The Charlie Kirk Show - Be a True Church, Not a Trembling Church

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

There are thousands of churches in America, and sadly most of them are just "trembling" churches: Afraid to preach the authentic gospels and the truths it proclaims. In his speech to the Faith Forward pastors summit, Charlie lays out what pastors must do to be true pastors leading true churches. He lays out how promoting controversial and challenging truths is exactly what will draw in young people and new believers, while saccharine lies will only keep people away while they follow the secular road to damnation.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, my conversation at the TPUSA Pastor Summit in Georgia. I talk about what the church needs to do, the different types of churches, and what you as a believer need to do to stand up, to fight for what you believe in, and to fight for truth, and to fight for Christ. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. That is tpusa.com. Thanks to Allen Jackson Ministries for your continued support. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, That's why we are here. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. It's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

Thank you, everybody. Please take a seat. But I'm going to actually probably have you stand again. Can we give a thanks to Jensen Franklin and Free Chapel for allowing us to do this great event here? What a beautiful campus this is. Amazing hospitality. Thank you, Jensen, truly. We're excited to hear from you later on tonight.

Welcome, everybody, to our TPUSA Faith, Faith Forward event. This is one of our favorite events to do, all about equipping you, the pastors of this country, to be better prepared to be able to speak about liberty, speak about God's truth, both in your church and in your community. And if we look at the American church right now, there are three types of churches. You're going to hear from Lucas Miles here in a second. There are true churches. You're sitting in a true church right now. Free Chapel Church is a true church. I hope most of you are running true churches right now. Here's the test of whether or not you're a true church.

Did you, after the repeal of Roe versus Wade, host a celebration prayer service afterwards? Or did you kind of just say, yeah, a thing happened in the news this last week. Anyway, in other events, a true church is one that says, thank you, God, for your providence, for helping save this country and give us a reprieve. But most importantly, a true church

outside of those are ones that say, I know I might lose some people and they might have some blessed subtraction during the sermon, but I first and foremost honor the Lord when I deliver my sermon, and I don't care if I might lose five or 10% of tithes or offerings. A true church is one that looks at the word of God and says, I am going to deliver it courageously and unapologetically, regardless of the cost. And I know almost all of you are true churches. The second category are the trembling churches. They know what is true, but they shake like a leaf whenever they have to say anything too controversial. Now, maybe some people here might fall into that category, and that is okay. Our hope is that actually through hearing these speakers and hearing

the trainings, you'll be motivated to go from a trembling posture to a true posture and speaking out and saying that you're going to speak out on the top cultural and major societal issues of the day. The issue for the trembling pastor, and let's be honest, the vast majority of American churches are in the trembling category. They know what is biblical. They privately will tell you what is biblical, but publicly it goes through a filter. Publicly it goes through a lens that isn't always as pure and as clear as the scriptures. For example, they know that the scriptures say very clearly that life begins at conception, that abortion is wrong.

But when they get on stage, it's not always as clear. It's a little bit wishy-washy. Or it's, well, we don't do politics around here, folks, and we just do the gospel. The answer always should be, well, hold on. It's not political. It's biblical what we are asking you to talk about. That is always the most important thing. And the final category, which I can't imagine we have somebody in that category here, but I'm sure you all know somebody like it, is the traitorous churches. We're not going to spend that much time on them. Those are the ones that fly the gay pride flag outside of

their church. They're the ones that march in the BLM parades. We'll just kind of leave that aside. The emphasis and the focus are for those that know what is true, but are not saying what is true in a position of authority. Now I visit college campuses. So you guys don't have to, and we've done some, and honestly, let me say this again. It's not that we at turning point USA have done anything that amazing. It's God that we at Turning Point USA have done anything that amazing. It's God that is doing amazing things on these college campuses, and he deserves all the credit and the glory. And what we are seeing and experiencing is monumental. If you're not aware of it, you guys should be as pastors.

In fact, I think you have a biblical obligation to see what is happening with the youth of this country. They are desiring and hungering and thirsting for leadership spiritually. They are rejecting so many of the lies of modernity and looking to get down to fundamental truths, to anchor themselves in things that last, and to shed the trappings of the one-liner narratives that their entire world has been built around.

