September 29, 2016 Show with Alec Millen on “Church Planting in the Inner City: Its Need & Its Challenges”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 29th day of September 2016.

I am so delighted to have an old friend, actually two old friends, in the studio today and also a new friend

I hope develops into a friendship with me. First of all I just returned from Lancaster, Pennsylvania after a meeting with the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I had a nice time with Bob Brady who is the

Executive Director of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals which is a ministry going all the way back to Donald Gray Barnhouse and his successor

James Montgomery Boyce of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and still exists to this day and we are going to be manning booths, exhibitors booths, side by side in Atlanta, Georgia this

January 19th to the 21st God willing at the G3 conference that you've been hearing advertised on this program and we'll be telling you more about that later.

But while there I met up with an old friend of mine Alec Millen who at one time was on the staff at North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside Queens, New York with my friend

Ed Moore is still the pastor and Alec Millen was actually formerly with the

New York Jets and the San Francisco 49ers and got out of the

NFL and went into missionary work for a while and then later into the pastorate. We're going to be hearing more about his new church plant in Lancaster One City Church and that is one of the friends in the studio.

I have another old friend of mine Pete Podro who is not going to be an integral part of the discussion today but I hope to have him back on the program because he has a very fascinating testimony and before I even continue any further,

Pete Podro why don't you give a shout out to our listeners here in the Iron Trepans Iron audience. I want to welcome everyone that's listening to the program and I found it a to be able to be with Chris Harnson and the brothers that we'll be sharing today and we hope that you'll invite a friend, a neighbor to listen in.

There's some exciting things that God is doing and you will benefit from this program. Thanks a lot

Pete. My friendship with Pete Podro goes back to the early 1990s and he was formerly the pastor of Church of the

Good Neighbor in Spanish Harlem which was, I don't know if it still exists, perhaps

Pete can tell me later about that, but it was the oldest Protestant Spanish -speaking church in New York State and we have had a friendship for a number of years ever since then and in fact my wife, my late wife had visited with them on a couple of occasions and had some precious memories and Pete also anointed my mother who was dying with pancreatic cancer, anointed her with oil after she visited

Sloan Kettering Hospital for one of her examinations and he has a very special place in my heart so I hope to have

Pete back on the program as a guest. But as I said, Alec Millen, an old friend of mine, is our primary guest today to talk about church planting in the inner city and before I introduce his pastoral assistant, let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, but for the first time in the

Carlisle studio, welcome Alec Millen. Chris, it is a privilege to be here, thanks for having me.

It's great to have you Alec and I can honestly say that I think it's been at least a year or two since I've laughed this hard today so it was a good time.

And joining Alec on the program today is his pastoral assistant at One City Church, Kevin Medina.

It's great to have you in the studio as well Kevin. Thank you Chris. Well first of all

Alec, before we even go into the One City Church that is a new church planting work in Lancaster, tell our listeners something in an abbreviated fashion because we actually had you on the program before to give you full -blown testimony for at least an hour about your coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ and your experiences in the

NFL and so on, but just to give us a more summarized version of that and bring us to the present day where you just recently left the

Grace Church of Willow Valley in Pennsylvania to pursue this church planning work.

But start off with your own background, your upbringing and your journey into the

NFL and your abbreviated version of your coming to Christ etc. Absolutely, well

I was raised in Georgia, the middle son of three boys and we were all athletic.

I come from, as they say down south, good stock. And humble stock.

That's right, that's right. All of us were built by God to be athletes, although when it comes to actually athleticism,

I would say that I got the short end of that stick, so I had to play offensive line on my brother. Well did any of your brothers go to the

NFL? No, but they can, you know, no they did not. So I, growing up in Atlanta, was raised in the

Roman Catholic faith. Mom was very faithful in bringing her sons to church.

Was that a rare thing in Atlanta? I don't know anything really about it. The image you get for Atlanta and the

Bible Belt is that it would be mainly non -Catholic, mainly fundamentalist, evangelical,

Pentecostal, you know Baptist. Well growing up we were, you know, if they weren't

Catholic they were Methodist or Baptist. Although I was pretty well insulated, although we had friends.

I went to Catholic elementary school, Catholic high school, and so most of the friendships that I had would have been

Roman Catholic background as well. It was when

I went to college at the University of Georgia, I was playing there, that the gospel was explained to me.

And although I rejected it for some time, interestingly it was there that some people who knew me began to pray for my conversion.

I didn't know that they were doing this. And for some time, well over a year, at least one of my teammates at the

University of Georgia, who himself has been a church planter in Boston for the last seven or eight years,

Dan Rogers, he began to pray for me daily to come to know Christ.

And though he didn't lead me to the Lord, the night I was converted in May of 1991,

I came the next morning. I woke up and truthfully I didn't know that I had been saved.

I didn't know there was a saved to be. I didn't have that kind of vocabulary at that point.

All I knew is that I wanted to know Jesus Christ. And so the next morning

I woke up and I knew something had changed. And so I called this guy who was an outspoken follower of Jesus and called him up and I said,

Dan, I need you to come and talk with me. Something happened last night. And so he came.

I shared my experience. He walked me through the gospel truths. And I said,

I believe that. I didn't believe it yesterday, but I believe it today. And so that was 25 years ago this year that God saved my soul, rescued me from his own wrath by his own mercy.

And I'm so grateful for that. After playing for another season and a half at the

University of Georgia, was drafted to play in the NFL by the New York Jets, which was a great, great privilege and had a very short

NFL career. In fact, people get, when they introduce me, they think it's something special to say that I played in the

NFL. And I'm quick to say that I actually didn't play in the NFL. I practiced. And I was too much of a liability to protect the quarterback.

So was traded from the, actually though, in God's goodness and kindness to me,

I probably would have never gone to New York, having grown up in the South. And, you know, there's these natural prejudices against New York and all this, but it was in New York that God grabbed a hold of me.

Theologically, I came to really know the Bible there. I was taught the Bible there at North Shore Baptist.

Pastor Ed Moore really discipled me. I cared for my soul and grew more than being able just to share my testimony, which of course

I had at that point, really began to teach me the word of God. So I was only there for a short time before I went to California.

And then God... You were drafted by the 49ers or traded? I was traded to the 49ers.

That's correct. I was out there for just a short time before an injury ended my career, but it was a bittersweet, that was a bitter pill because I knew my football career was over and that had been sort of the single most influential thing in my life over a long period of time.

It was wonderful because I had been sensing God's calling in my life in the ministry.

And so God released me from the NFL and I began pursuing seminary education and met my wife in seminary.

Then we moved back to New York where I was a youth pastor and then a church planter up there. And then

North Shore Baptist Church sent us out as missionaries in 2001. Actually, 9 -11 was one of my last things as a staff member of church there in New York City, cared for our congregation through that very trying time in New York before they sent us off into the mission field.

We spent 10 years in missions, much of that in East Africa doing Bible translation, as well as reaching out to Muslim communities in Tanzania.

Trying to bring the gospel there. And then God in 2010 brought us back to the States and I came on staff at a small church in Southern Lancaster County, which was a wonderful experience for us.

It grew and it was very nurturing for our family. It had a lot of tension, a lot of stress being on the mission field.

And then after a few years there, I began to sense God's call to do something in the inner city of Lancaster, which leads us to today.

Great. In fact, a side note, the very first inclination or the very first hearing that I had or learning that the terrorist attack had taken place on September 11, 2001, was when

I had my TV off, my radio off, and a sales meeting that I was supposed to be at in New Jersey had been canceled.

I flicked on my computer and I'm reading my email and Ed Moore, your former pastor, is sending out prayer requests that the people that were members of your church or family members got out of the

Twin Towers of the World Trade Center safely. And then I'm reading another email that the

Twin Towers have collapsed and we have no confirmation yet that our loved ones in the church have safely gotten out.

Please continue to pray. And I'm thinking to myself, what is he talking about? And I go over and I turn on the TV and I see the image of the

Twin Towers on fire. And the caption at the bottom says, the

Twin Towers have fallen. And I'm looking at them standing on fire, not realizing that I'm just watching older footage.

And then later found out what happened. I mean, just obviously that's anybody old enough to have been alive during that.

