Post Conference Chat (almost)

Conference Reflections on Unity, Integrity, and Denominational Differences

Well, we made it to the end of day two. We have one more day, which is a half day. Brother Keith is gonna preach for us tomorrow.

Again, I'm not part of the conference. I'm the pulpa supply this time, this regular Sunday morning.

And we're thankful we could be here for it.

Yeah. Absolutely.

I wanted to ask really two things. First of all, this was kind of aimed toward Big John because you are the most odd man out. And then after that,.

The most odd or the most man, which one is it?

Both.

Everybody's thoughts on the conference, your initial thoughts, what you've been thinking about the conference and what you've seen and experienced and heard. But John, the reason I said I'm man out is because you joined the group and you decided to be with a group of folks who are, you're the only charismatic, you're the only, which term do you like best?

Pentecostal.

You're the only Pentecostal, only Church of God. Everybody else is, we might be Presbyterian and Baptists, but we're all more lean and reformed. And so, and we've been talking about writing a reformed document about Baptists and Presbyterians.

And that kind of leaves you out. So what's been your experience with this group?

I mean, as a whole, I think it's been positive. I enjoy a couple of things about it. One is I enjoy the honesty and integrity. I try to, I believe in hot ministry, honest, open and transparent. That's why if I do something and it sets against one another, I've got witnesses in the room, I'll reach out and try to be as integrate, have as much integrity as possible about something.

But obviously, I'm not perfect by no means. And there's things that I don't think much of that some people do think a lot of, right? And we've gone down this road before. There's things that I enjoy, besides the integrity aspect of it.

I believe that all you guys, at least the ones that I've met with most, Keith, I haven't actually talked all that much to in person, actually ever in person. But the rest of y 'all, with the exception of Jay, I've seen in person before.

And I find y 'all to be an honest and deliberate bunch of Christian men who genuinely seek out what facts are best they understand. And I'll be upfront, I disagree on some aspects. I don't find them to be areas where we couldn't work together in some capacities.

There may be some areas we couldn't work together though. And that's fine. I believe the scripture gives cause for that whenever you see that Paul and Silas and Paul and Barnabas parted ways, but they parted ways to do a mission and it was done decently and it was done in order.

And later on, everybody was restored, if the story is correct that I remember reading from.

You're talking about Lamar.

So there'll be some things that we couldn't work together on. That being said, there's not anything I wouldn't do to help y 'all because I believe that we serve the same king. I wouldn't be able to sign a reformed document because I don't believe in Calvinistic teaching.

And I respectfully disagree with you on that. But I would give you all the liberty to do so and even take up for you in other circles because I believe that this is your convictions and I can't see where it breaks fellowship for some.

But you would support that effort as a good endeavor.

Sure, yeah, y 'all to do. And just to go further with it, I wouldn't want you to compromise your convictions or water down something you feel is a necessity so that it would include me because I wouldn't want you to do something.

Truth be told, if it meant I couldn't be a part of the Truth and Love Network, it would really suck, right? But if it was better for y 'all, that's what I'd do.

So let me reverse the question. That was asking you how much support and you said yes, and us working together on the document. So all of us together, in what ways could we support you and be supportive to you?

Well, I don't know that there's a lot that, just being blunt, the Church of God allows for things to happen that in some ways I disagree with. And I wouldn't expect y 'all to support things like the Church of God will allow women to pastor, right?

I don't agree that the Bible supports this. I believe the Bible couldn't be more clear in that. They've chosen to allow this to happen and it's been happening since 1906. It's not a new social movement that they've observed us through.

It's something that they've been doing for a very long time. I think that if your convictions are strong enough to where you think that you couldn't be a part of something that supported that, I think you have to hold to those convictions even if it means you can't walk together in that moment.

So I don't look for support for the denomination. What I would look for is exactly the same grace that you've received from me and nothing more, nothing less. I would ask for prayer and for intentionality behind what you say.

Integrity behind a man means a lot and if we're gonna represent Christ to the world, if we're gonna be that epistle that you all were talking about earlier today, then you have to have integrity and you have to be the same man behind the pulpit as you are behind a podcast camera.

