James Walks into a Christian Bookstore and gets Purpose Driven

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Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a
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Tuesday morning. These mornings sneak up on me. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I walked into the office a while back and Rich is sitting there at the soundboard.
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I go, oh yeah, it's Tuesday, isn't it? I sometimes lose track. I was up until actually early this morning finishing up preparations to write today on the
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Dave Hunt book. And what I mean by that is it took so long between the last round and this round that I had to go back and re -read everything.
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So basically I had to read the whole book and mark stuff and go, okay, I've addressed this, this, this, this. And that then puts me in a position to be able to write now and say, okay,
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I've already addressed this, this, and this. What's new here? This is what I need to address, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what we're going to be doing the rest of the day, but not for the next hour.
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I've never tried writing and doing a webcast at the same time. I'm not sure that that would really be a wise thing to attempt to do actually.
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So not going to do that. Our phone number here is 877 -753 -3341.
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That is toll free. And I suppose that probably most folks, your mind is on national affairs, about, what is it?
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I don't know, 30 some odd hours on the deadline for war with Iraq.
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And I think that's pretty much a done deal. And who knows how long it's going to last and all the rest of that stuff.
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I don't know about you. But right now, I am very glad that my two main vehicles, one is a 1991
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Geo Metro, and the other is a 1986
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Yamaha Virago 1100, both of which get between 45 and 48 miles to the gallon.
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So that gets me, what, about 24 miles per dollar, is what we're looking at about now.
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So right now, those folks driving by in those big old
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SUVs, have you noticed they're accelerating real slowly recently?
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Those big guys with those big old honking 450 trucks, they ain't exactly flying away from stoplights these days.
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It's amazing how the wallet can teach you just a little bit of humility and maturity.
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And you sit there and you watch that thing going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, wow, look how fast it can go. That's about as fast as the electric meter runs in June in Phoenix.
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It's just an amazing thing. Anyways, that's what probably most folks are talking about. So that's why
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I'm not going to talk about it. If you want to talk about Iraq, there are about 147 ,000 talk shows today where you can call in and talk about Iraq.
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So you go ahead and do that. And no, I'm not going to sit here and discuss whether Iraq is Babylon and tie it to the
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Book of Revelation. If you want to do that, tune in to TBN, yeah, I'm not going to do that either.
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But anyways, actually I saw on the
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Reformed Baptist discussion list an article this morning that I found very interesting and I thought
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I would read it. It is from the, I've never seen this before, it is by Chris Lehman, and that name sounds very, very, very familiar to me.
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But I liked what it had to say, I thought it brings up some good points, and so I thought I would read it because I think you'd find it somewhat interesting, at least provocative.
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Even if you don't agree with everything it has to say, hey, at least it'll get you thinking.
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And especially because it touched a chord with me,
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I walked into a Christian bookstore recently and I normally don't do that, I'll admit. When I need, if I need something and I don't need it for a few days,
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I'll get it online. I mean, that's just how I handle a lot of stuff, because I just do it, it's gone, it comes a few days later and I'm back doing what
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I need to be doing. And that's just how I, you know, people, how do you do all the stuff you do? Well, that's one of the reasons.
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Anyways, I walked into a Christian bookstore because I needed a card, and it's hard to get hold of a
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Christian card online or something like that. And normally you wait until the last second to get one anyway, so it really doesn't help a whole lot.
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And so I walked into a Christian bookstore and I got the card, that was pretty easy, and then
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I started walking around a little bit and I started checking out the books. Because this was a store that, I don't know, four or five years ago, five, six years ago, used to have some decent stuff in it.
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I mean, the manager actually tried to get some decent material in there, some
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Puritans, some good writing and things like that, but that manager is long gone, it's been bought out by somebody else.
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And this place is now truly a CBA -style
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Christian bookstore, feel -good evangelicalism, you know, forty -seven miles wide, one quarter of an inch thick.
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And so I'm walking up and down the book aisles, and man, not only are the bookshelves real short, but all the books are facing you.
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So in other words, it doesn't take many books to fill these bookshelves when the books are flat against the back and there's only a couple of them, you know?
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You're reading the very front of the book, you see the very front of the book, and I know you have to do that to sell books and all the rest of that stuff, but the point is there wasn't a whole lot there.
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And as I'm going up and down the aisles, I'm just looking at this stuff, and it is fluff!
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I mean, there was not enough serious stuff on the shelves this place to even begin to get blood into your brain, okay?
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I mean, it was just horrible. But what I found all over the place, shelves and shelves and stacks and stacks, is the purpose -driven and then fill in the blank.
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The purpose -driven life and the purpose -driven church and the purpose -driven this and the purpose -driven that, Rick Warren's name everywhere, just all over the place.
