Did you know there are people who think podcasting is BAD for preaching?

In today’s show we’re going to shoot so many holes in that statement it’ll look like sliced cheese.

[powerpress]

In This Video

• • 1:48 – The article we’re debating…
  • 3:20 – Setting the rules for a civil debate.
  • 6:01 – Why the sermon does not lose authority when you broadcast it…
  • 9:53 – Keeping the sermon scarce is doing the opposite of what you want…
  • 17:54 – Why the sermon is not devalued because you spread it to the masses…
  • 20:49 – It’s foolish to limit your teachings to just a handful of people…
  • 22:55 – Why young people will not see the podcast as a substitute for church…
  • 25:49 – If a sermon podcast can replace your church, you’re doing church wrong!
  • 27:34 – If you are afraid of podcasting your sermon, why aren’t you afraid of giving out Bibles?
  • 30:35 – A fear of podcasting may stem from a fear of losing power…
  • 32:45 – Where to go next…

Important Links & Shoutouts

• Read the original Christianity Today article by Dr. Mercer Schuchardt: How Podcasting Hurts Preaching
• Find out how to start live streaming in your church today
• You might also like: 5 Church Podcasting Ideas You Need To Try

Key Takeaway

Have you thought about starting a podcast or live streaming ministry, only to be told that it will hurt the church?

Well now you know…That. Is. Bologna!

No you have the RIGHT answers in your pocket for starting your podcast ministry.

This week, we want you to talk to your Pastor or leadership and talk about starting a podcast. It can be as easy as taking your current sermons and broadcasting them out for others to discover.

And if you need some help, CTA is here for you.

What other arguments have you heard against podcasting your sermon? We want to help you squash them…leave a comment down below!

Transcription

Dave:                 Hey, did you know that podcasting is bad for preaching? I know I don’t get it. Well, Justin and I are going to shoot so many holes in that statement that it looks like Swiss cheese. Anyway, that’s what we’re talking about in this video today.

Dave:                 Hey guys, welcome to another fiery episode of The Church Media Guys show, my name’s Dave Curlee. If we haven’t met, I’m the founder of ChurchTrainingAcademy.com and that basically is a place where you and I and other ministry minded folks can all come together and learn how to use and exploit media and technology so we can take the Gospel to the world. Jesus said go and so this is how we’re doing it. With me, as always is my co host, my co-founder, my brother in Christ, Man At arms, Justin, the legend Nava.

Justin:                Thanks so much Dave. This is going to be a very good episode and for anyone watching live or the replay, a trigger warning because it’s 2018 we have to tell you, I have to give you a trigger warning because Dave is going to get triggered and he’s going to go on a rant and he’s going to, he’s going to Dave off. It’s what I call it. So just be ready for that. You’re, you’re in for a ride and yeah. Be ready to split this. This is going to take a couple of commutes. If you have a 30 minute commute, you’re normally like, hey, let’s listen to CTA. First off, that’s a terrible impression of you. I’m sorry. but second, this one might take a couple commutes. I have a feeling I have a feeling. So warning. Yeah,

Dave:                 You may want to go wander, driving around through neighborhoods, looking at pretty houses or something.

Justin:                True.

Dave:                 Okay. Today’s topic is a hot button for me and it’s actually a hot button for Justin. I knew it was a hot button for Justin, but for like three weeks he’s been going off in our little private chat off and on about this article. There’s an article out there, by Christianity today

Justin:                Yeah we’ll have the article down below in the show notes and in the live chat I just put it up there. Yeah, in Christianity today, which I was really surprised about.

Dave:                 Right. And basically the thesis of the article is that podcasting is bad for preaching. And when I saw that my head exploded, I’m serious. We’re, we’re 300 and something miles away. I saw the mushroom cloud down by your house.

Justin:                Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was not a drill. and especially the subhead, the headline, I thought, okay, well maybe he’s going to make a point. The sub line, is what really made my ears steam. It was “sermons belong in church, not our earbuds. “

Dave:                 Yeah. That is about most stupidest statement I think I’ve ever heard in this space and this church communications and church media space. That’s about the dumbest thing I think I’ve ever heard. I’m going to just say it right now

Justin:                So there you have it folks. Thanks for watching. We appreciate you being here and, we’ll see you next week.

