Choosing A Church Via The WWW

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes, as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Opening Banter and Show Setup

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church. My name is Mike Abendroth, glad to be your host. I think we�ve been on for about five years or so, and I am with Steve Cooley.

Five years, and we�re looking forward to another 50. Welcome to The Working Week.

Oh, thank you, Elvis. Steve, it is in real time snowing outside today and quite chilly.

Yes, but our listeners are probably hearing this in July.

We were criticized, I know it�s hard to believe people criticize No Compromise Radio. No, stop. But we were criticized because some of our shows are dated. Like because we have to, you know, record six weeks in advance because we have day jobs.

And I think there�d be one solution to this problem. Those particular listeners could send in gobs of money, and then we wouldn�t have to have day jobs and we could devote all our time to No Compromise Radio.

That would be pretty sweet. And then we�d probably hire the big crack staff and have writers. And, wait a minute. This is talking like a professional deal here.

Then we could spend a lot of money on hiring professional money extractors from people.

It�s that time of year again. And how about getting some professional voices to go on the show and replace us?

Yes, that�s right. And we could have, do you know how they airbrush pictures of people and have different lenses on the cameras. For TV? Well, for radio, what do they have? Air voice?

I don�t know how. Air voice. �how does it go? We�ve actually, they just dub, right? Today substituting for Steve is, you know� Mike Abendroff.

I got called Mike, I got called Abendragon the other day. Abendragon? Well, that�s not bad. I mean, that�s so much better than Haferhoff. I know, but Abendragon. And by the way, a shout out to Jill from California who sent me the Heno mug.

H-E-N-N-O, Heno. Heno. I was very thankful to drink out of the Heno mug. It has so replaced the Harvest House. Who�s Harvest House? I�m not really sure. I know. I received a minus check from Harvest House the other day, a royalty check that was in the negatives.

They debted your account?

They did. Hey, in light of your recent sales of your book, we�ve decided to take $20 out of your account.

I was in both the Memphis Airport and Charlotte Airport in the last week. Game dropper. And they have, no, no, no, let�s listen. And they have in their bookstores there in the airport, the inspirational book spinning kiosk with a variety of Harvest House books.

And I was just so. And they had your book? I was so wanting there to be things that go bump in the church there. And alas, too many Jesus Calling books. Oh, bummer. Trumped it. Bummer. Well, that�s not Harvest House.

But yeah, who did publish that? Many things I do know. This I do not know. Okay. Steve, do you have your Christian book thing in front of you? My Christian book thing in front of me? Yeah. You mean like the catalog?

Choosing a Church When You Are Out of Town

Yeah. Okay. But before we do that, we have folks at our church that they like to visit other churches when they're out of town.

You know, I think we all do, don't we? I love to visit other churches when I'm out of town.

Okay, in all seriousness, tell our listeners, when you're out of town, do you consider not worshiping on Sunday?

No. I usually look for, well, I mean, it's like, there's a hierarchy to go through. You know, is there a master's guy in town? You know, is there a church that's nine marks or, you know, founders friendly or kind of, you know, and so eventually, you know, I might get down to some OPC.

Oh, sorry. No, I'd be looking for some place that I know the gospel is going to be preached, preferably by a man. And so, you know, if I can't find that, then I'm going to be wondering why I went on this trip.

So, Steve, it really is a good thing to talk about because we all visit and go on vacation or out of town, some kind of health issue or something. First of all, on Sundays, on the Lord's Day, my family and I, we never say to ourselves, should we go to church today?

In light of sickness, in light of an emergency, somebody's in the hospital or something like that. Yeah, 20 feet of snow in the tundra in Alaska. But on a normal, regulative, regulative, regular, regulative principle, we say, yes, we're going.

It just is a matter of what's the time and where's the place? Right? So, we're going to go because Jesus has purchased us with his own blood. He has redeemed us. And we are called to go sing his praises with other Christian saints on Sunday.

Doesn't matter what time of day it is.

And we are going to do that. That's a non-negotiable. But it's my day off and it's the only day of the week I get to sleep late. But the Patriots are on.

