With The Perrys - Does the Church Need a Rebrand? A Conversation with Dr. Eric Mason

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘church’? There’s confusion and a lack of clarity about what it means to be a church, but today’s guest wants to re-present the fundamentals so that we’re more responsible with our witness.   Dr. Eric Mason is full of wisdom and he’s got a new book out September 30 called Rebranding the Church: Restoring the Image of God's People in the World. Dr. Mason says we’ve over-corrected in a lot of ways as Christians, going from “holier than thou” to “holiness don’t mean nothing.” We aren’t committed to maturing in our faith. We don’t have a sober-minded view of our own sin, of other people, or of Christian leadership. We’re driven by humanistic individualism, thinking we can do this life apart from the community. So let’s talk about getting back to the church God intended for us to be a part of.   Connect with Dr. Eric Mason: https://www.instagram.com/pastoremase/ | https://www.pastoremase.com/   Grab a copy of Rebranding the Church: Restoring the Image of God's People in the World: https://www.amazon.com/Rebranding-Church-Restoring-Image-People/dp/0593602110/   Scripture references: 1 Peter 4 Revelation 2 Ezra 7:10 1 Timothy 1:5 1 Corinthians 2:2 Acts 20:27 Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's good with y'all? How y'all feel? Fine. How you doing, babe? I'm all right. You sure you're all right? I'm positive. Okay. We got a special guest in the house. Past the Dr. Eric Mason, no strangers to With the Perry's podcast.

You've been on there more than anybody at this point. Oh, no. Only been on there once, right? Yeah, yeah. It's the third, fourth, five, six time? No, it's not. It's not. When you count before we, when you count when we did.

you on the computer when you count the seven day of Venice conversation when you count the last conversation about the church. It is four times. When you count this conversation, it's about four or five times. What does that mean then? We love you. Oh, man. Man, you got wisdom.

You do got a lot of wisdom, man. That means we got, I think there's a benefit to being able to have a conversation with somebody where you can have different conversations with the same person. It is. That says a lot about that person's depth. You do got a founder, wisdom. you're very wise guy. Y'all are good interviewers, though, y'all.

Y'all be symphonic with it. Sinfonic? Man, that's another thing you do. Yeah. He said, symphatic. Hey, man. He went to symphony. You know, I said, we got a, we got a show him with you mind.

So, man, not only do you have a mountain of wisdom, it was probably one of the reasons why you've written so many great books, and you have a new book called rebranding the church. Show the book. I'm trying to show, this is like a dummy copy, y'all. It's all over the, it's not going to look. like this, they send you before it goes to print. It's supposed to go to print this month.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to jump right into it. Why that phrase, rebranding the church. That's an interesting phrase when you think about rebranding the church. Why that phrase? Yeah, so the subtitle is basically representing the image of the people of God in the world. For me, rebranding isn't, like, redefining. It's not like a progressive ideology of ecclesiology or the church, right?

It's more so representing, but I like rebranding because everybody was talking about brand, this, brand, and I feel like it was a fairly relevant communication to this generation. And so I wanted to really represent the fundamentals of what the church should be doing in particular areas. Because there's a lot that needs to be rebranded, but I picked like 10 areas that I think were massively needed. And so that's why the first, you know, chapter, the first chapter is basically what do you think of when you hear the word church? You know, because I'm, and so my point is I don't like, like, I watch like different podcasts. Like, I don't watch whole podcasts. I watch more so snippets. And like, I don't, you all ever notice like when the name church or pastor or Christian comes up just it's not.

It ain't received well. It's not what you're saying. It's not giving, right? It ain't given it at all. Yeah, and so it's kind of like, I'm like, I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that our reputation doesn't demand respect.

I don't like that when Christian comes up, it doesn't, because I believe the reason why, it's a lot of reasons, but I believe people have expectations of Christians that they don't have any other faith, right? And which I think is a good thing. But, and so the call isn't. Jackie killed the flower.

her hand. And that was right there. I'm so sorry past her. She's a toothpick. It's right. It's like resurrecting. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. She said he's resurrected. Y'all got to keep that in there. There we go. That was she did to Mr. Miyagi. No, he was coming alive. He was. He was. All right.

