they would only do it once a week. And the rest of the time they were
01:30:13.620self-sufficient, right? They ate their own food. They made their own clothes. They did all these
01:30:17.200things. They worked the land. Their kids' best friends were not out of school, you know, and
01:30:22.600And it was their brothers and sisters, their siblings, and that was their community.
01:30:26.520And I get it, and I'm not disparaging that, but they did not opt out of church.
01:30:31.560They did make one exception when it came to relationships and community and those things outside of their immediate family, and it was the Lord's Day.
01:30:39.520It was gathering with the saints, and they would do it at great cost.
01:30:45.000They would ride on that wagon for an hour or two hours, and you're like, well, I can't drive for 90 minutes.
01:30:52.600yes you can you can and if you know people who do we know people who drive for uh two and a half
01:30:59.120hours we have people who come to our church from san antonio god bless them and here's the deal if
01:31:04.080if you really can't like one you can you can drive 90 minutes and number two if you can't then you
01:31:10.120have to move you have to right like i'm talking like no like that joel don't make it dogmatic yes
01:31:16.400there are some things you can be dogmatic with. Not going to church is something that I can
01:31:23.440absolutely dogmatically say is sin. It's sin. Stop it. You have to go to church. And so that
01:31:30.680either means a commute and being content, like we are going to drive. We're going to take time
01:31:37.440and money to drive because we have to have community and we also don't want to give up
01:31:44.140the the great plot of land and the homestead and this that's like so you either have to just we
01:31:50.480are going to be a driving family we're going to spend a lot of time in the car or um you have to
01:31:55.600give up the homestead you have to move so if you can do both all that long way of answering your
01:31:59.740question per usual long way joel said something long you know shocker um but i would say if you
01:32:06.040can do both great because i think the rural lifestyle is amazing there's a reason i don't
01:32:11.300think it's just conservative people opt for living in rural context i i think it's both right so just
01:32:17.180like the same way that's like well politics is downstream of culture yeah uh-huh we heard that
01:32:22.240one for the last 15 years but also the law is a tutor um so it's not just that that you know
01:32:27.880political policies are determined by the culture upstream but there's also culture is influenced
01:32:33.540by politics um you know that that um political legislation and law functions as a tutor that
01:32:39.840shapes the populace and ultimately shapes and dictates culture so it's it's not a one-way
01:32:44.920stream it's a two-way street politics influences culture culture influences politics well likewise
01:32:50.160when it comes to conservatives and opting to live in rural context i think it's both
01:32:54.660people who are culturally and politically conservative tend to gravitate towards
01:33:00.000rural areas they don't want to live in an urban context that's degenerate on the flip side
01:33:06.680um conversely um there is also something to um not living on the 27th floor of a high-rise
01:33:15.740you know structure in downtown manhattan where all you literally never see anything green
01:33:23.080everything is just concrete um and you you're you're a bug man you're literally you are the
01:33:29.720bug man um you know and uh and like there is something to be said for um and studies have
01:33:36.480actually been done on this the lower i know this sounds so silly but there's real study on it um
01:33:42.660the lower someone lives meaning not sea level but the closer to ground someone lives um their
01:33:50.560voting patterns change their um and and it's not just like because the person who was already
01:33:55.540conservative uh just you know self-selected and and decided that they didn't want to live on the
01:34:01.46027th floor of some apartment building um but it's also even the guy who's not that conservative
01:34:07.140there were a lot of people in 2020 who were liberal atheist but even they felt like covid
01:34:13.300went a little bit too far and what wokeness went a little bit too far um when it started affecting
01:34:18.140their bottom line it affected their business or they were being passed over for the next you know
01:34:23.500a promotion, you know, because somebody, you know, a person of color who wasn't as qualified as them
01:34:29.200just, you know, got the promotion by default because the company wanted to appear that they
01:34:33.620were with the times or whatever. And so then it, like, there were a ton of guys who were not
01:34:38.100conservative, who were liberal atheists, that 2020 was a wake-up call even for them. And they
01:34:45.280decided to move out of the city and move to smaller towns and more rural areas and maybe
01:34:51.420start start a garden start a homestead get some land and then here we are four years later and
01:34:57.140they're voting republican um it literally changed their psyche like the the psyche of a person
01:35:03.120literally that's why we say you know it's it's it's internet lingo and it's funny but there's
01:35:07.980something very true and literal to touching grass literally going outside getting vitamin d
01:35:14.300touching grass um grounding grounding yeah i believe in it i i think there's some truth there
01:35:20.640And, you know, touching the dirt, planting a garden, kids playing in the backyard, and it's more than just, you know, 10 by 10 feet, you know, tiny little, and all of a sudden, like you, it's a blood memory.