They're going to know exactly what was going on when they heard about it. Yeah, those were tough days, terrible, terrible days.

But the North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, from what I understand, I don't think that you lost any members though.

We did not. God was very kind to us. Many, many churches lost good people that day.

And so was it from there that you, how did this first impression before we even get to the current church plant, the first desire, the initial desire to go to the mission field, where did that come from?

Knowing that the perpetrators of this attack were Muslims, it's kind of interesting how many people might react with hatred.

You seem to be reacting with, we've got to save these people. Well, it was God's, the beginning of God's call on my life towards the mission field happened shortly after my conversion in 1992.

And what was happening is I had literally just been drafted into the NFL. And it was,

I think, within four weeks, I was still in Athens, Georgia. I was at a church there in Beach Haven Baptist Church there in Athens and sitting on the back row.

And there was a lady who was sharing her story. She was, she had been a missionary. She was just your little old lady missionary.

And she said something I'll never forget. She said, there are people who will live out their lives and they will die and they will stand before God and will be judged to an eternal hell.

And they have never rejected Jesus Christ. And as a young believer, that sounded quite provocative and didn't sound quite right.

And then she followed it up very quickly and said, they've never heard about Jesus in order to reject him.

And I remember my heart pounding out of my chest, thinking this

Jesus who has rescued me and who is completely revolutionizing my life.

There are people who have never heard of him. That was just astounding thought to me. And so I, it was, it was as powerful as the day that I was converted, almost as powerful.

And I just knew that I knew that I knew that God was calling me to be a missionary. Actually, this is a story for another day because it would take way too long.

But I actually went home two days later and told my parents who, we of course thrilled that I was getting ready to go play in the

NFL, but I went home and told them that I would not be playing in the NFL, that I was going to Africa to be a missionary. And they just thought

I had lost my mind. But anyway, I did wind up playing for a season in the

NFL before God eventually released me to go to the mission field. So 9 -11 was not a deterrent towards that.

In my, the way I view things, until you know Christ, you're a slave to sin.

And sin will lead some people to do one thing and others to do something else, but everybody needs

Christ. And so my heart and my experience has led me to believe that the vast majority of Muslims have never heard enough about the gospel to know what it means to be saved and to believe in Christ.

But there's a great movement in the Muslim world of people coming to know

Christ these days. So praise God for that. Amen. Yeah, I keep hearing reports of that from my friend David Wood, who is an apologist, who's basically his emphasis is reaching out to the

Muslim community. He has read the Quran many times over, is extremely familiar with it.

And I hear reports from him about Muslims in other parts of the world coming to Christ.

And of course, my friend, Dr. James R. White, who I've actually orchestrated debates between him and Muslims.

And he has done many more other than the ones I have orchestrated. I orchestrated his very first debate with a

Muslim, with Hamza Abdul Malik, who was a, he called himself a Christian convert to Islam, but I think he was more from a nominal type of a

Christian upbringing. But that was James's first debate at the, what was then called the

Bible Baptist Church of Syos at Long Island. David Leverence, or Richard Leverence, I think his name was, was the pastor, and who was actually on staff at Charles Stanley's church years ago, was the token

Calvinist in the church. And that was during a time when

James White knew very little about Islam, so he defended the deity of Christ in that debate.

And now he's become one of the foremost Christian experts on Islam on the globe.

Of course, he would probably never describe himself that way, but it's just a fact he is. Well, I know we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about this now, but one thing

I would like to just encourage is that the church globally needs to be praying for the

Muslim world, and we need to be praying for God, and not just simple prayers, but on your knees begging

God to reveal himself through the gospel and raising up laborers to go to this mission field, because it is white on the harvest.

So we are now at the point, let me first give our email address. ChrisArnson at gmail .com is our email address if you'd like to send us a question for Alec Millen or his pastoral assistant

Kevin Medina. And that's ChrisArnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. If you live outside the

USA, you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable due to any particular circumstance that may be involved in your question that either requires that you remain anonymous, or just makes you feel more comfortable.

Perhaps you're bringing up something in your own church, and obviously we would rather you don't bring up anything negative about your own congregation publicly.

So we respect your request to be anonymous if that's the case.

You are serving at the church that you mentioned before, Grace Church in Willow Valley, and when did it come to your mind that I think that it's time for me to pursue a church planning work in the inner city of Lancaster?

It was about three years ago that I approached our senior pastor and associate pastor there,

John Smith is our senior pastor in O 'Reilly, and told them that I was sensing that God's call was to move into leading a church and towards planting.

And so they almost immediately sensed that this was something to pursue, and so they asked me to do some demographic studies on where.

Because Lancaster, many people who visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania would say, why do you need another church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?

There's all kinds of churches in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. But I would say that if you look in the inner city of Lancaster, it has, even though it's only 60 ,000 people, the population, it has all the same issues and good stuff about a city that you would find even in New York or Philadelphia or Boston.

And so we began to do a demographic study, and we were looking for churches that were preaching the gospel.

And as we looked, if you cut the city of Lancaster in quadrants, the northeast quadrant of Lancaster city, we just saw there was just really a dearth of churches that were not, there are very few churches that were preaching the gospel.

And not that there were none, but for 12 ,000 people who live in that area, there was just a handful of churches that were proclaiming the gospel.

So we said, well, let's investigate whether there's a need there. And what we found is that it's also the most diverse ethnically as well as socioeconomically area of Lancaster city.

And so it became clear to me, at least, that this is where there would be a good opportunity to plant a church, but not just a church.

We really want a church that will reflect the kingdom of God and the multi -ethnic family that God is putting together.

And so why not do it in a place that is the most diverse land in all of Lancaster county, right there in the northeast quadrant.

And I had a lesson that I learned about Lancaster that I originally thought whenever I heard of Lancaster that it was really just a lot of plush rolling farmland and Amish people riding around on horse and buggy.

And I had been to sight and sound theater also, but I did see a lot of Amish folk around there, but I did not know of the more urban aspect of Lancaster.

And by the way, had a phenomenal lunch today at a Puerto Rican restaurant. What was the name of that place?

El Sabor Latino. Say that again. El Sabor Latino. I'll take your word for it.

I know the second part's Latino. What does that mean? The Latin flavor. Oh, okay.

That was really phenomenal. And by the way, that was Kevin Medina, the pastoral assistant that I introduced earlier. But, and now you've also added to your ministerial team,

Kevin Medina, who I just asked about the restaurant, pastoral assistant at One City Church.

Tell us how you came to meet Alec and what exactly your function is there at the

One City Church. Well, thank you, Chris. My senior year of college at Lancaster Bible College, one of my classmates, his name is

Adam Swift. He was in my pastoral care class and he said, while I was working, he was sitting with Alec in the dining hall, cafeteria of the school.

And he said, hey, Kevin, I want you to meet this guy. He's starting a church in downtown Lancaster, multicultural, check it out.

Like, sure. And so we connected and he's like, um,

I really liked the vision of the church. I was, um, my, my wife and I, at that time, my fiance, we got really close to, to Alec and his family.

And even for decision makings in, in our lives, we, we saw them as mentors and it was such an encouraging time in my,

I've, I've, I was married. I got married about eight months ago. Yeah. So even during this season of life, the one of a lot of hard stuff have come, but we have had

Alec and his family supporting us. And in June he said, hey, uh,

I want you to be part of the team. Um, so I was like,

I thought it was already. Um, so one of my roles over there is, um,

I, I help with the youth ministry and like the youth ministries has been an encouraging time.

It is funny to see that the only white people is Alec's daughter. Then you have

Hispanic. We have a kid that he doesn't know how to speak English. Actually it just been three months here in Lancaster.

We recently just got two Asian kids. Um, then most of them are

Hispanic. Uh, the majority of him, of them, they live with whether, uh, one parent or with their uncles, with their grandma, grandparents.

So it is amazing to see them. I, every, every Thursday, uh, in the inner city ministry, if I sit, if I come there and I sit down and I say, all right,

I'm waiting for the kids to come. They don't come. So I walk around them. I go pick them up.

I'm like, Hey man, are you coming today? Oh yeah, sure. Sure. So let's go look for this guy now.

