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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
So, hey, family. Welcome to the overflow with Brandon and Susan Thomas. We're so excited to spend some time and conversation today. Really, the purpose of us gathering like this is we want to talk about the things that are the overflow, the things that we haven't been able to hit from the stage or haven't been able to talk about in the Bible study. And there's just a lot of things that God is doing that we believe will encourage us all.
Speaker 1:And so today, we're gonna have a conversation that we truly believe will help you and help you in your life. So what are we talking about?
Speaker 2:Susan, today we're gonna talk about the church and specifically stop calling your bible study a church. Stop calling your friendship group a church. Stop calling your hang group the church. Alright. Seeing this on social media a lot.
Speaker 2:There are people who have left, quote, the church, they call it the institutional church. They've left organized church, and then they say, but I discovered something more powerful, and then on the reels, you see people hanging out in a house, or you see people having dinner together, and there is a truth that there is the church universal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is, hey, I'm part of the church at dinner, and in our homes, and as we hang out as friends, that's great. But I think we're throwing around the term church a little too loosely.
Speaker 1:Well, and could you help us, and maybe together we could do this, but before we get into this, because this is a real issue, and why is it even important? Because God has a design, and God's design is always for our thriving. And so when we know his design as a Christ follower, I don't care what topic we're talking about. Right now, we're talking about the church. But whatever topic we're talking about, God's design is the best way to live, whether it's like we talked about before, sex, whether it's money, whether it's finances, parenting, marriage, how to be a friend, how to communicate, how to resolve conflict, what do you do when you're hurt.
Speaker 1:All of that, the bible has a design. He has a design for the church. So before you get into that, could you explain maybe the difference between the big c church and the local church.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's good. So it's been called, and we'll go through, like, the seven marks of what a church is here in a moment, but but the big difference between the big c church and, I hate calling it the little c church. I can't do it. Technically, what we've always called it is the church universal, or the church local, or the church invisible, the church visible.
Speaker 2:And the church invisible is the, what we would call the big c church. The church visible is the gathered church. The church universal is the church, any Christ follower, any place on planet Earth. The church local, obviously, would be the local expression, gathered church, gathering the way that the New Testament gathered.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so universal church, bride of Christ?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Bride of Christ would be the universal church.
Speaker 1:When you're a part of God's family, you are his bride. Yeah. You are his church.
Speaker 2:Yeah. When the New Testament talks about we are we're a house, you know, built on the foundations of the apostles, all that. That's the universal church. But, so there's a lot of description of the universal church, but then the expression is always the local church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're really talking about the local church, and God's Yeah, design for
Speaker 2:exactly. And the problem is not that someone would say, hey, I'm denying that we're the universal church. I think they're trying to substitute the universal church, and discard the local church. Or they're trying to redefine what the local church is, and I think this is gonna help us, because this could be a magnetic pull away from historic Christianity.
Speaker 1:Right, this is huge, huge topic, so take us there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's such a big deal that during the Protestant Reformation, they were really struggling with what is a church, because they were coming out of Catholicism. Even Luther, he's like, I feel the need to show what the marks of a church is. And in its most simplest form, there's three marks of a church. Those three marks, I'm just doing this from memory, those three marks, because I have seven, but those three marks of the church
Speaker 1:You can Google it.
Speaker 2:And the earliest Protestant Reformation was the preached word of God, the preached gospel, the sacraments administered properly, and then the third that they would have said then was church discipline. So church discipline, sacraments administered properly, and the preached gospel, those are huge categories. And so for our purpose, and even Luther broke it down even further, but they're all responding to the Catholic church very very, and that's really not our culture today that we're responding to. Right. For us, there's seven things that I think you can determine, am I in a Bible study, or am I in a church?
Speaker 2:And you can have a church in a house. We started our church in a house.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's not about necessarily the physical gathered spot.
Speaker 1:Location.
Speaker 2:It's not about the physical location, it's just, are these seven things present? And I mean, just to spike the ball on what you were saying, God has a design. Yeah. In Matthew 16, he said, I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.
Speaker 1:I
Speaker 2:will build my church. John 17, Jesus said, I'm praying not only for these disciples, but for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will be one, as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you, may they be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. And then in Acts chapter two, you see the birth of that local expression of the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so what are the seven things? First, I love your thoughts on every single one of these, but let's just kinda just go back and forth. The first is we are gathered, okay? To say, I'm having church in a deer stand by myself, I'm sorry, you may be universal church, part of the bride of Christ, but that is not having church.
Speaker 1:Right, Right.
Speaker 2:I'm gathered. Hebrews 10, let's think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Let us not neglect our meeting together. That couldn't be clearer.
Speaker 1:Well, and can I just interject with that one? I remember you know? And, again, if you if this conversation is in the context of God's design, that he has a plan and we don't get to write the script, you and I aren't sitting here writing the script. We're commenting on God what God has already created. Right.
Speaker 1:And so God's design is always and you'll hear us say this 10,000,000,000 times. God's design is the best way to live. Alright. So talking about the church, I remember I was doing premarital counseling with this young couple years and years ago. And as soon as you said that, it just they popped into my mind.