I know. What would you do if the Super Bowl was on and the only service that was, you talk for a while, my phone's buzzing.

Well, I have an answer for that. What I would do is set my DVR. If I absolutely positively had to see the game, you know, I mean, people, we live in a technological age. Why don't we take advantage of the technology?

I know. Well, you know what? There's about an inch of snow on the roads here in New England. And I'm wondering if our car can make it, kids. Better hunker down. It's a TV church today.

Yeah, I don't really get that either. I mean, I understand when you can't see, you know, when you look out the window and, you know, the snow's coming down so fast, you go, I don't know, man. I don't think we're going to make it because we can't even see.

The road's covered and I can't even make out the curb.

I get that. But I don't think it was on a Sunday, but it might have been. My fourth daughter, Gracie, was about ready to be born into this world. And we went into the hospital, to the to the emergency room, because I think it was so early in the morning.

It was a 430 a .m. and we couldn't get into labor and delivery through any other door. And so I walked into the medical center's emergency room and there were two different TVs on and neither of them were on the same channel.

You know, it's interesting that they're always on the same channel, right? Right. At the gym. Yeah. And the one had like TBN with some woman preaching. And the other one, I think it was Joyce Meyer preaching.

And I said to myself, this is a bad sign. This is this is foreboding omen. This could be bad. So now let's think about we're at a church. We are going to go to church. We're out of town. You mentioned TMS .edu, Founders Friendly, Nine Marks.

You said something about an OPC. How about Reformed Baptist or PCA if you were just looking through the yellow pages?

Evaluating Church Websites for Doctrine and Preaching

If I was looking, I would look at Reformed Baptist and PCA and all those kind of things. But here's a little trick I learned. And I mean, I know it's crazy, but I actually go to their website. And I, you know, because it's one thing to be a PCA and be a Reformed church or whatever, but what are they actually teaching?

And, you know, what does their pastor say? And all those kind of things. So, I mean, sometimes those the results of looking at their website are pretty disappointing.

Well, you could even get a godly man who wants to proclaim the truth, and he's doing it in a very wise way at a Methodist church. Right. Evangelical free church. You could probably get some good preaching depending on the man.

We're just talking general statements here. What if you went to a Bible church, something Bible? What would you typically get if you went to a Bible church?

I'd be looking probably, probably at some kind of, most likely, I mean, it could be, I mean, if you come to our church, we know what you're going to get, but maybe a four-pointer or maybe less than a four-point, you know, kind of approach to it.

So, some kind of DTS deal.

Steve, when I think of Bible churches, I think of Dallas Seminary, elder leadership, maybe some verse-by-verse teaching, right? Four-point Calvinists. Sure. Yeah, just general. At best. How about Baptist?

What if you just said, I'm going to just go to a Find a Baptist church? I know exactly what I'd be thinking.

Deacon-led, Arminian, a lot of maybe entertainment, depending on how hip they are, you know, and maybe some video clips during the service. Okay.

And what's wrong with a Braveheart clip now and again, or maybe Gladiator or something?

There is nothing wrong with a Braveheart clip, or Braveheart clip, providing it's on a Friday night for entertainment purposes. How carnal can you get? On a Sunday morning, I just don't get it.

Steve, let's continue this theme because I think it's good. You want to pick a church, you move to the town, and you're scanning through the websites. When you look at a website to analyze a church for healthy doctrine, sound doctrine, hygienic doctrine, as Paul might call it, what do you look at when you go to the website?

First thing.

First thing, honestly, I'd like to see if he's preaching through a series right now because I want to see that he's preaching through a book of the Bible, because that tells me that they don't hop, skip, and jump their way through the Bible.

They actually plow through the difficult passages. You know, as a preacher myself, I mean, I kind of want to put air quotes around that. As a preacher myself, I know when I come to a difficult passage, I just go, oh, man, sometimes there have been a few times where I just thought, can I just skip this?

I waive this passage. Why? Because not every passage of the Bible, let me say it this way, every passage of the Bible is inspired. And it's good for us to learn from, but not everyone is equally preachable.

