Baptist Association & Denominations

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, David Kassin, Chris Kiesler, and we are privileged to read another good question that we've had sent in to our website.

The question reads, I see Sunnyside is a Baptist Church. Is it formally associated with a

Baptist denomination? If so, why? If not, why not? Can you speak more broadly to the reality of denominations?

Are there too many? Is there value to them? Is there value in cross -denominational organizations?

How does the local church fit into these discussions? I'd say this person is curious about the whole thing.

What do you think? Yeah, this is a well -thought -out series of questions, all related, and we greatly appreciate that.

Yes, Sunnyside has Baptist in its name, therefore Sunnyside is a Baptist Church. Is it formally associated with the

Baptist denomination? No, we are not formally associated with any

Baptist denomination, and there are many. So, the

Baptist denomination, probably someone's thinking about the Southern Baptist Convention.

Now, we are not associated. If so, why? Well, we're not.

But if not, why not? We are not, as a matter of history, we were.

Right, yeah, like I think, what is it, back in the 70s? 1952. Yeah. Wow.

Sunnyside Baptist Church was planted in 1952, as legend tells it, on the nickels and dimes of EBS from the

Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. Well, you got to understand, back then, money was worth more, and EBS was three weeks long.

So, the church was planted as a rural church plant south of Southwest 44th

Street, which everything south of there used to be out of town, south of the city limit.

So, this was a country church planted in an apple orchard on the sunny side of the street, hence the name, and the folks who gathered gathered around a burn barrel in the cold, prayed, and went home because it was too cold.

And that's how the church got started. And W .E. Cresswell, who was a local pastor, took some out of his own flock and they started a new church, all in good taste.

They were just expanding and planting new churches. And it was from the

Baptist denomination, it was from Southern Baptists, that the work arose. And under the pastorate of Jack Renfrow, the church left the

Southern Baptist Convention because they were challenged, at the time, to pony up or ride on out.

In other words, are we going to be giving to the cooperative program? Are we going to be giving to the missions collectives of the

Southern Baptist Convention or not? When did we leave the SBC? I think it was sometime in the late 90s.

I remember doing some history on the church and trying to understand when it happened, and there were many communications between the elders and the congregation about why.

And it could have been a little bit earlier than that, but I think it was sometime in the 90s that it occurred.

And the reason why is because the church has long supported missionaries more directly, and getting to know our missionaries, we even have a missionary couple who are members of our church, so they live in the

UK and do their ministry in South America, Latin America. And we like to directly support our missionaries, to get to know them, to fund them more directly than through the cooperative program and other kinds of large mission organizations.

Because of that convictional distinction, we were asked by Anthony Jordan, who was president of the

BGCO at the time, to leave. And so we said, okay, sure, just for clarity's sake we'll go ahead and leave.

And since then, I don't think the church has ever regretted not being a part. There's a lot of baggage now that comes from being a part of the

SBC that, thankfully, we don't have to worry about. Now, he says, can you speak more broadly to the reality of denominations?

So in the word denomination, you have the idea of name. From this name we proceed, is the idea of the term, okay?

What is the name? The name is Baptist. Why would we put Baptist in, you know, on our church name?

There are other churches nearby who are Baptist churches, and indeed they're actually part of the

Southern Baptist Convention, but they have removed any mention that they are Baptist. They take that out of their name, they take out any reference that they're part of the

SBC, although they are a part, and they hide all that or remove all that, and they make no big fuss about it.

They don't want people to look at their church sign and see a denominational name, even though they do belong to the denomination.

And they practice Baptist polity and baptism. Yes, yes. But it's just kind of like a branding thing, we are a community church, or we are this, you know,

North Fork Church, something like that. Yeah, okay. Happy River, or whatever, you know.

So we have the point of denomination,

I think generally, is to let everybody know very quickly how your church operates and some of the secondary and tertiary things that you believe.

Okay, so if you see Baptist, you ought to think a certain type of church government or church polity.

The way that they associate with other churches is going to be in a certain way, versus a

Methodist Church, or a Presbyterian Church, or an Episcopalian Church. You're hearing already about church government and the way that churches interact with each other.

Also, you're hearing about the ordinances. If you see Methodist, you should think about a certain way that they do ordinances.

When you see Baptist, you think of a different way. The same with Presbyterian, the same with other denominations, or whoever they may be.

So denomination very quickly tells you, here are some of our distinctives. And in that sense, you're serving others.

You're letting them know, we think these things are important, and when we worship here, we worship around these convictions, and everybody holds them, and we're all in agreement here.

It's just part of who we are, and it's not about so much, you know, get out of here, we don't like you unless you're one of us.

That's how it's received sometimes, or that's sometimes the straw man idea of denominations.