You can't be a coward whenever you're around people. So I don't know if that answers the question or not. I don't expect anything other than what you should be giving any other Christian that's in the world.

Can I just kind of jump in?

Sure.

So to Rob's question there, I have a question too or I have a statement actually. So with the conversation being focused right now, the question being asked about a confessional statement basically concerning the group, I think it's very important that we, that we not schismatize this group or hold a group to the specific requirements of a local church because it's not a local church.

It's not a local congregation and we don't have to, that's a, what's the word, superfluous? That's a superfluous addition to what would be important for this group. It's not beneficial and it's not helpful to do such a thing.

I think a more graceful, and I'll say this because we have adopted this here at Reformata as far as our constitutional requirements for church membership. We hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, but someone doesn't have to just hold to the London Baptist Confession and nothing else in order to be a member like over there on the board, right?

We've got major confessions that we can hold to and each of those confessions, there's Baptist, there's Congregationalist, there's Presbyterian, that agreement can be had on and there's no need to schismatize, to cause unnecessary division.

Like, you know, I don't see John as the odd man out. Like John made fun, and I thought of this when John introduced and I never, he said, I never seen a Presbyterian before. I never met a Presbyterian before.

All I could think of was a big foot walking by. We just get our picture made with Dan standing like this. I got my picture made with a Presbyterian. I mean, so it's those things that are, I understand.

I literally have to get.

Okay, I understand the sentiment. I understand the sentiment in that, again, but we've got to, in a very real sense, disconnect the idea that we try to implement in the local church from what we're doing here because it's not, and it's completely, it's not, I don't know if completely different is the right term, but it's not necessary in an organization.

We are, although I would say this, every Christian represented is under the authority of their local church, representing their local church, but that doesn't make it, it doesn't make us unable to work together.

That's right.

Yeah.

I think my intention was not to be, to cause unnecessary division, but to keep in mind where we're all coming from. So our group, we support one another and we example unity, but we also know that John, talking about his local church, he's going back to his local church.

So how can we be supportive to him as he's going back to his local church? And that's what I was asking when it comes to how can we help Baptists and Presbyterians come together? He's supporting us as we're going back to our local churches.

So we're sensitive to where he's coming from and he's sensitive to where we're coming from. And I think that's kind of what I was asking with the question.

Okay.

I think I understand the question now.

Yeah. Okay.

So one thing that I said it, and it sometimes gets washed away as unimportant. I can't emphasize, I can't emphasize enough how important I believe your prayers are. Oftentimes we say the least I can do is pray for you.

And we treat that as if it's a minor thing. I believe in my heart that when you pray for someone, you levy the ammunition of heaven against a problem. John Wesley says, and God does nothing except in answer to prayer.

There's something that happens when Christians ask God to do something. So I'm not trying to make it sound minor to say just pray for us in our church. Pray for us like you pray for your church, that I might lead them correctly.

Now I'm accountable to an overseer. I have two overseers that I've not hid anything from. I've been warned by some to stay away from this group, just for all integrity sake, for everything to be transparent.

There's many that believe that Calvinists are heretics and are far from God and seek to try to undermine the grace of God or to make light the penalty of sin and things like that. And I've tried to stick up where I can, but I can't change a man's mind.

But what I can do is when I'm with you, I can focus on the things that I know you stand for that I'm in agreement with. So if you ask me to make a podcast about Calvinism, I'll stop and I'll say, listen to the confession of these men.

Their confession is that Christ is sovereign in this, and I agree with them. Christ is sovereign. And that their purposes is not to make light of their sin or to make sin something menial that just everybody is gonna be saved regardless, given enough time or whatever, that this is a conviction that they hold.

And biblically, you can't find a problem with God's sovereignty, right? You may disagree with whether or not someone can lose their salvation. I would disagree with that. I believe that a man can lose his salvation, right?

But I'm not gonna stop Brother Foskey from saying that you can in front of a church because it doesn't bring unity in that moment. And it would serve to drive a wedge between two people over an issue that if I'm right, doesn't matter if you stay in the word.

