How to Stay at a Church

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00:12

Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Yeah, that music makes me want to sing We Didn't Start the

00:18

Fire. If it was about three seconds shorter, maybe that would work out well for the intro.

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But it is what it is. We've got that 12 -second intro now on No Compromise Radio. Yeah, well, it's a big reduction.

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It used to be 12 minutes long. Except I think they're getting more bang for their buck because the show used to be...

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How many minutes we would record for exactly? 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

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That's exactly right. Now it's like 28, 29. Right. Yeah, but the giving has gone up commensurately.

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So no worries there. I think we have maybe 11 Patreon supporters.

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11? Yeah, uh -huh. Wow. When the Bible thumping wingnut can have like 4 ,000, what does that tell you?

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I don't know. I mean, I know some... No offense to my friend. Some gaming people who make their lives, right, on YouTube and stuff like that with Patreons.

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And I'm like, it's just a bizarre world. Or like this dude, I follow this guy who does... talks about guns.

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And I'm sure he makes a... and he's in Iowa, by the way. Makes a pretty penny on Patreon.

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Well, how can we be better influencers? Because I think when you influence people, then the giving goes up.

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How can we work on the ones so the other naturally keep up? What if we started shooting things on NoCo Radio?

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And, you know, actually do a NoCo YouTube channel where we blow stuff up and... Well, you know, the guy that films our videos,

01:48

Ben Mercedes, he probably could do that. He's probably sharp enough to try to... Oh, Ben's good.

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I mean, he would turn every episode into a cinematic experience. I mean, he...

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listen. I mean, his... Ben Mercedes, look him up. What is it,

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New England? What's his... New England Blow Him Up. No, he does weddings and stuff.

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But man, oh man, seriously, his videos are beautiful. I think we need some new headshots or something.

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He could do that for us. Well, he's going to do that. Okay. Yeah, we were talking about that. He wants to do that. Remember when we had an elder meeting years ago?

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Were you even an elder then? And we went to go get elder pictures. And we all wore the sombreros and other things, the funny hats.

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Was that before your time? Well, actually, at that point, I think I was still in grade school, so I don't...

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I know Steve well enough that when he diverts his eyes a certain direction, it's going to be a big fat lie.

02:47

Oh, I'm going to have to start doing different things then. Today, we want to have a practical show on No Compromise.

02:56

Practical, okay. We're going to get right down to it. These are our three points. Sometimes we don't have points when we do shows, but we have three points.

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Ladies and gentlemen, write that down. Sometimes we don't have points. I have to say you're getting better at following my lead of we don't have points.

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Point number one, how to find a church. Point number two, how to stay at a church. And point number three, how to leave a church.

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Okay? So that's what we're going to do today. And this isn't all in one day. Oh. No, it's not.

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So number one, let's first start with how to find a church. And Steve, let's do it this way.

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You're on vacation. How do you find a church? And you move to a town. How do you find a church? Or you're about to move to a town.

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They're kind of probably like three sub points. Let's say you're on vacation. How do you find a church? Well, I'm going...

04:01

You know, I mean, there are a multitude of ways you could do things, right? I mean, I ask sometimes people how they found

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BBC. And sometimes they'll say, I was driving by. I go, of all the answers, that's always the one that shocks me because, frankly,

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I don't think I'd stop. Except the parking lot's full, which is unusual for New England, right?

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People are like, yeah, what's going on? Why are there so many people there? So how do I find one?

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Most of the time I will... I don't Google, but I'll look at the

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TMS site. I'll go to the Founders site. You know, because there's not always...

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It's not always easy. But I don't ever attend a church without going to those two sites.

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But then from there, I'm also looking at the church's statement of faith. I'm looking to see what the pastor's been preaching through.

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I mean, I'm not going to... I don't care where the guy went to seminary. I'm not going to go to his church if I look on the site and I see, you know, bondage breakers, a six -part series on how to get the demons out of your life.

