The Cutting Room Floor Ep 1 - "What is a Church" (Simple Church: Back to Basics Pt 1)

Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are listening to this I'm Kofi and I'm here with brother

Eddie and this is the first episode of the Well, it is the first episode of the cutting room floor podcast

Eddie. How you doing, man? So far so good, man I'm excited to be able to contribute in this way and just talk back and forth about church and Kind of what's going on there.

So I'm excited No, awesome, awesome, so for those of you just stumbled across this

This is a podcast of Redeemer Bible Fellowship in Medford, Oregon and For one thing

I preach really long Yeah, you do and Hey, I was taught to preach for an hour.

So I preach for an hour But with me preaching so long two things happen one

I No doubt raise a lot of questions because I'm saying so much and second of all it means

I'm having to leave something out now Some people might not believe is that you really leave things out. Actually. Yes, I leave a lot in my

And so for a while, I've been thinking about a way in which we can have further conversation about some of the issues that get raised in the messages and some of the things that I would like to get to and often don't get to because of time so I Thought through this idea and I saw some other churches do this where they kind of have a

Here's what got left on the cutting room floor Hence the name like the stuff that got cut out from the final edit of the sermon as it were

So my hope with this is that we can engage a little deeper with what's been preached on Sunday Primarily this is for our church family and so hopefully as we get this going start to get some questions from our church family about what was preached and be able to Continue a dialogue with the messages that are preached each week

So that's really our aim for this week And so well not just this week with this podcast and so with that in mind

I will turn it over to Eddie who's gonna chair the discussion Yeah, so I think some takeaways from the sermon which

I found Very helpful. I know you'd preached on it one other time before Or no, it was the membership classes, which was really helpful

And so I love that I think one of the things That you might have left out obviously because there's not enough time, but Kofi.

Can you just talk about the idea? of What you said was?

Then you're gonna have to remind me about having spirituality. That's independence from the church.

Why does that matter? And I guess what are some arguments that people make for it?

Yeah, okay. Sure. So Well before we get into let me give a summary of the message for those who haven't heard it yet So on Sunday, we began a sermon series at Redeemer We're going for the next eight weeks called simple church volume two back to basics now

It's called volume two because back in January. I did a volume one where we looked at the means of grace

So we looked at the Word of God prayer Baptism and the Lord's table and we asked the question what does

God design church life to look like and we kind of boiled it down to really those four things and Everything else we do in church ought to be a manifestation of those four things.

That's why the series was simple church Well for a while I'd been convicted that it was good for us to go back over some of the basics we usually cover in the context of our membership class and also

I felt like there needed to be some Flesh put on the bone as it were some of the stuff

I said in that first series So decided to take eight weeks after we just finished first Peter to do that study and so one of the things that Eddie just picked up on was

I said that one of the Realities that's become prevalent. I believe I read from a study by lifeway research said that one of the things we're seeing now is a spirituality that is independent from participation in the local church so When I you well, we're not when

I but when the writer used that phrase and I agreed with it We're talking about this phenomenon. That's not new

I think in the last couple of years has become very easy to blame everything on kovat And there are some things

I think with the kovat experience and us locking down our churches were unhelpful to be sure

But I think one thing that became very apparent was it exposed what a lot of people thought and didn't have room to practice which was that Kind of don't need my local church and that may be a blunt way to put it, but that's essentially how it ended up Manifesting itself ends up manifesting itself in this idea that I don't really need to go to church to be a good

Christian so You you hear variations on this theme throughout

Christian culture at large of late everything from the You know,

I just go up into the mountains and that's my church You hear that variation on that you hear the well,

I just you know, I'm part of the you know, universal church So I don't need to be part of a local church I took a shotgun to that dragon on Sunday because I don't see that anywhere in the

Bible, but Whether it's you know The I just go off into the mountains and just me by myself with my

Bible and in some cases It's not even a Bible just me and myself with God that's you know, that's my church or The I don't need a

Local church to be a part of as long as I'm just part of the body of Christ since I'm a Christian I'm part of the body of Christ.