And there aren't always topics that you just, you know, you leap up and go, yes, I can hardly wait to, you know. So, that's where you kind of have to motivate yourself. But it's good to see, because that way I know that it's a well-rounded church, and I know that they're not going to skip over the tough things to teach.

Steve, I like that little comparison with the triple jump, the hop, skip, and jump. I like that. I was better at the triple jump than I was the long jump. I was bad at both. Were you? Yeah. Now, see, when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, along with you, you're my age, we didn't, our team, probably because we're in Nebraska and didn't have the facilities, we didn't do pole vaulting.

Did you guys pole vault when you were in high school?

Well, I think maybe, I want to say that the team did. I think we did. But, you know, I never did anything like that. That would be like insane. Steve, I don't like heights. Even six feet would be like, are you kidding me?

I don't want to get up there.

Steve, I went to the high school track meet. My daughter, she runs for track. And so, they have all kinds of events. And she's not a pole vaulter, but I was watching the young men pole vault. And it is a, you know, it's a wonder to behold when they do it well.

But there's a lot of really bad kind of crashes. And when you type in YouTube space bar, when you type in pole vault fails, it is cringeworthy.

Well, I don't even think I'd want to do that because I just think, you know, I know what would happen to me. I'd go off to the side or something. You know, they have all these plush mats, and I would miss it and land on the asphalt.

But it, you know, reminds me. I was watching a video of somebody. Maybe it was our folks down there in Atlanta. But somebody was doing some gymnastics. And it was interesting. Was it the scripture? No.

It was interesting to me to watch because, you know, I look at the stuff they do in the Olympics. And I go, I could never do that. But they do it safely in the beginning. You know, they step by step and like super padding or whatever.

And not all the getting air under it or whatever in the beginning. So, you know, it looks safer. But I don't know how you safely pole vault. How do you safely learn to pole vault?

People falling on the sticks, off of the mats. They get forced backwards. But when I look at a website to try to pick a local church on vacation or something like that, I do the same thing. I immediately go to messages.

It might say media. It might say sermons. And I scroll down. And, Steve, I love it. And this is not a fail safe. But pretty close. This is really good gauge for what are they doing. And it says Luke 1, 1 to 4.

Luke 1, 5 to 9. And it just works its way through. And I think to myself, you believe in the inspiration and authority of scripture. You believe that all doctrine is good for your people. You're a God pleaser versus a man pleaser.

Whole counsel of God type of thing with Ephesians. Excuse me, Acts chapter 20, the church at Ephesus. And I like that.

That's the number one thing I do. Yeah, where I get concerned is if I go to their website and, you know, it says all the right things and everything. And then I go and look at the sermons. And, you know, the first thing I notice is they're 20 to 25 minutes.

And then the second thing I notice is, you know, our current series.

And our current series is…. Eight cool media presentations. Yeah.

Or, you know, whatever, you know, 11 ways to, you know, I don't know, protect your kids from whatever, the world. Bullying.

Yeah. When it's a bullying series, I usually know it's not going to be too good. And you know what? The other thing I look for if I go to a website and, you know, they've got all kinds of things there.

And, you know, pictures of the banquets and, you know, a lot of kids running around. And if they have a link on the bottom right to No Compromise Radio, I usually go. Oh, well, that's a no-brainer. Yeah, I usually go.

No-brainer. Now, the second thing I do is I go to the staff section. And that tells me about their leadership. Is it a pastor rule, elder rule, elder led, deacon rule, congregational rule? And I like to know where the pastor went to school.

It doesn't help, you know, perfectly, but at least gives me an idea what his training is. Right.

Yeah, it does help. I mean, I can think of some specific situations where that wouldn't tell me everything because, you know, some people go to bad schools, and then, you know, the Lord grabs a hold of them and straightens them out.

So, or they go to good schools, and then they go straight down. So, either way, but yeah, looking at the leadership can tell you a lot, can tell you a lot, you know, depending on how many ladies are in teaching positions, things like that.

You know, if the adult Sunday school teacher is a woman, you know, that's an indicator.