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And so when I saw this review of Rick Warren's most recent book, yeah, the
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Purpose -Driven Pocketbook, no kidding! Anyways, Buzz, I think you may be right if we're talking, yep, same road you're on.
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So, meh, you got that one correct. Anyways, this is called, The Book of Numbers, Rick Warren's Purpose -Driven
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Attack on American Christianity by Chris Lehman, posted Monday, March 17, 2003 at 1133
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AM. So this is, it's only 1108 right now, Pacific time, so this is less than 24 hours old, but I found this to be rather thoughtful, so I thought
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I would read it to you, maybe that'll get some folks to start thinking about things, and maybe call in at 877 -753 -3341.
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I quote, Rick Warren is the greatest Christian success story now going. His Baptist Fellowship, the Saddleback Valley Community Church in California, is by most reckonings the second largest church in the country, with a congregation of more than 16 ,000, that's a three -zero there.
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Like Billy Graham, before him, Warren has staked out a role as spiritual counselor to our nation's leaders. He was among a select panel of advisors
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President George W. Bush consulted for discussion and prayer, as he prepared his speech commemorating the first anniversary of the
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September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. It's not hard to see why Warren is commanding such attention from the corridors of power and the culture at large.
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He preaches a big, broad, expansion -minded gospel, perfectly suited to a restlessly growth -minded
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American audience. His breakout best -selling book, The Purpose -Driven Church, was a manual for ecclesiastical growth strategies in an age when
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Protestant belief remains high, but many congregations report flagging church attendance. His congregation, which originated in 1980 in Warren's own living room in Orange County's Mission Viejo, today resembles a middle -aged suburban rave more than a traditional house of worship.
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Jumbotron captions above the pulpit and a cross -free altar to allow for an unobstructed view of quick -change music acts, listener -friendly sermons in which the garrulous
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Warren holds forth on modern life topics such as career, stress, and status -seeking.
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Worship is a lifestyle, is one of Warren's catchphrases, and his Southern California ministry, founded deliberately to woo wayward, overworked boomers into the fold, is lifestyle incarnate.
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And Warren has a powerfully emotional backstory of his gospel of growth. As he recounts in a new book,
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The Purpose -Driven Life, his audience -multiplying ministry was inspired by a scene at the deathbed of his father, a tremendously driven
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Baptist minister, who had launched 150 churches across the world.
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As Warren's dad seemed about to succumb, he shot up and struggled to get out of bed, repeating, Got to save one more for Jesus!
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Nearly a hundred times, in his dying hour, he turned it into a directive to his son, Save one more for Jesus.
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While we might feel a reflexive distrust of Warren's Elmer Gantry -style religious monumentalism and there is nothing inherently dishonorable about such recruitment tactics, aggressive proselytizing is, indeed, one of the core distinguishing features of Christianity dating back to the
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Apostle Paul, and spiritual salesmanship has a long history in the pluralist marketplace of American religion.
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British revivalist George Whitefield and the great Connecticut divine Jonathan Edwards both set the country on an early course of soul -harvesting awakenings.
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It would be unfair, in other words, to cast Warren as merely an unscrupulous evangelist on the make, in the mold of, say,
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Amy Semple McPherson, or the fallen Pentecostal power couple of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Warren has abjured the most basic outlet that such operators seize upon, a televisual ministry.
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Nor is his cross -denominational dedication to outreach work typical of Baker types, either. Most elements of his wide -ranging ministry are accompanied by the proviso to reach across traditional lines of sect and denomination.
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But while Warren has deftly outfitted the old Baptist creed to the new century's info -based and excerpt -sprawling spiritual market, his actual message does a subtle violence to the rigors of belief.
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In demanding so much of growth -minded Christian ministries, he winds up demanding too little of his fervently recruited believers.
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The purpose -driven life is Warren's effort to consolidate the brand he's built out of church -growth advocacy.
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Instead of aiming the book at practicing Christians or fellow pastors, as he did with the Purpose -Driven Church and continues to do on his website, pastors .com,
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Warren is seeking to engage with a non -believing or languidly -believing person in spiritual crisis.
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And his business -like, bullet -pointed style is meeting with success. The Purpose -Driven
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Life is the number seven best -selling book of non -fiction in the country.
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According to a publisher's weekly list released on March 3rd, and has sold in advance a rather astonishing 500 ,000 copies.
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But any reader who comes to the book expecting a wrenching narrative of a soul's halting progress toward faith will be disappointed.
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Warren rather abruptly clears away the dramatic climax of most faith narratives, the crowning moment of conversion and rebirth into the
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Spirit. His play for the reader's soul is briskly delivered early in the book, and we quote here, "...wherever
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you are reading this, I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity,
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Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you. If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations, welcome to the family of God."
