1.40 / How should a church be run?

Church in the 80s meant an overhead projector. Today it looks like a concert. Both felt like the one right way to do church. Have we mistaken tradition for truth?

Jesus said, "I will build my church." Then He handed it to people and never gave them an org chart. In this episode, my co-host Nick Surface and I talk through what the church is for, why every generation fights over how to do it, and how to tell a preference from a principle.

Are church traditions the same as biblical truth?
No. Traditions are preferences. Interpretations become opinions, and for a lot of people opinions quietly become truth. If the only way you hear from God is a sermon, a Bible study or a worship song, you have a relationship with that person's relationship with God. Read it for yourself.

Does the Bible tell us how to run a church?
Not in one verse. The Old Testament spells out the rules, down to the sacrifices. In the New Testament, Jesus gives the vision (discipleship, the Great Commission, the Great Commandment) and leaves the method to us. Scripture shows three leadership models: elder or board governance (Acts 15, 1 Timothy 5, Titus 1), congregational governance (1 Peter 2), and overseer or episcopal governance, from the Greek ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos). I see all three in the book of Acts.

Why did Jesus keep breaking the Pharisees' Sabbath rules?
The Pharisees built fences around the law. Mixing mud counted as work, so Jesus healed a man with mud on the Sabbath (John 9). Over and over, He showed them that what they built around the law was not the law itself.

Is the modern megachurch just the next tradition?
I think so. The screens-and-lights model of the early 2000s was built to reach new people, not to be comfortable. Thirty years later, a lot of churches keep it because it is comfortable. Someone is going to create the new model.

Scriptures
Exodus 33:18-19 · Matthew 5:16 · Ecclesiastes 7:10 · Matthew 16:18 · John 9:6 · Acts 15 · 1 Timothy 5 · Titus 1 · 1 Peter 2:9

Words and ideas
δόξα (doxa), glory: in Exodus 33, His glory is His goodness
ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia), church: called-out people with a shared purpose
ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos), overseer: where the word Episcopal comes from
Eruv: a wire around a city block so the block counts as "home" on the Sabbath

Chapters
0:00 Cold open and show intro
0:53 Messi, LeBron and why we love watching greatness
3:38 What is God's glory? Doxa and Exodus 33
5:35 The church, Gen Z, house churches and megachurches
8:04 Ecclesiastes: don't romanticize the good old days
9:48 Create the future or get dragged into it
12:51 Success is pattern recognition (America at 250)
14:16 Are megachurches the new tradition?
16:26 Traditions are preferences: what is dogma?
17:51 Are you hearing someone else's version of God?
18:50 Carmen, Forest Frank and the nostalgia trap
22:20 The Pharisees' fences around the law (John 9)
23:48 What is an eruv? Legalism and the Sabbath
25:41 Why we build traditions, and why churches keep them
27:54 Does the Bible say how to run a church?
29:31 Elder boards vs congregational votes (Acts 15, 1 Peter 2)
31:14 Pastor-led churches and why nonprofits need boards
34:03 The episcopal model: Catholic, Anglican and the early church
35:32 So which church model is right?
37:20 Jesus gave the vision, not the method
38:24 Wrap-up

Previous: 1.39 / What do you do with feedback you don't want?
Next: 1.41 / What is the church for? 4 roles the Bible gives it

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What is The Dialog?

Ancient philosophers used the dialog to find answers to life’s greatest questions. The Dialog is a search for truth in modern life through the lens of ancient philosophy, history, and theology. This podcast will challenge your assumptions, change your thinking and show you how to master modern living.

