Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 191. The Future of Fundamentalism - Paul Chappell

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191. The Future of Fundamentalism - Paul Chappell · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:00
Well, welcome back to the Four Freedom Podcast.
0:02
Thankful that you're here today, man.
0:04
It's October, it's fall out. The winter chill is starting,
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the fall air starting to starting to hit us.
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The leaves are starting to fall off the trees.
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Whenever it gets about this time, people in my church, they
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get to thinking about the mountains and they hit that fall
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break and they, they, they, they start going out and then here
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comes the like the hunting season and, and things like
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that. And so this is that time of
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year. We've got a trunk or treat
0:34
coming up in a couple weeks here at our church was a full, just a
0:38
fall festival. We do a chili cook off, we do a
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blue bluegrass band. And so we have a great time and
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man, we have been having some couple things going on in our
0:53
church in the past couple weeks, but we are glad fall is here.
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What about you James? You like the?
0:59
Fall weather. Oh, I love the fall weather.
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It's probably my favorite season of all.
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When it gets cold and I get to snuggle up with my beautiful
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bride and we get to hang out. I love it.
1:11
I love the the fall calm. I love the winter time.
1:15
I love when the weather cup changes in this cold weather
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snow. It is my absolute favorite time.
1:21
Yeah, August or October is crazy busy for us.
1:24
We've had something every Sunday.
1:26
We've got something every Sunday after this, I've got John coming
1:30
in. In two weeks, he's going to be
1:31
doing a revival for us. We're calling it the Fall
1:34
Restore revival. And we're talking about how we
1:36
can restore our marriage, how we can restore our worship and how
1:40
we can restore our There's a third one and it just lost me.
1:44
But he sent me the the titles that he's going to be doing and
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I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be great.
1:49
He's going to get to hang out with me for a couple of days and
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that in of itself is going to restore me just to be able to
1:55
hang out and have fellowship. And so I'm excited about that,
1:59
excited about what we're going to be talking about today,
2:05
excited about our fall festival, our trunk or treat as well.
2:10
We've got our homecoming the first Sunday of November.
2:13
We're doing a every door direct Mailer postcard to every home in
2:17
our zip code. And so we just sent that out
2:20
today. It'll be hit in the mail here
2:24
this week to the the other all the all the places in the area
2:29
just to get people aware that we're here and we've got our
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homecoming 172 years the church has been here.
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And so just trying to bring awareness, bring some new faces
2:39
in some old faces that maybe just from COVID had forgotten
2:43
the church was existence and maybe thought the church all
2:46
churches shut down. And so just trying to get them
2:49
back into church, back into their walk with Christ or even
2:53
beginning their relationship with Christ.
2:56
And so we're excited about that coming up in just a couple of
2:58
weeks with our homecoming. And Brett, for me, I've got our
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our convention coming up the second week of November.
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And then we start play practice and everything for the, for the
3:09
Christmas play. But then Brett, I mean, we're
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like 30 days away from some some big fun stuff coming up. 30 days
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away for. Some sorry 90 days, three
3:22
months, 90 days. Threw me off at the 30.
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I'm like, what's coming up in a month?
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But yeah, we've got, we do have some stuff coming up.
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And before we get into that, let me say something about our fault
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fest that we're trying since we're throwing out ideas.
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You got the mailers. One of the things that we're
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doing is we're having all these people in, but we're not having
3:42
people want to register. And because we were trying to
3:45
collect their names and address, we can go visit them.
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So we're, we're giving away $425 Walmart gift cards and you know,
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we're going to sign up to, to, you know, get in the drawing for
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it. And then another issue that I
4:01
had is getting the everybody in the auditorium, because I like
4:05
to bring him in the auditorium and give a short gospel
4:08
presentation and then let them go out and to the to do the
4:12
trunk or treat. So we're doing a candy throw to
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get people interested in coming into the auditorium to hear the
4:18
gospel. And then we're going to have
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because they, they hang out at their cars until that's over and
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then they go to the trunk or treat and we're going to do
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that. I'm doing the wordless book this
4:29
year. I've decided.
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And so I got 1 and it doesn't come in time.
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I'll just make one of my own. It's not that hard to make, but
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we are looking forward to that now.
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I will tell you that what we do have coming up in 90.
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Days is our trip. Hey, real quick, have you ever
4:46
seen the Wordless? Box.
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I'm not. The wordless box is really cool
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and so it's like a cube and you fold it, and each time you fold
4:57
it a different color pops out. And so you walk through the book
5:00
like you would, but as you're talking, you unfold like this
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Rubik's Cube, almost from a square to a rectangle.
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You fold it the other way. And every time you do that, a
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different color. It's, it's really cool if you've
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never done it with, with the box like that.
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And then at the end you open up the whole thing.
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And then there's the, the, the gold and there's a crown.
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It's it's it's really cool evangelism tool.
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Nice, nice. Yeah, I'll have to check that
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out. One of the things we do have
5:28
coming up in the next 90 days is our trip to Israel.