Hey, are you coming today? So it's just been an awesome time in the past four weeks. We have grew to about 20 kids.

Wow. And yeah, we've been meeting for one month. We didn't know any of these kids, uh, five weeks ago.

And now there's about 20 kids who've already connected. Yeah. Wow. Yes. And it's incredible, you know, cause a lot of the parents, they don't even know what, what their kids are doing and they don't have to be there, but they come.

And that is just amazing. Um, I've gone to some of their soccer games and another, and it's just incredible to see what, what

God is doing among the teenagers there. Some of them, they, they have no clue about the gospel.

Um, about two weeks ago or three weeks ago, we, my wife and I took this 11 year old girl to sight and sound to see

Samson. It was her first time hearing about Samson. Never heard about Samson in her life.

11 years old. I was, I was shocked, you know? Um, but it was so encouraging and we were able to share the gospel with her.

Um, another role that I have, I build relationship with the community. I get to talk to a lot of Hispanic people.

Um, and on a Sunday morning, if there is Hispanic people that come,

I translate the sermon for them live. And I, I, I also oversee children's ministry.

And Kevin basically does everything. And, uh, yeah, he's, he's a busy guy, but he's, he's young and he doesn't have kids yet.

So we're gonna, we're gonna burn him out. And, uh, we're going to go into a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsonatgmail .com chrisarnsonatgmail .com.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with pastor Alec Millen and pastoral assistant Kevin Medina of One City Church in Lancaster, right after these messages.

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That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is

Alec Millen, who is the pastor of One City Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he is also joined by Kevin Medina, a pastoral assistant at One City Church.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

and we do have a listener who is the headmaster of Grace Christian Academy in Merrick, Long Island, New York, Steve Schultz.

I usually don't give last names out, but I will make an exception with someone like Steve who is operating a wonderful and a very important ministry out there.

He says, Hi Chris, please give Alec a big hug for me, and he says, Here's my question.

Knowing that there are quite often many physical needs in the inner city, what do you do strategically to meet those needs while preventing them from becoming central issues?

Well Steve, I refuse to allow Chris to give me a hug. But that's a great question.

I think that the thing I would say first is that you maintain that one thing and one thing only will be the center of the ministry, and that is the proclamation of the gospel of the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth, who lived a perfect life, died a propitiatory death as a substitute on behalf of God's elect, was buried, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to heaven, and is seated at the right hand until he comes again.

I think if you commit that that will be your center and nothing will take its place, then when the pull of ministry, and there are plenty of ministry opportunities, comes upon you, and it doesn't just have to be material needs, it can sometimes be just the volume of, for instance, we have a young congregation at One City Church and a lot of people getting married, a lot of people having issues coming through, some of the early struggles of owning their faith once they've left their home, and starting families, all those kind of things can vie for your attention.

So we're committed to keeping the preaching of God's Word central in what we do.

Now, when those opportunities present themselves, we evaluate them, and one thing that we do at One City Church is we believe that the spread of the gospel happens best when

God's people take that message, which is so important to them, and spread it in their day -to -day life.

And so we don't want to be, we are, in fact, if you came to our church, you would say, boy, you're really light programmatically.

We want our time together to be worshipful, that we spend enough time in one another's presence that we can know each other and fellowship with one another, but we don't have a lot of extra programs, and that's intentional because we want our people out there sharing the gospel, sharing the faith where they spend 90 % of their time.

And periodically we'll find, have an opportunity presented to us that we feel like God really would want us to engage in.

Now, we're a church plant. We're very young. We're not 100 people yet, so resources, manpower, we don't have a whole lot of that, so we have to pick and choose wisely.

One of the things that we felt like God would have us to do, meeting kind of,

I think, along the lines of what you're talking about, is there is a ministry, faith -based ministry,

Christian ministry in Lancaster called the Way Recovery Houses, and it is helping people fight through the addiction, their addictions, most of the the men.

So they have these homes in Lancaster City that once people have come out of detox, they will go into, and they look for churches, gospel preaching churches, that will adopt a home, and the men who live in those homes will come and be part of the church that has adopted them.

Now, there's six guys who live in the house that we've adopted. Some of them are Christians, some of them are not, but they're all welcome.

We speak openly, but we feel like that is an important thing for the church to be a part of.

We realize that these guys have unique needs. They're not the only ones who have needs, but they have unique needs coming out of an addiction lifestyle, and so we felt like that's something

God wanted us to do as a church. But even in that, it's always the proclamation of the gospel that we keep central, and I guess, you know,

Kevin, wouldn't you say that we sort of evaluate what we're doing, and I think if we got off balance, we have one another as well as our other elder who we would speak and say, hey, you know, we got to make sure we're not focusing too much.

How would you answer that question? Yeah, I think so. Like a couple of times a month ago, you had the opportunity to, hey, what do you think if we do this?

I think it was like internship or practicum and talking about and say, hey, let's not.

That requires a lot of time and trying to be wise into should we proceed into doing that, and we realized that right now in the first stages is not the wisest thing to do, though it sounds really good, you know, and just trying to like be wise into not getting into too much just because you want to be a church planter.

Correct. Yeah, and I also think like there's an opportunity for us to do like a food pantry kind of ministry, and that would be wonderful.

I mean, there are ways to set up a food pantry that would not be a huge financial burden for us as a church.

However, if that's going to happen, that needs to grow organically out of the heart of someone who's a member of One City Church who feels that this is

God's calling in their life. We would support them. We would try to resource and network them with others who have that same heart, but we don't want it to come programmatically kind of top down if that's the ministry that God's called, and we would also encourage if someone were to do something like that, don't be just handing out food.

Make sure that the gospel is preached during those times when people come, because who knows, that might be the time when someone comes to saving faith in Jesus.

Amen, and wouldn't you also say, perhaps I take a little bit of exception to the phraseology

Steve used, because wouldn't you say that according to James, meeting the physical needs of people are central issues, but they're not the gospel?

I mean, they are important because without them, your faith is dead. That's the way...

It adorns the gospel, sure. When Christians live exceptional lives of service with expecting nothing in return,

I think we reflect the heart of God and know what are we giving

God in return to God for all that He's taken from us, all of our shame, all of our guilt.

We return with thanksgiving, and so when we can do that to others who have nothing to offer in return,

I think that glorifies God, and certainly I know Steve, that's his heart as well. And by the way, let me give a plug to Grace Christian Academy.

Their website is gca, for Grace Christian Academy, li, for longisland .com.

gcali .com. Thanks a lot Steve, and keep up the good work there in Merrick at Grace Christian Academy.

Yeah, I had the pleasure of meeting the pastors at Manor Community Church.

I don't know if you're familiar with that church, Alican. They're in New York City in the Greenwich Village area, and they have a soup kitchen, but they do preach the gospel to these people, and I heard the story of a

Wiccan witch who was also a transsexual who was recommending this soup kitchen at Manor Community Church to those involved in homosexual activity in New York City, and one of those very individuals who was recommended to go to this soup kitchen was later asked by the

Wiccan witch, so did you go to the soup kitchen? He said yes, and I believe what they're saying is true.

I am a Christian now. And he was urging the Wiccan witch to go there for much more than food, and so hopefully that Wiccan witch will eventually come to the saving grace of Christ.

Don't you think that we sometimes, through our own pride and the self -righteousness that we all unconsciously have in some measure, we look at somebody like that and we say there's no way that person is ever going to get saved, and yet when you say things like that, you're actually saying

God cannot do something. Right. Well, Chris, going back to my own testimony,

I told you about Dan, my teammate, who prayed for me for over a year. The reason that he prayed for me over that year is because prior to that, he had been trying to witness to our teammates at the

University of Georgia, those that he knew were lost, like myself, and nobody was interested, and so he talked to the team chaplain and said, what do we do about this?

No one is interested in the gospel, and so the team chaplain, whose name was Ray, encouraged him to make a list of the 10 guys that you will commit to praying for daily, and I want you, instead of choosing the ones you think, they're almost there, they're almost in the camp,

I want you to make a list of 10 people who you think there is not a snowball's chance in hell of getting saved, and let's start praying for them and see what

God does, and you know who was number one on that list? You. I was. I was the first person who came to his mind, like this guy is never getting saved, and he prayed for me every day for over a year, and God, he didn't lead me to Christ, but he was the first, and I called him the day after God converted me.