Speaker 1:And we were in premarital counseling, and one of the things that the prospective husband wanted to make very clear, and they had already clearly talked about it, but they he wanted to make it very clear in our premarital counseling, is that during deer season and really any kind of hunting season, he would never go to church. Like, let it be known, I will be gone. And so and it doesn't matter stage of life, age of life, kids in the mix. This is who I am. This is who you're marrying.
Speaker 1:And while that was not the only, for me as that biblical counselor with the worldview that I have, red flag for their marriage on, honestly, several different levels, it was a marker that lined up with the other things that I also uncovered in that premarital time. And it was one of the one of the moments as a counselor when you believe you're sitting in front of a divorce. Gosh. And I, thankfully, haven't had a lot of those, but I was very overt with them with what I saw and the warnings attached to it. But I think that would be an example of someone, and I don't think it's just that couple, and I don't think it's just that person, where on that in that case, the the woman in that equation was minimizing this man's conviction against the importance of the local church.
Speaker 1:And she was minimizing its impact on her and her future.
Speaker 2:He's like, that's no big deal. He can do that. No big deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, okay. I'll adjust. And it's again, I I think that this is why this is so important is because when we minimize what God says is his plan, then we are in dangerous territory. Right.
Speaker 1:And I don't know where that couple is today, and I hope they encountered God along their journey and that he did an amazing transformation. But I can tell you as a counselor with almost thirty years experience, the things that I saw, and that being one of the big flags, that pre marriage was headed for divorce Yeah. Before it even got started. So this is a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's talk about this on the gathered. Mean, you know what? Let me give all seven. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I wanna keep talking about I just feel like maybe we're gonna sit
Speaker 1:on this overview.
Speaker 2:We're gonna sit on this a little longer than maybe even I had prepared or thought, and so let's hit them real quick. We're gathered. We're led. There's leadership. We're built on the preached word of God, back to the confession of the early Protestant Reformation.
Speaker 2:We're built on the preached word of God. That's good, sound doctrine in the gospel, the accurate gospel. We are outward in our focus. That's number four, evangelism. If you're not evangelistic, you're not a church.
Speaker 2:We are traditional in our sacraments. There's two sacred things that we'll talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even that word, I mean, a lot of people, does that mean? We wanna know.
Speaker 2:We're gonna go there. We are worshipers. Okay, when you gather, you worship. And then number seven, we challenge and encourage. That goes back to that church discipline issue.
Speaker 2:But let's go back to gathered. So number one on the gathered thing. I believe people in today's culture have lessened the importance of gathering.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:I just can't overstate that I believe every single Christ follower
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Should make it the rhythm of their life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I am every single Sunday, or if you go Saturday night, whatever services, whatever church you may attend. But for Keystone, at this point, in this snapshot in our time, I go on Sunday. Every Sunday I'm at church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't miss, my kids know I don't miss, and that means that you will miss.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're gonna travel, or you're gonna whatever, but your commitment, your rhythm, those are the exception, the rule is we gather.
Speaker 1:Well, and here's the thing where the rubber meets the road about that, I think, in families and in life in general. When you talk about church as a rhythm for your life, there's two ways to look at that. One is almost a reactive kinda mindset. Like, we'll go to church when we go to church. Like, yeah.
Speaker 1:This is our church. If it hey. This is a great weekend to go to church. Let's go. Versus we go to church.
Speaker 1:That's an immovable, yet there's going to be things that pop up, like our vacation or a kid's sick or there's, you know, a a unique thing that's in the way of us going that particular day. But that's the one off. It's not the rule. Yeah. And I think, unfortunately, a lot of people, again, and I believe it comes from a thinking, even subconscious thinking, that minimizes the importance of the gathering, importance of God's design for church.
Speaker 1:And what happens too, side note, when we minimize God's design and the importance of the church, one of the many things that we may encounter that are negative, but one of them is we miss the full benefit of the church, which we're about to get into.
Speaker 2:Well, you just you you you don't know what God's gonna do that day.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:You don't know how God's gonna heal you that day, or you're gonna hear a story of healing that encourages you and builds you. You don't know if God's gonna break something loose. We have two children that in a particular service that they didn't see coming Yeah. God changed their life. Wow.
Speaker 2:And it's just because we made them go. Yeah. And that's another side. Yeah. Hey, family, we go.
Speaker 2:And if you're a young family, oh, young families, please hear me.
Speaker 1:Please, please.
Speaker 2:Please hear me, young families. You are life hacking your family by just consistent church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Number two. Anything else you wanna add on that? You do?
Speaker 1:There's probably
Speaker 2:more Come on. Throw one more thing
Speaker 1:in there.
Speaker 2:Know you
Speaker 1:want to. Young family. When you said young family. So, oh, moms and dads.
Speaker 2:I'm reading you.
Speaker 1:Come on. Here's the thing. With the young family, with any family, you've got teenagers in the house. Wherever you are in your family journey, question. When they're younger, is there ever a scenario where you don't make your children brush their teeth?
