No Good Churches?

And I think it's caused a lot of people to have the mindset that no church is good enough.

Because a lot of times you listen to those podcasts, you tend to feel that way.

Nobody's good enough.

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist, and I'm joined in the studio today by my good friend and fellow pastor, Kenny Roberts.

Kenny, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to finally be in the studio.

That's right.

Yeah, this is your first time.

It is.

I've watched, I've listened, and now I'm here.

And you're not first time on the show, though.

Right.

You've been on the show several times before, and I'm glad to finally have you in the dungeon.

That's right.

And that's really what this is.

It's like an old office now turned into a studio, but it's one of my favorite places to be.

Yeah.

It's nice, and we can sit here and talk and share with the listeners.

And today the subject that we're going to be talking about is really, it's based on something that I hear ever increasingly, and I'm not just hearing this from people who are maybe lackadaisical in their theology.

I'm hearing this more from people, even in people who identify themselves as Reformed, people who identify themselves as solid theologically, and they talk about how much they read and how much they do, and as far as learning and all these things.

And the thing that I'm hearing, and I don't know if you have heard it as well, and that is, well, in my area there's just no good churches.

Yeah, yeah.

I hear it all the time.

Matter of fact, not only do I hear it in my own ears, but I read it.

I'm a part of some Facebook groups where people are just discussing theology, and almost every day there's somebody posting in one of these groups saying, I need some help finding a good solid church in my area because I just don't think there are any.

And I mean, this is a problem I think occurring all over the place.

There are a lot of Christians who theologically seem to be sound and would agree that it's important that they be a part of a church, but it seems like they don't believe there's any church they can be a part of in their area, and it's interesting to watch.

Yeah, and it's not like these people are in Wyoming, where it might be 50 miles from a church or a city to city or whatever.

I mean, I remember one time there was a guy, and I don't remember his name, but I remember he was a Facebook friend, and you know, Facebook friends are not always real friends, just people that you've become acquainted with through their picture, essentially.

And this Facebook person typed, there's just no good churches in this town.

I was like, dude, you're in my town.

I'm two minutes away from you.

That's right.

That's right.

I don't mean to be like a little self-centered here, but bro, there's a church not too far from you, and I'm the pastor.

Now, if you don't think we're a good church, that's fine, but tell me why.

Let's talk about it.

Don't just make that blanket assertion.

There just are no good churches.

I think it's valid sometimes, obviously.

There are town situations where it's going to be difficult to find a good church.

I mean, even where I grew up in the Bahamas, I grew up on an island that was two miles long, half a mile wide.

There were three churches on the island, and they were all vastly different from one another.

I could see somebody being in a situation where they think to themselves, I don't theologically line up with any of these three churches not well enough.

Now, I still believe that they could have found one of those three churches, but that's beside the point.

What I'm saying is, I don't want to discount everybody and make everybody feel like, well, the problem's always you, because there are some difficult, challenging areas where it is difficult to find a church, but I think that's why we're talking about it today.

Yeah, and I'm hoping to maybe overcome some hurdles for people, because the old saying, and you've all heard it, and I remember R.C.

Sproul popularized it, but he wasn't the first one to come up with it, and that is, if you find a perfect church, don't join it because you will ruin it, because you're imperfect.

A lot of people say that, and they joke, oh, our church isn't perfect, but then you get those folks who are demanding so much, and they're, you know, I can't go to this church because they're not reformed enough, or I don't go to this church because they don't have real wine and communion.

And again, we laugh at that, but these are real things that I hear, and I'll do you one better.

We had a guy who reached out to me, and he was a good dude, a great guy, I don't know how many things against him, but his question was, you know, are my almost-infant children allowed to take communion? Because that's a new big issue among, especially those that are in more of the Doug Wilsonite sort of federal vision camp, that whole question of infant pedo-communion, which seems to be a different discussion than pedo-baptism.

Did he also want wine in the communion for his infants to partake of? He did ask if we have wine in communion, that's what made me think of that.

But then the next question was, well, can my children participate in communion? And I said, are your children believers? And he sort of asked, well, my son might be, he's like three, and then my daughter's younger than him.

And I was like, okay.

We would say no.

We would say if they're not confirmed in their faith, if they've not come to a place of repentance and faith that is recognized by the rest of the church body, that they would not be welcome to come to the table.

And again, not being, I wouldn't anger with him or anything, but that's such a specific question.

It is, yeah.

And I even did a little TikTok video about a guy who was, I don't know if you saw the video, but it was a guy who was calling, and he made the call, he said, sell me your church.

That's the way people are.

It's like, you've got to meet these very specific things, and it's not always things that we would think of as secondary things, or not, well, let me back that up.

For us, the paedo-communion thing, that's a pretty specific theological thing.

That's not like somebody's looking for, I want drums, or I want this.

And music's important, but that sort of is like a secondary, these are some theologically heavy questions.

Yeah, absolutely.

What is, and you may not know right off the top of your head, but what are some of the things that you have had at Mission Way, and by the way, I don't think I mentioned this earlier, Pastor Kenny's pastor at Mission Way Church, which is on the south end of Jacksonville.

So if you're down that way, please look him up if you're looking for a church.

Mission Way, right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What are some of the strangest calls you've had, or can you think of any off the top of your head? You know, I honestly haven't had a ton of strange calls.

It's interesting, I've talked to a lot of pastors who get those phone calls.

Most of the time it happens in conversation, and I wouldn't say I get a lot of, I've had a lot of strange conversations yet.

Mind you, I haven't been a pastor for as long as some other guys who have been doing this long enough to have those experiences.

However, a lot of times it boils down to preference for people, where what they want to talk about are those things like, well, what about the music, and what about the community outreach, and what about all of these things that are good things that are, not that they're non-important conversations, but in my opinion, they should not even be, they shouldn't even be a part of the fourth and fifth conversations you have with the pastor, right? Like they're going to matter down the road maybe.

For me, one of the things that I've learned to say immediately for people, and I think it shuts down some of that, I almost always tell people who are new to our church, I'm not a salesman, I'm a pastor.

And if you want me to sell you on our church, I'm not going to do that.

I love our church, I think it's great, I want you here, but I'm not here to convince you this is the best church in Jacksonville.

I want to answer all your questions and do whatever you need me to do, but I am a pastor, not a salesman.

That's become my line almost to everybody.

Yeah, and that is now going to become my line.

I don't think I've ever said that, but that is in my mind.

My wife and I have had that discussion many times, because often she is the person who will do that introduction conversation.

What we'll do, if a new person comes to our church, almost immediately, we try to reach out to them for a coffee, like, hey, can we get together for coffee? And if possible, my wife will go with me.

Now we just had a new baby, so it might be a little while before she goes again.

But in the past, I remember the conversation I had with Gary and Cindy, he's now a deacon in our church, so it's been several years.

But I remember sitting at Starbucks with them.

We sat for over an hour and talked about theology, and it was great.

So having her there has been very nice, and we have those introductory conversations, and that's sort of our way of doing it.

And you were saying, I'm sorry, what did you just say? I'm not a salesman, I'm a pastor.

That's the thing.

After many of those conversations, she would come to me and say, I think they were trying to get you to sell them the church.

And she wasn't being ugly or rude, and that's not Gary and Cindy, by the way, but I mentioned Gary and Cindy.

No, Gary and Cindy were great.

No, but there have been times where we would leave for those conversations, and the people were wanting us to cross off, you know, it's like you have a list, and these are the things that you have to make.

And the other thing that people do all the time, with me at least, is it's almost like a dating relationship, where they're going to show up for a few months or weeks or whatever, and it's like they're testing you out to see whether or not you're going to meet all those qualifications, but they won't tell you what they are.

They're not willing to have those conversations, but it's like these unexpressed expectations that if you don't meet, they're out, and they never tell you why.

And you're kind of left thinking, man, we had a great relationship, it seemed like we lined up in the important things, and then they're just out the door, and nobody has any idea why.

And that, man, you're so speaking my language.

That's true.

Here's my PSA.

For all of you who may be looking for a church, whether you come to our church or whether you go to another church, wherever you end up, if you visit a church for a length of time and then choose at some point to say, hey, you know what, this isn't the church for me, that's fine.

We all get it.

Very few people would get upset with you if you realize that it's not the church for you.

You should take your time.

Yes.

Yeah.

But tell us.

I've never been told.

And it's like you turn around, and it's like, hey, where's Joe at? Joe was here for six weeks, and now Joe's gone.

And I know last week I preached on, and I can't help but think, did Joe get offended by the sermon on tithing or something? And I don't preach on tithing, because I don't believe in that whole other conversation.

I believe in giving, but not New Testament tithing.

That's going to create some stir there.

