God Centered Church - They Stormed A Church In Minnesota - What Should We Do?

Hello there, this is Andy Cain, and welcome back to the God -Centered Podcast. Today, we're looking at God -Centered Church. And today on the episode here, not going to be very long.

I just want to take a few minutes and talk to you guys about something that's very important to me. This is January 20th, 2026, in the year of our

Lord. And if you think about what's going on and you see so many things that are going on, like what happened in Minnesota this past Sunday, what's supposed to be the sanctity of human life

Sunday. And we've got all this just God -hating, life -hating events going on.

And we've got so many things that are happening. We had the church that had these protesters storming their church and causing disruption and all this stuff.

And there's been a whole many really good men that have dealt with that and the nature of it, whether it's legal and things like that.

I think of Keith Foskey down in Florida, great pastor, great man. He's dealt with this and that part of it already.

Plenty of other people. I want to speak to sort of a... And not that these other people wouldn't or didn't speak to what

I'm going to talk to, but I just want my thoughts to be very focused on the church and all this, because after all,

I love online ministry. Duh! I mean, that's what we're doing right now, if you're watching this.

Obviously, I love it. Obviously, I enjoy it. It's something I feel like the Lord has gifted me in this area to be able to do it.

Not just for me, but... And in fact, those that know me know that I spend far more time helping others with theirs than I do on mine.

It's just recently that I've really started to try to focus on getting more of mine done.

But, you know, online ministry is an enhancement for the local church. It is not a replacement for the local church.

So how do we solve these issues? Do we solve them through a YouTube video, like what we're doing here?

No. But a YouTube video and good teaching online can be part of the solution.

No, the ultimate solution, the ultimate way in which we see our communities turned around, we see our lives turned around, our homes and families, local governments, and yes, even state, federal, national governments, countries.

How do we see things like what we've been seeing with all the violence? How do we see that ended? Is it come through top -down political legislation?

And like what the opposite side would love to do to us? No, not at all.

It comes from a God -centered place. God -centered understanding of what we are to be as his people.

A God -centered understanding of exactly why we're saved in the first place. See, our belief in eschatology in terms of how

God builds the kingdom is not us going out like some of these alleged or supposed

Christian nationalists, whatever that even means anymore, going out and passing legislation and forcing these people into submission.

Like, no, it comes from God doing what

God does. And the Spirit of God, in particular, the third person of the Trinity, doing what he does.

And that is regenerating hearts, raising spirits to life, having people become new creations in Christ.

As Jesus told Nicodemus in the garden, you've got to be born again, meaning you've got to be born from above.

You cannot live the way you've been living and think anything's going to change. It's the definition of insanity, right?

Doing things the way you've always done it and think it's going to change. It's a wise word for churches out there, especially dying ones.

But yeah, I mean, it's got to be a God -centered understanding. The more important of that, it's going to be a

God -centered church. Obviously, in local bodies of believers, but then collectively in a wider sense, the church, all of the believers that are in a particular country or whatever, changing, bringing about change because God's regenerating hearts, which means it's about the gospel.

It's about the Great Commission. It's about a God -centered understanding of who he is, who we are, and who we are to be in light of who he is, which means we preach the gospel to our neighbor.

Because what we understand when we study the Bible and Romans and soteriology and all these things, it's not about legalism and fundamentalism.

It's not about outward conformity. You can take a fence that's rotting and falling apart and put a fresh coat of paint on it, and guess what?

It's still a rotting and falling apart fence. It just looks really good while it's falling down.

Same thing with people. You can put laws and regulate them and rules and all this to death.

And even if they could conform to a degree and, quote -unquote, look better or act better, you still haven't dealt with the root of the problem, my friends.

The root of the problem is their heart. This world doesn't have a, well, if we just pass this law problem, or, you know, like you see these pompous jerks on Twitter, well,

Christian National System, this wouldn't happen, or this is going to happen. Bless God. My friends, it sounds like a new form of fundamentalism.

Bless God. We ain't going to let that happen. You're going to do what I say. And it's like, that's not how you do it.

People don't change through that type of threatened threats and force.

People change when God changes their hearts. It's got to be God -centered.

It's got to start in your church. So if you see something in your community, or if you see something in your home or in your life, and you're like, you know,

I don't like this. This ain't right. It shouldn't be like this. This isn't what God would want. Well, change it.

Do better. If you're a Christian, start with you. Repent of that sin. Always be repenting.

As one of my friends, fellow pastors, Brandon Scalf, he says this a lot, you know, always be repenting.

Be the chief repenter in your home. Well, you Christian, be the chief repenter in your church. Always repenting.

Always growing in righteousness and holiness. Always pursuing a greater level of submission and obedience to God.

