Church Life and Ministry Intro

Course Overview, Syllabus, and Expectations

Good evening everyone. I'm glad to see you all here. We have taken a little break and we are back in the new term for Sovereign Grace Academy and this is an eight-week course that's going to be covering the subject of church, life, and ministry.

And if you're not quite sure what I mean by that, hopefully you had a chance to look over the syllabus. We're fixing to look over it in just a moment. But if you don't really know what I mean by that, you'll know by the end of tonight what the goals are of this course.

If you do have your syllabus, please take it out. Here's here's our outline of tonight's agenda. We're going to be examining the course syllabus. By the way, I'm doing something a little different this semester.

As you can tell, I've decided to make use of the television that I never had before. So all the lessons are going to have accompanying PowerPoint presentations. And I will say this, if you have bad eyes, there are going to be a few screens where it's a little tough to read.

But if you email me, I will just email you the PDFs of these screens. I can save this to a PDF file and then you have all the notes. So you don't have to sit there and try to squint your eyes to read.

Part of this is for me, part of this is for you, and the little pieces are like for me to be able to see. Everybody understand? So don't feel like it. I just don't want every five minutes to say, I can't see it.

If you can't see it, it's fine. I'm gonna read it to you. But the hope of it is that it will help you with your note-taking, that it will help keep us on task, it'll help keep us moving forward with the class.

So tonight we're going to be first examining the course syllabus. This will explain what we need to do for this entire eight weeks to earn the course certificate. There is a certificate that goes with each course.

And then if you do the two years of ministry training, you receive a diploma. Now we have a person who did two years of training. And because this class was actually at the end of, this is starting at really the second year, because we had an additional class added in there on Greek.

And he did two years worth of classes and that is Alan Durenencourt, who has completed two years. He'll be receiving a diploma, basic ministry training, which is his final diploma. And then now he's going to seminary.

He called me today to tell me that he is going to seminary. So pray for Alan as he moves forward seeking to be a pastor. So I'm excited that this was a step toward that in his life. Other ones who did the certificate last semester were Darian did her certificate and Miss Nancy Weller did hers.

If you sent me, if anybody else didn't get a grade, it's because I didn't get your paper. So if you did the work and I didn't get back with you, it's because I didn't, I must not have received it. So let me know if that is in fact the case.

I don't want anybody to do the work and not get the credit for the work. So we're examining the course syllabus. That's the first thing we're going to do tonight. Then we're going to have our introduction to ecclesiology.

Very quickly by show of hands, how many of you know what the word ecclesiology means? Okay, well, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. You look like you're halfway. So that's, that's not the case. But that would be what people would think because there's a book of ecclesiastes in the Bible, ecclesiology, the word ecclesia is the word for church.

So ecclesiology is the study of the church. And so tonight is really an introduction to ecclesiology. This, this book, which is our textbook, is the product of more than a year of writing that I did back in the the late 20, I think it was like 2009 -2008, I think is when I wrote the material for this book.

And then I published it because I believe that one of the issues that we were having was that we were not functioning biblically as a church, this church. And so I wanted our church to look at the things that we were doing and how could we do them better.

And so I preached an entire year on the subject of ecclesiology and then those notes became codified in the book. And that's where the book came from. And so this course is really an eight-week course on a year worth of material that I preached and taught here at the church.

And so ecclesiology is studying the church, the reason why church life and ministry matters. So then we're going to look tonight at the purpose and mission of the church. That's the the third part of tonight.

And then after our break, we always take a break at the hour mark and we try to keep that to five to seven minutes. You can go down the bathroom, get you some water, go outside and take a breath, whatever you need to do.

We come back in for the last 20 minutes and we have a discussion. Tonight's discussion is going to be on the subject of how is church misunderstood. That's going to be the discussion after the break. No bad idea what we're doing?

It's always good to tell you what you're going to do, then do it, right? Give us our outline. Well the first thing let's do is let's look at the course syllabus. Let's look at the course syllabus and see what it is we're going to be doing in this course.

As I said, we just sort of went through it. Under overview and objectives, it says this course will introduce the student to the various aspects of church life and ministry, including leadership, membership, finances, missions, etc.

Each student will be encouraged to discover the place in Christ Church where he has uniquely gifted them to serve. That really is the ultimate goal of this class. Not that you just know what the church is, but know what Christ has called you to be in his church.