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It doesn't feel like a life -shaking epiphany so much as like having someone hand you his business card.
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Warren stands apart from his evangelical forebears in another important respect. At no point does he place the newly -minted believer at odds with the secular world's imperfect schemes of justice and reward.
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Historically, even mildly prophetic Christian revivalists have stressed the mandate of broad social reform, and more fiery ones have triggered full -blown crusades from abolitionism and temperance down through the latter -day civil rights and anti -abortion movements.
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In Warren's hands, however, God seems keen to promote more of a Kiwanis -level social activism.
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Quote, "...you may be given a godly passion for reaching a particular group of people with the gospel, businessmen, teenagers, foreign exchange students, young mothers, or those with a particular hobby or sport."
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End quote. Of course, not every revivalist's faith needs to be driven by social commitment.
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A lot of mainline Protestant churches are losing members precisely because they seem tediously bent on advertising their own social righteousness.
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Nevertheless, there is something important missing from a faith that envisions God directing his servants to settle down among narrow -casted groups of exchange students or hobbyists or Sunday athletes.
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Long -time observers of the evangelical scene speculate that the softness behind the cell helps explain
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Warren's appeal to the Western White House. Mark Silk, who directs Trinity College's Leonard E.
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Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life, says ministries like Warren's have a special appeal for an administration where, quote, "...everything
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is extraordinarily faith -based, not just social service programs." End quote.
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Silk also suggests that Bush well understands that Warren's brand of feel -good evangelism plays well with the mass audience that comes with the bully pulpit of the presidency.
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It's a way of doing evangelicalism for people who get scared when they hear it in its unvarnished form.
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This, rather than the abundance of marketing techniques and showman gimmicks that inflect
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Warren's style of self -presentation, is the most troubling feature of Warren's purpose -driven approach.
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It has historically been the nature of the Christian God to be something of an unstinting taskmaster.
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Warren's God wants to be your best friend. And this means, in turn, that God's most daunting property, the exercise of eternal judgment, is strategically downsized.
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When Warren turns his utility -minded feel -speak upon the symbolic iconography of the faith, the results are offensively pathetic.
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When Jesus stretched his arms wide on the cross, he was saying, I love you this much.
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But God needs to be greater than a group hug. Surely, we lose something if we apprehend the
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Bible and the language of faith as little more than a lesson book. If you're not preaching life application,
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Warren has told one interviewer, you're not really preaching. Yet, if you're only believing in life application, what are you really believing?
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So writes Chris Lehman on the slate on MSN as the location for this particular article.
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And I found it interesting, as I said, in light of the fact that this book is all over the place.
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I forget where I was. I was traveling somewhere over the past number of months, and I just remembered in passing speaking with someone at one of the places
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I was speaking. And they made mention, I don't even think they were talking to me,
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I think we were walking out the door, and I heard a conversation between two folks. And it was on how they were, the church was just about to start this program that Rick Warren had.
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It was, you know, he had these special meetings, and there were these books, and it was taking place all across the nation, and pretty much the
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English speaking world. And you know, trucks were pulling up these churches with all these books and delivering them, and everybody was going to be reading the same thing, and yada, yada, yada.
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And I just, I caught that, and I thought about it.
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And of course, what I was thinking of was, what would it take for something like that to happen where the discussion was not handling stress in your life?
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And the discussion was not successful financial planning for the 21st century, but the subject was understanding, loving, and being passionate about the relationship of the
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Trinity to the Gospel and the Cross. You know? Something like that.
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And a lot of folks are laughing hysterically now, I understand that, but that was what
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I was thinking. And I thought of the tremendous works that are available today, and I'm not talking about my own, from great thinkers and people who are still passionate about the truth.
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And I go, 500 ,000 copies? I don't think so. That's the kind of press run that makes a publisher just go, cha -ching, cha -ching, cha -ching.
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But that's not the kind of press run that you see going on for that kind of book that's going to address, for example, being passionate about the
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Trinity and seeing the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit to the Gospel and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
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No, that's the kind of press run you get for fiction, Christian fiction. You get it for, obviously, for the
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Left Behind series and all the rest of that kind of stuff. That's where you encounter that kind of stuff.
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You don't see that kind of a press run for real good books anymore. And that makes me sigh a little bit.
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What do you think? 877 -753 -3341. I'm not looking for a wine fest about the
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Seeker Sensitive Movement so much as meaningful insights into what it tells us about the
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Church, what it tells us about the state of the
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Church, the perspectives of evangelicals today, and what happens to old churches like this.
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Has anyone ever thought about that? I haven't given it as much thought as I probably should. But have you started to notice these big churches that were real big a while back, but they're not real big anymore?
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Is there anything sadder than these monuments that have been built that are now filled to one -quarter capacity and people just rattle around in these big honking places and there's just nobody there?
