WEBVTT 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:13.057 Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. I'm Pastor Cameron. 00:00:13.057 --> 00:00:18.977 And this is the Uncut Podcast where we talk about faith, life, Bible, the ministry, and 00:00:18.977 --> 00:00:25.617 try and have uncut and honest conversations about those topics. So today we're going 00:00:25.617 --> 00:00:30.184 to be kind of talking about, don't really know what we'll title this episode yet, but 00:00:30.317 --> 00:00:37.797 maybe something along the lines of like celebrity pastor or the cult of pastors or something 00:00:37.797 --> 00:00:40.222 like that. Church, yeah. It's a good point. 00:00:40.797 --> 00:00:50.673 It's difficult to know what to kind of title it or how to even talk about it. 00:00:50.916 --> 00:00:53.397 Where do we categorize it? 00:00:53.397 --> 00:00:58.757 Categorize it in the realm of things that happen in the church that shouldn't? 00:00:59.637 --> 00:01:09.308 Or is it a particularly personal or individual, not individual, but as an individual's issue or not? 00:01:09.477 --> 00:01:16.157 Yeah. Well, I guess we'll just share the context of why we're even talking about this. 00:01:16.157 --> 00:01:22.497 We sat down here and were recording, we were just catching up and we just ended up starting 00:01:22.497 --> 00:01:27.916 talking about it and we're like, maybe we should just turn on the mics. 00:01:28.257 --> 00:01:35.478 The thing that brought up the conversation was just last night I went and saw Jesus Revolution, 00:01:35.737 --> 00:01:39.017 which is a movie that's currently out in theaters right now. 00:01:39.017 --> 00:01:50.897 It follows the start of Calvary Chapel and the Jesus People movement, which was a co-movement 00:01:50.897 --> 00:01:58.817 that happened alongside the hippie revolution during the 70s. I'm somewhat familiar with 00:01:58.817 --> 00:02:05.057 some of the ethos behind some of that because the congregation and the denomination affiliation 00:02:05.057 --> 00:02:11.177 I grew up in was sort of birthed out of kind of the overflow or the tail end of the Jesus 00:02:11.177 --> 00:02:21.297 people movement. And, you know, essentially it's hippies who tried drugs but found Jesus instead. 00:02:22.181 --> 00:02:34.667 I'm psychs like i don't know how else to describe the beginning of the jesus people movement especially after having watched that movie that's the movie color kind of colors it as that as people who were hippies, 00:02:34.956 --> 00:02:43.531 we're trying to do everything that they could and find enlightenment love and found it lacking and then found jesus instead and that created a. 00:02:43.531 --> 00:02:52.691 And out of that comes a lot of our modern church sensibilities in ways that we're maybe 00:02:52.691 --> 00:02:54.651 not even fully aware of. 00:02:54.651 --> 00:02:59.291 We could even just spend a lot of time talking about the history of modern contemporary music 00:02:59.291 --> 00:03:04.311 and how that was kind of birthed out of all of that. 00:03:04.311 --> 00:03:09.091 But I watched this movie, it's in movie theaters right now, Jesus Revolution, and it was interesting 00:03:09.091 --> 00:03:18.251 because it's a well-made, well-produced movie and it even approaches some interesting topics 00:03:18.251 --> 00:03:24.414 for a Christian movie, some topics Christian movies wouldn't typically talk about. 00:03:24.531 --> 00:03:32.851 Like what? What kind of stuff? Like it kind of approaches, there's sort of three main characters I would say, two of 00:03:32.851 --> 00:03:39.952 which were pastors who were heavily involved in starting the Calvary Chapel movement, and. 00:03:40.211 --> 00:03:47.871 Then one who is kind of in his journey to discover Christ and kind of his beginning 00:03:47.871 --> 00:03:54.511 steps into ministry, which, so like just for context, all of that, like you've got Lonnie 00:03:54.511 --> 00:03:59.611 Frisbee, who was kind of this hippie Jesus guy, and then you've got Chuck, I don't remember 00:03:59.611 --> 00:04:02.971 his last name, but he was a pastor at Calvary Chapel. 00:04:02.971 --> 00:04:05.932 And these two pastors kind of co-together. Chuck Smith. 00:04:06.103 --> 00:04:11.291 Yeah, Chuck Smith. Started this movement in California. It grew. 00:04:11.291 --> 00:04:15.211 They were in this massive tent having nightly meetings for years, 00:04:15.211 --> 00:04:20.411 baptizing hundreds of people a week in California at this beach. 00:04:20.411 --> 00:04:22.200 So it kind of follows them. 00:04:22.281 --> 00:04:23.451 And the movie... 00:04:24.243 --> 00:04:32.853 Doesn't paint them as perfect people right the movie allows some of their faults to show through the movie kind of. 00:04:33.173 --> 00:04:45.218 Maybe slightly hands at some of the other faults or kind of just ignores them or wasn't inside of the scope of the film if i'm gonna be generous around like why didn't they talk about that well that wasn't. 00:04:45.605 --> 00:04:50.233 That didn't happen inside the time frame of the movie or something like that. 00:04:50.233 --> 00:04:56.033 But it allows to kind of bring forth this idea or perhaps the thesis of saying, well, 00:04:56.354 --> 00:04:58.245 like, maybe God uses broken people. 00:04:58.793 --> 00:05:05.482 And that's like, how do we deal with complex people who impact our following towards faith 00:05:05.689 --> 00:05:10.573 and towards Jesus and are really helpful and are doing God's work but end up at the end 00:05:10.573 --> 00:05:16.133 of the day being broken in some way and still being used by God, which I think is a really 00:05:16.133 --> 00:05:23.190 interesting message, but they still softballed it a little bit. 00:05:23.453 --> 00:05:27.413 And then the other thing that the other character who's having his faith journey through this 00:05:27.413 --> 00:05:31.293 whole movie goes through a hero's journey. 00:05:31.293 --> 00:05:40.333 It's essentially the movie ends, summarizes and becomes his version of his testimony is 00:05:40.333 --> 00:05:46.653 Pastor Greg Laurie, who you may or may not know of. I'm somewhat, I've maybe heard two of his 00:05:46.653 --> 00:05:51.613 sermons. He's not someone I've listened to or paid a ton of attention to, but he is a pastor of one 00:05:51.613 --> 00:05:57.453 of the largest churches in the United States and is kind of like maybe one of the closest things to. 00:05:59.388 --> 00:06:04.253 Holding a modern day Billy Graham Crusades. So he does, has at least in the past, I don't know 00:06:04.253 --> 00:06:10.173 know if he's currently hosting, but he has had big stadium evangelistic events in the 00:06:10.173 --> 00:06:13.206 vein of Billy Graham. 00:06:13.533 --> 00:06:19.213 So I exited the movie with some conflicting questions and feelings, and I went and I did 00:06:19.213 --> 00:06:25.133 me, I'm a film buff, I love talking about film and dissecting it and all of that. 00:06:25.133 --> 00:06:28.973 So immediately I'm looking at all the production history and everything. 00:06:28.973 --> 00:06:35.370 Well Greg Laurie wrote a book called The Jesus Revolution. I think there's two other authors involved in that. 00:06:35.693 --> 00:06:38.980 And then he co-produced this movie. 