Ecclesiology: Church Expectations

So, if you were here last week, as we have been doing in a normal way, I've been spending a few minutes in the Psalms, and then Brother Keith comes and brings understanding in a more systematic way. And then if you remember last week, as we were praying and I was anticipating Nicole's baptism, and it made me think, and if you remember I said I'm going to go off script, which I have a tendency to do sometimes.

And I started to say some things about baptism, and one thing led to another, and if you remember we had a real good conversation tied in with what Brother Keith was doing, and as I was talking with Brother Keith this afternoon, we began to think about, well, let's do it.

Again tonight.

So, I'm not going to speak from the Psalm directly, but I want to help to give us some understanding on the subject that Brother Keith is going to have as far as the church's responsibility to its members and the members' responsibility to the church.

So to be interactive, and I think, I always have thought this way, especially in an environment and in a setup that we're in tonight like this, that being interactive with one another is a very good way to prompt one another, to teach one another, to learn from one another, and to grow.

So I'm comfortable in this kind of a setup. So again, that's what we're going to do tonight. I'm going to say a few things about church membership, the responsibility of the church to its members, and then the members' responsibility back to the church, and I'm just going to give you some thoughts, kind of, I just want to get our thoughts moving, if you will, get our spiritual juices flowing, and then Brother Keith's going to come, and I'm sure he's going to put a lot more structure around it, and then I'm going to try to add to it as we're going through it, and that's why I got the little R2-D2 sitting there for a microphone.

The Church’s Responsibility to Its Members and the Members’ Responsibility to the Church

So with that as an introduction, just a few thoughts to get us started, and I want to say this first, and probably most importantly, that the topic of the church, the church's responsibility to its members, the members' responsibility to the church is of the utmost importance.

That I'm not sure, I know there are other important truths and doctrines and studies and practices, but the importance of the relationship of the church to itself, and then from itself out into the world at large, is of the greatest importance, and I have only really one reason to give you why that's true, and I would hope that we would all agree that this is the right reason, and it is exactly what Paul says in Ephesians.

Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, and if there could be no other reason why the responsibility is of the utmost importance, both from, as we say, the church's responsibility to its members, or the members' responsibility back to the church, that is more than sufficient a reason why you and I ought to pay the most attention to this and seek to continually grow in it, to, and I'll say this, especially as Reformed people, and again, I want to just throw out some thoughts, but especially as Reformed people who believe in the sovereign God and who believe in the cross in a very right way, that it was particular redemption, and because of that, if you think of it, Christ loved the church, and in that sense, he came to save his people from their sins and to unite in one, as Paul talks about in Ephesians, unite in one in Christ that you and I ought to realize this is of the greatest importance, that Christ loved the church and he gave himself for us, and we who believe, again, in this glorious truth that his atonement was effectual, purposeful, complete, that you and I would understand the importance also of church membership from both sides, because I think, and I hope that I'm on the same vein as my brother, when we think of the church's responsibility to the membership, many times we think of it as the oversight, or those that hold positions within the church, what their responsibility is to the general body, but there's also the other side where the membership has a responsibility to the church and to that oversight also, and so it goes both ways, and now I want to just say this as we begin to think about this, there are many misgivings about the church, there are many misgivings about the church from both sides, whether it be the church and its responsibility to the membership, or the membership and its responsibility to the church, there are many misgivings, and if you think about it, I think you would agree that it goes both ways, so from the church's side, it could get very easily distorted where the church thinks that its responsibility to the membership is to do nothing but make them happy, and to make sure that they have a good experience, and to make sure that they leave, if you will, better than they came, whether it be on a Sunday morning or whatever, that to me is a misunderstanding, I'm not saying that those things are not included, but that is not the essence of the responsibility of the church to its members, and if you just, I'm going to read a little bit something to back that up, so there's that, there could be a misunderstanding that way, and I've seen it, and I'm sure many of you have, and then there's a misunderstanding that comes from the membership's responsibility back to the church, and there's many misunderstandings, some people think all they have to do is show up, that's my responsibility, I just come, I'm here, what else do you want from me?