I called him because he was the only person that I knew, so not that I've always lived with this reality or realization, but if God can save me from the background that he did save me, he can save anybody.

I believe that. We have a listener from Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, Tyler, who asks, would the greatest example in the

New Testament of church planting be the ministry of the Apostle Paul? Is that for me or for you?

Well, all of the questions are for my guests. My listeners have already learned a long time ago that I'm a stupid guy with a good radio voice and smart friends.

Hey Tyler, I would say that the Apostle Paul is a great model.

Certainly, he had some advantages being a single man without some of the things that come with a family.

He was able to move freely. He also was an extremely learned man.

He understood culture. He understood how to cross cultures, to speak into those, to look for those entry points that every culture has.

So, I would say, yes, the Apostle Paul is probably the model, but I would say the greatest model was the one who said he will build the church.

That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who does it. He's the one who did it for Paul. He's the one who will do it for One City Church.

All around the world, it is Christ who's building his church. Of course, what do we take from the

Lord Jesus? We take humility. Of course, we take the message of his salvation that he secured at Calvary and when he rose from the dead.

But his humility, his meekness, sometimes his just in -your -face boldness at times, ministry calls for that.

But oftentimes, it is just the meekness and the love of Christ for the unlovely, those people who are convinced that God would never have anything to do with them.

That's who Jesus goes after. Of course, once you realize doctrine, you realize it is the

Spirit of God that produces that meekness within a person who becomes a seeker. So, I think, study the

Gospels, study the Book of Acts, and the Apostle Paul would be certainly a great model.

Thanks a lot, Tyler. The Apostle Paul, don't you think, smacks at our, or militates against our presuppositions that we normally have when we wrongly think the only people that I'm going to be of any use to in the

Kingdom of God, as far as evangelism and bringing the Gospel to them, are people who are just like me.

And you have a lot of churches who model their evangelistic programs and structure regarding, we'll have the black folks evangelize the blacks in the community, the

Hispanic folks minister to the Hispanics in the community. And I understand that sometimes there's a language reason, but there are other reasons that I think are fallacious, where you have the

Apostle Paul, you would think, Saul of Tarsus, the fire -breathing Pharisee who was having men and women round up to be executed for their faith in Christ, he gets saved, and you would think, well, the logical thing to do is this guy's going to be the

Apostle to the Jews, to bring the Jews primarily to saving faith or to be used as an evangelist to them.

And although Paul did preach to Jews, he was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Yeah, well, you know, in the book of Ephesians, that cultural tension between Jew and Gentile is addressed there.

And it's the reason we chose the name for our church, One City Church, is you see Paul's addressing this tension in chapter four of Ephesians, where he says, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called into the one hope that belongs to one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

He is hammering these guys to say, it's not a Jewish church, it's not a

Gentile church, we are one body of Christ. And Kevin and I are passionate about this.

We don't see each other in categories, we see each other as brothers in Christ.

Kevin's from Honduras, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. We live and we have intentionally planted in a neighborhood where there's

Asians and blacks and people from Muslim backgrounds and Catholic backgrounds and atheistic backgrounds and rich people and poor people.

And it's like, we believe when God saves and converts, He puts us into one family. And so we want to be reflective of that.

And I think that you have to fight for that though, because we are in a day when it's, you know, once you want to blame it on, we divide over the most simple things.

And so we're intentional to fight for that unity that Christ purchased.

And by the way, since you mentioned Honduras, I just found out before the show started from one of my guests here,

Kevin, that you have a friend in Honduras who listens to Iron Sharpens Iron.

Yeah, he just told me today, like, man, I listened to that podcast. Oh, wow. That's something.

Well, what's his name? Henry. Henry. Hey, here's a shout out to Henry in Honduras. Keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron.

And we hope that you actually chime in occasionally with questions for our guests.

In fact, Henry, if you send me your email address, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

I can send you emails notifying you ahead of time about the guests and topics that we have.

Hector, sorry, I said Henry. Well, that's the Spanish version. No, it's Hector. I said

Henry. That's a good friend. Oh, that's not, but that's not a Spanish version of Henry?

No. Oh, it's not. Okay. Well, somebody named Henry in Honduras immediately perked up because he heard that somebody knew about him listening to Iron Sharpens Iron, and he didn't even know that they were aware of that fact.

And now he's being ordered to leave his home and horrible things are happening. But Hector, thanks for listening to Iron Sharpens Iron.

So I'm sure that one of the things that planting a church involves is overcoming frustration and impatience when you have to deal with sometimes waiting to see fruit from your labors, and it may take a while and all kinds of things like that.

Just speak a bit about, because of the fact that I know that you believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, that doesn't that give you an extra measure of patience?

Well, I believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and that certainly helps, but I am a sinner who is saved by sovereign grace, and that sinner part of me still holds too much sway in my life.

So I thank God that Christ's work on my behalf is what

God accepts, but I wish I had more patience. I guess that's what

I'm trying to say. Planting a church, this is the second church that I've been involved in the church plant.

The first one was in New York City, in Richmond Hill. On the Brooklyn -Queens border.

I would say that that one required more patience for me.

I'm not exactly sure why this one. We're just sensing a season of God's blessing from the start.

It's been amazing. Like Kevin had mentioned earlier, the teenagers who are coming.

I think because we have intentionally positioned ourselves as a doctrines of grace preaching church, we preach expositional sermons.

We're going through the gospel of John right now. We're just explaining what the

Bible says. I think there's a movement of people who want that, and so they're seeking that.

I'm not sure whether that's through the gospel coalition or Acts 29 or whatnot, where people who are more persuaded towards reform, they're looking for that.

So we have sensed that, but certainly there's challenges.

We don't have a building that we own. We've already had to move because we were renting space and it just was no longer conducive.

The Lord is good, and we're also trying to construct a ministry where it's not dependent upon a building long -term.

We'll take what God gives us. Right now, he's given us something really sweet, and we want to use it for his glory.

What I have found, Chris, and I think you know this as well, is that when you preach of God's sovereignty, it just stirs the heart of believers.

Now, at first, when people are confronted with the absolute sovereignty of God, when you're first exposed to that, it kind of kicks against your self -righteous and your pride and that sense of,

I must have done something in this, or what about those who aren't? All those questions come up, but once you see it in the and then you begin to build your worldview around, boy,

God is sovereign, it just lays waste to when trials come, you can really trust him.

God doesn't protect you from trials when you believe this stuff, but he sure does give you an anchor when you realize he may be in control, and through his sovereignty, he's allowed this intense suffering, but it is nowhere near as bad as being under his wrath and judgment.

He loves me unconditionally. He proved that at the cross. One thing that's encouraged me over the years,

I was saved in the mid-'80s, and I can recall for quite a number of years when going to Bible conferences that were theologically reformed in their emphasis, the audience would very much resemble perhaps the dining area at a

WASP -y yacht club where the only variance in appearance was white, off -white, and lily -white as far as the complexion, and since then,

I can tell you it's such a joy to see so many people of all different races who have been coming to the doctrines of grace and meeting more and more pastors who are

African -American and Hispanic who are on fire for these things, and Kevin, in your journey, when did you first discover these truths and embrace them?

Well, Chris, I come from a third -world country, Honduras, and the church

I came from was very prosperity, gospel -driven, Pentecostal. They taught you how to speak in tongues.

This is where you were raised in that religion? Yeah, yeah, I was raised in that, and so they would tell me, just open your mouth and let whatever comes.

So I was raised in that, and when I had the opportunity to come to the United States and God opened the doors for me to go to LBC, I was challenged with the doctrine.

Lancaster Bible College. Yeah. At Lancaster Bible College, I was challenged with the doctrine of grace.

My professors would sit with me, and actually, my wife, she's probably listening right now.

I love her, by the way. You're not getting ready to throw your wife under the bus, are you?

No, no. Okay, never a good idea. She always tells this story. When we were dating, she said that one time

I told her that she was probably not saved because she didn't speak in tongues. That's how far

I was. Wow, because that's not even a common thought in prosperity gospel, is it?