00:06:39.333 --> 00:06:43.513 And the question I'm kind of stuck sitting with is as much as there's some good things 00:06:43.513 --> 00:06:49.093 to maybe talk about and the movie was inspiring and sparked some great conversation and they 00:06:49.093 --> 00:06:52.916 did some things that Christian movies haven't done before, even if they maybe kind of didn't 00:06:52.997 --> 00:07:01.693 go all the way, I'm still kind of left feeling like the movie was a bit of a, I don't want 00:07:01.693 --> 00:07:07.265 say propaganda because that's not the right word, but it kind of just casts these two, 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:16.893 pastors who are now dead, Frisbee and Chuck Smith, in somewhat questionable light, portrays 00:07:16.893 --> 00:07:23.113 complex, whereas Greg, who is a current pastor, is kind of put through this very like. 00:07:25.117 --> 00:07:32.841 Very nice treatment sure i don't know that there is anything to say negatively about me i don't not here to like say well. 00:07:33.247 --> 00:07:36.333 Yeah but it poses a question to me of like. 00:07:37.387 --> 00:07:45.547 If i was in greg shoes or like if someone i don't know i don't think my life deserves a movie but i don't know i'm like. 00:07:45.547 --> 00:07:49.747 But if it did, how would it be told? Yeah, how would it be told? 00:07:49.747 --> 00:07:51.934 How would you want to tell it? How would I want to tell it? 00:07:52.547 --> 00:08:03.304 Would I even want to be involved in producing the movie? It just seems like that seems wrought with so many possibilities to be called out on, 00:08:03.907 --> 00:08:11.147 the carpet for the way you make it or what you put in it or what you don't or whatever. 00:08:11.147 --> 00:08:14.667 You could definitely talk about that as far as this movie. 00:08:14.935 --> 00:08:15.376 Sure. 00:08:15.667 --> 00:08:24.767 If you do more looking into Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee, you would find more things 00:08:24.767 --> 00:08:29.645 of like, that seems, you know, so they skated over some things and you're just kind of, 00:08:29.967 --> 00:08:37.687 I don't know, it kind of felt like Greg kind of walks out as this like, you know, star 00:08:37.687 --> 00:08:40.487 amongst broken people a little bit. 00:08:40.487 --> 00:08:44.859 Sure. But that is, it's less, this isn't like a. 00:08:45.927 --> 00:08:48.167 So we're not, we're not here to talk about. Not here to talk about. 00:08:48.167 --> 00:08:50.327 Jesus, or Greg Laurie. Greg Laurie. 00:08:50.407 --> 00:08:59.145 But merely is just kind of a jumping off point of like celebrity pastor is like a thing it's. 00:08:59.847 --> 00:09:05.727 And like, it's been a complex thing since, I mean, for a while, 00:09:05.727 --> 00:09:16.307 But I feel like every year at this point, we're seeing multiple articles or public scandals 00:09:16.307 --> 00:09:20.807 surrounding this pastor, this pastor, this church group. 00:09:20.807 --> 00:09:29.847 I think there's like, what, two or three documentaries about Hillsong now, just all these different things. 00:09:30.185 --> 00:09:41.727 It's something that I think we as pastors have thoughts about and we hear people have these conversations and people are wrestling through them and so 00:09:41.727 --> 00:09:46.647 we want to kind of enter into that little bit. One of the things that I think is 00:09:46.647 --> 00:09:48.757 important to note is that, 00:09:50.944 --> 00:09:57.354 When you talk about celebrity, celebrity pastors, you're usually talking about pastors who have, 00:09:58.236 --> 00:10:03.674 pretty, I mean, I guess it makes sense by virtue of numerics or. 00:10:06.394 --> 00:10:11.594 Platforms or whatever, that they have really, really large ministries. 00:10:12.415 --> 00:10:18.714 Greg Laurie has a really large ministry, you know, and other pastors that you would be like, 00:10:18.714 --> 00:10:22.114 like if you just were walking down the street and you say, you know, Hey, can you give a pastor? 00:10:22.114 --> 00:10:26.114 They might, someone might name a celebrity pastor, a big influential pastor. 00:10:27.114 --> 00:10:40.194 Uh, and what happens, I think is that there is a false perception that that's the norm in 00:10:40.194 --> 00:10:48.314 Christianity, that there is, that Christianity is made up of thousands and thousands of 00:10:48.314 --> 00:10:56.714 large, large churches, conglomerations, churches as corporations and businesses 00:10:56.814 --> 00:11:00.234 with charismatic CEOs at the helm. 00:11:00.937 --> 00:11:10.234 And so what you see at elevation is the same thing you're going to see at Calvary Chapel is the same thing you're going to see at, um, Harvest Bible 00:11:10.234 --> 00:11:17.874 Chapel or Trinity church in Scottsdale or what name your mega church is the same 00:11:17.874 --> 00:11:23.634 that you're gonna see at a church in Jamestown, New York or Columbus, Ohio or whatever the case may be. 00:11:23.634 --> 00:11:29.314 Yeah, I think like an interesting something that might surprise people right because like if we. 00:11:30.329 --> 00:11:37.522 Like when you ask somebody like if I were to come up to somebody and ask them like 00:11:37.882 --> 00:11:44.247 okay well like what size church do you attend and say they attend a church of about 100 people, 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.137 They would say, well, I attend a pretty small church. 00:11:48.811 --> 00:11:54.421 It's a pretty big church. Yeah. Statistically, actually, that's close to average. 00:11:54.421 --> 00:12:00.421 If you take all of the churches across America and you average the size of them, the average 00:12:00.421 --> 00:12:03.872 size would be somewhere around to 100 to 150 people. 00:12:04.493 --> 00:12:08.661 And a significant portion of churches exist 100 people or less. 00:12:08.661 --> 00:12:13.581 And even the biggest Christian churches in the world are not in the United States. 00:12:14.017 --> 00:12:20.341 Right. Yeah. They're in places like South Korea. Yeah. very large Christian churches in China even. 00:12:20.341 --> 00:12:24.082 Yes, underground. Yes, extraordinarily large Christian churches in Africa. 00:12:26.061 --> 00:12:30.941 But yeah, we get a sense of like, oh Christianity is America's religion 00:12:30.941 --> 00:12:33.345 and that's why we have all these big mega churches here. 00:12:34.227 --> 00:12:37.261 Well, one it's not, and that's a, it's not America's religion. 00:12:37.261 --> 00:12:39.821 That's a topic for another podcast. 00:12:39.821 --> 00:12:45.661 But also like it's not, when you say, I go to a church of 100 people, 00:12:45.661 --> 00:12:51.422 Like you said, that's an average or even above average in some places. 00:12:51.899 --> 00:12:58.701 Yeah. Yeah. And so we… Church size. I think it's because of the public visibility of large churches. 00:12:58.701 --> 00:13:03.602 They're the churches that we tweet, talk about, end up in the news. 00:13:03.721 --> 00:13:11.341 We begin to get this sense of like, oh, like, you know, like if a church is successful, 00:13:11.341 --> 00:13:17.521 It will just default to being the average church, which is this large multi hundred 00:13:17.521 --> 00:13:21.761 or sometimes multi thousand type church. 00:13:21.761 --> 00:13:26.561 And I think statistically and historically like maybe need to set some context and just 00:13:26.561 --> 00:13:32.292 say that's not normal or that's not, it's not an accurate portrayal of even the facts 00:13:32.601 --> 00:13:34.561 or the state of the church across America. 00:13:34.561 --> 00:13:47.621 Yeah, nor does it indicate a church that is overwhelmingly blessed as opposed to a church 00:13:47.621 --> 00:13:54.341 of like, okay, God is obviously blessing the church of 2000 and not blessing the church 00:13:54.341 --> 00:13:55.131 of 100. 00:13:55.341 --> 00:14:00.712 Yes. Or like God is, the church of 2000 is doing something right. 00:14:02.061 --> 00:14:06.341 Church of 100 is doing something wrong and that's why they are the different 00:14:06.341 --> 00:14:15.581 sizes. There's so many, so many factors that go into church size and most of 00:14:15.581 --> 00:14:21.581 them are inconsequential to the mission of the church itself. 