01:35:35.160The blood memories start to, you know, rise, you know, bubble to the surface.
01:35:41.460So, yeah, so I think living in a rural area is great, but it's just, you've got to balance it.
01:35:47.940It can't be the homestead life at the expense of the church and relationships.
01:35:54.760But it also, I don't think, I would never make a commandment of men that says,
01:36:02.420and therefore everyone must live in a suburban and be within a 10-minute radius of friends.
01:36:09.860I think you can do both, but you're going to have to make a commitment
01:36:13.860that community is valuable enough to where you're willing to drive.
01:36:17.940All right, let's jump over to some questions and answer as many as we can briefly.
01:36:30.580Is it pragmatic to rename Fort Braxton Bragg? Recently, left virtue signaled as Fort Liberty,
01:36:39.180now called Fort Roland Bragg, as a right-wing virtue signal.
01:36:43.800i think renaming things matters i think robert e lee that statue needs to be remade i think every
01:36:49.000statue that the left tears down needs to be replaced with the statue that's 10 times bigger
01:36:53.600right so like it's like if you tear if you tear down robert e lee then you are going to get um a
01:37:01.160a hundred foot you're gonna get a hundred foot uh and if you tear it down again you're gonna get a
01:37:07.040new uh construction it's gonna be robert e lee and we're gonna put some slaves so like you better
01:37:12.920stop it um so yeah no i think that that's a good instinct however uh the little bit that i read on
01:37:18.300this story was it wasn't actually returning to the original fort bragg but it was like a world
01:37:23.540war ii because in the legislation this is what's tough michael about your question 2021 the law
01:37:29.060was passed and it renamed it and it forbid the naming of forts united states forts after
01:37:35.560confederate generals and so it's been renamed and of course right back to know the great confederate
01:37:40.700civil war general well no now it's renamed to uh fort roland bragg some of that's the limitations
01:37:47.340of the law and it's like is this literally the hill we're going to die on it is a virtue signal
01:37:51.820it should be put back to what it was we should honor the tradition personally i think but also
01:37:56.380so many awesome things going on just at the end of the day i think that's something p has going to
01:38:00.540say i'm going to get to that right about four years yeah you can get you get to it when you
01:38:05.120good to it so everything doesn't yeah you it's triage right like um you know when it comes to
01:38:10.840like punishing your enemies like it is completely permissible to say we've got one guillotine and
01:38:17.020there's 100 people that need to lose their head and somebody has to lose their head last and that
01:38:21.800doesn't mean that you're tolerating the person who's last in line it means no we're not tolerating0.99
01:38:26.060them at all we're going to chop off their head but um but we're chopping off heads one at a time0.82
01:38:31.020and somebody's last in line um so we'll get there um when we get there and in the meantime to be0.99
01:38:37.300creative and kind of skirt around that legislation and say no we're literally going to rename it
01:38:41.840but it's going to be a world war ii hero and say um i actually i actually appreciate that now if
01:38:48.340that's the end goal then i would say no no no we need to chop off heads um don't don't lose sight
01:38:54.220um the real end goal is 100 people need to be executed right then stop at 10 and that's right0.95
01:38:59.800So, no, it needs to go all the way back to where, no, it's Fort Bragg and it's the Confederate because tradition matters.