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Why isn't there much discussion about that? And what does that tell us? Does it tell us anything?
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I mean, certainly, I understand that sometimes there are economic changes, there are population changes, there are buildings that were built in places when a town may have been booming at one point and then the boom goes away and the church gets smaller.
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That's fully understandable, but that's not what I'm talking about. We don't hear a lot of discussions about the huge places that were built with multi -million dollar budgets and now today barely exist.
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Churches being bought out and turned into schools, being turned into shopping malls or something else.
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And what does that tell us about what that church was in fact built upon in the first place?
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And let me throw another little ditty out into the mix as you all are rushing to your phones to call 877 -753 -3341.
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Rick Warren is a part of the Southern Baptist Convention and so I hear a lot about him since I have connections with all sorts of folks in that particular context.
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The purpose -driven church and the purpose -driven this, that and the other thing, I'm sure eventually like the
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Prayer of Jabez, we'll see the purpose -driven journal and the purpose -driven musical
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CD and the purpose -driven coffee mug and the purpose -driven t -shirt and the purpose -driven bumper sticker and the purpose -driven little fishy on the back of the bumper and all the rest of that fun stuff that always comes eventually.
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But anyways, it is within the
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Southern Baptist Convention that the average pastorate lasts for 18 months.
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Now obviously I have a problem with that. First of all, I believe in a plurality of elders and so the whole idea that is prevalent in most
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Southern Baptist churches of a single pastor, a bunch of deacons who act like elders and then a staff of allegedly ordained ministers but not really ministers,
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I don't see that as being the ideal situation. I don't see it as being the biblical organization.
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But still, the fact that ministers move around so much and that instead of there being an organic connection between the elders and the people, the position of quote -unquote pastor is more of a
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CEO and CEOs in especially large corporations come and go and you basically determine the
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CEO position on performance.
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In essence, you examine the pastor, you put the pastor, you have these guidelines.
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I can't really see a whole lot of difference between the graphs and charts that are used in the corporate boardroom and saying, look, here's our growth figures, here's what we projected, here's where our
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CEO has taken us, either he gets a bonus because we've done better or we're on target so he gets his regular stuff or since we're below, you're gone.
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You're out of here, you're fired, we're bringing somebody else in. Sort of like the coach of an NBA team or a
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National Baseball League team or whatever it might be, that's how the pastor is viewed.
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And that's what gives rise to the idea of a pastor only being in a church for 18 months.
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And hence, what kind of preaching is that pastor going to do if that's the standard by which he's being judged?
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Is it any wonder that such an individual is probably not even going to give consideration to preaching a series on the doctrine of the
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Trinity or in some way, shape or form, trying to grow the church in godliness because you know what happens when you preach that stuff.
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You offend people. And if you actually want to stay there a while, you can't offend anybody, especially when you're in essence not called by God to serve in that place as the shepherd of the sheep but you're called by the congregation based upon their good pleasure to meet certain growth and money goals, buildings and programs and things like that.
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And if you think that I'm getting down on these pastors, they're the ones I really feel for. I know these folks.
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I talk with them on a regular basis and many of them feel burned out.
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Many of them feel, oh, there is a purpose -driven life city, thank you very much, Ian. If anyone would find it, it would be
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Ian. There is already, see, I told you it was coming. I didn't know that, but it's there. I meet with these folks,
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I talk with these folks and I'll admit, some folks don't like the fact that I ended up teaching them in a class or something because when
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I introduce them to such issues as the elders' responsibility for God as the primary thing and the need of sound theology and the only way you can actually grow believers is to see them grow in the grace and knowledge of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and it's a spiritual thing, it's not a pragmatic thing and what's the purpose of the church and all the rest of this stuff and dare introduce folks to the church shrinkage movement, which normally happens when you preach the truth.
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All of that stuff, they sit there going, man, I want to teach and preach this way, but I'm in a situation where that's not what the church wants.
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And if I dare try to introduce them to it, since I went through seminary and Bible college and I've got a $75 ,000 student loan sitting on my back,
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I have to make X amount of dollars each week, each month to keep house and home together.
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How can I do this? I can't do this. I know the frustration. I really do know the frustration and there's lots of things we can say about that, but I'm not picking on the pastors,
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I'm just looking at this and going, hey, it seems to me that all these things feed on one another and as the article said, what's the result of this purpose -driven church concept is you've got to, if you're going to use those types of methodologies to bring people in, you're going to have to change your message, you're going to have to change the standards and the issue of discipleship and growth within the
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Christian life has got to be addressed and in essence, you're not going to be able to take a biblical perspective on that because you're not going to be able to call for godliness because that's too radical.