How about if it's part of the Willow Creek Association, or part of the Global Initiative, Rick Warren purpose-driven stuff, you know? Paddleback. Paddleback from the gospel. See, Steve, here's the thing.

People write into us, and we have many listeners who enjoy our humor, our kind of like banter. Yes.

Our back and forth, our give and take.

But some are saying, you know, the hubris, the lack of humility, the arrogance, and you're always saying stuff about other people and laughing. What would you say to those kind of folks? I'd say they're right.

I'd say they're right. Well, you know, there's just a big difference, and we were talking about this a couple hours ago. There's a big difference between preaching, where I have the benefit of the authority of scripture, and I'm preaching from that, you know, and that's my foundation.

Radio is a discussion. You know, if people are uncomfortable with the method, I mean, we could do a nice boring show. I guess that would be great, right? Let's just get on—. Always typical, always boring, always in that order.

Let's just get on and speak about the important things of life, you know? And we could just be very, very, I don't even want to say reformed. We could be very puritanical. We could do nothing, you know, not critique anybody, not say anything of substance.

But our goal here is really to kind of, to push on some of the weak points, not just of your life, but of evangelicalism, period. And are we standing in judgment? No, we're just applying biblical principles and looking at the church and the world and saying, such things ought not to be, especially in the church.

Different Ways to Speak in Preaching, Family Life, and Radio

Pete Steve, we also discussed earlier today, there are different times we talk differently. So, at different times, we talk differently. For instance, when we preach, as you just alluded to, exhortation, imperative, you raise your voice some, you think of the good news of the gospel, it's good news by definition, forgiveness of sins found in Christ Jesus alone.

And by delivery, war is over, you know, lay down your arms and submit to God, you know, there's clemency for you and you raise your voice a little bit. Now, when we talk to our wives, we're kind and gentle on good days, right?

Speak for yourself. Yeah. And when we talk to our kids, there's a certain way to talk. And then when we're on the radio, it's called No Compromise Radio. And if you like smooth watered down words, this show isn't for you.

Yeah. So, if you want Caleb, I guess it's to be found.

If you want Jesus Calling, find it.

The number to call is BR549, right? So, let's talk about, Steve just raises his shoulders like, what are you doing? Let's talk a little bit more about picking churches and trying to figure out what is going on there.

What if they have a section for pastoral recommended books, pastors recommended books? That helps me a lot because I immediately know who the guy is by what he's trying to feed his flock.

Yeah. I mean, if, you know, if the pastoral section reads like the top 10 of CBD's book list, then we've got a real issue. I don't want to read books by Tony Campolo or Sarah Young or, you know, Beth Myers or whatever.

Is it Beth Myers? Well, there's Joyce Meyer, and there's Beth Moore. Yeah, thank you. They were both on a TV show together applauding one another. I think I just mashed them together. So, anyway. A monster mash.

Any of those kind of things, I mean, you know, let alone Good Morning Holy Spirit or whatever. I mean, those are big tip-offs, you know. If Benny Hinn is the celebrated featured person there at the church, I'm not going to want to go there.

Steve, we live in a fallen world and pastors, as we know, are certainly far from perfect and we want to just try to be faithful to the text as much as we can and point people to the perfect one, to the one who never compromised, our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.

But I've noticed that, you know, sometimes people in our circles are so picky, they need to go to some perfect church. They want to leave their church because, you know, there's a study going on that's not quite right or the pastor's not, you know, completely reformed enough.

The ladies wear pants. And so, I met a guy at the Contend Conference, and he was a dad or a youth leader, and he was bringing a bunch of kids there for the high school and college students. And he said, you know, I'm concerned about leaving our church, and I want to do it in a godly way.

And should I or shouldn't I? And my default is always don't leave, you know, if it's pretty orthodox, because I know what it's like to have people leave churches for less than, you know, great reasons.

Well, I said, here's my question. What book of the Bible is your pastor preaching through currently? You know? Well, she…. No, and he said, well, that's the problem. He doesn't preach expositionally through books of the Bible.

He said, I can see if he would do a book study on a Wednesday night or Sunday night even, but he said he's like, he's just did an eight-part series through a Tim Keller book. And I said, you know what?