I don't need a church. That's what I'm getting at when we talk about this idea of Spirituality that is

Independent from the local church. I don't really need a local church to do the stuff of being a Christian I can do that all by myself

All right, man. Well, I really appreciate that Can you talk a little bit about? You know, you had your three truths of the biblical church which was the assembly the body

Fellowship, can you talk a little bit more about? The assembly of God's people.

That's just so big to me. It kind of just Adds on to what you already said, but it just shows us that that God has not left us to do life on our own

And yet people with us and can you just speak a little more on that issue

Yeah, absolutely. So like I said in the sermon hundred and fourteen times you see the word church used in the New Testament 109 of them refer to local visible churches

That should tell you something already The the local church is incredibly important in the mind of God Hmm if the vast majority of the time the

Bible talks about the church is a local church That should give us some pause right there I think another thing that should give us some pause is the fact that This word and this is the point

I made on sunday The word for church implies a gathering Like it's built into what the bible understands as church

It's not well, there's this thing called the church and it may or may not gather Dependence on the circumstances in the biblical understanding

A church is a church because the church is a gathering Whether we're talking about the big g gathering if you will of all of god's people

And a text I didn't get to go to was in john chapter 11 In fact, let me turn to it real quick. I've got my bible right here so in john chapter 11

You have this interesting case of The high priest at the time of jesus and they're conspiring like they always are to get rid of jesus and in john chapter 11 verse 51 there's an interesting little sentence that this is a commentary from Uh john at this point.

In fact, let me read from verse 49 to give us context So john 11 and verse 49 the text says i'm reading from the christian standard bible

One of them caiaphas who was high priest that year said to them You know nothing at all

You're not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people than the whole nation perish

He did not say this on his own but being high priest that year He prophesied that jesus was going to die for the nation and not for the nation only

But to unite and some translations have the word gather together the scattered children of god

So when we talk about this idea of the church, that's what the church is it's the people of god Who are brought together into one body?

We're in john's gospel in chapter 11 if you flick back a chapter To chapter 10 jesus uses similar language to describe his own mission so in john chapter 10 reading from verse 14 jesus says

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me Just as the father knows me and I know the father

I lay down my life for the sheep But I have other sheep who are not from this sheep pen and I would argue when he says that He's saying okay there are the those in the nation of israel who have heard his message

But there are also the gentiles who are coming And so he says but I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen

I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice Then there will be one flock one shepherd

So again, you've got jesus ministry commented on by john As being a ministry of gathering together the people of god

And I think he says that because he's picking up on what jesus himself said That his ministry existed for the purpose of gathering together the people of god and so if we divorce

The church from the gathering in our thinking We're not being true to what the church actually is if we stop and think about it

It would be akin to me saying. Um You know I live with laura and we have a son

And we've made a commitment to each other for life She's taken my last name

I wear a ring She wears one But we're not married

I would hope that everyone who just heard me say that last sentence will look at me like Dude, you're married.

That's the definition of a marriage. Yeah well When we talk about the church the church by its very nature is a gathering

First and foremost a spiritual gathering as god has gathered together his people I think

I made a point on sunday that we often talk about the church as the called out people. Well, yes, that's true the root word does come from the word kaleo to call out but it's the idea of called out for the purpose of gathering for the purpose of assembling

So there is the big g gathering of god's people and then there is the little g gathering of god's people

Which as I said in the message on sunday the invisible the visible church is the invisible church making its imprint in time and space

And so the way we know that there is a big g gathering of all god's people is that god's people get together

In smaller local gatherings. And by the way, when we say local we don't necessarily mean local to a area

We mean local as in a specific place So there's a specific gathering

That we know as local churches And so really you can't say as a christian that i'm part of the church

But I refuse to be part of a local church because you're basically saying yes I have all the benefits of the big g gathering, but I refuse to be part of the little g