00:14:23.371 --> 00:14:41.981 Almost not worth talking about. Yeah, but it is worth saying like we're not I don't I don't want us to get into the trap of I feel like the large church can look at all the small churches and say just not faithfully executing the mission like you're stuck in your ways. 00:14:41.981 --> 00:14:47.421 You're not willing to reach the people like we can they can make some assumptions and kind of, 00:14:48.061 --> 00:14:53.501 straw man and kind of be accusatory of like you're not reaching people for Christ like we are, 00:14:54.375 --> 00:14:58.621 and then the small church equally can look at the large church and say the same things and say the 00:14:58.621 --> 00:15:03.821 same thing like you're just compromising you're you're not reaching people for Jesus you're just 00:15:03.821 --> 00:15:08.861 gathering people none of that's a whole bunch of weeds in your church not a lot of harvest like 00:15:08.861 --> 00:15:14.101 Like, you know, that's all just, you know, and so both ends of the spectrum can get a 00:15:14.101 --> 00:15:20.400 holier than thou perspective and look down or up at each other or cross the aisle and 00:15:20.661 --> 00:15:21.661 point fingers. 00:15:21.661 --> 00:15:31.419 And so I don't want us to fall into that trap. Yeah, no, I'm not interested in doing that because I think any pastor, I'm really skeptical 00:15:31.833 --> 00:15:34.903 of any pastor who would say, I don't want to grow. 00:15:34.961 --> 00:15:36.541 I don't want my church to grow. 00:15:37.676 --> 00:15:49.461 Why wouldn't you? Those are people and your church grows by people and if people are here to hear the 00:15:49.461 --> 00:15:52.141 gospel then yeah, that's a great thing. 00:15:52.141 --> 00:15:56.021 Would I rather preach the gospel to 2,000 people or would I rather preach the gospel 00:15:56.319 --> 00:16:00.701 to 50 people? The more people that hear the gospel the better, right? 00:16:00.701 --> 00:16:03.061 So it's not universally a bad thing. 00:16:03.233 --> 00:16:10.661 So it's just a, there are more, there's more to the conversation that exists there. 00:16:10.661 --> 00:16:14.501 But I think the point that we wanted to make today was not even necessarily about church 00:16:14.501 --> 00:16:21.021 growth or church size in as much as we wanted to talk about what kind of, what happens when 00:16:21.021 --> 00:16:25.424 a church grows to a certain point. 00:16:27.944 --> 00:16:34.554 And usually that usually I'm not aware of any, I'm not aware. 00:16:34.554 --> 00:16:37.714 It doesn't mean they don't exist. I'm not aware of any large churches. 00:16:37.714 --> 00:16:41.034 And when we say mega church, you typically are meaning over 2000 people. Yes. 00:16:41.834 --> 00:16:49.154 I'm not aware of any mega churches that are, that exist, that don't have one 00:16:49.154 --> 00:16:57.394 central kind of mass notable, charismatic leader or figure to them. 00:16:58.363 --> 00:17:13.954 Um, and when that happens, it becomes very easy as we've seen, I think throughout, you know, throughout the last several decades, uh, it becomes 00:17:13.954 --> 00:17:23.074 very easy to see that those, those figures, they're magnified in their influence. 00:17:23.740 --> 00:17:36.154 What happens at the same time is that that magnified influence begins to reveal humanity, their humanity. 00:17:36.362 --> 00:17:48.884 And those who follow those leaders can get kind of uncomfortable with the humanity of their Christian leader being revealed. 00:17:49.154 --> 00:17:59.578 And so they, I think, tried to magnify their holiness and put them in a place that is kind of a... 00:18:00.956 --> 00:18:06.951 Above approach or not needing accountability because look at how significant their ministry is or. 00:18:09.571 --> 00:18:20.446 Or or Even refusing to believe that hey this person is Flawed flawed a human a sinner in need of God's grace 00:18:20.446 --> 00:18:33.766 someone whom God both is and will hold accountable, someone who is not above the truth of God's word 00:18:33.766 --> 00:18:42.806 in terms of accountability structures with the church. And so when that personality gets 00:18:42.806 --> 00:18:48.406 elevated, elevated, elevated, elevated, and then something happens, a big reveal happens, 00:18:48.406 --> 00:18:55.526 about their something that they did or something that they said or whatever the case may be 00:18:55.526 --> 00:19:02.630 an illicit relationship or whatever and the character comes like crashing down. 00:19:03.126 --> 00:19:10.822 It causes a lot of, it causes a lot of, it dysregulates people quite significantly and 00:19:10.885 --> 00:19:13.886 not just individuals in their own personal faith. 00:19:13.886 --> 00:19:18.166 Like I followed, like they led me to Jesus. How could they do that? 00:19:18.166 --> 00:19:18.879 How could that happen? 00:19:19.383 --> 00:19:22.406 And now what does that say about my own faith? Yes. 00:19:22.406 --> 00:19:33.040 But then it completely dysregulates and has the ability to really turn upside down the. 00:19:33.646 --> 00:19:35.246 Whole church. 00:19:35.246 --> 00:19:39.918 I think probably the most significant example that we have most recently is what happened at Mars Hill. 00:19:40.287 --> 00:19:49.446 Yeah, probably the biggest profile. It's been talked about the most in the longest is Mars Hill. Yeah for sure. That's pastor Mark Triscoll 00:19:49.446 --> 00:19:56.546 You know, he's continues to be a pastor down in Scottsdale, Arizona a new church down there at Trinity, but a pretty serious like. 00:19:57.679 --> 00:19:59.546 Like, um, accusation. 00:20:00.110 --> 00:20:05.066 Yeah. Yeah. there was no singular like. 00:20:06.015 --> 00:20:12.629 Like a lot of times there's usually like a singular thing or like scandal. 00:20:12.629 --> 00:20:19.429 For Mark I think is unique in that it was like a consistent, like the narrative was that it was a 00:20:19.429 --> 00:20:30.123 consistent character of just harshness and domineering and things not becoming of pastoral leadership. 00:20:30.309 --> 00:20:35.669 Yeah. And in some cases you see stuff like that happen and maybe a pastor is removed from 00:20:35.669 --> 00:20:45.469 ministry and the church takes and they have, not a succession plan, but they install a 00:20:45.469 --> 00:20:50.029 new pastor and that pastor leads and they try to lead through that transition and they 00:20:50.029 --> 00:20:53.989 work through it and it's difficult and it's hard, but the church survives because the 00:20:53.989 --> 00:20:57.509 church belongs to Jesus. 00:20:57.509 --> 00:21:04.509 Well, in Mars Hill's case, the church that Mark pastored. Mostly dissolved. 00:21:04.962 --> 00:21:08.491 I mean, it did dissolve. It did dissolve. Right. And we're not talking about us. 00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:15.669 We're talking about like 12 locations and tens and tens of thousands of people. Yeah. 00:21:15.669 --> 00:21:21.509 I think there's a few campuses that still exist as autonomous churches, but that's the minority. 00:21:21.509 --> 00:21:31.069 By the name, or so. By the name or something. Or they probably even changed their names, but they were able to hold a congregation 00:21:31.069 --> 00:21:37.613 together and still manage to continue to be churches today, but not very many of them 00:21:37.775 --> 00:21:38.649 from my memory. 00:21:38.748 --> 00:21:44.169 Yeah. So that kind of- But they dispersed into individual churches. 00:21:44.169 --> 00:21:48.369 They didn't remain a church as they were. Right. And Mark took some time off of ministry. 00:21:48.369 --> 00:21:53.700 I know. I think he spent some time at Gateway down in Texas. 00:21:54.609 --> 00:21:59.449 And I don't know, obviously I don't know Mark and I don't know- We've never met the guy. 00:21:59.449 --> 00:22:04.584 Well, there's been aspects of his ministry that have been a blessing to me. 00:22:04.929 --> 00:22:08.929 And so, again, it's not about Mark in particular. 00:22:10.265 --> 00:22:18.496 But one of the things that happened in that whole situation, I think, is indicative of 00:22:18.496 --> 00:22:23.176 what can often happen is that when there's one singular personality that is at the helm 00:22:23.176 --> 00:22:29.880 or the center of all things church, and that personality comes crashing down, what happens to the church? 00:22:30.358 --> 00:22:38.656 And when you build a system that fully relies only on the pastor that is there, and then 00:22:38.656 --> 00:22:41.096 all of a sudden the pastor is not there anymore. 