Should Churches Have Membership Covenants?

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Should churches have membership covenants? That's what we're gonna talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

00:27

And welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:30

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist and it's good to see everyone today.

00:35

And I am joined again by the man, the myth, the legend, Uncle Rich.

00:41

How are you doing today, Richard? Doing pretty good.

00:44

You're taking a step down with me on the episode now because you done went to the heights of like James White and Leighton Flowers, Samuel Say, and then right back down to the bottom of the barrel.

00:58

I don't feel that way because let me tell you why, ladies and gentlemen, you may not realize it, but I am in the presence of a bona fide movie star.

01:08

This gentleman right here has been, I didn't even realize.

01:11

We've been friends almost our whole lives.

01:15

And only recently did I realize that he and I, or that he, rather, is the star of a film.

01:24

Wouldn't say I'm the star of the film.

01:26

Okay, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.

01:30

He's not the star of the film, but he was in a feature film entitled? Tiger Land.

01:36

Tiger Land.

01:37

Tiger Land is the film.

01:39

And by the way, I do not recommend to anyone in your audience to go watch this.

01:43

Oh, come on now.

01:45

Well, it was pre-conversion.

01:49

And of course I was just an extra in it.

01:50

We'll get into that in a minute.

01:51

But it's got some filthy scenes in it and a lot of language.

01:55

Oh, okay.

01:55

I haven't seen the film, so I don't give you that.

01:57

They don't need to go watch it.

01:58

Vid angel.

01:59

Right, yeah.

02:01

For real.

02:03

But I brought some pictures because I wanted to show off the fact that you are, in fact, a bona fide legend.

02:11

You are a legend in the film industry among the extras.

02:13

This is a picture from the movie.

02:16

This is you.

02:18

By the way, tell them what Tiger Land's about real quick.

02:21

Tiger Land is just basically, it's a movie about the place that they would send.

02:29

Tiger Land was famous in Louisiana for like being as close to Vietnam as you could get it.

02:35

And so the film centers around Colin Farrell, who plays a fellow named Boz, as he has been enlisted and going to Tiger Land before he ships off to Vietnam.

02:46

And the story centers around him.

02:49

And this was just a vehicle directed by Joel Schumacher to get Colin Farrell into the States.

02:55

It's like the first movie he did when he got over here.

02:57

Gotcha.

02:57

Well, I was showing the photographs as you were explaining it.

03:01

And if you were looking at those photographs online, what you were seeing was those little yellow lines were pointed to Richard and his friend.

03:07

What was your friend's name? Rob Hartley.

03:09

He was in the movie with me.

03:11

He's actually the reason I got in it.

03:14

His biggest aspirations in life was being a movie star or a rock star.

03:18

And he calls me up when I was like 19 or 20.

03:21

He calls me up and says there was a casting call, but he couldn't get over there.

03:25

I think this is him right here, isn't it? That's him right there.

03:27

That's him running.

03:28

Okay.

03:29

And he was just super excited to win a cast call for this movie for extras.

03:33

And this is him dancing on the back of a truck.

03:35

Yep.

03:35

And I was right there next to him.

03:36

That's my head right there next to him in the hat.

03:39

And so I drove him to the casting call without any aspirations of myself to being in the movie.

03:47

And it was like this janky little rank motel that they were doing this at.

03:52

And you were just in line, and I was just in line with him.

03:55

And they pulled me into the room, had me sign some paperwork, took a headshot, and we left.

04:00

And then two weeks later, he calls me up.

04:01

Hey man, we're in the movie.

04:03

I managed to get us in the same platoon.

04:05

We can ride together and do everything together.

04:07

I'm like, crap.

04:07

Now I gotta go do this.

04:11

We were there for one week.

04:12

And after one week of not, of being in the frigid cold and getting paid very little, I had a full-time job at the time.

04:18

I didn't go back.

04:19

And Rob couldn't go back because I didn't go back.

04:21

And you made a grand total.

04:22

I made a grand total and worked 90 hours and got a grand total of $90.

04:28

So they were told, we were told we were supposed to get paid $10 an hour.

04:32

You did not.

04:32

No.

04:33

So I was thinking, well, I'll get a fat paycheck.

04:35

At least for being here at noon.

04:36

They paid us a measly 90 bucks for all that time.

04:41

They were paying you according to screen time.

04:45

And I'm not even sure it was worth $90.

04:48

So that was, so we left and Rob was upset, but hey, we made it in the movie.

04:53

We were there for like four days, six days, and in the last shots, where we are.

05:00

Well, very cool.

05:00

Well, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, I'm in the presence of greatness.

05:03

A genuine bona fide movie extra.

05:07

Yes, movie extra.

05:10

That's the grandness of it is I'm an extra.

05:14

That was it.

05:15

Not a movie star.

05:16

Absolutely.

05:16

And again, don't go watch the movie.

05:19

Well, we're going to move on to the next part of the show.

05:22

And we have been introducing, for the last few shows, we've been introducing the thing that we call the craziest things this week.

05:34

Craziest things this week is where I show something that is different, something that's a little odd, a little off.

05:41

And I show it to somebody who hasn't seen it.

05:44

And you are the person, you're the guest today.

05:47

So you haven't seen this.

05:48

So I'm going to show this to you.

05:49

This is the craziest thing this week.

05:51

I'm going to have to turn where you can actually see the monitor a little bit.

05:53

And we're going to talk just for a minute about this.

05:55

This isn't about the main topic of the show.

05:56

So we'll only take a few minutes on this, but this is something that I saw this morning and I thought, yeah, this is one of those things.

06:02

Christian leaders are calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop a bill proposed by members of his coalition to make it criminal to tell people about Jesus in Israel.

06:12

Our Jerusalem correspondent Daniel Cohen is live near Tel Aviv with more.

06:14

Good morning, Daniel.

06:16

Good morning, Allison.

06:17

Good morning, everyone.

06:18

A big story just before, days before Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, sacred time for Christians.

06:26

Two ultra-Orthodox members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition have introduced a bill that would punish believers for sharing the gospel of Jesus with prison time.

06:36

United Torah Judaism Knesset members Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Asher introduced legislation last week, making it illegal to share in conversation or produce content online, in print, or by mail.

06:50

Their explanation of the bill emphasizes a warning to stop Christians in particular.

06:55

That is interesting.

06:56

Have you seen that yet? No, that's the first time I've seen that.

06:59

Yeah, and that, first of all, and all the Dispensationalists lost their minds right there.

07:06

As soon as that, I was like, boy, I tell you what, man, Tim LaHaye's gonna write another book.

07:14

Yeah, I can see where they would be getting a little riled up right now.

07:21

Yeah, and I don't know if this is something that happens all the time.

07:24

I posted, I said something the other day about the Pope giving the dispensation for Lent, getting to eat on St.