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. I'm interested in one thing, the future, and believe me, I know the only way. To get there is together. What we've got here is failure. Milk Cake. You may think you know what tribute, but believe me, you don't what the truth. You can't handle the truth. For centuries, philosophers have used the dialogue to search for truth, because it's through conversation, through the logos, that we find it. This is the dialogue where ancient philosophy, history and theology meet modern life. Together, we'll wrestle with big questions and give our answers to the way we live. Let's start the conversation. Dude, it is. It is good to be back with you. Man. We just we Yeah, I would say we just watched one of the greatest I think the last World Cups had had some of the greatest games I've ever seen, Like in a row with Argentina like they just had twenty twenty two is like the coolest run watching MESSI just like run through. But we just watched we're coming off today when we're recording this. We just watched Argentina play Egypt and I haven't watched a lot of soccer. I'm gonna be honest, but we just watched the best ten minutes of soccer I think I've ever seen in my life. When Argentina coming down from two to win three two. It was crazy. It brings I didn't know we were gonna go like current events, but like it does, it goes. It brings my heart great joy when I get a text me going like, dude, are you watching this? And what did I text you back? Is the Pope Catholic? Of course I'm watching it, dude. I love I love. All, I love all forms of sport, but watching greatness, man, I think the older I get, the more I just love watching great people be great, like us. I used to be such a Lebron hater. I've never been a Messi hater. I like, I used to be such a Lebron hater, and now, like with Lebron's longevity. And what he's able to do, it's like, dude, you can't hate this guy. I mean, you appreciate what people, You appreciate the price that's paid to build something. I remember I heard somebody talking about peak humanity and they were talking about Usain Bolt righting the one hundred miler or Adele singing like at the at her absolute full throat. And it does make you appreciate because like, look, we're just a reflection of God's glory. And but when you see like a peak reflection of what we know is peak, there is something that just makes you stop and go like wow, I did not know that was possible and it is a beautiful thing to behold. Yeah, you appreciate that well. I think I think that's a deep thought. Man. I think that that's the truth of what it is is you're watching on on a physical level, You're watching uh, someone operate in the full measure of their potential. Yeah, right for sure. And like God's given us all that, And I think it resonates with everybody where everybody's like, man, I I it's so and then I'm watching someone be great because most people right are mediocre with all due respect. I just I think there's something special about when you see somebody who does something pique or when you know nature is this way as well. I love that God put reflections of himself that you don't need an interpreter to understand. No one needs to tell you when you're watching like, you know, a dribbling like a guy who's thirty nine dribble around people, or just pop up again with yet another crucial goal, like snatching victory from the Jaws defeat. Like no one needs to tell you this is great. You're just sitting there going why, Like you're just like, how is how is he always in the right place? It's amazing? I love it? And well, and it's such a it's it's like the word glory, you know, the word glory in the Bible. It's such an interesting word, like this Greek word dosa. It means it means how God reveals himself to the world, you know. So when we say God gets the glory, its or like the glory of God, what we're talking about, like the heavens proclaimed the glory of God, you know. Or in the Book of Romans, the Bible says that since the beginning of time, God's individual invisible attributes have been clearly seen in nature. Right when we're like in the beauty of nature, it's like a whole spiritual message that God's sending us of his glory and. Who he is and the glory in humanity. Like even to me the greatness of humanity is a reflection of God's greatness on some level. I agree. I think it was really profound to me when I was reading in Exodus this year. And I don't know if it's somebody pointed out to me or if it was the Holy Spirit. I can't remember. I just remember when I read this, it made so much sense. Moses asked God to show him his glory, and God's response is, and this is in Exodus thirty three, says tomorrow, I'll make all my goodness right. So when you say, like, what is God's glory? It's all his goodness. Then he proclaims his name the Lord, the Lord right, And I just I love that so much that it's like, so, how do we what's our purpose? It is to glorify God, to bring him glory? How do we do that? We proclaim all his goodness everywhere we go, which means that whether we're whatever we're doing right, whether eating or drinking and all things like that, we we would we would give glory to God and do it is under him. So I just, I don't know. I think it's kind of a cool little initial thought, and it's very much departed from where we're actually going, because. I don't think I don't think it is. I think it's because what's the purpose, Like, what's the purpose of life on earth? You know, what's the what's the reason why God has put us on the earth to do anything that we're doing. It's to reveal the greatness of the you know, Matthew five, Jesus said, let people see your good works, they glorify your. Father in heaven. You know. And go