00:22:44.376 --> 00:22:46.931 What happens? Well, in Mars Hill's case, 00:22:48.976 --> 00:22:55.896 it all came crashing down, not just his leadership, but the church as well. 00:22:55.896 --> 00:23:00.416 Yeah, so there's the large organizational fallout that a church can experience. 00:23:00.416 --> 00:23:05.616 And then there's also just that personal, individual fallout that can happen, 00:23:05.616 --> 00:23:14.536 of like, which I feel like we've just heard, I've heard that, I've seen those social media 00:23:14.536 --> 00:23:25.376 posts. I've seen or heard that like, that pastor just like let me down by having a moral 00:23:25.376 --> 00:23:31.996 failure. And now I'm just like, I can't trust church or I can't like, there becomes this 00:23:32.158 --> 00:23:39.496 like moving away from church or even a wholesale questioning that can lead to a wholesale questioning 00:23:39.496 --> 00:23:42.484 of religion and faith in Jesus. 00:23:42.616 --> 00:23:53.056 And I think that really begins to get at the, I guess at the point of, and a question I 00:23:53.056 --> 00:24:01.536 think we have to ask ourselves is like, if a leader that you're following, listening 00:24:01.536 --> 00:24:06.776 to of your church fails in some way. 00:24:08.149 --> 00:24:11.999 Which they will. Which they will, right. And they do. Yeah, they do. 00:24:12.074 --> 00:24:18.889 And sometimes it's super public. A lot of times it's just private, but they will fail. They will fail. 00:24:18.999 --> 00:24:24.795 And then that becomes a reason for you to question your relationship with Jesus. 00:24:24.999 --> 00:24:30.999 Question that resonates in my heart at that moment was, were you a disciple of Jesus or 00:24:30.999 --> 00:24:33.815 were you a disciple of this person? Yes. 00:24:34.031 --> 00:24:40.251 Yes. And that's where, like that, where I think really crystallizes for us, 00:24:40.332 --> 00:24:52.959 the question of celebrity pastor. I was, you know, when I was job hunting for this position 00:24:52.959 --> 00:24:59.039 or position in churches, I would run across and was in conversation with other people who were 00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:05.919 also looking for jobs. And, you know, they would run across these churches and they were just like, 00:25:05.919 --> 00:25:09.860 well, you know, and you could read the job description, you're like, we want, 00:25:10.058 --> 00:25:16.479 and they would describe a celebrity pastor. They were like, we want somebody who's gonna, 00:25:16.479 --> 00:25:21.119 you know, be a charismatic speaker, it's gonna write books, who's gonna do this and like, 00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:27.919 people will craft their job descriptions for a church or a pastor that they're looking for. 00:25:27.919 --> 00:25:36.879 Because there is a belief that if we can just get someone who looks like a celebrity pastor. 00:25:37.299 --> 00:25:42.319 Who's got this big personality, massive speaking gifts, maybe massive writing gifts, 00:25:42.319 --> 00:25:50.039 our church will be successful. And so, I don't know, I think there's this unhealthy assumption 00:25:50.039 --> 00:25:57.239 happening in some places where that's what a pastor should be or must be. 00:25:57.644 --> 00:26:01.785 Yeah, certainly. 00:26:02.239 --> 00:26:05.278 While you were saying all that I was just like... 00:26:07.312 --> 00:26:18.282 Kind of internally asking myself the question like when did that become preferable to someone who. 00:26:19.276 --> 00:26:24.922 Just faithfully and consistently and persistently in the simplicity of their own life 00:26:24.922 --> 00:26:37.562 leads you to follow Jesus. Like at what point have we come to prefer the figurehead at the center or 00:26:37.562 --> 00:26:45.022 the top of the heap rather than the person that just consistently, faithfully, simply, 00:26:45.022 --> 00:26:52.322 and even maybe behind the curtain many of the times points you to faith in Jesus. 00:26:52.322 --> 00:26:59.562 Yeah. I wonder if there's a little bit of this from a theological perspective, a little bit of 00:26:59.562 --> 00:27:07.393 like a salvation by association feeling going on. 00:27:07.682 --> 00:27:18.202 The closer I am to this seemingly super important, super close to God person, it puts a value 00:27:18.202 --> 00:27:23.682 on, creates a value statement about my own personal salvation. 00:27:24.084 --> 00:27:31.562 Yeah. Right? And if, well, if I'm just being led by the typical less than a hundred people in their 00:27:31.562 --> 00:27:36.867 church pastor who is praying for you every day. 00:27:37.344 --> 00:27:46.482 Knows your name. Knows your name. You know, is, you know, like faithfully teaching God's word, is working in the context of 00:27:46.482 --> 00:27:55.562 a small community of people. I can't grow in my relationship with Jesus through their 00:27:55.562 --> 00:28:03.482 leadership. It's got to be through the guy's book, who I am, the pastor who writes the 00:28:03.482 --> 00:28:08.753 book or the books or has the TV ministry or the huge following. 00:28:09.320 --> 00:28:16.288 Yeah, it's both an association to the person and association with the church, probably. 00:28:16.422 --> 00:28:25.462 Want to be at this like, they're, it's like an excitement high that we can almost get off of being, 00:28:26.370 --> 00:28:36.262 with that really charismatic, upfront public leader or that really like dynamic, 00:28:36.262 --> 00:28:41.302 large, constantly growing, expanding, new campus, new this, new that church. 00:28:45.914 --> 00:28:55.244 Yeah, I don't know that like when did that shift happen? I have a, someone who is now 00:28:55.244 --> 00:29:02.504 a good friend. When I was pastoring in Chicago as an associate pastor, very small church, 00:29:02.504 --> 00:29:08.924 church plant, like less than 50 people. And they came and they became part of the community 00:29:08.924 --> 00:29:12.390 and part of the church. And I remember they came up to me and they were like, this is, 00:29:13.084 --> 00:29:17.773 so weird for me. They're like, I didn't think I was going to like a small church. I was, 00:29:18.844 --> 00:29:24.164 like, why? And they were like, well, I've only ever grown up in these large churches. 00:29:24.390 --> 00:29:30.764 And they were like, it's so special that you know my name and that you talk with me and 00:29:30.764 --> 00:29:39.955 we have dinner together. And when you preach, there's such a personal element to it. And. 00:29:41.164 --> 00:29:44.964 I asked her, I was like, well, did you know your previous pastor? 00:29:44.964 --> 00:29:47.564 And they were like, well, no. 00:29:47.604 --> 00:29:49.444 Like his name, his name. Yeah. 00:29:49.524 --> 00:29:51.684 They know. I don't think we ever had a conversation together. 00:29:52.027 --> 00:30:03.124 Like they were always insulated by so many layers of people that like, you know, to be like inside of the same room as this pastor with 50 other people 00:30:03.397 --> 00:30:05.364 would have been like huge, huge. 00:30:05.404 --> 00:30:13.204 I'm like, holy cow. like, I'm so close to this pastor, but like on a regular basis, like, you know, to be 00:30:13.204 --> 00:30:19.644 with 50 people separated from the pastor was a big deal. And I was like, that is a like, 00:30:19.644 --> 00:30:25.244 and that was their norm. Yeah. And so coming into the small church, being very dubious 00:30:25.244 --> 00:30:31.184 and very doubtful of whether or not they could actually grow or benefit or thrive in a small 00:30:31.184 --> 00:30:34.878 church because it was so different from their norm. 00:30:35.384 --> 00:30:40.224 Like I'm like, for me that is mind-boggling and was just an indicator that something has 00:30:40.224 --> 00:30:42.089 shifted at some point. 00:30:42.584 --> 00:30:49.650 Yeah. And I want to be clear too that I think some of the responsibility or a great... 00:30:51.055 --> 00:30:59.065 Percentage of the responsibility of the creation of celebrity pastors is our fault, not theirs. 