Dave:                 Thanks. No, I, I’m going to back that up in a few points. I want you to get started because this is really a hot button for you and I’m afraid if I start talking you won’t get to.

Justin:                Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’ve prepared a few talking points, but of course Dave is going to talk much longer than I do because of time constraints. But, yeah, so if you read the article, basically what my summation, what I took out of it from reading it several times over the last few weeks and meditating on it, and you know, really thinking about, okay, where’s this guy coming from? I understand where he’s coming from, but I still think it’s incorrect. now basically he’s saying, we’re, we’re losing the young generation, we’re losing the digital natives because, you know, they find church boring. And the sermon is something that is integral to the integrity of the church. Maybe that’s redundant, but, when we disseminate our sermon across all these different platforms, we’re hurting the church because we’re basically saying the sermon’s not that important.

Justin:                You can get it anywhere. It’s just as important as anything on your phone. And it’s okay if you missed because you can still get the sermon elsewhere. And so we’re cheapening it or making it less authority and, we should make the sermon and church be something where you have to say, oh, we had to be there to see it you had to be there to get it. He had to be there to know what you’re talking about. It’s something that should exist within the walls because it is so sacred and so authoritative and powerful that it only keeps those qualities when it’s inside the church. He makes some good arguments. He makes the wrong arguments, but they are good arguments nonetheless. So what we’re going to do, and I’ll start this out, is take the full context of the article. So I’m not going to take, oh, he said this one thing without giving you the whole paragraph, we’re going to share it and then kind of give our a rebuttal. Now, me personally, I am not great at arguing. I am a person that will just empathically agree with you, just shut up and move on with my life.

Dave:                 You argue with me all the time. You argue with me all the time!

Justin:                And you know who taught me that Dave? You did! You taught me to stand up for myself!

Dave:                 I’m having an impact!

Justin:                So we’re not, we’re not going to be cherry picking. We’re going to give you the full thing. So if you’re listening to this on audio, we’re going to read some of the passages. I try not to make passages too long, but I did also write my rebuttal. So if it sounds written and robotic, it’s because I’m not good at talking. My thoughts, like I have to repeat myself several times. So, okay, so first point here, and this is written by Dr. Mercer Schuchardt And I, and I am probably butchering that. It’s a German name. It looks like Mercer shoosh chart. I could totally be butchering that. And I apologize. I mean no disrespect by mispronouncing your name, I just don’t know a better way to pronounce it.

Justin:                So, I’m just gonna call him the doctor, right? Because he’s a professor at Wheaton College, I believe. So here’s what he says. The sermon is not an interchangeable part that can be removed from the context of worship while still maintaining its power, its authority, its efficacy, it retains at most one of these diluting or eliminating the other two. So when I read that, I think, okay, he’s saying that of the three things a sermon has, power, authority and efficacy, meaning, it’s ability to remain impactful over time. It doesn’t degrade itself. So first off, I’m not a biblical Guy, but I, I tried to always make my foundations in the Bible because that’s where our foundation and truth is. I don’t believe…I was taught that sermon power and worship power is from God and not limited to location.

Justin:                You can see this in Psalms 40 when David’s talking about praising God and other people seeing and praising God. Other people are not just hanging out in the synagogue, the temple or the church, they’re out in the world. Authority is not geo-fenced either. So first of all, power is from God regardless of location. Second, authority is not geo-fenced either. Pastors and preachers are not like a judge who has limited power only in location, which the court, you’re a preacher and a pastor with God given authority over your flock in all circumstances, same as the Bible. You’re going to hear me relate sermons authority to the Bible quite often in this show, but the Bible does not lose authority when it leaves the confines of a Church building, it remains authoritative. It remains God inspired and it remains absolute truth regardless of where its location is, whether it’s on your shelf, in your car or on your phone.