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And we are looking forward to this.
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And I'll tell you, we've got now that the war is over in Gaza and
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Trump has brought peace to the Middle East, people have a
5:41
renewed interest in going. It was always safe to go.
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But now after the war is over, more people are contacting us
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wanting to go. We've got spots open on this
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trip. And man, it's going to be a
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great time. Don't miss out if you want to go
5:55
to Israel, now was a perfect time to go.
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Now that things are settled over there, it's over.
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It's safe, it's peaceful and time.
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Let's let's go to the Holy Land, man, Come with us.
6:07
Join us. You said Hitler brought peace to
6:10
the Middle East, correct? I said Trump.
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Sorry. I thought you had me thinking
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over here. I really said Hitler.
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I'm like, well. Did I make that mistake?
6:19
Everyone calls him Hitler. And so I'm.
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I'm glad that Hitler was able to bring peace to the Middle East.
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Yeah, it's good stuff. Hope you can join us.
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It's going to be a great time. Reach out to us.
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We're at the brink of where just a matter of a couple of weeks,
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they're going to be purchasing the the final tickets.
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And so if you're interested in going, you need to reach out to
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us. You can go to our website and
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the link is there as well of how to register and pay that first
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deposit. That's all you need to get
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started. Once they have that deposit,
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they can begin buying tickets and securing that slot of who's
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going to be there. We've got coming, Brett.
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Our trip is like 5 spots, three spots left to be full.
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So we want you to go. If you've ever thought about
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going, now is a great time to to jump with us and go and hang out
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and just experience the Holy Land in an amazing way.
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As we always talk about. If you would feel free to reach
7:16
out and purchase some of our cigar lines, that would be a
7:19
great help to our efforts that we do here.
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We, we've got our experience box with our four samplers, our
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coffee and our soap. With the holiday season coming
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up, with Thanksgiving, Christmas gifts coming up.
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That'd be a great gift to give a father, a brother, a son that
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would, you know, just is, is loving what, what that is about.
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It's a great manly gift with the cigars, the coffee and the soap.
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You're not going to find better quality of any of that and I
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want you to value yourself to that.
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We'll be running some specials right now.
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It's already down about $4550 for what the retail price is of
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that and I'm sure we'll run some more specials as we get closer.
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But now would be a great time to go and stock up on some of those
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things and we're excited about the opportunity that we have
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with that. Brett, anything else?
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I pretty much covers everything. We've got a few some besides
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about the the box that we have coming up, but we put our heads
8:24
together on that. I do think it would be a great
8:27
gift for someone for the holidays, but that pretty much
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covers everything we've got going on.
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Yeah. I wanted to share two things.
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One was from Michael Thomas. He was with the HIPS family.
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If you guys were at the meet up last two meetups there in Hope
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Church in Asheville and Hope Church there in Georgia.
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He messaged me back in September.
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We haven't recorded necessarily in person since then.
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We put out a lot of content, but he said, hey, I wanted to tell
8:58
you guys, I love the attitude that you and Brett are
9:01
maintaining through the podcast series.
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You've been very matter of the fact about the good, the bad,
9:06
the hitting of actions when needed and not necessarily the
9:10
people and he just wanted to thank us for that.
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And so I definitely appreciate that last couple of episodes
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have been some great episodes of just feedback and the interview
9:21
with Eric and his two-part episode there, Brett's interview
9:25
with about Charlie Kirk and just the the independent Fundamental
9:30
Baptist and remind me of the name again, Alex.
9:34
McFarland. Alex McFarland, if you Yeah,
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Alex McFarland, great interview there.
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I love listening to that. I hate I couldn't have been on
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that interview and I've been able to be a part of that.
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But it what a great time you had there with the with the revival
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that y'all had, the crusade as well as the interview there you
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had. I've gotten probably 5 or 6
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messages just like that of people just thanking us for what
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we're doing, what we're talking about.
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And so we want to share that as people give us those feedback,
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lots of comments on social media, and we just want to
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encourage you through that. And as always, if our episodes
10:11
have helped, feel free to reach out to us, our cell, my cell
10:15
phone numbers out there multiple different times and places.
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And we're just excited about what we are talking about today.
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Brett, anything else before we jump in?
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And I think that that pretty much covers it.
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I would like James said, we're always thankful for feedback of
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any kind. But it is great to hear that so
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many people have, you know, been encouraging us in this.
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You know, we try to be fair and it's like said matter of fact.
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And it's like good, bad, ugly, you know, we don't want to spin
10:48
anything. We just want to present the
10:50
facts. And that's what we try to do,
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present the facts, present people's experiences, how they
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experienced it. And we're glad to be able to do
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that for you. Yeah, and I do want to read one
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more. Back in the 1st September, JC
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text me and you and he said since I know my text will get
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read and possibly even read on the episode, he believes it.
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And this again, this was an old post Florida State.