But actually, you're just being very open and upfront about who you are. I'll give one story and let you all respond real quick, but when

I was in college, and my job was to welcome freshmen coming in, I was an RA, and you know, kind of working with the new students coming in, and everybody would come in and say, hi my name is, and I'm from, you know, except the guys from Texas.

And they would walk in and say, hi I'm from Texas, and my name is, and that's just telling people who you are.

You know, that's just upfront, and let you know who I am, so that there's no misunderstandings. Yeah, I'm laughing because I'm born and raised in Texas, and that's probably true.

Yeah. Dave from Texas. We need to normalize Oklahomans doing that. Yeah, no, it's

Texas from which comes Dave. That's the introduction. Solid. Yeah, so yeah, that's kind of, that's what it's there for.

Primarily it's there to just kind of let everyone know, hey, this is who we are. So as far as some of the history goes with our church in particular, it had to deal with missional giving, and how we relate to missionaries personally, rather than giving to a larger fund that decides, that makes those decisions for us, right?

That is correct, and this helps us have flexibility about who we support, and how much, and why, but it also gives us the ability to hold our missionaries accountable, to be doing what they said they were going to be doing, and that if they change their beliefs, or they change their practices, we know about it, and that we can respond accordingly.

Even, we've had times where we have exhorted and encouraged our missionaries to stay the course, when that we see some deviation, and they have, praise

God, and then we've had times when they have deviated, and we have talked to them about that, and they're so strong on changing their message, and their approach, that we say, well, you know, when we first decided to start supporting you, that wasn't what we had agreed to, and so we're not saying necessarily that you're doing wrong, you're just doing other than what we had agreed to support.

So we're gonna have a amicable parting of ways here, and that just kind of helped us be better stewards.

So would you put that as one of the positives of not being a part of a denomination? Because that was one of the, like, kind of a pros and cons question built in.

Yeah, so not being a part of the denomination, some of the pros are that you have less baggage, and that you can be more flexible, more direct with your missionary support.

So kind of pushing back on that, you technically described us as an independent

Baptist Church. Unaffiliated. And so you have to qualify that. Yeah. Because, and if you're from the

East, where my wife's from, in Virginia, an independent Baptist Church has a particular flavor.

There's even some independent fundamentalist Baptists, there's IFBs, so there's so many denominations, and then sub -denominations, and there's so many different affiliations that are out there.

If you say we, Sunnyside Baptist Church, we are an independent Baptist Church.

But that carries with it a lot of baggage, and that may be some of the cons of all the denominationalism.

How would you respond when somebody says, oh, you're an independent Baptist Church? I say, well, actually we're unaffiliated.

So when we, because the term independent has become part of a sub -denomination, right, so there's

Baptist from this name we proceed, independent is also adding to it a lot of distinctives that are associated with Baptist fundamentalism.

So an independent fundamentalist Baptist Church, they just drop the fundamentalist, it's just independent

Baptist. If you say independent Baptist, you should expect there to be a high degree of modesty, probably enforced by address code, there's probably going to be

King James only, there's going to be a very, very particular version of dispensationalism.

So there's just going to be some basic things that make them very, very similar to each other.

And that's okay, but that's not who we are. So we don't say independent Baptist Church, we say we're unaffiliated.

And that makes it much more clear for anybody showing up. Yeah. I had a comment and then kind of a clarifying question maybe.

So the idea of what about denominations, is it bad to have so many or that type of thing?

And my mind went to Romans 14, which there's a lot of discussion there about preferences and about the, what are we doing as Christians?

And so in Romans 14, there's discussion about one favors one day over another day.

So you've got, you see their preferences and you had mentioned things that separate denominations.

So we've got doctrines, structure, traditions, preferences, and the

Bible addresses how we deal with those types of things. I think particularly Romans 14, 1 through 13 is very helpful.

So if anyone, you know, wanted to go and look at that, but it talks about eating different things, esteeming different days, all these different preferences.

But it talks about, verse 4, who are you to judge another servant?

To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand.

And so you have these different preferences and here he's asking who are you to judge another man's servant?

This being he's a servant of God. God has him doing something and God has you doing something.

Later on in the chapter, and he kind of talks about, this is verse 13, therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or cause to fall in our brother's way.

So I think the fact that there are different denominations is a good thing. We can see God's sanctifying work in these different preferences.

People trying to study the Bible who have good faith, we come to different perspectives on doctrine, but they hold the

Bible as the Word of God. It's infallible. They're following after Jesus. Maybe they're interpreting a little different, but God will lead them.

And so there's the ability to have these differences of opinion. And so you get these different groups.

One of them, I guess my question would be, we've got these doctrines, structures, traditions, preferences that will separate us into denominations.

What constitutes as a denomination? So there are some other groups, maybe like Jehovah's Witness or Mormon or Eastern Orthodox and Catholic.

Eastern Orthodox and Catholic, there seems to be a claim to the one church, and then you've got all these splits, right?