Yeah, it's... Isn't that more of a oneness Pentecostal? It is mostly Pentecostal charismatic, but it goes to the fact that I think that what

I told her was, I don't think you're fully there. I think you need more, and there's the baptism of the

Holy Spirit that comes subsequent, which I don't believe that anymore. But throughout

Lancaster Bible College, my years, I was challenging while I was reading the Word of God, and just God opened my eyes, and I was like, wow, it just felt such a relief.

So when he says that, in the aspect that the view that I had of God was of a

God that he was sitting over there in the sky, mean God, who erased me of the book, write me again, erased me from the book, write me again.

So having the confidence and the freedom and knowing, man, I sinned, but I know that I'm not losing my salvation, and whether God is working through me or in me, and it is such a freedom.

So there are some on the faculty at Lancaster Bible College who believe in the doctrines of grace? Oh yeah, a lot, most of them.

Really? Most of them, yeah. Praise God. We are going to another station break, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Alec Millen and Kevin Medina, pastoral assistant of One City Church in Lancaster.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and may I have a drum roll, please, because I'm about to read my very first email from a listener in Honduras.

Hector writes, Hi, Chris. My name is Hector from Honduras, not

Henry. Some time ago, found your podcast through a post from Solid Ground Christian Books.

I love reading, and I was looking for some sound doctrinal books to purchase.

It has been a blessing for me to learn from you and from your ministry. I once saw in YouTube a

James White debate that you introduced. I think I know what he's talking about. Probably the baptism debate with Bill Shishko and James White.

In Honduras, we are just waking up to the doctrines of grace. As Kevin said in your program, there is a lot of prosperity gospel churches in Latin America.

I thank the Lord that now, thanks to internet, we can have all these resources available to us.

May the Lord bless you always in your ministry. Your brother in Christ, Hector. Thank you so much, Hector. That was very encouraging for you to take the time to respond to my discussion about you.

Glad you were listening. Yeah. He brings up an interesting point. You were going to say something.

Yeah. I think next week, one of the leaders from his church is coming here.

I was talking to Hector, and it is a fantastic story about my brother. My brother never believed in the doctrines of grace.

I was praying, crying out to God, like, God, open the doors for a church, a Bible -believing church in Honduras.

I started a gospel coalition, and I found one church in the biggest city in Honduras, where I live, one church that is part of this.

So I said, Samuel, you should go check out this church. And he went, and he came back and said, man, I never heard the gospel that way.

And he now has been going to that church, growing, and taking my younger brother. So they've been growing.

And he was saying, hey, man, I love reading. And with Alec, we were talking. I said, hey, how about we send some books there?

Because he was telling me that if you go to a Christian bookstore, you'll find Joe Austin, Benny Hinn, Joyce Mayers.

Those are big books. If you find the Nine Marks, they cost twice as much.

Really? Yeah. So we were going to send a couple of books to them from the Nine Marks, from the gospel coalition, which is just a blessing.

Oh, praise God. And this affinity that seems to be present with those in the

Spanish -speaking countries and the prosperity gospel, the thing that strikes me as odd is, can that last long when people who are in poverty?

Now, I'm not making a broad -brush stereotypical statement that everybody in Spanish -speaking countries are in poverty, but obviously, there are a lot of them.

And there would be, I would imagine, after a number of years, if not decades, of seeing that this prosperity gospel isn't proving to be true because very few are becoming financially prosperous, do you see any kind of a backlash from that?

I mean, is that one of the reasons why perhaps people are beginning to be involved in an exodus out of that movement into sounder doctrine?

Yeah, I think that one of the things that's happening mostly in Honduras and Latino countries is that they're starting to wake up.

And I think there's a Reformed Baptist pastor, his name is Miguel Nunez. He put it in a really cool perspective.

He said, we look at a time -wise right now, we're at 5 a .m., in which people are starting to see the harm that prosperity gospel is bringing.

We're not at noon yet. We're wide open, and it's bright. And we're not at 6 p .m.,

where it is completely Reformed. But people are starting to wake up. The hard part is that they're realizing, and I'm sharing with my dad is saying, whose fault is that?

You're praying to God that you want more money and more of this and more of this, but it doesn't happen.

So does it happen because you're in sin? Or why does it happen?

I tell him, hey, we as Christians, suffering, it's going to happen.

And to live in that is a joy. Alec was saying that though we are suffering, we praise

God that we're not going to hell. And the prosperity gospel that says, you give a dollar, and you're going to have $10.

What if that doesn't happen? What if that $10 doesn't happen? They don't see it.

For me, giving, it's an act of just like, God, I trust you. This is yours.

I give you everything I have. I give you what I have. And sometimes I know that next day something happens.

But sometimes God bless me through health. Sometimes God helps me through someone blessing me, encouraging me.

So it is not always monetary. And that's the problem with the prosperity gospel,

I think. One of the things that I see about the prosperity gospel is the way that it's formulated. It has a get out of jail free card built into it.

Is that if it doesn't work for someone, then the blame falls on the individual, not on the message of the preacher.

And so all of a sudden, well, I didn't get $10. I gave a dollar. I didn't get $10.

Well, that's because you didn't believe. So it's an introspective thing where the preacher gets off the hook.

It's guilt laden. It's completely antithetical to the gospel because one, it doesn't make

Christ the treasure, the pearl of great price. But it also doesn't, there's no freedom in that.

There's no sense of deliverance and being in the grace of God. If there is an upside, it stresses, even though it's misplaced,

I think it stresses the fact that God does respond when we act in obedience because of our faith.

And so I think that's something that the Bible certainly commands us to, but it puts this wicked twist on it where it's exalting the gifts of God rather than God himself as the final treasure that we're supposed to pursue.

So people are running from the church in Honduras. When I told my family, my secular family, that I'm going to school to be a pastor, the first thing they told me was, oh, so you're going to be rich?

Because that's the view that they have of a pastor. Wow. It's kind of ironic that people who claim to be

Bible believers, and one of the most often quoted verses in all of the

Bible that even secularists and unbelievers and non -Christians, even though they misquote it usually, it's still a main idea is still coming through in the misquoting.

But the love of all money, I mean, sorry, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

And that really does manifest itself very vividly and clearly in the

Word of Faith prosperity gospel movement because the love of money seems to be driving them more than anything that involves,

I mean, I've heard a lot of prosperity gospel preachers, and there is nothing that I hear about sin and repentance, about the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

And if it is spoken of, it's certainly a minority of the times that it's spoken about.

I mean, it's deplorable. But I'm assuming that Honduras, where you're from, is predominantly

Roman Catholic. I'm assuming that. Well, if you go to Google, you put Honduras, it's going to probably say 55 %

Catholic, 45 % Protestant. But the second you start, when you see that Protestant, if you start looking into that, it's probably like 1 % sovereign grace

Protestant. And then the other one, prosperity gospel, very Pentecostal charismatic.

And that's why when we think about going to, that's why my heart is to go back to Honduras and help leaders to do expositional preaching and do an exegetical preaching.

Yeah, that actually surprised me, though, that even Protestantism in general would be that high a percentage.

But it's interesting, though, that although that many people may scratch their head and wonder why

I'm saying this, because on its surface, what I'm about to say may sound like it's not true, but I think that there is a lot of commonality between Roman Catholicism and the abuses of the

Pentecostal and charismatic movement. And I want to make it clear that I'm not broad brushing those movements.

I have dear friends who are very sound in many ways, and I have minor disagreements with them, who are even

Pentecostal pastors and charismatic pastors, so I'm not broad brushing them all. But the whole earthliness, the sensuality of it, and I'm not speaking in sexual terms,

I'm talking about things that appeal to the senses. There's so much commonality when you have people who, on one hand, the

Roman Catholic wants the smells and the bells and the religiosity that appeals to the physical senses, and then on the

Pentecostal side, the excited modes of worship where there's lots of dancing and jumping up and down, and you are only in the spirit if you have a big smile on your face and your hands are waving in the air.