I give money, I pay my tithe, if you want to use the word tithe, I don't think in today's churches they really want to understand what a biblical tithe is, because it's more like 23 and a third than 10%, so we'll have to change the bumper stickers on the back of the cars, but nevertheless, some people think that as long as I show up, and as long as I put in my money, that I have kind of checked the box, and it's the church's responsibility to do the rest, I'm here, you feed me, and that's a misunderstanding, and I hope that we will be able to open that up a little bit as we go on, and then I'm going to say this, I'm going to read quickly, and then I'm going to turn it over to Brother Keith, and hopefully we'll get some conversation going, and this is my own experience, so I'm going to give you an analogy, and it's my analogy, not that I'm proud of it, but it's my analogy, so it makes a lot of sense to me, you know, we're all geniuses in our own mind, but anyway, this is my analogy, and it's really born out of, you know I've been a Christian 45 years, I've been a minister in now three different churches in different places in the country, and this is really born out of experience, and I wanted to say this, and use this analogy because I really believe it has some truth to it, and that is that I have found in my experience that there's three kinds of people that are in the churches, and although the faces change, these three things continually run through it, and I want to use the analogy, and it's my analogy again, the analogy of a rowboat, and I probably have said this before, but I'm going to say it again, so in my experience you have three different kinds of people, and three kinds of different people who are in a rowboat, there's the first group who are in the rowboat, and they got their hands on the oars, and they're rowing as hard as they can to help the rowboat go forward, just rowing away, then there's a second group of people, and the second group of people are those who are in the rowboat, and they really enjoy being in the rowboat, and they really enjoy the fact that there are other people who are rowing as hard as they can to go forward, but they themselves have no real interest in picking up an oar, and then there's the third group, and this might be a smaller group, but nevertheless I've seen this in every experience that I've had, this third group, they're in the boat, and they are rowing in the opposite direction, and so the result of all that is either the boat goes nowhere, or it just keeps going around in circles, so I wanted to say that, because I wanted to ask you to think about something tonight, I wanted to ask you as we go through this tonight, that you would ask yourself, which of those three describes you the best, are you in the boat, rowing with all your strength to help the boat to cross the ocean, or are you glad to be in the boat, happy that there are other people rowing, and yet you yourself really don't have too great of a desire to do much rowing, you'd rather sit while the others row, or would it best describe you to say that you are someone who's in the boat, and you're rowing in the opposite direction, and again, that's my experience in the churches over the years, and I'm sure Brother Keith's going to use a lot more structure, and I look forward to that, and we'll have some interaction, but before I do that, I wanted to, and we just talked about this, what, 3 o 'clock this afternoon, we said we were going to do this, so I'm sure his is much more structured, mine was in between me going home, eating dinner, taking a shower, and coming here, but I wanted to read just an excerpt or two from a book, and the book's title is exactly what I said, Jesus Loved the Church, and So Should You, and the author's name is Ed Blackburn, if you've never heard of him, he's a pastor out in Louisiana of a Baptist church, he's a real good writer, this book is available through Solid Ground Christian Books, I've read this book over the years a number of times, there's other books that are out, Mark Diva has a really good book out on Nine Marks of a True Church, there's many, but I wanted to read just two excerpts from the book, real quick, because they deal with the two subjects that Brother Keats could speak about, one is the church's responsibility to the members, and then the members' responsibility to the church, and so very briefly, and I'm going to kind of just pick out a few things he says, and in this chapter, it's one of the marks of a true church, and I really think that that's important, because that's the responsibility of a church, they've got to understand what's required of them, and so you need to know what the marks of a church are, and he says this, he says, the first mark of a true church as held by the Reformers, of course he's looking back in history, was the true preaching of the Word through the practice of a thorough exposition of the Scriptures, by this practice they asserted that everything in the church and life is subservient to the Word of God alone, the first mark of a true church, how they handle the Word of God, and ultimately, I believe that's the first responsibility of the church to its memberships, is to make sure they are true and honest and open with the Word of God, and then he says, as a second mark of a true church, he only names three, there's more that could be had, but I'm just trying to get us to think a little bit, the second mark of a true church according to the Reformers, and again, think about this in church history, this is something that was held 400 or 500 years ago, and it was as true 400 or 500 years ago as it was in the days of the Apostles, and it hasn't changed today, and the second mark of a true church according to the Reformers was a proper view and observance of the sacraments, a study of the New Testament in early Christian history shows that the apostolic and post-apostolic churches had only two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, which we witnessed, one of the ordinances as Nicole went through the baptismal waters last week, and as we do every Lord's Day, the second ordinance, which is observing the Lord's Supper, so he says that the first mark of a true church is the presentation of the Word of God, the second mark of a true church is their observance of the ordinances, so that means no more, no less, right?