But the idea of whatever you say.

I remember, I'll tell you this, this is a quick, funny story.

We had a man and wife visiting our church, and this was 10 plus years ago.

So I was very young.

And he was obviously not only well-off, but he was obviously well-educated.

And when I was talking to him, I could tell that he spoke in a very articulate manner.

He invited me to lunch.

I went to lunch.

One of my other elders, Jack Bunning, went with me.

We had lunch with him.

And during lunch, we had a few disagreements, primarily over family integrated.

He didn't think that was a good idea.

You need a youth pastor.

You need this.

You need that.

And, okay, well, we don't agree, but that's fine.

You don't have any kids.

It's not really like it's...

We're not going to do that, but okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like, you're older.

You don't have any small children, so it's not really going to affect you.

But we had a philosophical difference on youth ministry, but he still kept coming, and he kept coming for several weeks.

But it just so happened that he was here on the third Sunday in January.

The third Sunday in January is Sanctuary of Life Sunday.

I think it's third Sunday in January.

Whatever Sunday it was, I preached on abortion.

And I preached that abortion is wrong, and that abortion is murder, and that as people who love life and love God and love the Word, we should not support abortion.

And dude had smoke falling out of his ears.

He was absolutely repelled by that message.

And I remember thinking, I wonder if he's going to talk to me, because, I mean, you don't have to wonder when somebody's upset.

Yeah.

If somebody's sitting...

Yeah.

Unless it's your wife.

Well, I've had people over the years that have had that sort of twitch in the eye, you know.

I've had people get up and walk out.

Not intentionally is not what I want, but I've had people get up and walk out during a sermon.

But this guy was just smoke falling out of his ears, and I could tell he did not agree with anything I had to say.

And then church was over, he was a ghost.

Gone.

I've never seen him again.

So I can only assume, you know, that that was it.

And that's fine in the sense, it's not fine that he would be wrong on that issue, but it's fine that if that's the bridge too far, we're not the church for you.

If I can't say abortion is wrong without you getting upset, then we ain't the church for you.

Yeah.

You're welcome here, but we're not going to change our position for you, right? Yeah.

Exactly.

So have you ever had somebody walk out? I was trying to think.

Not to my knowledge.

The last church I was a part of, it wasn't while I was preaching.

I know of somebody walking out during a sermon, but not yet.

I feel like that's a milestone that you hit as a pastor, somewhere along the way that people walk out in the middle of your sermon.

Not that you ever want that, but...

You don't.

There was kind of something funny that happened a few weeks ago.

We've had this lovely couple that had been visiting with us, and about a third of the way through the message, they left, and four families came to me after, pastor, did you see that? Are they mad at you? Did they upset with something you said? I said, no, I know these people, it had nothing to do with that, and come to find out she just wasn't feeling well.

But people were like, did he did it again? I'm not intending, that's never the goal.

No, you never want it to happen.

And that's what I, you know, that's honestly, as a pastor, we make jokes about it sometimes, but it is, it's a sad thing to us when somebody just leaves, even if they've got a real issue with what you said, we want to have those conversations.

Like we're not just here to say, here's our opinion.

If you don't like it, get out.

We're here to say, here's what the Word says.

And if you don't agree with what the Word says, we want to graciously walk you through that and help you understand, not help you agree with us, but let us agree together about the Word.

We want to walk through that journey together.

And when people just don't even give you that opportunity, it's sad, it's hard, because that's kind of part of why we love being called to the ministry, right, is to see people get it and to see people's hearts and minds change by the renewal of the Word, so.

That's right.

And are you familiar with Steven Anderson? A little bit.

Not a lot.

For those who aren't, he's part of the, I think what they call themselves now the new IFB, I might be a little off on that, but the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement, and he's famous online for saying some very, very wild and outlandish things.

He's a, just, I don't want to get into all about him, but the reason why I bring him up is there are videos of him online yelling at people, if you don't like what I'm saying, get out of here, because you are not welcome here.

I am the, what they call the mog, the man of God, which is, first of all, you know, if you've ever seen Spaceballs, then mog is half man, half dog, but it's the mog, right, I'm the man of God, and when I speak, you cannot question that, and that shouldn't be, if you're in a church like that, that you can't, that authority can never be questioned, that no one can ever be challenged, then I would say that may be something that you want to consider, because if you have, we all have the same Bible, and one of the saddest things I ever heard, and I was actually talking to Steve Camp, I don't know if you know who that is, Steve Camp is a fairly successful pop Christian artist back in the 80s, well he actually came here and sang a few years ago, we invited him and he came, well, having conversations with him, he was telling me a story about a pastor who said to him that, he said, I went to seminary, who are these people to question me, who are they to have an opinion, I'm telling them what it is, and again, if you're a pastor listening to this, shame on you if that's your attitude, if your attitude is my people are too dumb, or too uneducated, or too illiterate, or whatever, to come and have a conversation with you, they have the same Bible you have, and by grace, the same Holy Spirit that you have, and the attitude that a minister is, you know, I make mistakes all the time.

I pray before I preach, God keep me from error.

And that should be our heart as pastors in this conversation too, is to say, when you disagree with either something we're teaching or preaching, or just something about our church, we should have the heart posture as pastors to be humble enough to welcome those conversations, and to say, if you can show me where we're wrong in this from a biblical perspective, I'm more than willing to say, okay, we were wrong, let's change that.

And I think that's a part of the beauty of the body of Christ, right? Even somebody who's new to your church being willing to come in with not having the history, not knowing anybody and being able to look with a biblical lens and say, hey, I think you guys are off on this, let's talk about it.

I would love to have more conversations like that.

I'd love to be able to joyfully say, yeah, we messed up on that, we're not doing this the right way, we taught that wrong, let's fix that, let's correct that.

So that's a part of the heart posture we need to have as pastors in these conversations too, is not just saying, this is our church, and you know, if you don't like it, that's fine, stick around, but being willing to say, let us all be willing to have these conversations, because we don't get everything right all the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

In fact, that leads to a good, maybe a quick side quest, like this is a game we're playing.

We're gonna do a side quest real quick.

Okay, so there have been times where people have come to the church and wanting to argue things that are foundational to us, and we have said, we are not going to change that, like what you said earlier about abortion.

So what would be some of those things for you, like if somebody came to the One of the things that has been an issue, not many times, but has been an issue here, is the issue of King James-onlyism.

Somebody who would come in and argue for the position of King James-onlyism, and we don't agree with that position, we have examined the position, we don't believe that it's accurate, and we don't hold it.

And so as a church, we're not going to change that, so they need to recognize coming in, even if you want to have that conversation, we'll still have the conversation, but it's not something that we're not, we've been down that road, we have determined where we're going to be as a church, and we're not backing up and taking another corner.

So have you, what would be another one? There's two that come to mind, because I get these somewhat often.

Number one, it was so interesting, there's one lady in particular that comes to mind that we met outside the doors of the church, and she said, oh, there's a church here, I would love to meet you guys, and what denomination are you? And we said, we're part of the Southern Baptist Convention, but we talked to her about the differences, even between Southern Baptist churches.

Anyway, she was like, oh, great, you're a Baptist church, so you guys must speak in tongues.

And I was like, I don't think you know what that word means.

And she's, so we, it was, long story short, we were on our way to lunch, my wife and I with one of the staff members at the church, and we could tell this conversation was going to be a long one.

And so my wife was like, why don't you just come to lunch with us? And I was like, okay, great, let's do this.

So we did, and this lady spent the entire lunch essentially trying to convince me that our church needed to be more, you know, spirit-led was her words and meaning, exercising the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And I just was pretty frank with her, and in as kind of way as I could, I respect, you know, you and the fact that that's your interpretation of the Scripture, that's not how we see the Scripture teaching.

And so we're not going to do those things.

That's one.

The other one that I get the question very often is, are you going to be willing to have women elders in your church? And that's a hard one because you never know, it's not hard to stand in the position.

It's hard because you never know what kind of emotionally charged background that person's coming from with that question.

And so you don't know, sometimes I don't know if they're asking because they don't want women pastors or they do.

And so it was like, I just need to know where you're at first, but we'll be clear about where we stand and that's okay.

Again, even in both, and I've told people in both of these situations, you're welcome to come to this church.

Just understand very clearly those are two things we won't change.

Not as long as, you know, the Lord has me here as a pastor, we're not going to change those things at least.

And so, yeah, those are two that come to mind immediately.

I mean, we could talk about the obvious ones like the gospel, you know, and the substitutionary atonement of Christ and those things, but those are two maybe less obvious ones that come to mind.

Have you ever had someone that didn't agree with substitutionary atonement who wanted to argue that? Not that I can think of.

Okay.

