Affinity Based Churches (From the Archives!)

Through the Ruled Church podcast.

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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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Welcome to the Ruled Church podcast.

I'm co -host Alan Nelson.

This week, we are going to the archives to RCP 1 .0, the original.

OG Ruled Church podcast.

This episode is from 2017, 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 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.

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.

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.

And so we wanna talk about that today, and we wanna talk about what we see are some

overall reasons that we should stop this sort of strategy.

And so we'll just, 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?

So, you wanna start us off on that?

What do we mean when we say affinity -based church?

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

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

ministry.

We're talking about a church, where the community of a local body

of believers is built around something other than Jesus Christ.

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,

but I think they're built around Jesus plus.

Right, well, yeah, we can get on that more, but yeah, you're 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.

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 Thousand Hills Cowboy Church.

And I preach in that building every Sunday night.

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

So as a disclaimer, I just wanna say, it's not like we don't have

any understanding of what this is, or any experience with it, like we're just judging it

from far off.

But I also wanna say, so that people don't think, well, you're being hypocritical, because you preach at a cowboy church.

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, it was an attempt to

start a separate cowboy church.

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.

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, 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.

Right, yeah.

So we're still in the definition stage here, but just talking about those churches that are built

around something either other than the gospel or the gospel plus, and you don't, I wanna be clear about

something else, you don't have to have an affinity in your name to be an affinity or

attractional church, 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.

This is essentially about a church that is set up to attract people

to the main gathering.

Does that help with the definition?

Yeah, I think that's a good definition.

So that's the definition.

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.

I'll start.

I'm thankful, I wanna make this very clear, I'm thankful for those brothers

who are, now, I'll also say this, just like in any kind of church setting,

not always are the motives pure.

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

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

come to Christ.

They wanna see change, they wanna see the gospel transform lives.

And so I am thankful for those brothers in this movement that

they want that.

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

minute, but I'm thankful for their gospel fervency to want to see sinners

transformed by the grace of God.

And what they're trying to do in their mind is eliminate any sort of obstacle.

And so I'm appreciative for that zeal.

So that's something I'm thankful for.

What about you?

Right, and I appreciate the courage, the courage to go,

one, into environments where the gospel isn't present or a false gospel has

been preached, and the courage to say, it's easy for us to say, we want

to see people saved, but they're saying, no, we need to go out to the

Bacher rally or the rodeo or the whatever the affinity might be.

We need to go to them or try to get them to come in, 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, they've 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.

And so I'm very appreciative of the courage to take the gospel to those people and to

be zealous for that.

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.

And I just wanna make it clear that I am going to bring some serious critiques,

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

gladly call them brothers that are truly motivated to see people change

with the power of the gospel.

I'm not saying they're not saved.

I'm not saying that they're horrible people.

In a lot of ways, in a lot of ways, I think that, I know

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

And so I just want to be clear.

That's why I wanted to start with that, a show of appreciation.

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.

What we're not saying is that these people are

purposely trying to do harm to the gospel.

As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite.

They, most of the people that I think of, the people that I know are genuinely

trying to reach people for the gospel.

And they really believe this is helpful to the gospel.

Well, I, so we'll transition now into talking about, so what's the

big deal?

Because, okay, so here's the argument on one side.

Man, people are getting saved and some of these churches are growing.

Cowboy churches are the fastest growing churches.

This is in Arkansas anyway.

We hear this at our state meeting.

Cowboy churches are the fastest growing churches.

And I heard at the state meeting this year, it's okay if, it

doesn't matter if we come and plant an affinity -based church on top of your church.

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.

Yep, yep.

And I wanna read, and I would heartily recommend this book to anybody, The Prodigal Church by

Jared Wilson.

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.

He says, for example, on page 53, pragmatism reasons that God's ability to

use anything means our freedom to use everything.

Pragmatism treats church methodology like a vending machine.

And then 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.

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.

Pragmatic discipleship makes pragmatic Christians.

The way the church wins its people shapes its people.

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.

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

together in the point I'm trying to make, is one of the fundamental flaws in the

attractional church, affinity church, niche church, is its

consumeristic approach.

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.

I understand what's meant.

It's just not a biblical phrase, unchurched.

We have lost and we have saved, but the point is it's a pragmatic approach to attract

people to get into church.