However, one of the reasons why we started TPUSA Faith and my pastor, Rob McCoy, who you'll hear later from in this conference, is we saw a great failure of the American church during COVID. We saw the American church remain rather sheepish, kind of fall to biblically illiterate arguments saying that the church must be submissive to the government. Let's be very clear, saying that the church must be submissive to the government. Let's be very clear, everybody. You should never be submissive to tyranny. That is not biblical. It is nowhere in the scriptures. And so it was born out of that. And as I think we've made a lot of progress at TPUSA Faith to try to convict churches to speak out more boldly, to try to get more pastors more equipped and understanding

biblical citizenship and understanding the foundational roots of our country that are rooted in Christianity, which far too often we forget that we were founded as Christians in a Christian context and a free society will fail to continue to survive if Christianity does not survive, is that I look at what's happening on these college campuses and there is a revival waiting to happen in your communities, but the church is not ready to receive it. And let me tell you that these two things are currently incongruent. Now, if you guys are already doing the right thing, then this message will just be affirmation for what you're already doing. It will be me telling you good job and encouraging you.

But if you right now do not have dozens of young men showing up to your church every Sunday, then you're doing something wrong because they're there looking. And I say young men for a reason. Young men especially are gravitating towards the church, towards religion, towards conservatism in record numbers that is shocking people that study this

stuff for a living. One of the reasons why, and we don't have to overcomplicate or overthink it, young men are starting to go away from a political movement and a worldview that hates them. Not that hard. They're starting to go towards a political view and a worldview that says it's okay to be a man and that there is such a thing as a man. Not difficult, right? But hear me out. The number one thing I hear from young men on campuses, my local church is way, way, way too soft for me. They're not telling it like it is. Now I say this and I hope you guys understand with as much humility as I possibly can express. Because again, it's not Charlie Kirk that is drawing these crowds at University of Tennessee or 5,000 people at UGA. We got a single volunteer fan here.

Great. It's always good to hear from them. But it is the Lord moving. But I will say this, and I want you guys to reflect on it, is that how many people that are Christian ministries professionally that raise hundreds of millions of dollars can go to campuses and draw 5,000 kids on a five-day notice? Very few. And I'm going to tell you why, because we're spreading the gospel when you go to these campuses. It's not the only thing we do, but it's one of the things that we do, because everything

we do is rooted in biblical truth. Whether it's that God-created man and God man and god created women borders are biblical that markets are good and private property must be protected america is the greatest country ever to exist that we must defend israel and recognize its existence that life begins in conception all of it is rooted in scripture all of it is rooted in scripture but it's not not the only thing that we we don't only talk about jesus but everything points to jesus but the thing that draws the't only talk about Jesus, but everything points to Jesus. But the thing that draws the attention, and this is where the church is so off base right now. There's only one thing you remember what I say is that the young kids, they don't want you to kind of sanitize all this stuff for them.

They will come in flocks for you to say the blunt truth that you think is going to offend them. What you think is going to offend them. What you think is going to offend them will actually draw 10,000 more to your local church. What you think is going to repel them will actually say you're the only one that has the spine or use some other anatomy willing to say the thing that no one else is willing to say because everybody else is just walking around

on politically correct eggshells, including the church. The battle between good and evil seems to be escalating. It is easy to blame politicians, government, or poor leadership, but behind all of that is a spiritual battle. Pastor Alan Jackson's new book, Angels, Demons, and You, talk about the reality of this battle and the spiritual realm that exists around us. It has a real impact on us every day. As you read, you will discover that angels and demons are not imaginary. They actually exist.

You can find them playing a variety of roles throughout the Bible, and they're still influencing the world today. We don't need to be afraid, but we do need to be aware and prepared. Angels, Demons, and You provides valuable insight, practical tools, and biblical truth to help you recognize the spiritual battle around us and become a difference maker in our generation. Get your copy today at alanjackson.com slash angels. Hear from people whose faith directly impacts our culture on Pastor Alan's Culture and Christianity podcast. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. And so if you go to church and it ends up being a TED talk mixed with a rock concert with above average coffee and good organized parking, why should a 19 year old go wake up at 830 on a Sunday morning to go

to that? The food is better on campus. You can go hear a motivational speaker for free. It's all paid for. Instead, you're going to draw them into your churches. And this is the greatest revival. And the church seems uninterested right now to seize it. Say, you know what? Yes, you need Jesus. But do you know why? You see, the reason why it's not yet being translated into revival is that they say, of course, Jesus is your Savior.