It didn't come directly to me, but years ago there was a man and wife in our church and their daughter was almost an adult or was an adult, she was like 17, 18 years old, and she had begun to date a young man, and he was, I want to say, Eastern Orthodox.

Okay.

And they denied penal substitution atonement, and at least I believe so.

I believe they have a different view of the atonement.

And whatever it was, I remember having a conversation with the Father and Him saying to me, well, is that, you know, is that, do you really think that's a big deal? And I was like, yeah, I think this is, I mean, to me that's the heart of the gospel, if we're going to deny penal substitutionary atonement.

And he said, yeah, but the young man pointed out, because apparently they had had a conversation, and so now I'm sort of secondary to this conversation.

And he said, yeah, but the young man pointed out, you know, there are other views, there's obviously Christus Victor, and there's, you know, different views of the atonement.

And I said, yeah, but the heart of the gospel is what did Christ do on the cross, and if Christ has not taken the punishment that we deserve for sin, and I said, I really don't see how we're going to get, how you are going to get past that.

Right, yeah.

And so it's just funny to think that there are people who would come to church with, and expect, okay, I'm going to come in with this different atonement view.

Yeah.

And the church, you know, it's like, no, that's not, we're not gonna, that's the heart of what we teach.

Yeah.

One of the things that I've learned to do is, when somebody comes to my church, if I'm able to find them on Facebook and find out what church they were connected to prior, that gives me kind of a leg up in the conversation, if you will, to know where are some of the areas they're going to be coming from, where are some of the things they want in this church, and because I've, we've had people who, like we talked about earlier, they come to church for months sometimes, and then all of a sudden they realize, wait a minute, you guys don't speak in tongues.

I'm like, you've been here for five months.

How do you, like, nobody's done that yet.

How do you not know that we don't, we don't do that, you know? So it's interesting.

It's good to, it's good to, my staff laughs at me, the elders, because they say I Facebook stalk people, but I do, I'm curious.

I want to know where people are coming from, because they won't always tell me.

Yeah.

That, and I don't know if it's ever happened, so I'm going to ask, have you ever had someone have a charismatic experience where they, where they just, and maybe you don't want to say.

Not at Mission Way.

Okay.

At my last church.

Was that in the Bahamas? No, that was in Sarasota.

I was a youth pastor there, and we brought in, I was recommended to bring in a group from the International House of Prayer, and I did not know much at all at the time about the International House of Prayer.

I do now, but I brought them in to just to do a youth service.

I just love that it's IHOP.

I can't.

Yes.

IHOP.

Yes.

Do you know much about them? I know about the other IHOP.

Okay.

Well, the International House of Prayer, I mean, we, we can't get into that, but very, very charismatic.

And so at the end of the youth program, they started bringing kids up and praying over them in tongues.

And I'm in the sound booth with the pastor of the church next to me.

And we both look at each other like with panic, like, what are we going to do? So I, and I'm, I was 25 at the time, you know, and I, and I wasn't trying to make a scene.

So I literally, I went up and I, as the guy's praying in tongues over these kids, I, I grabbed his shoulder gently and he knew immediately why I was doing that.

So he stopped and he kind of ended the time and then they gave it over to me.

And I just stood up there and I didn't, I didn't specifically renounce tongues in that moment.

But I, I just went through this whole speech of what I hope you guys are getting from tonight because they presented the gospel well, is this message of the gospel.

We're not here for an emotional experience.

We're not here for any of this other stuff.

We're here for Christ.

And that's what I hope you take from this.

So that's the closest experience I've had to that.

That was, that was interesting.

Yeah, absolutely.

That they didn't even ask me, you know, like, I feel like if you're going into a church where you don't know the pastor, you don't know the theology, you should at least ask, hey, how would you feel if we started praying over some of your kids in tongues? But I guess maybe in their defense, they thought it was in the moment, you know, the Spirit led them in their, in their view to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I know that my experience has always been, and I don't get invited out places often, but the times that I've been invited, I always have like a list of things that I ask.

One is Bible translation.

Yeah.

Because if you want me to use a King James, I will.

If I'm coming to your house, I'm going to use your, you know, but, you know, I'll also ask questions like that.

Are people going to begin speaking in tongues while I'm preaching, as if that's the right thing to do while the Word is being preached? Because some people do.

I mean, some churches, they'll just, they'll rattle off Glasselia or whatever they call it, you know, at any moment.

Yeah.

And I just want to be prepared.

It's good to be prepared for that.

All right.

So getting back to our sort of our initial, what led us into all this, and that's the, these, someone who would say, okay, there's just no good churches in my area.

There's, there, there's, there's none.

And we are, we're going to come at this from, from one, one perspective.

We're going to come at this, that you're not in Wyoming, that you, that you're not in a place where there are no churches, or the only church, you know, within a hundred miles is maybe a Mormon church or something, you know, where, where, where there are literally no good churches.

But I'm kind of coming from this, from the perspective of that guy that I originally mentioned that, you know, that posted literally in my town, there's no good churches.

Okay.

All right.

So taking Jacksonville, even though Jacksonville is the biggest land mass city, used to be, I think maybe now with the subdividing of the beaches, but used to, there was a point that we actually had a newspaper clipping at my house where it talked about Jacksonville as the largest, when they, I think when the county and city merged, it became the largest by land mass city.

It's still huge, even with separation of the beaches.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It takes an hour to drive a certain, or more than an hour.

If you start at the top and go all the way around 295, it's, it's, it's, it's forever.

So with it, with a city like ours, for someone to say that there's no good churches, I think that's, I think that's unfair, but I also think that it begs the, or begging the question, raises the question of what it is that people are looking for.

And so what I want to talk to you about now is the question of what should people be absolutely adamant about, in your opinion, as a pastor, what should people be adamant about? What should people be, and again, this is opinion, this is our opinion, you may, if you have a difference of opinion, there's a comment box right below what we're talking, you can feel free to opine all you want.

And I will read it, I read every comment.

Don't always agree, but I do read every comment.

The, this, what are the things that we should be willing to say, okay, that's not, that's not a make it or break it for me.

Yeah.

And that's going to be different for everybody.

Yeah, it will be.

I mean, there's some things that are going to be, hopefully the same for every genuine believer.

I would probably start, I try to put myself somewhat in the shoes of somebody looking for a church.

And so what are some of the things that I'm going to want to know immediately? And I'm going to want to know, among many things, is the word preached here? Are you preaching the word or not? That seems like a simple question, but I'm going to ask specific questions.

Like if, if you were to preach a sermon from Psalm 23, would you spend your time telling stories? Would you spend your time trying to make application first and foremost, or would you spend your time pulling out what's the meaning of the text first and foremost, and then move to application? Both are important, but so many churches just so heavily fall in application that they actually miss the interpretation of the passage.

So that's key.

And then I'm going to ask, what's the gospel? What do you believe the gospel is? And if you're not, if you're not preaching a gospel that says that Christ died for our sins and raised from the dead, that he was the substitutionary atonement for our sins, that he was raised back to life, that he's seated at the right hand of the father, that he's coming back again.

All those things, obviously starting there, those are foundational.

And there's a lot of other really important things too, but I think if you get those two things, we can start to have conversations about everything else.

I mean, and there's going to be other reasons that I would leave a church.

Personally, I would not go to a church that practices patio baptism.

But I also, if somebody comes to my church and they're convinced of that view, I wouldn't tell them not to go to a Presbyterian church that preaches the word, you know.

So there's a lot of nuance to this conversation, but for me, I'm going to start there.

Do you actually preach the word? And what is the gospel? And then let's start to branch out into these other really important conversations too, because there's, there are some other deal breakers for me, but I don't know, that's my, that's my initial thoughts.

Yeah.

And I want to get to some of the personal deal breakers.

Again, this is what a person means in my opinion, and I could be wrong, but what a person means when they say there's just no good churches, there's just no good churches, is they're saying, they're saying all my deal breakers have not been met.

They've got a list of deal breakers, and everywhere they go, a deal breaker.

Because like I would say for me, even though I would certainly put the gospel first and the preaching of the word second, so those things are number one and number two.

I would also say this as an immediate deal breaker for me, and that would be if a woman was an elder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me as well.

Yeah.

And so but I can learn that on the website.

Right.

In general, a church's website is the front door.

That's a way we talk about when we talk about our social media ministry, and which is what Conversation with a Calvinist is part of our ministry of how people come to know us.

Yeah.

And our website is our front door, along with our Facebook page, because those are the two primary, maybe the YouTube page as well, are the primary ways that people are going to see us.

Sure.

So on YouTube, it's easy.

They're watching a video of us.

They know who I am.

People come up, shake my hand.

They know who I am the first day, because they've seen me on video.