00:31:01.236 --> 00:31:04.585 Tell me more about that. I think I know what you're saying, but keep going. 00:31:05.145 --> 00:31:13.065 So we could make the assumption or the statement that, okay, like you have this charismatic figure, 00:31:13.812 --> 00:31:21.425 who is like sets out to be, I am going to become a celebrity pastor. And so they have the right 00:31:21.425 --> 00:31:31.025 hairdo and they learn the right preaching style and they write a book and somehow all the stars 00:31:31.025 --> 00:31:37.065 align and they magically ascend to the top of a mega church or they build a mega church from the 00:31:37.065 --> 00:31:42.365 ground up and all of a sudden like poof, by their own initiative and hard work, they have 00:31:42.365 --> 00:31:48.645 become the quote unquote celebrity pastor that they wanted to be for whatever reason, 00:31:48.645 --> 00:31:53.605 whether dubious reasons or really God honoring reasons, whatever. 00:31:54.224 --> 00:32:00.255 Yeah. A bit of the tech startup narrative laid over top of church. Correct. Yeah. 00:32:00.845 --> 00:32:05.567 Just... Steve Jobs comes to church. The hard work. Yep. They did the hard work. 00:32:05.845 --> 00:32:12.885 That narrative, we could say that, okay, that would be one way to look at it. 00:32:12.885 --> 00:32:20.753 The other way to look at it is that we as Christians, and I'm a pastor so it's talking, 00:32:21.249 --> 00:32:28.639 both ways, but that we as Christians create celebrity pastors because we need them or. 00:32:29.639 --> 00:32:34.285 Not we need them, that's maybe the wrong word to say it, but we think we need them. 00:32:34.285 --> 00:32:40.495 We think we need them or the sin in our, the idolatry of our lives that is still latent 00:32:40.925 --> 00:32:42.791 the midst of our sin. 00:32:44.708 --> 00:32:52.318 Creates something to worship that is tangential to Jesus, but not Jesus himself. 00:32:54.395 --> 00:33:06.718 That is right in front of us that has generally a lower standard or calling to follow than Jesus does. 00:33:06.773 --> 00:33:14.878 You know, if we follow a Christian celebrity pastor, it means we read their books and we listen to their podcasts, 00:33:14.878 --> 00:33:20.636 and we retweet them when we see something that we agree with, or we watch their services online. 00:33:20.843 --> 00:33:30.593 It's a very, very easy, easy follow. When Jesus says, come and follow me, He bids us come and die. 00:33:32.240 --> 00:33:39.568 Come, pick up your cross, follow me. Just want to let you know, I have no place to lay my head. 00:33:40.258 --> 00:33:45.798 Even foxes have holes and birds have nests. The son of man has nowhere to lay his head. 00:33:46.098 --> 00:33:50.731 It is a followership unto death of self. 00:33:51.978 --> 00:33:56.087 And so it is much easier. 00:33:57.159 --> 00:34:06.469 To follow an enigmatic figure that is tangential to Jesus and gives us a sense of proximity to Jesus 00:34:06.818 --> 00:34:10.149 without actually following Jesus himself. 00:34:10.629 --> 00:34:16.969 And so it gives us this feeling of being like, I'm doing the right thing, I'm doing the good thing, 00:34:17.297 --> 00:34:25.429 but it's a deceitful idolatry, similar to like one of the first podcast episodes that we did about Scripture 00:34:25.678 --> 00:34:31.429 and how we can fall into a tendency as Christians to worship the scripture. 00:34:31.429 --> 00:34:32.916 Father, Son, and Holy Bible. 00:34:33.087 --> 00:34:43.429 Exactly, right? Where that is a veiled form of idolatry that worships something other than the Triune God himself. 00:34:43.429 --> 00:34:50.429 Do you think that we're doing, like, do you feel like this is too far of a stretch? 00:34:50.429 --> 00:34:55.700 You're sharing, saying all of that. I'm like, the picture that's coming to my mind is picture of 00:34:56.109 --> 00:35:03.309 the Israelites at the bottom of Mount Sinai waiting for Moses to come back down. And they've come to 00:35:03.309 --> 00:35:09.309 this mountain, they've been led out of Egypt, they've been delivered. And Moses is up there. 00:35:10.059 --> 00:35:15.949 Like actually Moses invited them up there, but they didn't come. And Moses is up there and Moses 00:35:15.949 --> 00:35:21.069 spends a long time up on the mountain and get into Ten Commandments. 00:35:21.699 --> 00:35:29.549 And the people get restless and they build for themselves a golden calf. 00:35:29.849 --> 00:35:34.549 And the language surrounding the introduction of that calf by Aaron to the people is, behold, 00:35:34.549 --> 00:35:38.509 here's the golden calf that we built out of the jewelry you had. 00:35:38.509 --> 00:35:43.189 It's something visible, you can see, it's tangible, it's here, it's not up on the mountain, 00:35:43.189 --> 00:35:45.087 it's something familiar even. 00:35:45.189 --> 00:35:57.411 Behold, this is the God that led you out of Egypt. and they begin to worship that idol saying that it is the God that led them out of Egypt. 00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:06.249 When the God that led them out of Egypt is the presence is the cloud that's more invisible up on the mountain. Scary. 00:36:06.332 --> 00:36:13.249 Scary. Holy. Like all of those things. Full of glory. So I guess like I'm just in my own biblical imagination. 00:36:13.318 --> 00:36:16.703 Are we committing a similar sin? 00:36:16.847 --> 00:36:25.462 Are we replaying a similar narrative by building golden calves out of pastors and churches and ministries? 00:36:26.155 --> 00:36:36.289 And not realizing that we're suddenly buying a slight deviation from the God who did deliver us. 00:36:37.228 --> 00:36:42.209 Yeah, I think that's appropriate, an appropriate connection or application. I was thinking, 00:36:42.209 --> 00:36:45.809 actually, as you were talking about Moses, I was thinking about when the Israelite people 00:36:45.924 --> 00:36:49.649 were clamoring for a king like all of the other nations around them had. 00:36:49.649 --> 00:36:55.969 Mm-hmm, and God was like I'm your king. Yeah, I Know I want to be your king 00:36:55.969 --> 00:37:01.569 It was like the most pure form of a theocracy you could ever have right, but they were like no no no 00:37:01.569 --> 00:37:04.929 No, all of the other people around us. They have a human king, 00:37:05.495 --> 00:37:12.089 We want one of those two right and that became a very very complicated history for Israel exactly 00:37:12.089 --> 00:37:18.169 You know God obviously works through the the history of redemption to bring about Jesus through that 00:37:18.476 --> 00:37:24.994 that, you know, but, um, but yeah, I think, uh, I, I don't think that's an inappropriate. 00:37:25.165 --> 00:37:30.429 I don't think that's inappropriate. Um, uh, connection, connection at all. 00:37:30.429 --> 00:37:34.194 I think if we were to say, okay, maybe... 00:37:41.009 --> 00:37:56.503 If we begin to dig down into what all of this leads to, I guess, it is a question that we return to a question you mentioned a little bit earlier, 00:37:56.503 --> 00:38:04.543 what that we kind of skipped right over was when, when my pastor fails or when a pastor 00:38:04.543 --> 00:38:17.765 fails, how then could I ever be expected to trust Jesus, the church, faith, whatever, 00:38:18.803 --> 00:38:23.112 You know, like, my pastor, he fails, what now? 00:38:25.243 --> 00:38:33.933 How can I ever, like, I'm so disappointed, I'm so hurt, I've got to leave the church or the faith or whatever. 00:38:34.803 --> 00:38:44.916 I think that there, I think that's really an important question because it happens at an absurd level. 00:38:45.807 --> 00:39:01.983 And what's happening implicitly is that there is definitely a misappropriation of theology 00:39:01.983 --> 00:39:05.103 of pastoral ministry there. 