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135. Freedom In The Church - Parachurch Ministries · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
0:10
I found my freedom of you. I found a joy I can't lose.
0:19
And thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
0:23
and heaven broke through From the moment she found me.
0:28
I found my freedom in you. This podcast exists to bring the
0:35
freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
0:38
everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James
0:42
Seyfried and Brett Marvin. Welcome back to the For Freedom
0:50
podcast. Thank you for being with us
0:52
today. Such a great day to be with you
0:55
sunshiny outside. Great day to record and be with
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you today. I just just personally I just
1:02
got back from a meeting with a local church.
1:06
We're helping one of our local churches kind of do a
1:09
revitalization help. We we're planning on helping
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them with their vacation Bible school.
1:15
They were without a pastor and now they just, they recently
1:18
just got a pastor. He's 21 years old.
1:22
He's he's ready to hit the ground running.
1:24
He wants us to continue to come and help with their vacation
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Bible school. And so you know, we're we're
1:29
giving them funds and volunteers and it's a great ministry of our
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church is trying to reach out into our state and help some
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other churches. That was one of the goals we had
1:39
this year. So we're thankful for the
1:42
opportunity to get to do that. But I'm glad today I'm here with
1:46
James. Sacred James, How's your day?
1:50
Man it's doing good. We, I just got off the phone a
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little bit ago with two different people.
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One was in West Virginia looking at partnering with this very
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small 1213 people, 14 people church plant there and helping
2:05
them with some Christmas outreach taking a mission trip
2:08
up there in December. And then I just got off the
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phone with a pastor friend of mine doing a men's conference in
2:14
June asking us to come and to be a part of it.
2:17
So a lot of good things coming up in in our world at the church
2:21
and just planning vision. We've got to serve week, the
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first full week of June here in the Ronda area where we're going
2:30
to have boots on the ground and we're going to serve all week
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long with basketball camps, volleyball camps, football
2:36
camps, all the different things that we can do to help young
2:41
people and just reach our community and just show our
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community that we're there and be there for them.
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And so I got a lot of great things coming up, a lot of got
2:49
things planned, man. We're less than a month of way
2:53
of being together face to face, Just got word.
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Also, Jake Carlisle's going to be at the convention with us and
3:01
he's getting a house real close by, so he's going to get to hang
3:03
out with us while we're there. Do you know who Jake Carlisle
3:07
is, Brett? Remind me.
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He went to Israel with us. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah. So he's going to be there with
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his wife and kids. And so man, we're pumped about
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that, pumped about being there with them, and just got a lot of
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great things coming up. We've got our deacons meeting
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tonight to be able to talk through some things of different
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events that we've got planned and different scheduling things.
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And so just loving it, loving doing what we're doing, and just
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excited about what God's got for us.
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And I can't believe Indianapolis is coming up so quick.
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We've been planning, we've been planning it for so long and now
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here it is, it's you know two weeks away.
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And so it's it's coming up on us quick, but you know what's
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coming on us after that quick is Catoosa.
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That's right, we'll meet up. For the Sake of the Gospel
4:00
Conference in Catoosa County, Georgia, Fort Oglethorpe at you
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know Hope Church, Catoosa there, JC Groves pastor.
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And for the sake of the gospel Conference, if you're coming to
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that, we'd love to meet you there.
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We're going to be there. Hopefully they'll be some other
4:18
podcasts to be there and from the network and hopefully we can
4:22
get together and and kind of meet, meet everybody and meet
4:25
our audience. And we'd love for you to come
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there and be a part of that. I believe that's the first
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weekend in November. I want to say November 4th or
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5th, but is the first weekend in November and so if you can come
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to that, we want to invite you to be there, 'cause we will be
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there with bells on. Yep.
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November 2nd and 3rd there. Brett, November 2nd and 3rd, 4th
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and 5th is our pastor. It's probably the 1st and 2nd
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Friday and Saturday and then Sunday would be yeah, yeah,
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first and 2nd and then we'll have.
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So I've got some some things that next week with the
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convention, North Atlanta convention and so hey Brett, I
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haven't told you this breaking news here possibly I've been
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recommended to serve on the Board of Directors for the North
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Carolina Baptist Convention and I've been recommended and
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nominated to serve on the one of the committees for the SBC
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convention, the the big convention.
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So we'll see if they want to go forward with this Ex Fundy guy
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and bring him on to to see some radical change or not just
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'cause you get recommended and nominated.
