Affinity Based Churches (From the Archives!)

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast.

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I'm co -host Alan Nelson. This week, we are going to the archives, to RCP 1 .0,

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the original OG Ruled Church Podcast. This episode is from 2017,

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November, and we discuss in this episode the affinity -slash -attractional church model, and why it's wrong, and why it falls short of the

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New Testament model for the local church. We think this is an important discussion, one worth bringing back into the light, so we hope that you find it edifying and helpful as you think about the local church.

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So, without further ado, here we go. We better jump into the topic. So the topic today is something that Eddie and I have dealt with a lot over the years.

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I'm not saying dealt with. What I mean is discussed, I should say, a lot over the years, and that is the issue of attractional -slash -affinity -based -slash -niche -oriented churches.

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And so we want to talk about that today, and we want to talk about what we see are some overall reasons that we should stop this sort of strategy.

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And so let's just jump in. Let's start out by defining what we mean, because sometimes when we discuss this, or I've written blogs on this, or in conversation, people say, what do you mean by affinity -based?

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So you want to start us off on that? What do we mean when we say affinity -based church?

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Well, yeah, what I mean when I say affinity -based church, one,

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I want to show it's, I don't mean something that uses, I don't mean just a ministry.

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We're talking about a church. Yeah. Where the community of a local body of believers is built around something other than Jesus Christ.

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That's my, that would be my, and I'm sure our brothers who are in what we would call affinity -based churches would say, well, they're not built around, they are built around Jesus.

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But I think they're built around Jesus plus. Right. Yeah, we can get on that more, but yeah, you're right.

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Right. So we've got, okay, so let's just throw that out there. So such -and -such cowboy church, such -and -such biker church, such -and -such.

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And I think I may need to make a bit of a disclaimer. Yeah. Because I am the pastor of Marshall First Baptist Church, and we have a ministry as a part of our church, and I'm sitting here speaking to you drinking coffee out of a coffee mug that says,

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Thousand Hills Cowboy Church. And I preach in that building every Sunday night.

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And that's actually how I started out here at Marshall, was preaching there on Sunday night.

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So as a disclaimer, I just want to say it's not like we don't have any understanding of what this is or any experience with it.

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Like, we're just judging it from far off. But I also want to say, so that people don't think, well, you're being hypocritical because you preach at a cowboy church.

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Right. Because I don't consider Thousand Hills a church. Right. It is a gathering of people from Marshall First Baptist Church, and it was attempted before I came here, but it was attempted.

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It was an attempt to start a separate cowboy church. But the problem, and I told them well over a year ago, that I didn't believe you could build a church around being a cowboy or around horses.

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Well. A church must be built on Jesus Christ. Now, I will say this. It is almost impossible now in the local community, even within our church,

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I've been very diligent to try to change the verbiage and get us away from using the terms cowboy church, and it is almost impossible once a community takes hold of, oh, that's the cowboy church, it's very difficult to dissuade them from thinking that way.

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Right. Yeah. So we're still in the definition stage here. Yeah, I'm sorry.

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Churches that are built around something either other than the gospel or the gospel plus, and you don't,

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I want to be clear about something else. You don't have to have an affinity in your name to be an affinity or attractional church.

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Right? Sure. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. You could be whatever church, and you could still have this mindset of either it's the gospel plus lattes or a certain type of music, whether that's heavenly highway hymns or the newest electric guitar solos or whatever, fog machines, laser lights.

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This is essentially about a church that is set up to attract people to the main gathering.

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Does that help with the definition? Yeah, I think that's a good definition. So that's the definition.

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And before we get into some critiques and some serious issues, let's just take a moment and talk about some things that we're thankful for.

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I'll start. I'm thankful. I want to make this very clear. I'm thankful for those brothers who are serious.

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Now, let's also say this, just like in any kind of church setting, not always are the motives pure.

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There are false teachers in this movement, just like there are false teachers in all sorts of movements.

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But I'm talking about those brothers who sincerely, their desire is to see people come to Christ.

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They want to see change. They want to see the gospel transform lives. And so I am thankful for those brothers in this movement that they want that.

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And I see that. I do strongly disagree with their methodology, and we'll talk about that more in just a minute.

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But I'm thankful for their gospel fervency to want to see sinners transformed by the grace of God.

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And what they're trying to do in their mind is eliminate any sort of obstacle. And so I'm appreciative for that zeal.

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So that's something I'm thankful for. What about you? Right. And I appreciate the courage.

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The courage to go, one, into environments where the gospel isn't present or a false gospel has been preached.

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And the courage to say, it's easy for us to say we want to see people saved.

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But they're saying, no, we need to go out to the biker rally or the rodeo or whatever the affinity might be.

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We need to go to them or try to get them to come in.

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But we're trying to reach people, and I think there is a certain amount of courage there. And I think there's a certain amount of courage if a person has came to faith in Christ to go back into what has been their affinity, which is usually the way this happens, and those people that maybe they lived very far from Christ with them to now go back to those people with the gospel, there can be a lot of reason for fear.

