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Thriving Churches · Let's Ask the Mamas!

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  Speaker 1: We've got a question for American Mamas. Dear Mamas, what's
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a sign that your church is thriving?
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's ask our American Mamas.
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  Speaker 1: And joining us now are American Mamas, Terry Netterville and
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  Speaker 1: Kimberly Burleson. You know, this is an interesting question because
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  Speaker 1: it kind of, I think it can depend upon how
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  Speaker 1: you talk about thriving. I think of Lakewood Church down
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  Speaker 1: in Houston. Massive church. It now fills what was the
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  Speaker 1: summit back in the day. I'm dating myself. That's where
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  Speaker 1: the Houston Rockets used to play basketball in their arena.
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  Speaker 1: It's now the church. And you go, well, that church
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  Speaker 1: is obviously thriving. But people will criticize the theology of
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  Speaker 1: the church and say, but are you actually leading people
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  Speaker 1: to Christ or is this prosperity gospel? What is it
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  Speaker 1: you're actually doing? There are plenty of small churches where
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  Speaker 1: where it's serving the needs of the community there. How
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  Speaker 1: do you define thriving? I think is the first question
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  Speaker 1: within your church to determine whether it's thriving by what
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  Speaker 1: criteria maybe.
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  Speaker 3: I think for me, I think you probably feel like
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  Speaker 3: I do. We feel like a thriving church has a
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  Speaker 3: lot of children. I think the children are the future
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  Speaker 3: of a church. They are the right now of a church.
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  Speaker 3: And when you see children pull back from church, your
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  Speaker 3: church is going to die. And so that is how
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  Speaker 3: our church is no longer thriving, because they lost the kids.
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  Speaker 4: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: They lost the kids.
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  Speaker 1: How did they lose the kids?
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  Speaker 4: The leadership.
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  Speaker 3: They had horrible leadership. They had a youth minister that
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  Speaker 3: just recently got fired that put out this Facebook venting
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  Speaker 3: session about being, but they had 75 kids that dwindled
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  Speaker 3: down to 10, and seven of those 10 decided to
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  Speaker 3: be transgendered. And so that's a huge problem.
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  Speaker 4: Yep.
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  Speaker 3: And you're seeing where, okay, this leadership.
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  Speaker 2: I lead that church too.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: We were at First Methodist Church having my sister's big
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  Speaker 3: Jostens event. Like 232 teenagers came to this event. And
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  Speaker 3: the First Methodist Church.
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  Speaker 2: Youth leader, what's his name?
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  Speaker 4: Jesse.
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  Speaker 2: His name is Jesse.
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  Speaker 3: Good looking kid.
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  Speaker 2: Great personality.
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  Speaker 3: But Terry, how, what did it start?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I was, okay, so a few weeks before we
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  Speaker 4: had vacation Bible school at my church.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And actually we went to church there as little girls.
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  Speaker 1: But you were doing that a lot throughout the summer.
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  Speaker 2: You did a lot of church stuff. I did.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one week in the summer that I
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  Speaker 4: was dedicated to vacation Bible school. And this is when
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  Speaker 4: I first, you know how we just watch people.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 4: So I love being around the kids. And I watched
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  Speaker 4: him come in. He asked if we needed anything. But
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  Speaker 4: what I loved is no matter where I was, He
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  Speaker 4: was talking to everybody. And the youth of our church
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  Speaker 4: came to help with the little ones for Vacation Bible School.
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  Speaker 4: So he was in charge of all the youth leaders.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm saying there were athletes. You could tell there
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  Speaker 4: were like brainiac, wonderful nerds, you know, the shy ones.
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  Speaker 4: And he was able to communicate with all of them.
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  Speaker 4: Tell them what, you know, he was praising them for
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  Speaker 4: the things they did good. If he had to talk
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  Speaker 4: to them about something else, it was in a very
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  Speaker 4: fair-minded way. And so I'm watching him, and at the
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  Speaker 4: end of the week, I said, Jesse, you are what
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  Speaker 4: we needed when my children were in this youth group.
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  Speaker 4: It dwindled down because they hired somebody that came in
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  Speaker 4: and didn't really have much in common. With those athletes,
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  Speaker 4: he loved Star Trek and Star Wars, and those kids stayed,
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  Speaker 4: just a few of them, but it dwindled down to nothing.
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  Speaker 4: So I said, I'm curious, Jesse, what did you start
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  Speaker 4: off with when you got here? He said six or seven.
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  Speaker 4: And I said, oh, how many do you have now
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  Speaker 4: within this year? It's up to 75, and now it's higher.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, I went to a focus.
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  Speaker 4: Group at the church about what we can do to
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  Speaker 4: get the community involved. And I said to them, I said,
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  Speaker 4: let me tell you where the Baptist beat us every
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  Speaker 4: time with the children. They even when we were little,
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  Speaker 4: the Baptist churches, they know that if you want to
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  Speaker 4: grow a church, you want a thriving church and you
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  Speaker 4: want the parents to come back. Make it so fun
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  Speaker 4: and educationally fun for those kids that the kids are
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  Speaker 4: bringing their.
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  Speaker 2: Parents to church.
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  Speaker 4: I don't want to miss this. We're having this this Sunday.
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  Speaker 4: I don't want to miss youth group, but we're having
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  Speaker 4: this this Sunday night. And that's what I see Jesse
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  Speaker 4: doing with our Methodist church. You have to focus on
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  Speaker 4: growing the church from the children up.
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  Speaker 2: Because my daughter and son-in-law went to.
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  Speaker 4: A church down the road from them, and it was
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  Speaker 4: all just geriatric people.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. And.
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  Speaker 4: they like clambered on to you know summer and right
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  Speaker 4: there was nobody else and i thought they should have
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  Speaker 4: thought about that sooner because you wouldn't have this situation
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  Speaker 4: now because they're.
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  Speaker 1: Going to see where somebody who's young walks through the
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  Speaker 1: door it's all of a sudden.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah now they want to take interest into it
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  Speaker 4: you should do it like now.
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  Speaker 3: Right and like you said um they are the bridge
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  Speaker 3: children are the bridge to families you know if that
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  Speaker 3: child feels welcomed and and included They're bringing their parents.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and if you've got a whole bunch of kids
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  Speaker 1: that are becoming trans at church, you're going to have
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  Speaker 1: other parents going, I don't want my kid around that
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  Speaker 1: social region.
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  Speaker 2: Get me out of there. Yeah, politics drove those people
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  Speaker 2: out of there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: That drove us away, the politics of our minister.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, your faith is supposed to drive your politics.
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  Speaker 2: Not the election. Exactly.
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  Speaker 4: And to Kimberly's point, if my children are having fun
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  Speaker 4: doing something like that, even if I don't feel like going,
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  Speaker 4: I don't feel like going, I'm going. If it's feeding
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  Speaker 4: them that way, that's how I judge whether a church
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  Speaker 4: is thriving or not.
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  Speaker 1: I love it. If you'd like to ask our American
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  Speaker 1: Mamas a question, go to our website, AmericanValueRadio.com slash Mamas
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  Speaker 1: and click on the Ask the Mamas button. Terry Netto,
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  Speaker 1: Kimberly Broson, thank you so much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.