Speaker 1:I really hope that you make them brush their teeth Make them. When they're younger. You know, there's things that we enforce with our kids. What are what is your top five? What is your list?
Speaker 1:You know, for some of you, maybe it's hygiene. For some of you, it's orderliness. You've got chores list. You're teaching them to make their bed, or say yes, ma'am. I don't know what your thing is.
Speaker 1:But I will often encounter people that say, I don't wanna make my kids go to church. I want them to be able to choose their faith.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. No, sir.
Speaker 1:Death sentence.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No,
Speaker 1:sir. Because here's the truth. They will choose. You can't choose that for them. Faith is an individual choice in in rejecting or accepting the creator of the universe and the gift of Jesus as the as our lord and savior.
Speaker 1:That's every person's choice. As much as we love our four kids, we can't choose that for them.
Speaker 2:You don't line up, okay, here's a healthy food, here's a kinda healthy food, and here's flat poison. Line them up, you choose.
Speaker 1:Right. Right.
Speaker 2:It just reveals what you believe about what you believe.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:Like, you don't believe it's life or death.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Or you wouldn't give them that choice.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't give them that choice. And so part of being a parent, which we can understand when it comes to their diet and their health and their, you know, well-being in the home and their education at their school, like, understand that, but we somehow miss it with the church. Part of being a parent is setting your child up for the best case scenario. And so when church is a delight, when church is the thing that our family's committed to because we love Jesus, when church is a passion of your heart and there's an ownership in you and not this legalistic, you know, boring, we've gotta check it off the chore list kind of mentality, when it's filled with faith and love for the people of God and love for Jesus and getting to come together and worship, your kids are in position to catch the fire of God, and one day it'd be their own.
Speaker 2:You look so pretty.
Speaker 1:Are you emotional? Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm just looking at you. Think I look really
Speaker 1:don't know. What just happened?
Speaker 2:I know. Yeah. I was just watching you, I was just kinda stopped listening to you, and I was like, wow, she looks really pretty in those lights. And it got emotional. What was that?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but I really received that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Thank you, I love you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love you too.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay. Welcome to me. Alright.
Speaker 1:I love you so much.
Speaker 2:Love you too. Seriously.
Speaker 1:Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about you a little bit on the drive in, and so I was like, I was maybe that's part of it. Yeah, you little sweetie.
Speaker 1:We'll do marriage ones too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you sweetie. No. Is the way it goes. This is it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I think at the end of the day, what we're saying here is we we are church people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm a church per person. I love the church. Yeah. I love the bread of Christ.
Speaker 1:Well, can I say I didn't always love the church? If I'm being really honest, when I was in my adolescent years, and that was a season of rebellion, just running from Jesus at that season, And then I went I went to college. I wish I could say I went to college, and I started to plug into a local gathering of believers and, you know, went all the time, and I really did not. And God grabbed ahold of my heart in college, began to draw me back to him then, but I really did not see the importance of it. So I understand if you're in that season, I've been in that season.
Speaker 1:I get it. There can be a mindset where we just don't know what we Yeah. Don't
Speaker 2:know. And I have a very different story. I mean, for me, I've been passionate about the church since I was a student, since I was in high school. I mean, I've been passionate about the church my whole life. I can't think of a season I wasn't passionate about the church.
Speaker 2:I remember a snowstorm in college, and I was like, I'm going to church, and this is one of those literal stories where I literally walked through the snow to go, we were all locked in, I couldn't go to my church, I couldn't drive there, and my church was alive, and I just, I'm like, but I'm going to church, so I went to the dead liberal church across the street from the college, because I'm like, I'm going to church, and it was filled with all kinds of junk, and the teaching, and all that. A set up in the balcony, and there was music playing, and I remember, I'm like, God, you're speaking to me right now through the music. If I only get that. Wow. You know, and I wouldn't want to attend that church every week.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But that's, I'm a church guy, you know? And I want us to be let's find let's just commit that our families are gonna be more church fans. Yes. We're we're church people.
Speaker 1:You would not have dated me in college.
Speaker 2:Number two, we are led. Yeah. We are led. Yeah. Okay, this is one of the big ones that says, okay, your Bible study is not, or your friendship group, really this one, your friendship group is not a church.
Speaker 2:Okay? You are the universal church, but you're not the local church. Because who's the leader? Who's the leader? Okay?
Speaker 2:Churches have leadership. You are ignoring, you are absolutely throwing out the Bible If you do not embrace leadership. Ephesians four, these are the gifts Christ gave, verse 11, to the church, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. So where are your prophets, where are your evangelists, where are your teachers, where are your pastors?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Most of the friendship group, they say, we're the new church, and we have dinner parties, and all that. Okay, who's your pastor? No, they don't want a pastor. They don't want authority. Hebrews 13, obey your spiritual leaders.
Speaker 2:Okay. Are you ready for this?
Speaker 1:This is not popular.
Speaker 2:Are you ready for this?
Speaker 1:Not popular opinions.
Speaker 2:Obey your spiritual leaders. Do what they say, writer of Hebrews is saying. Do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy, and not with sorrow, that would certainly not be for your benefit.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sorry, but if you believe in the whole word of God, you have to wrestle with that text.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to wrestle with that.