ahead, No, no, no, you keep going. Sorry, I was going to say, and and we're going to talk about the church, like the Capital C Church. And there's no better, there's no there's nothing on the earth that has a higher intention or potential or plan to do that than the Church that reveals the glory of God to the world. Yeah, and that I mean that is that is the design, right, is that it's the church is meant to be. Uh, it's what Jesus set up on the earth. Right, So it's like it's God's instrument in the earth. To oversimplify it, And it's interesting because you and I were talking about this beforehand. You know, there's so much research now, dude, I don't remember growing up that like Barna and Pugh. I don't know if they existed back when we were kids, but like nowadays you have so much like great data on the church and like all this like you know, factual stuff to talk about, and you know, gen Z is coming back to the Lord, which is amazing, right. I think it's amazing to see how they're like they are as they're saying they're spiritual. A lot of them are are coming back there finding Christianity, and you know, one of the big influencers. I was actually listening to him because John Bavie was on his podcast is Bryce Crawford. And Bryce Crawford's out in LA and he's part of a home church. And I've been part of a home church and now you and I are part of what would be considered quote unquote a megachurch as much as I hate that terminology. Well, and you're part of like a really cool more than a home church. You're a part of a really cool church movement in the UK that like a lot of Americans especially don't know about, like the right the church model that you're that your wife Rian and her dad were part of is like one of the coolest things, you know. Yeah, I mean Honestly, I didn't realize how special it was when I was there. I'll tell you that that network is not I don't know that it even exists anymore, which really, you know, I think that that's kind of what we want to look at today. What I'm curious to pull out to you, because I honestly don't know where you're what you're going to pull out. But like, it's just there's so many different ways of doing church right, and people argue over stuff. Now, when I was in my twenties, I was like all four church like house churches because I was like, look, man, you know, I just I attended so many churches where you. I don't believe in this, you know, it's all corrupt, Like I don't believe. Yeah, Like like like jen these saying gens. I don't like saying generations because it makes me feel like the old guy. In the room. Right. But but but everyone every generation thinks that they're the first one to be like disillusioned and dissatisfied by. Institutions or organizations. You know, like, oh, we're you know, we're questioning authority for the first time in history. Okay, yeah, o, yeah, you know what's so funny is like, dude, the Book of Ecclesiastes is so deep on this man, because it actually has one I read through it recently, the entire book in two days, and that's not that long. It's like thirteen chapters. I made it sound like it was like a massive accomplishment to be twenty minutes. But reading it like that was great because so many lines jumped off. And one of these says is he said to think of to think of older days, of the fondness of days past is not wise. It was just very simple way of like saying, don't dress up the past, like don't don't over glamorize what's already been before. And we all do that. But like when I was in my twenties, I was hardcore like house church guy. Man. I was like, this is the greatest thing I've been Like why would we waste so much resource on a building when we're the church, which like, okay, that's a logical thought process. And then it's like, also you can't hide from relationship here, like that's really important. So I mean it had all these great things, and like when something went wrong with people because the relations and ships, like there were people that were really there to help them right now was their weaknesses and difficulties. Yeah, for sure there was you know, like all that every model has a unique challenge to it as well as a benefit. But I think you can sit there and you can go like, because people get staunch on this stuff, man, Like people will argue and oftentimes, like you said, it's generational. You know, it's so funny, Josh, you and I are gonna die before gen Z Man, Like we to sit there and argue with the people who are like the future. Argument, our time is going to be up someday. Yeah, It's it's stupid that we would sit there and argue, but like that's always the case, like all these young guys, and I think I'm prone to it. Man. Sometimes I'm like, what are they doing with all these guys have the same haircut? Dude, it looks like they just wake up out of bed. Like what's wrong with broccoli tops? Dude, Dude, the broccoli top? I love the brock tops. No, I Yeah, I think that's a great thought. I mean I think that the that we we usually like human beings throughout history, you get you get one of two decisions, or like you get one of two experiences. Right, You either get to be a part of creating the future and enjoying the future, or you get dragged into the future like kicking and screaming. So people that talk about like the old ways and the good old days and people that are like traditionalists, that's fine, right, it's fine have a preference. But there's a reason why that's not going to exist anymore. It's because the world is heading in a new direction that's probably actually better than the old ways, right in a lot of ways. Right, it's like to what Solomon said. Like, one of the things I've heard people argue and debate a lot is Solomon saying there's nothing new