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And if you brought people in without the radical message of the gospel, you can't expect them to then accept radical message of living a life separate under God, the radical
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Christian worldview. Instead, you get the non -radical Christian worldview, which of course is an oxymoron.
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It doesn't work, but that's what you get. And that's one of the main reasons that even amongst those who would consider themselves to be conservative evangelicals, the voice of the church is so quiet and weak.
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Well, we have one phone line taken up and that leaves room for some others at 877 -753 -3341.
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We're going to take our break and be right back right after this. Answering those who claim that only the
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King James Version is the word of God. James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free?
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A New Cult? Secularism? False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called
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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.
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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the
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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free? You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
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Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30
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p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
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If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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It's all above His holy name. Here I stand, never changing one command.
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On the pure sufficient Word of God. Oh, I tell you, it gets ugly when the
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Uber geeks start displaying it one another. Remember those Mountain Dew commercials where the guy,
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I don't know how they did it, took on the bighorn sheep and they rammed their heads together and all that stuff and he goes stumbling off once he gets his
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Mountain Dew? Well, that's sort of what's going on here in channel right now. Our two Uber geeks are displaying at one another as to who can get the most
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URLs into channel as finding purpose -driven coffee mugs and t -shirts and tote bags and stuff like that.
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It's really funny. And then someone came up with a really, really good line here for a new book title,
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The Prayer of Jabez for Purpose -Driven People Left Behind. I like that.
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That would sell well. That would be somewhat like, yeah, tectosterone.
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There's a lot of tectosterone going on in channel right now. Tectosterone, that's a scary thing.
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Well, anyways, 877 -753 -3341. Didn't mean to get us completely off of the track there.
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We've been talking a little bit today about the purpose -driven something or other for The Prayer of Jabez for Purpose -Driven
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People Who Are Left Behind. I think that's very, very good. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341.
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Let's go ahead and take some phone callers so you don't have to listen to me droning on for the entire hour.
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Then again, if you're listening, you did so voluntarily anyways. Well, there is something on this sheet of paper
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I'm filling out about humility. I think I need to change what I put down there. Anyways, someone on the channel will get that.
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Let's go ahead and talk to our first caller from somewhere back in South Carolina, where they sort of just talk like this just a little bit in Taylor, South Carolina.
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Let's talk to Julie. Hi, Julie. I'm trying to resist that accent.
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I talked with Joe and Katie the other night on PalTalk, and I mentioned the fact that I am utterly resisting talking like that.
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Well, why? Because then if you go just a little bit farther south, you'll be able to start talking like some preachers down there in Georgia.
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In fact, last night I was mentioning that someone who remained nameless, I was helping him with a
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Latin pronunciation, and someone suggested all you need to do is just pronounce it like you would in Georgia, and nobody would care less one way or the other.
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Anyways, that's not our topic for the day. What I actually wanted to call in about was, you were mentioning a lot about the purpose -driven and the seeker -friendly type of environment, and while I'm not whining about it,
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I've said before to some people that I am a refugee of the mega -church scenario.
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I spent most of my Christian life in these huge mega -churches that were purpose -driven and everything like that, and one of the observations that I've made a lot with the churches was, especially now comparing it with being in a solid
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Reformed Baptist church, two things stuck out at me. Number one was how shallow a lot of the messages that you received there was, and number two was the fact that you always sort of felt like a face in the crowd.
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You didn't even know most of the time who the elders were, let alone being able to approach the pastor about anything.
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It was almost as though you had to do an inner, inner, inner circle to get to the pastor. Especially the church that we left before we went to,
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Grace Baptist Church, to give you any kind of an indication as to what this says about the state of the church,
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I was getting interested in Reformed theology, and I wanted to talk to my pastor about it, and I mentioned to him that I was doing some studies in the five solas, and when
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I said, you know, what would you recommend, he got this kind of blank look on his face, and he said, oh, yeah, like Sola Scriptura and those kinds of things, right?
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And I just kind of blinked at that point, and I said, um, yeah.
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He never really did get back to me about those things. Yeah, I actually have been there myself.
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I was a part of a very large church, and I had some wonderful times there. I was married in a very large church, but one of the things that I began noticing early on once I became an adult was one of the things that I never did understand was, every year, all of the
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Bible study groups were broken up, and everybody was put someplace else, and it was a traumatic time for everyone because you had developed friendships, you had been engaged in activities, you had done teaching, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's a whole new group of people, and it's like the first week, you're in a strange place again, and I finally eventually found out what the idea behind it was.
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The leadership of the church recognized that over the course of time, basically, little churches would develop within each one of those
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Bible study classes because you will become attached to and begin to look to leadership from those who are the leaders that you actually have contact with, and so what eventually would happen is you'd have 300 little churches, and it just happens that everybody goes to the same place to sing hymns and listen to the choir sing and to get a sermon, but the actual ministry, the actual interaction and learning to live with people was taking place in those little groups, and so what they had to do so as to not create 300 little pastors, in essence, was to break those little churches up every year and start all over again, and it was extremely unnatural and very troubling that that had to be taking place on an ongoing basis.