Then he says this, and this is just the last remark, the third mark, and this one is important, and I think this will enter into our conversation as far as the church's responsibility to its members, and the members' responsibility in return to the church, the third mark of a true church according to the Reformers was a careful and faithful exercising of church discipline, and then he says, if the Word and sacraments were the entrance into the church, church discipline was necessary to maintain the identity of those who entered, and I think this particular one is one where we in today's churches is drastically insufficient from both sides, partly because of the misgivings that I say that the church has, because some people believe that the church's responsibility to members is to make them happy all the time, make sure they have a good experience so they don't go down the block to someone else's church, but that the church has a vital responsibility to discipline themselves, and Ed Blackburn is a Baptist, and I agree with him, and I know we believe that here, we are autonomous, right?

So we're members of fire, which is what? Independent reform. Right, it's the fellowship of independent reformed evangelicals, right? So we are autonomous, self-ruled, under God, by the Spirit, but we must be those who are willing to discipline each other and every one of us, and certainly Paul brings that up, and Timothy even talks about an elder.

No one is beyond discipline. So he lays that out as the three marks, and I'm sure Brother Keats is going to expand on that, and then I want to just quickly, and then I'll close, another chapter he has is what are the responsibilities of church membership, and he lists five here, there's many more that could be had, but I just wanted to mention to him, to you, Tim.

He says this, the first responsibility of church membership is loyalty to the church. First responsibility of church membership is loyalty to the church. By loyalty to the church, I mean fidelity to the teachings of the church as far as they are loyal to the Word of God.

Get it? That one of the great responsibilities of the church membership is to be faithful to the church if the church is being faithful to the Word of God. There ought to be a loyalty that comes out of that.

Then he says many other things. So that's a mark, that's something that we need to discuss, that if the doctrine is being taught and you are, you have covenanted to be part of a local body, you have a responsibility to be loyal to what's being taught, right?

And to make sure what's being taught is, in fact, the Word of God. Then he says this, attendance at all church meetings is another responsibility of church membership. And he goes back to the book of Acts, and he talks about how in the book of Acts, especially in Acts chapter 2, that the first Christians and members of the first church faithfully attended all church meetings and so should the members of all Christ churches 2 ,000 years later.

And I'll just give you my thought on this. Sometimes churches are so pressed to have so many different ministries and so many different events and so many different opportunities that you wind up fracturing the church because you'll have this group who plays in this sandbox but they don't play in that sandbox.

And they attend this faithfully but they don't attend anything else because they attend this faithfully. And I think we miss sometimes with that. I really do. I think we miss that as the apostles gathered in the first church, they held all things in common.

I don't believe they worried about what time of day it was or would they get home in enough time to watch the football game. I don't think that was there. But anyway, I wanted to mention that that's another responsibility of the church, attendance.

A third responsibility lies in the matter of financial giving. Giving is requisite so that the congregations can support its offices, take care of its necessary expenses, sustain benevolence and works of charity, and carry on the work of missions and the cause of Christ around the world.

That is another responsibility of church membership. And I think that could be opened up in many different ways. But nevertheless, that's a responsibility of the membership. And I said I was just going to talk for a second.

People, again, like my analogy, the boat. You got some people who will row or give and give and give and give. And then you got other people who are in the boat that are glad that the lights and the air conditioning is working, but they're not really that concerned about giving because they know other people are giving.

Mutual ministry is another responsibility of church membership. Many people think their pastor and elders are the only ones who are to labor and serve Christ in the church. This is unbiblical thinking.

And he opens that up. But that's another responsibility. And then finally, a fifth responsibility of church membership is to minister to the ones primarily responsible for ministering to the body, the pastors and the elders.

In other words, the church has a great responsibility. The membership has a great responsibility. Those that have oversight have tremendous responsibility, almost to the point where it's better not to than to.

If you follow what I'm saying, you're better off not being in the ministry if you can avoid it. But the membership has a great responsibility to the elders and to those who have the oversight. And it's not just the elders, it's those who have the oversight in the church.

And he says it this way. They are those who have pastoral oversight over you. They are not supermen, but servants of God who wrestle with weakness, temptations, sins, just as you do. You must encourage and honor these men because of their office and call.

So I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts going with that. And with that, I want to turn over to Brother Keith, and then maybe we'll have some interaction. And I'm sure he'll give this.

Whole subject a lot more structure as we go. Thank you, Brother. I have handouts. I guess I should... Well, let me make sure I'm... It's the same one from last week. So if you were here last week, then you already have the handout.