That's pretty much grounds for dismissal right there. Yeah, I mean…. Any book. Seriously. If it's Tozer, if it's MacArthur. Yeah, because what's he doing?

He's recycling. You know, you're getting derivative of derivative. You know, you're getting Tim Keller's wisdom, you know, based on his perception of the Bible, and then that filtered through your pastor's lens.

I mean, you're about three steps removed from scripture. Why? You know, why? And I would say either they're not paying the pastor enough because he doesn't have the time to study, or he doesn't want to do the job.

Tithing Charts, Malachi 3, and the Decimal Point

Steve, one of our folks visited a church and they handed me a little card. It's probably four inches by six inches. It's called Christian Assembly, a place for you. I would hope it would say Christian Assembly, a place where Jesus is, right?

That's kind of why I like to go. And it's a chart. It's a chart with columns and with rows. And on the top, it says Malachi 3, try me, activate the promise. Now, there's a space there. So, it's not try me, activate the promise.

It's try me, activate the promise. And on the left-hand column, it has weekly income. And then it has percentages of giving, 3%, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, all the way to 10. So, if you made $2 ,000 a week, and you would want to give $200 a week, and here's your little handy-dandy slide rule of a card, because you don't want to rob God Malachi 3.

Who was it? Was it you? Somebody was talking to me, I think maybe it was this Sunday, just talking about a church they went to where every sermon was on Malachi 3. And I go, how's that possible, you know?

Well, for some churches, it's the altar call. So, you don't call people to salvation. You call them to get out their wallets and their purses through Malachi 3.

Last week, it was, will a man rob God? And this week, it's, are you robbing God? And next week, it's, is your family robbing God?

Malachi 3, 8, will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you? In your tithes and contributions. See? There it is.

It's in the Bible. Yeah, well, so, you need to preach that. Yeah.

Well, I am preaching through Malachi beginning this Sunday. And when I get to that passage, then I guess giving's going to be going up.

Yeah, because it's all, Malachi is just a, it is binding on the church today. There's no doubt that the tithes and offerings that are mentioned there are what we should be giving today.

Steve, but the thing is, if you name your kid Judah, then when Judah profanes the covenant, you can apply these verses. It's the name game. Fana, Fana, Fofana, Fifi, Fofana, Judah.

Well, yeah, I'm looking forward to Malachi 3 because everybody's going to be like, they're going to be looking. Now, I, by the way, I have a great tip. Yes, please.

I need the tips ahead of time. You know, Steve is very good when it comes to critiquing messages. And, you know, this would be good. Try this next time. When I preach it in 15 years. So, give me the goods before I preach, young man.

I'm really, I'm really good at critiquing other people's messages. Not so good about critique. Well, I'm, I'm good after I'm done. I'm, you know, ahead of time, not so good. So, here's the thing. The 10 thing, you can either use this chart, or you can take your paycheck and just move the decimal point over one.

That's right. See, I did not know about that. Yeah, but then that would maybe be net instead of gross. And then it'd be double robbage.

Double robbage. Well, you know, just, in fact, that morning's sermon, you could just name it, move the decimal point.

That'd be catchy. Uh huh. You know. Yeah. And so, I'm glad we live in a, in a decimal, you know, system, because then it makes it simple.

Yeah, very, very simple. I mean, just imagine if we were on a basic system or something like that, you know. Oh. That'd be very, very confusing.

Right. So, when you want to try to find a church, here's what you're after. Not musical style, not do they have an offering plate, or you put the money in the back little box. It's how do they handle the Word of God.

We're after verse by verse teaching. And see, here's the good news. As Luke 24 would say, Jesus would talk about the Moses, that Moses and the prophets would speak of him as well. So, if you preach the Bible verse by verse, you're talking about Jesus a lot.

All the time. I mean, that, that should be the essence of Christian preaching.

I don't need to go to church to be told to be nice. I already know that. I need to hear about who Jesus is and what he's done.

But it's nice to be nice, and it's good to be good.

I know. Mike Aventroth with Steve Cooley, NOCO Radio. Thanks for listening.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Aventroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.