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Now, I recognize a number of these churches. They see the need for the personal fellowship, and they have these home fellowships and all the rest of the stuff.
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I personally have mused more than once, I wonder if there isn't a maximum size for a church.
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I mean, it just strikes me that as I read the
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New Testament, there's this relationship that's supposed to exist between the shepherd and the sheep, and when the shepherd is in essence asked to be a
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CEO over a flock of 16 ,000, there's just no way that he can have a relationship with 16 ,000 people, and so he has to end up creating a whole other tier of undershepherds beneath him, and then beneath them there's more and more and more, and hence you end up with this massive structure that has to be supported financially, and no matter what happens, that person at the top ends up being somewhat isolated from the regular life of individuals.
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When we were at that large church, I knew that there was the man who preached who was called the pastor.
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However, then there was the staff ministers who met with the families in crisis, who did the funerals, who did the weddings, who did the counseling.
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They were the real pastors as far as actually doing the day -to -day living work, and they were the ones you actually saw, you knew, you knew you could come to with your problems and pray with them and so on and so forth.
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You knew there was no way you were ever getting in to see the big guy. That just wasn't a possibility.
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Yeah, exactly, and our church recently has even begun kind of exploring with a different type of motive in mind, doing small groups.
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That was one of the biggest things that I spoke to one of the elders about.
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I said, I don't know how many of you guys have ever been to a big church or anything like that, but one thing that I implore with you all is that small groups in and of themselves is not a bad idea, but don't let it start replacing things like elder care and pastor care, because it's so easy for that to then take off.
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Before you know it, like you said, that happens. The pastor barely knows the people there and whatnot.
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Well, not only that, but I know that one of the other issues is we often pray for the peace of the church.
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Church splits and difficulties in the church are always extremely detrimental to the proclamation of the word and to ministry and so on and so forth, and it's much easier if the elders are not involved for a discontented person to begin spreading their discontent within that type of a context, because once you create a small group, the leaders will rise to the top, and people will take a leadership position.
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Otherwise, you're just going to have an amorphous blob that's just going to sit there and sort of go around in circles and bump into walls and not really accomplish anything.
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So the leaders will come to the top, and if those leaders are not the leaders within the congregation, they are being given a position that is not theirs naturally, that they frequently will then fall into condemnation.
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That's why Paul says to Timothy, don't lay hands hastily upon a new convert, upon a novice.
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And yet that's something that we do all the time in the church. Someone comes in, and what happens in so many churches today?
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You get a guy, he's a moral guy, he's maybe a civil leader, he's in business or something like that.
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He comes into the church, there's a profession of faith, and what happens within like six months?
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Since the guy's got leadership abilities, business abilities, money abilities, boom, he's put into a position of leadership because, man, we need that kind of direction.
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And then what happens? He ends up running off with some single woman from the choir, and we wonder what happened.
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Well, actually, he shouldn't have ever been put in that position, just because he comes in and he's intelligent and he's got business experience does not mean that he's actually fit to be put in a position of leadership.
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But that's what happens so often. Look what happens with famous converts. How many of them have been turned into absolutely, you know, just examples of Hebrew 6 apostasy, because instead of protecting them and nurturing them and growing them and grounding them in the faith, boom, all of a sudden, you know, they're a
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Christian for three weeks and they're up front talking to people. It's absolute converticide,
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I guess is the term we could use. That's, you know, how to kill a convert. You know, ignore everything the
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Bible says about it. Anyways, all right. Sorry about that.
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All I can say is, yes, I've been there. I can only think of one or two churches.
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In fact, if someone were to force me to name one, I can only think of really one that is a mega church that seems to do it in the proper way.
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And in every place else I can look, I see some real issues and difficulties from a biblical perspective.
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And so it's a tough job, and I'm the first one to say I know I could not do it.
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You know, I certainly do not have the capacity to do anything like that. So I don't want to sit here and look like I'm just shooting at anybody who's, quote unquote, more successful.
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I'm just actually trying to raise the issue of what is successful. Let's ask that question.
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All right? All right. Okay, thanks for calling. Okay, bye. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number here on the dividing line.
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I don't want to sound as if I somehow have sour grapes, because I do not.
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I really, really do not. I would love to see there are advantages to large churches that have concentrated resources.
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They can do a lot of things that certainly the smaller church cannot do.
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I recognize that. But I think first and foremost, the question has to be asked, what is the church?
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What is the purpose of the church? What are the church's officers? What are their responsibilities?
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And what is success in the church? What is success in the church?
