Franchise Church Fails

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Recent Trip to Omaha and Ministry Updates

My radio ministry is Mike Abendroth, and this is new material for Fred, and it was not recorded that long ago. Actually, it�s being recorded right now as we speak. I have the equipment so I can go live if we wanted to do, I don�t know, does James White do divide and line live or something like that?

We could do that. We could do that, and I would have more up-to-date current events, on-time, real-time shows, but the giving from Fred has been down lately, so you get what you pay for. I just got back from Omaha Bible Church.

My brother Pat Abendroth, Patrick James Abendroth, is the pastor there, and it was a great weekend. We did Lies You Believe, things that we might by thought, by media, by visceral, subjective gut feel believe, but the Book of Romans 1, 3, and 5 would correct.

Three messages on Saturday. My guess is they�re online, omahabiblechurch .org, and then I preached John 3 on Sunday morning. My sister was there, my nieces and nephews, my brother was there, and we had a great time.

We did some major bike riding. Todd Swift, Pat and I did some rides. I think we rode four out of five days. That was fun. A hundred and three miler, that one about killed me, but I could talk Nebraskan though, see?

Interesting, different, milk. It was fine because I�m one of them. I went to school there. Why do I have psych problems? Well, because in Nebraska for field trips, instead of being like those in New England where you go to Nathaniel Hawthorne�s house, Little Women�s house, Louise May Alcott, you go to Concord, Lexington, and Battle of, I was going to say the Bulge, it�s right here in New England, the Battle of the Bulge.

Bunker Hill is what I was thinking, Bunky Hill. What we did in Nebraska is we went to the stockyards. Oh, that�s how they kill cows, daddy. So then I, but anyway, it was a great trip thanks to Omaha Bible Church people.

I was talking about Midwest Express, the old airline company that would fly, I think it was out of Milwaukee was their hub, but they flew into Omaha and they would make chocolate chip cookies in flight and they would smell so good.

And I mentioned that once or twice, I think once on Saturday and on Sunday at the Q &A. Oh, we had a Q &A for Sunday school, kind of get to know the brothers a little bit, ministry minded discussion. And somebody drove across town Sunday after church to deliver some homemade cookies so I could have them on the plane.

And I thought they first were doing it because they were so sweet, but then they said so I wouldn�t whine about it. So see, they had the little New England twinge right there, but seriously, that was very kind of them.

Loved my stay at Omaha, Nebraska. Some people don�t even have a brother, let alone a Christian brother, let alone a Christian brother who�s a pastor and a Christian brother who�s got good theology. So see, that helps.

His theology is just like mine. I got home and the franchise church stuff was in my inbox. Not in my inbox at the church building, but in the inbox of my mail when I got home, at home, home. Not Nebraska home, not California home, but New England home.

My house of residence, my abode, my humble abode. And the, I don�t know, 4x6, yeah, 4x6, that seems about right, 4x7, 4x8, 2x4, laminated what I call franchise church, hey, come and come to church. Now I guess if you�ve got enough money and you want to blanket the neighborhood, you can.

I think probably ROI isn�t very good on this kind of mass mailing for churches. But what I find fascinating is, oh, oh, on the front it says community, and it�s got the U and the I in community, green letters versus the white letters.

And then it says where you and I can belong. I watched the video here and it was just, well, if you can�t say something nice, you shouldn�t say anything at all. But on the general scheme of things on the franchise church, here�s campus two, here�s campus three.

I don�t know why all these churches have blue backlighting for the worship experience time. Everything�s blue. I don�t know if that�s Tulian�s original idea or what it is, but it seems like there�s a lot of blue backgrounds.

And it�s got some pastor sitting by a chair. There�s a chair there with a table and a water and an iPad and off he goes. The one that I watched online, it was 15 minutes before the guy opened the Bible or opens Bible app.

But the franchise church model, can we just put that to sleep, put that to bed? I guess it smacks larger of Harvest and their franchise model. But I don�t know. I don�t know if Paul goes for franchise models.

I think the franchise model is passe. If you go to a franchise church, I�m just wondering if the secret sauce is really the Holy Spirit. You know, if you just get this kind of building with these kind of people and this kind of set up with this type of name and this type of hipster pastor with jeans rolled up a little bit with cool boots and a beard and nice glasses, nothing wrong with nice glasses.

My brother�s got some Oakley readers or something. They�re not readers. They�re real ones. I told him my Prada�s were better. Franchise church. I�m all for church growth. I�m all for church planting, chant planting.

The franchise church model, I only have one word for that, �forget you. All right. Enough of that. I�ll talk about that more later. Creflo Dollar has been in the evangelical news. A Jill from California sent me Creflo Dollar�s tweet before he quickly removed it.

Here�s Creflo Dollar�s tweet. He said, �Jesus bled and died for us so that we can lay claim to the promise of financial prosperity. Prosperity in Christ, wealthy living, abundant life. Send me your money, you fools.

Oh, sorry, it didn�t have the last one, but that�s basically it. But then he removed it. You cannot find any trace, any residual trace of this thing, but you can take a little snap of that and then we have it here for you on No Compromise Radio.