under the sun. Right. And I've even heard I've talked about Aaron mc menace in our relationship on this podcast before, Like I've heard him say that Solomon was wrong. You know, that's which is awesome. And when you hear him talk about it, he's not actually a heretic, but it makes him seem like a heretic because you can't you're not allowed to say the Bible's wrong. Right, So no, dude, definitely, yeah, I mean it is heretical. So it's not like, oh, it makes you sound like a heretic, like it's actually. It actually is, yeah, because everything falls down the moment you go like, well this part's wrong, it's like yeah, no. Yeah, So that's he's not actually saying that that Solomon. That Solomon is wrong, by the way, you can go google this and watch the video. But the idea that that he has, or the way I hear the idea that he has, is that we're wrong in how we receive what Solomon said in that what Solomon was talking about was there's cycles and patterns throughout history of stuff, and there's also principles that exist, right that those things are not You're not going to discover a new like there's there's winter, spring, summer, and fall. Right, We're not going to find a new season, right, I mean, who knows maybe, but at this point in as long as we've measured human history, uh, there's not going to be like a fifth season that shows up because some one just creates it. Like I don't. Doubt the ingenuity of humanity and what people, maybe in the future with scientific advances can do. And also if you're like a conspiracy theorist and you believe in like cloud seating and all this weird all the kind of like weird stuff that people in that space believe in. And I'm going to get like a lot of maybe chatter from that. But if you're in that space, you're like, oh, but they're already controlling the weather. It's like, all right, well, you know, all right cool, but we're not. But we haven't so far been able to create a fifth season. So that's like the idea to me of Solomon saying there's nothing new under the sun, or even to what you're saying, is that one of the things I think that God wants us to realize that we don't really realize a lot, is that there's principles that govern the universe. And if you want to be I think one of the things about success is success is really and I'm learning this even right now in my life, success is really about pattern recognition. Oh big time, you know. And if something happens one time, it's just you know, it's an event, But when something happens twenty times, it's a pattern. And patterns are truth. Like the more you see a pattern, the more you see something that's true. So since the dawn of time, God's invisible attributes have been clearly seen. And so what's interesting to go back to, you know what Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. One of the things that's not new under the sun is people complaining about established institutions, right, right, So we just celebrated two hundred and fifty years in America a few days ago. The foundation of America was paraphrase summarized, the way that government exists in the earth doesn't work, and so we rejected that form of government. We said, our rights are given to us by God. Really great thing happened. America establishes in independence, We won the Revolutionary War, and now you know, for a lot of people, they don't believe the government should be questioned anymore. But the pattern is. The old way doesn't work, the new way works, and then the new way becomes the old way. Like we live in a context now where this is something I've thought for probably ten years in my life. Okay, the modern way that megachurches do church is the tradition is like our version of the traditions of the churches of the nineteen eighties, the kind of churches that I grew up in, right in the eighties and nineties, when I was a kid, were no lights, no screens, you had an overhead projector. The room was bright lit up right, like the way that churches are now is like a concert venue. And it wasn't like that like the churches I grew up in. You'd walk in, the lights would be the same, the whole service. There wasn't like creative stuff. There wasn't like the music was depending on what kind of church you go to, the music was very was just bland, right, and. Preaching was different. All that stuff was different. So what happened was around like the early two thousands in the history of like let's say the quick history of the modern church is all these churches, like our churches around same time started so you have this like rise of the new thing. So this rise of the new thing happens around late nineties early two thousands where churches start to the criticism was churches started to become nightclubs, so screens and smoke and lights and show and entertainment and big events, like massive events that people are coming to, big draws that were drawing the community to. And now we're almost thirty years into that model, or maybe more than thirty years into that model right, and people love it and they think to themselves, this is how church is supposed to be done. This, this is what church is now and forever, and this is the model of church that works like this is just how it works. And that's the same thing that the church leaders were saying in the eighties and nineties about going to screens and going to cameras in the service and everything else that's now become kind of kind of like old hats. So people what they tend to do is they cling to traditions. Traditions are just preferences, you know. Traditions are There's this word called dogma, right, and dogmas used a lot like in Catholic circles in the Catholic world, Dogmas like established truth. Right, Well, dogmas are actually opinions that people had