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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

Mom and Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children Biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews or share on social.

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If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources. Go to be courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the podcast.

Hey guys. So today we’re talking about something personal, but we’re also going to give practical steps on what the Bible really says we should be looking for in a church as we’re on that path.

Yeah. So today we’re, we’re sharing something personal that we just recently walked through. As many of you guys know, we have been huge home church advocates in the sense we’ve shared just our personal journey with that, which we might share a little bit in a second on that. But we just decided to not continue doing home church. This was something that we prayerfully considered. We took a sabbatical for about three weeks and had been praying about and and really feel like the Lord was leading us to this decision. And we’re going to share with you what happened, why we’re going to share with you what to look for in a church, because we’re in that position right now.

Absolutely. So thanks for being part of the courageous ministry You can find all resources at Be courageous ministry.org. The new workshop people are raving about. It’s short, powerful really looks into the eight foundations of fruitfulness and parenting that are important in today’s changed world. So it’s the biblical parenting in a changed world workshop comes with a 13 page download. It’s completely free. All of it. We give you a little bird’s eye view at the end into the Parenting Mentor program, but the workshop stands alone as being really, really valuable, and that’s the feedback we’re getting. So we’re praising the Lord for that. We’re so happy to give another, more relevant new workshop as we used to have a workshop. And so you can go get that there and everything else.

We also want to invite you guys to hop on over to YouTube and to find our new channel there. Right? Where can they find that?

Be courageous ministry. Just search for it and boom, Subscribe. We need 1000 subscribers fast as possible, unlocks tools, ability to advertise, things like that, which is actually essential right now for the ministry. We need to expand the audience and so forth and expand the finances and support of the ministry too. So if you’re supporting the ministry, we so thank you. We couldn’t do it without you.

And if you are watching today, I just have to say I’m sorry for not looking like, you know, I’m ready to be on television or anything like that. I was out farming this morning with the boys. We were harvesting onions. We got about £65 of red onions this morning, which was really great. We’re thankful, but I’m all dirty and it smells like onions here in the studio, so I look like I’m teary eyed or I start like, Whew, You know, it’s because it smells like onions.

Hey, church is vital, right? We believe church is so important, and it’s really, really the bride of Christ. Right? It’s important to God, incredibly important. And so we need to make sure we’re part of a church. We make sure we’re going to church. And there is no perfect church, that is for sure, because people are part of it. And so it might be just one of the most imperfect places that exists because there’s so many people that are there. That’s right.

It’s kind of like when we talk about marriage, you take a sinner and you put them in a in a marriage with another sinner, there’s more sin potentially, Right? And so you just have to walk in the same kind of light expectation wise as you would in marriage and family because you are looking for a church family.

So we’ll talk about why we just had our last service of home church this yesterday on Sunday. But first, let’s talk about this a little bit. Hebrews 1025. It says not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So we’re not to neglect meeting together and just streaming something on technology is not meeting together that’s missing a massive part of church. Church is. Yes, teaching is important. It’s a key part, very important part. But there’s other important parts, too. So we’re going to get into the practicals and what to look for from looking at what the Bible says, which is important. So maybe we should dive into what happened.

Yeah. So you I think it’s important for those who maybe got looked at the title and they went, Oh, whoa, they stopped doing home church and what to look for in a church. I’m looking for a church. Maybe they’re just listening for the first time. Welcome. If that is you, um, a little bit of Isaac and I are. History, I thought would be good for us to share. So we’ve been married 24 years, and the first 16 ish years of our marriage, we were going to what people would call normal church or traditional church in the sense of like it was in a building. You know, some church plants were even like meeting in schools. And we were part of those for 3 or 4 years at a time.

And mostly non-denominational Bible believing great churches. In fact, I would say every church that we were a part of, we look back fondly. Oh yeah. And we’re appreciative of the pastors and just the work they put in. And none of them were perfect because that doesn’t exist. But they were good. Yeah. And you know, we were involved at different aspects and sometimes not depending on the season we were in, but it was just really sweet to think back and to look at that. And so we love it.