07:31

Patrick's Day, and one of my Catholic friends posted on my page, she said, well, he does that every time St.

07:37

Patrick's Day falls on Lent.

07:38

I was like, I ain't a Catholic, I don't know.

07:40

I just thought it was funny.

07:41

I was like, he giving you, he breaking rules so y'all have your, not potted meat, what is it? Corned beef.

07:49

There you go.

07:50

Yeah, yeah.

07:51

Well, I mean, you make it up for it in purgatory or whatever, so.

07:54

That's right, yeah.

07:55

It'll be all right.

07:56

But this thing about the Jews not being, again, I don't know if this is a normal thing, like this is always happening over there.

08:03

People are always trying to make the gospel something that people aren't allowed to share or people aren't allowed to do, but it sounded new to me.

08:09

I'd never heard anything like that.

08:11

I never heard anything, and I'm guessing the Orthodox members that brought it up are Orthodox Jews.

08:15

Sure.

08:16

Right.

08:17

So I can see why they wanna do that.

08:20

Yeah, they wanna squelch the gospel for sure.

08:22

Right, well, they wanna squelch anything that has to do with Jesus.

08:25

So ain't much change in a couple thousand years.

08:27

Mm-hmm.

08:30

So.

08:31

Absolutely.

08:32

That's nuts, and that should be another reason we should be grateful we live where we live.

08:36

Oh, absolutely.

08:37

We're not outlawed like this.

08:39

Absolutely, even though there are those who I'm sure would want to.

08:42

Oh, yeah.

08:43

There are people who would want to silence the gospel with any opportunity that they had.

08:46

Well, we keep traveling down the road we're traveling.

08:48

We may get there.

08:49

Yeah, I remember a few years ago when Bernie Sanders was giving a, he was inquiring of a man who was running for the Senate and, or for some position, and he asked him, he said, do you believe that you have to believe in Jesus to be right with God or something? The guy was like, well, you know, this is my belief, blah, blah, blah, and at the end of the day, it was like, one, yes, that's what Christians believe.

09:18

Christians have always believed this.

09:19

Why are you making this a big deal? But also, why does this seem like it's, you're saying if he believes that, then he's not fit for the Senate.

09:31

Every Christian should believe that.

09:33

Right.

09:34

Does that mean there are no Christians in the, well, maybe not.

09:37

Maybe I better not ask that question, but.

09:41

I do remember that.

09:43

Was he, I forget who he was interviewing.

09:46

I want to say, it wasn't Kavanaugh, was it? No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't Kavanaugh.

09:50

Somebody from something else.

09:51

But yeah, and then he followed it up with, isn't that hateful to Muslims, or because you're saying they can't be included in.

09:57

Yeah, aren't you saying that they're wrong? It's like, yeah, we're saying they're wrong.

10:02

We're saying that they're worshiping a false God, and I wish the dude would have just said it, but, you know, he was in a tough spot, I get it, and he was trying to make an end run to say, well, this is what I've written, and I believe in what I've written.

10:15

He was saying those things.

10:18

But again, a test of faith is certainly something that is possibly going to be coming at some point, and you have to hold to the faith of secularism to make do in our current government.

10:31

You have to bow to the knee, or bow the knee to the all-powerful state.

10:37

That's what the desire of so many is.

10:41

Well, that moves us to our main topic for today, and this is going to be what we focus on for the rest of our time, and that is focusing on the subject of the church, and primarily being members of the church, and what it takes to be a member of the church.

10:59

And I bring this up because you and I would both agree, and I don't think this is what we're trying to prove today.

11:05

You and I would both agree that church membership is biblical.

11:09

Yes.

11:10

Now, there are those of you who may not agree.

11:12

There are those of you who might say, I don't believe a person needs to be a member of a church, and I think church membership is unbiblical.

11:18

I am going to link below in the description of this video a sermon that I did where I sought to, in that sermon, make the argument from Scripture that church membership is biblical.

11:29

So we are not here really dealing with the subject of church membership being biblical.

11:35

What we're dealing with today is the question of church membership covenants.

11:41

Recently, there was a church in Jacksonville, in fact, the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, that came under a lot of scrutiny because they asked their church members to sign a document.

11:55

I'm not sure if they called it a covenant.

11:56

I'd have to go back and look.

11:57

They may have.

11:58

But they asked their church to sign a document that basically said that they uphold the biblical view of marriage, being one man and one woman, and that they would not support homosexual unions, things like that.

12:11

And to be a member of the church, you had to agree to this very, I would say very historical Christian position.

12:21

This is not like this was new.

12:22

This is not like this was an odd view that they just came up with out of nowhere.

12:26

This was the view that the church has held for up until five minutes ago when a lot of churches started going crazy.

12:32

So they weren't asking their people to do anything nuts.

12:36

They weren't asking their people to do anything wild or strange, but they were met with, I would say, national publicity, and most of it was not good.

12:46

A lot of people were having great issue with a church asking their people to sign a, as it were, if you wanna say contract.

12:55

We call ours a membership covenant.

12:57

You brought along a copy of the membership covenant from your church.

13:01

And so that's what we're gonna be addressing today is the question of whether or not a church should have a membership covenant.

13:09

And if a church does, are they right or wrong in doing so? And so for just a moment, I just wanna address when we say the word covenant, a lot of people think that word may be too strong, but it is a biblical word.

13:27

And it's a word that addresses a agreement between two parties.

13:34

And the way I've described it is, in a way, it's similar to a contract where you have a agreement on both sides, where there are responsibilities on both sides.

13:44

But the difference between a covenant and a contract is a covenant bears more moral weight.

13:51

Whereas if you and I were in contract together, we would have a business together, and one of us decided to buy out of the contract, we could do that.

13:59

We could offer up money, we could say, I want out of this, and we could do that.

14:02

And there wouldn't be any moral infraction if one of us chose to buy out of the contract, as long as we did it in a way that was proper.

14:10

Right, take the proper legal channels.

14:13

We did that when I sold you my house.

14:14

Yeah, yeah, that was it.

14:15

We entered into a legal contract for a certain price and yada, yada, yada.

14:19

That's right.

14:20

And there wasn't anything moral in it.

14:21

That's right.

14:23

But when it comes to a covenant, a covenant, when it is made, it is made not to be broken.

14:30

This is why when we talk about marriage, we say marriage is a covenant that's not intended to be broken, and that there are expectations on both sides, and that it has, if it is broken, there is a moral side of it.

14:44

There is something moral in regard to it.

14:47

Now, somebody might say, well, does that mean if I join a church, I can't ever leave a church? No, that's not what we're saying, any more than we would necessarily say there aren't times where divorce might be necessary in certain situations.

15:00

But we are saying that entering into a relationship with a church is more than simply signing on a dotted line or putting your name on a roll or something like that.