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.

It's saying the gospel needs help.

It needs help, but we know that Romans 116, 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 Jew first and also to the Greek, that's everybody, and the gospel is the

power of God that saves people, 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, and that may be true, but still the

fact is that God has to be the one that draws them to salvation.

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 Catholic.

I like just the church.

I like just the biblical New Testament church, and yes,

so there's a church in Conway, Grace Bible Church, that's where Jeff Johnson

pastors, and we appreciate him and Danny Thursby and the brothers there, and they have this

big, I don't know what you call it, but I wanna say sign, but it's not a sign, in their

fellowship hall area that says known for the gospel.

I love that.

If they didn't have that, I would absolutely steal that because that

should be the driving goal for any

church.

We want to be known for the gospel, and when you start out your church as

affinity or attractional base, you are starting 15 steps behind the eight ball, so to

speak.

I know I just mixed metaphors there, but the point is you're not known for the

gospel.

You're known for whatever.

Insert your niche, right?

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

We found it very hard to shake as we've tried to transition what was attempted to be the start of a

church to a ministry outreach of our church.

We found it very difficult to shake that identity 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, 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, it had actually become a problem instead of an aid, 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.

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

gospel, and it is truly a bait and switch, and we don't wanna be

using means to draw people to hear the gospel and then

changing it on them.

We wanna be honest about bringing people the gospel, and I'm not saying these people

are purposely trying to deceive.

They are not purposely trying to deceive, but I think there is a certain amount of inherent deception

when we bait and switch.

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

talked to, they really have not thought through this at all.

They're like, what's the issue with this?

And then I begin to talk to them, and we talk, we look at scripture, and they're like, wow, I

get that, I understand that, wow.

And so, yeah, so that's, I mean, you're exactly, I don't think it's intentional, but it's just not well thought out.

So Galatians 3, 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female,

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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, okay?

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?

My answer is no.

Christ must be the glue that holds us together.

It can't be Christ and, and a lot of what's going on in these affinity and attractional -based churches

is, yes, there's genuine salvations, 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.

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 gonna

cause people to go on to a different place, right?

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.

The reality is that what brings us together isn't that we are all sons of

God in cowboy or in biker or

in

Heavenly highway.

Or in being a part of the traditional church.

It is that we are all sons of God in Christ Jesus through faith.

Right.

That's how we are related.

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

and the same thing has been said to me, there are people, like it or not, there are people

who would never enter your church.

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.

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

I'm not ashamed of the gospel, sorry, but it's the power of God unto salvation.

And here's the deal.

If we're gonna 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.

In fact, is that not 1 John 3 .14?

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love

the brethren, so.

Well, and you just said the critical thing.

The critical thing is that we go out.

That's what people wanna say was, well, they're never gonna come to your church.

Well, who says that the biblical idea of evangelism was draw people in

to hear the gospel?

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 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.

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

church.

They think that the gathering is an evangelistic gathering, and it's not.

Well, and let's be clear.

This didn't just start with now, with the attractional

-based churches.

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 Sunday morning is an evangelistic rally.

In many churches, every 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,

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.

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

Hebrews 10 and 25.

Well, let's listen to 24 and 25.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and

all the more as you see the day drawing near.

That's just one of many passages that completely and utterly

obliterate any idea that the main gathering is about evangelism.

Now, does Paul talk about unbelievers coming in?

Absolutely.

Do we hope unbelievers would wander into our churches?

Do I even invite unbelievers to attend?

Yes, all those things are true, but the focus of our church is not an evangelistic

rally.

That's not the focus of our gathering.

You won't find that anywhere in the New Testament.

Well, and what ought to, when someone does

come into our gatherings who's lost, what ought to draw them to the

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 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 God.

Yeah, go to it.

But if our church is built on an affinity,.

Then they won't see that.

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.

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, that's what ought to impact the lost person that

comes into the gathering of the church.

Well, here's an example.

I was gonna use when the Razorbacks are winning, but that's been a few years.

We can't remember that.

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.

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

But you go, and you're just disappointed.

And you're sitting by somebody, 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.

It doesn't, you know, I'll go on and on and on.

You look at each other, and there's solidarity between you and that person.

Why?

Because you're united in the fact that you are dissatisfied with Razorback

football.

