Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 307 - Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church: The Hard Truth No One Wants to Hear

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Ep. 307 - Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church: The Hard Truth No One Wants to Hear · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: We set ourselves up for failure is to simply look at the next generation and go oh, there's so much more worse than us.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: There's so much more.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: No, theologically speaking, they're not.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: They are sinners, just like the generation before us.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: They're looking at different circumstances and situations.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: The problem is, when we start talking about the younger generation in that kind of a way, we stop doing something about reaching them and we just demand that they accept it in the same way that we accepted it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You want to win over millennials.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You want to draw Gen Z.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They don't need the smoke, they don't need the mirrors, they don't need the lights.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: What they need is a church that we see in the book of Acts.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: They need shepherds, they need responsibility and they need community.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I had to try very hard recently, friends, to do something that comes usually very naturally for me.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I had to try to remain humble when I recently did a radio interview and the host said to me that is the best mic check we've ever had.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Really.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, it was so nice, did you hippity hoppity, I hippity hoppity.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: What poem did you give this time, mark?
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: How did you know?
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Well, you guys know sound checks Check one, two, check check.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Check one two.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Three, check one two.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: What did you say?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Who can tell?
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: me where I came from.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Oh how long was the sound check.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: It's like three, four hours?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: No, it was, but it was so cool to give them that steady stream and people appreciate that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Like it's not normally done but you just give them.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: I mean just for those listening, whoever do a mic check, even if you went A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, whatever, just a steady stream.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Do you like that, Oscar?
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Listen, I'm good.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I tend to tell a story myself when I'm doing a mic check and.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: I will enunciate and fluctuate and stuff the way it's actually going to be.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: What you don't want to do is just like that Check, check, one, two, one, two.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Are we good?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Because they don't know they need to hear you out.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I quote scripture oh, what a holy man.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: That's spiritual, that is, what a holy man.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Just got killed yesterday.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Tell us, ray, you almost got killed stories every day.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: No, it was really really close Closest I've been for a long time.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I was riding my bike along the pathway which is next to a golf course on my way to Cerritos College to do some, and he sliced it, and next thing I see this golf ball heading for my head.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: You saw it in the air yes I saw it right like.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many feet it was in front of me, but I could just see this white thing and I ducked and I'm so glad I did.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And then I yelled out to the guy Whoa, like that, and he gave me a thumbs up.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: Next time I'll get you.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Next time, next time, next time.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Don't duck.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He's been waiting there for two days.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Was it Richard Dawkins?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was so close it fermented in my mind, this white thing just heading for me and I thought great atheists mean goofball killed by golf ball.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Did you think it was the moon getting bigger?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but actually, that really was what it looked like the moon getting bigger.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Man, imagine you would have gotten hit by that.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I would have been bummed.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: there was no video camera, no same here, but the golf ball might have cracked yeah.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Good point.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: One other little announcement.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, right, announce away.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Winning anniversary today.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Sue and I have been married for 108 years.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Is it today?
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, wow, no way.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: 52?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: No 54.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: No Four and four is eight, yeah, 54.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Whoa Same woman 54 years, 12 of the best years of her life, yeah.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: That woman deserves an award.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she does More sympathy cards need to come her way.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: And thank you for marrying Sue Ray.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: That gave me Rachel.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that great.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: My beloved yeah.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I got Sue a wedding anniversary card, but it says I'm sorry, that's it, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: All right, friends.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Time for a cool, classy comment, all right.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: This one, guys, I'm excited about because it comes attached with gifts.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: We this one, guys, I'm excited about because it comes attached with gifts.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: We love gifts, gifts yes.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's why we do what we do.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this we know what we're doing, Shh.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Oscar.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: So this came from a sister named Ashley Clark and she sent a long letter I'm just going to read some excerpts and included some gifts Big, big blessing.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: She said this podcast has changed my life.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Never have I grasped the importance of evangelism until I came across the Living Waters YouTube channel, which then led to discovering this life-changing podcast.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: That discovery has breathed new life into the gospel for me.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: As AW Tozer once put it, christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison, it would not hurt anyone.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine, it would not cure anyone.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Good quote, it's going in my file for sure, and I had fallen into the trap of this anemic Christianity he speaks of.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Then I was revived by the potency of each message shared on this podcast.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: You all have helped me take my eyes off of myself and unto the depravity of the world and the mission of God, and I'm chomping at the bit to get out into the world and share the good news.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's awesome Music to our ears.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: She says God is undeniably active within this ministry.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: After each episode I'm refreshed, enriched and encouraged.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I never feel condemned, but inspired as a new believer.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I wanted to know God, but I didn't really know how.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: You guys have stood in the gap for me while I find my gospel community Friends.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: You've been such a treasure to discover.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I'm continually praying for you and maybe one day I'll have the opportunity to express my gratitude to each of you in person.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I love you all so much.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: God bless you guys.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Ashley, ashley, thank you, ashley.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: You have, I think, made our year, sister.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Check out these gifts, you guys.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: It's not just gifts, but look at the thoughtfulness.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: What Ray.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: She's the one who hit it Ray.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, Mark has a little note with his.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: The favorite podcast.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: And there's Oscar's.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Probably pick Carlos for Oscar.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Now look at the thoughtfulness and there's Oscar.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Probably pick Carlos for Oscar.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Now look at the thoughtfulness, Ray.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: What did you get?