Justin:                And so the sermon has the same authority regardless of its location, whether it’s in the church, in person, written down as a transcription or through your earpods, airpods or earphones, whatever you call it, and for efficacy. See Power. The sermon does not get degraded because time goes on. The Bible is 2000 years old and it’s still just as powerful as when it was pinned. The sermon power… If God wants to speak to you through a sermon from 30 years ago from Billy Graham, God will still use the power of that sermon to speak to you. So just because you remove it from worship does not mean that it loses power, authority and efficacy. It still maintains all these things. Now he does make a good point. He says later on in his article, by its very nature, podcasting, the sermon reduces the entire liturgy and purpose of church as the corporate meeting of Christ’s bride to simply listening a sermon.

Justin:                I find that untrue. A student doesn’t watch a class recording and say good enough. Right. I got the stuff. A Class recording… And I hope that the professor does record his lectures for students who miss, I hope his academia and his truth that he’s teaching our future generation isn’t relegated to “well you had to be there to get the…” no, we have lecture recording now. So it is an alternative but it is not the end. Just because you miss a class and watch the lecture online through Blackboard does not mean that you just say, I never have to go to class again. You still have to go to class and you still want to go to class. Distributing the Bible in native languages also does not reduce it’s authority into a good book, right? It is a book. It is in everyone’s native language. It isn’t just a good book. It is the Bible. And so when you distribute your sermon across, instead of different languages, across audio, across written, across video, it doesn’t, it doesn’t neglect, the power and authority of the sermon. It’s just getting it out to the masses to be able to be consumed and for God to use that power in a place other than the actual four walls. Okay, Dave, that’s all I have on that point.

Dave:                 All right. So in the article up towards the beginning, one of the things that, he says, he talks about the value of scarcity. Okay? Now you and I are marketers. So we understand and we sell products and we understand marketing. We understand for a limited time only we understand that, that idea, okay? He says, I’m going to read to two short paragraphs here. If value is a function of scarcity, then we must understand just what scarcity means. Scarcity can either be real and produce actual value as in gold, virginity and integrity, or it can be manufactured and produced perceived value as in Pokemon cards, bitcoin and diamonds. What the Church has done successfully for millennia is to produce perceived value through rules and restrictions, limitations and taboos. Thou shalts and thou shalt nots until its users come to recognize that this perceived value is really an actual value and for church goers to perceive value, churches have to maintain the scarcity of the once a week in real life sermon experience. When pastors push their sermons far wide via podcast, they unintentionally devalue the message they have worked hard to create and communicate. They remove the sermon from the time, context and body of the liturgy where it belongs.

Dave:                 I want to… if I could slap, I would. If you approach your sermon or a service as a product that only you can have access to, then yeah, you’re right. Okay. However, the word of God is to be shared, taught and spread. Gospel means good news. You don’t relegate it to viewing it underneath a hidden Bushel. Okay, so he’s approaching this from completely the wrong angle. He is approaching this from a secular angle. That Spiritual value comes from being in a building, listening to someone preach. Spiritual value can be derived that way. Spiritual value does not come that way solely. Am I making sense, Justin?

Justin:                Total? 100% Crystal.

Dave:                 The entire supposition that he has is that the power is in the public speaker. That’s not the case. The power comes from God. Okay? A speaker can deliver good or bad messages. This is what I wrote earlier. A speaker can deliver good or bad messages in a good or bad way. Assuming we’re preaching the God breathed word as the Holy Spirit is leading us as pastors, then that should never, ever, ever be hampered. There’s also the reality of our society. One of the big benefits that comes from coming together as believers, okay, and this is the way it was. In fact, this whole preaching thing is a platonic Greek construct. Okay? When the early church gathered, they hid because like the Romans were killing them and stuff like that. Okay. Paul being one of them.

Dave:                 Early on they would come together to rally. They would come together to support each other. They would come together to share learning and understanding. They would come together to praise and thank God for the things that they’ve done. That is what worship is. Okay? So when we are together communally worshiping God, there is huge value in that. Okay? And there is huge value in that experience. Just like there’s huge value in you driving in your car and one of these worship songs just hitting you in the spirit, ministering to you through that song, okay? So you get value either way, okay? The worship experience in your car is not devalued because you’re listening to a Chris Tomlin song and worshiping, okay?