that everyone agreed with. And so now this has become not dogma is a truth itself. Dogma is like a take on truth. So one of the dogmas of the Catholic Church is purgatory. Okay, So where does purgatory come from. It's not really in the Bible, it's not clearly. It's an opinion that Thomas Aquinas had based on him reading the Bible. No way, I didn't know that. Yeah. So then so Thomas Aquinas lived in the I think the twelfth century, like twelve hundred years after Jesus. Okay, so this guy a thousand years later says, oh, here's what I think that I see in the Bible, and then the church goes, yes, it's actually that way, and now we're going to develop an entire theology around that. Right, there's nothing wrong with like interpretations, but interpretations become opinions, right in opinions for a lot of people, they don't realize that opinions become truth, So opinions become Like I was saying this on a Bible study that I that I host this week. I was saying that, telling telling the group, I said, the problem of you guys doing this Bible study are going to church or listen to worst music is if that's the only way you interact with God, you're just hearing someone else's. Version of God. Like even like doing this podcast or me being a communicator from a platform, there's good things I have to say, and there's things I have to say that I feel like on a level of a revelation from God. But also if people don't read the Bible. You really don't have a relationship with God. You have a relationship with that person's relationship with God, right, yeah, you know, big time, And so that's what But that's what human beings do because we're tribal and we build communities, and we build in groups and outgroups, and there's a certain way to be in the in group and a certain way to be in the outgroup. And there's things that are trendy, and there's things that resonate with a certain generation of people. So for me, there's things that resonate with me that I just like. But that's based on the time of Like I was listening to the other day, I was listening to music with my kids, and they're like huge into Forest Frank, right nice, And I think Forest Frank is great. I think he's a great guy. I think he's really got a heart after God. I think he's awesome. Yeah, I like Forrest frankle up, and he's he's my kids generating. I realized this driving in the car. He's my kids generation. Carmen. Yo, oh dude, what a guy. Karen was like, I can't tell you how much I love Carmen I got to I got to know he died. He died a few years ago, but I got to know him, and it was like one of the coolest things. That he got married at our church. Actually, no, I dud, how have I never heard this story? Yeah, Like, this was like a few years before COVID and I got to hang out with him. I got to get his number. I was like, dude, I have Carmen's number. It was amazing. Is a Christian flex and a hack. If you don't know who. Carmen was and you're listening to this, Carmen was Forrest Frank. Before Forrest Frank, he was selling out stadiums. He had he had one of the not not just like a large Christian artist, he was like one of the biggest artists on the planet. He's like, yeah, I mean he wasn't like Michael Jackson, but he was the Michael Jackson of Christian music. Dude. He was my first concert ever and I can still see it in my head. I don't know how old I was, but you know, dude, he had this song called Witch's Invitation, which was Yeah, dude, that song scared the living daylights out of me. Like I remember I was like, you know, I was young enough that it's It's like I had I had a thing about Double Worshiper's Action No Monsters. I love I Love No Monsters. Riot was a great album. Oh yeah, dude. Yeah. Anyway, So I so I'm I'm thinking about this and my kids are listening to Forest France. I said, let me, let me, let me, let me. I'm gonna have you listen this guy. What do you think? They don't like it at all. I'm like, dude, Carmen, Carmen's. I wouldn't say Carmen's better than Forrest Frank, but Carmen's I have a different connection to Carmen than I do to Forest Frank, Right, yeah, of course, man. But but for me, a lot of my taste and all that comes from this nostalgia of remembering what it was like when I was a kid and experiencing that. Right, So my kids are having that same experience with a different person who creates, who creates something completely different. And I could look at him and I could be like, hey, man, you know, if you're a lot more like Carmen, I'd probably listen to you. Well, guess what, no one's listening to necessarily that anymore. Right, Well, I'm gonna. Start, dude, I'm gonna look up on Apple Music because I man, I need. To get him some Spotify streams. Man, you know I'm gonna get it. We got to get calm and back into the charts, you know, back in the game. But but that, everybody, you know, I think that's something that's hard for us all as we get older, is like we really do have a time in our life where we're in the There's a word the zeitgeist. That's a German word. It means spirit of the age. Right, we're we're we're in the zeitgeist, Like we're a part of the trend, and we're we're like cool and the way we dress is cool, and the stuff we listen to is cool. And then you wake up one day. You're like, oh my gosh, nobody listens to the stuff I listen to. Nobody likes the stuff I like. Dude, I work with a bunch of I work with a bunch of like early twenties people at one of my clients, and sometimes I'll reference movies that I'm like every person should see, Like I'll reference Anchorman. They have no idea what I'm talking about, Like what's wrong with you? Like, but like you think about Anchorman came out with either one or not born, you know what I mean, Like, if you're twenty two twenty