I'm surprised he killed. That is great. That is. That is awesome. Being a hindrance. That was great. Bruce Lee. She was like, wow. Okay. Don't demand respect stuff like that. Yeah. So I think that representation matters. I just. just do. I don't, and what I'm talking about

is not perfection. I really want to be clear on that. Like we were talking about last night, I think that, I think that we've gone from holier than thou to holiness don't mean nothing.

You know what I'm saying? I felt like we, I was in still a couple of Christian podcasts and I just been like, why do y'all berate the church so much? And why do you exalt not being perfect as a standard?

And so it's kind of Like, man, what are we, what are we? I'm not trying to, this is not a, this is not a, I'm not trying to create a PR campaign for the church. That's, I don't want it to come off like that. But I do think that we have to be a lot more responsible with our witness. So really fundamentally, that's what the book is about. The book, I like, I have the same expectation Jesus has. I expect every believer, if you know Jesus, should at some point become a mature one.

Mm-hmm. Like, it, like, we should normally. normalize maturity. Yeah, that's good. You know, and I don't think maturity is really normal. It's kind of frustrating for me because I feel like we're so busy trying to relate to letting, disarming people from your judgmental, you're hypocritical, your holy and then thou. And we've gone, we swung the pendulum to the other side of the extreme.

Yeah. And so I think that even in everything, because I talk about the pulpit, you know, preaching and teaching. I talk about purpose. Talk about membership. Talk about rebranding Jesus. A lot of things. And I think that those were some systemic areas.

I just believe that were needed for this particular time. And now that Christian ideologies are more visual nowadays because of social media, we have to make clear some things. And I think that we have several lanes. You have the politicized Christianity, right? where you have, you know, the conservative Christians on this end basically believe being Republican is to be Christian. You have the other side that says if you vote for Trump, you don't care about the oppressed. You understand? So these vast extremes, basically your politics is a revelation of who you are,

theologically and ethically to other Christians, right? Which is crazy to me. We're basing a litmus test for somebody. They say you don't know them about their fruits, not their. political party. Yeah. You know, and so you have that.

And then you have the whole, the culture of just, the false teaching culture. That's just pervasive. The over, the over commitment to relevance at the expense of truth and character and not having your,

your bad speaking ill of. You know, so I just feel like there needs to be some, some energy given to simplicity, from a simple standpoint, point, what in the heck are we supposed to be? What are we supposed to be like? We're not talking about uniformity.

That's not what we're talking about. We're all different shapes, sizes, gifts, and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about unity. My goal is to help the church to have a unified vision of fundamentally, no matter if you're charismatic or reform, you know what, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, like, there's a, uniformity to what fruit bearing looks like. That's good. Yeah.

You know how, like, as authors, but also as, as. I think leaders, you come across things that burden you where there are some things that burden you and you pray. Yeah. There are some things that burden you and you address. Yeah. I guess what happened? What did you see or what was that moment where you started to feel burdened to address this? Yeah.

So my book that I wrote in 2018, I can't believe it's been seven years. I still want to say two years ago. I'm sorry. So I wrote Walk Church. When I wrote that book, well, before I wrote that book, I knew that there was a great schism going to happen between white and black Christians. I knew it. Soon Trayvon got killed, I knew it was going to be a schism. And, you know, Philando Castile, then the brother that got shot with a 12 gauge through his liver in South Carolina.

Yeah, yeah. Or was it Georgia. Well. Georgia, Georgia. And I began to, like one of the reason why you get out of Twitter was just the skit, like, I saw the nastiness of people who didn't understand Romans 12. Empathy, right? And so, but then that schism took people to vast extremes. So we've seen over the years people that different ones of us have had relationships with that in a reaction to white evangelicalism,

they abandoned the faith altogether. I mean, we know that white evangelical didn't do it, but fundamentally, it was a quasi-linchpin for them. Then we see people who have become super, I hate to use liberal, but decentralizing the Bible because of the over-bibalization of certain things that lacked empathy and ethics. Yeah.