No, both of those follow together. Yeah Absolutely, and I would add that you know as we go on to the next one here, which is fellowship that that sort of messes that fellowship up because um

You can't not you can't like be apart from the church because you're missing out on everyone's sort of individual

Um walk with the lord and how the gospel has impacted them individually. You can't share in that Um at the same time when you're by yourself, you can't share the glory of god and what he's done in your life with other people

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that's just a big a big mistake, you know, and so Anyway, I really appreciated your your big idea during the sermon

Which was a church is the body of people called out by god's grace to faith in christ to glorify him together by serving him in this world

Um, and so the next point would be the fellowship Um, can you speak a little more as to what you mean by?

Um a little bit towards the end of that section in your sermon. You were talking about a partnership um fellowship

Participation in christ. I don't think uh American contemporary christianity really understands that so can you kind of touch on that a little more?

Sure. Um, well two things i'm going to recommend a couple of resources and then i'll go into a little bit more of what

I Wanted to say on sunday didn't quite get the time to Yeah, so for anybody who's interested in thinking about this subject i'm going to recommend two books um

One is called body life by ray stedman s -t -e -d -m -a -n

Uh body life by ray stedman The interesting thing about ray stedman is that he comes from a slightly different theological tradition than I do

He was sort of the dallas seminary That sort of world a little more

Uh classically dispensational than I would be and what have you? Um Nevertheless, he wrote this book kind of looking at his own church peninsula bible church in palo alto down in northern california and As he looked at the state of his own church

He began to ask some questions. Why does my church not reflect what I see in the new testament, which is always a scary question to ask

If you go asking that question, you never know what thread you're going to pull on and so Looking into that looking into the scriptures.

He wrote this book really to try and encourage Healthy new testament church life and i'm glad he did

Because even in the one or two minor areas where I would probably look at things a little differently than brother stedman

Who's gone home to be of the lord? I think he rightly puts a finger on the pulse of the fact that We can't say that we are a body

If we are not actively engaging with one another in the pursuit of christ And that's what true body life as the title says that's what true body life looks like So that'd be my first resource another resource that I would recommend

Is a tiny little book you can actually get it from first love publications. It's called in the footsteps of the lamb by george steinberger

Steinberger was a german writer And again, he writes about the importance of love In the context of the body of believers and how that works itself out in the life of the body again another excellent read it's one that i'm

Relatively newer to a body life. I read a few years ago and it just became a staple in my library but Uh in the footprints of the lamb just came back into print a few years ago in english

And it's incredibly helpful read i'd highly recommend. It's anybody who wants to know more about this idea of biblical fellowship

Kofi is that one now that on is that on our table footprints in the lamb or something like that?

At one point it was I do need to get some more copies I think we ran out But at one point it was on our literature table and I will get in touch with first love publications real soon and try and make

That happen again I think it's definitely one that's worth having Yeah, but you know when we talk about the idea of fellowship from a new testament perspective

I was very Blunt in saying that I think we have a very westernized view of what fellowship is

And then there is the biblical view of what fellowship is Yeah, so westernized view we have is basically it's sanctified hanging out

And so you hear people will I saw this back in london my pastors used to talk about this sometimes

They would say that oh, there are people who complain about our church and say there's not enough fellowship And he'd be like, well, what do you mean i'm i was hearing and thinking what on earth are you talking about We've got tons of it

But they're saying no, there's no no fellowship Okay. Um And finally hit me that what they meant was there are not enough opportunities that the church puts on for me to hang out

That's not biblical fellowship and that's why I went through that litany of verses I think one of the key ones is that one

I mentioned in first corinthians 1 9 But god is faithful who called you into fellowship with his son jesus christ the reality is

Biblical fellowship is not just when we get together and hang out and oh if I say one or two words about You know christianity that's fellowship.