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And so I'm very appreciative of the courage to take the gospel to those people and to be zealous for that.

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I'm very appreciative of that. And we live in such a society that it's so hard to critique people without people thinking that you're questioning their salvation, saying they're horrible, something like that.

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And I just want to make it clear that I am going to bring some serious critiques.

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But I don't mean to suggest that these brothers, and I call them brothers,

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I gladly call them brothers, that are truly motivated to see people change with the power of the gospel.

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I'm not saying they're not saved. I'm not saying that they're horrible people. In a lot of ways,

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I think that I know that they're more mature than I am in areas.

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And so I just want to be clear. That's why I wanted to start with that, a show of appreciation.

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So do you have anything else to say about that? No, I would just totally agree. What we're talking about here is whether or not this is the most biblical way to reach people, the gospel.

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What we're not saying is that these people are purposely trying to do harm to the gospel.

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As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite. Most of the people that I think of, the people that I know, are genuinely trying to reach people for the gospel.

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And they really believe this is helpful to the gospel. So we'll transition now into talking about what's the big deal.

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Okay, so here's the argument on one side. Man, people are getting saved, and some of these churches are growing.

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Cowboy churches are the fastest -growing churches. This is in Arkansas, anyway. We hear this at our state meeting.

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Cowboy churches are the fastest -growing churches, and I heard at the state meeting this year, it's okay, it doesn't matter if we come and plant an affinity -based church on top of your church.

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It's about reaching the lost. That's what this is about. And I think if there was one word that we might use to describe this, it might be pragmatism.

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And I want to read, and I would heartily recommend this book to anybody, The Prodigal Church by Jared Wilson.

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He wrote this book after I'd already kind of wrestled with this, but he was able to articulate some of the things that I was thinking.

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He says, for example, on page 53, pragmatism reasons that God's ability to use anything means our freedom to use everything.

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Pragmatism treats church methodology like a vending machine. And then

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I'll skip a few paragraphs. He says the pragmatic approach of too many attractional churches aims for quantity in disciple -making but suffers in quality.

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When you try to help the Holy Spirit, you quench Him. So as the pragmatic spirit drives our methodology, the kind of discipleship culture that results is shallow and frequently artificial.

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Pragmatic discipleship makes pragmatic Christians. The way the church wins its people shapes its people.

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So the most effective way to turn your church into a collection of consumers and customers is to treat them like that's what they are.

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So my point in all that, and there's actually several tangents we could go on on that, but let me just tie that together in the point

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I'm trying to make, is one of the fundamental flaws in the attractional church, affinity church, niche church, is its consumeristic approach.

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It's pragmatic in its approach building the church around people in the sense of particularly lost people, or the phrase that's used a lot is unchurched, which maybe we won't beat that horse, but I do have kind of an issue with that phrase anyway.

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I understand what's meant. It's just not a biblical phrase, unchurched. We have lost and we have saved.

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But the point is it's a pragmatic approach to attract people to get into church.

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What's the big deal about that then? Yeah, well, I think the big deal is that it is, and I don't think they think about it this way obviously, but it is fundamentally a denial of the gospel as the power that brings people to Christ.

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They're saying the gospel needs help. It needs help. But we know that Romans 116,

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Paul says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. That's everybody. And the gospel is the power of God that saves people.

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And God is the one who draws people. Oftentimes what I'll hear is they'd say, well, they'll come to this church, and they would never come to your church.

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And that may be true, but still the fact is that God has to be the one that draws them to salvation.

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Yeah, and here's the deal. I'll say this too. I don't like, although I just don't like calling one church your traditional church, another church your contemporary, another church your

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Catholic. I like just the church. I like just the biblical New Testament church.

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And, yes, so there's a church in Conway, Grace Bible Church.

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That's where Jeff Johnson pastors. And we appreciate him and Danny Thursby and the brothers there.

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And they have this big, I don't know what you call it, but I want to say sign, but it's not a sign, in their fellowship hall area that says known for the gospel.

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I love that. If they didn't have that, I would absolutely steal that. Because that should be the driving goal for any church.

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We want to be known for the gospel. And when you start out your church as affinity or tractional base, you are starting 15 steps behind the eight ball, so to speak.

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I know I just mixed metaphors there. But the point is you're not known for the gospel.

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You're known for whatever. Insert your niche, right?

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Yeah, and like I said earlier, in our situation, we found that very hard to shake.

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Right. I mean, we found it very hard to shake as we tried to transition what was attempted to be the start of a church to a ministry outreach of our church.

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We found it very difficult to shake that identity. Well. Because once the community, and it didn't work to reach, it didn't draw the community in, but it did label that part of our ministry and in some ways make it less effective.

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And I heard a pastor of actually a very large and successful affinity church say that it had actually become their affinity label had actually become a problem instead of an aid.