11:14
They they are, they're not chopping the way they were
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chopping at the beginning. He again, I'm just going to read
11:21
it. As I said, FSU is the best
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football team in college football.
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And after destroying Bama in week one of the 2025 college
11:28
football season, it's not only playoff in the playoffs, but win
11:31
the national championship. A man that'll preach right
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there, Brett. I don't know if that text
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messages has held up to JC's thought of Florida State
11:42
University I. Will I will tell you, you know,
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he posts that meme of me doing the chop.
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I hadn't seen that in a couple weeks.
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I'm, I'm missing seeing that. And I think they're #16 now
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they've fallen a little bit. Yeah.
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They're not, they're not the the caliber team that that he
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thought they were at the beginning there.
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They're. Going to come back though.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually I think they've
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they, they've went down in the ranking.
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They're not even ranked anymore. So tough stuff for the Florida
12:15
State Seminoles. They're going to rally.
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JC, let us know your thoughts on that.
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Let us know how how you're loving it.
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Hey, as a as a fellow Florida fan of the Miami Dolphins, we
12:26
are sucking it up right now. We're one in five.
12:28
We can't win a game if the game was given to us as it's been
12:32
given to us the last two weeks. Man, we had a 17 point lead on
12:36
the Panthers. The Carolina Panthers came back
12:39
and beat us after we had the lead twice.
12:42
We had the lead against the the last team we played.
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I just I'm so embarrassed to be a Panther, a Dolphins fan right
12:50
now because we can't win a game. And so I feel you.
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JCI know what it's like to pull for the Florida team and them to
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disappoint us. I think you've been sharing a
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lot of Indianapolis Colts lately and so I guess you've you've
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changed your team alliance over the last couple of weeks.
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So. Good stuff.
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Absolutely. Let's jump into today's episode.
13:16
For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt,
13:19
not for Pharisee. Bracelet the flame, Now I'm
13:22
puffing peace cigars and victory Justified released.
13:28
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
13:30
This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
13:34
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
13:36
I ain't. Saved by dress codes, not by
13:39
what I eat. I'm covered in the
13:41
righteousness, washed from head to feet.
13:43
No tally of tradition. No man made code.
13:45
Blood bought my freedom. Now I ride that road.
13:48
They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise, But my prey
13:51
still ascends Past the legalist cries.
13:54
Christ plus nothing. That's the real math.
13:56
So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path.
13:59
He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with Saints, Sipping grace from
14:02
the bottle. No room for face.
14:04
I like one for liberty. Toast to the king.
14:07
Every ash of sermon. Death has lost its sting for
14:11
freedom. He set me free.
14:12
Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
14:15
Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars
14:18
and victory. Justified Release freedom.
14:21
He set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee
14:25
grace, Let the flame. No pump and peace, cigars and
14:29
victory. Justified, Released.
14:31
Let grace begin for freedom He let me free.
14:35
Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
14:38
Grace, Let the flame. Now here are your hosts, James
14:41
Seyfried and Brett Martin. So Brett, the last couple of
14:45
weeks that we've been talking through this new series of the
14:49
future of fundamentalism. We we started it, we kicked it
14:51
off with Eric Pacey there at Champion Christian College and
14:55
and Gospel like Baptist Church, where I attended for four years
14:58
of my life and just had memories and met my wife and then still
15:02
go back often to see friends and family.
15:05
Actually just was off the phone yesterday with a friend of mine
15:08
there in Hot Springs. Mark Cantrell's son Larry was
15:12
talking to him a little bit. And so me and Larry, we go way
15:15
back as well. Spent a lot of time together.
15:17
He was in my wedding and just just a great, great friend
15:21
there. That episode sort of gave us the
15:24
the look of of the leader who built institutions.
15:28
And then importantly here we looked at the movement from the
15:32
IFB orbit into the SBC arena. What an interesting trajectory
15:38
that looked like as Eric shared his testimony and and how he
15:42
went through that. Lot of lot of interesting
15:46
tidbits to take and learn from as well.
15:50
Exactly. It's, it's kind of a hybrid path
15:52
here. You've got, you know, faithful
15:54
conservative theology, kind of stepping into the cooperative
15:58
structure of the cooperative program, SBC.
16:02
You know, it kind of sets, you know, kind of a provocative tone
16:06
of, of what's to come and, and what we're going through as we
16:10
explore the future of fundamentalism.
16:13
I'm really interested to see where we go with this moving
16:17
forward. And so, and why don't you tell
16:21
us what we're dealing with? Today, Yeah, absolutely.
16:23
Today we're going to shift gears a little bit.
16:25
We're going to talk with someone who I'm intimately familiar with
16:28
as well. I spent five years, the church I
16:32
was at in Idaho was highly invested in West Coast and Paul
16:36
Chapel and we'd have their tour groups come in every year there
16:39
in Idaho and they would present their ministry.
16:42
We went down every year for the Spiritual Leadership Conference.