If you follow the example that he gives, then you don't run the risk of losing your salvation. So his example and his practical application that lines up with his Calvinistic teaching would be applicable even in a non-Calvinistic teaching, provided that you do what he said.

And your intentions and your motivations matter behind that. So that's why I didn't say anything. Sometimes not saying nothing is saying a lot.

That's right.

Well, and I appreciate what you said, Claude, because if we do try to tackle some of these issues, we need boundaries. We need to remember who we are and what we're doing, why we're doing it, and all those questions.

So I appreciate that.

We may also wanna think that it may also be more beneficial for the exercise than actual product, so that it'd benefit us to go through and talk about these things together and put something down. But even if we never release that to anyone other than ourselves, or even if we don't put it out there, the exercise would be beneficial, because it's an exercise in unity among brothers where you disagree, even if that doesn't go anywhere other than us, because it...

Paper's only as good as the people who hold one another accountable to it, though.

Sure.

And that's the thing, the exercise of it may be more important than what you put down.

It's important also to understand that we're, particularly in the days of the interwebs, you're gonna find somebody who's gonna find fault, who's going to, and again, I used the words schismatize earlier, and I'll use it again, be schismatic over issues and things that are beyond their control.

And it, I mean, the principle, it serves the same no matter what denomination. Sam Frost sets a good example for, what's the liberal branch of the Presbyterian Church? PCUSA.

PCUSA.

Sam Frost, godly man, NPCUSA, knows they're liberal, yet he stands firm, he stands firm with them, right? With the Methodists, right? There are the liberal Methodists, I don't know, I don't know if there's...

One's United Methodists and one's something else.

Right, but again, Southern Baptist, same principle there, folks who would say, if you're a member of a Southern Baptist church, you're in sin. That's ignorant when you really get down to it. You can't say that.

You can't, and the same way for the Church of God. If you're in the Church of God, if you're a Pentecostal, if you're charismatic, I said this a year ago, those are bad terms. There are hypers, that would be the New Apostolic Reformation.

When we talk about charismatics and we talk about our Pentecostal brothers and sisters in Christ, we can't lump them in the same lump as the New Apostolic Reformation folks. We can't, so.

And I'll say this, I can't speak for every denomination or every congregation inside the Church of God. I won't speak for it, although I don't speak for me. My former church, where I was associate pastor for about a decade, it helped that church group, that congregation, because when we started the laborers, they said, who's Claude?

And why is John talking to some guy in Tennessee? So they follow Reformation.

Praise the Lord.

Right, they follow your channels and Keith's because they see them on there from time to time. And what it winds up doing is it helps them to grow. You get pushed in an area that challenges what you've believed your whole life, you'll do one of two things, it'll either change your mind or it'll push you to prove your point.

Either way is fine. If you're seeking truth, you're seeking truth in the Word, it's fine.

Iron sharpens iron.

Yeah, so I encourage people to follow y 'all's stuff.

Right?

And if they do, they do. And I have confidence that you're not gonna say something that I have to straighten out.

That's right.

On Monday morning.

Trusting each other, that's right.

And if I didn't have that confidence, I wouldn't post it or tell somebody to watch it. So I don't take lightly, you let me stand behind your full pit.

But that's what you're talking about. That's what we have to example. That's what we have to demonstrate. And with exampling and demonstrating that, we have each of ourselves to be willing to bear those consequences.

Sure. Right?

But when we're looking out, each man's looking out not for his own good, but for the good of his brothers, which by the way, that's the scripture, right? That's not a lifestyle, right? That's what the scriptures teach us to do.

And if we are doing that, we're exampling that, that's all that we can do.

That's right.

That we covered. Not being in an echo chamber does have consequences.

Sometimes. Yes.

So you guys, talk to us about the conference. What were your initial thoughts, thoughts now, things you've learned, experienced, whatever your thoughts are on the conference, except if they're bad.

If they're bad, hit the dislike button.