three, you're like, I think Anchorman came out in two thousand and three. They don't even They were like, they don't care about Will Ferrell at all. Yeah, dude, he's just some old guy that they're like, Oh, I mean yeah, anyways, But you know, it's so interesting the thing you said about purgatory. Man, this is like you said, there's nothing new under the sun. These patterns repeat themselves. I'm reminded of the Pharisees, and like, if you know about Phariseical tradition, they would basically argue with each other, and then what they did a lot of was they would interpret the law and build fences around how to interpret it. So when it's like you're not allowed to work on the Sabbath, it's like, well, how do we define work? Right? And so then one guy goes, well, if you're mixing any fluid with mud, because you're making that's how you make things for bricks, So you're not allowed to do that at all. And when you start understanding all these fences that they had built around the law. You understand how Jesus like like took a four by four and backed over their fences four hundred times to make sure like it is actually like because otherwise you read the scripture where Jesus heels man by spitting in the mud and rubbing on his eyes, and you're like, what the heck, Jesus, that is such a random way to heal somebody. And then he realized, well, it's because he healed them on the Sabbath, and Pharisee said that that was violated. He was showing them over and over again from a place of love. What you guys have built around the law is not the law it self. You've missed the heart of what God has. And so I translate that to what you said about purgatory, and then also what you're talking about with Carmen, and then also to what we we have with church preferences. So like we've got house churches, we've got megachurches, we've got church plants, we've got like remote locations. Dude, what is actually right? Like because you once said there was three models that are scriptural, and I don't know that you ever went into it. I remember when you said it like piqued my curiosity. So I'd love to hear more about that. But like you know, what's right, I guess is the question? Well, I'll say, yeah, I'll say one thing. Have you ever heard of an eruv? No, dude, that sounds like something that happens with a dentist. It's funny. In Judaism they have these things called called ERUs or aerbs. I don't really know how to say it. So what they what? There's a there's a there's a rule about the Sabbath. Right, one of the rules about the Sabbath is you can't carry anything outside. You can't carry a box, you can't carry, but you can carry stuff in your house. M okay. So what they what they do is they take these wires like you can see this in Jerusalem, and there's even places in New York there are like this. If you look up. They take these wires and they do like a big like they take a like a city block, and they they do like a wire above the above all the houses and all the buildings in the city block. And then they say, oh, this is my house. Huh. Right, So they can violate, so they can carry stuff around without violating the law of the Sabbath. Dude that right. Yeah, So there's this whole there's this whole thing about legalism, right, and that's what that's what Jesus always talked to the Pharisees about, is like, you're you're so legalistic, you clean the outside of the cup and not the inside of the cup. Because the Pharisees in the Bible were, uh, their whole job was to interpret the law for people and they and they did this because they really cared about following God. Like that's that's what made them the bad guy. What made them the bad guy was they cared so much about following the law and getting it and getting everyone else to. Follow the law. But they were hypocritical and that the law is actually Paul talks about this in the Book of Romans. The law is actually impossible to follow. And this is why we need why we need a savior. Right yep. So, and what what humans do, like we're always trying to put stuff into boxes, We're always trying to compartmentalize, we're always trying. To make sense of it. Yeah, yeah, like I was, I was telling you this before we started recording. There's a guy you know, we were we were talking about I was talking about like getting better and overcoming like your life and developing yourself and in this Bible study. And one of the guys asked me a question. I was talking just about this idea of sanctification God making into a better person, and he was like, man, I still understand that. How do I make that? Pretty much asked me, how do I make that easier on myself? It's like, no, it's not easy. It's just going to be hard. It's just going to require a lot of maturity. So we try to compartmentalize things, and we create traditions and structures and all these things because they make us comfortable. Like, the reason why the reason why churches in the early two thousands did all of these new models was not to be comfortable. It was to reach a new group of people that were attracted to something different. Right now, Really, one of the reasons why churches continue to do this, and this is more my opinion, is because they're just comfortable with it, and it's now become the play that we run and it is on a level what people right now are attracted to. But someone's going to create the new model. So but but back to but back to what we were talking about. There's there's I think there's all this stuff in scripture that you see and I talked about patterns a second ago. There's all this stuff in scripture that you see about patterns. So there's all throughout the Bible, there's there's all kinds of discussions about organizing people. Right, So in the Book of Exodus, jeth Throw advises