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I can't see it, Come on.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Ray, oh, it's a little chicken, a chicken.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Mark, how unfair that you got two, but why did you get two?
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Alright, it says, mark, you get a bonus keychain.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: You love your chili cheese dogs from Winterstinsel.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: But I couldn't help but memorize.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: Memorialize the dog from your childhood with a sorrowful peace offering.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Does the cat suit make him more evil?
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Perhaps Oscar would certainly think so, but hey, it's a start.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: I like this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: How cool is that?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I like Ashley.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: For those of you who don't know, mark got attacked by a dog Chili cheese dog, chili cheese dog and then a cat that says sorry.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's a dog in a cat suit.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes, yes, yes, oscar, what'd?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you get.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I got a hipster coffee mug with a mustache on the bottom.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I'm going to paint that cream color in there with that black stuff, and then she got me an inhaler that says wheezy on it oh that is thoughtful.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, ashley, we have no idea how you did all this, but, sister, thank you for your thoughtfulness, your care and your love.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: You can tell she's creative by the way she writes oh yeah, obviously.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: I'm her favorite host with two keychains oh yeah, all right.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Now she's gonna have to send us two All right friends.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: It wasn't enough Friends, give us more All right friends.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And now a radically revolutionary resource.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: This podcast is brought to you by Hell's Best Kept Secret, book Ray.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I forget sometimes that that reminded me of one of my chickens.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Book, book, book.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, book Ray.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: I forget sometimes that you actually have a book called Hell's Best.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Kept Secret.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're so used to the sermon.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I have the same thoughts, but you've got the book.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was originally called Poured Out for a Thirsty World when it was first published.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: No, it wasn't.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: There was a publisher that was called Evangelical Frustration, before it was called Poured.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Out for a Thirsty World.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: You have a disorder of changing titles.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Multiple disorders, how many?
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: I mean which book has had the most title changes.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Probably Howl's Best Gift Secret.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It's because I didn't know what to call it.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Was that the Mantle's Harlot?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: The Mantle's.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Harlot, a little wheezy there, no that evolved into God has a wonderful plan for your life.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: It was condensed, it was just too thick, yeah, but before that it was something else and something else no.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I just didn't know what to call Hell's Best Get Secret.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: For years I thought this is so important I don't know what to call it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: I got a teaching here called Alright friends, don't forget that Hell's Best Get Secret Living Waters mug and the Evidence Study Bible all that Livingwaterscom.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Alright friends, today we are talking about why are the hard truth no one wants to hear.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: I think the best thing to do is to begin by defining millennials, because that's what Ray was thinking.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I say what's a millennial?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I know what a millennial is.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I talk to them every day, do you Ray?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, ray, I'm at the college.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Millennials or Generation Y.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: They were born between 19.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Why Generation Y?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know why what I don't know why what, I don't know why.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Who was on first?
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: They were born between 1981 and 1996.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: And so, at the time of this recording, for your information, we're talking about people basically between ages 40, well, 28 and 43.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: 28 and 43.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: What is the next generation after Oscar?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Like what are my kids called Generation X?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Generation X no Gen Z Wait, is it?
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Z Well, who's X?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: X is you.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Am.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I X yeah it goes Boomer X, y, z.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Who made this up?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I feel special, yeah, who makes this stuff up?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: It's the same people who named hurricanes?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: No one.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: They're dead.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Why are hurricanes named after women?
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: I know, rotunda.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: What are you two talking about?
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't catch your conversation.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: Who's before Generation X?
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: We have Generation.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: What Boomer.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Boomer, and then who's?
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: before Generation Boomer?
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: I have no idea.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: No, and they're dead.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Raise the last one Of the Mohicans.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you might beat me to it, spence, but guys there is, yeah, there is this trend of millennials that seem to be leaving the church.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Oscar, would you say this?
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Is I like you saying that?
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: You like me saying what?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Seem to be leaving the church.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: They never slid forward.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: They said they're not part of the church.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Look guys, if you three became Buddhists I wouldn't fall away from the Lord Really.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: No, I'd be a little annoyed because I'd be stuck here by myself with a podcast.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: But if living waters fell to pieces, everything went wrong.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: It would drive me to my knees.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't get angry at.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: God and fall away.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I talked to someone that I haven't talked to in a long time.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: What is a Buddhist?
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: You never heard of the boatist.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: The boatist, a boatist.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: How long have you guys met my accent?
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Is it really Buddha?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Buddha?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't believe it's not Buddha.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: I don't believe it's not Buddha.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I was going to do a track years ago with the American accent and ruined it, oh Ray.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Repent of your accent.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Do you?