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That, unfortunately, certain assumptions are functioned upon within evangelicalism today that I don't think are biblical.
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I don't think they have a foundation in Scripture. And as a result, we wonder where all these non -biblical programs and isms and things like that come into play, when in reality, once you've changed the mission and nature of the church,
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I mean, what's the passage? And I know I've addressed this before, but we have new folks that listen all the time, and people don't necessarily go back and listen to all the archives.
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I mean, who in the world would want to do that other than MDH and people like Ian and things like that? But they're uber geeks anyhow.
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But for other folks, let me just repeat it. When you look...
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Oh. Okay, well, I'll hold that point.
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And since we have another caller online, we'll get as many as we can in today. And so let's go ahead and talk to Chris down in Atlanta, Georgia.
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How you doing, Chris? Georgia. Georgia. Georgia. Georgia. The South will rise again.
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Yes, I'm a Yankee pretending to be a Southerner. The South will rise. In fact, make sure.
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I must be talking too loud, and it's causing problems here. I want to play a sound for you.
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Do you have my sound up there, oh powerful man of the soundboard? Let's see if you recognize this one.
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You are the First Brigade. You are the First Brigade. It was
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Stonewall Jackson. Not at all. That was Stonewall Jackson. Come on, man. Didn't you know we had recording devices available back then?
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Yeah, sure. Sorry. Go ahead, sir. You're the one calling in.
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Here I am taking up all your time. Yeah, well, I've been listening to a lot of rhetoric on the subject.
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And there are some people who think the answer to these big seeker -friendly, purpose -driven churches is completely reactionary.
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Let's just go back to the way it was 100 years ago. We have just hardwood and pews and organs, or for the
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Puritans, acapella music. Let's do away with contemporary
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Christian music and PowerPoint and biblical cartoons and everything, and we'll just have the church the way it was 100 years ago.
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And if the lost don't like it, tough. Well, I would imagine that there are probably some individuals who would say that.
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I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong, for example, with utilizing technology to, for example, make things easier to understand.
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I don't think there's anything wrong with a comfortable pew, though making it too comfy does tend to result in unconsciousness.
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But I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I was commenting to one of my fellow elders just this past weekend that we have to allow the elders of a local congregation to decide what is proper at that point.
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My problem is that so much of this movement, and I've looked at these books, and I've talked to the people caught up in it, are based upon non -theological views of the church.
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The church is not viewed, this is where I was going to get to, as the pillar and foundation of the truth, and the mission of the church is not seen as the glorification of God, the proclamation of the entirety of the message of Christ, and as a result, only parts of the message get preached, and as a result, all those other things that you were mentioning, if they are being used as substitutes for the substance of the proclamation of the gospel that has been entrusted to the church, then
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I've got a problem with that. I don't think there's anything necessarily godly about uncomfortable pews, in the sense of the
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Roman Catholic concept of wearing a hair shirt, just to prove that you're not like the world. But the issue is, what is the foundational view of the church itself?
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What is the ecclesiology? That's not something we want to talk about. It's something, well, it's one of the last chapters in the systematic theology book, we won't worry about it.
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That's where I'm concerned, is that we have to answer these questions and approach these issues from a sound biblical perspective of what the church is supposed to be, and that's what
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I don't see happening. That's what I don't see happening. Yes, sir? One of the things my church was talking about,
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I don't know if this is a separate question or not, but they were talking about equipping the members for ministry instead of having the elders and the deacons do everything.
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What do you think about that? Well, I don't know what they mean by everything. Elders and deacons have different roles.
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Deacons take care of the widows and the physical possessions of the church, distribution of funds, caring for the needy, etc.,
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etc. That's a different role than the elders. The deacons do that under the direction of the elders.
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So when they say preparing people for ministry, I'm not sure what they're talking about as far as ministry.
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Are they talking about teaching and preaching the word of God? Is that what they're talking about? I have no way of knowing what they mean by ministry.
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If they mean by deemphasizing the role of the eldership and those who are held accountable before God for growing them in the grace and knowledge of Christ, then
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I would have a problem with that simply because the elders could be held accountable for that, so they're the ones that need to be doing that, not someone else.
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That would be the issue there. I think what they meant was the actual caring for widows and orphans and stuff like that.
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That's definitely the role of the deacons, and if the deaconate wants to involve people in doing that and visiting nursing homes and things like that, that's great and wonderful.
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We have a nursing home ministry in our church, and it's not necessarily done by just individuals who are deacons either.
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That would be fine, but if it's the ministry, that's a different thing. Hey, all of a sudden, right at the end of the hour, everybody starts calling.
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I have two more callers online. Let me get to them real quickly. Thank you very much for your call today. Let's now go to Scott in Kirkland, Washington.