Twice. Thumbs down twice. I mean, I'll say this, one of the most difficult parts of conferences is the scheduling aspect of it. Some people overschedule. So I'm very thankful that y 'all didn't do that, that there was plenty of time in between speakers to fellowship.

I've been to conferences where it's 10 minutes between speakers and there's hour service. And by the third one, I'm like wanting to beat my head with a stick. So I honestly was grateful. Because I mean, I'm just sheerly exhausted from everything going on in our family and being able to have 30 minutes between speakers, having guys managing their time well.

Because I went to a conference one time, I do preach for an hour and a half, and he was only supposed to take his hour. So we had to move the whole conference back because he just wouldn't stop. That's disrespectful.

That's just straight up disrespectful. I mean, you've got other guys who are waiting on you. Say, I don't have that tomorrow, I'm gonna have a whole time of war. But honestly, that's the kind of thing, you don't think about things like that.

But when you're managing with other men, I mean, man, when Tyler stopped early, and I know I keep harping on that, that's never done. Like, everybody wants their hour. Everybody wants, I prepared for this, I want my, man, when you started, he said what you wanted to say, and you did the same thing.

So I was like, praise the Lord,.

I wanna give him a big hug. Not because I want him to stop, but because I was like, that's humble, it's good, it's positive. And so, I've enjoyed this. My, you know, like I said, barring my family's issues, they would have enjoyed it better too.

Plus, when the baby came in, he was screaming, I was like, take him out, take him out, take him out.

That made me feel at home. I love hearing babies in the church.

Don't bother me being in the church.

That's normal.

I love it. So, I really have enjoyed it. I think the scheduling, the way we did it, I think it was good. That's my positive on this. And all the messages were wonderful as well. But as far as just the overall feel, everybody was very welcoming, and of course, Claude's the best of us.

I will say that as the young megachurch product, I did not have the experience of the Pew Jumpin' revivals of later years. And so this was probably my introduction into that world. And it was beautiful.

I sent several texts today saying, there is a sweet spirit at Reformation Church this weekend. It has been refreshing. It has been edifying. It has been amazing to be in the house of the Lord.

Amen.

That's been good. Is this the first conference you've been to where there's been Presbyterian, Baptist, and Pentecostals in the same room? Because I don't go to conferences, so this is not my first one.

Last year was my first one.

Well, the one in Tullahoma, which I've done two years in a row now, has a pretty good mix of guys. All of us are Calvinists, but in general, there's still guys who are continuationist Calvinists, like I guess Brother John from yesterday.

So there's a good group there. But I mean, this is a very diverse group. I was surprised when you said you were Church of God. Not in a bad way. Like I said, my mom was sort of out of that same group.

So I grew up going back and forth. So, and you look like my brother, you don't know that, but you look like my little brother.

A little bit.

Am I right?

Well, I mean, your face.

Little John. Yeah.

But no, I mean, I thought it was, like I said, I think that's good. I think it's a unique topic that we chose this year in that certainly there was distinctions that could be held and maybe some tensions that could be, that we could work through.

But nothing bad. Nothing negative at all. Just, you know, I know there was something on the, you mentioned Women Pastors earlier, so that's the only reason I'm bringing it up. I remember, I can't keep up with the, when you guys get going on the Facebook chat, I'm just like, I catch up.

Because it'll just start. But I saw something recently about somebody with Female Pastors. Was that Brother John? Was that your situation? So I didn't know who it was or what happened. Can you tell me more about it?

Is that something I don't want to talk about right now? I know we're recording this.

I'm open book.

Okay.

So if it's okay for me to answer.

Yeah.

So the first incident that happened was about a month ago. There was a, my band was playing for a youth service and the pastor of that church is Zach. Oh gosh, I would forget his last name anyway. And there's a lady that's the youth pastor there.

Her name is Tabitha.

And they call her youth pastor, not youth leader. She was married. And there's a gentleman who has a valid complaint. I'm not in any way trying to dismiss.

Somebody in our group?

Yes sir.

Okay.

Formally, it caused a little bit of a division.