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: remember Joe Gasper.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: They're all the same reference.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Joe.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Gasper of course, one, just one, joe Gasper.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: He reminded me of something he said.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I told him, I don't know, 20 years ago.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: He said we were talking.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I said you know, I challenged myself with the question and this is based on what you said, ray.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: If everyone that I respected, everyone that I knew, everyone that I loved, every pastor that's famous and known, if?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: they all forsook Christ, what would I do?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Would I stay true to the Lord and guys?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: That really does beg the question.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, this wasn't what we were planning to talk about so much, but isn't that really evidence that someone never really knew the Lord?
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Because if they fall away because others have, there's a saying that I kind of coined years ago, but it was this, because I'd hear about people who were going off to the military or going off to business in another country or whatever, and then you'd hear testimonies of well, there were no other Christians around me, so I couldn't walk with the Lord.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Mark, I remember, in fact, you telling a young man it was honestly one of the most sobering moments I think I've ever experienced where, told this young man basically that we were praying over bunch of godly men gathered around him, he was about to go off to the military.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: You basically told him he was gonna fall into the ways of the world.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was heavy and that's exactly what happened, tragically, but I had this saying, and it's this people who need people to walk with God, don't walk with God, they walk with people.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's really good Because that's at the end of the day.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, who's that singer that could?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: sing that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Who's the what who?
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: People who need people.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: People need people to walk with God.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: They don't walk with God.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: God, they walk with people.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: You don't have to ever do that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Freestyle singing In light of this.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: I actually wrote an open letter to myself today that I'm going to publish on my Facebook page tomorrow.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Seriously, Mark.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in light of this, because of all the things that are inside the news, have you read?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: it yet.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: Have I read it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not yet.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: He just wrote it himself.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: I'll read it in a few weeks, but I'll post it tomorrow.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: How long did it take?
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd read it Ten seconds.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: But I wrote an open letter to that pastor who had just fallen and I just posted it on my Twitter.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: But in light of that, I had written a letter to myself first.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Just taking heed, I'm not going to read it here.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Read it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: It's just to take heed right, Lest you think that you're strong enough and you can handle the same temptations that he did and you can get through it unscathed.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Just to be careful, how long is it, Mark?
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I started to kind of fine-tune it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: No, it's two pages.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Well, let me just say, man, that really excites me that you did that.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: And let me just say something that I've highlighted before on the podcast what you just did right now and what is a microcosm of the kind of fellowship that should be happening all around the world, because this is what we do here.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: We fellowship, that's exactly right, like you just stirred my heart to want to do the same thing, and that's what we do as believers.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: We glean from each other, we stir each other through examples, things God's doing in our heart, things the Lord is teaching us.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: You just made me write a letter to myself.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It's super short.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Here's what it says Don't be stupid.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Most powerful words I've ever said to myself Don't be an idiot.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: That's so good.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: So, guys, on this note, though, we do see stuff like this happening, where those that may even be genuine believers, who are disillusioned let's not say they've fallen away from the faith, but they are disillusioned by the church and what's going on, and so I think we need to discuss this, and I think that the first and best question to ask is why do we think this is happening?
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: What do we think is the primary reasons for millennials leaving the church?
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Would you guys say it's a rejection of the institution of the church, connected to what's going on in it, or what's happening?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's a number of things happening.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: First off, taking a step back, the thing that's really interesting about as we talk about millennials um, in in the in the late 2005 to like 15, right around that era, there almost seemed to be like this awakening happening with millennials.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Huge uh, you know what are deemed reform organizations like Desiring God, the Gospel Coalition, even Grace To you, things like that.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: These ancient ways of exploring Christianity started to become popular because of the internet again, and it seemed to be creating this huge awakening.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Millennials were digging up old books and starting to quote guys who were writing stuff four or five hundred years ago.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were looking at ways to apply their Christian faith in the workplace.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: There was massive, like mass, amounts of people planting churches all over the world, not just the United States, and so there was this moment with Millenn millennials where it seemed so hopeful like there was this movement happening and it was really exciting.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: But to your point you fast forward to now and it's almost like there's a de-awakening happening.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: So many of millennials are falling away and let me just borrow that terminology.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I know we understand what actually is happening from a salvific point of view, but so many people are falling away, and the thing that's interesting to me is that they're falling away for a number of reasons.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think you just hit one of them.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's okay to say the church.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: People in the church.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say the church.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: People in the church have failed in many ways and this has disillusioned many Christians, or I should say, many people from the faith.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: You've got droves of pastors who have fallen, who were a part of leaders in that movement, who have fallen from the faith, and that wrecks people.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: There's this feeling of disingenuous man.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Did you not believe the things that you were preaching and teaching?
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: You used these words and these belief systems to fire us up and to change our lives, and you yourself were not living by them.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: There's another reality in which the culture has shifted to have just an extreme skepticism to all things.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Authoritative and I mean authoritative is simply like someone standing at a pulpit and saying thus says the Lord.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: There's this like whoa, who are you to say?