You've got Protestantism. I mean, that's what that's all about. So how are we defining what a Christian denomination is?

That's a good question. So very often you'll hear the uninformed, usually in mass media somewhere, listing

Roman Catholics and Baptists as different denominations, something like that. Or they'll list, you know, Mormons, Greek Orthodox, Baptists, these three different denominations, can't get along, you know.

But those are different altogether. Well, Mormons are a different religion, okay?

And Roman Catholicism is a false church, because they deny the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know, very carefully and precisely deny the gospel of Jesus Christ in their documents.

And then add a whole bunch of other things. So it's a completely other church. It's not just a different church.

It's an other church. It's not something where we're going to say, oh, that's just, you know, that's kind of like the

Presbyterians versus the Baptists. It's not on the same kind of level. So when we talk about denominations,

I think you're kind of identifying some things there where we can worship together in like faith and practice, and we're not tripping over each other.

And that's a good thing. I would, you know, probably it's a better thing if we can worship together in the same church, and love one another, and exalt

Christ together, even though we have different convictions. I think there's a maturity level there that has to be there as we grow up into Christ, where we're putting the attention on Him, okay, rather than the secondary and tertiary issues.

But if it is a matter of true conviction, like, if you have some Presbyterians who understand their children as part of the covenant of grace, and it is their faithful duty unto

Christ to have their children sprinkled as full -fledged new covenant members, even though they're not born again yet, okay, because that's how they understand the

Scriptures. This is a secondary issue, but it's one that's going to very much distinguish between a

Baptist Church and a Presbyterian Church. And if you've got a family who's coming to a Baptist Church and they are so under, you know, concern, okay, that, you know, my children are baptized, and they need to be baptized.

We can't do that here. Sorry. Can't do that here. We don't teach that form of covenantalism, okay?

We don't have that here. That's not our focus and conviction. But there will be a church that does, okay?

And we're gonna call them our brothers and sisters in Christ, okay? There's a unity there, but they need to have that space to be able to practice their convictions in a way that is, okay?

And then on top of that, some Presbyterians are gonna say, well, also, the

Sabbath day, the Christian Sabbath is Sunday, and no work ought to be done, and in order to be in good conscience with others, they need to agree with me on that, and we can't just have, like, agree to disagree about that.

And then on top of that, there's a Presbyterian family also is gonna be saying, well, the wine that's served has to be actual wine, has to come from one cup, and also head coverings, and also we can only sing psalms.

And, okay, when you go down the line, you know what? There is a psalm -only, head -covering, one -cup

Sabbath observing Presbyterian Church right here in Oklahoma City. Praise God.

You can go there, and you can worship freely, and you can love each other. And now, so, there are others who are gonna be just fine saying,

I have all these convictions, but you know what? I'm gonna hang out with people who have those different convictions, and we're gonna be able to worship together in the same church, and I'm not, and I'm not stumbled.

I'm not stumbled, because we disagree. I prefer that. I prefer probably less denominations.

Now, there's a difference between denominations in the, you know, the lowercase d, just kind of a general descriptive noun, versus the proper noun, capital

D denomination, which engages all manner of bureaucracy, and organization, and funding, and politics, and all kinds of...

All the fun stuff. Oh, yeah. And so, those are not exactly the same as...

Distinctives. The term Baptist, or the term Methodist, is not the same thing as Southern Baptist.

It's not the same thing as United Methodist. So, we need to recognize that. I think the general descriptive terms are helpful.

We're trying to serve each other, and talking about those things. We shouldn't be severing from each other hard about those things.

We should be discussing those things, serving each other, but the the capital D denominations, with all the organizations, there's a lot of turf war there, where they're, you know, and a lot of these things are businesses, business models, and they've got to make their money, and stay afloat, and there's a lot of pressure on that.

So, I'm not, I'm not really for that, I would say. So, I think, so there is some value in cross denominational organizations.

I think something like the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals can be helpful. There are some groups that kind of reach across the aisle.

The whole point is like, hey, you know, we are one in Christ, we have one spirit, there's one gospel, we have one

Lord, there's one salvation, and even though we have, we're in different churches because of where we live, and some of our convictions, there is a real genuine unity in coming together.

So, I think there's some positives there. It could turn into an ecumenical mess, but... So, we have core convictions that unite us as brothers and sisters in Christ.

You mentioned that, and we have so many different denominations that people seem to be separating on relatively minor things.

So, there is an element where you say, yes, these are core Christian principles, perhaps you could say the ancient creeds.

If you can affirm some of the ancient creeds, then in good conscience, then yes, you are brothers and sisters in Christ.

But you are, at least in Protestantism, or maybe modern Evangelicalism, there's an element of conscience that says, all right, we should be able to get along, we should be able to, you know, you can, you have a conviction this way,

I have a conviction this way, we can still worship in the same church. Those are minor things, but it can reach a point to where that matters of conscience become matters of true conviction.