Anybody need one? I know Nicole wasn't.

Passes.

We're good. We're good. You were enjoying this soft mat. That's what it was. Well, a lot of what Andy said, I will just say yes and amen. Last week, we looked at church membership. And on the first side of our handout, there's three questions.

Is church membership in a local congregation biblical? We said yes, and I gave reasons why I believe that is true. How has church membership been misunderstood? I didn't really answer that question last week, except to say, I think church membership has for far too long been understood as more of membership as in like a country club versus membership in a body.

Whereas when we come into a country club, we join for the benefits and entitlements of membership. And that's often the reason why we would join a club or a group, because there's some kind of benefits or entitlements.

But joining the church, the purpose of it is not for benefits and entitlements, but it's for service and for promoting the cause of someone else. I don't join the church to promote my cause. I joined the church to promote the cause of Christ in whatever way that he will allow me to in his body.

And then the next, the third question is, what is church membership in a biblically functioning church? That's what takes us to the other side. And that's where we're going to be tonight. And Brother Andy, as I said, has already given us a lot.

And I enjoy this going back and forth. And that's why we talked earlier, I said, I really enjoyed how last week went. I said, I'm gonna give you your own microphone. So if you want to opine, people can actually hear.

I have a microphone up here, you probably can't see it. But it's right here on the on the mega desk. I call this mega desk. This is my giant pulpit. Do you need one, Jack? Yes. So what I had done when I was putting together biblically functioning church was, which is the book that I wrote on this subject, I wrote out what members should expect from the church, and what church should expect from the members.

And as I said, Andy's gone through a couple of these, but I have I have nine and on the one side and nine on the other. And what I want to do is I want to I want to help you to understand how these work together.

As Andy said, there's a there's a certain structure to what I want to show you because I do think that one of these will lead to the next all the way down the line on both sides. And I think of it like this.

When someone comes to Sovereign Grace, like today, I did a I did a private meeting today with a family that wants to join that they couldn't come to the membership class that we did when Nicole and and Miss Ron or Mr. Mr. Ron and Miss Wilma came to the class.

We had a class well they were supposed to be here that day they were sick, couldn't come. So they called me can we do the class we want to join? So can we join? So today I sat down with them for two hours and we just did the class privately with them.

And we went through this list. And I said, you know, you guys are coming from another church. I don't know what you expected when you went to the other church. And I don't know what that church expected of you.

But these are the things I believe should be expected. And that's why that this is what we talked about. And the first one is, if you go to a church, you should expect biblical preaching. Now, one might think that's the only kind of preaching there is, I want to tell you very, very clearly, it is not the only type of preaching there is there's there's unbiblical preaching.

There's extra biblical preaching, they say, well, what's that extra biblical preaching is where people will start with the Bible, and then they'll add a lot of extra stuff that's not biblical. And so you have that that becomes unbiblical at that point.

But there are some places that just deny the Bible, and that's unbiblical. And then there's extra biblical preaching, what you should expect from the preacher is that he's going to open the Word of God, and he's going to explain the Word of God, he's going to apply the Word of God, and then he's going to shut up.

Because that's his job to read the text, explain the text, apply the text, and then stop. Because that's the job of the expositor. I, I hope that when I come in on Sunday morning, that my goal has been to preach the Word.

Because that's the goal. That is the command Paul gave to Timothy, when he was leaving him when he was preparing to leave. The command was preach the Word in season and out of season. Remember that? Second Timothy chapter four, preach the Word.

And so I ask you, hold me to account on that. Hold our elders to account on that. Brother Mike and Brother Andy love to preach, but it's because they love the Word. I love to preach because I love the Word.

And so the first thing that should be expected is biblical preaching. The second thing that should be expected is biblical theology, which is based on biblical preaching. As I said, each one of these builds on the last.

Biblical theology is that you should not only preach the Word, but you should have a cohesive message. You shouldn't come in one Sunday and I preach something from one part of the Bible, and then I come in the next Sunday and I preach something totally contradictory from another part of the Bible.

This is why I stress systematic theology. Because systematic theology is a whole Bible approach to understanding God. It's a whole Bible approach to understanding the Word. And you'll have some people who will say, uh, they'll say, well, I really like Paul, but I don't like James that much.

Or they'll say, I really liked the New Testament, but I don't like the Old Testament. You heard this Brother Andy? People will come in and they have a, they have an unbiblical theology because they have a theology that's all based in one or two books.