And.

I'm sorry to bring it up. I didn't know it was bad.

Transparent and honest.

I know, but I don't want to upset you either. No, there's nothing. Like I said, I saw it, but I didn't know what all was happening.

So in any case, I shared the event on Facebook. That's it, Facebook. And then there was some conversation that was had among some in this room to me about it. And I said, well, there's little I can do about a church that's not, they're not even inside our denomination.

They asked us to come play a youth service. There was a young man who's, I think he's 19, maybe, who spoke that night. We played music. That's her title at that church. But this, I didn't tell y 'all.

I actually spoke to that pastor and to that lady, Pastor Zach and Sister Tabitha. And I told them. I said, there's liable to be a letter, because you said something about making a statement. I said, come out.

I said, I don't want you to be blindsided that I've come and helped with worship at this event. And then you see me tagged in something tomorrow that makes you look like I'm against you. I don't really care whether she leads the youth or not.

I don't see that as pastoring. I don't really see that as being termed to call a youth pastor. I think sometimes we have watered the title down, and now everybody can be a pastor. You can be an administrative pastor.

You can be a youth and discipleship pastor and accountable to no one except the senior pastor of the church, right? And I don't know what their system or form of government is at their church, but both of them agreed that they didn't allow or would allow for a woman to be the pastor of a church or hold authority over a man.

So we worked with them anyway. It was too late to stop it in the first place. I wouldn't have done them that way since we were gonna be at the music that night. But I think I've been pretty upfront and clear about everything the whole way.

Is there something I left out, Jay?

No, I mean, I guess I'm gonna oust myself out there, but I'm not simply complimentary. I hold to biblical patriarchy. And so I can be kind of like the extremist of this group, I guess, because with the exception of like maybe infant baptism, I pretty much take, well, I'm not saying you're an extremist,.

Just so you know.

But I'm

You call yourself an extremist.

Calvin and I, we're all human.

But the things that people typically would say, well, biblical patriarchy, that sounds extremist, Christian nationalism, post-millennialism, theonomy, all that stuff, right? And I hold to a lot of those things with nuance, right?

We've been talking about nuance lately on social media. But John and I had a conversation about that and I let him know where I stood and he knows, and I understood where he was coming from. And it's kind of like what we were talking about earlier, right, when one of the people asked, how do we keep unity as different denominations, right?

And so do we agree on the essentials and do we respectfully disagree on the secondary issues, right, recognizing that the secondary issues do matter. We don't pretend like they don't matter. They do matter.

But is female pastors something that's going to bar people from heaven?

I don't know.

I don't think that, so let me explain what I mean by that. So I don't think that it's an automatic yes, but I do think if you're willing to accept that, what else are you not accepting that might be essential?

Because I do believe that that's very clear in scripture. And so there might be exceptions to that, just like, I don't remember who it was that I was talking to. I think it was you, Dan, when we were talking about Roman Catholics, where we said there might be some Roman Catholics that make it to heaven in spite of being in the Roman church.

You know, I would be okay with that, but it's in spite of what they're teaching, not because of it.

That's correct.

I think it's the same thing with a church that has women pastors, right? I think certainly there could be believers there. Absolutely, 100%. I think it makes it more difficult because it undermines the scriptures.

And I would agree that women should be pastors for the sake of clarity and transparency.

Yeah, I know you do.

I know you do.

And the second event would have been that, this is on me. I was a friend of mine who has a church and we helped establish the church a couple of years ago. And he has a, actually it's a friend of mine's wife is speaking, and I didn't actually look at the thread.

I just seen they shared something. I hit post and kept on getting up with the scroll. You know what I mean?

That's it.

It's easy to do that.

Whatever.

And there was some flack given to me about that. She's not a pastor. She doesn't hold a title or anything like that. Should she be preaching? No, probably not. The truth be told, I don't know that it's a woman's conference.

I don't think it's a woman's conference that she's speaking at. So I'm gonna assume there's gonna be men in the room with her. So I don't think that she should. Regardless, my denomination will allow for that.