00:39:05.103 --> 00:39:14.623 We've misunderstood, this person has misunderstood what a pastor is, what a pastor does and doesn't 00:39:14.623 --> 00:39:17.623 what the expectations of them are and aren't. 00:39:17.623 --> 00:39:21.564 And then, 00:39:22.906 --> 00:39:29.716 there's been some misalignment in what the foundation of their faith is, for sure. And so 00:39:29.716 --> 00:39:42.356 I think it's valuable to have some conversation around that because we, I think the church may 00:39:42.356 --> 00:39:47.356 feel like they are honoring their pastor more. 00:39:52.156 --> 00:39:56.556 They're honoring their pastor by deifying him more. Yeah. 00:39:57.436 --> 00:40:02.436 And the higher that they elevate their opinion, 00:40:04.436 --> 00:40:06.747 or understanding or viewpoint of them. 00:40:09.876 --> 00:40:16.487 That's what we're supposed to do. But we actually put pastors in a lot of danger when we do that. Yeah. 00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:27.976 Um, when we have an expectation of their, uh, their relationship with Jesus, 00:40:28.216 --> 00:40:38.496 their character, their life that is anything other than still human, still 00:40:38.496 --> 00:40:46.976 sinful, still needing of repentance and confession of their sin, still screwing up, still relying 00:40:46.976 --> 00:40:54.576 on Jesus every single day, every single breath for the grace necessary to continue leading. 00:40:54.576 --> 00:40:55.776 Now that's not to say. 00:40:56.754 --> 00:41:06.204 That there are not increased standards for Christian conduct, for holiness that pastors must have. 00:41:06.204 --> 00:41:10.284 That's clear in scripture. There's not even an argument there. 00:41:11.545 --> 00:41:20.924 But that is not to completely divorce that from the reality that we as pastors, we are men 00:41:20.924 --> 00:41:28.924 who must ask every day for the renewed and refreshed forgiveness of the Lord as we repent of our sins, 00:41:28.924 --> 00:41:33.924 as we confess to Him, as we trust once again in His grace and mercy and salvation in our lives, 00:41:33.924 --> 00:41:38.924 we turn our back on sin, walk towards relationship with God. 00:41:38.924 --> 00:41:44.908 And every time we expect that our pastors are someone other than that, 00:41:45.060 --> 00:41:59.924 We put them in extraordinary danger, like somehow that they are exempt from the human frailty of sin in all the ways that we see sin manifested in normal people's lives. 00:41:59.924 --> 00:42:11.275 Pastors are perfectly capable of sinning just as great and in some cases, I believe, even more so. Yes. 00:42:12.202 --> 00:42:18.990 Yeah. I want to try and venture and say something that I haven't heard very many people say. 00:42:19.364 --> 00:42:22.726 I want to say it well. Okay. 00:42:23.124 --> 00:42:33.404 Let's take, for example, Ravi Zacharias, who is now dead, but early prior to his death 00:42:33.404 --> 00:42:40.724 and in post his death have come whole lot of revelation about a very sinful and destructive 00:42:40.724 --> 00:42:42.604 life he was living behind the scenes. 00:42:42.604 --> 00:42:43.350 Yes. 00:42:43.692 --> 00:42:46.764 And. Makes me sick to my stomach. It does. 00:42:46.764 --> 00:42:53.044 It is probably like, I read the full report that was released to the public by his ministry 00:42:53.044 --> 00:42:57.511 after his death and they did like a personal investigation and everything was, I mean, 00:42:57.988 --> 00:42:58.884 it was awful. 00:42:58.884 --> 00:43:07.524 Horrendous. Absolutely horrendous things that he was doing. And the thing that I think terrified me the most about that report was the report ended 00:43:07.524 --> 00:43:15.024 saying there's more, but that was not the task of what we were tasked to investigate. 00:43:15.024 --> 00:43:20.458 But everything we have investigated and found indicates that there is more wrongdoing or 00:43:20.724 --> 00:43:24.545 a greater depth of what we found than what we did find. 00:43:25.517 --> 00:43:32.350 But we were simply asked to verify if there was, they weren't tasked to be exhaustive. 00:43:32.544 --> 00:43:34.546 So they stopped their investigation at a point. 00:43:34.704 --> 00:43:37.184 And that for me was probably the most like... 00:43:38.516 --> 00:43:43.726 Shaking sentence out of that entire document which you can read online and all of that stuff 00:43:43.726 --> 00:43:50.326 So I say all of this not in any way to excuse the awful things that Ravi, 00:43:50.846 --> 00:43:54.986 Zacharias committed and did and how he very much harmed people. 00:43:57.421 --> 00:44:04.578 But I am left with a question, right I listened to many of his sermons and benefited from them and 00:44:04.646 --> 00:44:09.574 and he seemed to preach the gospel and to elevate Jesus. 00:44:09.726 --> 00:44:19.585 And there is that question of how did he get to a place of such darkness, brokenness, evil, and sin? 00:44:21.086 --> 00:44:27.906 Now this is all absolute speculation, but I wonder if at some point, right? 00:44:27.906 --> 00:44:33.726 Like we always like the more that, Um, you don't get somewhere. 00:44:34.627 --> 00:44:38.646 You get, you get to a place like that slowly. Yeah. And over time, yes. 00:44:39.046 --> 00:44:41.206 A thousand small decisions. That's one big one. 00:44:41.550 --> 00:44:44.719 One. Yeah. Thousand small decisions in order to get there. 00:44:45.187 --> 00:44:52.326 And my question is, is like at what point did, was there a point at which he, and 00:44:52.326 --> 00:44:56.686 there has to have been this massive divide inside of him personally, knowing 00:44:56.686 --> 00:45:00.950 what he was doing and in the public figure that he was putting forward. 00:45:01.646 --> 00:45:07.602 At what point did he want to get off that road he was going down? 00:45:08.846 --> 00:45:22.166 And I wonder that if the pedestal, the almost deification of him, of being like this public 00:45:22.166 --> 00:45:29.486 and speaker who is just like so close to God and it's just so awesome. Did that keep him 00:45:29.486 --> 00:45:38.546 from turning around at some point? What did it become more difficult for him to experience 00:45:38.546 --> 00:45:46.526 accountability or make a choice of repentance because of the celebrity culture that was 00:45:46.526 --> 00:45:53.806 surrounding him. And so, I guess to kind of dovetail, what I'm trying to say and trying 00:45:53.806 --> 00:46:02.930 to put is to clarify what I think you were saying of when we elevate our pastors to this place of 00:46:03.006 --> 00:46:04.920 They must be perfect. 00:46:06.603 --> 00:46:15.333 Does that actually put them in a cage that could prevent them because of guilt and shame from confessing, 00:46:15.333 --> 00:46:23.013 confessing, repenting and like, um, without, without the fear, like what, what would have happened if, 00:46:24.041 --> 00:46:30.293 if right, this is all speculation, but in an alternate universe, if Ravi much earlier in that 00:46:30.293 --> 00:46:35.913 that journey down that thousands of decisions had like repented and gotten 00:46:35.913 --> 00:46:43.793 help. And was that possibility perhaps prevented? Not again, I'm not excusing 00:46:43.793 --> 00:46:47.105 his behavior. His choice should have been to have repent and got help. He, 00:46:48.013 --> 00:46:48.482 didn't. 00:46:50.333 --> 00:46:55.333 Or were there, were there? I mean, I don't know. I haven't read the report to 00:46:55.333 --> 00:46:58.893 be honest with you. So I don't like, I can't speak to whether this was reality 00:46:58.893 --> 00:47:07.213 or not, but I would have to imagine that there were other people that saw what was going on. 00:47:07.531 --> 00:47:11.285 Yeah. They ran up against it and they were like, this is weird. 00:47:11.573 --> 00:47:17.703 And he would push back and push them away off accountability. 00:47:18.093 --> 00:47:19.540 And there was like, oh, okay, well. 00:47:19.973 --> 00:47:27.768 Well yeah. And it's something like that where we say we kind of begin to make a rationalization 00:47:28.047 --> 00:47:33.733 That like well all of the good that we're doing all of the good that the ministry is doing, 00:47:34.466 --> 00:47:37.733 all of the hope that it is offering, the proclamation of the Gospels. 00:47:38.049 --> 00:47:39.333 Was Robbie preaching the gospel? 