And even the miraculous, where Roman Catholics might be more stuck in the past with their focus on miracles of the alleged miracles of saints and so on, and even what they would call the miracle that takes place in the mass, which

I believe is an idolatrous lie. But then you have, obviously, Pentecostals and charismatic having more of the present -day miraculous as their focus.

But there is a lot of similarity there. And not just that, Chris. Think about this. When I started looking into Sovereign Grace, what led to me wasn't to dig into Scripture, learning about Scripture, but what

Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel does is that a lot of the people are not well -educated, and they don't want to be educated.

They want to hear to the pastor, and they put the pastor in a higher place of spirituality.

The pastor is in a way higher place. He's a holy man, and we ought to listen to him, and what he says is truth.

And whether it says something different in the Bible, I think that because he's such a holy man,

I think what he says is true. So does that compare to the Pope? Right, right. I understand what you're saying.

Although there obviously is a high value that elders and overseers have in the

Scriptures, and that they are worthy of double honor and so on. Those who teach the

Word. Right, right, exactly. But Paul commended the

Bereans who were even questioning him. And he didn't say, I'm an apostle, pal.

I mean, are you kidding me? You're questioning me? Of all of the epistles Paul wrote, the

Thessalonians got the most commendation, but Luke says that Paul considered the

Bereans more noble than even the Thessalonians, because they checked it out. Was the stuff he's saying, did it line up with Scripture?

And I think that's one of the things that I see the similarities between Roman Catholicism and the

Pentecostal movements, is that the Scripture doesn't dictate what is ultimately done and believed and adhered to.

It is experiential. And then the priesthood of the believer, which was, of course, a tenant of the

Reformation, you know, priesthood of all the believers, and that kind of equal standing that we have before God, that obviously is not being reflected in the same way that the

Roman Catholic Church has that hierarchy. Now, there's a thing called urban flight that has been going on for many decades, where people fled the inner city areas to the suburbs.

Do you see a positive reverse of that in regards to Christians going back into the inner city with the gospel?

I do. I see what I'm seeing these days is that particularly the younger generation, they have a connection.

What comes with the city comes a culture. There is a multi -ethnic that adds a flavor to just the experience of life that younger people are seeing.

So we're seeing younger people move in. And we're also seeing older people moving into Lancaster City as well.

So it's sort of, they fly out when they wanna raise their kids.

So I think that has to do sometimes with the school systems and maybe with some of the influences.

They wanna protect their kids from, but so there's this weird in and then out and then back in when they get older because Lancaster City has a great artistic flair to it.

And so a lot of people are coming back in. There's a desire to see businesses started and different movements coming in.

So we wanna capitalize on that. Actually, we're doing something next week where we're reaching out to the artistic community seeking to, and we're bringing in this gentleman who's a musician from Denver, Colorado.

And he's gonna be doing a talk next Thursday night on the art and the gospel and how a true understanding of God and what he's done for us in Christ, how that ought to inspire creativity from the church.

And we're hoping that we can engage with the artistic community who sort of held the church off at arm's length and saying, hey, there's something there for you, but we wanna get close enough that they can feel that.

And having said that, that you are having events like that being all things to all men and so on, isn't there also obviously the danger that has manifested itself in the seeker sensitive movement and other things where some church is trying to appeal to the liberal nature of the urban areas, the fact that Christians are perhaps in a tiny minority and perhaps what starts as a right desire to draw people to experience

Christian worship and hear the gospel, they are changing what God has ordained as a biblical way of worship and they're even altering the gospel itself to make it more palatable to either non -Christian listeners, anti -Christian listeners, or those of even in the other direction, when we think of the city, sometimes we're thinking of the impoverished areas, but you have some of the sophisticated urbanites who are appealed to by some of these seeker sensitive churches that they're all about the arts and things like that, but they really do not want to offend those coming by really being open and honest and clear about what the gospel is and the demands of repentance.

Well, I certainly think that could be a possibility, but we hold each other accountable to keep the gospel clear.

Just because it's a possibility doesn't mean I don't think you go there, I think, and seeking to be all things to all people.

That sense of accountability, I think Paul had built into his own community. Some scholars say that Paul had upwards of 20 guys that were kind of in and out of his life.

He'd send them on missions and they were kind of this band of brothers and so we're working with guys and we hold the central tenets that we believe the same things.

So I think if any one of us got off balance theologically or starting to water things down, we would certainly call each other on the carpet.

In fact, Kevin, I'm telling you, if I ever stop preaching the gospel, call me out on it. And yet,

Chris, I believe that the church exists primarily to bring glory to God in the propagation of the gospel.

We will worship better in heaven. We will fellowship better in heaven. What we won't do better in heaven is a witness to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, to those who need it.

And so I think we're here, we're in Lancaster and our mission statement is that every man, woman, we exist so that every man, woman, and child in Lancaster City has the opportunity on repeated opportunities to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ clearly enough that they can say yes or no.

We can't create within them the desire to say yes or no.

But we are responsible, I think, to get the gospel to every man, woman, and child.

Now, church our size, we can't do that. So we wanna partner with like -minded other believers to do that.

And so if our city or our community has artists, then we gotta figure out how do we get the gospel to the artists?

If they're prostitutes, how do we get it to the prostitutes? If they're heroin addicts, how do we get it to the heroin addicts?

If it's businessmen, if it's housewives, if it's

Spanish, Hindu, if it's Syrian refugees, how do we get the gospel there? That's why

God has us where we are. And that's true of every church, I believe. It's one of the things that I have admired about North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, where you, at least in New York, where you started, is their desire to plant churches.

And there are many churches or church leaders that I think are overly consumed with that specific congregation growing and growing and growing and then requiring a fundraising project to buy a bigger piece of property and erect a much larger building.

Now, I'm not saying that that is always wrong or anything like that, but do you think that that can be an improper tendency to a lot of churches and their thought patterns rather than planting other churches where they can be adequately under the oversight of elders and so on?

I mean, there's only so much that even a plurality of elders can do in regard to overseeing congregations.

Hundreds and thousands of people. Right, right, right. Correct. Yeah, I definitely believe that.

I have never had a desire to be a pastor of a big church. Just as a member of a church,

I want my pastor to know all of my kids' names, to know where they go to school, to be able to pray for them.

And that's the kind of pastor that I want to be. And so our desire at One City Church would never be to grow to something massive.

And it's one of the reasons that I'm so thankful we have a relationship with Lancaster Bible College because there are men there, young men who are preparing for ministry.

And if God were to raise some up, they were theologically aligned with us. So we'd want to give them opportunities to learn to preach, to learn to counsel, to learn to shepherd.

And then if God's calling them, we'd plant a church 13 blocks away. I mean, because that's a whole...

You can go 13 blocks and there's another 10 ,000 people there and then go another 13 blocks and then maybe send someone to Philadelphia, maybe send someone down to Baltimore and encourage families within our church who maybe have the mobility to be able to do that, to go with them and support that man as he's starting his ministry off.

So yeah, I feel like I've never really believed that building a gym or enhancing your kitchen at the church ultimately grows the church deep or really even wide.

I've never really seen that happen. What I have seen is I've seen it cause problems and divisions. And so we feel like why jump in that mix?

And what would be some of your specific prayer requests that you have for our listeners regarding One City Church?

Kevin, why don't you start off with that? Maybe some of the things that's going on with the teenagers.

Pray for teenagers right now. Mostly wisdom for me in this case cause we just recently got kids that came that are from between fourth grade and sixth grade.

And then my heart was like, try to build a youth group from seventh grade to senior.

And those kids come and I'm like, well, now we gotta raise someone who could teach those kids cause I don't want the older kids to leave, but I don't want the younger kids to leave as well.

So pray for wisdom in my life for that and pray for people who come in and help us with this.

I'd also pray, ask for with the teenagers that there's really just a lack of understanding of anything biblically based.

And so obviously without that foundation, there's a moral lapse or something that doesn't exist.

So pray that we could capture the hearts of these teens before they make some catastrophic decisions.

Kevin's actually using a curriculum in teaching these teenagers that we use among Muslims in Tanzania.

It's a chronological Bible storing kind of curriculum that takes you from creation through the ascension where it connects the work of Christ to the

Old Testament storyline. And it kind of builds on the promise fulfillment motive of the scriptures.