15:10

We're saying there's actually a moral component to it because we are giving the church, we are giving the church certain expectations through becoming a member.

15:20

We are saying we expect some things from you, and the church should be expecting some things from its members.

15:28

In fact, one of the things that we do in our church, I'm just gonna pull up a copy of it here, we have a list of things we do in our new members class, and it's a list of what should the church expect from me, and what should I expect from the church? Now, you haven't seen that, so we'll play a little game here for a second.

15:49

What do you think are some of the things on our list, what do you think some of the things that the church should expect from its members? Should expect from its members? Yeah, if I said what should the church expect from you if you're a church member? Just a couple of things.

16:03

To be a student of the word, to support the church financially in all its missions and endeavors, to be faithful to the gospel, to attend regularly, as much as that's left out, it's not where you just join and come when you want to, it's attending on a regular basis, being faithful in attendance, to conduct yourself properly.

16:30

That's just to name a few, there's more we could do, but those are the ones that come off the top of my head.

16:35

Yeah, yeah, and just so everyone knows, in case anyone wants to mention it, if I do read a few of these, we did adapt some of these from the book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, which has been around for a while, and the eight that we have on what the church should expect are attend services regularly, so you got that one, attend communion particularly.

16:56

Now, for our church, that's every week, so it's not as much of a thing as it might be in a church where if you only had church once a month and everybody missed that Sunday, if a person consistently missed the Sunday where there was communion, that could be an issue.

17:08

And that's what we do is once a month.

17:10

Yeah, yeah, so attend members' meetings, be a part of the member, like if the congregation is meeting to make a decision.

17:19

Oh, yeah, like, yeah, I got you.

17:20

So be a part of that.

17:20

We actually still call those business meetings.

17:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:24

Pray regularly, give regularly, build relationships with others, submit to church leadership, and serve as God gives the opportunity.

17:31

That's the eight things.

17:33

And I think you nailed most of those.

17:36

All right, so what should you expect from the church, then, if that's the...

17:41

Congregations, now the...

17:42

Well, what should the church expect from you? From me, personally? Well, we just said that.

17:46

Okay.

17:47

Yeah, okay.

17:48

So what should you expect from the church? What should I expect from the church? Yeah.

17:54

Well, the thing that comes to mind for me is the bearing of one another's burdens, the rejoicing when I'm rejoicing, praying for me, disciplining me when necessary.

18:13

If I've erred and gone astray to, in the spirit of Matthew 18, try to bring me back.

18:24

Those are to...

18:27

The older disciple, the younger.

18:29

The younger disciple...

18:31

I mean, the older disciple, the younger.

18:33

Husbands and wives discipling young married couples.

18:38

So if you fall into those areas, those are the expectations that should be made of you.

18:44

Just to name a few things.

18:45

Yeah, I mean, you actually went further as far as in more specific areas.

18:49

We would say the first thing they should expect is expositional preaching.

18:53

Oh, okay.

18:54

People should expect to be taught the Word.

18:56

Biblical theology.

18:57

People should expect to have a right theology based on the Bible.

19:01

And then we have three things in a row, biblical understanding of the gospel, conversion, and evangelism.

19:06

Okay.

19:06

People should rightly...

19:07

They should expect that we are not manipulating people into conversions.

19:12

Well, see, I misunderstood the question.

19:14

So the church expecting from a pastor then? Well, of the church, and we could...

19:22

It sounds like you're describing things the pastors, the elders should be.

19:25

But it goes on to say biblical church membership, biblical church discipline, biblical discipleship, all those things, which wouldn't just be the pastor.

19:32

But the first couple ones do deal with the preaching.

19:34

And those things I did mention.

19:35

Yeah, preaching ministry.

19:36

Yeah, absolutely.

19:37

But yeah, I mean, you definitely wanna have the right expectation of the pastor that he's gonna be preaching the Word properly.

19:44

So those are some things.

19:45

So when we talk about there being an expectation, it should be right that we have expectations, and if these are not done, that would be wrong.

19:54

We're talking about a moral side of it, a moral component.

19:59

And so some people would say, no, the church, come and go as you please, come as you are, have no expectations.

20:11

And I think that's the attitude of so many people today.

20:15

And that leads me to one of the things I wanna bring up before we get to, I know you brought a copy of your covenant, I brought a copy of ours.

20:23

But before we get to that, I just wanna mention one other thing.

20:25

And this is a letter that was recently posted online and you had written in response to this letter.

20:37

And for those who are able to see it, it's up on the screen now.

20:40

This is a letter which came from a unknown church, unknown in the sense that it doesn't say the name of the church, except it does say Church of Christ.

20:50

So we got a lot of issues with the Church of Christ.

20:53

We're not agreeing with everything, but this is what the letter, this letter was sent to a person.

20:58

It says, for the last several years, we have noted that you have stopped attending the assembly of the church.

21:04

After attempts to discuss the situation with you, we fear that you are not longer convinced in the need to assemble with the church for which Christ died.

21:12

We are very saddened by your decision.

21:14

This failure to assemble is not the only problem that you must address.

21:18

We have been informed and understand that you have a living arrangement that is not biblical and must be terminated immediately.

21:24

This action alone reflects that you have not avoided all appearances of evil, as the scripture direct us in 1 Thessalonians 5.22.

21:31

Please understand our obligation as shepherds.

21:33

First, we must watch for your soul, Hebrews 13.17, and second, protect the congregation by withdrawing from every brother or sister that walks disorderly, 2 Thessalonians 3.6.

21:43

If these issues are not corrected and public repentance made by Sunday, February 21st, 2021, we will withdraw fellowship.

21:53

All right, so this is a letter of church discipline, effectively.

22:00

And you wrote a lengthy response when a friend of yours had posted this, and he was obviously not happy with the letter.

22:10

He said it was disgraceful.

22:13

So what was your thoughts? You had written.

22:15

Well, first I explained to him that what's being demonstrated here is a biblical principle of church discipline.

22:22

Now, I explained very clearly that I'm going strictly off of the context of this letter.

22:28

I wasn't present.

22:29

I don't know what actually happened.

22:33

I'm just going off the context of this letter.

22:35

But it seems that they attempted to follow some level of Matthew 18.

22:38

They approached them about these situations privately, prior to writing this letter to them.

22:46

They have not repented, nor does it seem they want to.

22:50

So it's necessary to then take it before the church, which I don't know if that's what they've done.

22:59

They may have taken it before the church when they weren't present, because it appears they weren't coming anymore anyway.

23:03

Now, I've never seen anybody do church discipline over not attending.

23:06

That's the first I've ever seen that.

23:07

I've seen church discipline over other things.

23:09

But violation of attending, I've never really seen a church go after that, because some people believe it's kind of a gray area.

23:17

Yeah, we practice it, but I'll explain that in a minute.