Yeah.

Facebook is a little bit more difficult, because it's, you know, Facebook is Facebook.

Sure.

But the church page, you have the power to sort of, you can make that look however you want, and ours is focused on the very first thing you see is, you know, expository preaching, like those big bold letters, you know, name of the church, because that's what we, like you said, you're looking for somebody's gonna preach the word.

Yeah.

Preach verse by verse, you know, and that.

So we do that, we talk about that, and then we have a little tag that says, if you're first time here, click here.

Yeah.

And it goes through the gospel, and it goes to who we are, and it helps explain that those, hopefully those questions.

Yes.

But yeah, if I go to your website, and I don't know whether or not you have female elders, if I go to your website, and I don't know whether or not you're preaching the gospel, and I don't know what you believe, that's the biggest frustration for me.

If I go to a church's website, and it doesn't have a what we believe section, or whatever, I don't know how you would say it, maybe somebody might say what we teach.

It's actually becoming more common not to have that.

That's so bizarre to me.

But yeah, you bring up an interesting point, because I, in this whole conversation about finding a church, if you go to a church's website, and you find those things, you find the things that are most important to you, and then you go to the church, and you start to realize that some of these other secondary preferential things are not met.

If your first reaction is to leave, I think there's a problem in this conversation, right? So, if I go to a church's website, and I find out that they, you know, use some of the examples we've already used, they don't have female elders, it's expository preaching, they focus on the gospel, and then I show up, and the only thing they do for music is they have an acoustic guitar, and that's it.

And that's not just because they don't have the people to supply the band, that's just their preference.

That's not ultimately my preference, but who cares? Like, why should that cause me to go, you know what, now I'm going to go look for a church that meets all those qualifications and has the full band that I'm looking for.

So, I think the website is a good point, because if you find those essential things on the website, then I think you need to be willing to say, let's give this a chance.

The problem is, people actually don't start with those foundational things.

They start with, let me find a church that has these other things I'm looking for.

They have a cool website, and they serve coffee in the lobby, and they have the full band, and all these preferences, and if they're not met, they're not even concerned about, is the word being preached, if they're honest, right? They would say that's important, but that's not ultimately what influences their decision in finding a church.

Yeah, and what you just said really hits the nail on the head, and that's the nail of priorities.

Yep.

You know, what is the major priority? And I will never forget, I do a lot of funerals, and I meet a lot of lovely people doing funerals, because, you know, people are in the most difficult time of their life, and I have the opportunity to minister to people.

But also, I also have some funny experiences, because you meet just all types of different people from all different backgrounds, and I remember I was at the National Cemetery, which, if you've never been, you have to line up, and you only get 30 minutes.

They give you 30, start to stop, you only get, you can't go 31 minutes.

You have to get in and do your thing and get gone, because they have another group right behind you.

They're lining them up, bringing them through, taking them out, and I've done dozens of services there.

But one day I'm there, and when we're in line, you can get out of your car and mingle.

That's where you're basically doing your, like, visitation around your car, because when you pull up, you got to get out and do your thing.

So I'm mingling.

I guess that's the right word for fellowshipping.

We're talking, and I'm exercising my pastoral prerogative and eavesdropping, because there was two dudes behind me that were talking, but they didn't know I could hear them, but I could very easily hear them, because they were being kind of loud.

And the one dude was like, yeah, man, I've been going to church, and I love it.

And the other guy's like, yeah, man, that's great.

Tell me about it.

He says, dude, the pastor, he has a Mohawk, man, and we love it.

Yes, yes.

And I thought, oh gosh, please let there be more to this.

Please, there wasn't.

It was the fact that the pastor looked like, you know, his Mohawk.

That was what won the day, was not, you know, because I was really hoping to say, yeah, man, this church loves the people, this church loves God, they love Jesus, they minister well.

And that's the thing.

I'm, not every church is going to be Ligonier Ministries.

Not every church is going, you know, not every church is going to be erudite and super deep, but you know what? If you have a pastor who preaches the Word and loves his people, he doesn't have to be a master of the Greek language or these things.

If he loves the people of God, you know, there's something to be said for that.

Absolutely.

There's two things that were coming to my mind as you were talking.

One of them is going to potentially blow up your comment section, so I'll save that.

Love it.

Maybe both of them.

But I think one of the number one things that you hear that people are looking for in a church is they want a welcoming church.

And what they mean is, when I walk in the doors, they wouldn't say it this way, and I don't necessarily, I'm not, this is generalization, I'm not trying to be unfair.

They mean is the red carpet wasn't rolled out for me.

Not everybody said hello to me.

I had a guy call the church, it was a Sunday I was out, and he called the church and said, I'm not coming back to your church because this one guy gave me a mean look.

And he described the guy, and I know this person, I know he didn't give this guy a mean look, you know.

But that's what's most important to them.

And a lot of times, those people have done little to no work to get to know anybody in that church.

They have not been hospitable to the people in the church.

Now, we have a responsibility as the people of God to be hospitable, I believe, to the people that walk through our doors.

We should be welcoming.

We should be friendly and kind and all those things.

It's a problem if you're not.

However, what most people mean is, I didn't feel like the center of attention when I walked in the doors.

I didn't feel like everybody was just so happy that I was there.

And again, they didn't do any work to get to know anybody either, but they'll never.

So there's some statistics out there that will suggest, and I don't know how they get these statistics, but somebody makes a decision whether or not to come back to church within the first 11 minutes.

And what I know in most churches is they haven't gotten to the sermon yet.

In most churches, in 11 minutes, you probably haven't even gotten to the worship, the musical part of the service.

All that is is the parking lot and the lobby, right? So people are literally making their decision whether or not they come to a church on if the red carpet was rolled out for them when they walked in or not.

That's a problem.

Another problem is, this is another big thing people say is, I want a church where the kids' ministry and the student ministry are thriving, where I feel like I can bring my church.

I mean, all the church growth people will tell you, if you want to get the parents, then get the kids.

The kids will go home and say, the church was awesome.

And if that's what you're looking for in a church, you're missing the point too.

Because if that's your focus, then chances are you are likely not doing the work you need to be doing as a parent to disciple your kids.

And I don't care how awesome your church's youth ministry is, that's not the primary role of the to be the number one primary discipler of your children.

They're to come alongside of you in that.

But those are two things that people have placed as like number one and number two in the priority list.

If I'm welcome, and if they've got a great ministry for my kids, then I'm going to be there.

And it's like, the other things almost don't matter.

And I would not necessarily put either of those things, even in my top 20 things that I'm looking for in a church.

Yeah.

And it's so funny.

I'm going to go backwards.

I'm going to talk about the second thing you said, and then go to the first thing.

When it comes to youth ministry, our church is family integrated, which means, for those who are maybe somewhat unfamiliar with the term, we don't have a separate youth ministry on Sunday morning.

When you come into church on Sunday morning, there are age-graded Sunday schools.

I teach the teenagers, actually, because I've always enjoyed that.

So I have a brother, elder, or a fellow deacon who teaches with me, and we teach that together.

So we do have age-broken out Sunday schools.

So we're not fully family integrated, as some would say.

We're breaking the rule, because we do have age-graded Sunday schools.

But when it comes to church, we don't have a time in the service where little kids leave.

And so my wife, who just had a baby, we have a six-week-old baby.

Actually, it's eight weeks this Tuesday, tomorrow.

But we already have him in the sanctuary with us.

Now, we do have a nursery for people who are needing that help, because we do want to provide.

And our biggest thought are things like single parents, or things if they're in a situation where we have several of our police officers and firefighters and stuff who are out several times a month, and their wives are by themselves.

We want to provide a ministry to them.

And that's the way we see it, because we want them to be able to hear the Word and things, so we provide them a ministry.

But the goal is always, we want them to be in the sanctuary with us as young as they can, and people will be surprised how much those kids hear and retain.

We have one little young boy in our church, he's such a sweet young man, and he's always kind of parroting back to me the things I'm saying.

I don't even know what all he understands, but he's listening, and I'm thankful for that.

But you're right.

People will call, you know, what's your youth ministry like? Well, this is, we're family integrated.

Okay, no thank you.

And that's okay, that's their check off.

But it's rarely that that's the, like you said, in the bottom rung, that's the top rung.

Gotta make sure my kids are entertained, gotta make sure they have that.

And I don't, let me be careful to maybe clarify that I'm not saying you're sinful if you want a church that has a specific children's ministry or youth ministry.

I'm not saying that's a sinful desire, but I do think there are problems with placing that high on the priority list, especially if you're somebody who's saying, I can't find a good church in my area, because one of the only churches in your area is family, one of the only good, solid churches in your area is family integrated, and you don't want that.