And then you see, you know, this whole group of people where they just became hyper, political. Then you saw people wanting to get back into the black identity. And so I saw, I started seeing this fragmentation. And so I saw, I think I saw, as many others did, a lot of over-correcting. And those over-corrections didn't, didn't, in other words, we based our standard on what we didn't want to be. So it's like this. I tell, I tell men all the time, like when I tell men, I said, you have to, you know, when a guy tells me, I want to be a better father than my father ever was.

I said, you can't do that. Yeah. And they said, what you mean? I said, because if you say that Jesus isn't the standard or God, the father isn't, your father is the standard. So basically, you're just trying to reverse what your dad did when what your dad did or didn't do wasn't the standard. Yeah. And so when you make, you're always going to swing the pill on them real far because you're trying to stay away from something that traumatize you.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And then you end up missing out on so many other things. Absolutely. Because you're trying so hard not to be that. And the elements in there that probably was good. Yeah. It took me years to see the good things that my dad had done for me.

That's good. Because I over demonized him for the things that I felt traumatized by. But then I was like, hold on. He told me how to move like this, move like this. And then I sort of see, because when you can't have a healthy grid and know what's good and what's bad, that's, that's, if you don't have a healthy grid, you're not mature. Yeah. What I essentially hear you saying is that a lot of us have. a reactionary faith.

Absolutely. Like we, we respond to what we see instead of looking at crisis, the standard and it's the model. Absolutely. But that's really good. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that. So is that what burdens you to write this? That burdened me because I felt like we're all over the place. I just feel like, I feel like we're like everybody's like if you take, let's just take, um,

mega church viral, pastor, preacher, teacher, platforms online, they become representative of everybody. Like they don't know, oh, that's a modalist and this is a Trinitarianism, a Trinitarian. They just say, that's Christian. So I don't think non-Christians don't have the same, they don't have, they don't know that we're not monolithic. All they see is Christian, and whatever bad we do, they just lump it all in together.

Right? And so we said, why do y'all serve a white man's religion? He was like, what are you talking about? I'm in the black church. You know, we're not in that, why you got a white Jesus on your church? Well, I said, when have you been in my church and there's a white Jesus on the wall? Yeah. We don't even have any color of Jesus on the wall.

So, but it's this lumping in together. Y'all preachers, y'all Christians. And so when that began to happen, I said, and then this was the thing, though, Jackie, is I began to just see a lot of confusion, lack of discernment, and just, lack of clarity among believers because we live in a al-a-caut culture. We live in a culture where people say, I want this, I don't want that, I want a little bit of this, I want a lot of that. So when it comes to church, when it comes to my faith, I'm going to just pull out my

spiritual phone and just go into system settings, and I'm going to say what I want and don't want in my Christian life. I want my friends, but I don't want Christian community. You know what I'm saying? You know, I want preaching that lifts me up, not preaching that convicts me. Wow. I want preaching that doesn't tell me how to dress, how to eat, how to drink, how to whatever, just love me.

I want preaching that just talks about the wrath of God. You know, I was in the reform era, man, I didn't need a wrath of God enough. I'm like, what? You know, it's so gloomy at times, right? And I'm not dogging a reform cast, but I'm saying, you know, and I was like, what's the core tenets that no man? matter what hermeneutical framework and doctrinal tradition that you come from, there's more so open-handed versus close-handed. So I wanted to say, what is God's close-handed things that we all

should be moving? How should we be moving in a close-handed way? Like, I'm not arguing with you about can women be pastors. I'm not arguing with you about the feeling of the spirit and the gifts. Now, in my church, I'm going to teach a certain way. But I don't have time for non-essentials to be something I'm waving a flag about. That's good. And so I'm saying, let's focus on, not that there are important non-essentials, but we can't make non-essentials core to how we relate to one another. Yes, good.

And so because then you begin to say, you're not saved because you don't believe like this particular thing. Yeah. Or you're a misogynist because you don't allow women to this. It's like, what? Stop, stop, stop, stop. You know, and so I think that's what the problem is. So what's core to us?

What's core to how we should be a member? what's core to how we should represent Christ on our influencer platforms? What's core to how we should view gospel community? How should we view generosity? So because there's a bunch of people out there that, you know, that are money hungry, that are doing $1,000 lines, what that begins to do is it begins to corrode your view of giving as not an act of worship to God. the Bible says, honor the Lord with the first of your wealth.