But we're not connecting the dots. How do you know you need a Savior if you don't know what you're saved from? And you only know what you're saved from if you talk about sin. So we focus everything on the fact that someone's going to save you from drowning, yet we don't tell a generation that they're drowning. And they're so obviously drowning. It's the most suicidal generation in history, the most drug-addicted generation in history,

the most porn-addicted generation in history, but objectively, the most miserable generation in history, the most drug addicted generation in history, the most porn addicted generation in history, but objectively the most miserable generation in history. And yet we say, you're just perfect the way you are. They don't feel perfect the way they are. They're telling you that everything is not okay. They're telling you that something is wrong. And the message that Christianity gives you is, well, he gets you or whatever that commercial is, right? Everything's fine. No, that's actually not how you win young people over. You win them over being like, you know what? You know why you're miserable? Because you're not following God's laws and commands. That's why actually, and you'll never actually follow all of them. And that's why you need a savior. Because if you don't have a savior, then you're going to end up in a not very good place

and you won't end up being enough. Boom, mind blown. By the way, this is not like the Charlie Kirk thing. This is how the gospel was taught successfully for 2000 years and the last 40 years, we decided to hyper modernize it and it's been a failure, everybody. And that is the most important thing

is that we're living in a moment where we should be seeing a mass revival. Now, good news. Church attendance is ticking up a little bit. We've stemmed the curve a little bit. We're seeing a little increase in religiosity, nothing too noticeable, but the decline is thankfully plateaued. Praise God that we are not going the way of Europe.

Praise God. We're not going the way of a lot of the secular West, but it's not reason for over celebration. God is giving us a little bit of grace and mercy. If you look at, and I study these numbers every year when they come out, the New York Times tracks this stuff and the New York Times like begrudgingly had to publish, America's still kind of religious

and like 80% of people still believe in God. Like, okay, 65% of people go to church. You read this article, they're like begrudgingly going through the data. They still believe in this mystical celestial being. And, but, but despite all of that, and you go deeper into the data, what young people especially are screaming at is they say, give me a structure that I can live my life by. Give me a rubric that I can follow. Don't just affirm every bad decision I've ever made.

In fact, it's okay if you tell me I've messed up because you'll be the first person to tell me I've messed up in my life because my parents won't tell me that anymore. My professors tell me I'm the greatest person ever. In fact, the modern church has been led to believe this secular lie that what this church need, what the generation needs is a better pump up. You know, yeah, you're, you're enough and you can do it because we think since they're depressed,

they need to be pumped up more. It's, you know, it's kind of obvious, right? When in reality, they have everybody telling them the most narcissistic thing ever. You're the greatest. You're the most awesome. Take more pictures of yourself, more selfies, more Snapchats, more TikToks, more, more me, me, me, me, me. And all they do is they think about themselves all day long, right? And if you have anything wrong with you, you have to go claim mental health issues and go talk to a counselor, some of which are legitimate, some of which are obviously just

concocted by the environmental factors around them. And they get in this endless spiral loop when in reality, we have to do less affirmation. And especially with young men, more challenging of them, more saying, you know what? Honestly, I'm not going to talk down to you. Stop being a boy and become a man. You want to learn what that means? Come to church and I'll tell you what it means to become a man. Because we have the greatest story ever told of what it means to be a biblical man.

We could tell you exactly what that means, and we're not going to sugarcoat it or sanitize it because properly understood, the Bible is not a playtime book. The Bible is one, as of course all of you guys know, is one that teaches us at every moment of our life in the chapter that we are in with the struggle that we are currently encountering. And yet the predominant zeitgeist, if you go to most seminaries that can't draw a hundred kids on campus, if you go to most, some of these Christian conferences, all of these supposed experts are like, well, you know, Gen Z tends to be very pro LGBT. Can we just stop with this nonsense? Pro homosexual agenda. Okay. Can

we stop all this? They're very pro LGBTbt again stop using the acronyms of the left okay like oh they're very pro-environmental okay whatever so they say therefore we must then water down our approach to go meet this generation that is in favor of these things or we could say no we're never going to compromise on truth and we're going to win them over from the false deception that they're living like hello as evidenced by what we have seen over the last couple of months what we've seen the last couple of months again this is just a political example but i do want to say it's an amazing move of god the impossible was done where president donald trump did 13 points better with younger voters in a way that

no one ever thought was possible kamala harris did worse with baby boomers. Now, I understand, you know, it might not be, some of you guys don't want to applaud for that. It's fine. I get it. But it is a phenomenal movement when you see young people go in that direction in a way that you could never have expected. And so the modern myth is this, or the modern context is that the worst thing ever is that someone