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Doesn't mean it happens, but I I sent all the stuff in and I said
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if you guys want a crazy redhead like me, you can, you can sign
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me up, but we'll see what happens.
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So yes, I got some some cool things going on there to be able
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to partner together at a different level.
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You know, sometimes just being a a lay person at these
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conventions, you just sort of see the surface level.
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And I'm all for, you know, at my age young and being able to
6:04
handle a little bit more, being able to be a part of some of
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these boards and and see what goes on behind the scenes I
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guess would be a good thing to say.
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And so, yeah, looking forward to that.
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And then March, we've got our trip to Israel.
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Love for you guys to go with us and love for you guys to join us
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if you would like to go over to the Holy Lands and see what God
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has for us there. And so you can just really
6:32
understand scripture better. And that's going to be a
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wonderful, wonderful time. Hummus shawarma.
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Let's go, baby. Awful many, many reasons to go.
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Absolutely, Absolutely. Brett, what are you preaching
6:48
through right now, man? I just finished a series in
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Jeremiah and I'm beginning a brand new series called Dinner
7:00
with Jesus, and you would just be amazed at how much Jesus
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centers his ministry around food.
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Amen. It's just amazing the meals that
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Jesus has. And I've been, I've been reading
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books and I've been studying and and going through this.
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And so, so much of his ministry is just all about Jesus is
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either in the book of Luke, Jesus is either about to have a
7:35
meal, is having a meal, or he's just come from a meal.
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And, you know, the Son of Man came eating, and drinking is
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what you know, so much so that they called him a glutton, they
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called him a drunkard. But that's what he centered his,
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you know, his ministry around was was food.
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Food was an intimate thing. It's how you got to know people.
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And so this summer out, here's what I'd like to do.
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Every summer, I want to have a Jesus series.
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So I started this last year. I didn't know I was going to do
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that, but summer's going to be Jesus time for me going forward.
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And this summer we're going to be sitting around the dinner
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table all summer with Jesus, having meals with people,
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letting him teach us through the dinner table.
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Man, that's fantastic. I love it.
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I just had a gentleman, one of our deacons in our church come
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up to me and he said, hey, he said this past Sunday, he said,
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I believe this is the first message that you've preached in
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eight months that you didn't talk about food.
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And I said, wait man, I love it. I said somehow, someday,
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somehow, every message I guess I bring up some type of food or
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something I ate or something that, you know, I'm making or
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some type of food reference. And it just goes to show the
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closer you are to Jesus, the more you love food.
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And so I love it. It's great.
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And I love that idea for just thinking through the dinners
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with Jesus. And that's a great, great
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thought. Yeah.
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This summer I'm, I'm going Summer Psalms through the
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summer, picked out nine Psalms that I'm going to preach through
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and did not copy JC. I actually had it planned before
9:21
he announced it. So FYI, all those out there
9:24
thinking, oh, is just copying JC?
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No, I actually had this planned out in January before he
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announced it. But it just so worked out that
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Summer of Psalms is what I planned.
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And then we're we're going to be walking through the book of
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Jonah after summer and so really looking forward to that and
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where we're going to be at at the end of the summertime.
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I will say that I did listen to the first message of J CS Psalm
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series and it it was really good.
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He talked about giving and brought some things to light
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that I personally, you know, that helped me personally in my
10:01
philosophy of giving and I am going to eventually share some.
10:07
He's doing a good job preaching through that.
10:09
That's great. Yeah, I I chose to go the route
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of so the psalms are broken up into seven different categories
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of psalms. And so I picked of the 9:00.
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I'm going to do a couple of them separate on top of each other,
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but I tried picking each one of those different categories, the
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Psalm of lament, Psalm of praise, going through and and
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preaching through a different style of genre of psalms.
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So I'm preaching Psalm 17, Psalms 28, Psalms 31, Psalms 34,
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psalms 103, a portion of psalms 119, psalms 25, which will be
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our vacation Bible School kickoff week, and then psalms
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121. And so just preaching through
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intentionally picking something, I just didn't randomly pull out
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nine psalms. I actually went through and
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tried to find different psalms, Psalms of suffering, Psalms of
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lament, Psalms of hope, Psalms of joy.
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And just we're going to preach through those different Psalms
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genres. So looking forward to that and
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excited about that. Couple years ago I preached
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through all the psalms that had a superscript that tell us where
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in the life of David he wrote the Psalm and then used the
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Psalm as a springboard to go back into David's life.
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That that was a really fun series.