No, it's not True fellowship is when we come together with the purpose of we are deepening our participation together our

Partnership that's I intentionally use that word because that's how that word is used in other places in the new testament

That we are coming together to sharpen one another to challenge one another to grow deeper

Together as god's people In our shared participation of all the blessings that god gives us

So for example, we read a passage like ephesians chapter one One of the things that hit me a few years ago and again i've taught ephesians before and i've taught that section before But it only hit me very recently.

I was saying the last year and a half Everything he talks about there isn't individual. It's corporate

Like go back and read ephesians 1 those of you who are watching and pay attention to how much he says He made known to us.

For example, the mystery of his will he lavished upon us the riches of his grace It's very communal in nature.

Why because god does his work in his people not just individually, but he does so communally

And so when we have a skewed understanding of fellowship such that we fail to Appreciate the need for coming together with a specific purpose

I want to be careful, but this is the cutting room for a podcast. I can say some stuff I left out um you know what one of the things that I get concerned about as a local church boss

I'm, not saying i've heard this in our church, but being around church long enough and in enough churches in general

One of the things you hear often is people saying, you know I would love it if our churches had times for us to just get together without an agenda

And I want to kind of say what on earth do you mean? Every time we come together we have an agenda.

It's called spiritual growth Yeah Like now that agenda may look different in different contexts

And how we pursue that may look different in different contexts But there's no such thing as a purposeless getting together of god's people like every time we get together we get together for the purpose of Growing Deeper one of my favorite books, uh, the trellis in the vine talks about this that idea of growing one more

One more step to the right i'll come back to that book next week when we talk about the purpose of the church But that's such a good idea

Yeah, excellent But growing one step to the right Actually, no, it was the follow -up the vine project that said that the vine project

But same idea that we want we want people to grow one more step to the right We're not looking for people to make gargantuan leaps.

Just one more step one more step one more step And when we get to week eight of the series, we'll get to hebrews chapter 10 24 and 25

You know the way in which we provoke one another to love for god in good works towards one another Is by not assembling the gathering of ourselves together

So in a sense fellowship is when we come together But it's when we come together for very specific purposes and for very specific goals

I really appreciate that kofi Um, let me back up just a little bit because you said something and I think there's a healthy distinction to be made and so can you give us a good distinction between fellowship and discipleship

Aha, um, we're preempting a little bit of next week's sermon Oh, okay. So but i'll address it because you asked.

Um, Essentially the difference between fellowship and discipleship is this Discipleship is the purpose of learning

Let's put it this way. Discipleship is learning for the purpose of ministry. That's what discipleship is Is that we are following christ so that we may serve others

As christ has called us to do so Enough we can have fellowship and not necessarily be thinking about discipleship hmm

But I will say that healthy fellowship leads people into discipleship relationships So it's not that I would want to make such a sharp distinction between the two

As much as one leads to the other it's as we get together as god's people as we commune around his word

We commune around prayer. We get to know one another. That's how we get to know. Okay This is how we develop these discipling relationships.

This is how we develop these Relationships for the purpose of growth and greater pursuit of jesus, so You're right.

There's a distinction But I would say it's a distinction where you've got one thing that leads to another and they're not quite the same thing

Okay, well I appreciate that I think that's really helpful. Um, just because I think there are some churches out there that just sort of mix them together and there is no distinction and That might not always be very helpful.

So Um Well, let's move on. Um kofi you you mentioned during the sermon that or the lerman um

That we were definitely a lerman by the way. Yeah And for those of no idea what i'm talking about go back and listen to the sermon

But it was definitely a lerman no debate about that was a lerman yeah Well, it was very good.

Um You said um under your historical attributes of the church that little section there that that we are a bible church um

If I didn't know any better i'd say well like every church is a bible church churches are about their bibles, you know

So so could you do just add a little more what I guess what are the major differences? between a bible church and other churches

I knew someone's gonna ask me about that. Um So when I say that what I mean is that we're a church where Let me put it this way.