Moses. The Book of Judges is about organization, trying to organize God's people. God established his kings, Solomon builds a structure to build the temple, and the Ami rebuilds the wall of Jerusalem. Jesus feeds the five thousand, and he does it in a certain way with the disciples, on and on. Right, there's there's all these different things. So typically for me like what I see. So the one of the one of the big questions that people have. And we'll jump in because I want to talk about maybe two things. I want to talk about how a church should be run and what a church is. So let's talk. Let's talk since I'm already in the in the in the flow that we can talk first about how a church would be run. So here's what a lot of people say. And maybe if you're listening this you've heard this. You know, church is the best churches in the world. And what the Bible teaches is that church should be run by a board. A church should always be run by a board, like a board of elders. Right, that's a model. That's just one model though. So there's not like a verse in the Bible where God says, here's how you should run a church. And that's one of the big, I think key distinctions between following God and the Old Testament and following God in the New Testament. World is in the Old Testament, God is very clear. Here's all the rules, very clear, so clear. Right. Here's how you enter the temple. Here's the outer court, the inner court, the Holy of Holies. Here's what the sacrifice is. Here's what the sacrifice is, and here's what you should do. Here's what you shouldn't do if you're unclean. Here's all the different You can read the Book of Leviticus and see all the different laws. Right, there's six hundred and thirteen laws like enumerated throughout that part that time in the history. Then then Jesus comes to the earth and he goes, okay, I'm going to bild my church. And he uses the word ecclasea, which means a gathering, like a political gathering or like a gathering of you know, it means the gathering of called out ones. So it's people who have a shared common purpose in gathering. And the even Jesus's conversations were a lot about questions. He would ask questions, people would ask him questions. He wasn't like giving a whole bunch of answers. But in the New Testament especially, we see, or let's say, the whole Bible, there's really three three church leadership models that get presented. Right. One is the one I just mentioned, which is elder and board governance. Okay, though in the Book of Acts, like Acts fifteen one, Timothy five, Titus one, those are common scriptures that are used to support this model. And so the church is governed by a group of elders who aren't on staff at the church in a single board or even you know, if you look at certain churches, there's multiple committees. There's like a top board, and there's a board for everything. There's like a missions board, and a men's board and a women's board, and then all these boards are like accountable to a higher board. Okay. So that's that's one model, and a lot of people say that's the that's the biblical model. That's just one biblical model. Okay. Another biblical model is congregational governance. Right, so people that like this model. In one Peter two. The Bible says, the Bible talks about the priesthood of all believers. Right, Okay, I just wonder where this came from. Yeah, yeah, the priesthood of all believers. All believers are the pastor of the church. All believers are the leader of the church. You know. It's this very democratic form of government of leading a church where a lot of things are congregational votes. You get the whole church together, everyone who's a member, and they vote on decisions, they vote on who the pastor is. All that, right, You see that also in the Book of Acts and the Book of Second Corinthians. As you know, these these local congregations of churches are very autonomous. They're like run by a central governing board. Right. So that's another model that's not like so if you're if you're a part of a congregation led church, cool man, that's a biblical model. If you're a part of an elder led church, cool that's. A biblical model. Another biblical model, and this is probably the one that the average person dislikes the most, but it is biblical. Is pastor governance like pastor or like overseer governance, which is just a high a hierarchy of individual leaders. Okay. So this is where the word episcopal comes from. Right, So the word episcopoi in Greek means overseer. And the way that the church this in this particular structure. So so I'll talk about this one a little bit more because this is the one that rubs people the wrong way the most right. And I'll say this as a caveat up front, Like, you actually can't in America run a church this way now, okay, really yeah, well you can't and have a bank account or like okay, right, nonprofit? Right, So nonprofits are like if like for our church, even if we go to the bank and we establish a nonprofit, we're required to have a board that makes the decisions for the nonprofit. Huh, there's nothing, there's nothing we can do to change that, Like we can't say, like, of course a nonprofit could could technically form and not run that way, but if you ever get a loan for a nonprofit, you have to have a board. It's just the way that these things are structured in the country that we happen to live in. So people will look at churches and they'll go, Oh, that guy's just doing whatever he wants. That's not really that's not really ever the case, right, based on how even the legal structures of things like this are set up. So at the very least, let's say, like you know, pastor X or whatever starts, you know, starts this movement and then they they you know, people