Speaker 2:And it's it's not popular, and all that. I've been on both sides of this. I've been in a position where I am one of the leaders of the church. I've been under a pastor as a pastor. I've been under a pastor as a servant leader, as a as a as a church going member of the spiritual family, and now I am one of the presbyteros.
Speaker 2:I am an episkopos, you know. These are the words for overseer. These are the words for Hebrew. The Greek word is episkopos overseer. The Hebrew word is presbuteros.
Speaker 2:The presbuteros is Hebrew for honor. It shows honor. The episkopos is overseer. It's Greek. It's function.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We use these words all in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Well, and if you look all throughout life, I don't care if you're talking about a hospital and who is the surgeon in charge, the leader in that operating room, or you look at a school and who's the superintendent and who's the principal of that school, or you look at now I'm getting it to the realm I don't know. Is there leaders in the NFL?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, there's coaches. There's owners.
Speaker 1:Okay. Coaches. There's owners. There's decision makers. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Show me a place that's thriving in life, and and and I I'm willing to bet 99.9% there's leadership. And so, again, when we get all, like, rage against the machine and I don't I'm against authority or all authority is suspect, I think what we're missing is that God has a design. Yeah. And we can't beat our head against a brick wall when the brick wall is God's design
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or we're the ones gonna get injured. Yeah. Instead, yes, we will absolutely acknowledge abuses of authority and leaders who go the wrong direction and how we're all fallible. We're all fallible and able to go the wrong direction. But God has a design, and for those who follow him and leaders who follow him and those who follow him who are led, it's a beautiful rhythm, and it's part of God's church, his local design.
Speaker 2:Know, and and one of the things, this is just behind the scenes. One of the things, you know, we we lead a a large church and a growing church. There are larger churches, but we we lead a growing church. And you know, it gets complicated, and there's a lot of moving parts, and sometimes, especially when there's conflict, we'll have, we will say, hey, here's our spiritual leadership for you in this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we believe this is what needs to happen right now, and it's very practical. If there's a serious conflict, we'd say, hey, we believe neither of you need to leave the church, but you need to attend this service, and you need to attend that service, let's just Yeah. And that's our leadership, and sometimes people will receive that leadership, and sometimes they will reject that leadership.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it's a conversation, and staff among pastors, hey, they really received leadership well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We just literally having this conversation about someone that we're really looking at for higher leadership, more weight, and trusting this person with more weight. And one of the things is, hey, you remember when they went through that really hard time, and they really received leadership, and it helped us work for peace in the church? Yeah. When people buck against that, that leader, it it never works.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work, and it's because it's not a human created thing. It is God's order.
Speaker 2:Does this mean that the pastors are perfect? No. We can get it wrong, y'all. Yeah. We can get it wrong, and so can your owner of your football team, and so can your offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2:But leadership is what is the way that it works. Yeah. So first Thessalonians five, dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord's work. They work hard among you, and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect, and wholehearted love because of their work, and live peacefully with each other.
Speaker 2:This is what church should look like. Yeah. I wanna wrap it up by just saying that we do live in a church that is not riddled with division and controversy, you know, and conflict, and all of that. We don't have division or divisiveness, and it's been a joy. Unity is one of the great hallmarks of a great church, and we fight for that unity.
Speaker 2:And part of that is understanding, hey, there's an order here. God works in order.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:In your home, and in your church. We can talk about the home later.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Number three, are you ready for number three?
Speaker 1:Yes, number three.
Speaker 2:Okay. Number three, we are built on the preached word of God.
Speaker 1:Right. Which so far, all these three things could be a bible study. That's why there's seven.
Speaker 2:We are built on the preached word of God. First Timothy four, until I get there, focus on reading the scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, teaching them, do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you. This is Paul talking to Timothy. You know, wow. I mean, and you know, elsewhere it talks about, hey, teach the whole word of God, the whole counsel of the word of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And what what this is about is, first of all, it is the act of preaching.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay? But it's also, are you in a church that teaches good doctrine? Are you in a church that preaches the true gospel? All of that's wrapped up in this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's why one of the three is the preaching of the gospel for the reformers. Well, this is this is very central to this, in that sometimes people are having a bible study, and the reason they've left the church is they don't believe good doctrine. And they're trying to find a small group of people who will will itch their itching ears, scratch their itching ears. Yeah. And, or they don't believe in good doctrine, or they don't believe in the true gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The crucified and risen Christ is Lord. That God did all the work on the cross, you don't add to that. Yeah. This isn't a workspace religion, God did all the work. That That ultimately I am totally incapable of saving myself.
Speaker 2:That I preach all of the Bible, and I don't, I'm not just a red letter Christian, you know? It's not just practicing the way of the words of Christ, it's also the words of Paul, you know? Who who is illuminating the words of Christ. So, and and and bringing the whole council together, Genesis to Revelation. So this is a big deal, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on when this breaks bad, and what this can look like.
Speaker 2:And this is one of the biggies Yeah. On this movement of deconstruction.