16:45
My first year here in North Carolina as a pastor in
16:50
Hiddenite, me and my pastor and a couple of pastors from the
16:54
local area, we flew out to California and we went to the
16:57
Spiritual Leadership conferences, SBC churches.
17:00
We registered and went out there as delegates and, and, and we
17:04
spent some time out there. And so the the interesting thing
17:07
about Paul Chappell is he firmly landed in the IFB lane and he
17:13
hasn't abandoned it. He's actually doubled down in
17:17
that institutional side of it. He would not call himself, if
17:22
you've read after him, an independent guy.
17:24
He called himself unaffiliated. This term came out around the 20
17:29
tens 22,510 area. In some of his writings, he
17:33
began to say we're unaffiliated Baptist because the denomination
17:38
of the IFB was such a derogatory term was such a hard term and
17:43
and guys even begin abandoning him because he started using
17:46
this unaffiliated term. And so Paul Chapel West Coast as
17:51
the college became a college, a publishing empire, they put out
17:56
books all the time. A thriving church the Lord has
18:00
used to bless. In a way we're going to sort of
18:03
balance this is if Capacity was the institutional entrepreneur
18:08
that sort of turned SBC and now is the SBC church Chapel would
18:13
be the institutional builder. He would be the pastor who's
18:17
leaning fully into the IFB model and doubling down on that
18:23
concept, right? And I'll tell you my knowledge
18:28
of Paul Chapel has, I mean, I've, I've known about Paul
18:31
Chapel. I've read and have several of
18:34
his books have been recommended to me.
18:36
I don't, I've never had really a problem with him.
18:39
I know, like I said, I've got the music from the tour groups
18:43
and I know that he makes a lot of IFB pastors angry when you
18:47
bring up Paul Chapel because of his stance and he doesn't seem
18:51
to care. And you know, I can respect that
18:54
to a degree. So we need to get into, I'm
18:57
going to dive into who this man really is.
19:00
So I'm going to present you with a question so you can kick us
19:03
off. James, who is Paul Chapel?
19:06
Yeah, we'll jump into it. And I want to say one thing
19:09
before we even answer that question.
19:11
Paul Chappell and this, I'm not going to mention names, but Paul
19:15
Chappell is one of these figures that a lot of people don't know
19:19
that he's reached across. I've been blinds per SE to John
19:27
MacArthur. Some of that he shared on
19:29
Facebook. And so I can say that, but
19:31
there's some other people that I know pretty well as well that
19:34
John MacArthur that Paul Chappell has reached out to and
19:39
he just got counsel and got help from in times where he was
19:44
stressing himself out to the Brinks edge of of almost a
19:47
mental breakdown where he was able to seek counsel and get
19:50
help. And most people, if they knew
19:53
who he was reaching out to, would would definitely abandoned
19:56
him. But but he was OK with saying,
19:58
hey, we believe the gospel, we love Jesus.
20:02
Let's partner and work together, and I do appreciate that about
20:05
him and about what he's done. So we'll start at the beginning.
20:08
The biography, if you know anything about Paul Chapel and
20:11
the foundation story of Lancaster Baptist Church.
20:14
When Paul Chapel came there in 1986, he was going on vacation
20:19
with him and his family. And he poured into this little
20:21
church and he they, he walked into the main floor.
20:25
There was no one there and walked around to the side And
20:28
there was a side staircase that went up to a classroom and
20:31
someone motioned him up there. I think he had been asked to
20:33
come and preach while he was on vacation and just trying to make
20:38
some money while he was driving through California.
20:40
As he came in, he went up to the stairs and he preached to 12
20:44
people and they said, hey, would you step outside for a moment?
20:48
And he stepped outside and the guy came back out and said, hey,
20:52
I just want to let you know we really enjoyed your sermon.
20:55
We went ahead and voted and we voted you in as our next pastor
20:58
of 12 people. We can't pay you, but we want
21:02
you to come be our pastor. He wasn't candidate for the
21:05
pastor. He wasn't candidate for this
21:07
church. He was just driving through and
21:09
preaching to make a little money as he was traveling through.
21:12
And I think his wife was pregnant, maybe had a newborn in
21:15
the car with him. The story goes that he said,
21:19
well, I'm going to go on vacation.
21:20
I'll pray about it. But I'm already an associate
21:22
pastor of the church and I'm not looking to move.
21:25
And he said the whole week while he was on vacation, the Lord
21:29
just kept dealing with him and dealing with him about coming
21:32
and being the pastor of this small church, this struggling,
21:35
really dead church that was non existent.
21:39
And so on the way back, he, he cut his vacation a day short,
21:43
drove through Lancaster, prayed through the city.
21:46
And he said he felt the Lord just hugging to, to move his
21:48
family. And so he picked up his family
21:50
from where they were at, moved down to Lancaster and took over
21:54
the church with 12 members that the church was in foreclosure
21:59
and they couldn't pay him a penny, right?
22:02
I mean, he came into this thing, he proposed that they strive
22:06
together to build something that was going to last.