God has gifted you in some way, shape, or fashion to serve him. If you are his, you are not his by accident. You are his by design and you have a purpose in his church. And so part of this course is discovering the purpose that Christ has for you.

The required texts are the Holy Bible. You need a Bible. If you have a Bible app on your phone, that will suffice. But I like to hear Bible pages turn. So if you do have a Bible, that's nice. And there are blue Bibles on the tables.

Those belong to the church, but you're welcome to use them. And you need a copy of a biblically functioning church. And if you didn't buy a copy, you can buy a copy tonight. If you don't have the money, just come.

I'll give you the book. You can pay me when you can. You have to have here the requirements. Your course attendance. Class attendance is required. Will be checked at each session. What I'm going to do at the break is I'm going to pass around a piece of paper for you to write your name.

And please write your phone number this semester. Because I now have a texting app that will allow me to text you information. So rather than email, you can put your email too. We'll have name, email, phone number.

I'm going to be sending all of you texts throughout this eight-week course. So we'll do that roster during... Bobby, would you help me to remember that? Get a piece of paper and get everybody's name.

Thank you. And a student who misses more than 25 of the class meetings will forfeit credit for the class and receive a failing grade unless an arrangement is made with the professor to complete the work online.

We do provide everything online. That's what all this recording is. If you miss a class and you make it up online and you show me your notes that you've gone through and taken notes, then I will accept that as you having attended the class.

But my desire is that you be here. Because if you are here, you can raise your hand and ask questions. If you're here, you can interact with the discussion. If you're not here, you can't. So I prefer that you be here if possible.

Academic character. Using someone's work without proper citation. Handing in another's work is plagiarism. And I haven't... I don't think I've had to deal with that yet. But here's the thing, guys. If you're citing something, cite it.

Don't hand in work that you've just copied from someone else. If you're going to cite something, cite it properly. And if you don't know how to do that, ask my wife. I was gonna say, ask me. Don't ask me.

My wife teaches English. I mean, she loves to do this kind of stuff. She would love to help you with your paper. Talk to her. If you don't know my wife, I'd be happy to introduce you. She'd be happy to help you with your paper.

Reading assignments are 25 of the grade. If you don't read the material, you won't be able to engage the discussion. And if you don't engage the discussion, I'll know it. So please read what is required.

And the reading this semester is very important because I wrote it. No. It just is, you know... One of the things you'll notice on the reading assignment, we'll get there in a minute, but it's not in order.

Because the way I ordered the book was the way I preached the sermons. But the way the class is, is in different order. So I'll talk about why that is a little bit in a moment. Your notebook at the end of the semester is 20 of your final grade.

That means you should be taking notes every class. And you have to show me your notebook if you're going to get the certificate. You have to just show me that you've taken notes. And I even had some people send me pictures.

Because like, there was one person who took the class online. Obviously, I didn't see them. So they took pictures of their notes and sent them to me just so that I knew that they had done their notes.

Finally, your research project. Your research project this month, this semester. If you've done these courses before, you know there's always the big research project. And the research project of this semester is different than any one that we've ever done before.

This one is probably the most personal that I've ever asked for. Because read it with me. Each student will write an autobiography of their experience in church life and ministry. What is an autobiography?

It's the story of you. It's the story of you. It will include a history of the churches that you have joined and the positions that you have held, the important events and the lessons that you have learned, and the discovery of your own individual giftedness.

Some of you probably have some heartbreaking stories of church life that you may want to share. No one else will read it. But me and my wife, she does help me grade the papers. So you know, be as honest as you want to be.

But just remember, the goal of this is to give you an opportunity to tell your story. You know, you're not publishing this in the New York Times. You're just writing a paper. But it's an opportunity to talk about how God's brought you here through the churches that he has used.

The paper should conclude with a portion looking to the future, answering this question, what do I believe God has called me to do in the church where I'm currently serving? What has God called me to do in the church where I'm currently serving?

So that is your research project this year, this semester rather, and should be no less than three pages, no more than five pages, double space. It's really not a lot of writing. Be as, you know, be as free as you want to, but also consider the fact that it's, you know, it has to be within a certain framework.

Somebody gives me a 20-page paper, that's gonna be a lot for me to have to read in grades, so three to five pages is usually enough to see that you've grasped the material. Our schedule is, starting tonight, Lecture 1, Why Church Life and Ministry Matters.