And at that point, you saying that it's okay, even good, to have these multiple choices for people, even within your own city, you can say, well, if you're really leaning more towards a more of an

Episcopate style of church government, well, you do have that in the Anglican Church, and you have it in the

Methodist, or it says, well, you know, I really like more of the Presbytery, you know, church government, okay, or you really want more of the independent style.

Okay, those are matters of true conviction. It says, I just need to be part of this church, you're saying those are not necessarily bad things.

In fact, they can actually be a good thing, because it allows people to worship according to their conviction.

So in that case, denominations are a help and not a hurt. Is that so far? But then you went on to say,

I wish there weren't so many denominations. So I know you probably can't put, you know, a fine line on that, but if you could, where would that line be?

Yeah, I think the line should be like where you were talking about in terms of convictions.

I think there needs to be a lot of pastoring and shepherding done for folks, where they're not so cantankerous on some things.

Now, I want to be sensitive to that, because I've been cantankerous on a lot of things in my life, too. But in general, what do we see in the pastorals?

In 1st, 2nd Timothy, and in Titus, how does Paul instruct, you know, these men doing pastoral work?

It's to move people away from the word twisting, too much concern about the law, all these ancillary concerns.

There needs to be a focus on Christ. So in 1st Corinthians 1, right, there's contentions, right?

One says, I'm a Paul, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ, and so Paul says in verse 13, is Christ divided?

Well, we know that's an obvious answer, Paul. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?

Are you baptized in the name of Paul? And we've got to ask that question. We've got to be clear on that. So why would we have different denominations at all?

Okay, well, some of it's going to be, of course, how we think that Jesus wants us to do church.

Okay? So if it comes down to that, I think I really think that Jesus wants us to do church by having a presbytery over the churches, and this presbytery is underneath another presbytery, which is underneath a synod or whatever, and we think that that is biblical, and that's the way it ought to be done.

And someone else is gonna be saying, I think you're reading a lot too much into Acts, I think you're trying to put into practice something that was meant for a particular point in time, and I don't think

Jesus wants us to do church that way. Okay. At that point, there's going to be a divergence, okay?

But we're not saying, we're not pointing at each other and saying, well... Anathema. Yeah, exactly. We're not saying anathema to each other.

We're saying, God bless you. Well, and that's even a mechanism for the spread of the gospel.

It is. You have these divisions, and like, I'm going over here, you're still a brother, but I can't be with you in the same church worshiping, so we're going over here, and they're going over there, and the gospel spreads.

So Paul and Barnabas couldn't agree about John Mark, and then they went separate ways.

And not too long after that, there was the Donosis controversy in the early church, where some bishops did not hold true under fire, and then they wanted to come back into the church afterwards, and it was like, well, who do you think you are?

Peter? You know, so there was a lot of disagreement about how to handle certain things, but in the divvying up and in the disagreement,

Jesus is a perfect shepherd. It doesn't matter how chaos we think it is in the fold, and we see the sheep going this way and that way, and why is that sheep jumping over that sheep over there?

The shepherd is moving things along, and he's doing a great job, but our attention should be on him.

Our ears should be tuned to his voice, not the bleating of, you know, well, you know, these guys aren't exactly like us.

Yeah. I think in the discussion about different doctrines, preferences, all these different things,

I found that part of it...so the truth of the thing, it's important.

Knowing your Bible is important. Talking about it is important. But just as important, it seems, is our sanctification in how we talk about it, so say you've got a husband who's a cage -stage mint -chocolate -chip guy, and he's like, this is important.

Mint -chocolate -chip is the best ice cream. Now, he can either yell at his wife about it.

Is that a euphemism? Yeah, it's like cage -stage something. You know, this is important, and how he interacts with the people around him on this important thing to him is very important in God's sanctifying work.

So you can put in whatever doctrine or whatever preference, denomination. How we interact with our brothers and sisters in Christ is important, and oftentimes those differences are the opportunity to grow in that.

And so in Romans 14, the first verse, receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.

And then he goes into those differences. It says to receive them as brothers, but not for the sake of arguing.

Before we move on to that next question that we have that's tangential to this, would you think there's anything that we could say to either steel man, in a way, being a part of a big

D denomination, or something that maybe we feel that it's harder to work from our position as unaffiliated, that it would be easier to be a part of a bigger denomination?

So yeah, great question. So in the most positive way that we could see this, if there was a proper organization of a great body of churches, some local churches would be rescued from grave error by a kind of oversight and getting involved of other churches and ruling elders who were above, you know, the local scene.

There could be some help in that. We could also see, I remember talking to some missionaries, and you know, there's probably a thousand and one missionary groups in any given thousand square miles of Africa, okay?