So pray that God would open their hearts. Some things to pray specifically for One City, we want to reflect our neighborhoods so that God would bring a multi -ethnic congregation, people that love him together, and that we would worship him, pray for unity within the body, pray for a growth there.

We want to see people who don't know Jesus come into life in our midst.

And that just brings great joy. Of course, we've experienced in our own life, but it's like nothing greater when you see someone come to life to Christ.

So we want to see more and more. So pray for that. Pray for also that God would bring others to plant churches in our neighborhood.

I mean, this isn't our turf. We would love it if God would put it on the hearts of 10 other people to plant churches right in our area, because there's 12 ,000 people in that area who need gospel witnesses, and certainly

One City Church can't do that. We're going to our final break now. If you'd like to join us on the air, we've got about less than a half hour left.

So if you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. Chris Arnson here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia.

And here's my friend, Dr. James White, to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I hope you join me at the G3 Conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vody Balcom, Conrad M.

Bayway, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

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Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes, our guests have been

Pastor Alec Millen and also his pastoral assistant,

Kevin Medina of One City Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And we have been discussing church planting in the inner city, its need and its challenges.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know your opinion of street preaching since you are in an urban area.

And B .B. says it's refreshing to see more theologically reformed people involved in it.

I think street preaching is great. I think any preaching is great as long as it's preaching the truth. I, we did a lot more of that in New York, simply because there were places that people congregated.

In Lancaster, there's not, there're not centers where people congregate or are moving like coming off of the subway, whatnot in New York.

But I loved it. I loved it. We'd get out there and I mean, it was,

I remember as a young preacher being scared to death. And I'm, you know,

I'm a big guy, but thinking what in the world's gonna be the reaction.

And, but when you proclaim the word, here's what I have found is that when you proclaim the gospel, you're very rarely, in fact,

I never saw anyone repent and believe right then and there. But I believe it's broadly casting the seed of the gospel, which will take root in many people's hearts.

Some of it will be plucked away. Some of it will be fallen, you know, stony and thorny soil, but some of it lands in good soil as well.

But one thing that God often does in when street preaching happens is

God will bring someone along who's one of his children, who's maybe in a discouraged state or a place where they just wrestling with their own faith and they'll see and they'll hear the gospel being preached.

And it will just be that perfect thing at the perfect time that bolsters them up and keeps it going.

So yeah, I say let's get more people out on the street preaching. In fact, Kevin and his wife, this is not so much street preaching, but they have organized several outreaches here in Lancaster.

We'll go out on Tuesday nights and the city of Lancaster puts out these pianos during the warmer weather months all throughout the city.

And there's one place in particular right across the street from the convention center. And Kevin's wife is a phenomenal pianist.

And so we'll get a group of people gathered around and we'll just be worshiping. We'll just be singing songs of worship and people start congregating and sort of around the fringes.

They won't join us, but they'll stop and listen and watch. And we just will kind of keep our eye out for people who are standing around long enough.

And then one of us will peel off and go start a conversation. And it is just, we've gotten into some long, deep gospel conversations through those opportunities.

So yeah, let's bring it to the streets. Yeah, and by the way, BB in Cumberland County, you might want to mark down in your calendar that Monday, October 3rd,

I have a guest who is very involved in street preaching, Tony Miano, who is a strong believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

He's a member of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where John MacArthur is the pastor.

He's a retired police officer and is very involved in street preaching and has written a new book involved in his experiences doing that called

Cross Encounters. I think the subtitle is A Decade of Gospel Conversations.

I don't have the book in front of me, but I think that's the subtitle. One of the things I admired about Tony is that he takes street preaching very seriously, and he does not think that mavericks who are unlearned in the scriptures without any blessing from local elders of a church should just go out there, stand on a crate, and start screaming in the city or anywhere else because that actually has given a bad name to open -air evangelism, as it's also called, where you have just crazy people screaming heretical nonsense.

But it's good to know that there are people who have learned the truth well and have the encouragement and blessing of elders to send them out to do that kind of thing.

Yeah, two men who really influenced me on this.

One comes from Key West, Florida, Bill Welzien. Yeah, I've met him. He was down in Mallory Square.

He preaches down there, southernmost point of the United States, and he's preaching several nights a week, the gospel.

And I think the guy next to him balances chairs and couches on his head, and it's sort of a freak show down there.

And then in the other direction, Pastor Gary George up in the

Boston area goes and preaches in the Boston Commons, open -air preaches.

And that man has memorized, I believe, over 4 ,000 verses of scripture. He just has the word of God right at the tip of his tongue at all times.

So yeah. Yes, I fondly recall Gary calling me your brotherness.

That's right. Yeah, brotherness. What's the good news from the far country, brother? That's right.

Well, let's talk a bit about something that just came up in regard to street preaching is the doctrines of grace, and that our listener was very happy that more theologically -reformed people are involved in that.

And as far as the doctrines of grace go, since today those teachings are very rarely heard in the contrast when

I'm talking about proportionately, to the rest of what is under the umbrella of evangelical

Christianity, we who believe in these things are today a minority, although growing again.

I mean, there was a time in history when those who believed these things were in the majority in the evangelical or Protestant church.

But when you have people that you're discipling or that you are even evangelizing, how do you introduce these things?

What are the things that you bring up to those who are either lost or even believers, but who are just the words of Calvinism or reformed theology, if you want to put a label on it, they're totally foreign to the ears of some of these people.

Right. So typically what I will do is I don't want to ultimately lead them to Calvin or to a systematic theology.

What I want them first to see is that it's in the Bible. And the good news is if you can, let's take a believer first.

You got a young believer who believes the Bible is the word of God and loves it, but just doesn't know it yet.

But in their heart, there's a commitment that whatever this book says, I'm going to believe.

So you just take that and that's a good position to be. And so you challenge them with some thoughts like, you know, just bring up the subject of predestination.

And most people have an opinion of that, whether how biblically informed it is or not. And then what

I do is I just take them to passages like Ephesians chapter one or Romans chapter nine or Romans chapter eight, and where it says, those whom

God foreknew, he also predestined. Those whom he predestined, he also justified. So, you know, you break down the barriers, one saying that, you know, the word's actually in the

Bible. So it's not man -made. So, OK, so then we got to figure out what does it mean? And so as you get them talking about what they believe, what

I'll do is I'll take them to a scripture that I know will challenge what they believe. And I'll literally hand them the

Bible and say, OK, read this verse right here. And they're reading it, they're verbalizing it.

And when they see that, you can see them start squirming because they know where I'm going to take them.

And I'll say, well, what does that verse mean? And then they'll try to explain it away because we all want to seem justified in what we already believe.

And they'll say, well, is that what the Bible says, right? I mean, is that what it says?

And then, you know, this is what happened in my life. I remember being in Little Italy and Pastor Ed Moore was taking me through Romans 9.

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Jacob, I loved.

Esau, I hated. Romans 9 verse 12 or verse 13.

And I remember just squirming like that. And he says, well, what do you think that means? And I'm like, well, I don't know, but it can't certainly mean what it just said.

And, you know, you kind of leave them with the weight of the scriptures. And so you disciple them with the word of God, not simply a systematic way of looking at it.

I think that's helpful. As far as with unbelievers, just yesterday,

I was in a conversation with a young man who hasn't come to faith in Christ yet. And as we talked about the gospel, he really struggled with the fact that there would be a

God who would send people to hell who don't believe in Jesus. Because, I mean, he's smart enough.

He looked at the world and he said, that's most of the people on this planet. And why would God do that?

And so, you know, just the implications of what we believe. And I don't think we have to squirm at that.

God is sovereign. God makes the rules. He has graciously invited those of us who have believed into that fellowship.

I mean, he's invited everybody, certainly. But that inner call of the gospel that comes to the heart of the elect, we know is what ultimately brings us to him.

So we don't have to be ashamed of this. We can be thankful for it. We can be prayerful for them to experience it as well.

And what I said to him, as I said, it's hard for you to understand this because you've never experienced what

I'm talking about. But I want you to know, this is absolutely true. And one day, God willing, you'll experience this as well.