Dave:                 The perceived actual value is not diminished. When you’re having your quiet time and you’re reading a commentary and you’re studying, it’s not less value because you’re doing it at home, at your desk versus sitting there and listening to some guy teach you the word of God. Are you sure? What if he’s not teaching you the word of God? I mean, there’s all kinds of different things when you’re just relying on that one source. Okay, so I, that’s a whole nother thing I’m not going to get into right now, but the thing is is that if his supposition is that you get spiritual value being in a building and listened to someone talk, okay, then yeah, he’s right. Okay. That’s the way his lectures are. Okay. I understand that. But that’s not worship. Listening to someone preach is not worship.

Dave:                 We come together to worship and that’s where the value is, the value is in the community. The value is in the communal thing, the learning, the receiving of instruction. The Bible study. Okay. For that preaching time, when the teacher or the pastor or the Bible study leader or whoever is sharing the word of God, sharing what the Holy Spirit has led them to share… If you’re studying a series you were studying, one of Paul’s letters or something like that, receiving that instruction… That does not necessarily have anything to do with thanking God for the things that he’s done for you. Making your supplication before the Lord Singing Praises to the Lord. That’s not that time. That’s not that time. You’ve moved past that time. That time has ushered you into a time where you can now study or you can now receive instruction. So you can receive that instruction physically being there, okay? Being distracted by all the people around you and the baby’s crying and all that sort of stuff. Or you can receive that exact same instruction while you’re driving in your car.

Dave:                 Okay? We’re also supposed to go out and make disciples. Okay? Billy Graham did not stand in front of a church and say, come all you sinners. He didn’t do that. Okay. He went out, rented a big place and people came to him and then he broadcast that over the radio. He broadcasted that over the television. He streamed that over the Internet. Okay. Greg Laurie is doing the exact same thing. Are you telling me that all the people that got saved for one of these evangelical outreach things got a devalued message? It was less important because it was a group of people sitting at home watching it on television versus being there in the stadium. Sure. I’ve been in those stadiums. Being in the stadium is fine. There’s great. It’s electric. It’s wonderful. It’s a gigantic communal thing,

Dave:                 But thousands, hundreds of thousands of people have come to the saving knowledge of Christ, watching it on television, listening to it on the radio for decades. It’s a proven method, proven method. This guy’s full of crap.

Justin:                Now, let me address something in there that you said that I may disagree with if you, if I did understand you correctly. My impression from what you just said was that preaching and receiving a sermon is not part of worship. That was my impression. Okay. I would say that preaching is an act of worship. Receiving a message. Receiving a sermon is an act of worship. Just like singing as an act of worship. Praying is an act of worship. Tithing or offering, giving to the church is an act of worship. All these are acts of worship. Now they are not limited to the building. I believe we can use music worship to prep our hearts and open our hearts and to receiving instruction as an act of worship. But if that’s what you were saying, I would disagree.

Justin:                I would say it’s all worship. You can come and just hear a sermon as an act of worship, but that act of worship is not a geo fenced. Now he also wrote, Dr. Mercer, in effect podcasting a sermon or posting services to youtube or the church website turns the gathering of God’s people into another hour of content for audiences right alongside their Dvr, TV show and other entertainment. And so this kind of feeds into what you were saying before. He’s saying podcasting a sermon turns the gathering into just something to consume a piece of entertainment. Here’s the deal. You’re just podcasting the sermon. You might also be podcasting the service. You know what? You’re not podcasting community, you’re not podcasting discipleship, you’re not podcasting fellowship, essential pieces of gathering as we’re commanded to do.