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I'm not doing that, right? Well, I think the

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Nine Mark site is also a site that has churches that at least are going to be Nine Mark -ish, right?

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Yeah, yeah. It's probably going to be in the... And TMS. TMS. TMS. Those are the three. And now

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Theocast. They have one. Oh, do they? Kind of a church finder. Why don't we have one? I think we're on all those.

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That's probably... Yeah, but I mean, yeah. Why don't we have our own, you know... Church finder? Yeah. Here are the six churches in the

05:37

United States that we approve. No co -certified. I was in Manhattan yesterday, and then we went across the river to...

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The water. I don't know if it's a river or what it is. You crossed the Rubicon. And there was a poster, and it was called

05:54

NotCo. N -O -T -C -O. That's close enough. And I'm like, no co, no content.

06:00

Not compromised. When I go to the Statement of Faith site, Steve, what kind of advice would you give me if I was going to go to a

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Statement of Faith site or our listeners? You mean a church's Statement of Faith?

06:14

Right. So, you said that's where you look. Like, what do you look for? Confessions, non -confessions? I prefer the confessions.

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I mean, I prefer to see a 1689. I prefer to... Why? You know, because then I know,

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I know essentially what the church is about. How about if you type in reformed churches in the area, because you can't remember the

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Nine Marks, TMS, Founders, the OCAS lists. Do you say Presbyterian?

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Do you say OPC, PCA? What would you do? What would you type into DuckDuckGo? What would

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I type in? Well, I mean, the problem is if I type in, because I'd probably just type in if I was looking like that.

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Like, when we're in Iowa, it's hard to find a church. So, I might type in the reformed churches in the area and then just look.

07:03

Right. But I'm going to find stuff like, you know, maybe they say they subscribe to the

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Westminster Confession of Faith or what have you. But when I go to the site and I actually see, oh, it's

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Cindy so -and -so is the pastor, you know, because I'll actually look at the staff. You know,

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Cindy's been serving here since I don't really care. What if you went to a site, Steve, and it had the co -pastor, right?

07:30

The man and the woman. That's a big thing. I think at Saddleback, they kind of do that now, the man and the woman are co -pastors. That's what the survey says.

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If I go to a website and I see a 10 -point statement of faith, that's a big red flag for me.

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Unless, here's my caveat, because we're being nice today on the radio. If it's, we have our full statement of faith on this page, but just to give you a little summary right now, we believe in the triune

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God, one God, three persons, Jesus Christ is truly God, truly man, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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I don't mind the 10 points if it's a bullet point with a click to their full statement of faith. And I agree with that.

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I think, you know, sometimes I get, when I see the 10 or 11 or 12 points,

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I get a little disappointed if I'm like, okay, I could have written that in 20 minutes.

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And probably their staff did. Yes. And, you know, so I find that discouraging.

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You know, those kinds of things can discourage me. But if, you know, like you said, if they have a link to, you know, we hold to whatever, the 1689 or Westminster Confession of Faith or whatever, then

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I usually am encouraged to just kind of keep going. And I think it's probably fair to say,

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Steve, that you could have a pastor that maybe went to a school that wasn't great and maybe had a background that wasn't great, but he has since learned and he's grown and matured.

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And you could pull up on the website some of his sermons and think, you know what? Those sermons are really excellent. Christ -centered, verse by verse, even though he went to,

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I don't know, a fuller seminary or something. It's entirely possible. You know, the other thing, now you mentioned going to the website and pulling up the sermons.

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Of course, I do that. I don't normally listen to like two or three. I might kind of skim through one or whatever that looks good.

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But if I pulled up and the guy goes, 60, 70 minutes, you know, and I see that that's the regular thing,

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I'm like, okay, do I really want somebody, you know, he better be excellent.

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That's all I can say. You got to be pretty good to preach for 70 minutes. You have to be just outstanding.