Um, i'm gonna Rip off my brother. John benzinger who by the way, please be praying for him. He's back home after Uh having kidney stones at the weekend

Um had a procedure to blast them and might have to go back in for another one. So be praying for him um

I call him coach. Uh Coach has a saying that I heard him say once and it's just burned into my brain

There's a difference between the bible using you to preach its message

And you using the bible to preach your message Does that distinction make sense the

It's one thing for me to take a bible This is the one that normally sits on my desk, but to take a bible

And to open up the bible and to allow the bible to set the agenda

That the point of the text is the point of the sermon Now again, like I said on sunday that you know

It's not we're slavishly holding to that there are Seasons like what we're doing with the simple church series where okay, you're not in an exposition of a book per se

But that's one thing but even then you want your ideas and thoughts to be constrained deeply by a scripture

Not what I thought up or what somebody else thought up, but can I go to the bible and demonstrate this?

So that's you know, that's one thing but when I say We're a bible church What I mean is that we try to allow the bible to set the agenda that when

I or anybody else steps into our pulpit We are allowing the word of god to use us

To proclaim its message in the power of the spirit as opposed to well

I had an idea I then went a thumb through my bible found a few verses that fit my idea and now that's what i'm going to preach to you

Really? It's a it's a question of authority. Really? What's the final authority? Is it the scriptures?

Or is it the ingenuity of men? And you know at redeemer we make a conscious effort there's a reason that it's called redeemer bible fellowship

Because we make a conscious effort in Wanting to ensure that whoever stands in our pulpit

Faithfully proclaims god's word as god gave it to god's people Because if we don't do that, then we are held captive to the ingenuity of men and that can be a very dangerous thing when we are held captive to man's ingenuity versus The wisdom of god as revealed in the scriptures

Thank you for that kofi, I think that honestly that's one of the biggest things that i've appreciated about our small church is um

The word of god and how much it's read And I think I was counting is that five times that we have a section

Of the word throughout the whole service including the preaching let's see, so Call to worship uh, old testament reading

Assurance of pardon new testament reading The sermon

Oh benediction six six times. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, man, that's an army

But it's good That just goes to show like how much we need the word in believer now

We need we need more than six times in that small amount of time. Yeah, just because of our

You know Absolutely. I mean for the folks who are watching this who are wondering so we have a you know We have a very set liturgy for the most part um at Redeemer bible fellowship and one of the things that when we kind of shook things up in the new year with our liturgy

One of the things we wanted to ensure was that the bible still remained central That it wasn't there were some churches that are liturgical and then it's here's somebody's like written thing.

Here's somebody else's, you know Reading someone else's like we wanted to keep the bible still central

And so for that for us that look like okay our call to worship came from scripture We have an old testament and a new testament reading.

We're currently going through isaiah in the old testament acts in the new Every week we give an assurance of pardon from god's word that comes directly from the scriptures

And obviously in the preaching and even in our benediction as god sends us out as his people He sends us out by his word and with his word

And so yeah, that's a very intentional thing we've done my friend mike abendroff out in massachusetts uh has a fun thing he says

Some might not find it fun, but I think it's hilarious. He says I don't want a roman catholic to outread me in their church service

Yeah In other words if you've ever been to a catholic service one thing that has gone for it tons of scripture in there

None of it preached but tons of scripture in there So, yeah, that's just an intentional thing we do to make it clear that again you come here

You're going to hear the word of god and lots of it Absolutely, that's one of the points you hit on we're pretty good is um the historical attributes of the church and Um, you know, there's so many different types of churches and they do it many different ways, but consistently there's always been this sort of Reverential orderliness of the church so when we come to church, we're here to worship the king um so I think some churches kind of miss out on that, you know, and That's extremely sanctifying and it's wonderful for our spirits in our life

And so I really appreciate that about our own service Yeah, absolutely. And you know

Sometimes people hear that and they think oh, you're basically anti all creativity Right no creativity

But it's creativity. It's a reverence creativity. Let me put it that way It's one of the things that we hear this term reverence used a lot

Um, i've come to realize that one of the greatest marks of reverence and worship is restraint

Yeah That you don't do everything you possibly could do Because you want to recognize whose presence you're in And so Yes, we believe in creativity.