Justin:                The purpose of gathering is not to hear a sermon. And this is proof via numerous gatherings in Acts. If the purpose of gathering is to hear a sermon, you’re doing church wrong, do you also argue with distributing worship music and distributing prayer guides? Because God forbid you can’t pray alone because then you might not come to pray, right? It’s preposterous. No one thinks like that. So just because you podcast a piece of your service, just like you might podcast prayer guide, excuse me, you might give away a prayer guide. You might publish, worship music, or you might share other people’s worship music, or curriculum. That stuff doesn’t serve as a replacement. It does serve as an alternative. Maybe you’re traveling, maybe you’re sick, maybe you want to check out the church. Because me personally, I’ve been burned by going to churches without hearing their sermons, because their website was out of date.

Justin:                Their yellow page ad was out of date. I went to one church because it said the preacher… the pastor was this guy. And then I went to the church and I found out the pastor was another girl, another lady, another woman. It was not the pastor that was advertised. And if I hadt listened to the sermons, I would have understood that. And me personally for my family we would’ve gone to a different church, but we were there for that church. Great Church, but not for us. And so if I had listened to the sermons, I might’ve understood that. I would hate to waste my time, my family’s time going to a church to find out that the preacher is crazy or he’s teaching false teachings, which exists in some churches. I’d rather learn that ahead of time. So that’s another purpose of the sermon. He’s not to valuing the gathering because the gathering is important. God calls us together. God does not call us solely to hear a sermon. Right? And there are certain times where maybe he will call us to go to a conference or a simulcasts or maybe to hear a teaching. But the purpose of gathering is community, it’s fellowship, it’s discipleship. That’s where life is lived most abundantly. Not listening to a sermon.

Dave:                 That line of thinking that he’s flowing through this article also supposes that I am meant to only listen to one pastor. And that is foolishness…I know of Greg Laurie and I learned from Greg Laurie because I subscribed to his podcast.

Dave:                 Driving around the metroplex up here and I’m sure down there as well, pretty much any major market is going to have at least one spoken word Christian station where there’s going to be preaching all throughout the day. Okay. I would not know who Alistair Begg is. If I weren’t driving around listening to the radio, I would not know who Chuck Swindoll is. If I didn’t get up in the morning on Sunday morning while we’re getting ready and turn it on to Charles Stanley and watch Charles Stanley while we’re getting ready for church or something. I wouldn’t know about these people if they weren’t out there because he’s over there in Georgia. The other one is over there in Riverside, California. I’m here in Texas. So I wouldn’t know about any of these people. So to assume that the word that your pastor is preaching is only meant for the people that are sitting there in those pews and is not meant to edify anyone else beyond the walls of your church is foolishness on the highest order. You’re also limiting God, limiting the word. You’re limiting the spreading of the Gospel, okay. And that is where the damage is. Okay? We are Christians, we are communicators. We have a mandate, a mandate from the Lord. Right before he took off to heaven, right before he said, go into the world and make disciples. Hey, that is a command. Okay. That is a command that carries just as much weight is thou shalt not murder. Okay. That is a command. We are supposed to do that.

Justin:                And to clarify something because you said go out into the world and people might argue, they would say, “oh, well go out into the world. Go talk to people, go look at their faces. Don’t just put sermons out there. Don’t put teachings out there. Don’t put books out there and think you’re doing discipleship.” Okay. I get where you’re coming from. However, here’s the problem, I use the terms at the beginning of the show, digital natives, the people that are growing up now, my daughter, they’re growing up native to the Internet. Okay.

Dave:                 We grew up native to television. Our parents grew up native to television and radio.

Justin:                So you may think it’s wrong. You may say, Oh, well, discipleship and teaching and spreading the Gospel can only happen face to face…

Dave:                 Bull.

Justin:                And it can only happen in the real world…

Dave:                 Bull.

Justin:                Okay. But here’s the deal. Young children, the people that are growing up, and in fact, even younger, end of my generation, the mid twenties people, the younger people in my generation are in their mid twenties. They grew up seeing the internet as a location. There’s no more, “Hey, I’m gonna meet you at the mall and let’s split a yogurt together or something or whatever.” No, it’s, “I’m going to meet you on a house party.” And it’s an actual location in their minds, they are going to not someone’s house but a park, a neutral ground to talk to their friends. We used to, you and I, Dave, maybe more of you, you used to go to the park and used to meet your friends.