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And usually what I find is if somebody goes that long, well, they typically don't.

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But if they do, it's usually data dump time. And what that means is like they just regurgitate everything that they learned during the course of the week.

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So, it'll be all kinds of verbs and all kinds of, you know, Greek structure and all kinds of –

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I mean, it's just like nonstop. It's like I listen to them and I go, okay, now

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I can preach the sermon that you should have preached. I love that.

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So, when we hear 70 -minute sermons and 75 -minute sermons, they're not really sermons. They're helping me put my sermon together.

10:30

Yeah. It's like a sermon digest, right? It's like, thank you for the sermon notes. Now, I'm going to preach a sermon.

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If you had to move, not you necessarily, but people have to move, what are some hints that we could give them if they're going to move to a different city?

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How would they find a church? First thing I would say, answering my own question, is don't take the job until you know there's a church there that's good.

10:56

Yeah. Over and over again, during the course of my many years of ministry, you know, just since I've been a

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Christian, really, you know, and even going back to maybe the mid -90s, just watching people presume that wherever they move in the

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United States, there's going to be a good, you know, Bible teaching church. Here, I have a newsflash, which isn't a newsflash for NoCo listeners.

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There isn't a good Bible teaching church on every corner of, you know, in the

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United States of America. Not even in the South. Not even in Texas. Shocking.

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Florida? Not even in Florida. California? Well, actually, Florida probably, or California probably has more than most, but that's just on the basis of population, right?

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When you have 40 million, although it may be down to 39 and a half million by now. But when you have that many people, you're going to have some good churches.

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It's just, you know, basic averages. And so, they do have some excellent churches, but no matter where I was going,

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I wouldn't count on it. Unless, you know, if somebody was moving from here to Los Angeles, you know,

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I mean, we could give them a dozen churches off the top of our head without even trying. Well, there's so many churches in a smaller area and people are used to driving 45 minutes or 30 minutes or something like that.

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If I were not a pastor and I had to move my family or had a potential move where I could make a little bit more money and live at a place that we thought was nice or someplace

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I wanted to retire or something like that, I would first find a church in that area.

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And then when the company flew me out to visit that area to see, you know, sometimes they fly the wife and the man out or vice versa.

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I would then attend the church, right? Make sure you stay on a weekend when you have that business trip exploration and then go to church on Sunday or call the pastor and say, would you mind if I swung by and talk to you for a half hour about the church?

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That's what I would do. Even if you had to, you know, the company says, well, sorry, we had to fly you back on Friday. Well, can

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I pay to stay to Sunday on my own dime? Because that's an investment you're not going to regret, right?

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I mean, how much is it worth to you to know that there's a good church in your area?

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But I got a $5 ,000 raise. Great. Good for you. But to starve to death, spiritually speaking, for that $5 ,000, you're going to regret that.

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I think if you go to a church website and start listening to a sermon, within probably five minutes, you're going to be able to figure out what that preaching's like.

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Don't you think? Usually. Five minutes? Yeah, usually. And I, unless they're doing five minutes, you know, story times, you know how like we do at church, we bring up the children to the front.

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And what I'm afraid to say to the adults, I just say to the kids. Yeah. So it's kind of like -

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So the adults can hear easier. Kind of like puppet hour. Some of you people are not giving enough.

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How to find a church, number one. Number two now, how to stay at a church. And the reason why

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I wrote this one down, Steve, is we all rub each other the wrong way sometimes.

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We are sinful people. There's conflict between couples. There's conflict between people.

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There's conflict between pastors, et cetera, et cetera. How do you stay at a church? Is there a mindset, first of all, of commitment?

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And then what are some practical ways to stay? Well, you stole the word out of my brain. I mean, you know, if people, and obviously joining a church is not the same, excuse me, as marriage.

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But if we had more of that marriage mindset, if we had more of that covenant mindset, if we had more of that commitment mindset, then churches, our churches, first of all, would be a lot stronger.