We we believe in excellence, you know, it's not just okay We come together we cobble this thing together. No, like we work hard to be excellent to what we do.

It's not a machine at the Yes. Yes, exactly. It's not a machine like at the end of the day.

These are real people Who are coming to worship a very real god with their hearts

And we want everything that we bring to worship our hearts our bodies our voices everything engaged

In the worship of god when we gather and so yes, we want to do so with skill and with excellence

Of course we do but at the end of the day God hasn't commanded us to bring our creativity to worship.

He's commanded us to bring obedient hearts to worship amen um

Yeah, so what do we could we hear a little more on? Let's see here the faithful practice of the church

Ah, yes, I guess what what are the like when we think of the church and especially in our circle we think of The historical church and the reformation which you mentioned

I guess what are the the big differences between then and now? Um in the way we're doing church, you know, what's helpful and what's unhelpful?

Oh, how long do you have? Um well, I mean it's hard to Kind of speak without you know painting in broad strokes just because you know

There are so many variations on things so many things that churches do differently that can fall within the lines of what is biblically required um

That's why the reformers were very Succinct in those three points that I gave and towards the end of the message

We talked about the faithful practice of the church that the church has the right preaching of the word It has the administration of the ordinances

And it has the practice of church discipline So like those things if those things are done.

Well, you have a church You sometimes we I think we overcomplicate this thing called church sometimes, you know, we think that a church has to have

You know a rocking band. It's gotta have like its own building.

It's got to have multiple guys paid on staff um And you know all kinds of programs and stuff like that.

Not really I I think when we look at the bible the churches of the new testament were very simple But they were powerful because they used the means that god had given and so When I was mentioning in the sermon on sunday about the faithful practice of the church

You will see churches across the spectrum that look different But maintain those same core marks those same core distinctives

And I think it's fascinating that when you read the new testament The new testament does not go into a ton of detail about what things are required and what things are not

The major focus of the new testament is on the heart of worship it's on This might be a good time to talk about elements and circumstances for a moment

So the reformation church rightfully said that there are two different things when we come together in worship That there are elements of worship

And there are circumstances of worship So let me give you an example an element of worship is the preaching of god's word

That's biblically commanded. There's no negotiation But for that to happen, we might need some other things

To be in place and to happen so typically in our tradition we have a pulpit well, what's the pulpit do the pulpit serves to I would argue also serve as a visual reminder, but on a more practical level.

I need someone to put my bible in my notes Now the bible doesn't mandate what kind of pulpit you should have how big or how small

We can have opinions about that. I have opinions about that But that's a circumstance of worship

It's not an element We could have just one I could just pull one of the music stands off from The worship team and use that and we would still be worshiping our worship would not be affected by that because that's a circumstance

That's just something we have to facilitate the element. The element is the preaching or Another one the bible commands us to sing

But you read the new testament the new testament doesn't really go into detail about should you use instruments or not

Should you have somebody leading or is it just a hundred percent congregational? Some of these things are circumstances we have to think through what's the best and wisest way to execute this particular element

And so there are that's a big distinction I think and I think it keeps us from either a ungodly

Certitude where we kind of think well, unless they do it exactly like this. They're not being faithful Calm down If they have the elements right how they put those elements together may differ from how you would want them put together

But that's okay because the elements are there At the same time it saves us from I think an ungodly creativity

Where we start thinking well Unless god says we can't do it We can and so you start doing all kinds of wildness

That's why you if we're going to poke the bear, let's poke the bear That's why you've got some churches and they've got drama skits in the middle of a sermon

Like What is that? Like i'm sorry, you don't see that anywhere in the bible

But they do it because they say well god does what god's word doesn't say we can't do it It's like well

No But god hasn't commanded you to bring that in worship really is the difference between what some call the

Regulative principle of worship and the normative principle. We'll talk more about that. Um next sunday

We bring to god what he has commanded us to bring in worship. Nothing more. Nothing less