Dave:                 Yes

Justin:                I would meet them on instant messenger.  And we would talk. And the social value of that is these exact same as you, meaning someone in the park has me meeting someone on AIM or someone else talking to someone on Instagram. Video chat is the same. And so to say that it can only happen in person or you know, only location. Well guess what, these earpods carry the same authority as talking to you in person. I don’t think… Oh, let me think of someone. Chris Do, a world famous or at least nationally, I think world famous designer, I don’t think, “oh well he’s teaching me stuff on YouTube, but it’s really not as good because it would be better in person.” Yes. I would pay to see him in person and see him speak in person, but his words carry no less value when I watched them through YouTube.

Justin:                So let me say this one more thing here…let me address this. There are several points and I highly encourage you to go read the article yourself. He writes this, podcasting sermon recordings sends the message that the congregation can just as meaningfully hear the message in the car, the bathroom or the train commute as in church on Sunday, which cheapens the value of the sermon and the church gathering. How does listening to a sermon on the train keep cheapen the church gathering? If all you do on Sunday is preach, that’s 100% true. If all you do on Sunday is preach, people can come in and listen to the sermon and leave. That’s 100% true.

Dave:                 You’re doing church wrong.

Justin:                If you can just listen to the sermon online, okay, but that’s not all that happens on Sunday. And preaching should reflect that. There’s also gathering, there’s worship, there’s community, worship, music, communion, fellowship, teaching, discipling. Most of these cannot take place without the presence of others. The sermon is holy, but a holiness is not location based. For example, the Bible… It’s written on the book, the Holy Bible, it’s written on the app, The Holy Bible App. The community, the fellowship, the gathering that can not be neglected. Absolutely. 100% I do not believe personally, and we even have some insiders that pay for Church Training Academy Insiders Membership that disagree with me and that’s okay. I love it. I want to be challenged on this, but I do not believe that churches can exist online. They, there has to be a central location. In fact, we even talked to someone who runs an online church right now. GodSquad church, go look it up.

Justin:                It’s a church for video gamers. They meet exclusively online, but in his vision, he wants to create an in person church. He wants to create a network of in-person churches to expand the message and spread the message because he knows, in fact, he sets up his church to model as many in person things as possible, such as a communion, such as a membership classes and requirements to be a member of his church. And so, if all you do is preach and everyone comes in, doesn’t say a word and they hear you and then they leave. Then yeah, you’re cheapening that because this exact same thing as listening to your headphones, but that’s not what church is. Church is gathering. Church is all those things I said, music, community, fellowship teaching. Maybe you have other sacraments that cannot take place outside of meeting with others outside of gathering.

Justin:                So the ultimate question that I want to leave you with is this. Is sharing something worth the risk of cheapening it? I say yes. Yeah. How many dusty Bibles are an American homes and motels? Millions. The few that open it see life change and exhortation from the creator. Fancy word for encouragement from the creator. So I will agree. I will agree. Podcasting, the sermon can risk the substitution of gathering and true appreciation and reverence for the Lord’s revelation. Let me say that again. I will agree. Podcasting, the sermon can risk the substitution of gathering and true appreciation and reverence for the Lord’s revelation. But is it better to distribute for a few to be enlightened than to hide it for them to never hear and see is it better to hide the Gospel within time and location? And if it is, then how are you fulfilling your self proclaimed…

Justin:                This is something that Dr. Mercer said. He said the primary role of a pastor is to be a minister of the Gospel. So if it’s better to hide the gospel within your sermon within time and location, then are you fulfilling your self proclaimed primary role of being a minister of the Gospel? I say no. And if you think that your sermon is being… church gathering is being devalued because you share one portion of it, I think you’re highlighting the wrong stuff in churches. And I think most churches do highlight the wrong stuff. I agree. Most churches say our music has to be the best. Our sermon has to be the best. None of that matters. I can get all of that right here. What has to be the best is the community, right? This is why people aren’t coming to church because they’re not finding community because everyone is so concerned the lighting is wrong.