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But even more than that, even more than whether or not it works or doesn't work, the reality is one of the dangers of this is that it is a bait and switch.

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We're trying to bait people to come in and then switch on them with the gospel.

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And it is truly a bait and switch. And we don't want to be using means to draw people to hear the gospel and then changing it on them.

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We want to be honest about bringing people the gospel. And I'm not saying these people are purposely trying to deceive.

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They are not purposely trying to deceive. But I think there is a certain amount of inherent deception when we bait and switch.

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Many people, and here's one of the reasons I'm podcasting about this, the desire I have to podcast, because many people

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I've talked to, they really have not thought through this at all. They're like, what's the issue with this? And then

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I begin to talk to them, and we talk, and we look at Scripture, and they're like, wow, I get that,

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I understand that, wow. I don't think it's intentional, but it's just not well thought out.

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So Galatians 3 .28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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One of the things that the affinity -based movement does is divide. And the argument back to that is, well, wait a second, if you're a white, middle -class church, you're already affinity -based.

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Depending on your community that you're in, that certainly can be true. But is the solution to that to create more affinity -based churches?

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My answer is no. Christ must be the glue that holds us together. It can't be

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Christ and. And a lot of what's going on in these affinity and attraction -based churches, yes, there's genuine salvation, but there's also just a siphoning of people who are dissatisfied in their church, and it just siphons them off, and now you've got these bigger churches that are created because of this, and it's not as much lost people that are reached, although there is lost people reached, don't get me wrong, or at least according to reports.

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But if Christ is not the glue, I was listening to Jeff Johnson talk about this, but if Christ is not the glue, the next big thing in a few short years or even a few short months is going to cause people to go on to a different place, right?

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Right, right. And you quoted Galatians 3 .28, but the immediate preceding verses of that, verses 25 and 26, say, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

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The reality is that what brings us together isn't that we are all sons of God in cowboy or in biker or in being a part of the traditional church.

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It is that we are all sons of God in Christ Jesus through faith. Right. That's how we are related.

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Well, and I think, and going back to what you said, I think that there's a major issue when

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I hear, and the same thing has been said to me, there are people, like it or not, there are people who will never enter your church.

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And here's what I go back, and I'm just repeating what you said, but I'm just bringing it up again. It is a direct, that is a direct confrontation to Romans 1 .16.

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For I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, sorry.

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For it is the power of God unto salvation. And here's the deal. If we're going to go out and proclaim a gospel that can turn homosexuals, that can rescue homosexuals from their sin of homosexuality, that can rescue drunkards from their sin of drunkenness, that can rescue gluttons from their sin of gluttony, that can rescue the lustful from their sin of lust, then we also have a gospel that can change people's hearts to love the church.

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In fact, is that not 1 John 3 .14? We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren.

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Well, and you just said the critical thing. The critical thing is that we go out.

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That's what people want to say. Well, they're never going to come to your church. Well, who says that the biblical idea of evangelism was draw people in to hear the gospel?

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The biblical idea of evangelism is go out, that we scatter into the community and into the world taking the gospel, and we gather as God's people to worship and to glorify the

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Lord and edify the saints, but we scatter for the purpose of evangelism. And so if we have a right view of evangelism, that would change how we view these affinity -based churches.

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The affinity, attractional, niche -based churches misunderstand the purpose of the church.

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They think that the gathering is an evangelistic gathering, and it's not. Well, and let's be clear.

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This didn't just start now with the attractional -based churches.

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This has been going on for a long time in evangelicalism. As we've turned Sunday mornings, instead of that being the gathering of the saints, we've turned it into every

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Sunday morning is an evangelistic rally. Right. In many churches, every

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Sunday is meant to be an evangelistic rally, and I think a lot of times you see discouragement because you see churches, and they don't see week in and week out the kind of response that would be expected at an evangelistic rally because it is a gathering of mostly converted people.

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But since that's what they try for and they build for and they build their whole services around, then they become discouraged because, well, we're not seeing that happen when that never should have been the goal.

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Well, so our go -to passage for saying, hey, you need to go to church if you're a Christian, our go -to passage is

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Hebrews 10 and 25. Well, let's listen to 24 and 25. That's just one of many passages that completely and utterly obliterate any idea that the main gathering is about evangelism.

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Now, does Paul talk about unbelievers coming in? Absolutely. Do we hope unbelievers would wander into our churches?

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Do I even invite unbelievers to attend? Yes, all those things are true, but the focus of our church is not an evangelistic rally.

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That's not the focus of our gathering. You won't find that anywhere in the New Testament.

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And when someone does come into our gatherings who's lost, what ought to draw them to the

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Lord in that gathering is that they see people, all different kinds of people, people who in the world would not be together, would not love each other, would not care about each other, coming together because they do love

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Christ together. That's the whole point. They ought to come into the church and see this plurality of people that have all been drawn to this one

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God. But if our church is built on an affinity, then they won't see that.