You didn't have any reading assignments tonight because many of you didn't have the book until tonight. Lecture 2, Joining a Local Church, will be next week. By next week, you should have read the first three chapters of the book.

Now, I want to tell you this, this book, I wrote it, again, I was 29 years old when I wrote it, and it was not professionally edited. It was edited by a friend who is also a minister, so if you find mistakes in the book, feel free to let me know, but don't be too mean.

Again, it was unprofessionally edited, but we did try to make it as best as we could. So, you'll have chapters 1 through 3 next week. Now, the week after that, you're going to read chapters 5 through 7, because chapter 4 is on gender in the local church, and I'm saving that for week 5, or week 4, rather.

So, you see how that breaks down. Then, you're going to read chapter 9. Then, we're going to have a week where you don't have to read anything, so that's your catch-up week. If you're behind in your reading, you can read whatever you've got to read in your catch-up week, and then we're going to look at conflict in the local church.

That's in chapter 8, and then supporting the local church in chapter 10. Any questions on the syllabus? Everybody know what is expected? Everybody excited about the new term? Very good. Well, I'm excited to have you here.

The Meaning of Ecclesiology and the Church as the Called-Out Assembly

All right. Well, let's move on to our introduction to ecclesiology. As we already said, the word ecclesiology refers to the church, and when we talk about ecclesiology, we know one thing. The word church doesn't come from the word ecclesia.

It's not like cardia. You know, the Greek word cardia means heart, and we think of cardiac comes from cardia, but church does not come from ecclesia. Church is actually derived, the English word church is derived from the Scottish word Kirk, or what it might look like Kirk, like Captain Kirk, but it's more pronounced like Kirk, and the German designation Kirch.

Kirch and Kirk are derivatives of the word kuriakon. Now, how many of you took Greek with me? John, do you remember what kurios is? It's okay if you don't. I'm just curious. Do you remember, Ross, what kurios means?

Bobby, were you here for Greek? Yeah. Do you happen to remember what kurios means? It says it on the board, by the way. I'm asking the question if you can't remember. Kurios means Lord, and kuriakon means to belong to the Lord, or belonging to the Lord, and therefore when we talk about the Kirk or the Kirch, we are referring to that which belongs to the Lord, the kuriakon, that which is the Lord's, but the word church in the Bible, when you open the Bible and you read in Matthew 18, and Jesus talks about the church, or you open the Bible to Paul's letter to the Philippians, and he's writing to the church at Philippi, that word is the Greek word ekklesia.

Ekklesia comes from two Greek words that construct together the word kaleo, which means call, and the prefix ek, which means out, and so the word ekklesia refers to that which is called out, or those who are called out, and you'll notice I give you the definition here.

The textbook definition of ekklesia is a gathering of citizens called out from their homes in some public place or an assembly. The church is an assembly of the called. That's what the church is, and when we talk about being called, what does that refer to?

Well, jump right in Calvinist, why don't you? The idea though is to be called of God is to be his, right? To say that we're called of God, like if somebody sometimes we talk about ministers, I'll meet another minister, and he might say to me, well when did you receive your calling, right?

Or he might say, when did you know you were called, right? And I know, because what he's saying is when did you know you were called to preach, or when did you know you received the calling to do what you do, right?

And so there's a certain sense in which when the Bible talks about a calling, it's talking about not just like a general hey hello, it's talking about something specific in the heart of an individual.

And we say the Bible says those who he foreknew he called, those whom he called he justified, those whom he justified he glorified, right? So the calling is in regard to those who are his. This week I'm preaching John chapter 10.

My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. How did the sheep know his voice? Because he calls and they hear, right? At some point, if you're a believer, and I pray that all of you are, if you're a believer, at some point you were lost and Christ called and you heard the call, and you responded in faith because of the power of the Holy Spirit who opened your heart to believe.

But that's the calling. So when we talk about the called, we're talking about believers. We're talking about people who God has saved, right? And so the ekklesia, the called out, the ones who've been called, it's talking about the believers.

So to be part of the church is to first be in Christ. We're not truly part of the church if we're not in Him. If we're not called to be His, then we are not part of the church. The word church in the New Testament is often found in the book of Acts and in the epistles.

And some have argued that Jesus did not come to establish a church. How many of you have heard that? Jesus didn't come to set up a church? Well, that's bupkis is what that is. It's garbage. There's a Greek word for it.