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Thus says the Lord.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: You're speaking, oscar, for clarification on that in terms of just saying like, hey, here's what God says from his word, not necessarily like charismatic prophecy.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: But then there's another reality too, which is the reality is that we are all deeply religious and spiritual people, and there's actually, in many ways I've tried to stop using the phrase unbeliever, because, if you think about it, there's actually no such thing as an unbeliever.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: We all believe in something, we all have a form of religion, and what I've noticed with my fellow millennials is that, especially the ones that were in that sort of awakening phase, is that they have swapped out one religion for another.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: They've swapped out the faith of Christianity for the religion of entertainment, for the religion of success, for the religion of politics.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I've got two friends who were deeply influential in my life in a certain period of time, and one of them is on the far right politically and it's like a new religion to him.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I have another friend who's on the far left politically and it's like a religion to him, and so both these guys have moved away from Christianity into a new form of religion of politics, and so I think that's a big part of it as well is that people are exchanging one faith for another.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ray, like you said, you deal with millennials all the time out on the streets as you're getting hit by golf balls, what would you say is Don't laugh at your own jokes.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I can't help it.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: What would you say is behind some of what we're seeing, Ray, based on just your interactions?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I think we've obviously had a false gospel that's been preached, that's created a false convert.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: So a false convert will find any excuse to go back to Sodom because his heart's there.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: He wants to look back.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: There is the perceived hypocrisy.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I hear that a lot.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Why don't you go to church?
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Because there's hypocrites in the church?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Well, there's no hypocrites in the church.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: The body of believers a pretender.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Either someone is saved, they're part of the church or they're a pretender.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: So Jesus knew Judas was amidst his disciples and God knows the church is filled with false converts.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as I've said again, tears among the weak, foolish virgins.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: So he's going to sort out the sheep from the goats on Judgment Day.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But I point always to Romans 2 when someone says I don't like hypocrisy.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: It happened yesterday.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: A guy says I don't like hypocrisy happened yesterday.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: A guy says, oh, these people, they lust after women.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: They go and confession and all is well.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And I said well, the book of Romans speaks that.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Romans 2,.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: You therefore are inexcusable, o man.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Whoever you are, who judge for in?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Whoever you judge another, you condemn yourself or whatever.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You judge another For you, who judge?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Practice the same things.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: But we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against those who practice such things.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: In other words, god's going to get them on judgment day, and you do.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You think this, o man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Every man will give an account of himself to God.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: So I think you can go through all the excuses that millennials give to get away from the church and just dismantle them quite easily, one by one, and it comes back to I love my sin.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: That's really what it comes back to.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: That's the root.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let me address that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: I wholeheartedly agree with Ray here.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: There is a hypocrisy that is a stench in the nostrils of the world, just as much Spurgeon said of all the things in the world that stink in the nostrils of men, hypocrisy is the worst.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: James 1, 22, it says but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: We do need to take heed to what is being said.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: You know we are quick to discount a millennial who is crying out.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: There's hypocrisy inside the church, but it is a good warning cry and call for us to pause, right In the same way that we just hear the word of Steve Lawson falling into this weird sin, whatever it possibly is, and we're thinking, well, take heed, take heed.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, am I hypocritical in any area where we can say search me and try me?
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Remember?
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: In Matthew 23, 27, it says what do you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, delay?
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Give a good delayed hmm-ray.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Hmm-ray, hmm-ray.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Hmm-ray, hmm-ray.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Leonard ravenhill responds to this and he says the world is not looking for a new definition of Christianity.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: It is looking for a new demonstration of Christianity to what it was intended to be.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: So hypocrisy.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Nobody likes a hypocrite, but remember, the only one who can actually be a hypocrite is one who sets up a moral standard, a set of code of right and wrong, some virtuous things.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Therefore, an atheist could never be a hypocrite.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: Because he has no moral foundation by which we say that is ultimately right and that is ultimately wrong.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: So the Christians come along and say no, the word of God is our ultimate source of authority.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: So therefore, an atheist will go there's hypocrites.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: You're hypocrites Anytime.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: You say you shall not lie, and then you exaggerate or you say some sort of a half-truth or you say something that's wrong.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: Now you're a hypocrite.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Well, here's the beautiful thing about Christianity is that we come back and we say I blew it, I messed up, I should not have said that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: You'll never get an atheist to do that, because there's no ultimate source.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's great, Mark.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I do want to camp out a little bit on hypocrisy here.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: You know, years ago I taught a message on integrity and the importance of us having integrity as believers, and in that I talked about how integrity or the violation of integrity doesn't necessarily mean that you don't ever do anything wrong or don't ever sin, but if you do, you use God's method of integrity to deal with it, and that's repentance.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Remember you had your teaching and you had your students write a paper on integrity, and then you had one student read his letter on integrity.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: What was your response?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: What happened?