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But, you know, the first time you disagree with your pastor, you just bark something at him and, you know, leave or whatever.

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Yeah, I've met that person. Yeah, the idea should be, okay,

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I know going in, I know that I'm not going to agree with everything here, even if I've liked everything so far.

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Because it really is, in a sense, it's like a marriage, right? You just, in the beginning, your wife, because that's what

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I, I'm a husband, your wife can do no wrong. And then at some point you start realizing, wait a second, she does kind of cook the cauliflower a little bit too long.

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And, you know, it does get soggy. And, you know, I don't like that. And, you know, and why is it that all my shirts turn gray and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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And those are the kind of things where in a church, if you start thinking, well, wait a minute, you know, not every sermon the pastor preaches is excellent.

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Sometimes they're just okay. And sometimes they're just biblical and truthfully, not all that interesting, right?

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You can get really picky, or I don't like this, or I don't like that. And why don't you do this?

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And why don't you do that? Well, that's a good way to create problems within the church and ultimately find yourself needing to leave.

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Steve, when I was looking at Philippians the other day, it says in chapter 4, verse 2, Paul writing to the church at Philippi, I entreat

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Jehoiada and I entreat Syntyche to leave the church since they disagree in the

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Lord. I was so surprised to see that. Yeah, well, it's not often you see that, you know,

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Paul saying, just bolt. You've had enough. He's trying to tell the church and these two ladies.

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I mean, can you imagine if it was read publicly and you're sitting there and you're one of those two ladies? We don't know why they were not getting along, but he said, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

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And I think if you're going to be in a congregation, like you said, family like relationships and in a family, we have to ask our spouses for forgiveness.

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Same thing, too. Let's try to restore. Let's try to work on these things, make amends, and you just people are going to offend you at the church.

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Then what are you going to do? Bolt. What's that? What's that old hypocrisy quote that people always say?

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You know, I don't go to church anymore because there are too many hypocrites. And then we would always say, well, you know, one more won't hurt.

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There's always room for one more. Now I've changed that because, you know, Steve, I'm trying to be nicer and not as snarky as I get older.

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Here's my new approach. Not original with me. Would you mind telling me one place in the world that there aren't hypocrites?

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Name one, because everywhere you go, there are hypocrites. Davos. So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about churches and how to stay at a church.

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What about a church commitment? When people have a membership commitment, there might be a membership covenant. What are they agreeing to?

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I think people take membership way too lightly. What are they agreeing to in terms of service, giving, fellowship, forgiveness, attendance?

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You know, let's just take a step back because I think these are all the right questions.

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But I think sometimes our mindset is too American. It's too consumer driven.

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It's too me centered. You know, and so what am I getting out of church? What am

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I receiving? How is this helping my family? Well, what about what am

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I giving to the church? How am I serving? How does my family help, right?

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These are all the right questions because ultimately, instead of thinking the elders don't deserve me or, you know,

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I deserve better, what we should be thinking is this is Christ's church. And I ought to be thinking, how can

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I best plug in and serve? That's what the missing component so often is.

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Well, when I don't like a certain thing on Amazon, I just scroll down and pick bestseller or featured highest ratings and all these other things.

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Can I do that with church in general and then with people? I just do that with people. Well, you can, lad.

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Here is the message in Philippians 4. I urge Euodia and Syntyche to iron out their differences and make up.

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God doesn't want his children holding grudges. Well, you know, he's done worse work.

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Steve, do you think it's fair to say, dear congregant, you have a ministry at a local church.

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And one of the benefits of having ministry besides obedience, besides serving other people, ultimately the

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Lord Jesus as you serve the people, but will also give you a softer heart toward other people because you realize how hard it is to be ministering and how difficult it is.

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And you yourself don't minister perfectly. So you're kinder and more patient with people that don't do everything perfectly.