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They'll see a bunch of people that look the same and they'll say, well, yeah, this is what people do. People flock to people that are like them.

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Yeah, this is just how people are. And it won't have the gospel impact that a true gospel community of people who don't have anything in common but Jesus.

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That's what ought to impact the lost person that comes into the gathering of the church. Well, here's an example.

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I was going to use when the Razorbacks are winning, but that's been a few years. We can't remember that.

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But we can actually take it now. And let's take there is a solidarity within the state right now of people who are dissatisfied with Razorback football.

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So you go to a football game and you're just disappointed, which I hadn't been in a couple of years. But you go and you're just disappointed and you're sitting by somebody.

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And it doesn't matter who they voted for for president. It doesn't matter what their skin color is. It doesn't matter what they're wearing.

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You know, I'll go on and on and on. You look at each other and there's solidarity between you and that person.

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Why? Because you're united in the fact that you are dissatisfied with Razorback football.

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And to me, it is such a sham on the gospel when we intentionally do things to show like nobody.

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Nobody's impressed when Republicans hang out together. Nobody's impressed when

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Razorback fans hang out together. Nobody's impressed when a bunch of cowboys hang out together. Nobody's impressed when a bunch of businessmen hang out together.

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This is what impresses people. This is what the gospel shines. When a Razorback fan and an

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LSU fan can stand side by side, lifting up their voices together and professing their love for Christ.

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This is what makes the gospel shine. So this idea that we need to create a church for the unchurched.

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Well, there's a reason that people are unchurched, which is not a biblical category.

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Here's the reason people are unchurched. They're lost. That's right. Here's how they get saved.

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They need to hear the gospel. And when we create an environment or a culture or a church setting that our main evangelistic outreach is our

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Sunday morning gathering, we have done a disservice to the very communities which we're trying to serve.

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It's not y 'all come and see this. It's go and tell. That's the

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Great Commission. And the danger is, I take this quote from Paul Washer, but he says, using carnal means to draw carnal men will only mean that you have to use more carnal means to keep them.

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Because if they're still carnal men, unless they're transformed into spiritual men, unless they are born again and regenerated, then you'll just have to keep using that.

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Listen, if you draw someone to the church with a hamburger, you're going to have to keep giving them a hamburger.

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We've even seen this in the ministry of Christ. He fed the people, and they came back, but all they wanted was their stomach filled.

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They didn't want the Lord. And so we want to be careful that we are not simply continuing to do what the people already want.

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And I would say this. This is often one of the problems, I think, with an affinity -based church.

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When is the point where the person has to abandon their preferences for the sake of the gospel?

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I mean if the church is the way that they liked it before they were saved, how will they ever know that they're loving the church because of Christ and not because it is the way they liked it before they were saved?

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Well, that's exactly the point I was just about to bring up, Philippians 2, where Paul says,

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Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

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Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

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Do you know when this really shines forth is when, for example, you really want the newest

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Getty hymn to be played, but you know that there's a few older people or even, it doesn't matter age, but there are other people in the congregation, they really want to hear victory in Jesus or whatever.

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And you say, you know what, it's not about doctrine because both are doctrinally sufficient, doctrinally well,

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Christ -exalting is what I'm saying. So it's not about like one exalts Christ and the other doesn't.

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It's simply a preference there. And you say, you know what, I want this other to be played, even though it's not my preference, because I want to serve these other people.

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That's just an example. But if you're in a situation and in a church where everything's about you, you never have to do that.

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And that's a problem. That's right. And the other thing that I was going to say is, and this may sound harsh, and you help me, draw me back if it's too harsh, but it's potentially comforting people, and I think you were kind of getting at this way, but it's potentially comforting people on their way to hell.

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And what I mean is the reason that maybe a cowboy biker, tattooed person, clown, outdoorsman, businessman, whatever, the reason they may feel uncomfortable, now the reason they may feel uncomfortable or unwelcome is your church's problem, and you need to repent and fix that.

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That's right. But the reason they may feel uncomfortable in my church could be because they hate

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Jesus. That could be. That's right. And if we create a situation where we say, well, let's remove all the offense of the gospel.

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Now, I'm not saying that all affinity -based churches are doing this, but let's tailor -make this church.

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Let's do everything we can to make it so easy for them to get in. We may unintentionally give them a false impression of what the gospel is, and simply by their just now being affiliated with this where they never have to sacrifice, never have to give up.

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It's all about them. They're the consumer, and we may have just created a situation whereby we comfort them on their way to hell.

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So is that too harsh, or can I say that differently? Help me out there. Well, let's back up one step.

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We know that even apart from affinity -based church, before we even get to affinity -based church, we know that there is a crisis, particularly in the

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Western American church, of unconverted people on the membership roll, particularly in Southern Baptist churches.