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Now when I come back from the summer, I'm going to preach
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verse by verse through a book of the New Testament.
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And I'm not. I'm.
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I've got a couple of them. I'm still juggling with trying
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to pick which one's going to, you know, was going to be the
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right one to go with, but that's what I like to do.
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Couple times a year. I preach verse by verse through
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a book, not the whole year, but a couple times a year.
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And so we'll do that when we come back from the summer.
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Love it. Love it.
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I did a New Testament book last year, and so this year I'll
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start my My first one that I'll go through this year will be an
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Old Testament prophet, which is Jonah and then man.
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I've been praying about this and pray with me for it, but I'm
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thinking about preaching through the Psalms.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry, First Corinthians
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chapter 13, The Love Song, The Love Passage, and Preaching
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through a Biblical View of Love. My title, my working title is
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What is Love? And I May play the soundtrack.
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What is Love? Baby, don't hurt me.
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When I come up on stage, Yeah, really praying about that.
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But I think really. Hey you, you got to do the night
12:39
at the Roxbury head bombing. You got to yeah.
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But I think really we we have a distorted view of love and
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getting back to a biblical view of what love is and really
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honing in on that passage and preaching through that.
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My my mind and heart has been been laying there.
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I haven't fully decided on that yet.
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Me and John, we've been talking through that a little bit.
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And so maybe maybe potentially talking about Love there near
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the end of this year before Christmas time.
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So but yeah, man, really excited about that and hopefully you
13:14
guys are enjoying this. Again, we're talking about the
13:17
church and we're in the church and Brett, we've got two more
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episodes after this. We're going to go one week into
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June and then we're going to take a summer break and we'll
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let you know about that when we get closer to it.
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But man, we are excited about meeting up in June the
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convention we're going to record.
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Brett, I've got my I think I finally got my wife on board,
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was doing a wives episode. And so we're going to do some
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live recordings there in Indianapolis together, me and
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Brett, to maybe pull in some other guys, some Marcus and JC
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and maybe get some clips from them while we're there and just
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have a good time hanging out. But we are finishing up our In
14:01
the Church series. We've got pair of church
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ministries today. Next week we'll be talking about
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missions in the Church with a missionary named Lee Howe with
14:12
United Christian Missions. And it is a pair of church
14:15
organization. Yeah, which is, it fits
14:17
perfectly. And then we'll do our final
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episode of the year talking about the summer and and and
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what we've got coming up. And so man, we're excited, but
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today Parachurch Ministries and what that is organizations of
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Parachurch Ministries. And so when it comes to
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Parachurch Ministries, man, I really wasn't, this wasn't
14:39
something, this was actually a topic that was sent in to us.
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And so I think, Brandon. Jones suggested it.
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OK, was it Brandon? OK.
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And so he he sent in this topic and said hey why don't you talk
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about Parachurch Ministries in the church, what that looks
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like, what it's about how it hurts and helps and pros and
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cons. And so we we decided yeah we'll
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throw this in there. It fits the context of where
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we're at and so we're we're going to look at that today in
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my context I I don't remember a lot of of Para Church ministries
15:08
being either promoted or preached against if they were
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promoted at all. We had a a Greg Litz Ministries,
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which was a a youth conference that we we partnered with.
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He was a member out of our church and had joined our church
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and was reaching just tons of kids and young people in our
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area and doing some youth rallies and was trained under
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the great David Harrison, if you're familiar with that name.
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And he was very evangelistical in his preaching style and very,
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what's the term, I should say, manipulative in his invitation
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style. And so he, he did some a lot of
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great things. My life was changing his
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ministry and God used it in a mighty way.
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But so so we were there. But I mean even in camps, man,
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we I went to one summer camp my entire time, going to church at
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Gospel light in Salisbury. And it may have just been
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because our pastor didn't care for him, so he didn't promote
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them. But then, you know, when we got
16:16
to Arkansas, they had a camp where all the college students
16:19
volunteered at Triple S and people like it was just so.
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I don't know if it was a buddy system, but people were for some
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things, but then other things they weren't really for, they
16:30
really didn't talk about them. Brett, what's your experience
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with Prayer Church Ministries? And I think you had a little bit
16:37
of a different take than I did. Well.
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Growing up, my pastor actively preached against parachurch
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organizations. They were, of course, the devil.