23:20

But either way, I don't have a problem with it.

23:22

I mean, if you've just walked off the books, then, okay, if you're not coming on a regular basis and it's been demonstrated, it's been six months since we've seen you, we need to have a conversation, because you should want to come.

23:36

But it seems like they followed the spirit of Matthew 18 in that.

23:38

They may have gone before the congregation when they weren't there, and the congregation decided, if they don't by this particular date, then it's time for them to be put out of the church, which that's biblical principles, put them out and treat them as an unbeliever, because it's obvious a true believer would come to repentance.

23:56

Yeah, and we've done shows about church discipline, and I think you and I have even talked about it.

23:59

Right, we talked about it, because twist not scripture.

24:01

That was one of the episodes.

24:02

Yeah, absolutely.

24:03

So if somebody's interested in learning more about that, you can go back and find that episode.

24:06

So it seems they followed that.

24:09

Now, I don't necessarily, I don't think writing this letter was the right approach.

24:15

I think the elders of the church, the three men that were, they blocked out the name of the church, so they didn't bother leaving the elders' name.

24:21

They didn't block out the name of the elders, that's right.

24:23

The three elders should have went to the lady's house and explained to her what was happening in person.

24:29

Now, flip it, this woman's the one in the wrong, regardless of how well they handled the situation, just from the context of the letter, the woman's in the wrong.

24:39

One, she's looking for internet justification, and I explained this in my response.

24:44

She's looking for justification for her sin because she has no desire to either attend the church, nor does she want to end this relationship she's having that's unbiblical.

24:52

She's obviously in a sexual relationship with someone.

24:55

Yeah, they didn't say that, but that's in between the line.

24:58

You're living with somebody.

24:59

You're living with someone, so let's assume they're having a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

25:04

Careful of your assumptions.

25:06

I'm just kidding.

25:07

Outside of marriage, which, like you said, that has to change.

25:11

One of them's got to move out.

25:13

And so they've attempted everything they could, and to no avail, so they've been held accountable for their actions.

25:22

And I explained to this fella who has a particular job, I said, it's no different than what happens at your job.

25:28

If you violate certain rules, you will be terminated.

25:33

Well, within the church, God has set out prescribed standards that a church is supposed to follow, and if you violate those with an unrepentant heart and refuse to repent, you can no longer assemble.

25:45

And it's like they said, it's for the sake of the body, fellow believers, because you can't have that in the church, so it's to protect the church, and it's to protect the soul, like they said, the soul of the people there, because now there's a question of their regenerate nature.

26:01

Now you put them out, and you start back at square one with the gospel.

26:06

You're trying to win a soul here.

26:07

That's what this is for.

26:08

That's the point.

26:09

This is a loving response.

26:11

Now again, I don't know.

26:14

There may be details we don't know, and this is apparently two years old.

26:17

It's 2021.

26:18

There's details we don't know, and I understand that.

26:21

And it may have, on a personal level, it may have been handled janky.

26:27

But if just going off- I love the word janky.

26:29

I don't know why, I just love it.

26:31

It's like, darn.

26:32

Right, darn.

26:35

But based off the context of the letter, they appeared to at least try to follow the principles, and use scripture to support the reason that they made the decision.

26:45

So I'll give them that.

26:47

Yeah, and the things that I read, because I did see many responses to it, the things that I read were almost all, churches shouldn't be engaged in putting people out.

27:04

Churches shouldn't be doing this.

27:05

They should be happy that people come.

27:07

They shouldn't be, who are they to tell her that she's not a member of the church and done it? I mean, it was, because you mentioned earlier, I don't remember if it was off camera or not, but you mentioned that, you know, it may have been better to go to her privately, or personally, than to give her the letter.

27:23

We got that a minute ago, yeah.

27:24

Yeah, the letter may be somewhat impersonal, as an impersonal way of doing it.

27:32

But most of the objections I heard were not necessarily objections to the letter.

27:37

I think, you know, we could have a discussion about that, what the propriety is.

27:42

We have had situations where people are unwilling to respond at all, even come to the door.

27:51

So I can see where a letter could be necessary.

27:56

If you're trying to dissolve this situation, or resolve the situation, and have, for lack of a better term, to have a documented removal of this person.

28:11

Okay, we said, by this date, this was gonna happen.

28:16

And you knew it, because you had it in writing.

28:19

That, you know, I could see the propriety in that.

28:21

And again, like I said, I've got my, I got plenty of issues with Churches of Christ, you know, theology.

28:26

But it's not, so this is more, for me, an issue of looking at their situation and going, okay, based upon this, they said they tried to contact her.

28:36

If that is, in fact, true, could be they went to her house, she didn't come to the door, or wouldn't entertain an audience with them.

28:44

And that's possible.

28:45

So we don't know.

28:46

At the end of the day, we're kind of going off second, you know, not even secondhand information.

28:52

We're going off of just the letter.

28:54

But I could see where the letter could have some place.

28:59

Yeah, and I did wanna, you mentioned earlier about discipline and over, attendance.

29:05

We had a rule, and we still have the rule, but it's changed slightly.

29:11

For years, we had the rule that if a person was out of attendance for 120 calendar days, which is four months, and they were unreachable, and there was no reasonable thing that was necessitating their absence, such as somebody being shut in physically sick, or somebody being out of the country, or somebody, you know, COVID, or whatever, you know, there was, obviously there's always exceptions that prove the rule.

29:42

But the situation was, if you were out of worship, if you did not attend corporate worship, and we include Wednesday night in that.

29:51

I mean, it's not like you have to come on Sunday, if you work on Sunday or whatever.

29:54

You know, if you don't attend corporate worship, if we haven't seen you, if you have not darkened the door and been a part of the fellowship for four months, then you were removed from the position of being a member in good standing.

30:07

Now, that was sort of like discipline.

30:09

It wasn't a full church discipline, but it was like, we had members in good standing were the only ones who could speak at business meetings and be involved in decision-making in the church.

30:19

Right.

30:20

And so, and I'm sure you guys have, when you're business meeting, you have to be a member to vote, right? Oh, absolutely.

30:27

The business meeting is, for lack of a better term, fenced.

30:30

Exactly.

30:30

There's gotta be members.

30:31

Members are welcome, need to stay.

30:33

Guests, you're welcome to go ahead and go if you'd like.

30:35

You can sit and listen, but you don't, you can't vote.

30:37

Right.

30:37

And you can't really talk if there's a time to talk.

30:40

And so that was what we did, is we moved them to essentially an inactive list.

30:47

And then annually, we purged that list by reaching out to people and seeing if they wanted to continue their membership.

30:55

So we did ask them, do you want to continue being a part of this body? And if you don't, then we want to remove you because we want to keep our membership list as current and accurate as we can.