01:39:09.460But in the meantime, to say, well, we can't do that yet, but there is a loophole where we can have a placeholder in the meantime and we can enrage the leftists because we're actually naming it the original name, but technically skirting around.
01:39:22.640I actually like that kind of creativity as a placeholder temporarily, I think it's great.
02:01:11.180The Bible is not against Christian institutions.0.95
02:01:14.460That's always what happens is you go and,0.95
02:01:19.520like even like crete you know like like the book of titus is why he left you in crete to put like
02:01:25.200what the order the sequence is you know paul would go on his missionary journeys with you know
02:01:30.940whoever with with you know barnabas or whoever it might have been and he would preach the gospel
02:01:36.060he wouldn't plant churches he would preach the gospel and the holy spirit and his sovereignty
02:01:41.680would appoint salvation to as many who believed or as the reverse to as many as believed he
02:01:48.300appointed you know salvation no i had it right the first time um but basically paul would preach
02:01:53.020the gospel the holy spirit would make converts and then that's step one step two was then with
02:01:59.100with those converts they would then organize churches and appoint officers and these things
02:02:03.580and then eventually you know this is where the canon closes but eventually we know from church
02:02:07.980history that um it's it would be converts first and then it would be churches and then it would
02:02:13.420be institutions and governments and businesses and culture and arts and and all these things
02:02:18.940and all that is the natural work of the gospel you know the leaven working through the whole
02:02:24.760lump of dough the mustard seed being planted and growing into an all-encompassing tree and uh
02:02:29.780and that's that's great i think the reason why i think the reason why we have recently in america
02:02:35.500had some of the strategies that we've had that we've reverted back to guerrilla warfare
02:02:38.680is because um because we we we um surrendered like we we started losing you know it's like
02:02:49.760we started losing we gave up the ground we gave up influence we gave up authority we gave up you
02:02:54.420know all these kinds of things to secularism to pagans to atheists and you know and and and also
02:03:00.720through multiculturalism and inviting the third world and people foreign peoples worshiping foreign
02:03:05.860gods and said, oh, well, you know, we'll honor your religion. That's totally fine. You can,
02:03:09.600you know, set up your shrines to idolatry in our country, you know, because we're nice and we're
02:03:15.320kind. And so, when we did all those things, then we started losing. And when we started losing,
02:03:22.940then, you know, we're like, well, you know, we changed the, you know, we changed the metrics.
02:03:27.560And so, then it went from glorious cathedrals and, you know, things like that. And we're like,
02:03:31.820well, it's just really, it's just about numbers and converts. Um, and so we're, we're just going
02:03:36.900to have small, small churches spread all across the country, you know, and we're just going to
02:03:42.060do interpersonal, you know, one-on-one evangelism. And we'll also, we can still win overseas, you
02:03:47.680know, like we're, um, we're not, we're not competent or gifted or influential enough to0.91
02:03:53.620win here, uh, with white people, but we can still win with colored people in third world countries0.90
02:04:00.340that are impoverished so we'll go over there so we can still feel like we're winning you know so0.99
02:04:04.540we can still feel good and sleep at night and like so we we adopted loser strategies because
02:04:10.700we're and that's one of those things again it's like two-way street you know chicken to the egg
02:04:14.300which came first like did we lose because we adopted loser strategy or or did we adopt loser
02:04:18.940strategy and start losing i i don't know i my instinct tells me probably a little bit of both
02:04:24.160I think, you know, it was probably both, but, but that's, we, we have been, we have been playing, we have been playing with a, a, not divide and conquer, but divide and survive.
02:04:40.040We have been in a survivalist mindset, you know, guerrilla warfare mentality for decades in the West when it comes to Christianity.
02:04:48.340And if we really want to win significantly, then we need to be thinking big.0.61
02:04:55.620We need to be thinking, we need to be starting venture capitalist funds and think tanks and running for political office at a federal level and enshrining Christian virtues into law.
02:05:15.180And that's what the gospel has always done in virtually every place where it's gone and permeated and actually been truly victorious over the course of centuries as it's left that kind of impact.