And this goes for a lot of the examples we would use.

But if you're looking at a church that is solid, that you would go to this church if they just had a children's ministry, or if they just had a homeless ministry, or if they just served coffee in the lobby, which is ridiculous.

But, you know, whatever that thing is, if it's not a central foundational issue, I think that's when you need to go.

Maybe the problem isn't I don't have a church in my area, maybe the problem is I have a misunderstanding of what it means to be a part of a local church and what should be important to me.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's hard for people to come to that realization.

Now, I do want to take a step back to the issue of somebody who does have high theological standards, because I agree with you that, you know, the concern for a welcoming committee, and I do think I didn't get to that one earlier, but I do think that we should be as welcoming as possible, you know.

I do like to always encourage our people, and our people are fairly good.

I always sing the praises of our church.

Our people tend to be very good at handshaking.

We have a moment in our service where we stop and we encourage people to go around and greet people.

Introverts love that, by the way.

Oh, I know they hate it.

In fact, I've been told it's wrong.

And here's my two-minute response to that.

I'm curious, because I don't like it.

I fight against it when people want to do it in my church.

Okay, okay, good.

We'll have a gentlemanly disagreement.

I realize that introverts hate it, and I realize that there are a number of people who are introverted.

There are two reasons why we think that it is a valuable part of the service.

Number one is we don't have a time in our service where we ask visitors to stand or do anything, because I think for an introvert, that would be the worst thing to do, to say, if you're a visitor, please stand so we can come give you a card or whatever.

So at that point, what we do strategically is our deacons are told that in that moment, because sometimes people come in late, and that's actually about 10 minutes into our service, we've already done the announcement, we've already done our first song, we've already done our call to worship, and then after the first song, we do it then.

That way, if anybody's late or anybody's coming in, any new people who didn't know they were going to be a few minutes late or having trouble getting their kids inside, they're there now.

And so it's a strategic opportunity for our deacons to walk around and introduce themselves to new people, so that new people are recognized and encouraged to fill out a card.

So that gives them that moment in the service to recognize new people in a way that's not, yeah, in a way that's not, hey, stand up or whatever.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is, for the most part, we have found that when we tried to stop, because there have been times, but maybe we won't do this, our people ask for it, because we do have a group of people that tend to like it.

And I went to Arizona a few years ago.

Went to my son, he was in the Air Force, and we went out there to visit with him.

And while we were there, we got to visit James White's church, which is Apologia Church.

Their service lasts two hours.

At the 30-minute mark in the service, so quarter of the way in, they stopped, and for almost 15 minutes, they had a time of fellowship.

It wasn't a handshake your neighbor.

It was literally, pray with the person next to you, sit and talk with them, spend time in fellowship, because this is the only time of the week we're all together.

This is the only time that you're going to see Brother Jim, because you don't see Brother Jim because he works a job that's off hours of your job.

So go over and spend 10 minutes with Brother Jim.

And that, we came back, my wife came back from that, really charged with the idea that this can be a more meaningful, this isn't just, hey, high-five the guy behind you.

No, take the time to go over and introduce yourself to a person that maybe you haven't met yet.

And so we really try to make it more strategic than just a high-five the guy next to you.

So that's the two things that it's become a strategic part of our worship.

And I'm not saying it's not ever going to change, but at this point, we have found it has more benefit than detriment.

Okay, your turn.

You can give me the...

No, I mean, I think that's a different approach than, because what people often are asking me to do is the high-five your neighbor, give a handshake for 30 seconds, and then we're done.

And you're forcing an introvert to make an introduction that doesn't really lead anywhere in the moment.

Now, maybe later it does.

And I don't, listen, it's really a joke among our worship planning, but I don't fight it really hard.

I just say, if you're asking my preference, I say no.

I say we should be strategic and intentional before and after the service where they don't feel forced into it.

That's my thing is I don't want anybody to feel like they're being forced into an interaction with somebody if they're an introvert, because if they're new, that is going to be something that goes, is this going to happen every week? Because I'm not into that.

So that I think that your approach is a lot different than what often is being suggested.

So that's an interesting perspective though, because I do, I want to meet people.

I want to connect with them.

I want to get them to fill out a card so we can continue to follow up.

We can continue to encourage and see how we can serve them.

So it's an interesting concept.

Do you remember, I don't remember if I was on Calford, because you have your show, Calford Catechism, but you've also been on my show.

So we've done enough that I can't remember exactly, but we did a conversation where we had had a list of things that you can do to better grow and fellowship.

I think it was Calford, I think that we did.

I think it was on yours.

I don't remember either.

But I remember one of the things on that list, how can you better connect your church, and it was come early and stay late.

Yes.

And that's another thing, and again, I'm not trying to convince you, but I'm just giving you another reason, in case somebody is thinking, I don't want to go because they do this.

The other thing, new people tend to not come early, and they tend to not stay after because they don't know anybody.

And so you are also providing a place where they're not so anxious to get away.

Because a lot of times, new people, as soon as you say amen and the benediction, you open your eyes and they're gone.

Now, do you go to the back and handshake people? I try to, but I always get stopped.

Yeah, it's like you're running to get back there.

And I've kind of trained our members to let me get back, to get back there, but I don't always.

Sometimes people have to stop me because they want to pray or whatever, or they need me at that moment.

And I don't get to say hello to this new family.

And it matters to me that they know that I care that they were there.

We have a backstage area where I could go back and run to the entrance, but I never want to communicate that what I've done is just walked away either.

And if I get stopped back there, then people are going to think I'm trying to be distant.

I'm not.

So yeah, I think it's good to connect.

But you're right, it's hard to find those times sometimes before and after the service.

So having that intentional time can be, I can see the benefit of that.

And like I said, definitely not trying to convince anybody.

I just, I want people, if they come to our church, to understand why we do it, what's in our mind.

And like I said, that time going to Apologia really sort of solidified in my mind, this can be useful.

It can be done well.

So getting back to the people who would say that, and I have to have these certain rigorous theological things, because again, the guy who I remember who said, you know, there's no good church in my town, I remember his was not the, you know, that he wanted a big band or a youth ministry or anything like that.

His was that he had these so rigorous theological perspectives, and it was to him, nobody was meeting the standard of him.

And I think that's the danger, is we become the standard.

And so what would be the, I know we've already said the gospel and the preaching of the Word, and the third one I said was elders.

What would be, though, for you? You've already mentioned Peta Baptism, and I would agree.

In fact, I surprised a lady one time, one of our church members, she asked me, she says, well, if you were going to a town that had only two churches, and one was a Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the other was a Southern Baptist Church, she said, you would go to the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

I said, no, I wouldn't.

I said, not necessarily.

I said, one, the Southern Baptist is too nebulous, I'd have to know more about it.

Right, there's a broad spectrum there.

Yeah, but, because you guys are SPC, so I mean, obviously I'd go to your church before I went to Presbyterian Church, you know, because you guys are much more aligned with where I'm at, especially on that issue.

So, but I also told her, I said, even if that church was more Arminian, as long as they're not, you know, having a Billy Graham crusade every Sunday, as long as the gospel is being preached and the Word of God is being handled faithfully, and I do believe Arminians can do that, even though I'm a Calvinist, and I don't think Arminians are heretics, I think that they're wrong on some issues, and I think I'm probably wrong on some issues.

One of your number one guests is a not-yet-Calvinist, so...

Exactly, Matthew Henson, he's one of the crew.

So, and I think he's one of the smartest young men I know.

So, looking at it from that perspective, what are some things that you would add to our very small list of things? Like, if you walked in and saw this, you'd say, I'm out.

That is a great question.

I mean, I mentioned earlier tongues, you know, prophecy.

Okay, so that's a, okay, let's stop on that for, camp out on that, and I know we don't, can't belabor every one of them, but that's curious.

Do you think, I know there's a difference between full Charismatic and a more continuational view, such as, you know, your Wayne Grudem and maybe even John Piper considered that.

Okay, so would it be that they're practicing the tongues, or if they were a continuationist church, you couldn't go? Yeah, so I would have probably gone to John Piper's church, and he has more continuationist views, but they weren't necessarily practiced in the church.

So, I would say, if it's being practiced regularly, if you've got one small group here and there that's got, you know, they're practicing it from a biblical perspective, as far as that goes, and I wouldn't probably have an issue, but if I'm walking into the church and it's chaos, I'm not going.

I don't care if they got everything else right.

That's the key.

Yeah, I couldn't go.

The Bible says, decently and in order, and chaos is not order.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's one of them.

I would not require that a church is reformed in their theology, necessarily.

I mean, I would prefer that, but that wouldn't be an immediate deal breaker for me, especially if I was having trouble finding a church.