Yeah. And so if you don't understand that, then you'll relate to the church like it's an investment. Like among black people, like you hear on these different podcasts, what is the, what is the church doing for the black community? We're investing our money in the black church and we're not getting anything back. And I'm like, I understand what you mean by that. But that is not a biblical understanding of giving. And so what you begin to do is you begin to choose a faith based on what they do for the community. And so then it's like that, like somebody could not preach the gospel and do a bunch of great things in the neighborhood.

And everybody bust hell wide open. Wow. That's good. You understand what I'm saying? You got a question. I got a quick question because you said a lot of good stuff and I asked so many questions in my mind. Because what I hear this book being, I hear this book being a lot of in-house, you know, correction and for the sake of unity, but also a lot of. lot of the things that we do in-house as far as being unified is a witness of the world,

right? And the Bible says that the way the world would know us is about the love that we have for one and one for another, right? And, but when you, when I think about how the world kind of perceives the church at time, you talked about the criticism, you know, you know, Christianity is a white man religion. But I do, I used to do a lot of evangelism. And one of the things that I realized when I talk to people in the world was a lot of the

criticism is, it's kind of unavoidable because people hate God. Yeah. Like, let's just be honest. It's not necessarily the church. The church is a scapegoat to say, I don't want God. And so it's easy to attack God's people at times and to say, I just don't want God. And so I think my question is, how can we help Christians discern what is which? When our witness is failing, opposed to, you know, like, no, the church is just, you're being gaslighted on this platform.

Yeah, that's good. Now, that's a very excellent question. First Peter four. He says, listen, if you're going to get persecuted, my gee, get persecuted for doing the right thing and being countercultural. That's good. You know, like, don't get, don't like play into carnality and that's why you're being persecuted. You know, and I think that we're persecuted today, not because of a commitment. to righteousness.

We're persecuted because we refuse to be a unified witness. How does one play into carnality in spaces like that? Yeah, I think, um, come on. Talk about it. How do I do this? Okay. So I'm listening to a podcast.

And the person has an addiction that's in the podcast. I'll just say that. And as the interviewer is interviewing the person as a Christian personality. and say if I came on here because I'm writing a book because I had a porn addiction or I just got a porn edition I'm working through it as a pastor, right? And y'all question me like, so how did the church treat you?

Not like it almost, the question is almost a, it's primed with deflection. Yeah. It's like primed with a lack of accountability. It's like, it's not. So in other words, it wasn't, man, how are you getting help?

how's the Lord ministering to you through it? How have you owned that and who's in your circle? Not that the whole time. And then the person just starts going off. Yeah, the church. And all they do is just, I can't, and I can't stand how the church does. And I'm sitting on there like, like, this is not good. And now, there is a time to challenge the church when it is not gracious to the repentant, Galatians 2.

Yeah. I mean, 6.1 or 6. Right. Restore someone with. gentleness, right? Because you may fall into the same thing. I'm down with that. But what I'm not down with is you acting like, is the church's fault that you're not

restored because you refuse to repent. And you, I hate when people frame people lovingly holding them accountable as being judgmental. Like asking me a hard question about my sin is, well, we all, you know, we all got issues. And it's like, see, that right there is not. rebranding that is saying, you know, I know we all have issues. I have my issue and I can't, I'm not judging anybody in this area. But what I want to do is I do want to say what I did was sin and I don't condone it.

And there were some times in the church where I felt thrown away. But then there were other people in the church where I felt some restorative relationships. That's good. So that's a different way of talking about it in a balanced way versus just playing with low-hanging fruit of the church being judgmental. I think it's corny. That's good. Yeah.

I took a class probably two years ago on ecclesiology, and it was a requirement, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Wow. I was more excited to do the systematics on Christology, on, you know what I'm saying, anthropology, stuff like that. And I'm like, I don't really want to spend all this time time about the church, you You know what I'm saying? But I, before any class I take, I pray and ask the Lord to help me to, you know, see him and stuff like that. So I don't get puffed up with knowledge. Anyway, the class was really transformative. One, because we were in a weird space at the church that we were in at the time where we were trying to just figure out our place and all the things. And I think sitting under someone for seven hours, for five days, walk through just doctrine of the church. I was like, oh, this is crazy. And it showed me how much we all are lacking just basic fundamental understanding of ecclesiology.