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We know that is a problem. I mean, the reason why we have 10 million -plus absent

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Southern Baptists on any given Sunday morning, at least a portion, if not most, of that has to be because those people are unconverted.

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And yet they're on the church roll, and yet they've been baptized, and yet they think they know the

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Lord because at one time in their life they made some sort of profession of faith, but they're not walking with the

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Lord, and they comfort themselves in something they've done and not in a relationship they have with Jesus Christ.

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And, yes, I think that an affinity church can. It doesn't have to.

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It doesn't have to. I'm not saying everybody in an affinity church is in this situation, but it can allow a person to convince themselves that they're converted when they're actually not because it can satisfy them enough that they think they love something, and they think, well, if I love this church, if I love the church,

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I must love God. And I would say yes. If you love the true church of Jesus Christ, that is a sign that you are in right relationship with Jesus Christ.

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But if you love a church that has been built on something other than Jesus Christ, if you love it because of what it looks like and you could never love a church that didn't look that way, then we have to wonder, is that love truly for Christ, or is it for the style or the music or whatever you already loved in your carnal life?

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And we're not trying to say that other churches don't have this problem. I consider a church that has to do all

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Heavenly Highway hymns, that's just as much as an affinity church as one that has to always do contemporary music.

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You know what I'm saying? I'm not giving a pass there. But that's right. If you say, yeah,

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I love Jesus, but I can't worship those people because they have a different style or they dress differently, etc.,

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etc., etc., that's a problem. That's a hard issue, and it may be an unconverted issue.

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I know a lot of times, and I was in this stage too, but I know a lot of times people say, well, it's not that they're unconverted, they're just immature in Christ.

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Granted, I understand that that may be a valid argument in some situations. But also, if we're going to take

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Scripture seriously, then I think that we have a lot less of that category than what's made out to be.

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I think the bigger category is there are a lot of people who profess to know Christ who in reality don't.

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If you don't love the church, you have a Now, again, you and I have friends, and we may even call friends and colleagues in the ministry that would disagree.

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One of my reasons for doing the podcast, I want to talk about this more. I think as we did several, maybe one of our first or second podcasts, we talked about differences.

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If we love Christ, we should be able to sit down and have healthy, mature conversations about these things and be able to disagree.

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But I think at the end of the day, we want Scripture to be our main authority.

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My argument is that Scripture is not just sufficient for doctrine, but also methodology.

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Sure, that's right. The argument brought up a lot of times, 1 Corinthians 9 .22, hey, all we're trying to do is we're trying to be all things to all men, just like Paul said that he was.

35:39

But let me say this, Paul did not tailor -make churches for different kinds of people.

35:45

That's nowhere in the New Testament. Paul did not create any kind.

35:51

Listen, he missed a golden opportunity to plant Gladiator Church. You know what

35:56

I'm saying? That's right. You know what I'm saying? But he didn't do it. He didn't do it because his point is that he was willing to go to great lengths in order to see people come to Christ.

36:07

So instead of 1 Corinthians 9 .22 giving us an excuse to create affinity churches, it actually is the opposite.

36:14

It should convict and embolden churches to have our existing members strive to reach people with the gospel in all areas of life.

36:23

And, in fact, that's what I say. If you come, let's use Perryville for an example.

36:28

And let's say that there is a serious, which

36:34

I don't think there is, and actually I would not really think there is statewide, but let's say there's a serious cowboy culture here or biker culture or whatever.

36:45

Well, and let me just real quick say one of the reasons why we've used cowboy and biker or we might even would say outdoor is because we are talking about the rural church.

36:55

If we were in a more urban culture, maybe we would talk about rapper church or whatever.

37:01

We're in the rural church, and in the rural areas, these are the types of affinity -based churches. Sorry to break in there, but I just thought that might be a good point to make.

37:09

No, but if you come in here and you say, we want to plant a cowboy church in Perryville, you're robbing our church of a ministry that we should be doing, right?

37:23

So let's use race. I know it's a hot -button issue, but let's use race because I think if we understand it in terms of racial, and I know that there's only one race, but I'm talking about ethnicity.

37:36

So, for example, if there is a large number of Hispanics or African -Americans in Perryville, and you say, well, the way that we want to reach them is to create their own separate churches, that's a problem, right?

37:52

Yes. That's an issue. The gospel shines forth beautifully when different ethnicities are worshiping together.

38:01

That is a direct gospel. That's Genesis 11 transformed by Jesus' work, and we see it is manifest in Acts 2.

38:10

We see the culmination of that in Revelation, five people from every tribe, tongue, nation, worshiping

38:17

Jesus together. And so my argument here – And let's be honest, that's a problem we do see in the church.

38:24

Yes, and it's a problem that must be addressed. And so what I'm saying is the answer, if there is a particular culture in my community that is not being reached, the answer is not to just go plant an affinity church.

38:37

To do that lets the local church off the hook. The answer is that we as a church need to focus our strategies towards this particular demographic.