Speaker 1:People
Speaker 2:that are moving away from the church, they just, it's easy to hurl bombs and molotov cocktails at the organized church.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Often it's because you don't like something they teach about abortion, you don't like what they teach about sex, you don't like what they're teaching about gender, and these big issues, or you just have gone heretical, and you do not believe in the in the, that God is your authority by the word of God so you pick and choose scripture.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, you gave a lineup there of how it can break bad. I think I mean, obviously, I'm in complete agreement with everything you're saying, and it's a reality that part of the church is being a bible based, bible taught, and bible accurate body believers and that your leader is teaching those things and that wherever you are in that church, that that is the goal. That is the heart. And I think it begins, as most things do, with the posture of our spirit and of our heart.
Speaker 1:Am I going to the word of God to try to extrapolate and make it say what I want to hear or what I already believe? I'm just, like, taking puzzle pieces of words here, scriptures here, trying to create my own theology. Or am I posturing my heart that God said what he said? God means what he means. It's my job, my opportunity, with the Holy Spirit empowering me to discover what he said.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And in the church, part, again, God's design for thriving is he has called people. He has called leaders who are called by God for their lifetime to unpack that for the people who gather. And that doesn't mean that the people who gather don't have the same access. We absolutely do.
Speaker 1:You as a Christ follower party, the joy of your mission should be to breathe in, to eat the word of God, that it's a part of your daily diet, that you are going to the word of God. Read it as you wake up in the morning on your Bible app or
Speaker 2:as you go church universal. Bed.
Speaker 1:You go to bed, let the word of god be the last thing that you think about or that you read, and that's that's important. Mhmm. And and place yourself in a church locally where that word of god is preached and is taught. How many times have we heard, a million
Speaker 2:Million times.
Speaker 1:Someone say, you were talking directly
Speaker 2:Did to my wife talk to you? Yeah. That's almost weekly, guys. It's it is such a strange thing. It's not strange, but it's strange.
Speaker 2:It's it's weird, you know? And it is, and I I every single time I give credit to the Holy Spirit on that. No doubt. And I say these words, I'm not that good. You just gotta know, I don't know Yeah.
Speaker 2:What everybody's going through.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Only the Holy Spirit of God can touch two different people and speak to them that way, or a 100 different people, or a thousand different people, whatever the number is. And you know, for me, I wanna bring the last number two and number three together. Do you remember what it said, what I read a moment ago, about how they are accountable to God? I am accountable to God Yeah. For the leadership of Keystone, and I am accountable to God for what is preached in our pulpit.
Speaker 2:I am accountable. I'm careful about who gets up in that pulpit, and preaches on a weekend. And there's a deep reverence I have for what is taught, and an incredible diligence to be accurate, and I've even corrected myself at times. With that said, I just believe for a family, you just gotta put yourself in position to regularly receive good doctrine, and regularly receive good gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the big differences, and teaching and preaching are two different things. I really do believe that, but that's another thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We will be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and God's word renews our mind as we gather and hear it preached.
Speaker 2:Put yourself in a position for good things to happen by regularly, weekly, being in a position to hear the preached word of God.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Number four, we are outward in our focus.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm gonna resist the urge to camp out here long, because I wanna know we wanna get all seven.
Speaker 2:Well, me read the scripture, and then I'm gonna turn you loose, okay? Last words of Jesus. Matthew 28, verse 19, therefore, this is called the great commission, therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the son, and the holy spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And there is this conflict in the church, are you a discipleship church, or are you an evangelism church?
Speaker 2:Are you an attractional church, or are you a deeper church? And I say, in the good words of our friends, Kevin Gerald, Pastor Kevin Gerald, that's a dumb dichotomy. It is a false comparison. You do, as we say, you don't have to choose. As a matter of fact, you should not choose.
Speaker 2:And let me say this, go and make disciples. Discipleship begins with evangelism. The discipleship journey begins at discipleship. It's this weird thing where we've separated evangelism and discipleship. It's very strange, it's foreign to the New Testament.
Speaker 2:You don't have a church without evangelism, and that evangelism is the first step of discipleship. I have made a disciple, now let's continue that discipleship journey in teaching all that I have commanded you. So I disagree with an attractional mindset that says, hey, we're just gonna do anything to win people to Jesus, and we'll just let the other churches disciple them. I think that's jacked up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Likewise, my heart breaks, and then I wanna turn you loose.
Speaker 1:My
Speaker 2:heart breaks, and again, we don't name churches because we love the body of Christ, but I'm gonna name what I've seen. My heart breaks over churches, running tens of thousands of people, and baptized just a 150, or a couple of 100 people. I'm gonna be very specific here. That breaks my heart, because I know if you're running tens of thousands of people, that's that's like your kid's ministry. I mean, just kids begging their parents to know about Jesus.
Speaker 2:Those kind of numbers are the result, that's like people breaking down your door. That's not what Peter did, standing up and pleading for people to come to Christ. That's not Paul Right. Going into the marketplace and pleading for people to come to Christ. That's not what the early disciples did to earn them their stripes, and ultimately their heads, their death.