Justin:                That person is off key. The pastor’s wearing boots and not dress shoes, that’s wrong. People are focused on the wrong thing. My generation’s coming to church and just says somebody talk to me because we meet on House party as a second location but I want to go meet people face to face. But all you’re doing is yelling at each other. Talk to me, communicate with me, disciple me, fellowship with me, show me what that is. Teach me how to pray. But we’re so busy concerned, “oh the sermon is being devalued. You have to come hear the sermon.” No, you have to come experience community because without it you are desperately alone. And we just want that face to face cause House party or Instagram video chat or whatever can only take you so far. Community is really found in the gathering and if your sermon being podcasted devalues your community, something is wrong there.

Justin:                So yes, is it worth the risk of podcasting your sermon to cheapen it? Yes, because I think it was worth the risk to take the Bible out of the building. What Martin Luther fought for in the reformation is devaluing the Bible maybe in the eyes of a lot of people. But there’s been a lot of change because now we have the Bible in our native language, several Bibles in every house, Bibles hidden within folders on our phone, which is stupid. But I mean there’s someone to consume and experience God’s revelation. You can’t hide that.

Dave:                 One thing it does devalue is the centralized power of the preacher. And that is something that I understand there a lot of preachers and there are entire religions that are focused on that. In fact, I’ve dealt with them when I was in Romania, the orthodox religion over there, only person that could have the Bible was the preacher. So you’re at his mercy. Okay. So the democratization of knowledge, the democratization of teaching, the democratization of receiving the word like that is imperative. It just flat out is. It flat out is. The couple of people in the chat here as we’re doing this live, have said that they read the article and what they’re hearing him say is that we’re losing butts in seats. And if you extrapolate that we’re losing butts in seats, therefor, we’re losing $20 bills in the basket… I understand that there are realities, there are realities of, we have an organization, we have salaries, we have initiatives that we’re doing.

Dave:                 We have ministries that we’re supporting. We have ministries that we’re starting. We have a food pantry. I understand all that. I understand and we need to have revenue coming in so that we can then turn around and be a conduit to push that out into other areas. I understand that completely. Okay. But that is secondary. That is secondary. Okay. There’s a reason that Paul went around making tents and starting churches. And he said because he didn’t want to be a financial burden. Okay. So financial stuff, he was taking care of on his own so that he could proclaim Christ. Okay. Now our church is supposed to be poor. Absolutely not. We’re supposed to be a conduit. Individuals. We’re supposed to be a conduit. Okay. If the lack of butts in seats is lowering stewardship and understand the stewardship across the board is something to be concerned with and that it has dropped and it ebbs and it flows with the economy and all that sorta stuff.

Dave:                 I understand there are other ways to do it. There are other ways. I listen on the radio. I listen to first Baptist, Dallas, huge, 15,000 people. Good Heavens. I listened to a lot of these things and one of the things that they do is they ask for people to support that ministry, that Radio Ministry. You can ask people to support your podcast ministry. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. You’re just not thinking outside the box. Things have changed over the last 75 to 100 years. They have changed media and mass media is out there. You can’t run from it. You need to embrace it. We need to exploit the crap out of it. Do everything that you can to promote the Gospel and to spread the Gospel short of sin. That’s what we’re supposed to do and if you want to learn how to live stream and podcast and do stuff like that, you can become a member of ChurchTrainingAcademy.com by going to ChurchTriningAcademy.com/join where we will teach you how to do stuff. In fact, if you are wanting to dip your toe into live stream, we’ve got a resource for you. It’s called Live Streaming For Churches The Easy Way and you can go to EasyLiveStreaming.com and grab yourself a free copy of it and it’ll kind of open your eyes to what’s possible and give you some pointers and some things that you can do to get started. Now you can actually add live streaming is a part of your ministry. Now have you read that Justin? You read that?

Justin:                Read it. Bookmarked it. Refer back to it often.