31:08

So like I said, it wasn't the same as putting them under corporate discipline in the sense of that, but it was putting them in a situation where you're not able to participate with decision-making.

31:22

And then long enough, you're no longer gonna be part of this body.

31:26

Well, I may have spoken incorrectly because I confused my categories when I said that some churches don't discipline over church attendance because it's kind of a gray area.

31:40

I was thinking about tithing.

31:42

Oh, okay.

31:43

Tithing was in my mind, but discipline came out of my mouth because tithing can be a gray area because- Sure, and what's interesting about that, we don't keep a record of tithing.

31:52

I mean, we do keep a record of what people give and we give them that record at the end of the year so that people know what they gave and then there's that sort of accountability.

32:02

Right, because we've done what you talked about in the past, especially when Andy was there when he first came in, we had a roll like 1,500, 1,600 people.

32:12

And 200 were coming.

32:14

I think First Baptist Downtown has 25,000 at one point on the roll.

32:19

So we had like 1,500, 1,600 people.

32:22

And so we started going down a list of who's been here and who hasn't.

32:27

And we reduced it down to those who were actually coming.

32:31

And then I think even after Cody got there, there was 10 or 12 that hadn't been there in a couple of years.

32:38

And so they reached out to them and they had found other churches or whatever.

32:41

So they were moving the roll.

32:42

So we've done the same thing you're talking about.

32:45

Just to have an accurate- Yeah, you want to know who's a part of the, who is actually a member of this church? Right, who's coming, who's serving.

32:53

What about somebody who's joined five other churches since they left your church? And that has, I mean, like Brother Andy says, they hopped from lily pad to lily pad.

33:03

Yeah, you know, and there are people who do that.

33:07

And that's why we talk about the moral component of membership.

33:10

I do think that there is sin in jumping from church to church to church and making no real commitment to any local body.

33:19

Well, I mean, to go back to what you said about those who were saying, well, a church shouldn't remove someone from the membership.

33:32

Well, that's an unbiblical statement because Paul talks about removing people from the membership.

33:37

Yeah, 1 Corinthians 5.

33:38

Right, remove them from the membership.

33:42

I mean, they can't be here anymore.

33:43

Deliver them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that their soul may be saved in the day of the Lord.

33:48

I mean- There you go.

33:50

Yeah, he's a little bit more.

33:51

Put them back out in the world because they don't belong here.

33:54

It is obvious they don't belong here.

33:56

So it's a biblical concept.

33:58

And so that goes to this idea of being a solid member because if one, Paul calls people out by name, and even John done that, and 1 John, he called people out by name.

34:13

So he calls people out by name.

34:16

See that reference in scripture, which means they were members of the church for some period of time.

34:21

And when you're talking about put somebody out, well, if you're gonna go off to just use a basic understanding of, well, let's reverse that.

34:29

If putting someone out means that at some point they were put in.

34:32

That's right.

34:33

They were added.

34:34

That's right.

34:34

One of my defenses for church membership is the defense of how can you discipline someone out who's never been added.

34:41

Right, so- And I look at that.

34:44

There are some churches, and we actually have mutual friends who have said, I've heard them say that the church doesn't have membership, that whoever comes is a member.

34:57

And this was their argument, that whoever is here, we're gonna minister to like they're members, and they can serve in any area.

35:03

They don't have to join the church.

35:04

They can serve, be a part, until such time as if they prove themselves to be unbelievers.

35:09

Basically, you accept everybody who comes in as if they were a believer.

35:14

And I remember telling the person, when he told me that, I said, that's not gonna work.

35:19

No.

35:19

I said, there will come a day when you will see that the necessity of determining who is your flock and who is not your flock is going, and people get upset about that because we say, there are things that you can't do here.

35:37

If you're not a member.

35:38

Right.

35:39

You can't serve really anywhere if you're not a member.

35:44

People say, well, people should be able to serve.

35:47

If they wanna serve Jesus, they shouldn't have to sign.

35:50

I say, well, wait a minute.

35:51

Okay, so we're gonna put people in a nursery who we haven't done a background check on? Well, you can do a background check on somebody if you're not a member.

35:58

Well, okay, so you're willing to submit to a background check, but you're not willing to submit a membership? Well, yeah, because I don't wanna feel like I'm beholden to your church.

36:06

Okay, so you wanna be watching our children, but not responsible to our leadership? I mean, again, be honest.

36:14

That's what's being said, right? I wanna be able to serve, but I don't wanna beholden to any authority.

36:22

I want all the privileges of church membership, but I don't wanna be held to any authority whatsoever.

36:27

That's right, that's right.

36:29

Well, Cody, our pastor, and this may rubble some feathers, but when you join our church, it is basically a requirement that you basically sit for a year.

36:44

You don't immediately jump into membership, because, and I haven't heard him express it.

36:50

No, you don't jump into membership, you don't jump into service.

36:51

Well, you don't jump into service.

36:53

When I say membership, I meant to say service.

36:55

So you're a member.

36:58

You've acknowledged and signed the covenant.

37:00

You've been affirmed by the congregation.

37:02

You're now a member, but you still have to wait.

37:05

Because one, I think, and this is just my perception.

37:10

I haven't asked Cody this, but I think it's just so he can, the elders of the church can see that these people are gonna be able to submit to authority.

37:19

Because one of the ways you submit to authority is to quietly and be willing to wait, and see just how much they're gonna hold to the covenant they just signed.

37:33

What's their attendance? What's their level of participation going to look like at the minimal when they're required to sit? And after, because, like Cynthia and Zach just joined, and Cynthia's chomping at the bit to serve somewhere, but she knows she has to wait, and she's willing to do that.

37:52

And that's a sign of a- Yeah, I'm gonna bring up that picture here of their, this is them joining the church.

37:58

This is our friends, Cynthia and Zach, and this is them signing the covenant we're gonna talk about in just a minute.

38:04

Right, they're up front, and the covenant's being read.

38:06

You can see on the screen, it says Greg Abel's Church Covenant.

38:10

An entire covenant is read that they've already had a chance to look at.

38:14

And then they sign before the congregation, and then after they sign, Cody asks the congregation itself to affirm these people joining, and it's all affirmed by an amen.

38:25

And- And they know they got a year.

38:27

And then they know they got a year before they can serve anywhere.

38:31

Now, they can attend everything they wanna attend, and participate in classes, and there's probably areas where they can serve, like we have Sunday school.

38:39

We're gonna have a Sunday school.

38:42

Our Sunday school class, about three times a year, hosts a babysitting for the young adult class.

38:49

So the older class babysits for three hours.

38:52

Okay, yeah, she can do that.

38:54

But as far as teaching little ones, or serving in the nursery, or whatever those cases may be, or working at the cup or something, she has to wait, or her anzac have to wait.

39:04

But they're fine with that.

39:06

And again, I think that's why Cody does that.