start following um, so they form a five oh one c three, become a church. He has to name board members before the before he can go get a bank account. And if they let's say they need a loan for. A building or whatever, right is that I don't I'm saying, I don't know if it's specifically about getting a bank account. But if you have any kind of resources, right, okay, that that are shared, yes, because because the nonprofit doesn't not no one can own a nonprofit. Right. That's like the idea of being a nonprofit, so. That they want to make sure that there's not one guy just siphoning money off going like, hey, we're a nonprofit, it's supporting his lifestyle. Okay, Yeah, So people that do this get shut down by the government, right. Okay, So when you start operating with like millions of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, Uh, anybody who is going to give you money, resources, whatever, is going to make sure that you have a aboard. So but nonetheless, there is this model, and this is the model of like the modern day Episcopal Church. It's the model of the Catholic Church, Lutheran. Lutheran churches, Methodist churches, Anglican churches. They don't use they don't they're not run with congregations and they're not run with boards. They use this is called the Episcopal model. And the reason why a lot of churches use this, especially churches that like find their history and like ancient roots, is because this is the way the Roman and Greek empire functioned. So what the church did, the early church did was they said, oh, here's how the government works, we should run a church that way. Right, how early are we talking there dude, like first century, first century church in the Roman Empire within. Touching distance of like the Apostles, basically because John died. This is how they ran it, right they they they they Well, here is theirs. I'll say, they actually ran churches all three ways. Like you look at the New Testament Church, you look at the Book of Acts. In the Book of Acts, all three of these models are there. There's churches that are congregation led, there's churches that are led by a group of people, and there's churches that are led by individuals. It's like they just got to pick right. So so like the Catholic Church today runs that way. The pope is the pope is not a subject to a board of people, right, Like the ask you. Can ask you a question about this though, because I think what I'm trying to do is pull out you talk about how principles are patterns. So what's the pattern because like you said, what we love, man, we love if we because like if I'm a house church guy, I'm like, if only everybody had a house church. And if I'm an episcopal guy, I'm like, if only we love to have a right way. Because what's really confusing for us is for God to say, like, hey, go make disciples. Yeah, but Jesus, man, I really wish you could give me like the exact process so that way I know when I'm doing it. Because what we love is we love to look at all the things that are wrong most of the times with other people, right like oh well this guy, oh that, Like we're so prone to that, and like, so what's the what's the what's the principle here? Because if there's different methods, clearly they're navigating the same principle. What's the principle? I think the question, the question that people are asking is what's the best way to govern a church? Correct? Whichever one you want at the church. I mean that is not an answer people will love to do. Yeah, whichever one you want out of what God makes available. I mean, that's that's the thing about the church, you know, the church. Jesus said He's going to build his church, and then he hands it to human beings to try to build structures. And the thing about these three structures is that all of them have pros and cons, all of them have good things and bad things. Like there's an actual there's a someone can go to my go to my website. There's a there's a blog I did on this a few years ago. I think it was twenty twenty four problems And you can read all this stuff and like your website again, please josh uh it's it's JKC dot is Now you can go to joshcraft dot com. It will go there. But you got a lot of hate for changing that I did. I changed my Instagram name for two weeks and then we talked about feedback on the podcast for a reason. So, but but the thing that's interesting, that's a unique It's like I see this pattern. This is like the pattern I see or the principle of church. Jesus establishes the vision of the church. The vision of the church is clear, right right, Jesus establishes the vision of this environment that's about life and spiritual transformation and discipleship and fulfilling the Great Commission and fulfilling the Great Commandment. Right, all that, and then. He doesn't tell us how to do it, right, He says, here's what here's here's what you guys are going to go do. Here's what I've here's what I want you to do. I mean with the disciples. He could have sat down with them and said, look, vision strategies, vision structure strategy, here's the here's the why behind the church. Here's all you guys are gonna have different roles, and then here's what you're gonna do. Right. I think there's a lot of reasons why God didn't do it that way. He did do it that way in the Old Testament. Then the New Testament church comes along and God's like, hey, here's and this is kind of how principles are in our life. Figure out how to apply what I'm saying. Thank you for listening to the dialogue. Make sure to like, share and subscribe, and also if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me what I think, speak and write, you can go to Joshuacraft dot com or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.