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a paper.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Right, I had to write a paper on integrity.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Sorry for the Gen Zers, can you explain what paper is Right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: And integrity while we're on that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: But yeah, he was writing a paper on integrity.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Everyone had to write a paper and then they had to read their paper to the class and so everyone's reading their paper and then this one guy gets up, reads his paper and it was really good.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: It was probably the best paper you know that was written in the class and so you know.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: But he didn't come up to turn it in.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: You know they would read the paper and turn it in.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I go hey, turn your paper in.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: He goes oh, I didn't write one.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: I go what?
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just made that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: He made it up on the spot On the wow, you still gotta give him.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: You still gotta give him an a oh no way.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Dude f for being a weasel.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was like, did he hold a piece of paper?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he held a piece of paper.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: He's all it was really good, he's pretty sharp yeah, oh yeah, he is, yeah, he's his name was mark spence right no yeah, but you know anyway, the whole point being, look for those of you right now listening, you're thinking but man, okay, I'm a hypocrite because I've obviously sinned and as Christians we say we shouldn't commit these sins, and I have.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: You can remain a man of integrity, a woman of integrity, if you use God's method of integrity to deal with sin.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Repent, repent, confess it, be open about it, don't justify it, you know.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: So, on hypocrisy guys, oscar, you hit it real well.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a big and, I think, valid reason for which many complain, many millennials complain.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: You guys are hypocrites.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Meaning what Meaning?
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: It's not a pastor who, you know, sinned in some way and then repented and confessed it, but it's pastors that have been living in hidden sin for a long time.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: And it's not that they're just saying don't do it, they're planning to do it.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: This is their life.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, we have heard of so many that were living in massive secret sin for years and years, and so it is really tragic.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you guys this it is really tragic.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you guys this Would you say that?
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Maybe some of this?
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Because, mark, a lot of people, a lot of millennials, have been turning to the Orthodox Church, been turning to the Catholic Church.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Would you guys say that maybe some of this has to do with the frivolity that we're seeing in the modern church?
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: The entertainment-based church, because a lot of our saying are like man.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: This is ridiculous.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: They feel that Oscar, the entertainment-based church Because a lot of our saying are like man.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: This is ridiculous.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: They feel that Oscar, the hollowness and the emptiness of some of the ways the church functions today, wouldn't you say?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Actually, I read a quote as I was prepping, which is it was a millennial reflecting on this reality and they were pointing out that sort of the generation before us were creating these big box churches, that they wanted to change their style, to become more attractive, seeker, friendly.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And millennials in Gen Z, their authenticity meter is a lot higher than generations before them.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They know when someone's trying to fake it, and the line that he put out there was what we want is not style but substance, and I completely agree.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: He also says the purpose isn't to draw those who are so attracted to the world that they want their local church to reflect it, but to invite those who desire to be different, to be transformed by the gospel of.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Jesus.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: In other words, you're absolutely right, we are, I should say.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: The stylistic, seeker-friendly, attractive church is competing with other entertainment venues and they are going to lose that game.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: But the reality is that the younger generation, they, don't want that.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: They want actual substance.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing While it's true that millennials are leaving larger churches in droves, there's an interesting data point that shows us that smaller, more traditional Protestant churches with things like liturgies are actually growing amongst millennials and Gen Zers, and so are Eastern Orthodox and Catholicism.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: So the question is what?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: What do those things share in common?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Certainly not the gospel.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But one thing they do share is, through their liturgy, a desire to raise our eyes up to something bigger than ourselves, to something transcendent.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: We're not here to entertain you.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: We're here to remind you that this world isn't all that there is.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: People desire that, they're seeking after that, and so many churches are not delivering on that, thinking that they're gonna win over the younger generation.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: That's so good.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm noticing that there are apartment buildings being built these new all over California and the apartments themselves are small.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: But what they're creating are communities on each floor inviting the millennials to come and gather together, because millennials are relational right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: They desire genuine commitment and this is what the church is lacking.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: We're lacking the ability to come together because we have grown up with our white picket fence lives.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: We drive into our communities, we go into our garage, the garage door comes down and we don't know our neighbors.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: Well, the millennials are coming along and they're saying, no, I really want to know the people around me and I don't know where the switch came from or why they're desiring to do this.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: But in Acts 2, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and to prayers Hebrews 10 24.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more to see, as we see the day drawing near, our discipleship and our fellowship, our koinonia, is to be a daily thing.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Remember, discipleship is not just going through a book with someone, it is living life with someone.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: I'm heading to the store.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: I'm going to this memorial with someone.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: I'm heading to the store.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: I'm going to this memorial service.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I'm going to the wedding.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: Come with me.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: I'm going to get coffee.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: I'm just.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: I need to study at this coffee shop.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: You want to study with me at the coffee shop?
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: A couple quotes here.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Dietrich bonhoeffer he said the church is the church only when it exists for others.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: And what millennials are seeing is that the church is not existing for others, they're existing for themselves and they're being repelled against it.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: They're not liking what they're seeing.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: John Wesley the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Even back in his time, realizing that church is a communal way of living life and responding to the text that is being taught.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Finally, francis Schaeffer he said our relationship with each other is the communal way of living life and responding to the text that is being taught.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Finally, francis Schaeffer, he said our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: They are judging, they are looking in.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Is this a true religion from God?