22:09
And man, he got to work, hit the ground running, started walking
22:13
the halls. Literally.
22:15
They said he would knock on about 500 doors per week,
22:19
personally inviting people to the church.
22:23
And then on top of that, you've got the verse by verse
22:26
expository preaching that became a hallmark, which, by the way,
22:31
in the IFB is incredibly rare to see.
22:35
Yeah. Absolutely, I've got all of his
22:40
striving together. Study Bible library.
22:42
I've got one right here. Through Philippians Rejoicing in
22:47
Christ has expanded outlines and commentaries that Paul Chao puts
22:50
out. That's one thing that you know
22:52
me and John have talked about often was you know, we don't see
22:55
a lot of ISP guys or forefathers that we know there are ISP that
22:58
ever put out commentaries much less verse by verse
23:01
commentaries. It's a Paul Chapel was one of
23:04
these anomalies that put these things out.
23:07
He also Brett was proactively invested in training the next
23:11
generation in 1995 he founded West Coast Baptist Bible College
23:17
and this became a ministry arm of the church.
23:20
Good. I've be right.
23:22
You've been there almost 10 years.
23:23
Hey, it's time to start a Bible college.
23:24
We've got a school going. Let's begin a Bible college.
23:28
And so you know, Eric's about same way about 10 years in, he
23:31
started a Bible college. And so following this model,
23:35
that is what. Everybody was doing and you
23:37
know, his education kind of influenced his method because
23:42
he's got a bachelor from Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College,
23:46
he's got a master's from Louisiana Baptist University,
23:50
and he's got an honorary Dr. of divinity from Trinity Baptist
23:54
College. You know, for years, Brett, I
23:58
thought that Paul Chappell came out of House Anderson for some
24:03
reason. Someone maybe said that while I
24:05
was in Bible college or had said that somewhere.
24:09
And I just thought for years that's where he came out of and
24:11
going through this research. I, I couldn't find anything on
24:15
house. I know he spoke a lot at house
24:16
and would go up there and speak during pastors conferences while
24:20
Jack Scott was there and Jack House was there, but I never I
24:26
was just assumed that he was, but he came out of Pacific Coast
24:30
Bible College there as well. So Lancaster's growth and style
24:34
Lancaster, they have this notable turn around.
24:38
If you've never been to the camp his campus man, I've never seen
24:42
a more beautiful facility for IFBI mean it is.
24:47
It's an Oasis in the desert is what they call it.
24:50
From foreclosure to a multi million, probably multi billion
24:55
dollar properties. Now today they own 96 acres and
25:00
the entire campus of this massive square block where
25:04
there's just desert and then parking lots and buildings, bus
25:08
barns and college dormitories and school classrooms, their
25:13
solar farms. I mean, they've just doubled
25:16
down in a lot of that multiple buildings.
25:19
Their, their mission program is massive.
25:21
They've got a bus ministry that's prolific.
25:24
I mean, they just, they have done all the IFB things and
25:27
they've done it well and they've done it top notch.
25:30
And I think that's one of the things that you see about them
25:32
when you go out there. Exactly.
25:35
And. You know, forget about his radio
25:37
ministry. It's called daily, daily in the
25:40
word. I've listened to this.
25:41
I in fact, I think I followed the podcast.
25:45
It's heard on 100 plus stations. It was originally called Truth
25:49
for today. I do remember that as well, but
25:53
starting as a Sunday program in 1989 and then it was daily by
25:58
1992. And I've heard daily in the word
26:01
a lot. I've listened to Paul Chapel
26:03
online podcast. I have, you know, got a lot from
26:08
his preaching because I used to listen to it all the time.
26:11
Yeah, absolutely. I Hey.
26:12
I can get his e-mail every single morning, daily in the
26:15
Word. He's got a devotional e-mail
26:17
that comes to my e-mail typically 5:00 in the morning.
26:21
It's one of the first things I read.
26:23
Today's was on God's patience and how God hates sin and how He
26:28
wants us to continue to grow in our love for him.
26:32
And just great, great material, great devotional things that
26:35
I've used over the years. And I just keep a folder of
26:38
every single one of those daily in the words, they're great
26:41
little 5 minute devotions that you can pull out.
26:44
You know, there'll be times 2 weeks ago I was asked and I
26:48
forgot, but the, the ladies came for a tennis meeting and when
26:54
they came in, they were like, Hey, we want you to give a quick
26:56
devotion. I was like, oh man, I totally
26:57
forgot about this. So I pulled out one of those
26:59
devotions that I had read that morning and I gave it to him.
27:02
So it's it's great stuff. He also was active publicly.
27:08
He guests on Fox News commentary.
27:11
He helped set up Samaritan's Purse field hospitals during
27:14
COVID with Franklin Graham. I mean, he's got a forward front
27:17
facing. He's not afraid to be in the
27:19
news and be part of the network of what's going on in the world
27:24
and around. OK, so let's now.