And to me, it is such a sham on the gospel when we

intentionally do things to show, like.

Nobody's impressed when Republicans hang out together.

Nobody's impressed when 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.

This is what impresses people.

This is what the gospel shines, when a Razorback fan and an LSU fan can

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

That's right.

This is what makes the gospel shine, beauty.

So this idea that we need to create a church for the unchurched, well, there's a reason that people are

unchurched, and which is not a biblical category.

Here's the reason people are unchurched.

They're lost.

That's right.

Here's how they get saved.

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 Sunday morning gathering.

We have done a disservice to the very communities which we're trying to

serve.

It's not, y 'all come and see this.

It's go and tell.

That's the 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.

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.

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

a hamburger.

We even seen this in the ministry of Christ.

He fed the people and they came back, but all they wanted was their stomach filled.

They didn't want the Lord.

And so we wanna be careful that we are not simply continuing to do

what the people already want.

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

When is the point where the person has to abandon their

preferences for the sake of the gospel?

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?

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

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

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

yourselves.

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

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 wanna hear

victory in Jesus or whatever.

And you say, you know what?

It's not about doctrine because both are doctrinally sufficient, doctrinally well,

Christ -exalting is what I'm saying.

So it's not about like one exalts Christ and the other doesn't, 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 wanna serve these

other people.

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.

And that's a problem.

That's right.

So, and the other thing that I was going to say is, and

this may sound harsh, but, 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.

And what I mean is the reason, 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.

But the reason they may feel uncomfortable in my church

could be because they hate Jesus.

That could be.

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

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

make this church.

Let's do everything we can to make it so easy.

So for them to get in, we may unintentionally give them a

false impression of what the gospel is.

And simply by they're just now being affiliated with this, where they never have to sacrifice, never have to give up.

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.

So is that too harsh?

Or can I say that differently?

Help me out there.

Well, let's back up one step.

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 Western American church of

unconverted people on the membership roll, particularly in Southern Baptist churches.

We know that is a problem.

I mean, the reason why we have 10 million plus absent Southern Baptists on any given

Sunday morning, at least a portion, if not most of that, has

to be because those people are unconverted.

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

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

walking with the Lord.

And they comfort themselves in something they've done and not in a relationship they have with

Jesus Christ.

And yes, I think that affinity church can,.

Doesn't have to, 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, 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.

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?

Is it for, or is it for the style or the music or whatever you already

loved in your carnal life?

And we're not trying to say that other churches don't have this problem.

I mean, I, let me just put, I consider a church that has to do all Heavenly Highway

hymns, that's just as much as an affinity church, as one that has to always

do contemporary music.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm not giving a pass there, but that's right.

If you can't, if you say, I, yeah, I love Jesus, but I can't worship with those people because

they have a different style or they dress differently or they, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That's a problem.

That's a hard issue.

And it may be an unconverted issue.

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

immature in Christ.

Granted, I understand that that may be a valid argument in some situations, but I also, you know, if

we're gonna take scripture seriously, then I think that we have a lot less of that

category than what's made out to be.

I think the bigger category is, there are a lot of people who profess to know Christ who in reality

don't.

If you don't love the church, you have a, there's, now again,

you and I have friends and we may even call friends and colleagues in the ministry that would

disagree.

And I, one of my reasons of doing the podcast, I wanna talk about this more.

I think as we did several, maybe one of our first or second podcasts, we talked about

differences.

We should be able, if we love Christ, we should be able to sit down and have healthy, mature conversations about these

things and be able to disagree.

But I think at the end of the day, we want scripture to be

our main authority.

And my argument is that scriptures actually are, is not just sufficient for, you know,

doctrine, but also methodology.

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.

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

That's nowhere in the New Testament.

Paul did not create, you know, any kind, I mean, listen, he missed a

golden opportunity to plant Gladiator Church.

You know what 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.

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

opposite.

It should convict and embolden churches to have our existing members strive to

reach people with the gospel in all areas of life.

And in fact, that's what I say.

If you come, let's use Perryville for an example.

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

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.

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

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.

No, but if you come in here and you say, we wanna plant a cowboy church in

Perryville, you're robbing our church of a ministry that we should be doing.

So let's use race.