That’s right. And so the last almost eight years. Right. We have been both church shopping as well as being a part of home church. And so we’ve we’ve been a part of three different home churches. So we’ve definitely experienced, you know, how every one is very different. And we’ve we you guys, I’m really thankful for all that we’ve learned and for the journey that God has had us on for sure. But for us, one of the things that we experienced with the the first two home churches was a massive close proximity, right? Isaac And so when we moved here to Idaho, one, we were just moved. We didn’t know anybody except maybe two families that we were getting to know. And we needed community for our kids we homeschool. So that was important to find like minded people to do life with. And we really had a desire because of the season of life we were in with unpacking, meeting people as well as me finding out I was just pregnant with.

Zander remodeling.

Our house. Yeah, remodeling, renovating this studio. We were like, Nope. Planting a home church is not the right thing to do right now. And we really wanted to see like, what is a heartbeat in Idaho? What is God doing in Idaho? Because we’ve always had a love for the Bride of Christ, for God’s church.

So we had a great year being part of visiting different churches and really ended up settling down in one for a good while. And it was such a great experience. But then, you know, we were traveling like 45 minutes for most of them. One way to get there with a large family and that kind of thing. And, you know, after a while we’re like, you know, we need to be in our local community and we live in the mountains kind of away from town, which we love. It’s exactly where God wants us and where we’re supposed to be. And we’re so thankful. But so we decided and prompted by another family, we decided to plant a church. And, you know, people started coming and it was fruitful and it ended fruitful. Yes. And so what a cool thing, too, to have the last two years and look back and to see the spiritual maturity and transformation in people, to see the miracles, to see healing from prayers during the church meeting, um, to to see the worship in so many people with gifts, to play the piano, guitar to sing and to be, you know, to get five different songs in one service from five different people.

I mean, yeah, I mean, there were even weeks where there was 8 or 9 from 8 or 9 different people. The worship was really wonderful.

It’s so great. And we built these worship binders together and just a really sweet time. And you know, we would do communion every single week and then we’d have a potluck afterwards and people would we’d play games if, if it was bad weather, we, you know, we would be inside doing stuff, go outside in nice weather, which is usually an Idaho Southern Idaho.

Yeah, yeah. So we’ve been really we’ve loved this season that we were in and that’s what made it such a hard decision. I think, you know, ultimately it’s not like we there was there wasn’t anything praise God, there wasn’t anything there wasn’t any reason why we needed to quit or there was no splitting of the church. There was no, um, there’s nothing bad. And I just praise God for that because we it was really, truly just a prompting of like, is this the best investment for everyone? Because people were driving from such far places.

The closest family was 30 minutes away and up to an hour and a half distance.

And there were even some families that were coming from like Baker City and like farther. Yeah, and farther away that we’re trying to drive out here for a couple of weeks because they just wanted to do home church so bad, right? Yeah. And it was like really sweet. But they definitely needed something that was closer to their family, which we totally understood. And then we started like even thinking more about that because it is hard to have that doing life together experience of building biblical community when you live so far away, like even just the thought of like you may be prompted to take somebody dinner if their family’s sick or to like go grocery shopping for them or all the things. But if you’re going to be doing three hours of driving alone and then plus the cooking and all the other things, that’s like a whole a whole day or a whole half of a day. And for a family, that’s kind of a big deal. And so and it just was like that aspect of it for me, I feel like was really sad that I didn’t get to participate as much as I would have. My desire was to participate.

And we’ve experienced close proximity, home church and it’s amazing because you can hop, skip and jump and help each other, meet for coffee, do all these things during the week. Yes, guys, talking about business at the coffee shop and helping each other and just so many awesome things that can happen when you’re physically close to each other. And as we’re going into these deeper into end times, we’re just like, you know, people need to be local. They need to to have good connections and be running the race together in a close proximity. And I just think that that is so important. And so we really.

Yeah, I mean, we were even feeling it transparently, you know, as the the wife of the church planter, we hosted church primarily every week. I mean, we were probably 98% of the 22 months that we did home church. And so I can probably count on one hand how many weeks we were not at our home. And so that like for our family, we always saw it as like a way to bless the church. And it was like the kids and I would all band together and we’d work hard. Dad would work hard outside getting the property ready if it was going to be an outside kind of event day. And and then he’d be preparing a sermon every single week. And, and in the past, when we lived closer and the churches were a little bit smaller to where we were rotating homes like every two months. Whereas here we grew so fast, large, so fast, that really our home was the only home that was conducive to that size group. And so it kind of meant that we were the ones that had to host. And I loved hosting, but what I found is that doing it week in, week out and then two years of that, we always had to be here to have our doors open. And if we were sick, that was problematic. And like we couldn’t go on vacation. There was those kinds of things. But then there’s also the element of how tired I was to where I wasn’t practicing hospitality as much as I would have liked to during the week with neighbors and different people that were closer for us to be building those close, deeper relationships. And that was something that Isaac and I talked about a lot, was like, Hey, why don’t we have them over? And I literally would just be exhausted.