But it's the Southern Baptists who show up on time, right? So when you talk to missionaries out on the field, it's like, well, everyone else can't get through, but you know, why?

Because they just have tons of money, they have tons of experience, they've got all the relationships in place, and the infrastructure, the logistics work.

So there's some benefit you could say, wow, well, you know, if they hadn't been doing this, you know, you may complain about X, Y, and Z, but on the other side, you know, this is kind of nice.

And so you can see some benefits, and a lot of them come down to,

I would say, some of them are pragmatic arguments, right? But, you know, hey, Proverbs is full of some pragmatic ideas, and God didn't create us to govern

His world and to get the gospel out in inefficient ways, right? He's not glorified by us, you know, not organizing ourselves well.

That's, you know, so there are some things that could be good. I would also say that for some, in some cases, in some points in history,

I don't know if it's current, larger denominations can help provide theological education to their pastors.

There can be kind of a feedback loop of support and strengthening of local churches, because their ministers are being well -educated by the big capital

D denomination. That also all has its... Drawbacks. Drawbacks and negative signs, and so on.

Also, being an unaffiliated local Baptist Church, we just don't have a lot of natural relations with other churches.

Right. If we wanted to combine to do something. So, in preparation for this, and I hope

I'm not going too far off the rails, because I know we need to move on, but in preparation for this podcast,

I was volunteering at my daughter's church, my daughter's school, which is actually at a church, and I was in their fellowship hall, where they have study hall, and I had this other parent next to me, and her son came up a little bit later.

He was a teenager. We had just struck up a nice conversation, friendship, and I watched this mom with her teenager actually do

Bible study through Galatians and Genesis, and they were going through some of the Hebrew and other things.

It was really neat to watch this. So, I said, about 20 minutes left to go in my shift, and I asked him this very question, and she hates all the different denominations.

She really wishes that we didn't have them. They just caused division, and talked about Apollos, and talked about those things in 1

Corinthians, and says that it's why are we creating more and more denominations? Because we're just having more man -made systems put on the

Bible. If we would just focus on the Bible itself, we wouldn't have all these denominations, and I appreciated her candid response.

I asked her son, and he gave me an answer that was based on, well, he says, yes, we were looking at 1

Corinthians, and yes, there are some places where these divisions were motivated by things other than Scripture, but there is a place for conscience, and sometimes, as long as you're not violating the core principles of Christianity, because we can call each other brothers and sisters, we can gather together based on our conscience, and I think that's a good thing.

I was so impressed with this young man, and his ability to articulate his thoughts, and his mom, to her credit, didn't correct him.

She wanted him to express his opinion on denominations in general, good or bad, and why, and he did so.

So, I really appreciate, yes, there's education within the Church, yes, there's education within big

D denomination, but I witnessed a small family doing education within that family, and they were basing our answers on their own convictions from the

Scriptures themselves. I just applaud that family. Well, it's kind of hard to correct your son when he's basing his argument and conscience to begin with, so that would have been a difficult one to do.

And I think it's safe to say, here at the table, that we are not in favor of a state church, correct?

That is correct. Okay, I'm just making sure. And I think we can hit this this next question...

A national church, yes. I think we can hit this next question pretty quickly, because of how we've laid the groundwork here, so I'll go ahead and ask the question.

The question reads, I'm an associate pastor at a Disciples of Christ Church. They continue to give to the denomination.

The denomination supports multiple sickening agendas openly. If I can't convince them to stop giving,

I don't feel I can keep my family here. Is that a reasonable conviction? Perhaps this question could help others as well.

Thanks. He's an associate pastor, and I don't know the Disciples of Christ all that well, but he is an associate pastor.

Does that mean he's being paid? He's on staff? That's correct. Okay. Yeah, so that's a hard decision to make, but I think of this dear brother, and I think of the way he expresses himself here, sickening agendas.

Now, those who devise these agendas and are really promoting it, they're not sickened by them, right?

They're perhaps encouraged by how much progress these agendas are making, these initiatives. But this dear brother is sickened by them, okay?

And very clearly, therefore, he sees that these are not biblical, they're not in accord with godliness, not in accord with Christ.

They do not bring glory to his name, and this church is financially giving towards that.

Perhaps they're not championing these things, perhaps they're not going to the parade and cheering for these things, but because they belong to the denomination, this is what they always have done.

They're not really trying to promote ungodliness, per se. They, as well, think they're doing something, pretty much what you're supposed to do.

So, if you have a difference of conviction that strong, and you see it as even more than simply a conviction, it's not really preference, it's, here's what

God's Word says, in the most plain language that you can see, and yet you are supporting something that's contrary to it, then, for this, you know, for the sake of your own conscience, for the good of your own soul, you need to find a way forward.