So this church falls within the practices of their denomination. They're not doing anything to break one of the rules of the denomination, and the rules that they have are because of Mary Magdalene being the first person to testify of the risen savior and things like that.

And that's where they get that. I think that it's easier to just say I don't suffer any women to hold authority over men and being pretty plain reading of the text. But one of the things that I'm allowed as the pastor of my church is to establish the deacons and appoint them.

I can appoint my council and my elders.

Really?

Yeah, I don't have.

You have the right to do that?

Yes, sir.

Does the congregation have to vote? I'm only curious for the ecclesiological.

They can vote on it. And it's more or less up or down, yes or no. But in terms of who's nominated, that's up to me.

Okay, makes sense, makes sense.

Like I was advised to take on, there's two couples that used to be the former pastor's council. Husband and wife worked together on the panel. Some people say that's not a big deal. And I said, well, I'm not having a woman on the pastor's council.

And that's just a hard no for me. And he's like, okay, what's your choice? And it is. And if at such time it were not to become my choice, I wouldn't have my license. And I believe strongly in that. At the same time, I've got a bad habit of helping people that ask me for it.

So if you ask me to come help you with something at your church, and I disagree with part of it, but what I hear is you exalting Christ and edifying the church as best you can, then I'm gonna help you.

And I might keep my mouth shut the whole time I'm there because I disagree with the way you're doing it. But unless what I'm saying is heretical, the biggest problem with the female pastor thing to me is that it's just a sheer thumb at the nose of authority of scripture.

Scripture's authoritative.

And by just simply walking in and rebelling to that, I don't see that.

So within our group, I don't think the question was ever, should there be women pastors or preachers? And it's never been the issue how slippery are slippery slopes. Those two things have never been a question.

The question, I think, was does association.

Cause for promotion?

Let me say something. We talked earlier about keeping the essentials, the essentials. This guy's my brother, you know what I mean? Because he's got the essentials clear. Now, he's gonna go worship on Sunday, technically, over there, I'm gonna worship over there, and that's okay.

And then we can do things like these where we say, okay, this is what we can do as Christians, brothers and sisters. I think we have an overreaction to people who are very different from us in our secondary doctrines.

An overreaction, meaning, well, they may or may not be Christian, I don't care, I'm not gonna associate with them. I think it matters. I think we have to not overreact to those very important, but secondary doctrines, right?

This is my brother. And it's not up to me, right? We've been talking about the Holy Spirit. He made him my brother, whether I like it or not. So I gotta treat him like my brother.

And the issue is, and I do like you.

I don't want to love you, but I do.

I like you, can't do nothing about it. And the issue, again, is not whether secondary issues are important, because in here, it's not that we disagree with Big John. We all agree that I think the issue was, does association mean promotion?

Yeah, that's a good question.

And it may, in some cases, mean that. It may, in some cases, mean that. It may, in some cases, not mean that. And in this case, I was promoting a youth event, right? And in this case, it hit the thing.

I did promote a...

But you didn't promote it in the group. You promoted it on your Facebook, right?

Yeah, I just hit the share button.

Yeah, you didn't send it to us.

I did put it on Treat Them Loves page.

That's what I'm saying. I think, I mean, we gotta have some liberty with some personal stuff. I mean, we have to have some liberty in that. I mean, if that's all it was.

But that's what it was, in terms of, at least unless there's something I don't know about. That's what I know about. Is there anything else that was said.

That I didn't know about?

I mean, it's one thing if you were promoting, transsexual Nazi Eskimos or something. I mean, we might have a conversation about that.

They prefer it anyway. They prefer it anyway.

But I mean, yeah. I'm joking.

Now, I did take the details of this scenario after the fact, when I went to present to the elders about coming to this conference a couple weeks ago. Just because we're a non-denominational church and I thought that that would be good to demonstrate how we are trying to figure out how to get along just as my church is figuring out how to get along with differences.

And this is something that my pastor has some questions about with the line with association too. I mean, he was in Kenya for a month. You got a lot of female pastors in Africa right now.

Sure, sure.