Absolutely. I don't even think we know that word. Absolutely. And so when you say rebranding the church, I think we need to define church. What does that mean? Yeah. So one of the things that's so important that I just keep telling my church over the church I pastor over and over and over again, I said, we have to rebrand what happened at salvation. because I think the only thing we talk about

is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but he also rebranded you having a personal relationship with God's people like we don't that's the part of the gospel that's unpreached reconciliation to one another

that's the part because you can't be a Christian and be out awful that's not even that's not even Christian like it's not Christian to not be with Christians. You know what? It's just not.

You know, and so, and I'm not talking about all your life is just, you know, you know, around Christians all the time. But I think when we talk about ecclesiology, the first step for ecclesiology is the doctrine of union with Christ. Like, if you don't understand union with Christ,

you don't understand that when you were united with Christ, you were also united with his people. Yeah. And that's where ecclesiology begins. It begins at the cross. Yeah. an altar call or a covenant or a sheet of paper. It begins when you are baptized into Christ's salvation.

And if we don't understand that's where it starts, then how do we, how do we, you know, my father in the ministry talks about in this book, it first was called What a Way to Live? Now it's called Kingdom Agenda. And he talks about sectors of government that God has given us. We have self-government. We have family government, community government.

You know, we got city government, all those different types of things, but he also says we have church government. And each level of government has responsibilities, and you're an officer on all of those levels of government. And so as a believer, you know, we're an officer in the church, whether we have an elder or a deacon or not. There's a role that we play that's a part of our Hupa Taso, our submission. The word Hupataso in a New Testament is a military term.

When we talk about submission, it means falling in line with your God or Dane Role where he assigned you in the kingdom. That's all submission means. Wow. And so when we look at stuff like that and we recognize, man, being a part of the church is that thing. But then we talk about, okay, what makes a church a church? Well, what makes a church a church is if a church is planted, all churches are a church

plant, right? If it's a viable outpost of God, a lampstand appears in heaven based on Revelation Chapter 2 means this light, long as this is lit, this church is. a legit spot for Christ's reign. Has to have leaders. Has to have worship, outreach, administration, fellowship, outreach, mission. Those things that

church discipline, right? Communion, baptism, evangelism. Those are the things that make a church of church. And those things should edification and all of the things. I'm going to interrupt you real quick because would you then

be saying that when people say, no, like when I'm at Starbucks with my friends, We are the church, so this is church. You're saying that's not church. That's not church. Because, like, people use Matthew 18, which says a two or three are gathered in my name, so I am in the midst.

That's not in the context of an official ecclesia. It's that's in the context of personal offenses. It's talking about when it says in 16, so whatever you're bound on earth will be, bound to have, whatever you lose on earth will be loose in heaven. That has to do with official church things. like baptism. When a person is baptized, they're loosed.

When a person is communean, that's a form of the... When you excommunicate somebody from the church, the hedge of protection, heaven has already done it. That's what Paul says, although absent in the body yet present, I have already delivered the ones over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh. First Corinthians 5. But when you go over to that passage where it's talking about personal offenses, if your brother offends you, go to them. if they don't repent, take another person or two.

If they don't repent, take it to the church. And if they don't respond to the church, then you release them. That's loosing someone, right? And so in other words, that's what that passage is about. But in other words, we are so driven by humanistic individualism that we just don't. And I understand that there are unhealthy churches out there. there have been bad experiences out there. But I don't give up on something because of a bad experience.

Yeah. Like, I don't give up on doctors because I don't, like, I had to get my blood taken a few months ago. And the person did terrible. They went fishing and it was terrible. I hate that. When they moved a little needle in your life. And then they went fishing. Then they say, oh, your vein collapsed.