Oh man, what are some other ones? I had another one in my mind that has escaped me now, so if you have some, you can interject while I think about that.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that when I think about what—and again, this is—I'm a little unfair in this, because I've been in the same church since I was six.

Right.

Yeah, but here—you know my story.

Yeah.

So it's—when I talk about finding a church, I really have—I've only visited other churches.

Yeah.

I've never, ever been looking for a church.

Yeah.

And so we go out of town a lot, and we do go to churches, and there's almost an immediate sense, when you walk in, that there are certain things that are a little weird, and that doesn't mean they're not good churches, they're just not what you're used to.

Yeah.

And so I remember we went to the mountains, and on the way back, we were just—we were driving, we drove from Kentucky to Florida in one day, we did an 18-hour, whatever it took for us to get back, and—or Cincinnati, I'm sorry, we were Cincinnati, Ohio, drove all the way back, but we said at 1030 we're going to find a church.

Yeah.

It was a Sunday.

We said we're going to stop and find a church.

And we just found this little mountain church, it was called like Grace Fellowship or something, so we figured, good chance it's a good church, good chance it's a bad church, we have no idea.

Yeah.

We know nothing about it, didn't look at the website, didn't—we just went in, and we walked in, and the service was already going on.

That was terrible.

Yeah.

I didn't mean to be late, but we were like five minutes late.

So we walk in, we walk in, and my wife and I sit down, and immediately the music is very Southern Gospel-like.

Okay.

Which is fine, but I wasn't pinpointing any theological sides.

Right.

Because there's certain songs that you hear in certain churches that you kind of realize where you're at.

Right.

But I wasn't hearing any of that.

A lot of the songs I'd never heard, but they were Southern Gospel style, there was a guitar and a bass and all that stuff, and they were, you know, had a very country feel, which was fine.

But then the soon as he got up to talk, I could register, okay, dude is health and wealth.

It just came out within five seconds.

You know, it was all about being blessed and all about how much God had blessed him and gonna bless him for this and that and all these things.

And that word blessed is just thrown around like it's nothing.

And I will say this, health and wealth will run me out the door.

Yes.

But we came in late, so we were trapped.

Oh boy.

Like, now I can't get up and walk away.

Sure you can.

So, but here's the blessing of what happened.

And hopefully the brother might be listening, because I know he listens to the show sometimes.

The pastor talked for about five minutes, and I was like, my wife even looked at me, she's like, and I was like, I'm sorry.

I literally mouthed, I'm sorry.

You know, and she said, or the pastor said, well, guys, you guys know that today we have a guest speaker.

And I was like, okay, because apparently they had known they were gonna have a guest speaker.

And this dude walked up and he looked like a lion.

He had long hair and long beard, looked like a mane.

Yeah.

Like just in a nice suit.

And I was like, what is about to come out of his mouth? I was so scared.

I was like, I was holding the pew, like scared.

Dude rocked it.

He was solidly reformed.

I talked to him afterward.

Dude, he, because, because I'm, he was, he was quoting Piper and Sproul, and he was just nailing, nailing the gospel.

And I was like, woo! I get a little charismatic myself.

So afterwards, I had to meet this guy, because this is, did not go along with what the pastor was saying at all.

Right.

And come to find out, he's the son of a church member.

He goes to another church, and he has a ministry of his own that he's preaching, like, I guess, itinerant preaching at different churches.

And he had become friends with this pastor.

They disagree theologically, but the pastor was nice enough to let him preach.

Wow.

So by God's grace, I got a good message and a bad church.

Yeah.

I don't say bad church, but a church that, but like I said, that would have been the help.

It just reminded me, and I know that was a long story, to simply say, if I smell health and wealth, I'm out.

Yeah.

I can't.

You know, something that has become more and more something that would pop on my radar is what type of worship music are they singing, or what songs are they singing? And I don't want to get into this conversation in this show, but if there's purely, you know, Hillsong, Bethel type songs, I'm seeing more and more this, churches not only grab that music primarily, but then they also begin to filter in some of those teachings.

So I wouldn't say if a church is singing Hillsong song, I'm not going to go, but that immediately makes me go, wait a minute.

All right.

Let's, let's see where this leads.

Cause there are a lot of churches that not only adopt the music, but they adopt the theology as well.

I was actually listening to a podcast on that just before I got here.

It's kind of why that jogged in my memory a little bit too, but yeah.

And that's a good point.

What I have, I have seen recently somebody posted this quote, I don't know who said it, but it did say, if you want to know what a church believes, listen to what they sing.

And I do think there is some truth to that, that, you know, I'm not saying every church has to be a Psalms-only church, even though there are churches who do that, and if that's what you're looking for, that limits the pool that you're going to be able to draw from.

But like our church, we do all kinds of different songs, but we try to make every, make sure every song is biblical and theologically sound and all those, all those things.

And that's the key, right, is if they're singing songs that are unbiblical, or songs that are sub-biblical, and, you know, or even questionable, you know, why would the pool, and that's what I, that's what my worship leader and I definitely agree on this, the guy who leads our music is a wonderful man, and we agree on this, why would we, why would we pick questionable songs when there's so many great songs? There's too many good ones out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that leads to this question, and that's the, because talking about music, that's always the thing that's such a divider for people, and I can't help but to sort of pull back and say, okay, you already said, you know, whether or not it's a Bethel song or not doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to go.

Sure.

But when we think of that, even that concept of, okay, they're somewhat aligned with this group, or they're possibly aligned with that group, do you see that there's, within the Church, almost people who have drawn lines too hard and fast to the point where, you know, well, this guy quoted, who's the guy up in New York, the pastor? Lentz.

No, no, no, no, I'm thinking Tim Keller.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tim Keller sort of has gone a little wonky.

Yeah.

Well, if I quote Tim Keller in a sermon, does that mean I'm bad? Right.

Yeah.

And that brings up the issue of the whole wokeness too.

I mean, if a church is showing signs of that, I'm probably out the door with a conversation first.

But yeah, I mean, that's an interesting point.

I think I had a couple ask me, they showed up for their first Sunday, they emailed me after, and they said, hey, you quoted a lot of Reform guys.

Do you believe in double predestination? Because that was a big issue for them.

And I, you know, I just talked through with them the issue of saying, I want to have a conversation about this.

I don't just want to email about this.

But please know right up front, I'm not going to require that anybody is Reformed in their soteriology to attend my church.

That's not a requirement.

I don't even have that as my own requirement that I would have to attend a church that is solely Reformed in their soteriology.

There's a lot to that.

But yeah, I think we be willing to give grace.

If somebody quotes somebody that you disagree with, they sing a song from a church that you have problems with, you can't just automatically put them in a camp.

What I was saying, just to clarify, is that that does cause me to go, why did they quote that person? What else do they agree with from that person? And let's have a conversation.

It's not an immediate deal breaker, but it's a yellow flag.

It's, hey, I want to learn more about where that came from.

And maybe we could say if they quoted some people, we would automatically, it might be good.

I mean, if dude comes up and immediately quotes Creflo Dollar, we're probably not going to...

Unless it's in a negative light.

Well, yeah, but we're going to have a conversation about why in the world are you, or Joyce Myers, if they quote her, as an authority.

I do think there's, yeah, again, we're not wanting to be that guy who's nitpicking everything, and that's what I think, and you may differ on this, but this is a good question.

The question of discernment ministries.

I think that sometimes they are less useful than they're worth.

And if you don't know what a discernment ministry is, and a lot of podcasts are discernment ministries, and I'm not saying these guys are all bad.

I'm just saying it seems as if a lot of these guys are, they're just looking for the next group or person to say, he's unworthy, he's unfit, he's a false teacher, and mark and avoid.

That's their use of term, that mark and avoid.

And I do agree, we need to mark and avoid.

You know, I can tell you, I've said it before, I don't think you should listen to Joel Osteen, I don't think you should support his ministry.

Mark and avoid this man.

Yeah.

Bill Johnson, mark and avoid.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's a good point, and a lot of times those discernment ministries, they'll do something, like this one guy, I won't get into names just to be distracting, but this one guy did a whole podcast about John Piper and why his gospel wasn't completely sound, and he said many times during it, you know, I'm not saying he's a false teacher, but then he essentially said the guy had a false gospel, and I'm like, you're confusing people at best, like best case scenario, nobody really knows what to walk away with this instead of just looking at somebody's teaching.

And so I, you know, in this whole conversation, I would say, I think a lot of people have been led to determine there are no good churches in their area because of discernment podcasts, because discernment podcasters have caused people to be so, like, so hyper sensitive to any quote from this person, or they made this statement, so maybe they believe this, and they don't, they're not even willing then to have the conversation, they just, because their favorite podcaster said, mark and avoid this teacher, that means I don't even need to know anything else, I'm done with this church.