Speaker 2:We have lost the fervor of evangelism. We came from the Southern Baptist Convention, we're no longer in that tribe, but we came from the Southern Baptist Convention. Their baptisms are plummeting. As they as they are moving away from the core of evangelism. Their baptisms are plummeting.
Speaker 2:In the fifties, when their baptisms were soaring, from the fifties up to the early eighties, what was it that caused this great evangelism? They focused on personal evangelism. I'm gonna have these conversations. Yeah. And we've lost something.
Speaker 2:So Bible study, show me who you're winning to Jesus. Yeah. Often nothing. You and your friends, us four no more, we're gonna sit we're gonna have a bible study. What are you doing for evangelism?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's not a New Testament church.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's so good, so important. And we are not bashing the bible study. I write bible studies.
Speaker 1:I love women gathering. I we love men gathering. We love seeing bible studies happen. It is beautiful. And, again, it back to it's not a dumb dichotomy.
Speaker 1:You don't have to choose in the sense of, do I go to church or go to a bible study? No. Do both.
Speaker 2:You do both.
Speaker 1:But do not go to a bible study and neglect God's church.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:And it's because of the very things that we're talking about today. It's God's design for your life to thrive. And so how to know the difference, you know, it's so easy because of what happens in a bible study. I mean, it's three out of the seven so far, the gathering, the preaching, teaching of the word. What was the second one?
Speaker 2:The second one was led leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You got a bible study leader. Maybe it's a really organized bible study. There's some great ones out there. Hopefully, you know, at Keystone Church, we wanna be so compelling that you're part of the bible studies we do here as a church because it's, like, both benefit as the body grows stronger together.
Speaker 1:But a bible study's great. But what happens if we replace the gathering with our local church and the commitment to our to God's local church and we supplement only with a bible study that's separate, we become an anemic Christian Oh. Because God created us to go.
Speaker 2:You're denying the great commission.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And he created us to go, and you're like, well, but I I talk about Jesus, and maybe you are very evangelistic outside of your bible study. Great. Again, that's part of who you're supposed to be as a believer, but you're also supposed to be of a body where that is a part of the sacrament. We are just we are a evangelism machine
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:As a body. It's who are you inviting to service?
Speaker 2:Let's get vulnerable. Okay? So we had a year recently where we have a, at Keystone, we have a internal goal of, and we've stated this publicly for years, for every 10 people walking around, that one of those people were baptized this year, and we don't count if we baptized you last year, and then you're like, you know what, I didn't know what I was doing, or whatever, which feels impossible because we teach you what you're doing, but let's just say Part
Speaker 1:of the journey sometimes.
Speaker 2:Part of the journey, or maybe a high school student, and they're like, you know what, I really was following my friends, and despite our efforts, this is your real moment. When we baptize you the second time, it counts with the Lord, but we don't count it in our Right. But for every 10 people we count, that on a weekend average attendance, counting babies, okay, weekend average attendance, we want one of those in an annual basis to be baptized. So if you ran a thousand people in your church, that's a 100 baptisms, for example. And on and on 10,000, that would be a thousand baptisms that year.
Speaker 2:So one year we hit our mark of one to 10, but we looked at each other, and we said, man, we're too close to that 10. Yeah. It just didn't feel like Yeah. That the waters were moving
Speaker 1:Enough.
Speaker 2:Enough. And we just said, you know what guys, let's just pray about this, let's let's double back, and you know, it's just weird how when we began to have a holy discontent Yes. The next year, within the first seven months of the church, we had equaled and surpassed the year before. That's just the work of the Lord.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:And It again
Speaker 1:prioritization.
Speaker 2:Some people, they make it too hard to come to Christ, you know, in an effort to avoid all, you know, there's a big movement right now about, and I'm probably gonna go too That may long on be
Speaker 1:a whole separate podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay, well let me just tease it then. That there's, you know, in the book of Acts, when Peter stood up and preached, he said, repent and be baptized, he presented the gospel, and he said, there's some water, go be baptized. He didn't have a six week class. And I believe with children, I believe it's important to have some kind instruction, but for adults, you've heard the gospel now respond. And I think we make it too hard sometimes, and we bruise the fruit, denying where Jesus said, hey, I'm gonna separate the wheat from the chaff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm gonna determine the goats, you just bring the harvest, don't Yeah, bruise the so good. Okay, all right. Number five, okay? Number five.
Speaker 2:So number five, we've said, all right, number one, we're gathered, number two, we're led, number three, we're built on the preached word of God, the gospel. Number four, we're hour ed and our focus. Number five, we are traditional in our sacraments. We can hit this one quickly. We are traditional in our sacraments.
Speaker 2:There's two things.
Speaker 1:Believe this actually is one of the most tangible ways that defines a church.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Different than a Bible It
Speaker 2:really, yeah, different, you know, again, the title is Stop Calling Your Bible Study a Church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is big. Now you say, oh, well, take, okay, there's two sacraments that we believe God has instructed us to follow, and it's been here since the very beginning. Yeah. Number one is
Speaker 1:what? Baptism.