We got to go again. That fool went right here. I don't know if you ever got shot. You ever got one in your hand? I got one in my disfew. Oh, it's terrible. It's like Chinese water torture Yeah, I was dehydrated one time

They couldn't find a vein They had to stick your hand Yeah man Yeah man, it's terrible And so But you didn't give up on all doctors Because you gave up on all doctors Because of that

If you had a bad If you had a bad Church is the only thing People just give up on easily Yeah, I used to tell people All the time You know It was a clip

One of my band I said man It's fake people all in the club And you can be in dancing with them But it's like As soon as you experience fake people In the church

You want to be dealt with the church But you know You're gonna deal with people in every aspect and every, you know, expect of life, you know what I mean? But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In your book, you talk about how we all need to be very clear about who Jesus is.

I mean, that would seem like a no-brainer because it's like I would think to be a Christian is to know Christ. Right? But why do you think that that's a necessary thing to even say if it seems so obvious? Because, I mean, you ask the average. We got to stop asking people questions that center on what they think about it. For instance, what does Jesus mean to you? Who cares? In my heart.

Absolutely. He's my savior, my friend. And I understand what they mean by that. Yeah. But before you can say what he means to you, you got to say who he is. Who is he? I mean, like, like I was talking, I was talking, I had to preach. and my father ministry church Sunday.

I was telling a story about I ministering to this Muslim. And we went out for breakfast a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. And, um. You got bacon? Huh? You got some bacon? I made sure I didn't have any pork. I told him like, he was laughing.

So they got turkey sauces. Good. And, and so. You're stupid. She's right, though. If meat offends my brother, I'll never eat meat again. Correct. Right.

So I'm talking to him. I said, what is like, your hang up with? Yeshua. And he said, I just don't believe he's God. I believe he's the Mahdi, which means Messiah, Issa, I believe Issa, you know, did miracles. I believe he's born of a virgin. I just do not believe that he's God. And I was like, cool, why you don't believe he's God? Because the Quran says this, I said, well, you know the Quran tells you to listen to the Gospels and the Torah. the NGEL and the Torah, the NGEL is the gospel.

And I said, do we have the NGEL? Yes, we do have the NGEL because the manuscripts were available at that time that we use now for transmission when Muhammad was writing the Quran or reciting the Quran or got, quote, revelation of the Quran. So I'm walking through all of that. So I get to it and I say, and it tells you if correct, the Quran tells Muslim, to correct their understanding of theology based on the Torah and the Gospels. Literally says that in there. And so I take him over and I walk him through like a couple of passages and he's like, I never knew this.

I never saw this. And so it moved him, the pendulum along a bit in our conversation about Jesus. I think that we are, we just, Jesus is only like, particularly those of us who come from an oppressed past because of. We tend to see him as a way out of no way, you know, which is nothing wrong with that. We tend to see him more from a rescue standpoint. You understand what I'm saying? And then on the other side, you know, he's a redeemer from shame of personal sin.

It's very personal. But black people, we're more communal in our understanding of Jesus versus individualistic. Yeah. Which that's changing now. And so when we talk about rebranding Jesus, we're talking about, I love, you know, show Barack a song, maybe both. He breaks it down, like, so beautiful in there when he talks, you know,

he just walks through, you know, maybe, are there really two Christ? Or is it one and he's really complicated? I love that line because it's like, people try, you know, one of the things I talk about in the chapter is we have a reductionist view of Christ. So we tend to say,

so Umar wants the revolutionary, right? You understand what I'm saying? Um, you know, Umar and, you know, uh, uh, Farrakhan and everybody likes the one turning over tables in the temple, right? You know, but then other people, you know, certain streams of Christianity just wants the one who forgave the woman, you know, dealt with the one with caught in adultery.

And so, but he's all, he's lying and lamb. And so I believe that really rebranding Jesus is having a more healthy Christology. And I just think that, and this goes into a lot of what I believe needs to have. I believe we are in a famine of the fundamentals. Yeah. I just think that I think that, like, I've been, I'm a cook. I'm not a chef. Because I love to cook.

So every now and then I'll learn tricks. So the other day I was like, I wanted to blacken some fish. And I put oil in the pan in a nonstick pan. But this chef said one of the sciences of cooking is in a nonstick pan. If you want to blacken it right, you don't put oil in it. you just put it directly in it after you season it. And so it was like little things. You know, we was talking about, you know, smoking, you know,

smoking meat. Smoking meat. And so. You let me know why I ruin my ribs on 4th of July. Why it tastes like ham? You didn't have to say that. Continue. Just take hamish.