You know, and if that is prayerfully, you know, talking with your wife, prayerfully seeking counsel, but then, you know, praying to the

Lord, saying, Lord, how long do you want me to labor for the good of this church from the position that I'm in, where I'm not in the higher authority

I'm supposed to be augmenting, and blessing, and supporting? How long should

I labor from the position that I'm in to see the change that I think you would want to see in this church, before you'd like me to move on?

Okay? I think it's a well -worth the effort to try to labor and be a blessing to that church, even if you don't stay there, even if you're not there in six months, okay?

The time that you have spent there, if you do it, if you labor in love, and sincerity, and really advocate for these folks to follow the

Word of the Lord, and trust Jesus, and do the right thing, even if, when you're gone, those folks are gonna remember you and say, you know, we didn't agree, but you could tell that He loved us, and man, do we miss

His Bible teaching. You know, there's gonna be something missing, and that's gonna be helpful as well.

So if you've got to move on and change, I think that that is a legitimate reason to move, but unless you're confronted with the kind of actual crisis moment where someone is basically saying, you go out and lead these initiatives personally, and parade this, or resign,

I don't think you have to resign tomorrow. I think if you if you're recognizing that, hey, this is not really compatible, then labor what you can do, recognizing that there may need to be a change.

And I think that'd be a wise way to proceed. You know, remember that David served under Saul, and things were a little odd, and then they were bad, and then it was rough, and he continued to work for Saul, King Saul, as his liege, until he couldn't.

Okay. So, and he kind of knew it was heading the wrong way anyway. But do what you can, while you can, but if you've got to leave, leave, but do so in a way that is godly, meaning do everything you can to provide for your wife and kids.

When you hear that in the question, I can't convince him to stop giving, I don't feel

I can keep my family here. Yeah. And I think like what you said, in laboring for the sake of the people in that congregation, you know, prayerfully working, if it did come to that point where you've got to go, making that stand,

I think, some people may not see it as dire as you do. Maybe they're not sickened by it, and they just don't see it, but you pointing it out to the point where you're saying you have to leave, might be the thing that says he's concerned about his family over these things, and he's willing to leave over them.

This must be, there must be something to this. And if you've been laboring and going to the

Word, and they have all those things that you've been teaching them as you're on your way out, they're gonna see the love that you had for them, the stance that you're taking, that it is important to you, and they'll put those things together, hopefully.

We had tried to base our answers about whether or not you should have denominations or separate into denominations.

We got that from Scripture. There are reasons not to separate, there are silly reasons, you know, to have those divisions, and then there's matters of conscience, which we, you had mentioned

Romans 12 through 14. There are reasons to separate, and it looks like he's under conviction that the reasons to separate, there actually may be core

Christian issues. He's not just changing from disciples of Christ. He's like, well, you know, we're just more convinced of Presbyterian and Puritan polity, so we're gonna go over to this church.

He's talking about a serious moral issue that's affecting his family, and he's even willing to give up his paycheck in order to separate from this.

So this may be one of those lines in the sand, decision to leave based on a clear conviction from Scripture.

Yep, I think that's probably true, and it's gonna take wisdom. It's gonna take prayer and counsel.

If you have someone near you that you can trust theologically or something, like a mentor in the past to walk through some of this too, that can give you wisdom that we weren't able to give you here on the podcast, then by all means extend out a hand and ask for help.

That's probably what we would recommend. Yeah, we can't say, you know, you need to stay or you need to go, you know, that's because we don't know his exact situation, but those,

I think, have some basic principles from Scripture should be able to help lead him towards that right decision for him and his family, and if you can find that mentor, that person to give him strong godly counsel,

I think he's on solid biblical ground to do that. Yeah, making that decision in faith and trusting in the

Lord with the decision he's made. Well, we'll move on to recommendations. Michael, what's your recommendation for the week?

My recommendation is going to be kind of a double one, but it's the

Free Grace Broadcaster by Chapel Library, Mount Zion Bible Institute. It goes by a lot of different names, but the

Free Grace Broadcaster is a quarterly publication that gives you, based on a theme like justification or adoption or holiness or something, will give you a lot of excerpts from the

Puritans and surrounding folks associated with them, and so you're going to get somewhere between three or four pages, sometimes five pages, of portions of their sermons, portions of the writings, and an array, maybe about 14, 15 different articles in this publication,

Free Grace Broadcaster. And you'll also get footnotes with explanations of odd words, because the

Puritans used words we don't use now, and so there's like little explanations at the bottom, and these are great.

Again, four times a year, they're free. You just sign up for it, go to Mount Zion Bible Institute, look up Free Grace Broadcaster on the internet.

I have a book that they put together of five,

I think, you know, five of these Free Grace Broadcasters put together, and then they put it into a book bound book form, and they titled the book

God's Gospel of Grace. And part one's the gospel, part two is substitution, part three justification, part four imputed righteousness, part five repentance, and it's just stellar.