38:49

Well, and I think to kind of play – to kind of argue –

38:55

I know what our brothers in these movements would say, well, the church hasn't been doing that.

39:00

They would say, Cuatro, the church hasn't been doing that. We have to do this because the churches aren't reaching – they're not even trying.

39:09

So you're saying what would my response be to that? Yeah, I'm trying to let you respond to that because we know that that's what they would say, right?

39:17

We have brothers who will respond to this podcast on Facebook or whatever with that criticism.

39:25

They're not doing – your church or my church or these churches, they're not reaching them.

39:30

They're not doing it. They're not even trying. Yeah, so my first response would be this.

39:36

Why, in light of all that we've said, first of all, if this is a biblical model, if this is a biblical paradigm, why do we not see it in the

39:45

New Testament at all? Not even a hint of it. In fact, as we already quoted in Galatians 3 .28,

39:51

looking at what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 9 .22, we actually see – Romans 1 .16 – we actually see the opposite, right?

39:58

So that's argument number one. So one, that's got to be a huge red flag. We can't expect that God, even if we see numbers, we can't expect that that means that God is truly blessing this movement if it's contrary to his word.

40:13

The second thing I think is why not try, okay? Why not be involved in the local church and push that?

40:22

And here's the deal. If you're involved in a local church and it refuses, absolutely refuses to change, and there are – in these gospel issues we're talking about, it refuses to go out and reach people.

40:38

I'm not against church planting. I want to make that very clear. I am not against church planting. I'm not against planting a church.

40:45

I think planting a church is biblical. What I'm against is planting an affinity church. So don't go plant cowboy church.

40:52

Go plant, you know, if you want to use Baptist church, that's fine, you know, whatever church, but make it about not the affinity.

41:02

Make it about the church. Make it about Christ. Make it about Jesus is the glue.

41:08

Yeah, so I would – and then the next – the final thing I would say is this.

41:15

What might God do? So we see people coming to Christ in some of these affinity churches.

41:21

What might God do if we got serious about the biblical model that me and you have been talking about?

41:27

If we see a few people coming to Christ through these means that I believe are unbiblical, what might

41:38

God do if we got serious about his church? I mean,

41:44

God is serious about the local church. What might he do if we got serious?

41:50

And this isn't just about numbers. This is about being willing, even if we don't understand sometimes, to submit ourselves to the authority of Scripture and doing what

42:00

Scripture tells us to do no matter what. I don't think the answer for a church that is not reaching out,

42:10

I don't think the answer is to create another unbiblical situation, right?

42:17

What would you add? Well, and to kind of return to what you were saying about 1

42:23

Corinthians chapter 9, Paul's point there is that to the

42:29

Jew he became a Jew. To those under the law he became as one under the law. His point there was that he was going out and going to these different groups, these different affinities, if we would want to say that today, make that application to share the gospel so that they would all be brought into the one church.

42:51

And so, as you said, and this is what we're trying to do here in Marshall, we want to reach cowboys.

42:58

We do want to reach cowboys. But we don't want to draw them into a community that is separate from the regular community of the saints in Searcy County and Marshall First Baptist.

43:13

We want to draw them into the church as it is. And could that mean that there's growth to the point that there needs to be planted another church that has, but it's not about cowboys, it's just about…

43:30

These people in this place need a church to gather in. Don't plant a church that holds out offers of relevancy, casual atmosphere, not your grandma's church, music, suits, pews, chairs, deer heads, cowboy hats.

43:46

Don't plant a church where those things are the draw. Plant a church where Christ is the draw.

43:54

May we joyfully, convictionally, uncompromisingly hold forth Jesus, the

44:00

Lamb who was slain, risen and ascended as King forever. That is the glory of the gospel. Here's what we're preaching.

44:05

We're preaching that a man who claimed to be God was crucified for our sins, arose again.

44:13

And when we plant these attractional churches, what we're saying is, well, that's a great message, but we also need…

44:21

To me, that is heartbreaking. We don't need the gospel and to reach people.

44:29

We need the gospel. The gospel in all its beauty, all its glory, all its power.

44:37

And so kind of transitioning here to basically… I think

44:44

I'd like to offer some alternatives, right? So I think ultimately this strategy, even though we're appreciative of the men's zeal and motivation to see lost people,

44:55

I think ultimately this strategy must be abandoned. And I actually have some thoughts about some things that could be replaced.

45:04

So here's an example. So what do we do instead of planting a cowboy church? Well, why not do cowboy ministry?

45:12

And again, we're using cowboy because that's prevalent, but put anything in there. Hipster, gamer, biker, fisher, hunter.

45:24

Why don't we do those ministries within the existing church?

45:30

Why don't we go out to the rodeos and share the gospel?

45:36

Why don't we take the gospel to where people are and share it with them and see

45:41

God transform lives? I know it sounds so simple. It may sound simplistic, but it's not simplistic, but it is simple.