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: Well, they're not even relational.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: They can't relate to me.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I want to have nothing to do with it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: So they're going to something that is more liturgical, like Eastern Orthodox, greek Orthodox, russian Orthodox and the Catholic Church.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: I want to oh go ahead, ray.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I think one of the best ways for millennials to have fellowship is to go back to house churches as we see in the Book of Acts.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And to go back to house churches as we see in the book of Acts.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: And as a new Christian, I couldn't figure why it is that I didn't recognize people went to our church unless I saw the back of their heads.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Because that's all you see.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: You go to our church.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Could you turn around?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, I recognize you.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: There's that bald spot.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: There's that lice-headed guy.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: So actually, I did something crazy.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: There was all these pews in this Presbyterian church we used to meet in and because I had established the church where we had a proper pastor etc.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: I tried to move all the pews to face each other and it really didn't work so very comfort.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: They were too long.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you look at the book of Acts.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: They met in houses and went from house to house and I remember back some of the most precious times of getting to know my brethren in Christ was in house meetings, to a point where we would meet together at, say, 730 on a Wednesday night and it was like 1030 and no one wanted to go home.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: You just everyone says OK then and you just say hmm, hmm, and no one wants to go because there's such a sweet fellowship and presence of God.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I absolutely love that you brought that up, both of you, and I think one of the challenges is that, as we talk about younger generations, something that I always see happening is that the older generation always wants to talk so poorly about the younger generation.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: This is especially true in Christian communities.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Say that again.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: The older generations generally want to talk poorly about the younger generations.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And I find the opposite.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: I find younger generation despise elderly people.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: That's probably true.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: It's probably sin in the heart.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably true and if you think about it, it's like the greatest generation ever coming out of World War II thought that the boomers were lazy.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: The boomers looked at Generation X and were like, oh, they're the MTV generation, they're going to be worthless.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: X looked at millennials and laughed at their skinny jeans and avocado toast.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: That's worth laughing at he's on a roll.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Millennials are now.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: You just dated yourself Easy.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Millennials are now looking at Gen Z and complaining about their way of doing life as well, and I think that that's the mullet's back.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: The mullet is back right.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Here's the problem with that is that that might be okay anthropology, to look at the difference between one generation and another, but that's really bad theology Because, theologically speaking, the next generation is not more depraved than the previous one.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: We are all equally depraved and we are all equally in need of the grace of God, and so one of the things that we just we set ourselves up for failure is to simply look at the next generation and go, oh, they're so much more worse than us.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: They're so much more.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: No, theologically speaking, they're not.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: They are sinners, just like the generation before us.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: They're looking at different circumstances and situations.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: The problem is, when we start talking about the younger generation in that kind of a way we in that kind of a way we stop doing something about reaching them and we just demand that they accept it in the same way that we accepted it and so this gets at what you guys are saying.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I wrote down three different things that we need because we've identified the disingenuousness of leadership.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: We've identified and I love that you pointed this out is that there is a loneliness epidemic out there.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: People are reporting high levels of loneliness, saying that they don't have close friends, which means gospel community, not a church that focuses on the fact that their preacher has 150,000 followers on Instagram and that's all they wanna do.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Gospel community, where you can be known and loved, is exactly what people need to understand the gospel, along with the proclamation of the gospel, and so I think three things.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Our response should not be oh, those younger generations, they need to get together.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Our response should be in love, first and foremost.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: We don't need a perfect preacher to nail it every single Sunday.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: We can download perfect sermons, nail it every single Sunday.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: We can download near-perfect sermons online.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: What we need are shepherds, people who spend time with the members of the church, who know them and love them, who open up their homes to them, who invest valuable friendship and relationship with them.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: They need a shepherd, not a dynamic preacher that can talk to 50,000 people.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: The second thing they need is they want a seat at the table.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: You said it yourself the church has always meant to be a body.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Not we come to see what the preacher does he does it all, he entertained us and we're out of here but rather we come to be the church, to be utilized in our spiritual gifts.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: We need a seat at the table and, finally, we need authentic community.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Authentic community as in people who know each other and love each other, not just from the pastor, but in general those things.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You want to win over millennials.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I'm using metaphor or hyperbole here you want to win over millennials.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: You want to draw Gen Zbole.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Here you want to win over millennials.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: You want to draw Gen Z.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: They don't need the smoke, they don't need the mirrors, they don't need the lights.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: What they need is a church that we see in the book of Acts.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: They need shepherds, they need responsibility and they need community.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Oscar, let me say this that's so good.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I want to say this I'm not impressed so much when someone says, man, that pastor at that church is such a phenomenal teacher.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Could be true and is a great thing to have in a church.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: What impresses me is when I hear someone say, man, I walked into this church and I can't even begin to tell you how dynamic that community was.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: These people were full of love.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: They care about people.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: Well, that's also indicative of the shepherd, because it starts from the top.