I love it. And this ministry is one that operates on the Dorian principle. They do not charge anything.

They will not charge you anything. If you want to give to them, great, but they're not gonna charge you a dime.

And that's a pretty good -looking book for not charging a dime right there, I'd say, for those that can't see at home.

Yes, yeah. So, and they also will, with their publication to let you know how their

Mount Zion Bible Institute is going, all the prisoners in jail that are going through their seminary course. They'll talk to you about their missionaries overseas whom they're supporting, and how they're translating works from Christendom into various languages like Portuguese and Spanish and so on, and they'll let you know how it's going.

And you can support them, and then they say, hey, did you like that Free Grace Broadcaster? How about some more free stuff?

And then they'll send you like a large booklet, small booklet, and some tracks upon request.

And they're great. So anyway, support them, read the stuff they send out.

I highly recommend them. Awesome. David? So I just finished a book.

It was recommended by a friend of mine who is a Naval Academy grad, and every year, we have a bet on who's going to win the

Air Force Navy game. And when he loses, and he's lost more often than me, he has to read a book of my choosing.

I pick anything, any book I want. I mean, it's not gonna be like War and Peace just to mess with him. But a book today, totally, you're gonna read the

Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've enjoyed sending different books to him before, but this year, my team lost.

So he said, here's my suggestion for you. And his suggestion was Team of Teams, New Rules for Engagement in a

Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal. And General McChrystal was the operational genius behind the success of the

U .S. in Iraq against al -Qaeda Iraq, AQI, as opposed to AQAP, which is

Arabian Peninsula, or al -Shabaab, or others. There's these different individual cells.

His understanding of the enemy showed him the shortcomings in his own unit.

In 2003, 2004, the U .S. military and the Joint Force, and especially Special Operations, which is what he was in charge of, was the most lethal, most well -equipped, most well -trained fighting force in the world.

And they were getting schooled by guys with cell phones riding camels and in the backs of Toyota pickup trucks, or the

Toyota Hilux. And they couldn't figure out why. They were so nimble.

You shut down one cell and three more spring up. It was impossible to predict.

And the system that they had in place was so, it was so much better than anything

McChrystal had ever seen. And it was just organic. They had a couple people at the top, but then they had these guys at the bottom.

And the way they like to say it is, well, there was a number one, and there's a couple number twos, but everybody else was number three.

That's how flat the organization was, all the communication, and they could, they could just react, react, react, and they were so much faster.

So he had to completely redo the entire system from the ground up during combat while guys were dying.

It's no wonder the military followed through with that diversity, equity, inclusion program after they saw the success in Al -Qaeda.

Yeah, yeah, that was it. Everyone's number three. I love that. We're all the same.

The idea was that there, there wasn't such a super hierarchical organization.

Right. So the number threes knew everything. They just did. They risked the intelligence leaks.

They risked all that so they could be fast. And when McChrystal, we put in places, he learned from them, learned from the enemies, changed his entire structure to where they were doing the

Operation Intelligence Brief every single day, which there was a very close, close knit, only the generals, only the, the, the, these, these people at the very core, because for operational security.

And then by the time I got down to the people who actually needed to do the job, the target, it was gone.

I mean, we had, I had predator drones, we had all the weaponry you could possibly imagine.

And they couldn't stop these guys. They couldn't stop attacks on sewage plants. They couldn't stop this, couldn't stop this, couldn't, couldn't stop this.

Because by the time they took action, it was too late. So he learned from this organization, redid his entire organization.

And basically, it was just in the title, he saw these interdeveloped in these, these, these teams within teams that could communicate with each other.

And they started doing liaisons back and forth to each other. And they started to be in each other's briefings.

And they basically had operators in these briefings with these generals, and anybody could ask a question to the to the generals, and if they didn't know, it's too bad.

They had asked and then find out they had asked me, no longer could you be seen as this ivory tower, general officer, this godlike figure who always knew everything?

No, we don't. Sometimes we don't know any more than you do. And sometimes you guys on the ground have the quickest and the best information and you need to be empowered to make a decision.

And they were in these guys were making life and death decisions every single day at the lowest level. And the generals were finding out about it three or four hours later, because they trusted these guys so much.

And that and by that point, within 12 months, they were fighting these guys back, they were actually saving a bunch of lives.

Now, regardless of what where the you stand on whether we should or shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place, or whether or not you know, we may have created al

Qaeda, and then whatever was was ISIS after them or whatever.

You know, there's there's a lot of debate about that. But McChrystal was not stuck into the old ways of doing things.

And he was willing to adjust. And not only was it was it effective, it changed the entire system of special operations.

And people were spreading and their success spread throughout the force and really helped turn the tide in Iraq.