And the goal was to have multiple men that could preach and that kind of thing. That was in my heart’s desire. But God did not create that. Yeah, it didn’t bring people with the Giftings to want to do that. And so that became. So now we’re hosting and I’m preaching every week.

And the kids were helping lead worship.

And well, it’s beautiful and serving. It’s just really became geography to too much distance and then our bandwidth. Yeah. And the, the ministry, this ministry, you know, needing more even more of our attention, right. To really expand and grow and to make sure it can actually provide for our family, which is which is a current issue. Yeah. And so your support means so much. So we’re going to just we’re just focusing in honing in. And we had a beautiful last Sunday church and I really talked about what to look for in a church. So I wanted to give you a few of those things. Um, and we celebrated and we reflected and we took a big picture together. Big picture, lots of people, right? It was awesome. And, and we hung out for so long.

It was so good. I mean, it’s special to be a part of people’s special moments, right? And like, when I look over the last two years to even think about the people who made commitments to the Lord and got baptized and people who came back to the Lord and people who confessed and were transformed by the Holy Spirit and accountability, walking in community because we were having those weekly meetings, those men’s meetings and women’s meetings as well, rotating every other week. So it wasn’t just Sundays, so there was a bit bigger of a commitment Then, of course, like if people needed to meet, if there was anything that they needed, we would make the time for that. And that’s all great. But like when you’re in the midst of, you know, homeschooling and homesteading and have a ministry slash business that you’re trying to manage, it was just for us personally, like Isaac said, our bandwidth wasn’t quite there.

So hey, in doing Home church, one of the scriptures is just one. There’s many that we based off of. How do you do home church? How should church look big or small? And this is one of them, Acts 242 through 45. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. So there’s four things here. There’s one of them and the fellowship. There’s a second to the breaking of bread, the third one and the prayers, the fourth one in awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. Isn’t that beautiful? They were all together and they had all things in common. I think people are yearning.

For that to strive for. Like, you know, there are certain aspects of scripture that are descriptive and then there’s certain aspects that are prescriptive. And then there’s also like the aspects of Scripture that are, well, they’re describing what happened, right? And that would be one of these scriptures. But these are good, wholesome things that God wants us to desire. It’s kind of like when when you read this scripture, even though it was definitely like during that time of Pentecost and there was something that was special that was happening, right? There were many people getting baptized and coming to Christ. And that’s a beautiful thing. That is something that we should all be desiring to be walking in, right?

Isaac Yeah, absolutely. And another scripture is first Corinthians 14. 26 Says what then, brothers? When you come together, each one as a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation that all things be done for building up. If any speaks in a tongue, let there be only 1 or 2 or most three in each in turn, and let someone interpret and so forth. And it goes on. But this is so. So worship is so important to. So what do we have here? We have teaching, We have fellowship, we have breaking of bread, we have prayer and we have worship. What a great description of a Sunday service of of a church and what church is about. And to really do that. And you know what? All of that was so healthy in our church. It was really cool. It really.

Was. And I think that there was a lot of growth and a lot of question asking and teachable hearts. There was a lot of that and it was just really beautiful. It makes me sad that we’re not going to be continuing on in some ways, but I know that those friendships are just going to continue because as we talked about and just kind of reminisce together and, you know, at lunch time and we were all having shared meals like, hey, we are all still like the body of Christ. We’re all family. And, you know, the women were like, can we please keep slack open still? Because that’s how we would communicate. I’m like, I don’t care. Sure. You know? Yeah. And it’s just like it’s just this it was sweet the friendships that were built. But we are far away from each other. And I know that for myself, since I experienced feeling like I didn’t have the bandwidth to be reaching out to people that were close in proximity to me and be hosting people, I didn’t want other people to be feeling that same. Like even though they weren’t hosting, they were gone all day on Sunday to where they’re tired and not feeling like they can reach out to their neighbors and things too, because that’s super important. And so like for us, we want to be walking and modeling for our kids what biblical fellowship looks like. And that’s on our shoulders, right? Like Isaac, I think that and for us, I know that many of you guys have emailed us, asked questions about whether it was about home church or biblical community. That’s something we’ve talked a lot about in the podcast, but really it’s on your shoulders. Like I just want to pass that baton and go like you get to build relationships. And when we each own that and we recognize that building relationships takes effort. Like you don’t have a friendship with someone. If you don’t spend time with them, then we understand the responsibility that we all actually mutually have.