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Obviously someone there in leadership is influencing the people to have that godly community, because that's the body, that's body life and that's what really should be happening.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Real, real quick, Oscar.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: And then I wanna move on.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: But you use the word liturgy.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: You've used it a lot over the course of the podcast.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: There are some that are new that haven't heard it.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Just real quickly, because I don't want people to misunderstand.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Usually, when people hear liturgy, they're connecting that with the Orthodox Church or Catholicism.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Real quick, what is liturgy?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you pointed that out.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: So a liturgy is simply a rhythm or a practice that tells a story and has the power to shape your heart.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: So you actually have personal liturgies.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: If you wake up every morning and the first thing you do is you check Instagram, that's liturgical act number one.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And then you go to the gym, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: On Sunday service as well, for a church, a church can have an intentional liturgy.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: It could look as simple as if your church starts with a call to worship, that's liturgical act number one.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: If some churches will do a confession of sin and an affirmation, that's liturgical act number two.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: The reading of God's word, worship, a benediction at the end, those things are simply rhythms that are intended to shape our hearts towards a type of worship, so kind of basically a reverent sort of biblical structure that properly leads people into worship, exactly, in fact.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: JI Packer said that the preaching of the word is the liturgical climax of liturgy that when we preach, when the preaching is going forth, that is the liturgical climax of liturgy.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah that, when we preach, when the preaching is going forth, that is the liturgical climax that is where everything is supposed to focus in on.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: That's good.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: And every church has a liturgy just to your point.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Some liturgies are not doing a good job directing people towards worship.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Other liturgical acts are yeah, that's a good point, because you hear a lot of people say, oh, tradition, for example, the Catholic Church tradition, this, and that Everyone has tradition.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: The question is is it biblical tradition?
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: That's it exactly.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: So, ray, I'd like you to Friends.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: What's that, friends?
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Friends.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: So, ray, touch on this.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: For me, there's this term that's called church growth transfer.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: You know, there's this term that's called church growth transfer or transfer growth within the church, and what that is is a church growing because people are leaving other churches and coming there.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: It's called musical pews.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, don't you think, ray, that I do?
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Really.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's questionable.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: But, ray, don't you really think that a big problem with millennials leaving the church is they're not seeing life in the church, because the church isn't bringing new life into it through evangelism?
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably because many churches have lost sight of their agenda.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Like bringing people in.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: A live body has warmth.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: If it's alive, it'll have warmth.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: There should be the warmth of love and that's what we're talking about.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: The atmosphere of fellowship is the love of Christ in us being expressed.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: What I'd like to see is the church take that love out to the world.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Amen, because we let light shine within the fellowship, very loving, great atmosphere within the body.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It'd be great if we could get millennials to come into the church.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: But, as I've've said, you've got as much chance of a sinner visiting a church building as you have a criminal visiting a police station.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: They don't want to come to church yeah the whole idea of the great commissioners.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Take the church to them, go into all the world, so let your love shine.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: And the greatest love that can be seen in a christian is love that warns.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: It says hey, there's, there's a God, there's death after death, the judgment.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You need to come to the Savior if you want to keep your life, amen.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: And so that's what I would like to see Electrify the pews, get them out sharing the gospel with the unsaved.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, mark, in terms of what people who come into the church, those millennials that do come in, what they see, wouldn't you say, when there are new believers in the church is life, I mean, and that creates excitement.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right when somebody you want to be around a new convert because they're a sponge.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: They want to hang on every word that you're sharing and that's missing.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: You know it's been said evangelize or fossilize, and so many times we are seeing churches that are fossilizing and they're not realizing that because they're not evangelizing.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: Pastors should be sharing from the pulpit their experiences.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: When they go out and about to purchase food, to go on a hospital visit, they're sharing the gospel and they're sharing those encounters with other people.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: Right Doctrine is so important here.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: We cannot stray from biblical teaching and millennials are missing that very thing.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: In Hosea 4, 6, it says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: Ray wants to add one more part to that.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've rejected the law.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: That's where it's heading.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: It's the knowledge of the law we're talking about, j.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've rejected the law.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: That's where it's heading.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: It's the knowledge of the law we're talking about.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Jc Ryle said Sound doctrine is the safeguard of faith.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: A church that teaches error will soon become dead Right.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: And then, john Piper, wimpy theology makes wimpy women and wimpy men.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: So we need to stand on the Word of God.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: We need to boldly proclaim it from the pulpit, without a shame.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: In fact, I had a family member come to me and say I saw some people come to my church.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: I know they're dealing with this thing and this is what the pastor was sharing from the pulpit.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the way God's economy works, right?
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: The thing that he's teaching, as he's going through the Word, is going to meet the people where they're at.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: We don't try to meet the people where they're at, we just teach the word of God, and God will use the word to meet the people where they're at Amen, yeah.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: and my exhortation to pastors listening to us because I know that many of you do is don't focus on growing the church.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Focus on being the church and leading the church to be the church, because that's the problem, right?