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Well, I hope so. I mean, you know, and as we are pastors, teachers, preachers, and we get up there and we realize even while we're doing things, even while we're teaching or while we're preaching, you know, thinking, boy,

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I probably could have used more sleep last night or I could have used more preparation or I wish

20:48

I'd ironed out the bug in this part of my message or whatever. Right. We understand that we're flawed.

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And so, therefore, it ought to help us be more humble when we're dealing with other people.

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And similarly, I think when other people are serving in the church and they know that they don't serve perfectly and sometimes their motives are tainted or, you know, what have you, it should help them as well.

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Steve, I think we've talked about this on the show in the past. Everyone has problems and weaknesses.

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One of the joys, I think, really, of being a pastor is just trying to ignore some of those and focus on the things that people do well by the grace of God, empowered by the

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Spirit, and encourage them to do those very things and try to get them in a spot where that's really what they're doing is something that matches their strength.

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And, I mean, we can pick and pick and pick and pick and pick and think, you know what? That's kind of a bad way to live life.

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That's a very—can I say the word—depressing way to live? Well, I mean, this is—I mean, this is just life period, right?

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If you have a spouse and you're trying to get them to do something they're not good at but you are good at, why would you do that, right?

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Let's say this isn't the case, but let's say for the sake of example, for the sake of example, my wife can't balance a checkbook and I give her the checkbook and I make that her job and then

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I'm always picking at it and saying, what a lousy job she does. Why would I do that, right? Obviously, I should be doing it.

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If I have the skill and everything, then I should do it. And I would say the same thing in the church.

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You want to put people where they're best suited and where they're excited to be and not try to take somebody as an example, somebody who's never taught before and has no gift for teaching whatsoever and you say, well, you know what?

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We need a teacher and you're it. You figure it out. Why would you do that?

22:56

Steve, maybe this is the most helpful thing that I've been taught about a local church and staying at a church.

23:03

I've been here for 26 years. I met a guy in Montana. He was a pastor for 40 years.

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How do people stay at places for a long time? Or even if you're in the military and you have to get transferred or whatever, but just the right attitude is it's not about the people primarily.

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It's about the Lord Jesus. He saved me. He's redeemed me at his own cost. He's died for me and he's been raised from the dead and he's coming back.

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And now I'm commissioned to love people because the Lord Jesus said to love people.

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Obviously, he's loved sinful people when he was on earth. And so I think to myself, yes,

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I'm going to burn people. I don't want to. They'll burn me. Maybe they don't even want to do that. And so I'm here for the

23:48

Lord Jesus and people come and people go and I'm trying to stay because of who Jesus is. I mean, if we were to put this in military terms, it's mission first.

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So if we just think, okay, what's the mission here? The mission is the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? So if we just think

24:05

Jesus first, that's our thing. So no matter what, even if I make mistakes, if I fail, like you said, other people or they fail me.

24:14

Well, ultimately, what did we think was going to happen with sinful people? And so we have to keep our eyes on the big picture, not on our, you know, little, the ways that we get offended or the ways that we get hurt or whatever.

24:28

Those things happen. Sounds good. How to find a church, how to stay at a church, and then now how to leave a church.

24:35

There are times when you move and you need to leave or if you're in the military. And what would we say to those kind of folks?

24:43

Send a letter to the pastor saying these are all the things you should improve on? Or how about meet with the pastor or the elders and say thank you or whatever?

24:53

Well, I mean, hopefully it would be the latter, right? I mean, I don't know, you know, what possesses some people.

25:02

I can't really, I wouldn't want to guess. But I just think if we just think about it this way, you know, the golden rule, treat people the way that you would want to be treated.

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So just imagine, you know, however it works. You have a company and somebody leaves your company.

25:19

Would you want them to send you a letter detailing all the ways that you failed over the years and saying, you know, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and how can you even call yourself the

25:28

CEO of this corporation? Whatever. Or would you rather have them come in and say, you know what, thanks for the opportunity.