27:25
Let's talk about West Coast Baptist College.
27:28
We're going to go into their academics, their accreditation.
27:31
So the college began and like you said earlier in 1995 with
27:36
Chapel, John Gocic and Mark Rasmussen.
27:40
Sorry if I mispronounced those, but these are the men who are
27:43
leading the charge for it. Yeah, John.
27:46
John Goetch and Mark Rasmussen, I believe is his name.
27:50
Yeah, they're, they're great guys as well.
27:51
I've heard both of them, you know, the, the college have
27:54
grown steady, not just for local discipleship, but they've
27:58
they've attracted students from all 50 states.
28:00
They've sent students to all 50 States and about 17 countries,
28:05
from the best I can tell, that they have brought in students
28:09
for right and you know. Accreditation is key.
28:13
They entered candidacy with tracks in 2015.
28:17
They gained accreditation 2019 and it just recently had a 10
28:22
year reaffirmation in October 2023 which is effective through
28:28
20. They received.
28:31
It in October 2023 and it's effective through 2033.
28:36
Yeah, tracks. Accreditation signals this push
28:39
towards credibility that not a lot of Bible colleges, IFP
28:42
colleges have desire to do. And a lot of the outside
28:47
institutions have rejected it and rejected what they're doing.
28:52
But I believe it's a big step for them, especially an IFP
28:55
rooted college to say, hey, we're, we're serious about this,
28:58
we're serious about what we're doing and we want to show
29:01
everyone else that we're serious as well.
29:03
Exactly. I Trinity did that where I got
29:07
my bachelor, my accredited bachelor.
29:10
They went the accreditation route, which we know, you know,
29:14
Pensacola. That's why most everybody hated
29:16
Pensacola because they were accreditation.
29:19
It was the devil, but but that that's a good sign for things.
29:23
So we're going to go into the next part, which is their
29:25
theology, leadership and influence.
29:28
And, you know, theologically, Chapel in bodies like
29:31
traditional IFB convictions, you know, you've got an errand see
29:37
separation, soul winning. But he adds, if you want to call
29:41
it an institutional sophistication into the mix.
29:45
I mean, he's building a school, a church network.
29:49
He's got a publishing arm, a media ministry, which, you know,
29:53
we've talked about striving together, publications and then
29:56
also the spiritual leadership conferences that he has the
30:00
podcast, which is, you know, how I know most of about him is
30:06
through the podcast and his media arm.
30:09
Yeah, you know when. I was doing a lot of this study.
30:12
Paul Chappell was like a more polished, more professional
30:19
Clarence Sexton. In my fault.
30:21
It was West Coast Clarence Sexton guy.
30:23
He did everything with with upwardness, like first class top
30:29
notch. You know, when I went to a
30:31
spiritual leadership conference man, they rolled out the red
30:33
carpet for us. It was great.
30:36
His daily, the word broadcast is professional.
30:39
His striving together publications, they they extend
30:42
his reach into what he's doing. And then he he even served
30:46
recently. Now he's on the serving on the
30:48
board of the the Baptist International Mission
30:51
incorporation BIMI. And so he's got a lot of of
30:54
outside stuff that he is he's working on to broaden his
30:58
expanse. You know, he's also been
31:00
recognized locally, you know, he's been named Citizen of the
31:03
year by Lancaster's mayor in 2009.
31:08
And, you know, and, and that's a lot of, that's something else
31:10
that a lot of IFB churches is missing.
31:13
Like we've had, we've had several conversation on this
31:15
podcast where a guy goes into a city, he makes this big work,
31:22
builds this big work, but nobody in the church is from the city.
31:28
They're all implants. Remember what we talked about in
31:31
Texas? You know, we've we've can't call
31:35
his name right now, right? Yeah.
31:37
So that's an insane thing at First Baptist.
31:40
You know, you have these implant First Baptist Hammond, you've
31:43
got this big work, but it's all implants.
31:46
And you're not, you don't have any reach into the city.
31:50
And so it, it's good to see that, you know, he's involved in
31:53
his, his, you know, his local. He didn't import his work.
31:57
He built his work there from the ground up.
32:00
Yeah, he reached. The ones that were there, he was
32:02
stayed local and this didn't make it as our notes, but I
32:07
believe it was in 20, 2017, 2018 maybe or maybe right before
32:15
that. But the, the mayor of the town
32:17
there gave him the keys to the city and said, you've reached
32:22
the city, you've changed the city, you've changed our dynamic
32:25
of what we're doing. And we want to give you a key to
32:27
the city, which is huge for a pastor of a town that, you know,
32:31
just thinking that was 25 years prior and the church was in
32:36
foreclosure and there were 12 people.
32:38
And then 25 years later, the mayor of the city, this massive
32:42
city that's got an Air Force Base and many other things are
32:45
going on. He's getting the keys to the
32:46
city. Like he, he's that influential
32:49
and the people in the public are respecting that about him.