What is it? Baloney. Absolutely. The Greek word baloney. Because people say Christ did not come to set up a church. I say, how do you explain Matthew 16, 18? Jesus was talking to Peter. He says, I call you Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

This is one of two times Jesus used the word ekklesia in the book of Matthew, both times referring to that which He came to establish. I will build my church. The Savior said those words. And He said the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

If you were here in our last class, which was apologetics, what do we learn from this verse? We learn from this verse that the church is on the offensive because hell has gates and we are charging the gates of hell.

See, the gates of hell. It doesn't say hell will not prevail against the church. It says the gates of hell, meaning we charge hell with the sword of the Spirit. We go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So the church, and we're going to talk about this more when we get to the mission of the church, but the church does have a purpose and a calling to do these things. So Jesus said, I will build my church.

And by the way, those who would say Jesus didn't come to establish a church, then all of the apostles were wrong because they established churches everywhere they went. Everywhere Paul set his foot, a church sprung up.

And Paul established churches every place he went. He was a church planter par excellence. He planted churches. He built churches on and on and on. And by the way, the majority of the New Testament is written to what?

Churches or church leaders. Whether it is to the Church of Rome, the Church of Philippi, the Church of Ephesus, or it is to Timothy, who is the pastor of the Church of Ephesus. Right? This is these things.

Yeah, revelations written to seven churches. Very good. Thank you. So the church, here's a good little quote for you. If the church is important to Christ, it must be important to us. People say, I love Jesus.

I hate the church. That's like saying, I love you, Keith, but I hate your wife. You say that to me, we're not friends. I'll be honest with you. Say, I love you, Keith, but your wife, I hate her. Well, I don't want to be your friend.

That's my wife. That's my bride. I'd give my life for my bride. Jesus gave his wife, his life for his bride. The Bible says, yeah, that's right. The Bride of Christ is the church. And if the church matters to Christ, the church should matter to us.

I love this quote. I found this, by the way, having this allows me to share memes. Isn't that great? Because I found that I just have popped up yesterday. I was like, oh, I'm gonna throw that in the thing.

This is from C .H. Spurgeon. If you don't know who Spurgeon is, he was the preacher. He was an English preacher in the 1800s, considered to be the prince of preachers. And he said this, he said, the church is not perfect, but woe to the man who finds pleasure in pointing out her imperfections.

Christ loved his church. Let us do the same. So let's talk a little bit about how we understand the designation of the church. This is one of the ones can be almost impossible for some of you in the back to see, and I'm sorry.

The big red ones are the most important because we're going to talk about a distinction in the church that we need to understand. The church is represented in two ways in Scripture and in history. First, we have what we call the invisible church, or otherwise known as the universal church.

And then we have what's known as the visible church, or what's also called the local church. Somebody give me a definition. Well, I guess it's on there, so it'd be easy for some of you who's close enough to read it.

What is the universal church? All believers everywhere, right? When did someone become a member of the universal church? When they're regenerated, right? When they come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, when they are born again into the family of God, they're made part of the universal church, what we would call the invisible church.

Now, why do we call it invisible? Yeah, and we don't know who's in, right? If I look at a Jaguar game, and I look at all that stadium, right? It's filled with people. It ain't like I see a bunch of people with E's tattooed to their foreheads elect.

You know, I don't know who's in the invisible church, right? I don't know except by their confession, right? I only know by... That's why a lot of times I meet people. Are you a believer? You know, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you His? That's a way of identifying if they're part of the invisible church, because it doesn't come with a name tag. You know, the Bible does say in the book of Revelations, it talks about a sign or a mark that is held by believers, but I don't know that that's something that's physical or something that can be seen.

You know, it's compared to the mark of the beast in Revelation 13. What's that now? Yeah, and that's what I say. So we don't know, you know, but we know that there are people all around the world that are part of the church, right?

When I come on Sunday morning, and we have communion every Sunday at our church, when I stand before the communion table, and I hold up the bread and the wine, and I say to the congregation, the bread and the cup, I say, this cup is being shared by men and women all around the world today.

This cup and this bread unifies us as the body of Christ today, right? That is an important understanding, that the church is bigger than the local body. The church is every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ all around the world, but the distinction is the local church still has a purpose, because some people think, if I'm part of the universal church, if I'm part of the invisible church, then I don't have any need for the local church.