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Everything was the devil, and we were taught that anything and
16:52
everything that was not under the authority of a local New
16:56
Testament church was wrong. For example, my youth pastor
17:01
growing up, he attended Tennessee Temple and every
17:03
summer he participated in an organization called Neighborhood
17:09
Bible Time. And Neighborhood Bible Time was
17:12
pretty famous. And they would go around and
17:15
they would help churches put on vacation Bible schools every
17:18
summer. And he liked that.
17:21
He did that every summer. And I remember him telling me
17:24
not only did he catch a lot of Flack for that, but actually he
17:29
was kind of personally convicted about it because it was not
17:34
under a church. I remember he was offered a job
17:37
at neighborhood Bible time and the reason why he turned it down
17:42
was because it wasn't under the authority of a local church.
17:47
I remember when I was, I've told Y'all before when I was going to
17:50
schools, which you know that was housing Anderson, it was
17:55
tri-state, it was Crown. And then one another option that
18:01
was close by us was PCC. So Pensacola Christian College
18:05
and one of the reasons I I kind of wanted to go to PCC, but I
18:11
was discouraged from going to PCC because the college was a
18:16
stand alone college. It wasn't ruled by a church.
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Like they had a campus church that was under the authority of
18:24
the college, but the college itself wasn't under the
18:27
authority of a church. And so, you know, what was
18:32
discouraged from from going going against that?
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And so you know, I remember at House Anderson, there was a big
18:40
discussion about mission boards, about how all that mission board
18:44
is is not right. It's it's it's ungodly because
18:48
it wasn't under you know it wasn't under a church and I
18:51
remember when I think it's FBMI is their mission board.
18:56
I remember I remember when that came under the umbrella of First
19:01
Baptist Church Hammond and they made a big deal about how it's
19:05
biblical now because it's under the authority of a church and
19:10
you know it was it was a big deal when it happened.
19:13
My pastor taught that Jack Kyle taught that that these para
19:16
church organizations were ungodly because they weren't
19:21
under the authority of the church.
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Now I'm going to take that into our next kind of question which
19:28
is what is a parachurch organization and.
19:33
Brett, right before you get that definition, I was told because I
19:38
I looked at the PCC as well, you know, it's a big college.
19:40
They were accredited. That was a big draw for me, you
19:43
know, Should I go somewhere that's accredited And I had a
19:46
pastor friend? Or it may have been a dad of a
19:50
friend of mine. It may have actually been John's
19:52
dad that said it to me, but I can't remember exactly who it
19:56
was. But it said this If you want to
19:58
be a pastor, you don't go to PCC because they don't train pastors
20:02
there. They train a bunch of teachers
20:05
and a bunch of Lily, Lily White lazy.
20:09
People they don't treat no pastors down there.
20:12
You you go down there to be a teacher.
20:13
You don't go down to be a pastor.
20:15
They don't know how to train pastors and put out pastors down
20:17
there and so I can I can still remember that in my head of PCC
20:21
there's no such thing as pastors that come out of PCC.
20:25
There are don't don't get me wrong good pastors.
20:28
I know some that come out of their missionary friend of mine
20:31
on the field right now in Peru is A is A is a grad of PCC and
20:37
doing some great things but sometimes we can get get locked
20:42
in on some things that people say that that that keep in our
20:46
mind. So that was one of the things
20:48
that he said that. Exactly.
20:50
Now there are no parachurch, you know ministries in the Bible,
20:54
they're not mentioned in scripture.
20:56
So if we had to kind of put a definition to a parachurch
20:59
ministry, you could call a parachurch ministry is a
21:03
Christian faith-based organization which carries out
21:07
its mission usually in the independent of church oversight.
21:13
Now the word para is Greek for coming alongside or coming
21:18
beside something. And that is the purpose of a
21:21
parachurch organization is to come alongside the church and
21:26
help the church. And the the idea is it's
21:30
supposed to come alongside the church and kind of provide
21:33
something that the church can't provide on its own.
21:37
So these parachurch organizations, a lot of them can
21:40
do things that the local church can't.
21:43
It's usually centered around one specific area of need within the
21:48
local church or the worldwide church.
21:51
Some examples of of like family, military publishing, education,
21:58
missionary support, prison outreach, medical
22:02
communications, transportation, education.
22:07
All of these areas that you can have para church organizations
22:11
in seminaries are an example of a Para church organization.
22:17
I just went down to New Orleans Monday and had to go to have a
22:23
interview for my scholarship to get my master's degree.
22:26
That's one Para church organization that I I'm thankful
22:30
exists now. The closest thing that I can
22:34
kind of find in the Bible to a Para church organization are
22:38
kind of like the groups of missionaries that Paul LED.