And I think it's caused a lot of people to have the mindset that no church is good enough, because a lot of times you listen to those podcasts, you tend to feel that way, nobody's good enough.

That's right, that's right.

And sadly, what you find out is a lot of times those guys who do those podcasts are themselves not in churches, because no one's good enough.

Because no church passes my muster.

And therefore, if you go to a church, man, you go to a church, you know what that church does? And they're going to find a chink in the armor, they're going to find a hole in the dike, they're going to find something.

And again, man, I can tell you, I can give you the list, if you want Sovereign Grace's list of things that we're imperfect, I mean, it's legendary.

We are an imperfect church.

And I don't say that because it's a great thing, but it is who we are.

And there are so many things that, and I'm hesitant to bring this up, but I'm going to it because I've never mentioned this on the program before.

And I'm not going to say I'm going to fault anybody for this.

I know that there are people who don't come to our church because I'm overweight.

They have said that.

I mean, it's been told to me specifically.

And whether or not I go to the gym, whether or not I do karate, whether or not I'm trying to deal with my weight issues, to them, I'm unqualified.

And that's, hey, you know what? That, but let me tell you something, if that's the standard, you know, that the man of God can't be physically imperfect.

And again, you may want to text me and tell me why I should be on keto or why I should be doing paleo or why I should be doing these things, not knowing the history I've had with weight loss and different problems that I've got physically and health issues and different things, not knowing those things.

You may have those opinions and that's fine.

But if we've never had a conversation about it, that's, and I get an email that says that.

And again, I'm not, trust me, I'm not in a, what's the, I'm not self-deprecating.

I'm not asking for anybody to send me a letter to tell me how great I am or what, no.

I'm saying this happens.

And so- And that's a smaller story of the larger problem that people just, they see something and it's immediate, like, I'm done.

They're not willing to have a conversation about it.

Something that I didn't want to neglect to mention is, because I've been around and even involved in enough churches over the course of my life to see different, just different ways of doing church and growth models and all those things, one of the things that I, this is me personally, I'm not even saying this should be a standard for everybody, but you asked the question, what are some things that would cause you not to go to a church? If a church does an At the Movies series, I'm not going.

I'm just, I'm not going to go because I'm not saying that every church that does that does not prioritize Scripture.

I'm just saying I've never seen one of those series that actually preaches the Word faithfully.

They are almost always drawing life lessons from movies rather than drawing truths from Scripture.

And they sprinkle Scripture in to make it seem like they're still preaching the Word, but that's an immediate deal breaker for me.

I know enough at that point to know there's going to be an uphill battle to really prioritize the Word.

I'm not going.

I have to ask this question because it's making me laugh internally.

What would you, how do you, because I understand that the movie theaters, the series, and I agree, I think that's a marker, like, oh, okay, what are they about? Okay, let's say you're watching a guy preach a sermon.

And at some point in the sermon, a movie clip comes in.

It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, especially if the sermon was solid, but it would be a yellow flag.

It's like, why'd you do that? I mean, what, you know? The only reason I bring it up even is early, early on in ministry, we're talking, I was still a youth minister.

I wasn't a pastor yet.

Oh yeah, I was a youth minister, even though we're family integrated now.

That's how I started.

And I went to a thing called Dare to Share.

Yeah.

Have you heard of them? Yep, yep.

Now, I don't know what Dare to Share is all about, and I don't know where they've gone.

This has been 15, 16 years ago.

At this point, they're fairly solid, actually, but yeah, from what I know.

I really liked the guy who was in charge.

He got up and preached, and he was really all about sharing the gospel.

I still use it.

There's an acronym, God Created Us, Be With Him, Our Sins Separate Us From God.

It's the G-O-S-P-E acronym.

And I still remember it because it was very catchy, very easy to, I teach it to our karate kids.

So in that respect, it was okay.

But his whole sermon was movie clip.

He would speak for five minutes and then pull in a movie clip.

Like, we're going to battle, guys.

And then he pulled in a clip with Mel Gibson in that movie where he was in the army, like, we're going to war.

He did it so well that made it appealing.

But then I thought, as time has gone on, I'm like, I don't know what I would do if I were sitting in a church and somebody just...

There are some people that think that it's a way to bridge the gap, bringing the gospel into the culture and all that.

And I understand what they're trying to do.

But I actually think that it has the potential to unnecessarily push people away.

It's one of the same reasons that I almost never even reference movies from a sermon, because there are some movies that I have no issues in my own conscience watching, but other people do.

And the minute you quote it...

Spaceballs.

Yeah.

The minute you quote the movie, people, they're done.

It's like, I'm not...

They're not listening.

They're not listening anymore.

I'm like, that's an unnecessary barrier to me.

You're not bringing in a movie, a movie quote, a series out in the movies.

It's not going to be more powerful and more life-changing than the preached word.

So why do it? If it has the potential to turn some people away, you can make the argument all you want, that it's going to help some people get the gospel.

I'm just not with you on that.

It may bring more people into the doors of your church, but the problem is, if you're going to faithfully preach the gospel, then great.

But I haven't seen that happen yet at those series.

And maybe it does.

I'm not saying it does not happen, saying I have not seen it.

That's why I said, I wouldn't recommend that's a deal breaker for everybody.

That's a personal pet peeve of mine.

I can't, I just, I don't do it.

It's, and just one more second on this.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a sermon.

And sometimes if I'm in a certain text or whatever, and it's toward the end of the week, and I'm just sort of thinking through it and I want to hear somebody else's perspective.

I'll just pull up somebody I don't know.

There are guys that I'm, there are my go-to guys like Brian Borgman and guys like that, that are like, they're always solid.

But sometimes I'll just YouTube, you know, somebody and I'll let it come up.

And I usually know within five minutes what this guy is about, but this guy, he came off really solid in the first five minutes.

And I was like, okay, I'll listen to this dude for 45 minutes or whatever.

Well, about 10 minutes into his message, he had a movie clip.

And I was like, okay, I'll give it that.

But it was from Meet the Parents.

And it was where the character, the father, asks the Ben Stiller character to pray.

And he prays this awful prayer.

Oh God.

And he's like, he's not a believer.

He's like, he's Jewish, not a Christian.

She's like, he's Jewish.

And he goes, oh, he doesn't pray.

And it's like, it's the worst clip of like, and I just, and his point, cause I let, you know, to his credit, I listened to the whole sermon.

I was like, where's he going to go with this? His point was, you know, we shouldn't be bad at praying.

I was like, you could have just said that in the show, a clip from Meet the Parents.

Yeah.

Unnecessary.

Yeah.

So I get that.

And that, like I said, it did sort of take me out of it, even though I'm sure there are people in his church, and again, this comes back to the feeding people what they want to eat.

I'm sure at some point somebody came up and said, man, that was great.

That was awesome.

Yeah.

And that's what, you know, I had Tom Bucca on the show a couple months ago, and he said that's one of the worst things that we, and he was talking about the SBC, but I think this is cross denominational, is we get so good at feeding people what they want to eat.

Yeah.

Rather than, it's like our kids, if my kids only ate what they wanted to eat, they'd eat candy all day.

Yep.

But we have to give them more than that.

We have to do more than that.

Yep.

And yeah, so.

Well, and then that goes back to, again, the original point of this episode, to the person who says, there are no good churches in my area.

Are you looking for that church that's serving up on a silver platter everything that you want, or are you willing, are you willing to sit with a local body of Christ that doesn't have all your same preferences, that actually, in some ways, takes you out of your comfort zone for the sake of having fellowship and having unity and proclaiming the Word together, or are you just looking for like-minded people in terms of preferences? Now, like-minded in terms of doctrine and theology, absolutely, but are you wanting to be more like-minded in preferences than you are in theology? And then, you know, the other extreme of that, and you kind of alluded to this too and talked about a little bit, it's those people who doctrine is very important, but the problem is tertiary doctrine is uber important, right? And the problem is they've turned away churches who disagree with them on issues that are not foundational, and you should be able to still have fellowship in churches together over these issues, and I think that that is a problem as well.

You're just never, I mean, my elders and I have some points of theological disagreement that are not foundational, right? And that, I think that's actually a good thing, because if everybody thinks exactly like you...

You're probably an occult.

Yeah, well, and do you, is any of us really going to sit here and I believe I'm absolutely right about every single point of doctrine I have in Scripture? I'm not quite willing to say that.

Now, there's things I'm sold on, right? But there's some of these issues that I'm like, I'm going to hold it a little looser, and I have my convictions, but I understand there are faithful godly men who disagree, and they might be right.