I know it's a hot button issue, but let's use race because I think if we understand in terms of

racial, and I know that there's only one race, but I'm talking about ethnicity.

So for example, if there is a large number of Hispanics or African -Americans in Perryville,

and you say, well, the way that we wanna reach them is to create their own separate churches,

that's a problem, right?

Yes.

That's an issue.

The gospel shines forth beautifully when different ethnicities are worshiping together.

That is a direct gospel.

That's Genesis 11 transformed by Jesus's work.

And we see it, it's manifest in Acts 2.

We see the culmination of that in Revelation 5.

People from every tribe, tongue, nation, worshiping Jesus together.

And so my argument here -.

And let's be honest, that's a problem we do see in the church.

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.

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.

Right.

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

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

Yeah.

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.

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?

Yeah.

We have brothers, we have brothers who will respond to this podcast on Facebook or

whatever with that criticism.

Yeah.

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

They're not doing it.

They're not even trying.

Yeah.

So my first response would be this, why in light of all that we've said, okay, first of

all, if this is a biblical model, this is a biblical paradigm, why do we not see

it in the New Testament at all?

Not even a hint of it.

In fact, as we already quoted in Galatians 3 .28, looking at what Paul meant in 1

Corinthians 9 .22, we actually see Romans 1 .16, we actually see the opposite, right?

So that's argument number one.

So one, that's gotta 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.

The second thing I think is why not try, okay?

Why not be involved in the local church and push that?

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.

I'm not against church planting.

I wanna make that very clear.

I am not against church planting.

I'm not against planting a church.

I think planting a church is biblical.

What I'm against is planting an affinity church.

So don't go plant cowboy church, go plant, if you wanna

use Baptist church, that's fine, whatever church, but make it about not the affinity,

make it about the church, make it about Christ, make it about Jesus is the glue.

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

what might God do?

So we see people coming to Christ in some of these affinity churches.

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

If we see a few people coming to Christ through these means that

I believe are unbiblical, what might God do if

we got serious about his church?

I mean, God is serious about the local church.

What might he do if we got serious?

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 scripture tells us to do, no matter what.

I don't think the answer for a church that is not reaching out, I don't think the answer

is to create another unbiblical situation, right?

Right.

What would you add?

Well, and to kind of return to what you were saying about 1 Corinthians chapter nine, Paul's

point there is that to the 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 wanna say that today, make that application

to share the gospel so that they would all be brought into the one church.

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

to reach cowboys.

We do wanna reach cowboys.

But we don't wanna draw them into a community that is separate from

the regular community of the saints in Searcy County and Marshall First Baptist.

We wanna draw them into the church as it is.

And so, 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 these people in this place need a church to gather in, yes.

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.

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

Right.

Plant a church where Christ is the draw.

May we joyfully, convictionally, uncompromisingly hold forth Jesus, the Lamb who was

slain, arisen and ascended as King forever.

That is the glory of the gospel.

Here's what we're preaching.

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

arose again.

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

man, that just, to me, that is heartbreaking.

We don't need the gospel and to reach people.

We need the gospel, the gospel in all its beauty, all its glory,

all its power.

And so kind of transitioning here to basically, kind of,

I think 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, I think ultimately this strategy must be abandoned.

And I actually have some thoughts about some things that could be replaced.

So here's an example.

So what do we do instead of planting a cowboy church?

Well, why not do cowboy ministry?

And again, we're using cowboy because that's prevalent, but put anything in there.

Hipster, gamer, biker, whatever, fisher,

hunter.

Why don't we do those ministries, right?

Within the existing church.

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

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

lives?

I know it sounds so simple.

It may sound simplistic, but it's not simplistic, but it is simple.

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

It's to go out and share the gospel.

Yes, and you're exactly right.

And one of the interesting things is about that recommendation is a lot of these

ministries or these affinity churches have grown out of those kinds of ministries,

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.

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

local church.

Well, because that's hard.

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.

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.

That's, in ministry, of all the ministry that I've seen, that is one of the hardest things is

not just, it's not just about seeing people converted.

It's about seeing the gospel actually manifest the

fruits of the gospel, I should say, manifest themselves in a person's life

in the hard things.

The senior saints hanging out with the teenagers or whatever,

that's what's difficult.