00:47:41.478 --> 00:47:45.628 Sure as heck was. Yeah. Right, his personal life was not aligning. 00:47:45.628 --> 00:47:49.013 Not at all. With the principles of the gospel, but the proclamation was there. 00:47:50.128 --> 00:47:57.188 And so do people, maybe you have a person who has come to faith through Ravi's preaching 00:47:57.188 --> 00:48:01.652 or through his ministry now asking, is my faith even legitimate? 00:48:02.543 --> 00:48:08.251 Right. And I would say, yes, it is. Cause your faith is never in Ravi to begin with. 00:48:08.508 --> 00:48:14.607 Yeah. Right. But there could be this sense of those who were seeing it, 00:48:14.788 --> 00:48:22.068 but not, but like, but who were close enough to Ravi to be like, well, you know, he's doing so much good. 00:48:22.068 --> 00:48:28.227 There's some bad here, of course. And if the bad comes out even more, then the good will stop. 00:48:28.348 --> 00:48:31.999 And so we'll just kind of like, eh, I don't like it, but we're gonna let it ride. 00:48:32.944 --> 00:48:38.724 Right. See, he's so gifted that we just gotta let him be on the leash or let him be off the leash. Yeah. 00:48:40.308 --> 00:48:43.968 But there's a thing, you know, and I read this to you before we started about, 00:48:45.188 --> 00:48:47.825 celebrity pastors being a brand. 00:48:49.707 --> 00:48:47.825 Yeah. 00:48:50.828 --> 00:48:57.853 And- Personal brand is a big thing. A personal brand. And what is the name of Robbie Zacharias' ministry? 00:48:58.708 --> 00:49:04.947 Robbie Zacharias' ministry. International ministry. Yeah, so he was the brand. Yes, he was. 00:49:05.068 --> 00:49:13.288 And brands don't take action against themselves it's counterintuitive to the purpose of the brand, which is to elevate the brand. 00:49:14.895 --> 00:49:22.619 And so built in even to the reality of, well, Ravi's at the center of it all, 00:49:22.997 --> 00:49:30.408 Ravi's at the center of it all is an inability to, not an inability, but an unwillingness 00:49:30.408 --> 00:49:37.688 to take action against itself even when the consequences are eternal. 00:49:38.364 --> 00:49:37.823 Yeah. 00:49:39.840 --> 00:49:46.088 And that's not even to say, like, that's not even to make, I don't even want to get into the question 00:49:46.088 --> 00:49:51.568 of like, well, what do we think about Ravi's salvation? Oh, gosh. Like questions that can't be answered. 00:49:51.831 --> 00:49:52.768 Cannot be answered. 00:49:53.056 --> 00:50:05.988 Right. That's why my whole comment is speculative, But it does serve to point towards the danger that this elevating pastors to something beyond. 00:50:07.603 --> 00:50:15.408 Just beyond a fellow Christian is dangerous. Not just for us, but for them. 00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:16.236 It's dangerous. 00:50:16.731 --> 00:50:23.933 I would say elevating pastors beyond the place that scripture elevates them is dangerous. 00:50:24.453 --> 00:50:31.453 Because I would agree that we have higher standards for character, conduct, and holiness than others do, 00:50:31.774 --> 00:50:38.213 Right. Which is why in situations of moral failure or, you know, like significant issues 00:50:38.213 --> 00:50:44.557 in leadership or anything like that, that it is appropriate at times to take corrective 00:50:44.733 --> 00:50:56.013 and even like organizational action against someone who has not met those standards. That 00:50:56.013 --> 00:51:01.893 That doesn't exonerate us from operating in a spirit of grace, spirit of truth, heart 00:51:01.893 --> 00:51:08.405 of love for that person, but it certainly does not leave us just being like willy-nilly. 00:51:09.013 --> 00:51:17.001 Permissive. Permissive, right. Gullible. Right. 00:51:17.213 --> 00:51:24.933 So to the person who would say, well, my pastor has failed, how can I trust or how can I go 00:51:24.933 --> 00:51:35.987 church any longer. The first thing I encounter them with a tremendous level of grace and, 00:51:36.533 --> 00:51:45.933 sorrow over the ways in which they've been not necessarily deceived, but misled in terms 00:51:45.933 --> 00:51:54.568 of where as you grow as a Christian, where is your faith being placed? The role, one 00:51:54.813 --> 00:52:02.533 One of the roles of the pastor is always deflecting attention away from themselves into Jesus. 00:52:02.533 --> 00:52:09.053 John the Baptist, he must increase, I must decrease all the time. 00:52:09.053 --> 00:52:22.013 Anytime anyone is giving praise, we're seeking to guide that praise to the right place. 00:52:22.013 --> 00:52:29.173 Place it here, not on my shoulders, or I'm thankful that you maybe recognize that God 00:52:29.173 --> 00:52:30.460 has a calling on my life. 00:52:32.918 --> 00:52:37.728 I appreciate that. It's helpful for me. It's encouraging to me. We work hard. 00:52:38.688 --> 00:52:44.448 But I am not Jesus. I am not Jesus. I am not him. 00:52:47.690 --> 00:52:55.328 And so it becomes a point of like, I think it is a personal ministry philosophy to continue to. 00:52:56.431 --> 00:53:02.128 Remind people of that and to do that and to uphold that all the time, all the time, all the time, 00:53:02.128 --> 00:53:10.368 all the time, all the time. And so step number one, like, well, how do you, is that when we, 00:53:10.928 --> 00:53:16.608 as pastors, we must be continually doing that so that we don't run the risk of people's faith being 00:53:16.876 --> 00:53:23.648 in us, rather than that being in Jesus. And then we center our ministries around that reality too. 00:53:24.681 --> 00:53:31.027 Way we structure. I could be gone tomorrow from this place. The gospel would still be preached on Sunday. Mm-hmm. 00:53:31.684 --> 00:53:35.368 You know? And then the next week and the next week and the next and the next and the next, right? 00:53:35.368 --> 00:53:38.128 Because the central figure here is not me. 00:53:38.319 --> 00:53:43.408 The central figure is Jesus all the time, right? 00:53:43.981 --> 00:53:49.088 And we... I think, like, I don't know, probably the average is at least once a month from the 00:53:49.088 --> 00:53:53.902 stage we try and say something to the fact of, we're not perfect. 00:53:54.128 --> 00:53:54.991 Yeah. 00:53:55.460 --> 00:53:58.970 Like... Don't rely on me for your salvation. Right. Like, because we're not. 00:53:59.790 --> 00:54:10.808 No. So it seems weird to say, maybe it's not weird to say, is that I think the most surefire 00:54:10.808 --> 00:54:18.775 way to protect yourself as a regular church-going person from being disappointed by your pastor, 00:54:19.487 --> 00:54:22.043 is having a proper theology of sin. 00:54:23.402 --> 00:54:32.072 To understand the universality of sin, the depth of sin, the humanity of your pastors. 00:54:33.252 --> 00:54:40.332 And then understanding that they are men accountable by God, accountable to God, and accountable 00:54:40.332 --> 00:54:46.025 to the church. 00:54:46.412 --> 00:54:58.452 And then ensuring that they are discipling you to Jesus rather than themselves. 00:54:58.452 --> 00:55:03.372 They should be talking more about Jesus than they should be talking about themselves. 00:55:03.372 --> 00:55:10.012 It's maybe a little oversimplification, but I think you get the point here. 00:55:10.012 --> 00:55:13.452 I think this is a point from a book by Eugene Peterson. 00:55:13.452 --> 00:55:18.703 I can't remember which book, but he talks about an applied theology of total depravity. 00:55:19.292 --> 00:55:27.492 And for some of our listeners, they just got really excited because they said the word total depravity. 00:55:27.492 --> 00:55:35.988 But for those who don't know, total depravity is the belief that sin touches all aspects of a person. 00:55:36.132 --> 00:55:44.812 Not that we're as evil as we could be, but that sin touches all of me and touches everyone. 