I'll give you the big example of this is the people who think Jesus is all love. Do you know who the person who preached about hell the most was? It was Jesus. I mean, honestly, the doctrine of hell, though I think it can be exegeted from the Old Testament, is not really focused on in the Old Testament.

We see certain passages that certainly refer to punishment and eternal punishment, especially the end of Daniel. There's a very specific one, but it's really not until the Gospels that we get a full orbed view of hell.

I can't spend this much time on each of these. I got 18 points to get through. I got to be careful. But, but, but you understand a biblical preaching or biblical preaching leads to a biblical theology, whether it's the doctrine of hell, doctrine of the love of God, the doctrine of the holiness of God.

This has to come from all the scripture. You have to have a cohesive theology. It begins with biblical preaching. It begins with a biblical theology. Biblical theology is necessary for systematic theology.

We call it the difference between exposition and systematization, taking it from the text and putting it into categories and understanding that. All right, then we have number three, a biblical understanding of the gospel.

In fact, I want to say three, four, and five go together because a biblical understanding of the gospel will lead to a biblical understanding of conversion, which will lead to a biblical understanding of evangelism.

And you say, well, what would a new member care? Because the question is, how are we growing the church? Are we growing the church through manly, worldly means that are not true gospel means, but by what I would say is means of manipulation.

And if you don't think that churches manipulate people to grow in size, then I got some property to sell you, you know, outside of, what is it, oceanfront property in Arizona? You know, this is a, you can't tell me there's not unbiblical methods for conversion.

I told the story, you've all heard the story of the baptistry shaped like the firetruck. I said this, I said this to the family today because they have little kids. I said, if I wanted to have 20 baptisms in one Sunday, I could, because all I'd have to do is go and talk to all the kids and talk them.

How hard would it be for me to talk all the little ones? Do you want to go to hell? Nobody wants to go to hell. Do you want to believe in Jesus? Sure. I want to believe you want to get in the water. Did you hear what my daughter said after the baptism Sunday?

You probably didn't. Cause you know, I invited the kids up so they could see better. But, but as soon as I baptized Nicole, as soon as she come up out of the water, hope jumped up and said, me next. She said, me next.

And so if you see a church that is using an unbiblical method of evangelism, it's probably because they have an unbiblical understanding of the gospel and an unbiblical understanding of conversion. And that will show itself in the methods of the church.

I'll write a phrase for you. This is, this is actually, uh, Dr. James White uses this phrase a lot, but if you've never heard it, commit it to memory. Seriously. No, it's okay brother. I won't even worry.

I'll say it. What you win them with is what you win them to. What you win them with is what you win them to. If you win them with entertainment, you have to keep them with entertainment. If you win them with a party, you've got to keep them with a party.

If you win them through biblical means of biblical evangelism, then you have won them to Christ, not to you. And that will make the difference. And this is why I'm not part of the church growth movement.

There is a movement. Oh, thank you, sweetheart. There is a movement called the church growth movement. And I get emails all the time. I get letters all the time from places. Do you want to grow your church to 2 ,000 people?

Be kind of hard when we only see 140, but yeah, I mean, we could give it a shot. What's the method? Well, first you got to install smoke machines. Now, that's not what they say, but that's, it's in there.

You got to have a 20 foot LED projector and you've got to make it a show. Every Sunday, it's got to be a show.

Brother, you want to say something? I can smell it. No, it's just, in one church I was in, we received resumes from pastors from all around. Just, they would send a resume with all their credentials and all their accomplishments.

And invariably, the first question that they asked as they were kind of scoping out what you might be able to offer them was, how big is your church? That always seemed to be the first question. And it always seemed to be that they were interested in moving from a 500 member church to a 750 or a thousand member church.

It was always their first question was, how big is your congregation? So usually, I never answered many of them, but what you got to do is tell them you got about 75 and most of these guys will say C.

Not interested. Not interested. I wrote it down since you were talking. Give me a second. Thank you for the markers, Ashley. So, the church member coming in, one, you know how they got you. So, that's first off, right?

You know how they won you and whether or not you got saved at that church, you know how they brought you in. I always say a lot of people who come here, come here, especially in the last 10 years, come here because they want to be taught.

They come here because they know we teach. And not a lot of people want to be taught. So, we don't grow in leaps and bounds, but it is what we do. So, biblical understanding of the gospel, of conversion, of evangelism, and how do you know what their view, how do you know what their position is on the gospel?