Speaker 2:Baptism. We already just talked about that. And for baptism, we believe in full immersion of baptism. We believe in fully immersed. That's the way Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
Speaker 2:That's the way that we see the early practice, they went fully under. And then the second sacrament is
Speaker 1:what? Communion.
Speaker 2:Communion, Lord's Supper. Get to the table. So baptism and communion, and we see constantly, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then what did the first church do? Baptism.
Speaker 2:When we look at early architecture of the earliest churches that we can find, what do we find? We find baptistries. And then communion has been around since the beginning. Yes. Eat the body, drink the blood.
Speaker 2:There's two views on on communion. There's consubstantiation, and then transubstantiation, I may be pronouncing those wrong. I
Speaker 1:have no idea.
Speaker 2:This is totally in the back of my head, I'm just throwing this out. One is you are experiencing the true body of blood of Christ, the other is you're experiencing the power of the representation of the body and blood of Christ. We land on the consubstantiation of the body of Christ, where it is, you're not literally, it's not transformed into the body and the blood, that would be the Catholic view. We believe in that that when you take communion, it is the power, there's something spiritual happening, there's something supernatural happening, and it is a representation of the body and the blood of Christ. But but some people believe you should take it every single time you gather, that's not been our practice, but we we do it regularly.
Speaker 2:And so that may be something that we later, you know, reevaluate and say, nope, we need to do it every single week. We need to have it available every week. Don't, but I believe we honor the scripture by having it regularly at our revival nights and during our services regularly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, And it's just very, again, important. And even if you go back to leadership, which we won't spend time on, but there's a structure for leadership within the church. Yeah. And a bible study, very likely, may not even know what that is, much less is not doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so all of these things, the sacraments, baptism, it's integral parts of God's design for human flourishing, and it's found in the church. Number six.
Speaker 2:Six, we are worshipers. It's said, when we gather, we sing Ephesians five nineteen, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music to the Lord in your hearts. He said, that's instruction, when we gather, and we see this in the Old Testament, when you gather, you sing, and this is a big part of what we do, and this is different than you lose this on your dinner date that you're calling, your your friend dinner group Yeah. That you're calling church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, did you worship? Yeah. Did you worship through song? Yeah. Worship is a bigger word, it means all of life, but there is worship and praise, which is singing, and when you gather, you are to sing.
Speaker 2:Do you sing
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you gather?
Speaker 1:So important.
Speaker 2:And the one thing I would add to that, I'm surprised you're not jumping in on this point. Yeah. And that is that don't stand outside talking, waiting for the preaching. Skipping the singing. I'm more into the preaching time.
Speaker 2:No, singing is part of being a part of the church. We sing together. May it always be so that we worship together, we sing together. There's something about the church gathering and singing. Woe to the church that stops singing together.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. And the reason I'm not speaking is because I think I want it to be an entire podcast on its Let's So let's do a note, because that's so worthy.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a value called we sing loud.
Speaker 1:We do sing loud because it's, again, integral, and the and people minimize it. They don't understand it. That's why maybe they come in late or they're out in the lobby or they just think, well, I don't sing. But we'll get to that because it's so important, and for time's sake, I wanna
Speaker 2:Number seven.
Speaker 1:But I do have something to go back to about the evangelize.
Speaker 2:Do it now.
Speaker 1:Wait. What was that one called?
Speaker 2:Just whatever.
Speaker 1:No. But what was which one was that?
Speaker 2:The third. Point was we're out number four, we're outward in our focus.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One thing about that, and this is, again, the difference between a bible study in your home or whatever fill in the blank you're doing versus God's design for the local church, outward in its focus. Here's one of the hallmarks, are you growing? If you don't have an outward focus, even if you are a local gathering of church, I would venture to say it's likely you're not healthy if you're not growing. Because when you go, you will naturally grow.
Speaker 1:When you go There
Speaker 2:are seasons.
Speaker 1:There sure. There can be seasons.
Speaker 2:There are seasons of pruning. Right. The the church can be suffering on parts of the world that's struggling to grow.
Speaker 1:But are you growing? You may be losing some people because they got martyred.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You may be losing some people because of COVID. Right. But are there new people Christ?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Are there new people coming into gathering? Growing. Yeah. I'm not even necessarily talking about numbers.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But it's who's showing up. Yeah. Is it the same four, no more? It's your click.
Speaker 2:I would even say, you know, on that point, you know, is it all transform transform transfer transfer growth?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Or is it conversion growth?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So all that. That's a whole, you know, could go on and on, but I just wanted to say growing is important.
Speaker 2:Number seven, we challenge and we encourage. This is that church discipline. Church discipline is such a rough way of saying it. Yeah. It just sounds like, you know, church lady with the ruler.