So I thought we would go through just each of these briefly and what to look for in a church based on these Scripture. The Scripture Acts 242 through 45. You can look at it later when you’re not driving or whatever. But first of all, it talks about the apostles teaching. So they were very careful to make sure that what was being taught was accurate to Scripture. It was accurate to literally their walk with Jesus. It was so important and every single meaning was that way. And so what I would encourage you is to make sure you go to a church where they are preaching the word and they don’t shy away from any part of the Bible. They don’t shy away from any hot button issue in society, whether it’s abortion, gender, marriage, sex, any of that stuff. Make sure it is a biblical church. It’s not skipping over the scriptures and really preaching the word. That is the most important thing. That is more important than if you like the music. Okay, this is really, really important. So teaching, that’s the first one listed and it’s an important thing. And you know, I think that I think topical some people like topical sermons and if that’s how you like it, that’s great. I prefer, you know, reading through a chunk of scripture and then making it relevant and talking about it and not ever bending what I’m talking about to the people, but bending what I’m talking about to the Word of God. And I think that’s more likely to happen in that case. But I think there are good topical preachers out there that can do do that as well. So teaching is so important, isn’t it? And and balance too, not just honing in on one slant and always using that slant as they look at the Bible. But a full biblical perspective.

Right. And not I mean, I always, I think to myself, when it comes to the teaching of the word, the apostle’s teaching, there were apostles then and this was their teaching. And so a sermon message should be largely the word of God. It doesn’t need to be somebody’s opinion. It needs to be largely the Word of God. Now, sometimes you’re going to be reading a passage of scripture and it’s going to point you to another passage of Scripture or the Holy Spirit’s going to help you recall a different passage of Scripture that’s relevant to that. That helps you to understand even more. I feel like even in our podcasts, though, they’re not sermons, we try to bring in a lot of scriptures that have molded our views and convictions and our wise about things, and I hope that’s encouraging to you guys. But for us, this specific scripture, the teaching has been really important. That was one of the things when we were visiting other churches too, we visited quite a few churches and it was pretty rare when there was something we disagreed with. Most of them we always agreed, but we have gone to churches and we’ve even. Been a part of home church fellowships before where we’ve walked away from a Sunday and dads had to correct theology or correct something that was said with the kids. It was what I mean and I think that that is a responsibility that every head of household needs to take up on their shoulders.

And you don’t have to be an expert in the Bible to do that. You just need to be looking at the scriptures they’re using. Have your Bible open and thinking about, is that correct? And maybe doing some research afterwards and making sure where you’re going. They are accurate to what the word of God says and the next thing is fellowship. So apostle’s teaching and the fellowship and if you study that word, if you look it up, that word actually means something that is not in the English language, in the word is koinonia. And that is a deep, intimate relationship with one another. That is not just normal friendship, that is like.

It’s not acquaintance.

It’s not acquaintance, and it’s a confidence in relationship and a trust in relationship and intimate relationship and really walking together. It’s deeper than any word in the English language for friendship.

That’s interesting because I think of even just like if you were to go and visit a church, we’ve done this many times or we’ve been a part of bigger churches and sometimes it’s like you walk in and people are like, Oh, hi, how are you? And you don’t know if they actually mean, How are you? Have you ever had that experience? Like you even get that at the grocery store, right? And it’s like, Oh, well, I’m good. Like, do you actually really care? Like, you know, but when you know someone and they’re like, Hey, how’s it going? Like, you know, that they want to talk about what happened in your life that day or that week. And so I think that the goal is to have the deeper friendships.

Yes, right. The deeper ones where you’re comfortable sharing the hardships, the things you need, help with your prayer requests comfortably. And, you know, Home Church was so beautiful because people would share their deepest. There was even confessions sometimes, which I never experienced in other home churches, actually, but like really big confessions and praying over each other and just, wow, we really experienced some of that. And it’s it’s really special. So you’re looking for a church where you can find that, and that might take a while to discover, like you might have to see what the fruit is and you really have to try and do hospitality and these kinds of things to really try and cultivate that. And not everybody’s used to that, right? So you might have to be the change agent trying to do that and risking being a fool. Right? There’s a saying called risk being a fool because that’s how you discover deeper friendships, right? So you’re putting yourself out there.