I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying they might be, so why don't we fellowship together and sharpen each other, right? I mean, you're doing yourself a disservice by looking for a church that thinks exactly like you and does everything exactly like you, because you are, whether you would say this out loud or not, you are in effect saying, I have everything right, I'm doing this thing perfectly, and unless you're on my level, I'm not going to give you the time of day.

That's right.

I'm the standard.

Yeah.

And that's an unfortunate attitude of so many people.

I get to, I'm the standard, and it's got to be like me.

So for you, for me to go to your church, everybody in this church must homeschool.

For me to go to your church, everybody in this church must have a, you know, this type of household structure.

That's another thing that a lot of church, a lot of people, if you don't, you know, if you don't preach the virtues of homeschooling, if anybody in your church goes to private school, public school, whatever, then, oh, we can't go there.

And that's a whole other, that could be a whole other show.

Because now we're setting our standard for our home as the standard for everyone in the church, and it's hard for people to get over that.

I want to say one more thing.

I know we're getting late on this show, but this is what happens when you get two pastors to talk about choosing churches.

But I went through a pretty nasty church split at my last church, actually, and I won't go into all the details of it, but I just remember talking with so many people who had left the church, who had been there for a long time, trying to talk and ask them, why would you leave? And why, you know, what's going on? And some people had legitimate reasons, and there was a lot to it.

But I just remember in my own mind and heart becoming convinced that you, when you look at the New Testament, I think of the letter to first and second Corinthians, when Paul's writing to the church in Corinth, that church was an absolute disaster in so many ways, in so many ways.

Paul never said, you guys need to leave and start your own church and leave the rest of them to themselves.

Yeah.

A second Corinthian church.

Yeah.

Now, I'm not saying there's never a good reason to leave your church, because sometimes there are, but man, I think it should be, I think it should be a last resort.

I just, a lot of times it's the first response, and it's because even though we're saying a lot of people say, I can't find a church, part of it is because there's such a plethora of churches around that people just go, I'll just go to this other church.

I think that's the wrong mindset, too.

I think you are having just as much of an issue as the person who says, I can't find a church that meets all my needs.

If you're just willing to jump ship because of a conflict, because of a disagreement, even if it's an important disagreement, if you're not willing to love your brothers and sisters in Christ enough, if you're not willing to love your pastor and elders enough to talk through Scripture with them, you're going to have the same problems at your next church.

It's just going to happen.

It's going to follow you everywhere you go.

Amen.

And it's like lily pads, hopping from one lily pad to another, and people make the circuit, right? I've even, I'm familiar with certain denominations where there are multiple churches in a city of that denomination, and they know the families, because they'll go to this church for a season, and then that pastor will say something they don't like, or the money will get spent in a way they don't think it should have gotten spent, or something will happen, and so they'll go to the next church, and then they'll be there until the music is not what they like, or because their kid didn't get asked to sing the solo in the Christmas pageant, and then they'll go to the next church.

And I know this sounds like I'm being really ugly, but it's not.

These are the types of things, you know, there was a, there, I'll give you a, I'll give you, I'll close on a legitimate thought, and I think you would agree with this, because there are times to leave, even though I would say the same thing you did.

Yep.

But there are, we should always try to find common ground.

We should always try to stay if we can, but I did have a guy come to me one time, and they were, he and his family were looking for another church, and because the youth pastor at their church was teaching modalism, and if you don't know what modalism is, it's a almost 2,000-year-old heresy about the Trinity, it's not like it's new, and he went to the pastor because that was his concern.

This guy, I've sat in, I've listened to him preach, he has told me, he'd come from a Oneness background, he was a, that was his, that was who he was.

It wasn't like he just messed up the Trinity, this dude knew what he was doing, and he went to the pastor, and the pastor said, I'm fine with it.

At that point, I would have to say there are times, legitimate times, where you have to say, okay, this is, we are now entering into the area of heresy, we're now entering into the heresy, and when we talk about heresy, I don't throw that word around as much as people might expect.

I think heresy has to, you have to have some historical, theological, biblical foundation for heresy.

You don't just say, you know, this is a heretic or that's a heretic.

Heretic has a very specific meaning and a very specific term, and so, but modalism is heresy.

You know, that's modalism, Patrick! I don't know if you've seen the video.

That's, you know, and so, yeah, but, and this was something that he was in the church, and this guy was introduced, brought in, made the youth pastor.

It wasn't like he already knew this, you know, he had been a member there, and so we're not saying there are never times, and you already said that.

We're not saying there are never times, but he did right.

He went and talked to the pastor.

He didn't just bolt, right? He tried to have that conversation, and it was to no avail.

That's what you should do.

Yeah, and so just know that if you come to my church, and I hope you do if you don't have a church home, I hope you do, but if you come to my church, I want to know where you came from, and I want to know why you left, not because I want to judge you, but I mean, I don't have a problem looking at somebody who left their church for what I believe to be an unbiblical reason to say, I think you need to go back and make it right.

I think you need to go back and have a conversation with your pastor, and I'm not saying I would tell them they have to go back to that church and rejoin it, but I just think there's too much damage being done to the body of Christ because of church hopping, and it's becoming more prevalent, and the problem is now a lot of the church hoppers, they stop hopping, right? They hop from one to the next, and then they just stop hopping, and now they're not connected at all to a local church, and that's its own issue as well, obviously.

So yeah, you got to be willing to wrestle through these things with your brothers and sisters in Christ to go to the Bible together.

Let's have the conversations with the Bible in front of us and pursue unity.

Amen.

And just like what you just said, neither of us would advocate lone wolf Christianity.

Nope.

If you're a Christian without a church, there are remedies to that.

And I remember one thing, I'll kind of use this to close this down.

R.C.

Sproul did say this one time, because somebody asked him this question in a conference.

I was there, and it was 15 years ago or whatever.

He was asked, the person stood up and said, Dr.

Sproul, there are no good churches in my area, what should I do? He said, move.

If it is legitimate that there are no good, there's no one in your area preaching the gospel, and if you're in Jacksonville, you can't say that, because I know that Sovereign Grace Family Church preaches the gospel, I know that Mission Way Church preaches the gospel, I know that Sovereign Grace Baptist Church preaches the gospel, I know that even though I would disagree with them on baptism, I know Ortega Presbyterian Church preaches the gospel, I know that Westminster Presbyterian Church preaches the gospel, I know that Jesse's church out in Hilliard, I can't think of it right now, but it's the one Michael McKendry was on with me last week.

Yeah, yeah.

He is in that church, and I think it's Grace Covenant Church.

I know that there's Redeemer Church in Yulee.

Aaron Bell is a pastor, he's formerly our music director, he went to seminary and became a pastor, and he's a pastor of Redeemer Church.

There's David Bradshear's church in Yulee.

I mean, dude, I can throw a stick and hit great churches in Jacksonville, and so you can't say that if you're here.

But if you are in Wyoming, and you're 50 miles from the nearest truck stop, and there ain't no church, you can move.

You would move for a job.

Yeah.

You would.

You would move.

If you had a better job and a better opportunity for life for your family, you would move.

So if you legitimately can say, there just ain't no church where I'm at, maybe it's time to find a place there is.

Yeah.

But there's no reason to be apart from a local church, at least not for an extended period of time.

Yep, I agree.

I'm with you, I said that just a few weeks ago.

We make decisions all the time why we move and what factors into that, how many of us ever specifically factor in what church is there when I get there.

And so that's the other point to that.

If you are moving already, you're already making a plan to move and you have not found a church in that area yet, find one now before you get there.

Not saying that's going to be the church, but find one that you're going to show up to that first Sunday and begin to try to plant yourself in a local church.

I love it when people message me and they say, hey, we're moving to Jacksonville, we've been watching your sermons online for two months, we're ready.

First day they come in, they come right to me, shake my hand, hey, I know you, and I know what's going to happen in worship because I've watched the service several times, it's a good thing about live streaming now.

Yeah, exactly.

Already be searching it out, and make that part of your choice.

We had a couple that visited here and they never joined, but part of the reason they didn't join is they were looking for a job because they had a church that they wanted to be in fellowship with, it was in Tennessee, and that's where they wanted to be.

It was because of that church.

So he was looking for a job there.

So they were fellowshipping with us just long enough, and he told us that.

He said, we're not joining, we're just here until we want to be under the preaching of the Word, until we get, this is like where we're going.

And it was like, wow, you guys have found the church you want to be a part of, and they made it their goal.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, Kenny, I want to thank you again for coming.

I always enjoy our time.

I know we don't get to spend a whole lot of time together, so I'm thankful for your family giving you to us today.

Yes, sir.

A little bit of time.

Appreciate you having me on.

And I pray that Mission Way continues to thrive and to grow and to preach the Word.

Yeah, same with you guys.

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