Speaker 1:Well, some traditions, quite frankly, are mean. Yeah. And we don't like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It it this is one of those things. Ephesians three ten, God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom, and its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan. A church has correction.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What does it say in the book of James, or book of Matthew? It says, hey, go, and you know, if your one on one hasn't worked, let's let's, the church can be a part of that peacemaking. This is one of the big signs that you have a bible study and not a church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Will you correct one another? Yeah. And who has the authority to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where's the pastor? That's one of the signs of the church It is. Is correcting bad doctrine. You see Priscilla and Aquila going to Apollos, and they are like, hey, you're not teaching accurately. There needs to, and they were empowered by Paul, armed with the word of God, to correct someone that was out there preaching something that wasn't accurate, and Apollos received that correction.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's powerful when it happens. I think right now of a woman in our church, and she has honestly probably thanked me multiple times over the years and has been in our church a long time. And it was a moment early on, years and years ago, where it came to us that she and a part you know, it was a bible study within our church, so it was great. Bible study within the church. But she had begun to speak in a way that was gossiping and honestly causing some disunity.
Speaker 1:And rather than going to leaders or leadership or people who could actually answer her questions or help with the thing that she was talking about, she was whispering to people who had no authority, and it was just breathing discontent out of context. And so it was one of those moments where, you know, we and people, we can just be there. We just start talking or not thinking. That's a dangerous trap and could be a whole another podcast. But when we caught wind of it and I knew this sweet woman and I love her, loved her then, loved her now, And I went to her, and I just I just overtly talked to her about it.
Speaker 1:And I wasn't mean, and, you know, we just had the conversation, brought it to her awareness. Sometimes just the overt conversation is enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just the fact that some things are said that people don't normally say. And just bringing up, hey. This is what was heard. Tell me about that. Her being able to respond and me be able to share, you know, that really can cause disunity and explain why.
Speaker 1:And she walked away, and this is what she says over and over again years later. She's like, it wasn't until later that I realized I'd gotten in trouble. Yeah. And I was like, well, you weren't even my heart wasn't get you exactly. There's correction.
Speaker 1:My heart was never get you in trouble, but she was so thankful. She was like, thank you for helping me and correcting me. It's like my eyes were opened to see what I was doing, and I don't wanna be that. I don't wanna do that. When you stop
Speaker 2:receiving correction
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We want correction.
Speaker 1:I need correction.
Speaker 2:Oh, we want correction. Good night. You have a posture of you've stopped receiving correction, danger
Speaker 1:Danger.
Speaker 2:Danger. Danger. And you know, there are people in the church that there's a stiff rebellion.
Speaker 1:Stiff neck to the bible
Speaker 2:calling They will not receive leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They will not receive correction, and at Keystone, there have been times where we've had to say, we're not the we're not the place for you. Yeah. Because you will not, you're you're doing your own thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're not walking in in an orderly way inside the local church, you're a distraction, you're divisive, and that's
Speaker 1:That's all rare, thankfully, but
Speaker 2:it's It's rare, thankfully, but when we equip our pastors, you cannot be a pastor at Keystone, and have fear of man issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it won't You
Speaker 2:cannot be a pastor at Keystone, and and reject the courage required for conflict.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But our heart is not just conflict. No. Our heart is conflict resolution Yeah. And correction.
Speaker 1:So What I would say about that, last thing on that, we've gotta wrap up. I know we're so passionate about all of this. Here would be my dream for you when it comes to correction, encouragement, is that if and when that moment comes in your life, I pray that you would actually see it as a gift from God. Not everybody has people in their world who even care. Not everyone has leaders or people who would even care that you're headed for an absolute train wreck or a car crash of the soul.
Speaker 1:So many people in this world, it's like, you do you. Hope it works out. When you have a church prayerfully, pastors that, again, are not perfect, we all need correction. We all need people bringing leadership. But when you have pastors before God in humility realizing we're not above anything, we are a mess apart from Christ.
Speaker 1:But, Lord, you are helping us every day, and you've charged us to help those that you've entrusted under our leadership. When you have a a posture from a pastor or a leader like that who's coming because they are for you, they want you to win, They want your life to thrive. They want your family, your marriage to be better. When you have that person come to you, it's a gift. See it as a gift.
Speaker 1:Test the words with the Lord. Let the spirit of God lead you in that journey. And I promise you, nine times out of 10, if not more, you're gonna have such a blessing on the other side of that moment that you will be so thankful to God, and you will it'll just build your faith.
Speaker 2:And and every human needs to have that posture.
Speaker 1:All of it.
Speaker 2:We have people in our life
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Starting with relatives.
Speaker 1:Yes. And they all sock it
Speaker 2:to you. They will sock it to us, and then we have dear friends Yeah. Who we walk in life with, and this isn't a cheerleading squad. We have church structure.
Speaker 1:Fellow pastors.
Speaker 2:We have, well, we have church structure, which is governance and wise counsel that has, we have utterly given them permission, we know they're for us, to, if there's any flags
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And catch it early. Please You know, catch it early, and that's our posture. And then we have relationships with other pastors that have permission, and utterly the relational equity to be able to say, hey, man, help me with this.
Speaker 1:It's so important.
Speaker 2:And it's so important. So
Speaker 1:But this is the church.
Speaker 2:This is the church, and this is the overflow. So thank you for joining us again. We could have gone a lot longer, so maybe we need to pick this up and go one by one on these and do separate episodes. But thank you for joining us for The Overflow with Brandon and Susan, and we can't wait to see you next time.