45:50

Here is the bold strategy for reaching Arkansas or any community with the gospel.

45:56

It's to go out and share the gospel. Yes, and you're exactly right. And one of the interesting things about that recommendation is a lot of these ministries, or these affinity churches, have grown out of those kinds of ministries.

46:14

But I think they grew out of that because the hard next step was to get the people, was to connect them to the local church.

46:26

And it was easier to just start a church than it was to connect them to the local church.

46:33

And so we've got to be committed to doing the hard work of once we've gone out and we've presented the gospel in these contexts, and I think that's good.

46:42

I think that's what we should be doing. Now we need to do the hard work of connecting those people to the local body of Christ.

46:52

In ministry, of all the ministry that I've seen, that is one of the hardest things. It's not just about seeing people converted.

47:03

It's about seeing the gospel actually manifest, the fruits of the gospel,

47:10

I should say, manifest themselves in a person's life in the hard things.

47:18

The senior saints hanging out with the teenagers or whatever, that's what's difficult.

47:28

As we talked about, was it two weeks ago when we talked about hospitality? Getting people in other people's homes.

47:36

These sorts of things are difficult because they're not natural.

47:42

But that's what the gospel does, isn't it? It turns the natural on its head. The gospel,

47:48

I wish I hadn't pulled up, but there's a couple sermons on Acts 6 from Martin Lloyd -Jones that are just face -melting.

47:58

But Lloyd -Jones reminds us that for any person to come to Christ, no one will come to Christ unless there is a supernatural work of God through the heralding of the gospel.

48:14

And if we try to add anything to that, then either intentionally or willfully or at the very best, unintentionally, we begin to mask or minimize or diminish the power of the gospel.

48:31

That's right. So one way I think that we can do better is for these areas that really are in need of reaching a particular demographic,

48:44

I think that we can be better in that. For example, let's say you've got a small church, and the state convention is willing to pay a salary for a church planner for three years.

49:03

I don't know what it looks like, but let's say that's an example. What if you paid for that church to have a staff position for three years to intentionally focus?

49:13

I mean, I'm just throwing out ideas here. But there are other ways, I'm saying, that we can address this issue that I don't feel like have really been tried.

49:22

Yeah, I think you're right. And are more faithful and are more biblical. Right. Well, and I think you're right.

49:32

I think that would be a great way for the person who we're not even saying that their desire, their zeal to reach those people isn't genuine, and we're not even saying that's not something

49:46

God doesn't want them to do that. We're saying that we don't think that He wants them to plant an affinity -based church.

49:56

But we're not saying that their desire isn't from the

50:02

Holy Spirit to reach those people with the gospel. We're not negating that. We're saying there may be a better way to go about doing that and seeing those people connected to the local church.

50:14

Honestly, I think sometimes the problem may be that not the local planner, but as far as you mentioned, the state convention, we want to see church planting numbers.

50:30

Right. And sometimes the desire for that, I think, pushes us toward things that are going to show planting numbers, whereas putting a person on staff in a local church wouldn't do that.

50:44

I think that we have to be serious, and I know I'm just repeating and repeating that we need to be serious about the power of the gospel.

50:53

No matter what, it's the Spirit who gives life. We need a reformation in not just the inerrancy of Scripture, but believing and trusting the sufficiency of Scripture and seeing that it's not just about what we believe, but also about how we go about structuring the church.

51:15

The Bible is replete with instructions for us, and so we should be serious about that, to be sold out on the power of the gospel.

51:27

And then I would say this. What would you say?

51:33

Let's say someone's listening to this, and they're in an attractional church, the church that's all about the new technology and contemporary, and that's what this church is about, or it's all about affinity, and they say,

51:46

I agree. What do I do? What would you say? So, for example,

51:54

I guess I should say that better. I don't think that the answer necessarily is, well, you need to close down your church.

52:02

No, I don't. I definitely don't think that. I mean, obviously we would both argue for let's stop starting new ones of these churches.

52:15

But, yes, we're not saying every church that right now has

52:20

Cowboy Church on its sign ought to close the doors. Just lock them up, don't meet next

52:26

Sunday. We're actually not saying that, and I think some people may say, well, that's what you're saying. But we are saying make sure that what you're doing is reaching people with the gospel and not with the affinity.

52:40

And we would say to that person, begin to maybe talk to your leadership.

52:47

Respect them. Lovingly go to them, but begin to ask them these kinds of questions and have these kinds of discussions around what are we seeking to draw men to.

52:59

Yes, and make the hard decision. Whether you're a pastor in a quote -unquote traditional church or an affinity church or an attractional church, make the hard but right decision to turn, and this can only happen through the power of God, but make the decision to turn your church on a trajectory towards being healthy.

53:27

If someone would never come into your church, but they are a Christian, yeah, the problem might be that your church is unhealthy, and you need to work on that.

53:38

So what I'm pointing at, I don't think I agree with you. I don't think the answer is to just shut down the church.