25:36

I really appreciate it. You know, I learned quite a bit. And if there's any way, you know, anything you want to know or anything, fine.

25:44

But I mean, to just kind of slap somebody on the way out who's tried to help you, who's labored for you, who's probably prayed for you, who's done all these things and just kind of go, yeah, thanks a lot.

25:58

Bam. Wrong. That's just wrong. I think we both come from the same background where if we were going to be gone from church for a few weeks for a vacation, this is when we were laypeople, laymen, we'd probably tell people, you know, by the way, we're going to be out of town, et cetera, et cetera, to try to have that right kind of attitude.

26:19

If you have to get divorced, there are biblical reasons to get divorced within a marriage and there are biblical reasons to leave a church.

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That could be a whole other show. When do you leave a church? But if you do have to leave because of not sin in the church, but maybe they don't deal with sin.

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Maybe they're going to start talking about who Jesus is in a wrong way and you have to leave. You should probably go talk to the pastors before you leave.

26:47

Don't you think? A thousand times. Well, I mean, it's just, again, it's just I want to use terms like manly, but I won't, you know, for the sake of the ladies listening.

26:58

It's just the right thing to do. If we just think if we if we could just live our lives this way, you know,

27:07

I know people are going to rub me the wrong way. I know they're going to offend me. I know they're going to sin against me. But whatever they do,

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I want to treat them the way that I would want to be treated if I failed them. And what

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I would like for them to do is to come to me and tell me, you know, Steve, these are the ways that you failed.

27:28

These are the ways that you sinned against me. I can never forgive you, but I have to leave now. No. Are you reading the message

27:38

Bible again? I would like them to pause for a second and say, you know, just say nothing. And let me say, you know, let me absorb that and then just ask for their forgiveness and and say, you know what,

27:52

I'm sorry. And I would like to make that right. And this is the way life should be lived.

27:57

Right. Not flaming letters, flaming emails, whatever, going out and trying to stir up trouble against whomever we're upset with.

28:08

That would be wrong. Right. I mean, if if the Bible condemns factiousness and doesn't

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Titus three, then why would we want to be factious? Why would we want to be divisive? And the answer is we would never want to do that.

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We want to do things in love and in good order. We want we value the church because Christ loves the church.

28:34

I just think, you know, certain times, Steve, where people already know they're going to leave.

28:39

And then I mean, I'm prideful and have to push that down. And I think at the bottom line, people are just prideful.

28:46

They want to say, see, I told you so. They want to get in their licks. They want to have the final word.

28:52

I don't really know. But there's a there's a Godly way to leave a church, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, leave a church.

28:58

You could do it to the glory of God. Absolutely. And I just I it just it hurts.

29:05

It hurts. Not just because, you know, people say mean things or whatever, but mostly

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I just think, man, you are going to really be unhappy in life. If this is how you know, well, your church wasn't perfect.

29:19

And I'm off to the next church to find out. Oh, it's not perfect either. And then the next church and the next church and the next church.

29:26

And then eventually maybe the people figure out, oh, well, you know what? I guess

29:32

I'm not perfect either. You know, and there is no perfect church. And maybe and this gets back to your second point.

29:39

Maybe I just have to do the best I can at the church that I'm at. Waiting eagerly for the

29:45

Lord Jesus to come back. Amen. And restore all things. I think, Steve, this is this is one of those things where I just wish people would follow your simple advice.

29:58

How would you like to be treated? And therefore, go ahead and treat people that way. I forgot what

30:04

I was going to say. Now, I remember people that skip around to church, to church, church, and nobody ever measures up.

30:10

They usually end up doing home church so they can be in charge and they can be the leader.

30:15

And then things aren't better there either. All right. We're over time today, Steve. What? 30 minutes. What are we doing? 30 minutes.

30:21

You're going to have to send a bill to the union or something. Thanks for listening to No Compromise Radio.