But I think, too, like when you’re talking about confession and putting yourself out there, sometimes one of the biggest factors for people as to why they don’t do that is because they haven’t been doing life enough with someone to actually build a trust where they know if I share this thing or I confess this thing that I’m struggling with, that person is a trustworthy person that I know isn’t going to go gossip one and two is going to care enough to help me or hold me accountable or come back and talk to me about it again. And that’s that is something that’s why Koinonia is so important. Is that that you’re actually investing in the relationships and building the trust that’s necessary to be able to actually go deeper.

Yeah, Koinonia, So, so good. And the next one, so fellowship and to the breaking of bread. Breaking of bread. Now that is doing research that is communion and the Lord. And if we read about communion, how often are we to do communion? What did Jesus say about communion? Well, as often as you meet together. Meet together. Right. Break. Break. Bread together. Right. So it’s so important, I think that churches are doing communion, that it’s a consistent thing that’s happening. I personally prefer it happening every time. And we meet as a church.

And I think there’s something beautiful about that, that God actually placed that ceremony, if you will, in our lives on a regular basis, not just there are many reasons why he did it right, because I think all humans need to be reminded of the sacrifice that he made for us and that we are cleansed and we’re forgiven. But there’s also scripture that really encourages us to make sure that there’s no conflict in relationships with one another if we’re taking communion together. And so there’s this like ceremony, right, called communion, this this event that’s supposed to happen as often as we meet, that also is an accountability thing for like, hey, have short lists with one another, talk things out, deal with your conflict. Don’t let them go on for years and years. And like when you’re walking together, the depth of friendship, that’s important. Otherwise trust can be broken and not rebuilt because of bitter roots. And there’s just all kinds of things that can come from that.

And think about the most powerful moments of Jesus’s ministry when before he ascended into heaven, it was around food. A lot of times the Last Supper, you know, the feeding of the 5000, and you can go through and you can think about how often were they breaking bread together. In that hospitality example is so powerful and so important for real fellowship. So I also think and it also if you skip down a couple verses and it says and day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. So they were together, breaking bread in their homes, also feasting together, doing communion and eating together. And it was this beautiful thing that created Koinonia and in facilitated that of spending time together. And so looking for a church where and I know a lot of churches will try and do that through small groups and that can be great and that can be challenging sometimes depending on the church. So you can test that out. And but you know what? Some things can be good, but you can be something that makes it even better. Like you can come in with these paradigms, these biblical views and and exert them and help influence good things. And so these are this is really good and, and so forth. So that that scripture is really, really important. And then it says up here, breaking of bread and the prayers.

Which, you know, prayers, plural. Yeah. Not just singular meaning like one prayer at the opening or at the closing of a church service and maybe not even just one person praying like prayers. Could the plurality of the word prayers could also. It could mean I’m not saying that it does necessarily, but it could mean that there are multiple people praying. And when you look at the other scripture that you shared about how everyone brings a hymn or a psalm or a spiritual song, like all those things, it’s like obvious that God wants his whole church to be participating, right? And so obviously, like thinking about a big church, right? Like there are times when someone will pray and they want everybody to pray with them. And so there are many prayers happening. We’re all praying in agreement, and that’s really important and powerful. But there’s also the reason why I think that God wants the fellowship to happen is because then there’s the personal prayers of people where we’re sharing what our prayer requests are. And that needs to happen in relationship because you know what I mean? Like to really be praying for each other and and that is a little bit harder in a bigger church, I will say. As far as like if you’re going and you need prayer and you don’t know anybody, that’s going to be problematic.

So that’s why midweek it’s got to not just be about Sunday. And every pastor agrees with this, a big church. They absolutely do. And they try hard to direct people to community and hospitality, to small groups, to events and things like that. And it is so important that you get involved. You know, I want to talk about cantaloupe for a second.

Okay.

Okay. So so farming, you know, you know, we’ve been farming and this has to do with what we’re talking about. And we for the first time and I’m so impressed with what Angie did. I mean, she cultivated the soil. I know Drew helped and the kids helped. And Drew.