That was back in, I don�t know, October 9th-ish. So Fred, figure out the math. I don�t know. If you think of maybe the book of Hebrews and why Jesus bled and died for us. Oh, yeah, claiming or laying claim to the promise of financial prosperity.

Or you think of James. Why would James have to say regarding suffering and being patient while you suffer? Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and late rains?

You also, be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door.

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful and loves to make you financially prosperous.

So I added the last part. So sue me. Creflo Dollar is a liar. He's a heretic, and he is probably, I don't know, I better rephrase, you have to be careful on radio, don't you? Plus, we ain't got no editors around here.

He's lucky to be alive. I know I said lucky on purpose, that's why I had paused early. He receives common grace of God right now, but if he will not repent of his many errors, we're not talking about an error of you interpret this passage a certain way and I interpret it another.

This is torquing the atonement, tweaking the atonement, no, perverting. Thinking about my brother during the weekend, I used to spin him around when I was a teenager and grab him by the arms and around he would go, and it was all fun and dandy, game-like, and we all had a lot of fun playing, I don't know what it was called, helicopter or how far can you throw your brother, centripetal force games.

Until his arm popped out of the socket, that wasn't so fun anymore. And so we see the torquing of the atonement, you say, well, isn't there healing in the atonement? Well, we're not even talking about that right now.

There is ultimate healing in the atonement, of course. But prosperity, financial prosperity, one of the things that baffles me to no end, I've been to India three times, I've been to Africa two times, and those places, certain parts of them, third world, they have a lot of people who are buying into the Benny Hins and the Creflo dollars of the world and the world of word of faith and doctrine.

Why is that? Well, pragmatically, it doesn't work. The only people that get rich are the dollars, Mr. and Mrs. But people everywhere are greedy, and people everywhere, same reason they play the lotto.

This is a small C Christian lotto, that's what it is. And you give some money, and then the pastor gets rich. How awful is that? I think pastors should talk about money when it comes up as they preach the Bible, verse by verse, but using a tithe, using Malachi out of context to get money from people, that's what cults do.

That's exactly what Creflo dollar does. So if you're listening today and use tithing, Israel tithing, theocratic tithing to try to get money from people, what are you doing? We have a simple rule around here at Bethlehem Bible Church, is we don't touch the money.

I can't write a check, I don't have any control of the money, I don't set my salary, I don't determine any of that and give anybody any pressure. If you don't do this, I'm walking, none of that stuff goes on.

We have the non-paid elders, because some of the elders are staff, they are the ones that determine the money. Is there a raise? Is there any Christmas gift? We have people who count the money on the way in, financial secretaries, treasurers, etc.

But this whole thing, you know, sending money, financial prosperity. Creflo dollar, if you think he's good, besides me telling you to repent and read your Bible, you greedy person, I can't argue with you.

I won't argue with you, because if you won't do that, then you won't listen to any reason. You're an unreasonable person and you follow Creflo dollar because you are greedy and you think you can gain things on the back of Jesus and his atonement.

How dare you? See that's how we do things at No Compromise Radio. Speaking of which, years ago, when I was back in Los Angeles, I signed up for Fuller Seminaries. I don't know what it's called anymore.

It's a magazine and it comes out once a month and they've followed me all the way to Massachusetts. So I didn't ask for them to keep sending me their tomes. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. This one is 99 pages and it's like a big old fat magazine.

It's for free. Fuller Seminary, of course, is very liberal and you ought to avoid Fuller Seminary. I guess you could get through Fuller Seminary with your faith. I know a couple of people that have. And I just want to make one comment.

I know that's hard to do on No Compromise Radio. Here's Fuller Seminary. At the top it says, story, theology, voice. So it's about stories, theology, and voice. I am very much for the practice and the, what do I want to call it?

I just need some more coffee, man. I don't know what's going on. I'm all for biblical theology. I don't mean theology from the Bible, although I'm all for that too. Technically, biblical theology as we study the grand sweep of redemption and the one storyline in the Bible and how each of the writers contribute to that great storyline of the fall, creation and fall and redemption and consummation and however you want to put those categories versus systematic theology, which it shouldn't be versus.

You can study both because they help each other and you're even going to need systematic theology to study biblical theology. But you'll find the liberals love biblical theology much more than systematic theology because systematic theology has parameters, it has guidelines, it makes you go away from abstractness to very precise definitions.

When you move to biblical theology, of course, non-liberals, that is conservatives, love biblical theology and you want to read Biblical Theology by Michael Lawrence. That's a good introduction of biblical theology for lay people.

There are all kinds of books. You've got Jim Hamilton's book, what's it called? God's Glory and Salvation Through Judgment, I think that's what it's called. You've got Gerhard Voss, the original one, and a whole host, Biblical Theology's Dictionary maybe by Beale.

There's all kinds of things you could read and I read a lot of biblical theology. A lot. Did I mention a lot? Interesting. But the liberals would love it the most and they would go overboard on biblical theology because of the storyline.