53:46

I do think the answer is you've got to get on a trajectory towards health. Otherwise, you're only perpetuating the problem.

53:54

Like you're saying, that's true of all of our churches. That's true of Marshall First Baptist Church. We need to be on a trajectory towards health.

54:01

It's not okay for us to say, well, we're not an attractional church or we're not an affinity church, so we don't have to worry about this.

54:09

Well, all of our churches ought to be seeking how are we faithful to what

54:15

Scripture teaches, faithful to the proclamation of the gospel, faithful to the building up of the body of Christ in our local assembly.

54:22

How are we going to be growing in faithfulness to that calling as the church, the called -out ones?

54:30

I made a list one time of just 12 sort of things about what is a biblically healthy church.

54:37

Here are sort of 12 necessities. This could be a whole probably podcast in and of itself, but let me see.

54:43

You let me know if I miss anything, but it's led by qualified pastors, the ordinances,

54:49

Lord's Supper and baptism are rightly practiced. Biblical church discipline is practiced. Membership is meaningful.

54:56

Regularly gathering on the Lord's Day. They're making disciples, pursuing holiness and Christlikeness, committed to sound doctrine.

55:04

The gospel is understood, applied, and shared. Christ is the glue, not tradition, not innovation, not cowboy culture, not hunting, et cetera.

55:14

Prayer is prized and preaching and teaching is faithful to Scripture.

55:21

I'm sure there are more, but those are, when we talk about healthy church, that are some things that we're talking about.

55:28

Yep, yep, that's right, brother. Any glaring holes in that? No, no, I think that's really,

55:35

I think that's really, really good. As we kind of maybe start drawing in on this conversation,

55:45

I just really want, if anyone's listened to this and they've made it to the end here, we are not trying to just attack.

55:55

Our desire isn't just to say, you're wrong, because I know that I have a lot of things wrong.

56:01

Yeah. But it is to say, we just want to see, we believe that God will save according to biblical means.

56:12

So we just want, that's all we're saying, is let's seek to be as biblical, all of us, all of us in all of our churches, as biblical as possible.

56:22

We're not trying to attack the brethren. We're not. We're seeking to say, let our affinity for one another, let our compassion and our love and our caring and our unity be built around Christ.

56:38

Yeah. And following what the Bible says for how that we ought to do church for His honor and for His glory, and how we ought to reach the world for His honor and for His glory.

56:52

Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, we're at 1 .02, man, an hour and two minutes.

57:01

So I've already mentioned The Prodigal Church by Jared Wilson. I know Ashamed of the

57:07

Gospel by John MacArthur are some helpful books that I could recommend.

57:16

Are there others or blog posts or anything that you would mention, Eddie? Well, I mean, you know, we kind of talked a little bit about what's true church.

57:25

I would. I mean, a classic nine marks of a healthy church would be would be,

57:31

I think, super helpful. And if someone wants to think about these things as well. Yeah.

57:37

Yeah. And, you know, just seeing the beauty and glory of the local church, it's all throughout the pages of Scripture.

57:47

There's no perfect churches in Scripture. So this isn't about we need to have a perfect church because we for sure can't have a perfect church.

57:55

But we should strive to have a church that resembles what Christ wants in a church.

58:02

He, remember, is the head of the church. And so we should seek to align all that we do in him.

58:09

And so I hope to keep this conversation going. My prediction is that if this doesn't change that in 20 years or less, we're just going to see this problem spiral out of control.

58:23

Because it's not I mean, in a few years, these things are going to be boring.

58:29

It's going to have to be something else. Right. Right. No, you're exactly right.

58:36

So the same problem that some people look at the quote unquote traditional church. They're going to have the same problem and it's just going to continue to perpetuate.

58:48

And so we need to be serious. The days are short. I don't know when

58:53

Jesus is coming, but he's coming one day closer than he did yesterday was yesterday. And so we need to use this time for the for the for being serious about proclaiming the gospel to the nation.

59:06

So, man, I've enjoyed it. I didn't feel like it's been an hour, but it has.

59:11

Yeah, but I enjoyed as always. Enjoyed talking to you again. I would plead with anybody who disagrees, not not not to think that we're attacking any person's character.

59:23

That's not what we're doing. Oh, absolutely not. And we would love to talk. Hey, if we could work our schedules out,

59:31

I'd love to have coffee. I'd love to have a roundtable discussion with some brothers and just pouring over Scripture together and just trying to come to a consensus about what what what

59:42

Scripture teaches on this matter. And as a Southern Baptist, obviously, I want to be good stewards of our resources.

59:49

And I'm just convinced it's not the best stewards of our resources to fund these sorts of churches.

59:56

And I think that we really need to rethink that, not because I have a problem with any person, but because I think it's about the gospel and about the glory of God.

01:00:07

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

01:00:22

God's doing. This this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemost, the masterpiece of God.