And so really those I say that would be the big distinction between what I would say are faithful churches and Not so faithful churches not so much what they do in the externals as much as which elements are they sticking to And are they seeking to be biblical in executing those those that would be the big distinction for me

Oh, I think that's really helpful Um, well since that since there's a bear in the room, let's continue to poke

Um, yeah, why not it it'd be inappropriate if I didn't bring up or have this question about um church membership and church discipline

You know, of course in the pacific northwest and america in general There's so much individuality um

Which doesn't also have accountability and so can you just um

Talk a little more on on church membership. Is it biblical? um And is it one of the elements that you were just talking about, you know, like is it necessary?

So we'll just start with that. Yeah Well, i'm going to not answer the question because i'm going to have a whole sermon in week three devoted to whether it's biblical

So come back in week three and we'll have a conversation about it. Um Yes, you'll be there.

I know that for a fact. Um Short answer. Yes church membership is 100 biblical and one of the reasons it's biblical is

You mentioned it's sort of twin reality church discipline Let me preempt my own sermon from a couple of weeks with this

You can't discipline somebody out of a church if they were never actually in it Think about that one

Now I know that The minute I say that someone say wait a minute i've been part of churches where they didn't have membership and they practice discipline

Praise god for inconsistency, but it's an inconsistency nonetheless Because the idea is first corinthians chapter 5

You and matthew 18 you are putting that person who's disciplined out of the visible body of believers

As paul says So that you know while the body may be destroyed the soul may be saved in the day of the lord

Now there's a whole bunch of things about what does paul mean when he says that We may or may not address it when I get to that.

We'll see what I end up doing with the final sermon, but For now the bible teaches church membership and the sort of and This is going to be rough for me to say because i'm not from the pacific northwest but I'm, sorry, it's sinful the sort of sinful individuality that says

I choose my relationship to the church on my terms. I'm, sorry, that's sinful and you can't prove it from an open bible

You just can't that has more to do with 20th and 21st century rugged individualism than it does the spirit of the new testament.

Yeah In fact, i'll go so far to say any church that purposefully Purposefully decides to not have church membership is hamstringing its own spiritual growth

If you choose not to discipline and you choose not to have a membership I believe you are basically short -circuiting your church before it even goes anywhere

And I would be willing to go to the mat over that subject because I do think it's a major part of church health

That um, you know in the western united states isn't often talked about the way it should and I think you see a detriment to that um in the life of so many churches and so many individual believers

Yeah How's that for poking the bear? Yeah It's so interesting too man like and I don't know if you'll talk about this later down the road but i'll just throw a little little seed little kernel in there with the relationship between church membership and and legal legal things that happen

You know, oh membership there then you could be in big trouble. But anyway, we won't go into that.

Um, Yeah, we'll save that for week three. Yeah, but that that was a massive thing. But yeah, we'll learn more about that later um

Well kofi, I think that's all I have man well, sweet, I hope that you know being able to dig into some of those topics and You know discuss some of that has been helpful for everyone.

Like I said, we really want to hear folks uh questions and thoughts, um After I edit this and put it up Um, we'll have the email address on the final screen so that you can email in your questions

Because again, we really want this series to be helpful to our body And i'll be honest. I will say this as we close.

I know that in the process of preaching sometimes you will say things that come out Not the way you meant them

I know i'm prone to that especially that you know in the passion of preaching sometimes you will say something and you go back and listen and be like That's not quite what

I meant and that came out sounding either more harsh or Not as understanding as I intended and so my hope is with us doing this

I can kind of pull back some statements. I mean, I kind of dug a deeper hole today, but in general um

You know if there's stuff that I say they're like, I don't know if I agree with that Rather than just nursing that disagreement separately.

Hey, send us a message. Let's talk about it And hopefully we can all grow as part of this experience Absolutely All right.

Well eddie if you are done, um, i'm going to enjoy the rest of my day off this has been Episode number one of the cutting room floor and lord willing we will see you next time