22:41
But you know, they're not churches in and of themselves.
22:45
However, they do appear to be commissioned by the church.
22:49
They they submitted themselves to Apostolic authority and
22:53
church authority. So you could say that they were
22:56
they were under a church, I guess you could say.
22:59
But basically, you know, in my opinion the Bible is silent,
23:04
silent on parachurch organization.
23:06
So I see this as kind of a Christian liberty thing.
23:10
As long as they help to assist the church in practical ways and
23:15
you know, the church is is, you know, is able to do more, the
23:19
church is able to focus on their primary goals.
23:23
I personally don't see a problem with it.
23:25
I definitely don't see anything in scripture that says if this
23:29
organization that wants to be a Christian organization just
23:33
because it's not under the authority of a local New
23:36
Testament church, it's not right.
23:39
I see nothing in the word of God, no scripture to support
23:42
that whatsoever. Yeah, I agree 100% with that as
23:48
well. And I really like the thought of
23:51
of the specific specificity of a para church ministry.
23:57
I'll use one example, a lifeline pregnancy center or a pregnancy
24:01
center. They're able to.
24:03
They're able to do things as a pregnancy center that a church
24:07
as a whole could not do because they have trained, qualified
24:12
people that are giving the gospel out, that are helping a
24:17
young lady who is thinking about getting an abortion.
24:20
They're able to come alongside of her and do things that I
24:23
could not do as a pastor. Now I partner with those
24:27
ministries. I help those ministries out.
24:29
I I come alongside them and I do male training and I will invest
24:34
in some of those young men. And I've done that in the past
24:37
where I'll take a man through a discipleship class and they're
24:40
able to, if the man will go through a class, they're able to
24:43
actually get points and and dollars they can spend in the
24:47
store of people that have donated stuff.
24:49
And so they're earning things. And so man, those are some
24:52
things that that as an example of a para church ministry that
24:57
is going to go further than I can do.
25:00
So I can support that, I can help that and I can be a part of
25:05
that in a massive way to help it grow and and reach the people
25:11
that it's going to reach specifically that I may never
25:14
reach because I'm just a pastor to church.
25:17
And so there's just one example we could go through and I mean
25:20
we could pull out food pantries, we could pull out different
25:24
organizations like that. So as we think through Para
25:28
Church Ministries, as we think through this thought of it, what
25:32
are some pros, two pair of church ministers, We've already
25:35
hit some but we'll we'll go through.
25:37
I think one is the specifics of what they're able to do.
25:41
They're able to isolate a specific need and a niche that
25:45
they're able to minister in and that's a huge pro.
25:49
What, what are some other pros that maybe you have, Brett and
25:51
we'll sort of go back and forth on this?
25:53
Well, I I want to say that I think a lot of the reason before
25:57
I get to my pro, I think a lot of the reason why our brand of
26:02
Baptist that we grew up in. I think one of the reasons why
26:06
they don't like para church organizations, they preach
26:08
against it so much is they can't control it.
26:11
You know, the MOG, the man of God, he's got to control
26:14
everything. He's got to be in complete
26:16
control. And because they can't control
26:19
it, they can't oversight it. I think that's part of the
26:21
reason why they have such a big problem with it.
26:24
But I think that one of the first pros, you know, like I
26:28
mentioned before, is like a pair of church ministry, like you
26:32
said, can do a pair of church ministry, can do things that a
26:35
church with 100 people or less can't do.
26:40
You know, like before the Internet, like sermons of
26:43
Edwards and Spurgeon and the writings of Bunyan, these things
26:48
were made available to Christian publishers.
26:52
OK, now today we can go on the Internet and we can get this
26:55
material anytime we want to. But you know back then you
26:59
reliable like Christian publishers to make these things
27:03
available and and it's and like as far as Christian publishing,
27:08
that's something that a local church can't do.
27:10
No matter how large they are. They can't duplicate the effort
27:14
of a publishing company. There are para church ministries
27:17
today that spread the gospel throughout the world.
27:21
The radio, the Internet reach areas that are inaccessible to
27:25
church and minute church missionaries like we're talking
27:29
get inside closed communist areas and Islamic countries and
27:35
things such as that. So you know, I think that they
27:38
the their ability to do things that the local church can't do,
27:43
I think is really cool. I have a buddy in Florida that
27:46
his job we're you know, talking about abortion centers.