Mainly is in charge of the.

Compost. Yeah, the compost, the special soil amendments and the amendments and planted the seeds. And we’re going to do cantaloupe. And I’m thinking we’re going to grow Candle. I’ve never even seen Cantaloupe growing before that can happen in Idaho. Wow, that’s amazing.

And we’ve gotten over £80 of cantaloupe so.

Far this summer. So.

So then it starts growing and she has it on this walk through trellis thing, and I’m walking under cantaloupe. I’m like, Where do I live? This is Paradise. And and and it starts forming and it starts looking like, what? It’s in the stores. And I’m like, I’m kind of getting pretty excited about tasting this, you know, wonder how it’s going to taste. And then finally, the first cantaloupe becomes ripe and here comes Angie into the house with the first cantaloupe full of joy. So excited. And she cuts it open.

It was really tiny.

She cuts it open and it’s the perfect color. It’s not that kind of light, light shade that sometimes in the stores it’s rich and it’s deep. It’s the most beautiful orange you can imagine. And she cuts it all up and we taste it and we’re like, It’s heavenly. This is so good, you guys. Greatest cantaloupe I’ve ever had.

But of course it is because it’s ripening on the vine. You know, when you get them at the store, they have been picked and then they’re shipped and they’re ripening as they’re being shipped. And so, so good. Obviously it’s different. But that is true that the home grown with all the effort and investment is worth the product at the end, that’s for sure.

It was so worth it. And and so seeing that and then we, you know, how valuable is that cantaloupe to us? Well, there’s a couple reasons It’s valuable. And it’s not just because it tastes good. We could get an organic cantaloupe from some farmers market somewhere and we would not value it in the same way as the scandal. Why? Why do we value this cantaloupe? We value it because of the hard work, because it grew on our property, because of the intentionality, because of the commitment to the cantaloupe. And so when we ate it, it’s not only did it taste good, but. We were intimately involved in its fruit. So now I want to take you for a second what we just talked about in the Bible, the Scripture and what we experience in home church is like that cantaloupe. Why? Because these people, they’re talking about it here in the Bible, were committed and intentional and bringing sin songs and praying. And we’re doing something together. They were a participant. They were intentionally part of the church. There was an.

Investment.

There was an investment. And that’s the same for the group we just had our last meeting with yesterday. It was and nobody wanted to leave. I think people stayed till 5:00 and it was beautiful because there was investment in each other’s lives and in the church and the church wasn’t just show up and receive. We all participated. And I think that is so beautiful. And so now, you know, big church, we have a choice to make. See, in small church, you don’t have a choice. It’s not like you can go to small home church and go, I’m just not feeling great. I’m just not going to talk to anybody today. I’m going to go listen to the message and I’m going to leave and I’m not going to talk to anybody. You don’t have that choice in home church, but you go to a big church. Do we have that choice? Everybody has that choice. And most people choose in life the path of least resistance. And they listen to their feelings too much and they let it sway their actions. And instead of doing what’s best, they do what’s average.

And they just I think, too, there’s this element of like checking a box. If I went to church where there’s a religious attitude towards church, and if that’s ever been something that you’ve struggled with when you’re in a home church and you’re rubbing up against people who are all not just going showing up and leaving, but they’re participating, that is contagious. Like eventually it rubs off on you because you are like, Oh, everybody’s participating, I want to be the weakest link. And so it’s kind of you use this word in the sermon yesterday that stuck with me. It was thrust upon you. Right? And I love that because it’s true. Like when you’re sitting in a small group, there’s an element of accountability that is thrust upon you in the sense that if you don’t show up and you don’t tell it, like there’s there’s an element of like you feel the need to tell somebody that you’re not going to be there, so they’re not waiting to start for you. Right? And so you text someone and go, Hey, we’re sick. We’re not going to be making it today. That does not necessarily happen when you’re going to a bigger church, because the truth is, is most places you can walk in, walk out and no one notices because there’s 3 or 4 services.

So this isn’t anything negative about traditional church. This is something negative about a good portion of people that attend traditional church because we have the choice to choose our path of least resistance or not. And so let’s take the cantaloupe. So big church is much like people treat it like they’re buying a cantaloupe in the store as a side dish for their hamburgers. They’re going to barbecue. And so I need cantaloupe. I buy cantaloupe. I cut it up. It’s a side dish. No one thinks much about it, even if it’s good. And then pretty soon, what do we remember? A little bit later. You didn’t even remember the cantaloupe. You remember the burger? Maybe you don’t even think about it.