And so Fuller Seminary does that very thing. It says here on the front, Mark Labberton, cum president. Is that the president of Fuller Seminary? I would not know. Let's see what this says right here. The title refers, oh, there's, this is a, this is something different, different.

African-Americans who speak of being unseen, invisible, or good as ghosts in a dominantly white culture, including Fuller Seminary, are right to demand the deep work of justice. We commit to the task of reconciling race one day at a time because we follow the one who rightly orders love, who holds all things together, and who promises authentic reconciliation that God alone can.

Well, I've been doing this show for six years. I've talked a little bit about race here and there, especially in light of Ephesians 2 and Jew and Gentile, that specific, if I can call it racial bifurcation in how the gospel, think about it.

You have one mediator between God and man, not the Jew Christ Jesus, but the man Christ Jesus, Christ's perfect righteousness, his earned merit, his perfect obedience to Moses and every other law, every other way you could think of it, credited to our account.

We stand before God justified. Our sins credited to Jesus's account and a righteousness from another Jesus credited to our account, imputed, reckoned as our righteousness in terms of position, and how does God see us?

Through the lens of Jesus Christ. What does that make us? Makes us equal. It's what it makes us. What I want to say and that I haven't said for, I don't know, for a long time, I'm pretty much sick of this.

I'm sick of this racial discussion in Christian churches. Now, I will give the disclaimer. Where I come from as a Christian, that is Los Angeles, I never thought anything about race issues in the local church because from the top down of the elder board and John MacArthur at Grace Community Church and those who attend, it was never an issue.

Now, maybe there was particular issues with particular people and maybe they were racist or they were trying to repent of their racism and know that it's a forgivable sin, but it was never an issue at Grace Community Church.

And by the grace of God here in central Massachusetts, where we are, where it's predominantly white, although there's an influx of, I think there are 12 campuses here locally, and there are probably more Indians than blacks where we are in Worcester, West Boylston, probably more Puerto Ricans than blacks.

I don't really care. Matter of fact, I don't care. We are one in Christ. And to the point that I don't care is perceived, is shown rather, is demonstrated by if you are a man and you've always been a man and you're a born again man, and you're a man who wants to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, have a high view of God and a biblical view of man, and you want to court slash date slash marry my daughter, I don't care what color you are.

It makes no difference to me at all. So some maybe if you're in Mississippi or if you're in the South or you're certain places where race is still an issue, I bet that's probably true. And you want to continue to talk about racial reconciliation.

And maybe some of you are not white and you still experience prejudicial thoughts against you and actions because you're not white. I'm sure that's true. It's a wide enough audience. But the whole reconciling race thing I'm done with in my mind.

It tends to be from liberals. That's the push and even here to the deep work of justice. I think I need to go back to the cross. I think I need to go back to Romans. Paul starts off with the gospel, he ends with the gospel, there's gospel in between.

And what did Rome need? What did Rome need? They had racial issues there. They had abortion there. They had homosexuality there. They had all kinds of problems and Paul knew the gospel could solve it.

Because once you realize what an awful, wicked, horrible human being you are, and I'm at the top of the list. Once you recognize that, vile and depraved and sinful, you trespass against God's law. You transgress his holy standards.

You miss the mark of his righteous requirements and you do it with intent, malicious intent many times. Then to realize someone, that is Jesus Christ, freely saves you by offering his life as a substitute.

He lived his life as a representative. He is raised from the dead to prove this is all true. Then what color people are, like I care? I don't care at all. I just feel the groundswell of liberalism as they want to talk about justice all the time.

If you want to use Amos as social justice paradigm for your emerging, cool, hipster church, we are not a theocracy. The social justice in Amos is for the theocracy, Israel, at the time. Did I say I get worked up about this stuff?

Did I say that for he himself is our peace who made us both one and is broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came, talking about Jesus, and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who are near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. Now, I know the context there in Ephesians 2, in Jew and Gentile.

But if Jew and Gentile can get along because of Christ, certainly white and black can too. And I see Fuller Seminary, the liberal seminary that it is, it just never stops. I mean, can't we go on to the next thing already for the liberals?

But it's back to social justice, back to reconciling race. Or maybe they're just a day late and a dollar short, as my father used to say. Back to this, of course, white and black and every other color.

But here, let's see, I just saw an article, all right? Working Together Toward Racial Reconciliation. That's one chapter, article. Fuller Difference, To Be a Christian Intellectual. Empathetic and Incarnational, A Better Christian Ethic at Fuller.

Black, white, black, white, black, white. Learning for Reconciliation. Dreaming God's Dreams. Forgiveness and Justice, Two Keys to Reconciliation. I'm so over it. You say, yeah, but you don't experience it every day.

Well, that's true, but I will tell you this. If I experience it and see it with my own eyes, I'll put a stop to it. Because we are one in Christ Jesus, because of the gospel. And we are part of the church that Jesus is growing into a holy temple in the Lord.

Built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So that I'm going to say, no, you're Puerto Rican, so I don't want anything to do with you?

I don't think so. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. With Pastor Mike Abendroth. It's a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church. Firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word.

Through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.