will send you a nasty email saying that you offended them. We live under, or we used to live under, in fact, you only live under this, by the way, by choice. We largely live under the soft tyranny of the offended peoples. And every one of us are victim of this. The soft tyranny of the offended peoples. And every one of us are victim of this. The soft tyranny of the offended peoples are a hyper-minoritarian, loud vanguard that control our sermons. I'm not a pastor, but you know what I mean. That control our messages

and control our outward displays. That's that little voice in your head where you are crafting a sermon and you say, oh boy, Karen's going to be really mad about this one or whomever, Suzanne, whatever. Sorry. It's almost never Mark. It's just never. See, people didn't like that. It's almost, you know, I'm talking about the complaints and that's fine. And it's that angry word email. Oh my goodness. I thought that this was this kind of church and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then your answer should be simple. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. If you want to meet with me, I will lovingly tell you why I believe what I believe in the scripture say.

I want you to keep on attending my church. But if you are offended by something the Bible says is true, then I'm not going to dilute or weaken that stance. That I will not do. However, you are more than welcome to keep on showing up and receiving the word and listening to the worship music, all of that. And that's the difficulty is that the American church has largely been a victim of its own success. If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help.

That's why Alan Jackson Ministries, a friend of mine, created the Culture and Christianity podcast, the Culture and Christianity conference, and their weeknight news show, Alan Jackson Now. Millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week, I do, on radio, television, satellite, and online. In today's world, there's desperate need for truth, and Alan Jackson Ministries feels a sense of urgency to deliver God's truth and a biblical perspective to anyone who will listen. We can't afford to be complacent. Their mission is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ,

which is the most important thing, giving your life to the Lord, including here on The Charlie Kirk Show. Go to alanjackson.com slash charlie. That is alanjackson.com slash charlie to find recent podcasts, shows, and sermons. Be informed. Find encouragement. Hear the truth delivered in a way that just makes sense. You'll also find books, studies, prayers, and other tools to help you grow in your faith. Again, that's alanjackson.com slash charlie. alanjackson.com slash charlie. This is our time to make a difference. Check it out right now.

I can say this as an outsider insider, right? Because I do politics professionally. I do youth outreach. I do a podcast. And I do the church outreach as a professional thing, but it's not the only thing I do politics professionally. I do youth outreach. I do a podcast and I do the church outreach as a professional thing, but it's not the only thing I do. So I'm able to look at the church from an outside perspective, but also be in the inside. And the analysis is this, is as the church grew so popular and Christianity was the predominant

and still is, thankfully, but it's slipping as we know, view of the West is that we needed so many churches and we need so much infrastructure. So many people went into the ministry and as so many people went into the ministry far too many people went into the ministry that quite honestly were not ready for what happens when you have to say controversial stuff and when you have to by the way definitionally you cannot what they can't you cannot coexist you cannot be a pastor and avoid controversial things it's impossible if you think that is possible you are wrong you could go sell insurance which is honestly also controversial so i don't know what you want to go do okay but go find something less controversial but the temperament and this I want to try to meet those in the middle. The temperament of a lot of people that go into ministry are agreeable personalities.

So if you were to break the world into disagreeable and agreeable, now, would you say, is Charlie Kirk agreeable or disagreeable? Pretty disagreeable, right? I try to, if I have a problem with you, I'm going to say something. Matt Walsh, very disagreeable, right? Like the most disagreeable. He's awesome. We're going to hear from him in a second, right? Agreeable, by the way, just, and this is just an archetype. It's not true at every spectrum of the continuum, but the way God designed nature is that women tend to be more agreeable than men when it comes to conflict resolution. They are less likely to challenge authority, more likely to try to conform to societal norms and customs. Fine.

You could disagree with that. You could say, no, I'll fight tyranny like Esther. Great, fine. That's not the point. You're the exception, not the rule. It's a generalization, and it's generalization for a reason because it's generally true. The American church and the people that went into ministry

the last 40 years tend to be people that were agreeable when it came to conflict resolution. These are people that are phenomenal at the one-on-one type counseling and ministry. They are very good at helping heal a broken marriage. They'll spend the four hours till 1 a.m. of the guy that's dealing with substance abuse. And by all objective measurements and metrics, they're checking all the boxes of what it means to be a good pastor. However, when that agreeable person has to get up and do a sermon about, hey, we're going to go fight back against the Alpharetta City Council because they deemed our church non-essential, for the agreeable pastor, that is a very difficult thing to do. It is a temperament issue, meaning that it's just not really in their DNA to stand up to that kind of tyranny.