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Hi, Scott. Hi, James. How are you doing? Good. How about you? Doing real well. We need to be quick here because we've only got about three minutes and two callers.
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Okay. I was just going to say, how much do you think the function of the seeker -friendly church is the de -emphasis that a lot of churches put on people doing evangelism in their personal lives, one -to -one, going out into the world and doing it, versus kind of, hey, we'll provide this feel -good sermon.
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All you have to do is get them to come, and then we'll try to convert them. Well, it certainly makes it easier for you to hand somebody a full -color brochure that includes discussion of the latte bar in the foyer than it does to have to talk to somebody about sin and God's wrath and the cross of Christ.
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There's no two ways about that. The question I would have, though, is given the function of that kind of a church, can you guarantee that when they walk through the door, they're actually going to hear the whole gospel?
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Or are they going to only hear a portion of the gospel that would, say, basically add
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Jesus to your self -help methodologies rather than a self -righteousness -shattering call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ?
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That becomes the other issue. But I think that's a good thought. I think it does lend itself, it can lend itself to that very thing, to where you just simply leave it to somebody else to give a nice, warm message somewhere down the road in the context of a service.
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So that might be a good thought, most definitely. All righty?
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Yeah, but it kind of reminds me of the whole Amway deal. Unfortunately, there are parallels to multi -level marketing schemes within certain programs that are available out there, unfortunately.
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I think you might have a point there as well. Hey, thanks for calling today. Let's go ahead and talk to, real quickly here, get everybody caught up,
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Jim in Nashville, Tennessee. How are you, Jim? I'm just fine, James. Nice to talk to you despite my lack of a southern accent.
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You and I actually exchanged e -mails a number of years ago through Sound of Grace. Okay.
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And so it's nice to actually hear your voice. Nice to talk to you, sir. I was just wondering how much you think,
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I know we've got to be quick here, how much you think the large church movement is really the result of the
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Armenian theology that says the end justifies the means under every circumstance, as long as you get them in and get them saved.
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It really doesn't matter whether there's validity to the method or not, whether you're talking about drama or rock groups.
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Here recently in Nashville, for the Easter service, they brought in a mime. A mime?
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Yeah, he has something he calls his mime -istry, and he came and mimed the Easter message.
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A mime -istry? A big Baptist church here across the street from Opryland competing for that showbiz dollar.
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And to my way of thinking, you know, if faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, let's have a guy come in who says nothing.
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You know, one of the reasons I'm laughing is that when I debated
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George Bryson at the Anaheim Vineyard, almost no one from the vineyard showed up for the debate at all.
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In fact, almost no one from Calvary Chapel showed up to support George Bryson. But one of the things we were competing with, even though we were in the main sanctuary area, one of the things going on that night on the campus was the mime -ministry.
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Oh, well, there you go. So I actually saw a group of mimes who were there.
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The multiple mime -istries. See, what you were doing, though, when you went into the vineyard, it was that you were offering them a cerebral instead of a completely emotional experience.
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So it's no wonder they didn't show up. I'll have to admit, when I walked across that huge area down front,
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I mean, you could almost put the entirety of the worship center of my church in the area where people during the
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Laughing Revival got slain between the front row and the stage. Because it was a stage.
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Absolutely. It's exactly what it was. You could have almost put them there. As I walked across that, it was sort of a surreal experience.
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There's no two ways about it. But I think you have a point, Jim, in the sense that pragmatism has to thrive within the realm of a shallow theology.
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And therefore, since it does not call us to a great concern about those elements of the gospel that are offensive to the natural man, in fact, it calls us to avoid those things for a greater good, then it would be hard to see how that kind of a theology could spawn anything other than these kind of pragmatic churches.
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So I think you have a good point there. I would certainly, you know, we do sing a hymn at our church that has as one of its lines, we long to see your churches full.
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And we do. I don't think there's anything wrong with seeing our churches full.
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And I would like to have to struggle with the issue of how to accommodate the preaching of the word to a large number of people.
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That's wonderful. I hope no one's hearing me say anything else. But I want to be because there's a bunch of people hungry for the word of God, not that we have pandered the word of God down to the level of individuals who have no hunger for it.
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That's the big difference. That is precisely it. Thank you very much, Jim. God bless you down there in Nashville. Thank you, sir.
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And thanks for everyone listening today and participating in The Dividing Line, including all of our uber geeks and channel and everybody else.
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You always make it a whole lot of fun. This Thursday evening, a discussion of John Chapter 6, a debate on John Chapter 6, here on The Dividing Line with a fellow by the name of Lou Rugg.
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Hope you'll be listening. We'll be back Thursday evening, 5 p .m., Mountain Standard Time, here on The Dividing Line.
01:00:00
Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org.
01:00:06
That's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.