But this is true. This is the God who you'll have to stand before. And so... Wouldn't you say that one of the reasons that this is important, because there are people, especially those who are not theologically reformed or believers in the doctrines of grace, although you may even have people in churches embracing those teachings that think that they are spoken of too often or too much importance is put on them.

But do you think that one of the reasons why it's a very important issue is because all other systems of theology, it appears, rob

God of some of his glory and exalt man in his pride in regard to his own involvement in his salvation?

Kevin, why don't you speak into that? Yeah, even for me, I remember one time when

I first started learning about the doctrines of grace, I was talking to a friend of mine in Honduras who's a prosperity gospel guy.

He told me, hey, you know what? You see, salvation doesn't depend on your dad, doesn't depend on your pastor.

It doesn't even depend on God, he said. It depends on you. Hmm. So I started thinking about it,

I was like, wait, what do you say? So you're telling me that the way I'm gonna make it to heaven and when

I get there, I say, God, I made it here. I made it here. And right there, you rob that of knowing that God will say, depart of me, you know?

Because it is nothing, nothing of you and it's just by grace alone. Yeah, the only thing that we contribute to our salvation is our sin that we're being saved from.

Yeah. And by laying that at the feet of Christ. But this is one of the reasons why that is important is that it really does affect the gospel.

If people really do not view Christ as deserving all the praise, honor, and glory, and I said all with all capital letters, 100 % of it, there is something deficient, very seriously and dangerously deficient about their understanding of the gospel, isn't there?

Absolutely. Because I mean, if we feel like we contribute to this, we take glory for ourselves. That's our natural bent.

We want some credit. It doesn't have to be in spiritual things. We just seem to like to justify and think of ourselves as a good person and have a way to bolster our own sense of self -identity.

Well, God wants us to lose that. John the Baptist said, he must increase, I must decrease. And so that ought to be the heart of every

Christian. And I don't know, theological systems aside, I mean, the

Bible, it strips us of our own glory when we see that he foreknew us.

Not only before I was born, but before the world was even created, all of this was set in motion.

He had set his affection upon me in his son. I mean, it has absolutely transformed me.

I used to live for the praise of men. I mean, that's what athletes are trained. I mean, we're trained to do a sport.

But I mean, for many athletes, the applause of men and the crowds and the roar and everything that goes with that, it's intoxicating.

I've never taken drugs, but I would assume that it's as powerful as any drug.

And yet I remember when, although I had attained all that, when

I came to understand that God chose me and loved me and died for, can't send his son to die for me and has done everything possible for so that I could know him in order to bring me to God.

I mean, that just, why wouldn't you want that, Chris? Why wouldn't you want that? And I guess I want to say that to the listeners, there are some people out there who may be listening right now.

And you've tried everything. You've pursued success in your business or in sports.

You've pursued worldly pleasures, whether that be sex or drugs or alcohol, all those things.

But I know that you wake up the next morning and you are not satisfied and you got to do it again.

You got to do it again. And you're wondering, what were you created for? Some people come to such a desperation that they take their own lives.

But what I say is that Jesus Christ, you were created for Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ.

And he has made a way possible for you to come to God through his death on the cross.

And there is nothing, you will search your whole life to find satisfaction. But until you find it in him, you're going to be wandering aimlessly.

So come to him now, come to him today. And don't worry about this whole thing, whether am I one of the elect or whatnot.

The Bible says you don't have to figure out whether you're one of the elect. What the Bible says is to repent and believe that Christ died for your sins and that was raised on the third day.

If you believe that as your only hope before God, he will accept you into his family.

And you'll never regret that. I mean, Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania wants to know, why is it that so many reformed

Christians are proud and arrogant? That is a true point. But wouldn't you say that it is in spite of the teachings that should bring a man to a contrary opinion of himself?

I mean, there's nothing in the very teachings of the doctrines of grace that should exalt any man to pride.

Yeah, see what happens, I'm sorry, his name is Harrison. What happens,

Harrison, is we live in a world where we very quickly run to our corners and we find our own tribe and we circle ourselves with those who are like mine.

One of the things I love about you, Chris, is that your friends are across the spectrum, not only among Christians theologically, but even believer and unbeliever alike.

But when you cluster in your own tribe and everybody's sort of patting each other on the back and you're just repeating to one another what you believe and you're demonizing everybody who's in a different tribe, first of all, you never grow, you never grow because you never have to defend what you believe, but you also do become proud.

And just because you may believe in the doctrines of God's sovereign grace doesn't remove that old man that's inside of us.

And so I think that I have, I've been around a lot of ugly, not physically ugly, but the ugly

Calvinists who has all the answers but nobody wants to be around them because they're just nasty. And so I would say that is a blight on, but it's not just reform guys.

Here's what I found. It's every tribe. Every tribe gets into their own little thing and they demonize people from other tribes.

So you can be an Arminian tribe and you can be saying those stupid Calvinists, how can they possibly believe that?

Or you could be in a Pentecostal tribe, those stupid secessionists. We didn't invent the term frozen chosen, somebody else did.

Yeah, right, right, right. But I do think that it's important for us to get outside of those kind of natural things and to seek for the unity of the body, be humble.

God was sovereign not only over my salvation, but he was also sovereign in me seeing the doctrines of grace. I'm thankful for him and I want to help other people see them because I think the scriptures teach them.

But I think that's one thing that you mentioned patience earlier. You can be patient with someone as they're in that journey because it really is a worldview changer when you see that God is this sovereign.

It's a worldview changer. So a lot of people hold off and resist that because it changes the way not only that you view your

God and yourself and the world and that can be cataclysmic to somebody. And also going to that point, some of the reasons why and just for some of the reasons that deal with people that believe something different, be patient with them.

And this is in my case because you have to realize that when they come to understand this, it is not only them that are confused, but it is their parents, their church, people they trust, they love.

So like you think about all the people and that puts them like, man, they're wrong too.

So like they struggle with that and to let it go in that aspect. So like being patient with them and understanding that it is not just them, but it's more people behind them that they're looking to that are struggling with this as well.

Mm -hmm. And I know that your website for One City Church is onecitychurchlancaster .com.

That's the word one, O -N -E, citychurchlancaster .com.

I want you to spend at least three minutes to basically summarize, Pastor Alec, what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Well, the most important thing is just what we talked about. Jesus Christ created us, lived the life that we should have lived, died the death that we will have to die, but then conquered death on behalf of those who would put their trust in him so that he could bring us to God.

And I would say that's the most important thing that you could embrace of all that we've talked about.

If you believe that, find a church that preaches the gospel. Find a church that takes it seriously.

It can be big, it can be little, but find a church where you're going to grow in your faith and where you can encourage people and that they will hold you accountable to repent and believe.

And if you live in the Lancaster area, you may want to check us out, but if you live in the

Lancaster area and are part of a gospel preaching church, then keep sharing the word because there is a world in need of Christ.

And he is worthy. Ultimately, we share this message because he is worthy. He is the one who gets the glory.

But if people will join themselves to him by faith in what he did for them, oh, the joy that they will have.

And sometimes God allows us to be part of that. So keep preaching the gospel to those around you and believing it for yourself.

And that once again, that website is onecitychurchlancaster .com. That's O -N -E citychurchlancaster .com.

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Alec Millen, for being on the program today.

And brother, I am so glad that you were in the studio. Brother Medina, that you had joined

Pastor Alec today. And I'm looking forward to future interviews with both of you.

I want to remind our listeners, or in fact, inform our listeners for the very first time that tomorrow

I have all the way from Northern Ireland, Pastor Mark Johnston is going to be my guest today.

I'm sorry, tomorrow from 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern time on Iron Sharpens Iron to discuss the

Reformation Conference at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am a member. And we're having

Sinclair Ferguson from Scotland and Mark Johnson from Northern Ireland preach on Thursday, October 27th, 7 to 9 p .m.

For more details on the conference, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org. gracebaptistcarlisle .org.

But tomorrow during Iron Sharpens Iron, Mark Johnson, one of those speakers from Northern Ireland, is going to be my guest.

And I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.

God bless you all. And I especially thank those of you who took the time to write with your questions, especially our new friend from Honduras.

And I hope to hear from you all soon with questions for future guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.