39:09

Okay, let's see how serious people are about what they just signed.

39:14

Because people who aren't serious, and I think there's an element, too, of people who are just itching to get into positions, well, they're not willing to wait.

39:22

That's kind of a heart of, are you doing it for the sake of Christ, or are you doing it for the sake of you? Well, that goes, I don't know if you remember that video I did a while back, where it was the red flags, church visitor red flag, and the first guy was, how long do I gotta be here before I can teach my own class? There you go.

39:38

That's, the people come in, you know, when can I teach? Well, we gotta know you, we gotta trust you.

39:43

And we don't have, in our church, a year requirement for everything, but we do have a few things that require that.

39:53

So in our constitution, and like you said, for y'all, it's not everything, but most things.

39:58

For us, things like anything that would do with money, you have to be here at least for a year.

40:04

So we have finance officers that would have to be here for a year.

40:07

We have certainly eldership, it would take at least a year before we got to know someone well enough that we would even consider that they would be in a position of shepherding God's people, or leading as a deacon, or something like that.

40:20

I don't think we would make somebody wait that long to say, and I'm not saying, I'm not comparing as far as right or wrong, I'm just saying, we would probably allow someone to serve in the nursery, but it would, generally somebody who joins us has been with us for many months.

40:36

You know what I mean? So that's the other thing too, right? So like somebody may join, and they may have been here for a year waiting to join.

40:42

Right.

40:43

You know, very rarely, but we've only had one person in the history of our church who came one day and joined that day, and this was way before we ever had a membership covenant, and that was the worst situation, because this person joined, and lo and behold, I didn't even know, but she considered herself to be an apostle.

41:02

Oh, boy.

41:03

Oh, yeah.

41:05

Talk about a red flag.

41:07

Well, we didn't know.

41:09

Right.

41:09

Like I said, this was back when you could just join by coming forward and being accepted, and the church was, I was new to the ministry, I think it was my second year, and I was just, you know, deer in headlights, still learning, you know, as I went, and stumbling and fumbling, you know, a lot, and I just remember the first day this lady was here, she'd come walking up during the invitation time, this was back when we had an invitation time, we don't even do that anymore, and she goes, I want to join church.

41:35

I was like, okay, this person wants to join church, and everybody's like, amen, and we're like, okay, I guess you're in.

41:40

See you again.

41:41

We, I'm not saying that we've always done it right.

41:46

Right.

41:46

I hope people understand, if your church is, you know, if y'all don't have a membership covenant or whatever, I'm not necessarily saying, you know, this is what you have to do, I'm saying these are things we've learned.

41:56

Yes.

41:56

This is what we have adopted through many, many, many times of error.

42:04

And so I want you to read to the audience, your membership covenant.

42:09

It's only two paragraphs, it looks like, and this is what is read to the congregation, and then signed by the, now, before we do this, what do they have to do prior to this? They have to be baptized? Is that like things like that? You attend a new member's class.

42:28

If there's multiple people wanting to join the church, like recently, there was several people interested in joining the church.

42:37

So what Cody does is him and Justin, the two elders, they have a new membership class, which can last two to four hours.

42:44

And they have a meal.

42:45

They have a meal catered in or somebody cooks.

42:49

And this is, if I understand correctly, the church covenants presented to them.

42:54

And they have all the opportunity in the world to ask questions about the theology of the church and everything you can think of, whatever, that's what Cody and Justin are there to do, is field the questions.

43:05

So they understand exactly who we are as Gray Gables and what's expected of them.

43:12

And they're given this covenant.

43:14

Now, if there's like a Cynthia and Zach's case, they were the only ones looking to join.

43:19

So they had dinner with Cody at home.

43:20

And basically that was a new member's class.

43:23

So he just did it at home with them and they got to ask questions and have a time of fellowship.

43:27

It's interesting how similar we are because we're the same way.

43:29

It's such a small church.

43:30

We don't always have a big enough group to make a class.

43:33

So sometimes the classes just come to my house.

43:37

So after that is done, if they want to move forward, then it's the public signing of the covenant.

43:46

The covenant's read before the church.

43:48

They then sign, congregation affirms, they're now in.

43:53

Before I read the covenant though, I do want to say this, in case Cody watches, if there's any, I say that- In case.

44:01

I say that you have to wait a year for everything.

44:05

There may be things that he allows after a certain amount of time, or it might be immediately, depending on, like you said, if someone's been there four, five, six months and they've gotten to know him, okay, well, they want to immediately be in the nursery.

44:16

That's probably fine.

44:17

But the idea is you're gonna sit before you serve just to demonstrate your willingness to submit to the authority of the elders in the church, which is the principle of Hebrews 13, 17.

44:29

Sure.

44:30

So, but yeah, prior to the signing, you had to go through the new members class.

44:34

So you know exactly what you're getting into when you sign up with Greg Ables.

44:39

And yes, well, I'll read the covenant and that should explain it.

44:42

Now, I want you to understand this covenant is not unique to Greg Ables.

44:47

We kind of inherited it from two pastors back.

44:50

It's been on the books for a little while, but this first I've seen it, it's just now been starting to be implemented.

44:56

So again, learning.

44:58

So this is what is read before the congregation.

45:01

It says, having been led as we believe by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we do now in the presence of God and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ.

45:21

We engage therefore by the aid of the Holy Spirit to walk together in Christian love, to strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort, to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, doctrines, and discipline, to give it sacred preeminence over all institutions of human origin, to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry.

45:42

The expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all nations.

45:47

We also engage to maintain family and personal devotions, to religiously educate our children, to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances, to walk circumspectly in the world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger, to use our influence to combat the abuse of drugs and alcohol and the spread of pornography and other practices which lead to moral and spiritual decay, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior.

46:15

We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember one another in prayer, to aid one another in sickness and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and Christian courtesy in speech, to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay.

46:33

We moreover engage that when we remove from this place, we will as soon as possible unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God's word.

46:43

So I think that pretty much covers everything.

46:46

Yeah, no, I mean, it's very good.

46:48

It's interesting that at the end, it does make the understanding that there may become a time where the church isn't, you know, where they're gonna possibly go to another church.

47:00

Right.

47:00

That's part of understanding.

47:03

And I wanna, again, clarify what I said earlier about comparing it to marriage.

47:06

Obviously, you know, it's not the same in that regard, but it is a, you are entering into a relationship.

47:13

Right, and leaving that relationship rightly in the sense of the church covenant.

47:17

And we've had one opportunity to see that happen.

47:22

A sweet couple, they've gotten older and they wanted to move closer to their daughter so they could retire and kind of receive help from her.

47:31

And so they moved to St.

47:33

Augustine.

47:34

But we actually had a kind of end of the service thing where they came forward and we prayed for them and was thankful for them and showed them how much we love them and sent them on their way joyfully because they were doing what they thought was right for them to do.