We're gonna get there, and you're right, but just right off, you've heard people say, I'm sure you have, haven't you brother, say, well I'm in Christ, I know Jesus, I'm part of the universal church. They maybe not say it that way, they might not get as theological as to call it the universal church or the invisible church, but they say, I'm believer, so I don't, I'm a believer, I don't need to be part of the local body.

But here's the thing to remember, the visible or local church is made up of local believers in communion with one another, and almost every time the Bible refers to the church, it's referring to the local church, not the universal church.

You read, in fact, I encourage you, go through the New Testament, find you a concordance or a Bible program that allow you to look up words, and look up the word church in your ESV or King James Bible, whatever Bible you use, and you read every instance where the word church is used, and you will find that the vast majority of them, almost all of them, is referring to the local church, not the church universal.

Yes, I don't know right offhand which ones refer specifically to the, I think some could be both, but in almost every instance, you know, it's a church at Philippi, it's the church at Rome, it's the church here, it's the church there, so that's what I say, when you look through, you just find over and over and over.

I think Jesus saying, I will build my church, you know, there's a sense in which that could be used in regard to the universal church, but I'd have to go back and look at each one to see, but you'll see though, if you do what I'm talking about, you'll see the majority of them is that local body, it's referring to that local body.

So, the reason why I bring this out, I want to, I'm going to draw something on this board. Now, for those of you who are watching, might not be able to see this if you're online, maybe you will, maybe you won't.

Do you guys know what a Venn diagram is? We have two circles and there's an overlapping circle and something in the overlapping is what refers to both of them, right? So, right here, we're going to say this is the invisible church, right?

Now, I'm going to use a different color. I'm going to say the blue represents the visible church. If you notice, there is an overlap in the circle and the overlap in the circle is where you want to be.

Let me explain why. Because if you are part of the invisible church, that means you are in Christ, but if you are in Christ and you're not in the local church, then you're not in the will of God and I hope that by the end of this eight weeks, you will trust and understand that what I just said is absolutely true, that if you're not in the local church, you're not in the will of God.

You can argue with me later, don't argue with me right now, I got time for it, but the point is, this circle represents the invisible church and there are people who are in the invisible church who are not in a local church.

Yeah, so that would represent what we would say is being out of the will of God. Now, other side, there are people in the visible church who are not in Christ, right? That's even worse because that represents people who are not believers, but are in the church who pretend and there's a lot of people that do that too.

So where do you want to be? You want to be right there. You want to be in the invisible church and in the visible church. You want to be a true believer in Christ's church, serving somewhere. That makes sense?

That's why I think it's important to make that distinction and I think that this Venn diagram helps. Maybe next time I'll have a better one looking on the board here, but everybody make sense? Okay, so again, going back to something to think about.

This course will focus on understanding the purpose, mission, and structure of the local church and discovering your place within. I put this here because I want to remind you that we are focusing on this part, the blue part, because there's not much I can say about the invisible church, except for they're all in Christ and if you're not in a local church, you should be.

That's it, but once you're in the local church, then we got to talk and that's what the rest of this course is going to be about. So really, the invisible visible church, the distinction is not as important anymore.

It's only important to bring us to where we are. Now we understand where we are, what we're doing. We're focusing on being this person right here and figuring out what Christ has for us to do, discovering our place in the local church.

Three Fallacies About the Church: “I Am the Church,” “Every Gathering Is a Church,” and “Ministry Matters More Than Doctrine”

Now, I have three fallacies that I want to share with you about the church that I hope will make sense as I go through them. Regarding the church, three things, three fallacies that people will say, and you will hear people say these things, and I want to explain why I believe they're wrong.

Number one, fallacy number one, I am the church. Fallacy number one, I am the church. You ever heard somebody say that? Here's a good, I know you can't really see it, some of you. This is a post I made a year ago.

I just celebrated my wife's birthday. I'm not going to tell you which one because I like my wife and she doesn't like me to say that, but we just celebrated her birthday. Does it say? Oh, it's three years ago.

Well, this was three years ago, but we just celebrated it again because it happens every year. But this post came up and reminded me that three years ago we were sitting at Longhorn Steakhouse. I'd taken her to dinner on her birthday.

A young man came up. He was a sweet young man. He sang happy birthday to her, and he sang it in one of those real, like, happy birthday, like, very, you know, very excited to sing happy birthday. Beautiful voice, nice young man.