Dave:                 Awesome. So guys, this is a passion point for Justin and I and it really needs to be a passion point for a lot of other people. The church is not the end all be all. The physical building is not the end all be all. We’re here to promote the gospel. We also need to gather together and support each other and love each other. And Huddle, cause this rough out there. It’s rough on Facebook. That is what church is and it is about community. You have to understand that the reason that the people back when it all got started, the reason they were gathering together was because they were scared stupid. They were gathering together to support each other and to come together and to worship God and then go out and do more and then come back together and huddle up and strengthen each other and go and do more. They weren’t sitting around, there wasn’t a big orator standing there doing that. Okay. That came a couple of hundred years later. All right, so that’s that.

Justin:                I think Christopher Hal has a good comment to end on which by the way, if you’re not watching live you want to watch live because I mean you have just as much to put it in as we do. Absolutely. We are losing people in the seats because we have lost the relationship with people. Some would argue it is because of social media and podcasting, but I would argue that it is because we have stopped being relational to others and relational to others. Meaning, like I said, we talked so much, and I know it’s kind of hypocritical because we spend our time, teaching churches and that could be time knocking on doors and sharing the gospel. I get it that it seems kind of hypocritical when you look at it through that Lens, but I think we spend so much time saying…and nothing’s wrong with sermon prep.

Justin:                I believe sermon prep is a huge important part of it… but nothing is wrong with saying, you know, let’s not focus on, so much time being spent on improving the worship set and the lighting the sermon and getting all of this perfect. Let’s go and talk to people that are here right now. you know, the pastor, I know some pastors still do sermon prep right up until the service. That should not be the case. The pastors should not be walking in during the worship music. He should be in the church meeting and greeting the people an hour before. That’s community. Small group teachers, same thing. You shouldn’t just walk in the church and just go straight to your class. And start teaching. You should be there meeting and greeting and learning of the names of the people that you’re serving and that you’re ministering to, that you want to minister to.

Justin:                And when you do that, we have greeter ministries that kind of scale this up for us. but when you do that, that’s where the relationship kicks in. And that’s where when I go to a church and I say, man, these people will actually really care about me. Not because of some forced meeting time, meet and greet time while band’s playing on stage and everyone’s getting to their seats. It’s not because of that. It’s because people actually shook my hand and said, “hey, how it’s going?” And held the door for me. That’s a big thing, maybe less big down in Texas because we hold the door for people anyways, but you know, now we have greater teams that go out and say, Hey, you’ve got two kids, three diaper bags, a Bible… Can I help you carry something? That is community that shows relationship. But if you’re going to relegate service to sit down, listen to the sermon and sing the song, yeah, you’re going to bleed people because that’s not relational. That’s not relational at all. That’s religion.

Dave:                 And do you want, do you want people coming to your church out of obligation? Is that what you’re looking for? Are you looking for well I have to go to church now. I have to go to church. I have to go to church. I mean we know that salvation is not based on our good deeds, right? We understand that salvation is based on God’s grace and the shedding of his blood to cover our sins. That’s what salvation is based on. So do you want someone coming to church who feels obligated to come to church or do you want someone who’s coming to church because that’s where they want to be. That’s where they want to be. They want to be there. They want to minister to others. They want to rally. They want to encourage and strengthen other people. That is what church is and podcasting is not going to devalue that. If you’re afraid that podcasting or live streaming is going to devalue that, then you’re focusing on 100% the wrong thing. 100% 100%

Justin:                so I’m curious, what do you have to say if you’re watching this, leave a comment down below in the livestream comments and the YouTube comments. Write us an email [email protected] or [email protected] I think we have both of those things. Those are both set. Yeah, so send us an email, what do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Where did we get it wrong? We want to know, I want my viewpoints challenged. I hate echo chambers and I know some of some of the people in the chat, they watch us every week and we’re preaching to the choir. I want to hear what you have to say. I hope someone shared this with you and say, Hey Joe, I remember that thing you told me about preaching used to stay in the church. These guys disagree. Joe, thanks for listening. Or Jane, Whatever your name is, let us know. Let’s open a dialogue and chat.