47:52

And we're gonna have the same thing happen with another couple.

47:54

They're moving to South Carolina to go take care of his parents or either the husband's parents, anyway, go take care of family.

48:02

And they're having to sell their house and they're moving.

48:06

We're actually gonna have a like a going away kind of celebration with them.

48:10

They've been with us for three or four or five years now.

48:13

And, but they're leaving the right way.

48:15

They want to go and take care of their aging parents, but at the same time, unite with another church and don't wanna have any, they don't just wanna disappear.

48:26

So there's a right way to leave a congregation.

48:29

And we're seeing two demonstrations of that compared to the history of Gray Gables where people just disappeared.

48:36

And you don't see them again.

48:37

It's like, where'd you go? Oh, I'm going over here to this church.

48:40

Hello? Well, why? Because membership's taken so lightly.

48:46

We've had similar situations with folks who, two actually that I can think of.

48:53

One was a elderly couple who living at home or living in the home of their daughter and wanted to go to church with her.

49:04

And so they moved their membership and had another lady in similar situations, a single woman who lived with her daughter and wanted to go to church with her.

49:13

And again, had been coming to church here and decided.

49:17

And neither one of them did we have the opportunity to do the nice going away thing because both of them were sort of in a situation where they had already sort of moved their attendance.

49:28

So we didn't have that opportunity, but would have.

49:33

We had a going away for a few folks over the years, the people that we knew.

49:37

One of our elders moved to Tennessee and we said goodbye to him because he was stepping away not only from membership, but from leadership.

49:48

So yeah, those things happen.

49:51

Well, I think that's, again, it's a good covenant.

49:53

I think it's...

49:55

Now we're, Cody didn't want me to mention this is that they're trying to fine tune it to be more specific to our congregation and how we do church government and to get a little more concise because that is a lot to read in a covenant signing ceremony.

50:11

But the one thing I do like about having a covenant is that it demonstrates that church membership is not a passive activity.

50:20

There is something required of you.

50:22

It's not just, you're in the door, now you can just be.

50:26

No, that's not church membership.

50:28

That's not what you see in the Bible.

50:31

People serve.

50:35

You're basically in the, you're in the family of God now and therefore you are to act as such and there are requirements of you.

50:41

And I think this lays out those requirements pretty clearly.

50:46

But yeah, we're trying to, they're trying to, and that's above my pay grade.

50:51

They are trying to make it a little more concise and be a little more precise to what we're trying to accomplish at Craig Ables.

50:58

Oh, good, good.

51:00

Well, I'm gonna read from ours, just not to contrast and compare, but to show that we're not calling for any type of exclusive conformity.

51:10

We're just saying these are ideas and ways that can be done.

51:14

And if the church is looking for help in this area, I mean, certainly reach out to us.

51:19

We'd love to talk to you if you're, if maybe you're a plant or something and you're looking for these things.

51:25

But again, this is many years of trial and error, things that we've learned that are important and things that we realize are things that we should have been doing before and weren't.

51:35

Like I said, with the lady who just, hey, I'm here first day, wanna join? Okay, all right.

51:41

So first thing, we actually have a form that we give in the new members class and it includes like name, address and all that.

51:49

So it looks almost like a application.

51:51

In fact, it says membership application.

51:53

So it looks like, but what this is for is because we take this information and put it in our directory so that our deacons and everything have their phone number, email address, all that stuff.

52:04

We even have a emergency contact number.

52:07

Well, we got a directory too.

52:09

All that's done secondarily.

52:11

It's not a part of the covenant.

52:13

Well, this is all just one sheet.

52:15

So we have a place for them to write on the back their testimony, because that's something we do in the class.

52:24

We let everybody share their testimony and then they write down.

52:26

One thing I forgot to mention, they do discuss testimony.

52:29

And then this is where it gets to similar to yours.

52:35

First, it says, if you are transferring membership from another church, did you leave your previous church in good standing? So that's a first, and again, you might say, well, shouldn't that conversation be had with a person? Well, yeah, this conversation has already been had for certain.

52:53

But what we have now, again, is we have a documented, this person told us when they joined by their initial that they left their church in good standing.

53:04

So a year from now, we find out that they were at Jerkwater Baptist Church and Jerkwater Baptist Church has got them under discipline.

53:12

I don't know where Jerkwater is, but Jerkwater, Georgia.

53:16

You know, Jerkwater Baptist Church has got them under discipline.

53:18

We didn't know, because they didn't tell us.

53:20

And hopefully that would never be the case.

53:23

But this gives us the opportunity to ask them, how did you leave your previous church? One of the videos, again, going back to that video about church member red flags, one of the persons I was playing the part, I said, you know, pastor, don't call my last church.

53:38

They're all liars.

53:40

Well, I had several people on TikTok who saw that video said, why would you ever call their former church? What are you a stalker? What are you crazy? Let me tell you now, there is reason sometimes to contact the previous church.

53:52

If a person comes and I will always read, especially if it's a like-minded church that they're coming from, if they're coming from Sovereign Grace Baptist or Gray Gables Baptist or whatever, if they're coming from a church that I know is a good solid church, yeah, I'm gonna reach out and say, why are they leaving? Why would you leave a good church to come to a great church? No, no.

54:18

No, no.

54:22

Well, to, to answer the person's question that says why you're contacting the previous church, you as the, the elder, the elders in the church have a responsibility according to Scripture to not own in, and their shepherding of the flock that God has given them is to protect that flock as well.

54:45

And what so many people forget is that you, Cody, and every other pastor, one day will stand before God and give an account to how you shepherd this church.

55:00

And part of that is how did you protect it from these kind of situations? So if, like you said, if you got somebody come in here and said, we'd like to join the church, well, where'd you go? Did you go to Church Free? Yeah, well, we went to Greg Abel's.

55:16

Ding.

55:16

Yeah, why are you leaving? I know, Cody, I know all them guys over there, so why, you know? And it might be something as simple as, well, we moved to Ocean Way.

55:24

Yeah, okay, yeah, there may be a reason.

55:26

But you call Cody and be like, oh, we got them on a church discipline because she had an affair.

55:30

Well, bing, there, we got a problem.

55:32

Yeah, let's have a conversation about this.

55:34

We gotta have a conversation.

55:35

Absolutely.

55:35

And then we, after we ask that question, we say, please read and initial the following if true.

55:43

Number one, I've been baptized by immersion as a believer.

55:46

We do require baptism by immersion as believers to be members of our church.

55:52

That does become an issue, which is not gonna be, it'll take us another hour to talk through this.

55:57

What if you got somebody who's Presbyterian and joins the church, whatever? So there's conversation about that.

56:02

But we do ask that people be baptized by immersion.

56:06

Second thing, I have read and understood the SGFC church constitution.