32:52
That's that's that's huge. So So what we want to do is in
32:56
in this series, because these are are live flesh movie
32:59
moments. We, we wanted to look at maybe
33:01
the controversies or criticisms that have been given toward West
33:05
Coast and Paul Chapel as well. We we looked for hard scandals.
33:10
We looked into lots of different things and nothing criminal came
33:15
to surface that tied directly to Chapel or West Coast.
33:20
There are cultural critiques, there are sector wide
33:22
challenges, there's some things that people had preferential
33:26
differences about but but nothing criminal that came to
33:30
mark for the the ministry there, right.
33:34
I mean, there I have to Watch Dogs out there, like the way of
33:37
life. They've criticized, you know,
33:39
occasional music or worship pragmatism at Lancaster,
33:43
Accusations of softening strict separation norms, you know, has
33:50
come up. But that's pretty much the all,
33:53
all, all we found. Yeah.
33:55
Yeah. 1. Of the things that I was thought
33:57
was comical was West Coast. If you've ever seen, they do
34:01
some great video publications. They've got a great video
34:04
ministry there and they use their desert climate to to shoot
34:08
some really cool videos. And they did a cast and crown
34:12
song that their college choir did and they slowed it down a
34:16
little bit, made it sort of sound like a hymn.
34:19
And a lot of people were sharing it.
34:21
But then all of a sudden someone realized, oh, this is a cast and
34:24
crown song. And then all the IFB pastor
34:26
started ripping them because, oh, they're just doing
34:29
contemporary music. They're just slowing it down a
34:31
little bit, making it like at one point it was getting all
34:35
these views and then all of a sudden people realize who
34:38
actually put it out and now they've got a problem with it
34:41
because they're not separated enough, you know, if.
34:44
If you call yourself an independent Baptist Church, why
34:49
do you care what another church is doing?
34:51
Right? I've never understood that.
34:54
Yeah. And then you know.
34:54
There's the broader ISB abuse crisis that we've looked at each
34:58
and every one of these ministries, the investigation
35:01
reporting of the Star Telegraph, 412 allegations, 187 ISB
35:07
churches were mentioned. Chapel wasn't one of those ones
35:10
that were mentioned. He wasn't in complete implicated
35:13
personally, but this is one thing that I thought was
35:16
refreshing. He did write A blog.
35:19
And you know, if you know anything about Paul Chappell,
35:22
he's he's a big writer. He's he's a very articulate,
35:24
very wise man. But he wrote a blog condemning
35:28
abuse in the church and publicly calling for the repentance of
35:32
abuse in the church. And so I thought that was very
35:35
aquimical and amicable for him to do that right So.
35:39
While while not personal scandal, the larger reputational
35:45
context matters, Chapel is trying to address it.
35:48
You know, theologically, pastorally.
35:52
So he's tried to approach it that way, but, you know, no
35:55
personal scandal. Yeah, now there.
35:57
Was one thing that we did come to light as we look at this,
36:00
there was a a sharper critique that came about from a blog post
36:04
that he had made and he was mocking remarks on women who had
36:08
been premaritly engaged in sex and he called them dirty dish
36:13
rags. This reflects sort of how
36:16
strongly worded his stance on purity can be perceived
36:20
culturally for him to use this terminology.
36:23
Now, again, I don't know if he was referencing something else
36:27
in this blog or maybe a sermon that he had preached or he had
36:31
to preach, but he he was using that as a way to demean them.
36:36
And, you know, I'm sure that someone would have heard that
36:39
and, and taken offense or, or been hurt by it.
36:42
Exactly. Exactly so.
36:45
In this series. This section, we're talking
36:48
about the future fundamentalism. What does this tell us about the
36:53
future of fundamentalism? So what do we learn from the
36:57
Chapel model? Well, a few things we wanted to
37:00
bring to light and talk about is we want to talk about
37:03
institutional durability. Look, he's out here, he's
37:06
building a college school, media platform, conferences, a multi
37:13
pronged empire influence. You know, he's got these things
37:17
going on. And so, you know, these things
37:20
are, are durable. They they stand up.
37:24
He's also another thing we want to bring up was accreditation
37:28
without compromise. You know, he's trying to merge
37:32
doctrinal conservatism with academic legitimacy.
37:35
And there's nothing wrong with that.
37:36
And to be honest, I've seen he really doesn't care what other
37:39
people think of him. And, you know, if you're going
37:42
to be in this space, you got to have some tough skin.
37:45
And I think Paul Chapel's got some tough skin.
37:47
I think he he, he is what he is and he really doesn't care what,
37:51
you know, what other churches think of him.
37:53
Anytime you want to jump in, if you got something to say, James,
37:55
jump in. But you know, he is, you know,
37:58
he really doesn't care what other people think of him.
38:00
From what we can see. We also learned the scale and
38:04
reach. I mean, he is influenced extends
38:08
globally. I mean he's got graduates all
38:11
over the country, all over the world.