Well, it'll say it in their documents, but how do you really know their position on the gospel? Because they may have it written right in their statement of faith, but how do you really know their position on the gospel?

How they evangelize. That will be, that is the tell-tale sign. How they share the gospel is what they think of the gospel. And if they think Jesus is a commodity to be sold or a product to be hawked, that is how they will treat evangelism because that is what they think of the gospel.

So, a biblical understanding of the gospel, conversion, evangelism. After that, members should expect biblical church membership. And we, that's what this whole course is about, but what is biblical church membership?

You should expect to be a part of the body, and the next three things really tell what that means. Because biblical church membership is discipleship, leadership, and discipline. So, you're expecting to be discipled.

I want to ask you a question, and you don't have to say it out loud, but I want you to think in your heart, and maybe this is, maybe I'm setting myself up for a dangerous thing. I'm going to ask this question, because I honestly, when I was away at the conference, this really hit me.

Do you believe that you are being taught the Bible well? Okay, that's the first question. Do you believe that you are individually growing? See, that's the fear that I have. One of the pastors there, Pastor Scott Menez from Riverbend, I interviewed him.

He'll be one of the interviews you'll get if you listen to the podcast, and he did say something. He said, one of the dangers of being a good teacher, he said, is your people will rely on you to know things and won't learn them themselves.

That really hit me. I mean, and that's why I say, are you being taught well? You can say yes, but are you learning well? Or do you just expect that your teachers know it, and that's enough? Boy, that was heavy for me.

So discipleship is not just that you're being taught well, but that you are growing yourself, right? You should expect to grow. You should expect to be challenged to grow. And boy, I mean, I'm just, no lie.

I was like, thank you, Pastor Scott. Thank you for that. I needed to hear that. And part of that is number eight, biblical leadership. We talked about who the elders are. We talked about the deacons. We talked about the role of those leaders in the church.

And you should expect that they are doing what God has called them to do. And then finally, biblical discipline. Now, Brother Andy mentioned church discipline. And as you know, I believe in church discipline, and I think that it's vital that the church understand it.

But that's not all that I mean by this. When I say biblical discipline, I don't just mean that we have a process by which we do excommunicate those who are fallen into a grave sin and are unwilling to repent.

That's church discipline. No, what I mean is the discipline of being part of the church, which would include, you should expect to be expected of. Does that make sense? That you should expect expectation.

Because that's part of being a body. I would tell you this. I even wrote an article about this years ago. My son played Pop Warner football for a year. Maybe two, but I know he played at least one year.

Cody played Pop Warner football when he was eight years old. The expectation of Pop Warner football was daily practice for several hours. And they had to have full gear when they went to practice. They had their pants that fit real tight, that had the knee pads and the thigh pads, and the pad that went over their rear end, and then they had the shoulder pads, and they had a practice jersey, and they had a game jersey.

Well, that practice jersey by Wednesday smelled like a dog's foot. It was the worst stinking thing, and so you had to wash it every night. And it smelled, it was little boy BO is what it was, and it was dirty, and it was rancid.

So you were washing this uniform every night just to keep the flies off of it. And you were at practice every day at school. You know what I'm talking about, probably four o 'clock to six o 'clock. And the special teams had to stay an extra half an hour to practice their program.

And I watched, you know who I watched, who I was amazed by? It wasn't the boys, the coaches. These guys were dedicated. I had never seen a church member, and I don't say this to be ugly, I've never seen a church member that would come after work every day and spend two or three hours a day just for the advancement of the church.

But these guys would come two or three hours a night every night for five, and then spend their whole Saturday watching the boys play, and screaming at them, and yelling at them, and then they wouldn't go to church on Sunday because they were too tired, but they'd start back on Monday six days a week.

And what they told us when we started, expect to be expected of. Expect that you will be expected to be here, you will be expected to be at practice, you will be expected to stay, you'll be expected to stay late if you have to, and if you can't commit to that, don't join the team.

And if you're riding the bench, the reason why you're riding the bench is because you were out of practice, or you weren't putting out the effort that you needed to to be on the field. And they were very serious.

I wrote an article about that. This year, however old Cody was, I was so amazed that there was such commitment to something that doesn't matter at all. Pop Warner football is the least important thing in the world in the sense of grand scheme.

The church is the most important program in the world because we're talking about the only thing of eternal significance, and we can't get people to come.

Once every seven weeks to a breakfast. That's right, that's right. So I didn't mean to be.