27:49
You know one of his ministries that he does on his own is they
27:53
have a ministry where they go to outside of abortion clinics and
27:59
they bring sonograms. And you know, it's a really high
28:03
rate of these women that, that get a free sonogram before they
28:09
get an abortion, he said. If they give out a free
28:13
sonogram, like 80% of these women don't go through with the
28:18
abortion. That's a pretty high number.
28:21
And he's able to, it's a para church organization, a para
28:25
church ministry, and you know, they're out there.
28:28
They've got kind of a niche, you know, focus, a specific focus.
28:35
And like churches like mine and your church can come along and
28:39
we can, we can give to this ministry over here.
28:42
We can have a bunch of different irons in the fire and support
28:47
these different ministries doing different things.
28:50
And we're spreading out our mission in the church.
28:54
And you know, and we're going to, we're going to dog it just
28:57
because it's not under the authority of a local church.
29:01
I don't see that at all. So I I think that's one of the
29:05
main pros. Yeah, I do too.
29:07
And I again, I get back to, they can do so much more.
29:11
I mean another another illustration would be, you know
29:15
some of these pro activists on Capitol Hill in Washington,
29:21
they're able to speak with senators and speak with House
29:23
representatives in a massive way because they are a religious
29:28
organization that's meeting on behalf of where we give our
29:32
dollars to in order to effect change.
29:36
And and they're going to be able to isolate some things and help
29:39
out some things that I can't do as just a local pastor here in
29:43
small town North Carolina, rural North Carolina, same thing for
29:46
you in in Mississippi. So thinking of the positives,
29:49
there's a lot of positives. We just mentioned that and what
29:52
are some some negatives, what are some cons to parachurch
29:56
ministries? I think the most obvious con for
29:59
me is that sometimes some of these ministries can take the
30:04
place of the local church. All of a sudden you've got a,
30:09
I'll go back to my, my primary illustration, pregnancy center.
30:13
You've got this pregnancy center that's operating outside the
30:16
church. They're giving a maybe churches
30:19
are supporting them, and all of a sudden these are now taking
30:25
the place of the church. The women and men that are
30:28
coming there, they don't ever assimilate into a church.
30:31
They never get incorporated into a church.
30:33
They never are brought into the umbrella of the church.
30:38
So therefore discipleship is not done.
30:40
There's not a community of believers there, and the only
30:44
sense of lifeline they have is this pregnancy center that
30:49
ultimately is not going to be able to supply all of their
30:52
needs because they're not a part of the church.
30:55
And so we must come alongside and help those ministries.
30:59
But ultimately, there's got to be a partnership of us helping
31:03
and them incorporating the people that are coming to them
31:07
into a local body of Christ so that the body can be fitly
31:12
joined together, so that they can help and edify one another.
31:15
They can build one another up, they can strengthen one another.
31:18
There can be correction there because that's what the church
31:21
does. The church helps build the body
31:23
of believers up. And so often times, these
31:26
parachurch organizations will take the place of and ultimately
31:31
become sort of a small church that's never designed or is
31:34
being a church. Another organization that's
31:38
similar to this is a Samaritan's Purse.
31:40
I'm all for Samaritan's person. I love what they're doing.
31:42
I love what Jack Billy's son's doing.
31:45
I love what they're doing with Samaritan's person, Samaritan's
31:48
ministries. But often times it can become
31:52
part of that. That is the only thing we're
31:55
going to do because it's they're doing so much and and it can be
32:00
a huge take away as well were. You were you going to say Jack
32:03
House, son? No, I was going to say Jack.
32:06
Jack Graham, I was realizing Jack Graham was not Billy's son.
32:11
That's not. That's not him.
32:12
Yeah. So I agree.
32:14
You know, I think that even though they're not under the
32:18
authority of a church, they need to keep in mind the gospel and
32:22
what we're here to do, we're here to do to bring people to
32:26
the church. And, you know, we'll talk more
32:28
about that, how it can go off the rails in a second.
32:32
And I think that I think one major con which is kind of
32:36
similar to what you brought up, one major con to a para church
32:40
ministry is it's independent of church oversight.
32:46
So these organizations, they don't have the same structure as
32:49
a local church, and the local church is the pillar and
32:53
foundation of the truth. The local church is God's plan
32:57
for building up the Saints to do the work of the ministry.
33:01
The church is structured in such a way that godly leadership
33:04
overseas the members, feeding them the word of God, making
33:09
sure they're built up in their faith and protecting them, you
33:13
know, in in all they do. There's no kind of structure
33:16
like that in a para church ministry.