But instead, when you have the homegrown cantaloupe, you only have a little bit at first and everybody loves it so much, they’re all like, Hey, is there any more of that cantaloupe? I want more.

So that’s an another reason is because you’re investing in big church. If there’s no investment, you value it less. So you might go and you might just have cantaloupe on Sundays and call it good, and you could be having cantaloupe all week. You could be involved, you could be intentional. And the more you invest in your church, the more valuable it becomes, the more tasty it becomes and the more fruit full it is, the more fruitful that church is. Your pastor will be so thankful for your family and the more fruitful your family is, too. Because there’s you’re you’re contributing to something spiritual that’s becoming better and more fruitful for others. And your family is part of that. And you’re experiencing more fruit, too, because you’re activating spiritual muscles of being involved. And so we don’t want to be the people that just buy the cantaloupe. We want to be the people that fully invest and are part of something bigger than themselves called the Bride of Christ.

Yeah, Yeah. And I think there are seasons, too. Like I look at the last two years and there was nothing about it that was a waste. It was all good in every aspect because of the fruit, because of the growth that came from it. Just thinking about like, you know, one of the gentlemen said this during church yesterday to Isaac, you had a vision of, wow, we have people coming from so far. Maybe someone here is supposed to be planting a home church. Or if I could speak.

To that for a second. Yeah. I mean, I thought it would be local people, but once people are coming from all over, only I’m like, Well, maybe God wants to plant more home churches. Churches all over the place. Maybe there’s something. Maybe there’s strength building for a time that that’s that then is going to go out and do that.

Right? But now instead, it’s like we’ve been walking and really there’s been a discipleship of as much as possible of what biblical community can look like and knowing one another and and praying for one another and holding each other accountable and all of those kinds of beautiful things that definitely it’s easier to hide in a bigger church. And so now a lot of good biblical people have experienced that, and now we’re being scattered right and going out into all the area and potentially going to be a part of different churches. And we get to bring that element because we know how beautiful it can be and we know that it’s biblical and desire that again, but with people who live closer to where we are. And so I really think that that vision, it was just it was different. God’s vision was different. And so there’s an exciting element of like sending out the 11 or 12 families or whatever. And like we are all going to go be on purpose in the churches to be an encouragement to come alongside the mission of the church and disciple other people and what it means to be walking and fellowship together.

Amen. And some of you, if you’re really listening carefully, you may be like, I, I, there’s a problem with what everything you guys just said, okay? And that problem is you said there’s no there’s not very many churches near you. And when you last visited churches, there are 45 minutes away. Right. So so is what you’re saying, Talpins that you’re stopping the church because people are coming from so far so they can become more localized and go to local churches. But then now you instead of being at your home, you’re going to travel and do the thing that you stopped your own church for.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. And the answer is for a time, yes. And maybe, you know, God has a plan for us to join up in a bigger church and be part of that. We’re completely open to what the spirit’s doing. We’re not trying to control anything, and we’re open to that. But I’m also open to other possibilities in the future. You know, we learned a lot being part of three home churches, too, that we planted so far, and we’ve just learned a lot that we’ve planted. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, if we did it again, there’s some adjustments that can be made, you know, if people are asking to visit from an hour away, it is easy to say, you know, I really feel conviction that you need to find something local. I really want you to focus on that versus inviting them to come over and letting them come visit. And of course, if they persisted, we would let people know. But I think that there’s ways you can do it to to really help people be more local. And then maybe there’s more things we could do to to to to meet more people locally and that kind of thing. We kind of happen fast with people, not local. And so we got busy really quick and that kind of thing. So I think we’re open down the road. Not now. We’re gonna have a season to focus on the be courageous ministry and then go to a church and maybe and maybe we’ll plug in, but it would be far away. So we’ll see. But maybe we’ll plant another church down the road. Also interesting enough, as much as we love Home Church, we do have a vision for how big church can have the same fruit as home church possibly.

I mean, Lord willing. Right. And so there’s a way. I see a way. Look at him. If you’re if you’re watching YouTube, you see the little I see a light in his eye.

And I wrote it down.

I, I shared the vision on the last Sunday with our home church. And I just think there’s something really beautiful that could happen.