38:13
He's got media, he's got publications.
38:16
I've got these these bookshelves behind me has got Paul Chapel
38:19
books in them. And so he's got a immense scale
38:23
and reach for his ministry and then tensions intact.
38:27
And this is criticisms about worship style, handling of
38:31
abuse, issues under score, the push and pull between purity and
38:35
pragmatism. And so, you know, it's just some
38:38
things that we noticed, some observations about his ministry
38:43
that we wanted to bring out. Yeah, I agree.
38:47
With all that, I, I one of the things I want to say, I said
38:50
this when Eric was on here and I said this before.
38:54
The one thing that I appreciate about the Bible colleges that we
38:58
went to and being able to go to West Coast, it gave me a vision
39:01
for what the Lord could do for men who love the Lord.
39:05
This massive ministry, massive ministry is not for everybody.
39:09
You throw me into a Paul Chapel arena with 96 acres, college
39:14
dormitory students, Christian School, athletics, pastoring,
39:20
principal bust. You throw me into all that.
39:22
I fail. I fail every time I don't have
39:25
the bandwidth or the capacity to do that.
39:28
I believe God builds men for certain reasons and certain
39:31
areas of life. Now it gives me a vision for a
39:35
small replica of what God can do and be able to build that.
39:40
I just see that, you know, being faithful and and that large
39:44
ministry is not for everybody, but it does give us this massive
39:47
vision. And his vision was solid.
39:49
You know, he have this vision to strive together and now almost
39:53
30 years, 40 years later, next year be 40 years, he strive
39:57
together with the community, with the people, with the place
40:00
that he's at. He's reached his community.
40:02
He's knocking on the doors. He's doing what he thinks he
40:04
needs to do. His methods are very strategic.
40:08
But then the backside of that, there's criticism that comes
40:10
with a large platform. There's those that are inside of
40:13
that, the classic IFB separatism that begins to clash with the
40:18
modern methods of. You know, we can do some of
40:21
these other things a little different way, but, you know,
40:24
we've got to keep doing it because this is how we built the
40:26
church. But one thing that he
40:28
illustrates is the one strand of the future fundamentalism is the
40:32
institutional strength added to the uncompromising theology.
40:38
He sort of brings these two together where, you know, we
40:42
look at some of these others of the the past of fundamentalism.
40:45
They had the institutional strength, but they didn't have
40:47
the theology or maybe they have this theology, but they were so
40:51
preferential, there was no institutional following.
40:54
And so he was able to balance these two and and currently is
40:58
balancing these two in a in a practical way, right, So.
41:02
Paul Chapel stands as kind of the as the other face of growth
41:07
from the inside. You know, he's building an IFP
41:10
dynasty of of storks from from what we can see, Yeah, you know.
41:15
While while Eric Pacey took the hybrid route, Chapel begin to
41:19
double down on the IFB. But both show that institutional
41:24
building can shape the trajectory of where they go.
41:27
Next time we talk, we're going to be talking about Charlie Kirk
41:31
and Vision Baptist College. We're hoping to line up an
41:33
interview between now and then. And so we hope that you can come
41:38
in for that. And I've just been talking to
41:40
him and trying to get him lined up.
41:43
And so we'll, we'll, if you ever have any questions about where
41:45
we got our information and resources, please let us know,
41:48
reach out to us. And you know, Brad, I would love
41:52
to have some more that feedback where people send in some
41:54
questions and, and we can begin to talk back and forth of those
41:58
things and the comments. We we definitely appreciate that
42:02
as well, right? And I want to add, if there's
42:05
something you want us to talk about, if there's a subject that
42:08
interests you, that man, I wish they'd do an episode on this or
42:12
wish that they'd do a couple episodes on this.
42:15
We love that type of stuff. So hit us up with your
42:19
questions, comments, concerns, what we love it when you contact
42:23
us. I want to thank you for joining
42:25
us today. In the show notes, we'll link
42:27
all the references tracks with accreditation abuse contacts is
42:31
post all the stuff and research that we went through to put this
42:35
together and you know, and if you have any questions, send
42:39
them in. You know, we know we we may you
42:42
know James, we may even do a listener Q&A segment down the
42:46
road. I I don't think that be out of
42:48
the realm of possibility if. We got the questions.
42:51
We would give the answers whether they're right or wrong
42:54
answers, we'd give them. We, we, we can do.
42:57
It like like a little mailbox segment.
42:59
We can even make some music. You love it.
43:01
I think it's great. So all right, well, hey, I hope
43:05
you've enjoyed the content as always.
43:06
If you'd like to give us a rating to review, share it on
43:10
all the social media platforms. And until next time, to God be
43:13
the glory great things he has. Done a new.
43:18
Name found that good grace found that healing.
43:23
And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that
43:27
has no ending. Found that second chance found
43:29
my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness.
43:31
I've been singing ever since And by my freedom.
43:48
Thanks for listening to the Four Freedom Podcast.
43:51
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