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like we're looking to accomplish our goal.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Oftentimes, sadly, it's because we're building our own kingdom and we're looking for glory by validating that we're a good preacher because we have a big congregation.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, that just gave me the chills.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: It makes me cringe with grief at the thought of doing that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: But if pastors focus on, hey, we're going to be the church, what are we going to do?
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: We're going to preach the word without compromise.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to have good, solid doctrine.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: We're going to go out and proclaim the gospel and win the lost.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: We're going to love one another.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: We're not going to gossip.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: We're not going to slander.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: We're not going to be unforgiving and hold bitterness.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: We're going to walk in true biblical love and community and humility.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: We're gonna go do good works throughout the community as we're sharing the gospel.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: We're gonna be the church.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Oh man, stand up like a church.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: John Stott was a very influential Anglican preacher right, and he was known to stick to the text even when it wasn't trendy to do so.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: He said we must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security and to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: Martin Lloyd-Jones was the same who had the greatest influence on John MacArthur, which caused John MacArthur to want to exposit the text right From Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22-21, that I'm just going to exposit the text and I'm going to allow Christ to sort out the mess.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: And that's what happens when you stick to the text.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: Amen.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, you know, we do have to point out that, contrary to, I think, popular opinion that only secret, sensitive churches are mega churches.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: That's not true.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Look at Spurgeon right, you mentioned his church, it was massive.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Look at Martin Lloyd-Jones massive church In our modern day.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, guys like MacArthur and others, they're preaching the word without compromise, and that shows that people do desire that and people can walk in and say God is moving here, truth is being proclaimed, there's genuineness, authenticity, there's love, and so I would say that to those listening, those of you here listening to us today, who are millennials, who have maybe kind of bounced from the church because of some of these things well, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Make your call on election.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Sure, did you go there to get entertained?
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Did you go there to follow man, or did you go because you were hungry for the living God?
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: So maybe you need to be saved, those of you that are saved and are embittered because of things you experienced.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I think it's been said well here already you're not going to find the perfect church or the perfect pastor and, as the saying goes, if you do, don't join it, because it will no longer be perfect at that point, but find a community that is authentic, that teaches the Word as imperfectly as they may, and do what Scripture commands you to do, and don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, recognizing you are the church, you're a part of the church, and so be that.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: I'd just like to add one thing, unless that was your conclusion.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: No, keep going Ray.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: We talked about the stumbling block of hypocrisy with the millennials.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: I think another huge stumbling block is the whole gender issue.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I find it again and again what don't you like about the church, your attitude towards homosexuals, your attitude towards sexuality?
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Well, we've got a problem.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: God doesn't change, that's all there is to it.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: If you think the sun's too hot, you can shake your fist at it, but it's not going to cool down for you because the sun doesn't change.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: It's hot and God is hot when it comes to righteousness.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: So we've got to conform to His standard of righteousness.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: And that's the problem the church has.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: We're not going to compromise.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: We're not going to compromise on these sexual issues.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: So God will change your heart if you come to Christ, so you'll love that which God loves.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I also think you make a really good point and I think you're a great example of this, ray, in that a lot of the times, the people's disgust with the church because of something like sexuality is actually a disgust with a cultural way in which we discuss sexuality and not the church's way, and what I mean by that is like.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I've seen people have a conversation with you.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: You know you'll start out there, two ladies holding hands, and by the end of the conversation they'll be like thank you.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you for loving me, thank you for having a conversation with me.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I've had a number of conversations with people in the LGBTQ community where, at the end of it, even if they're not saved, they'll go man.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: That was really helpful.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you for helping me understand.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: So, in other words, a lot of times, the thing that they're rejecting is the heart of some people who are disrespectful, who are rude, who are unkind towards that community, and not the heart of the church, which is looking at them going man.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: You and I are both sinners in need of grace and I love you.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, so good.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: And one final comment.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I think it's important for the church to remember that the church does not primarily exist for the unbeliever in its assembly.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: And so what I mean is that, yeah, we go out and we reach the lost, but the tragedy is that churches are acting like that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: The assembly of the body, the corporate worship of the body, is meant to try to bring people in so that they can get saved.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: It's wonderful when that's a byproduct of what the church is doing, but the church is called to gather and to be the church and to speak truth and to worship and to honor God in its midst.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And again, I think, when unbelievers do come in, they see that authenticity.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: They say, wow, god is in their midst.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Right, god is here and it can lead to transformation.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: So it's important to remember that.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: All right, friends.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Another one for the history books.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Don't forget another book Hell's Best Kept Secret and Living Waters.
• 49:26
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• 49:27
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• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Podcast at livingwaterscom.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: By the way, those things are available at livingwaterscom, but podcast at livingwaterscom is where you can tell us whatever you want to tell us.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Thanks for keeping us one of the top podcasts in the world.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: For God's glory, friends keep doing that.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast, where we have no idea what we're doing.