33:19
So you're right, a para church ministry can become an entity of
33:24
themselves and they're winning people to their ministry instead
33:29
of winning people to Christ or winning people to the church.
33:33
It can be kind of a standalone thing.
33:35
So lack of church oversight sometimes is a big con in my
33:43
opinion. Yeah and it almost sounds if
33:45
you're listening to this, it almost sounds like we're we're
33:48
talking in circles right. A Pro is they're able to do
33:52
things outside of what the church can do.
33:53
A con is they don't have church oversight.
33:56
It almost feels like when you talk about a minister like this,
34:00
yeah they're doing great things and we're not saying they're not
34:02
doing great things. The problem is, is sometimes
34:06
these organizations, these para church or entities can become
34:10
more and can become greater than what the church was designed to
34:15
do. And what they what I'm saying by
34:17
that is this, they can become sort of like a Country Club.
34:21
They can be like a membership of of people who are in this
34:25
organization and they've got the Samaritan's Purse code or
34:28
they've got whatever it may be and they're they're in this
34:31
elite club. And this is what I'll say to
34:34
this. When a church becomes like that,
34:37
the church needs to be radically changed.
34:40
To be away from a Country Club mentality.
34:43
The church has to be about the mission, which is to reach,
34:47
teach, disciple, and baptize believers into the body of
34:51
Christ. That's what God came.
34:53
God came to send his son. He can send his son to purchase
34:59
the church with his own blood. He didn't come for a Country
35:02
Club, He didn't come for a parachurch ministry.
35:05
He came for the church and he came to redeem the church, to be
35:10
his bride. And so that is the primary focus
35:13
of what we can what we should be doing.
35:15
Now, there's nothing wrong with us supporting these other
35:19
ministries as long as they are not doing anything illegal,
35:24
immoral, wrong, biblically breaking commands.
35:28
You know, we're able to have friendly partnerships and
35:31
cooperate with one another. As Southern Baptist, as we said
35:34
before, we have what's called the cooperative program and what
35:37
do we do? We cooperate with one another.
35:40
We pull our money together so that we can do more together
35:44
than we can separate, so that we can help, as Brett saying, go to
35:49
Bible college and get his master's degree.
35:52
Our CP dollars goes to New Orleans Baptist Theological
35:54
Seminary so that pastors can go and get training at a discounted
35:58
rate because they're part of the convention.
36:01
And so that that is that is us working together and the church
36:05
having oversight of those things.
36:07
And so Brett, why don't you discuss if you unless you've got
36:10
anything else, why don't you discuss to close this down is
36:12
how can these things go off the rails?
36:15
You know, if you want to, you know, some people say, do you
36:17
want to get rich? Go start a nonprofit.
36:20
You know, I know, I know one organization in particular that
36:26
has you know, a whole bunch of you like thrift stores and and
36:30
medical clinics and shelters and and things like that under one
36:36
umbrella and they're just kind of raking in the cash and
36:40
instead of being a ministry, it is turned into a a cash making
36:44
thing. And you know that's that's
36:47
that's not right. So we asked the question how can
36:52
these types of pair church organizations go off the rails.
36:56
And I think one of the things we have to be careful of first
36:59
because because it's a it's a coalition movement, OK.
37:03
So what you have is a lot of times you have these different
37:06
dot denominations coming together and they find common
37:09
ground that they want to talk about things they want to talk
37:14
about, just stuff they agree with, which means they sideline
37:18
other issues. Now they'll come together on the
37:21
Trinity, the incarnation, the authority of scripture,
37:24
justification by faith, and things like that.
37:27
But like, for instance, when it comes to Church of government or
37:31
baptism predestination, internal security, a lot of these issues
37:36
get sidelined. Now, I'm not saying that we
37:39
can't fellowship with other people who don't exactly agree
37:43
like us. I'm not saying that at all.
37:46
But it can throw a monkey wrench into the into a situation.
37:51
There's sometimes when you know this to be true, when a church
37:54
leader becomes more well known as the leader of an organization
38:00
instead of the leader of his own church.
38:03
And you know what that does? It makes the church role a less
38:07
important role. And I definitely see that as a
38:10
problem. But back to the coalition
38:13
movement, I think it's, you know, a good idea for a para
38:16
church organization to have some kind of doctrinal statement that
38:20
everybody joins or everybody signs or some sort of confession
38:25
that maybe everybody agrees to. That way everybody's on the same
38:30
page. And I think that a second reason
38:33
why these organizations go off the rails a lot of the time is
38:37
because they rarely have, you know, proper structures of
38:41
accountability. Where is the church, the
38:43
custodians of the church, of the elders and the pastors?