It's I thought I got into the ministry to love on people and to heal the sick and to have compassion. And that is true. And that's why I think we need to meet a lot of these pastors in the middle. And maybe some of you, I hope this is resonating with you, that the time right now for American Christianity, and the reason why we're seeing this refiner's fire, is that we are no longer in a peacetime Christianity. And I know that is a difficult message to hear, but I was raised in a peacetime Christianity. And the peacetime Christianity lended itself to a type of pastor that was more agreeable and more about the expansion of the non-controversial gospel.

But when you enter into a wartime Christianity, all of a sudden, the people are desiring and hungering a metaphorical general like Jensen Franklin that is willing to, of course, help the people that are in broken circumstances, but also call out orders for the Christian flock to be able to go forth and spread the gospel and spread truth in their community, in their home. So that's the tension right now, is right now the current composition of the American church is largely a peacetime force. And we are in a wartime moment. And we're seeing this tension where the peacetime force is like,

I didn't sign up for this. I thought I was just going to do John 3, 16 every Sunday. And then I'm going to retire and get a house in Destin. Like whatever. And they're like, stop it with all this politics. And in some ways we should criticize them, but you got to also love on them. Like they signed up for something that is completely different. And so the way we handle that will be different. Every one of your churches,

maybe it can be like, Hey, we're going to dedicate you to a different ministry bucket in the church. Maybe this is not for you. And I say this as lovingly as I possibly can, that those of you that are cut out for the wartime, boy, it is time for you to step up even more because you are needed more than ever. And I say this in the least judgmental way that I possibly can. I don't mean this in a judgmental way. Not everyone is cut out for the wartime stuff. Some people are sunshine soldiers and summer patriots. That's what the revolutionaries used to call the folks that used to go fight in the July and August. Yeah, the British are terrible.

But in January, all of a sudden, the army shrunk by half. When smallpox was spread and you had to go march with no shoes in Pennsylvania on January 25th, all of a sudden you realize what a revolutionary force is cut out of. And those Sunshine Patriots and those summer soldiers went home to their farms like, yeah, beat the British. Let me know how it goes. And we see that tension. So how do we take a peacetime force

into a wartime infantry? That, and of course, for all of my friends in the media, I'm talking metaphorically. I'm not talking about taking up arms. You guys my friends in the media, I'm talking metaphorically. I'm not talking about taking up arms. You guys know it's a spiritual battle I'm talking about here. I have to clarify for all of our wonderfully accurate friends at CNN that always quote me right on edge, right? And so here's my final call to action. The final thing I'll say is this, and then I'm going to welcome up my great friend, Lucas Miles. I've been doing this now, speaking at churches and learning for the last five years.

And the biggest issue that I have finally seen is the question of what is the church and what should the church as a place strictly and solely for food pantries and for marriage ministries and worship music. All good. But in a moment that we are in, and probably so this other church should always be, is that the church should be salt and light going into the community, changing the composition of the area around you, not just affirming the signs of the place of the times. What is the church is the most important thing. Christ told us what the church is. In ecclesia, to be in the public square, to be involved in the motion, to be involved in the laws and the customs and the community around you.

It is a Greek word that I understand that when Christ said on this rock, build my ecclesia, it could have used synagogue, it could have used temple, but it actually used a secular term where otherwise a religious term would have been perfectly sufficient. So you think about it, that Christ said on this rock build my church we only know this thanks to william tyndale who translated the bible back from uh the the original greek into uh new king new king james english and that word ecclesia it's it's it's a game changer because it wasn't a religious term because Christ, and this is not just, this is not exegetical. It is a fact of his repeated commandments to us

is that Christ did not want us to have a comfortable Christianity where we just kind of stay within our walls and we're very sanctimonious and prideful and saying, we have the truth. And if you want, maybe we'll invite you in. He wanted us to be expansionist. He wanted us to be influential. He wanted us to be expansionist. He wanted us to be influential.

He wanted us to be in every single domain. And you guys know this, is that if we want America to flourish and to prosper, the only way that will happen is if the church wakes up. If we make that conversion from a peacetime to the wartime, if we wake up the sleeping giant in this country, because our founding fathers warned us that the Constitution is only adequate for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the people of any other. I can win over as many possible kids

on college campuses as possible. We can make a lot of videos go viral, but it's all for nothing if the church remains a weak, feeble institution. I hope you guys will rise up and speak the truth. Thank you guys so much. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

Thanks so much for listening and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.