We had a nice conversation. Well, in the midst of the conversation, I said, do you go to church? And he goes, no, I am the church. I said, no, you're not. Yes, I am. No, son, you're not. The word church, no, I said, I said, no, he was.

We had a jovial enough conversation going that I knew he wasn't going to get angry because he was trying to be. Yeah, I am the church. I said, no, you're not. He goes, yes. I said, no, son. I said, because the church is the assembly of the called and you can't assemble by yourself.

I said, if you're not assembling with other believers, then you're not doing what God has called you to do. And he kind of looked at me and I said, do you know why? And we went into a long conversation about why the church matters.

You cannot be the church alone. There's no such thing as a lone wolf Christian. The Bible knows not of anything like that. So the idea, well, I am the church, ipso facto, I need not the church, is wrong.

It's just a fallacy. So that's number one. Number two, dangerous fallacies. Boy, we're going quick. Dangerous fallacy number two, every gathering is a church. I call this the Matthew 1820 fallacy. Can anybody tell me why I call it the Matthew 1820 fallacy?

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. I hear that all the time. People say, I don't need to go to church. I just get two or three people together and we pray and read the Bible and we have church.

No, you don't. You say, well, I think you're being offensive. Well, I'm not. People say you're being offensive. No, I think that it's okay to sometimes be a little abrasive because the Bible says iron sharpens iron.

It doesn't say cotton sharpens iron. You know what I mean? And so sometimes an abrasive word might be what's needed to knock the bark off the tree. Somebody says, well, when I gather with my friends, we have church.

I say, well, who are your elders? Who are your deacons? And which missionaries are you supporting? And how are you practicing the participation in the elements and the ordinance of baptism? Well, we don't do that.

Well, then you're not a church. The church has a biblically outlined structure. It is not to be a disordered, chaotic mess. It is to be a body which is structured decently and maintains order. And if you want the Bible verse, it's right there.

1st Corinthians 1440 referring to the church, all things should be done decently and in order. I've heard people say, well, I don't like going to this church. They don't allow enough freedom. They don't have freedom and have all this freedom.

You know who had a lot of freedom in their worship? Nadab and Abihu. You know what they did? They offered a strange fire unto the Lord and God consumed them before the temple, before the tabernacle rather.

Don't come and tell me how much freedom you need in worship because it ain't about you. So dangerous fallacies when people say, well, I just gather with my friends and we have church. No, you don't. Now I ain't saying I want to be clear about this.

I ain't saying you've got to have a building because people do have churches in their homes. But let me tell you, if it's a house church, it ought to be a church. It ought to be structured as a church and it ought to have the order of a church.

Now, that doesn't mean that you have to have pews and all those things. But again, if we are simply saying, well, we get together and pray and read the Bible, but there is no structure, then we're not doing church.

Dangerous fallacy number three, as I'm pretty sure I've run off half of you by now, so we'll see if you come back after the break. Dangerous fallacy number three, the ministry a church performs is more important than the teaching structure and practice of the church.

Now, but listen, you ever heard somebody say this? You say, well, they didn't say in that many words. How about this? A common statement goes like this, well, this church does so much for the community.

It does so much for the homeless. It does so much for the needy. It does so much for this or that or the other. Therefore, it must be a good church. No, guess what? Mormons do great things for the needy, but they teach things that will send you to hell.

So by saying, well, this church does this, that, or the other for the community, therefore, it's a good church, you have misunderstood the purpose of the church. Yeah, but and deeds do grow out of it, right?

I mean, we understand deeds are important, and I'm not discounting any of those things, but years ago, and by years, I mean decades ago, back in the early part of the 1900s, something arose called the social gospel movement.

You ever heard of that? John, you have a question. Go ahead. Sure, yep, no problem. The ministry a church performs is more important than the teaching structure and practice of church. That's the fallacy.

Well, people say that. Well, the ministry is more important than what you teach. What you do is more important than what you believe. That's really the fallacy. Back in the early 1900s, many church denominations began to be influenced by the modernism and postmodernism of the day, and they began to abandon the teachings of the Bible, such as the miracles of Christ and the miracles of the Old Testament, the Noah's Ark, and those things, and they began to disbelieve those things, but they wanted to continue to maintain things like love and charity and all those things, so they began to teach what was known as the social gospel, and the social gospel was basically Christianity divorced from all of the teachings of Christianity.