00:55:44.812 --> 00:55:50.412 And so a lot of times that stays as kind of like a part of an argument in a theological 00:55:50.412 --> 00:55:52.696 system and doesn't be much more. 00:55:53.012 --> 00:55:59.925 But if we take that and we decide to apply that, that means that when I encounter someone, 00:56:00.192 --> 00:56:03.972 the person who's sitting in the pew next to me, this is something that like us, we as 00:56:03.972 --> 00:56:09.143 pastors have to have very integrated into our hearts, and I think we do here, is that, 00:56:09.892 --> 00:56:13.428 when someone comes to us and says, you know what, like, I got this problem in my life, 00:56:13.500 --> 00:56:16.579 I've got sin, I've got brokenness. 00:56:16.812 --> 00:56:17.812 Not shocked. 00:56:19.487 --> 00:56:26.537 Because that's humanity. Yeah, that's what the Bible teaches. Yep. That's what total depravity means 00:56:26.537 --> 00:56:31.557 And so we are constantly I am constantly I feel like, 00:56:32.018 --> 00:56:37.357 Trying to tell people like the sin that you were almost absolutely afraid to name, 00:56:38.230 --> 00:56:44.217 That you think you're the only person in the room heard it heard it You're not gonna surprise me. No 00:56:44.217 --> 00:56:46.664 No one is going to walk into a room. 00:56:47.217 --> 00:56:52.291 Like I have purposely exposed myself to just about everything. 00:56:52.577 --> 00:56:56.144 I'm not naive about human nature. 00:56:56.324 --> 00:56:58.566 I will not be surprised by what you have to say. 00:56:58.937 --> 00:57:01.657 I've probably heard it before. 00:57:02.248 --> 00:57:07.460 And I think there's a little bit of an applied theology there of sin and understanding that 00:57:07.586 --> 00:57:16.577 all people are touched by it. All lives have been affected by it and all of us are being redeemed from it by Jesus. 00:57:17.803 --> 00:57:21.577 And that does apply to pastors. Oh, of course. 00:57:21.577 --> 00:57:26.248 And again, like we're doing this, the balancing act of saying like pastors are human. 00:57:27.057 --> 00:57:30.417 There is a standard through which pastors are called. Sure. 00:57:30.417 --> 00:57:34.137 I mean, we could do, we could probably do a whole episode on a whole podcast episode 00:57:34.137 --> 00:57:38.257 on paths of restoration for pastors. 00:57:39.130 --> 00:57:43.417 Sure. Or even just opening up the Bible. Or for people. Yeah. 00:57:43.417 --> 00:57:53.614 For people. We could do that too. How do we get from a place of failure in sin to maybe reconciliation with God and others? 00:57:54.537 --> 00:57:56.405 Because reconciliation with God is like... 00:57:57.337 --> 00:58:09.817 The gospel. The gospel. It's virtually instantaneous upon true repentance and confession. 00:58:09.817 --> 00:58:15.817 Reconciliation with others tends to be a little bit more complicated, not because we have 00:58:15.817 --> 00:58:21.417 higher standards of reconciliation that God does, but because our own sinfulness then 00:58:21.417 --> 00:58:26.697 stands as like landmines in our willingness to reconcile with others. 00:58:26.697 --> 00:58:30.057 And so sometimes it's just a little bit more complex or difficult. 00:58:30.057 --> 00:58:31.613 Oh, and there's a lot of gray. 00:58:32.577 --> 00:58:40.617 Like I think something I think we probably have to continually say like forgiveness does 00:58:40.617 --> 00:58:45.747 not mean return to the way it was before. 00:58:45.981 --> 00:58:51.457 I think like I talk with a lot of people and they're like, well, I just can't like they hurt me so bad. 00:58:51.457 --> 00:59:04.642 Like I could never like we have you could forgive them. is a choice, but it does not necessarily mean that things go back to the way they were. 00:59:04.937 --> 00:59:11.937 Because there's a whole question about, again, like you said, it could be a whole podcast episode of like... 00:59:11.583 --> 00:59:18.393 Does a pastor who has massive moral failure, do they just get to come back? 00:59:19.415 --> 00:59:25.193 And that's a really tough question to answer. Very complicated. Very complicated. Very gray. 00:59:26.779 --> 00:59:33.993 But it's not a de facto assurance. But we do have to, as Christians, continue to actually practice 00:59:33.993 --> 00:59:40.993 the gospel. Of course. With everyone inside the church. Yeah, pastors included. Yeah. 00:59:41.237 --> 00:59:48.553 Right. Well, maybe we should write that down as a... Yeah, maybe. You know, like even just 00:59:48.553 --> 00:59:54.659 this, you know, the question of reconciliation and our non-pastoral relationships with people 00:59:54.953 --> 00:59:59.613 who have done significant harm to us. Yeah. Well, we could... Forgiveness is a massive 00:59:59.613 --> 01:00:05.272 topic. I feel like every time we talk about it, people resonate. 01:00:05.696 --> 01:00:17.133 Yeah. It's probably one of the better sermon series that has been preached here. I don't 01:00:17.133 --> 01:00:21.253 know, maybe three years ago. I don't know, maybe we'll put it in the show notes if we 01:00:21.253 --> 01:00:26.573 find it when that sermon series was. You can look back on our YouTube page, Conduitt's 01:00:26.573 --> 01:00:33.853 YouTube page and find that sermon series called Break Free. 01:00:33.853 --> 01:00:43.873 But yeah, the reality, the difficulty of forgiveness. you are a human. 01:00:43.208 --> 01:00:50.738 You're going to have to reckon with forgiveness, period. If you want to live a life that is. 01:00:51.715 --> 01:00:58.098 Free from offense and harm and pain caused by others, there's no way around it. 01:01:00.738 --> 01:01:03.940 So yeah, we can talk about that. We can talk about that at some point. 01:01:04.130 --> 01:01:09.858 Yeah. So we covered a massive topic in one episode. I mean, not exhaustively. 01:01:09.858 --> 01:01:15.178 Certainly not exhaustively. I was trying to think about back like if you could catalog 01:01:15.178 --> 01:01:22.498 or categorize all these moments where you've looked at someone and you're like, oh geez, 01:01:22.498 --> 01:01:29.818 I really thought that they were different. I can remember my first celebrity pastor church 01:01:29.818 --> 01:01:32.418 scandal that I remember. 01:01:32.418 --> 01:01:41.778 Then, just a litany of them down the line. I pray by God's grace that both of us will be spared from, 01:01:42.978 --> 01:01:49.458 those experiences. And certainly, it is a measure of God's grace that does that, but it is also, 01:01:50.658 --> 01:01:58.978 a measure of our own continued pursuit of holiness to Jesus and our willingness to 01:01:58.978 --> 01:02:08.858 confess and repent both to God and to others, our sin, and I think creating a culture of 01:02:08.858 --> 01:02:20.098 humility and applied theology of total depravity that can be helpful in creating a culture of 01:02:20.098 --> 01:02:26.658 of safety to do that in the midst of, you know. 01:02:27.931 --> 01:02:29.687 What the consequences may be but. 01:02:32.523 --> 01:02:44.781 As always we we appreciate you tuning in yeah listening watching commenting we love that some of you are taking us on your commutes and with you throughout the day and like, 01:02:45.882 --> 01:02:51.381 you know We love hearing from you guys. Yeah, and love receiving questions and comments 01:02:51.381 --> 01:03:00.421 I think we're gaining on a good group of questions to have a mailbag episode. 01:03:00.610 --> 01:03:02.338 Probably hear pretty quickly. 01:03:02.661 --> 01:03:08.661 So if you have a question or a topic, not just a question but maybe a topic that you 01:03:08.661 --> 01:03:14.801 would like us to cover, we would try to do an episode, a mailbag episode where we cover 01:03:14.801 --> 01:03:17.781 several different topics or several different questions in one episode. 01:03:17.781 --> 01:03:21.198 The best way to do that is to text us. 01:03:21.477 --> 01:03:24.341 We have a text line that you can text your mailbag questions to. 01:03:24.341 --> 01:03:36.268 It's 716-201-0507 and send those in and we will have a mailbag episode coming up fairly soon. 01:03:36.700 --> 01:03:38.203 Yeah. Yeah. 01:03:38.752 --> 01:03:46.953 So, thank you everybody for joining us. Till next time. Till next time. Yes. 01:03:46.960 --> 01:04:02.686 Music.