Getting, as we talked about, was it two weeks ago when we talked about hospitality, getting people in other

people's homes.

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

that's what the gospel does, isn't it?

It turns the natural on its head.

The gospel, man, there's, 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, 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.

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.

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, I think that we can be better

in that.

For example, this just, so if a church, let's say you got a small church and the

state convention is willing to pay a salary for a church planner

for three years.

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?

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.

Yeah, and I think you're right.

And are more faithful and are more biblical.

Right, and well, and I think you're right.

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 God, we're not even saying 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,

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

Honestly, I think sometimes the problem may be that not the local

planner, but on, as far as you mentioned, the state convention,

we wanna see church planting numbers.

And sometimes the desire for that, I think, pushes us toward things that are gonna show

planting numbers, whereas putting person on staff in a local

church wouldn't do that.

I think that we have to be serious, and I know I'm just repeating, repeating,

repeating, that we need to be serious about the power of the gospel.

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.

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.

And then I would say this.

What would you say, 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, I agree, what do I do?

What would you say?

So for example, I guess I should say that better.

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

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.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

now has Cowboy Church on its sign ought to close the doors.

Just lock them up, don't meet next 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.

And we would say to that person, begin to maybe talk to the

leadership.

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?

Yeah, yeah, and 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,

and 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.

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.

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, but I do think the answer is

you've got to get on a trajectory towards health.

Otherwise, you're only perpetuating the problem.

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.

It's not okay for us to say, well, we're not an attractional church or we're not a affinity

church so we don't have to worry about this.

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

faithful to the proclamation of the gospel, faithful to the building up of the body of Christ in our local

assembly?

How are we going to be growing in faithfulness to that calling as the church,

the called out ones?

Let me, I made a list one time of just 12 sort of things about what is a

biblically healthy church.

Here are sort of 12 necessities.

Now, this could be a whole probably podcast in of itself, but let me see, you let me know if I miss anything, but it's

led by qualified pastors.

Pastors, the ordinances, Lord's Supper and baptism are rightly practiced.

Biblical church discipline is practiced.

Membership is meaningful.

Regularly gathering on the Lord's day.

They're making disciples, pursuing holiness and Christlikeness, committed to sound doctrine.

The gospel is understood, applied and shared.

Christ is the glue, not tradition, not innovation, not cowboy culture, not hunting,

et cetera.

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

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

we're talking about.

Yep, yep, that's right, brother.

Any glaring holes in that?

No, no, I think that's really, I think that's really, really good.

As we kind of maybe start drawing in on this conversation,

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.

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

wrong, but it is to say, we just want to see, we

believe that God will save according to biblical means.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

Well, we're at 102, man, an hour and two minutes.

Yeah.

What, so I've already mentioned The Prodigal Church by Jared Wilson.

I know Ashamed of the Gospel by John MacArthur are some helpful

books that I could, you know, recommend.

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.

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

Would be, I think, super helpful in if someone wants to think about these things as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, just seeing the beauty and glory

of the local church.

It's all throughout the pages of scripture.

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 but we

should strive to have a church that resembles what Christ wants

in a church.

He, remember, is the head of the church.

And so we should seek to align all that we do in him.

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 gonna see this problem spiral out of control because it's not,

I mean, in a few years, these things are gonna be boring.

It's gonna have to be something else, right?

Right.

No, you're exactly right.

So the same problem that some people look at the quote unquote traditional church,

they're gonna have the same problem and it's just gonna continue to perpetuate.

And so we need to be serious.

The days are short.

I don't know when 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 being serious about proclaiming the gospel

to the nation.

So, man, I've enjoyed it.

I shouldn't feel like it's been an hour, but it has.

But I've enjoyed, as always, enjoyed talking to you.

Again, I would plead with anybody who disagrees, not to think

that we're attacking any person's character.

That's not what we're doing.

No, absolutely not.

And we would love to talk.

Hey, if we could work our schedules out, I'd love to have coffee.

I'd love to have a round table discussion with some brothers and just pouring over scripture together and just

trying to come to a consensus about what scripture teaches on this matter.

And as a Southern Baptist, obviously, I wanna be good stewards of our resources.

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

churches.

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.

Amen.

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's

doing.

This is his work.

If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemas, the masterpiece of

God.

How are you gonna respond?