56:11

It's only seven pages, but it explains how we do membership, how we do leadership, how we handle money, how we handle the building.

56:26

All of those things are in there.

56:27

And we read through it in the new member class anyway.

56:29

So anybody who's been through the new member class has read through it.

56:32

So it's not like it's, yeah, well, you give them homework.

56:35

Well, we did it with them, so there's that.

56:39

And then they do have to read and understand the 1646 London Confession of Faith.

56:45

Now that's only 52 articles and we give it to them.

56:50

And so, and they're short articles, they're short little, sometimes just one sentence.

56:56

Next thing says, I understand the expectations of being part of a covenant community as has been explained to me by an elder and agree to work diligently to fulfill my responsibilities as a church member.

57:06

So that's similar to what you have.

57:08

Yours is much more explicit, but ours is explicit in the documents that they say they have to have read.

57:13

And then finally, I agree to submit to the authority of the scriptures, the biblical leadership of the elders and biblical church discipline.

57:22

The hope would be that you never have to enact church discipline, but if you don't have this, them saying that they understand and agree that this is a possibility, then one day they could say, well, we didn't know that this, we didn't know this was part of what the church does.

57:39

Well, you initialed.

57:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do.

57:42

You said it right here.

57:44

You may not like it, but you understood it.

57:47

At least you said you did.

57:49

And then, you know, we have them print their name and sign it.

57:51

Now we don't do ours publicly like you do.

57:53

What we do publicly is we have them stand before the body.

57:58

If they haven't been baptized, we baptize them.

58:01

In fact, we just had two baptisms last Sunday, Gail and Jesse, beautiful story there.

58:09

They came to know the Lord and were baptized.

58:12

But if they haven't been, if they've been baptized or coming from another church, then we would ask them publicly if they affirm the gospel, if they believe that Jesus is the Christ, that's not a living God, that they have received him as Lord and Savior through faith and repentance, and have them repeat that or say that in front of the body, and then say it is your desire to join this church and you understand what goes along with that.

58:34

And so it's a public affirmation of everything that they've signed.

58:38

So it's similar, but again, I kind of like the idea of having them sign it publicly.

58:42

That's kind of neat.

58:43

It's kind of like you do somewhat in reverse of what we do.

58:46

A lot of the conversation about do they affirm Lordship of Christ, that they've been baptized, all those things is done in the new members class.

58:57

And then this is just done publicly, whereas- But that's in there.

59:01

I mean, you say things about having been, having believed these things.

59:05

But these are all questions I'm sure that are raised and have to be affirmed from Cody to whoever's wanting to join beforehand.

59:14

Cody's not gonna let anybody join the church that isn't a believer.

59:17

Yeah, yeah.

59:18

And that's one thing.

59:20

And maybe this would be a good place for us to draw to a close because I appreciate you coming in and sharing that with us.

59:24

And I think that hopefully people who are hearing this will be saying, yeah, this is, I may not understand it all, but I understand now at least why churches do it.

59:34

Because not every church has membership covenant.

59:36

Not every church has these types of expectations.

59:39

But we would both affirm as people who've been through, through some of the trenches of ministry that these things are useful and necessary in many ways.

59:50

Well, it's designed to promote unity within the church.

59:53

And if everybody that comes in understands what it is respected of them and how they interact with one another according to what the Bible teaches, then that should help bolster unity.

01:00:05

If everybody's on the same page, then you ought to be unified.

01:00:10

So it has its benefits as opposed to not having one.

01:00:13

For sure.

01:00:15

Absolutely.

01:00:16

Well, recently there's a new phrase that has been very popular.

01:00:19

And I saw a supercut the other day where somebody cut together like four or five pastors in a row who all said the same thing.

01:00:25

And I thought this might be a good place to end because I wanted to get your thoughts on it.

01:00:29

I'll share my thoughts as we close.

01:00:31

And the new big phrase that's going on in Big Eva is the phrase, belong before you believe.

01:00:39

You can belong before you believe.

01:00:43

And so what they're saying, what that statement means is come be part of the church, even if you don't believe yet, because you can be part of the church without being a believer.

01:00:55

Because by being a part, maybe one day you'll become a believer.

01:00:59

Now that sounds so ooey-gooey, squishy.

01:01:02

We call it Evangelifish, icky, squishy theology.

01:01:07

You just come in and you can belong to the church before you're a believer.

01:01:11

Because we hope that once you belong to us, you'll eventually believe along with us.

01:01:17

Amen and amen.

01:01:19

Oh my gosh, I can hear a Southern Baptist guy screaming that from the rooftop anyway.

01:01:23

And that is what we are seeing, unfortunately.

01:01:26

And again, I have no respect for that.

01:01:31

Because again, church membership is covenant membership with the body.

01:01:39

The body is those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:01:42

They are in the new covenant in Christ's blood.

01:01:45

Therefore, that allows for the membership covenant to take place.

01:01:49

If you're outside of Christ, you're not in the church.

01:01:52

Therefore, you cannot be in covenant with the church.

01:01:55

It seems so obvious.

01:01:57

You can attend.

01:01:59

Wow, he said it, but it's so easy.

01:02:02

You can attend before you believe.

01:02:05

I mean, if someone shows up to the church and we've had homosexual couples show up and they've been more than welcome to be there.

01:02:15

They're not gonna be serving in a nursery or teaching classes, but they're more than welcome to be there because what do they need more than anything? Hear the gospel.

01:02:22

To hear the gospel.

01:02:23

And they're gonna hear it at Greg Ables.

01:02:25

Now, they've come for three or four weeks and we've greeted them and loved them the best we could and made them feel welcome.

01:02:34

At least we thought we did.

01:02:35

And then they quit coming.

01:02:37

And a lot of times they quit coming, why? Because they're convicted over their sin and they don't wanna give it up.

01:02:44

But you can attend before you believe, but you can't belong before.

01:02:49

That's the most asinine thing I've heard in a long time.

01:02:51

He said asinine, just to be clear.

01:02:54

And I'll make sure that Mike didn't cut off part of his word.

01:02:56

Right, that's the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.

01:02:59

We'll put it that way.

01:02:59

Absolutely.

01:03:00

Well, guys, I wanna thank you for being a part of Conversations with the Calvinists today.

01:03:04

I wanna thank you, brother, for preparing for today, bringing along your church covenant and sharing with us your thoughts on this very important topic.

01:03:12

No problem, brother.

01:03:12

And again, we've come back down to the bottom of the barrel.

01:03:16

We've been James White.

01:03:17

Not at all, not at all.

01:03:18

We got a bonafide movie star.

01:03:21

Movie extra.

01:03:22

Movie extra day.

01:03:24

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01:03:31

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01:03:36

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01:03:48

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01:03:55

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01:04:01

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01:04:13

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01:04:16

My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.

01:04:21

May God bless you.