Not out of force. Not because some group made you. But because you love

God. You love your Savior. And you want to be as God -centered as you possibly can.

When God regenerates hearts, when we preach the gospel, and people are saved, and the majority of your community is saved, and they're in God -fearing,

Bible -believing churches that are under sound wisdom and shepherding of qualified elders that are teaching the

Word of God consistently, contextually, week after week after week. Those Christians are growing in righteousness and God -centeredness.

You don't think that's going to change communities? Yeah, it will. You know, the ones, and this ain't about being mean or anything to those that might think differently.

So don't, this isn't what I do. But, you know, those that would have a more pessimistic eschatology, you know, to try to challenge them to think a little bit, they always say, well, in my mind, there's a little bit of an inconsistency there, because they'll say, well, you know, the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

It's only getting worse. It's getting worse, worse, worse, worse. That's all it's ever going to do. And then they'll say, well, I pray for my country, and I pray the

Lord would change hearts. I'm like, I'm with you, and I used to be like that. But I always challenge them to say, well, you know,

I hear you, and I appreciate where you're coming from. I appreciate what you're saying. Have you ever stopped to think about this?

What if God actually answered that prayer? What if tomorrow, say, 90 % of Congress regenerated?

100 % perfectly saved by a perfect Savior. The very next day, they all get into good local church under good teaching of the

Word of God and start growing in their sanctification. You don't think that would change Congress really quick? Yeah, it would.

It's about being God -centered, my friends. You know, you go say, man, every time I watch something on your channel, it's like God -centered, God -centered,

God -centered, God -centered. Yeah, that's the point. You know why? I tell people all the time the things

I preach about the most are the things I've always done the worst. I've always had the most issue with, or had to repent of the most.

And that was the issue with most of my life. It was man -centered. It was me -centered. It was Andy -centered, and I was miserable.

Well, you know what the solution to that was? It wasn't, get Andy more rules. We just need to write down more stuff he needs to do.

No, no, there's things I've had to do, I've had to change. Yes, there was actions involved, but it was a change of the heart, my friends.

It was God working in my heart. God changing me from the inside out to be more

God -centered. And what I found is the delight that I have, the joy that I have, the desires that I have to serve

Him only got stronger. So what

I would say to you from a pastoral spiritual side to go with the very real legal and political and those other parts that are very real and very important as well, and in other

Christian creators and pastors and people that have been online, whether it's

YouTube, whatever, talk about that side of things, they're not doing wrong, they're right. This is very bad.

This is very illegal and very wrong. And yes, we should have, and we do have laws that should deal with this.

And you do need to hold people accountable to the law and to what's right and all those things. What I'm saying is, and I'm not saying that they were saying this,

I'm just saying in addition to what they've already said, what I'm saying is, when we talk about the bigger picture of what gets us to a point where these things are happening, we don't need to focus on, well, if we just had this law or these, focus on hearts, preach the gospel.

Just, I know it sounds like, like, really? Because it's really simplistic.

It doesn't mean it's easy, but the mission is really simple. Preach the gospel, preach the word of God, preach the word of God every day to yourselves, to others, live it, love the

Lord, love other Christians, love your neighbor as yourself, grow in sanctification, grow in holiness, grow in righteousness, be children of light, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

That's what we're called to do. And yes, as God regenerates hearts and as communities are regenerated and as people come to the

Lord, we should be writing and implementing Christ -honoring laws and having

Christ -honoring communities, God -centered communities that want to be pleasing to the

Lord. Yes, it will affect the way nations operate and the way they look. Yes, that's the result of the cause.

That's not the cause itself. So if you're wondering in your mind, you know, what in 2026 can

I do? You know, because I'm just, you know, I mean, me, look, I mean, yeah,

I've got this little video on YouTube. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy with a family in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

We're way over here by the coast and we pray there's not a hurricane that takes us way over here. You know, I'm just a guy.

I have a job. I do what I can. Like, no, we're more than that because we have

God indwelling us. Wherever it is that you live, you say, well, my church only has, you know, five people.

We couldn't possibly affect change. Folks, my church has 15 or 18. We're small.

But you know what? Those folks are faithful and they love each other and I see joy in their faces every week and I tell them

I'm proud of them because of it. Not in a sinful way, but in a generally righteous, being proud of them way.

Like, you know what I mean? I tell them because that's infectious. And preaching the gospel and living the gospel,

God will change lives. He changed yours. He changed mine. Why can't he change your neighbors down the street?

Why can't he change your community? He can. Pray for it. Expect it. Live it. But do it from the place that is consistent with scripture because of the gospel changing hearts.

Amen. Well, thank you for joining me. I hope this has been beneficial to you. If you want to talk or discuss this further, reach out to me.