38:47
A para church organization has no such structure, so it can
38:51
quickly go off the rails if you let it.
38:55
So, you know, interdenominational is not a bad
38:58
thing, but it can cause issues and then just lack of
39:03
accountability inside these organizations can lead to some
39:08
corrupt practices. And we have to mention that
39:10
because it's happened too many times for us not to say anything
39:14
about it, but I think those are some ways that these
39:16
organizations can go off the rails.
39:20
Yeah. And I think another way to to
39:22
also guard some of these things. Again, we should have
39:24
guardrails. We're driving on the road.
39:26
They put guardrails where things are dangerous because they want
39:29
to protect us. Some of these guardrails can
39:31
just simply be who's supporting these ministries, what type of
39:35
groups of people are supporting this specific type of ministry.
39:39
If you've got a group of ministries that are different
39:43
than the what you believe or what you agree with, that could
39:46
be a sense of what is this ministry is going to be about or
39:51
for or who their clientele is. And so it's it's just doing some
39:56
basic research. It's it's knowing who we're
39:58
partnering with, how we can partner together and ultimately
40:02
asking the question what are we partnering for, what is the
40:05
object of this partnership and and are we meeting that
40:09
objective. This can be from from a church
40:12
itself, what's the goal of the church?
40:15
What are we doing in order to reach the goal?
40:17
And if we're not OK, what do we need to change?
40:19
It's the same thing with the parent church ministry as well.
40:22
But having that church there with you partnering does give
40:26
you some of that benefit. Again, sometimes it's not a
40:28
benefit. Sometimes, like I said with the
40:31
pregnancy center, they it's not good to be attached to a church.
40:34
It's good to be separate because they can do more.
40:37
They're attached to a church. There's some religious things
40:39
that that can be brought about against them, and that's why
40:43
most, if not every single one that's productive isn't attached
40:46
to a church because of that reason.
40:49
And so there's just some, some, some things that we can do to to
40:53
ask some basic questions to help us out.
40:56
And again, not to be always be leery of what some of these
41:00
other organizations are doing, but look at what What did Jesus
41:04
say by their fruits? You're going to know them.
41:06
What fruit are they producing? Use that basic judgement, basic
41:10
test and say what fruit is this producing.
41:14
Amen. You know Samaritan's Purse you
41:16
mentioned earlier, You know, before I passed through my last
41:19
church, I had never heard of them.
41:21
And I fell in love with the shoe boxes the first year we did it
41:25
and we still do it, this church that I go to.
41:28
But you know, we shared his purse, caught some flak last
41:32
Christmas last season because, you know, there was a rumor
41:37
rumbling that these packages that we were building these shoe
41:43
boxes, that they weren't immediately going overseas, that
41:47
they were being put in a warehouse somewhere and being
41:50
held up for a year. And although go out the next
41:53
year and that's why we can't put perishables in them And this,
41:57
that and the others. There were rumblings and but you
42:00
know we sent ours out. We tracked all ours and ours
42:03
went overseas where they're supposed to go and they could be
42:06
lying to us. But you know, you know they've,
42:09
I think they've got some accountability worked in.
42:12
And I think that's a big thing like if you're a church and you
42:17
are going to give to a pair of church organization, you're
42:20
going to help. You're going to support them in
42:22
some way, then I I mean, I want to know where my money's going.
42:26
I want to know what you're doing.
42:28
Don't just blindly say, oh we're going to do this.
42:31
No, I I want to know. I want to see.
42:33
I want to be able to report that to my people, you know.
42:37
And so, you know, we just need to be careful.
42:39
Well, just like you said, we'll know them by their fruit.
42:42
You may get into, you know, you may partner with an organization
42:46
and then there's just no accountability, there's no
42:49
transparency. Well, then you, you cut ties and
42:53
and you move on. I think that's important when
42:55
this kind of a relationship. Absolutely love it and I hope
43:01
you'll join us the next two weeks as we finish up our series
43:04
of In the Church. We have thoroughly enjoyed
43:07
talking through this and until next time to God.
43:11
Not the pastor. Be the glory found.
43:15
My new name. Found that good grace.
43:19
Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face.
43:23
When I found my beginning. That has no ending.
43:26
Found that second chance. Found my best friend.
43:27
Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness.
43:29
I've been singing ever since I found my freedom.
43:46
Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast.
43:49
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