And he's taken the same leadership and operational experience into his consulting and he's helping these large firms and large organizations get rid of their stove pipes and get rid of some of their archaic ways of doing things to become more nimble, more communicative, more transparent, and empower people at the lowest level to make decisions.

So very neat book, team of teams, Stanley McChrystal and shout out to John Bice.

Naval helicopter pilot, and good friend and a good Christian brother. Awesome.

Chris, I would like to recommend mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the best.

Everyone should go get some. Thank you. No, actually, the ice cream guy is about to just disagree with you.

Oh, yeah. I'd like to see the sales on on mint chocolate chip. Terrible.

I'm not doing my job then. Anyways, I would recommend going out and finding an old

English grammar book. You can find them in used bookstores.

This one I actually found it was being used as just decorative in a coffee shop.

They had them like piled in the corners and all this stuff. And I saw it and I asked, what are you doing with that?

And they said I could have it. So I was like, sweet. This one is advanced English grammar by Kittredge and Farley.

But just going through and seeing what students used to learn at younger ages, and what has been lost in our educational systems in the government schools is just amazing.

And then I was encouraged because as I'm going through these chapters, and I'm trying to think back to my public school and shortcomings,

I'm asking my daughters, and they're following along. Oh, they're learning this stuff.

They know this stuff. So homeschool for the win. But just pick up an old one.

It's really interesting to see. I used to diagram sentences back in the day. I think we did that for a week.

And then that was it. I've never done it again, except for with Brooke, when

I'm with Brooke, and she's listening in Sunday school to Michael's preaching, and he writes a sentence up on the board.

And she's like, I'm diagramming the sentence and like pay attention. So I mean, it's happening diagramming sentences.

It's coming back. Yeah, when we used to play Little Axe in high school, we could tell by the way they communicated with one another that nobody diagram sentences.

So it makes sense. Yeah, no, they're using the X's and O's on the board.

No, diagramming sentences is good. It'll help you reason better and listen better.

Yep. Yep. Well, my recommendation for this week is The Unprotected Class by Jeremy Carl. He calls it a survey of,

I believe he called it a survey of of basically research and history in different aspects of our society of how anti -white racism or anti -white discrimination, whichever terms you want to use to to define it has been pushed from the top down to change cultural and cultural perspectives and expectations in the

US specifically. He branches out a little bit into the UK and Europe, but he really focuses on the problem in the

US of this top down change and how much it has actually affected us culturally and how it's affected our founding myths and the things that even younger generations now hold as just stated fact.

But it's an interesting listen. I'm probably nine tenths of the way. I'll probably finish it on the drive home.

But it's been an interesting read. Not a lot that I didn't know to begin with, but there are some interesting stories.

He did he does some myth busting about popular narratives around redlining, blockbusting, that sort of thing, and how most of the the narrative that's pushed behind those is just a myth.

So The Unprotected Class by Jeremy Carl. Oh, we'll move on to what are we thankful for,

Michael? I'm thankful for my wife, how she helps keep me informed and organized and encouraged in everything that I do as a pastor.

So I'm very, very thankful for her. Amen. Dave? I'm thankful that I had a couple of days off in a row to not just rest but actually serve at my daughter's school.

And I'm able, I was, I'm now able to go help with one of the aviation classes.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be talking through some propellers and how a carburetor works and those kinds of things and just working with with students.

So I'm just thankful for those kind of opportunities to meet some of these kids. There's some really, you know,

I mentioned one, these, these, these crazy, weird homeschoolers who are so articulate and just cogent and clear in their arguments.

This is what I believe and why. It's pretty simple. It was, it was, it was just neat to see and having a couple of days off with the ability to meet some of these kids has been a real blessing.

Awesome. Chris? I am thankful for the prayers of the saints. We recently moved and have gone through some difficult challenges in various ways, but the prayers of the, of the brothers and sisters at this church have been a blessing.

Prayers for me and my wife, for my children, the challenges that we're facing, and just to see

God work through answered prayers has been amazing. And so I'm very, very grateful for the prayers of the saints.

Amen. Well, I am thankful for potty training. Our third is going through it right now.

And we take a method that's pretty quick and aggressive, but it is such a blessing once it's over.

When you see a little one, little, little boy or little girl be able to pick up something that is actually extremely foreign to their experience in the world.

And then now act that like this is going to be the norm from now on. It's crazy how quickly they can pick it up and they can implement it into their day and go with it.

And that goes back to kind of the home benefits of homeschooling and, and being at home, having a wife, being at home with, with daycare, with the like ever encroaching pre -K reduction in ages where you can just send them off.

We're not outsourcing any of that training. We get to see how he learns these things.

It helps us to learn about him. It teaches us about him just as much as it teaches him how to do very basic things for himself.

Um, and I'm, I'm thankful for the opportunity for us to do that within our own household and, um, under our, our watchful eyes at all times.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with having not read.