Well, we’ve been a part of a church previously that had a lot of the elements of home church, and there there are some really beautiful things about that, whether that’s, you know, family still being the men, still being able to lead their families and communion and being that headship, that’s really beautiful. That’s something that we’ve always we’ve done for many years.

Afterwards that.

Could totally happen with big church.

In a big church, multiple big churches. We’ve done that potluck afterwards.

There’s ways to do it.

Yep. I haven’t grew up with that where it was like on the Wednesday night they called it, which was discipleship Training school. It was a Wednesday night classes and we always had a meal together as a church and that was a big church that was 2 or 300 people at least.

And so and you know, you know.

It doesn’t necessarily have to happen on Sunday.

No programs needed. You know, we all sit in church together, families sitting together. Yeah. Um, you know, there could be just a beautiful thing. And I think that people are starving for what’s real in a world that is growing in fakeness. I and all the all the like and everybody’s highlights on Instagram. I think people are starving for what’s real, authentic relationship, real connection with people and 100% know that can happen in any of these Christian churches. And I also know that it is praise the Lord. It is happening in many churches, probably thousands and thousands of churches out there, and you might be part of one of those. So keep digging in and being part of the solution and, you know, find a good church and be part of what makes it even more authentic. Take him real in relationship with others?

Yeah, I think that one of the if there was a highlight bullet point, one of the things that we would encourage people to really examine their heart perspectives, their heart attitudes in their view towards church. And, you know, a few little catchy phrases come to mind that we’ve used with our kids over the years, which is participants, not spectators, right? And so we want our kids to be familiar with being a part of the body of Christ. And that means that we also need to model what that looks like. It starts first with the parents in good old traditional, courageous parenting, you know, style. What are you doing? What are you modeling for your kids? Are you an active member of the Body of Christ? Are you using your spiritual gift? Are you do you even know what your spiritual gift is? All these things are super important. But then there’s the attitude of do you have a giving heart attitude, a servant, heart, attitude. When you think about the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and wanting to serve, or do you have a taking heart attitude of I just want to go, I want to be poured into I’m exhausted, I’m this, I’m that. And I get that. There are seasons when you need that. I get that. But if that has been the traditional theme throughout our entire Christian life as an adult, there’s a problem. And we need to have the heart attitude of what can I contribute? Not what can I take? What if.

So the reason that 80% or so of kids that are raised in Christian homes end up leaving the church by age 18. What if a major part of the reason is not the actual church, but it’s the actual decisions parents make about how involved they are with their church or not? How real It’s about a relationship with God really is and what they say about the church when they’re driving home and these kinds of things. What if we have a lot more responsibility to do than actually the church itself?

I think that a good question to ask first and foremost is, do you know your leaders of your church, right? Or are you just on the way home complaining about something that was said and critiquing all the time and being critical, having a critical spirit, or do you know them? Like have you gotten to know them to where there’s like an iron sharpening iron happening because no pastor should belong on a pedestal. They’re all human beings. And if there is something that’s truly wrong, like you should feel confident and have a good enough relationship with your pastor to be able to go to them and go, Hey, I have a question about today’s message, or Hey, have you thought about this verse in conjunction with what you shared today? I just wanted to share this with you. If you don’t have that kind of relationship with your pastor, that’s I’m going to say it’s on you because they are shepherding a large quantity of people. And it’s not that they’re not necessarily being real with people, it’s that there’s just so many people. And so if you were to reach out to them and you were to practice what you desire and what you believe about community, by having them over practicing hospitality yourself, you could be a real blessing to that.

Pastor Absolutely. So we hope this was helpful. Yes. And we hope you lean into your church. And I would I would be caution you, if you’re if you find a home church and they’re against the big church, I would caution you in that. Just one little caution. We’ve never been against we’ve always been for the bride of Christ. And it’s different shapes and sizes. And I think that’s the way we need to be. I mean, just remember, if you’ve ever read Corinthians, the Corinth Church may have been the all time worst church in terms of morality of all time. And Paul loved them and wrote them a letter, but he also exhorted them on a couple of things. And God loved the Corinth Church. It’s in the Bible. And so let’s be real careful when we start passing judgment on the Bride of Christ, right?

Yeah, We just definitely need to be encouraging and and and understanding that this is God’s people. Yes. Amen. And and it brands him in a large way. We all do. And so we need to be responsible for that and try to brand him well.

Amen. Thanks for joining us.

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