No, I'm saying. You didn't have to say that, though. Edit it out. Continue. Yeah. And so it's like an art in science to cooking. And that's the same way it is with the faith. when you learn

when you learn certain things about Christ and his nature or the nature of what God is like that's good when somebody says something you kind of just go on your roller decks

of who he is and you're like no yeah I don't know if he's into that that's why I love Christianity because it is central to one man's life absolutely all of these things

like if you take away all of these you know particular people or whatever from these different religions you still have a certain foundation built on a certain sect of teaching. You take away Jesus away from Christianity. You no longer have anything. So what's funny about that, right?

So people will say stuff like, where did Christians get out confronting other Christians, right? Hmm. And you're like, Jesus didn't do that. He did. Somebody said that? Yes. Oh. And I'm like, what?

I'm like, I mean, he came out. I think we would be making that stuff. What do you say? I think people just make up things. I just be like, that's what I'm saying. People think of Jesus has got this hippie that walked around and just kind of, oh, look at you. Come here, baby, healing to you. Oh, it's giving brokenness.

Let me heal you again. It's giving brokenness. You know what I'm saying? It's not like this God is walking around that's a masculine man who's filled with the fullness of God who's fully compassionate. He was wise. Wise, patient. he spends an entire chapter um

woeing the Pharisees in Matthew 23 you know what I'm saying you know um let the dead go bury the dead you know they don't know they only know they don't know the Nicodemus you know his engagement like it's so expansive if we would just if we would just say I'm going to read the gospels

for the next six months and all I want to do is do observations on Jesus's character and what he was like in the incarnation. That's good. Can you imagine just how did Jesus deal with this person? Did he speak softly here? He did it. And I think if you just begin to just get in the scriptures about who Jesus is,

then you'll begin to have a lot of, you have a more balanced understanding of Christ and of the faith. Wow. What came to my mind while you were talking was Ezra. And how in chapter 7. First 10. Verse 10, it said for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Because this must be cyclical or common where God has to raise up men and women who will just get to doing the thing, like studying the stuff and teaching it to the people.

But which begs the question of, I guess when it comes to leadership in the church, I don't necessarily want to be critical. but I do think we should speak to even rebranding of church leadership. Absolutely. Because to me it would mean that even the lack of discipleship in the church emphasizes a lack of teaching in the church, a lack of instruction in the church, like teaching. Like to me as a leader, if you don't care about the fundamentals, you're not going to teach the fundamentals. So I guess just speak to that. Let me tell you what all starts, period.

Rebranding leadership in the church starts with... standards and appointment, bottom line. I give me an example. It's an old church. I won't name a church. They asked me to consult them. Old historic black church. They asked me to consult them on getting their next pastor.

And so my first question before I opened up my presentation, I said, after I prayed, I said, give me a history of your pastors. and then after that I said, what do you look for in a pastor? Because they was the search committee, right? And they said, we look for strong leadership and strong preaching. I said, cool. Anything else?

That's pretty much the key things we look for. So I said, let's pray. And we pray. Definitely pray. And then I opened up First Timothy chapter three. And I just began to work. walk with it, walk through it. And I said notice that qualifications for leadership doesn't start with competency, it starts

with character. He must be Mias Ghanikas Andros, the husband of one wife, his reputation in the community, managing his household well. That's what it starts with. I said, how many of you have done not. degree checks, competency checks, have you done

character checks? Do you interview his wife? Do you have a therapist that does a session with them to do a quick assessment of the state of their marriage? We've never even thought of that. Have you asked them,

is he addicted to porn? Has he ever... Have you asked, I'm not trying to be... But I said, you need to know, like a lot of times, you all find out later what you're getting. And so... And so for me, a lot of times, a lot of, I mean, I'm telling you, I know that there are very few character evaluations.

Like, were you disciples? Even in your process, even in some search committee processes, don't know where they are theoretically. Like a lot of things, and they don't have theological standards. And so it's just a lot. And so when we talk about rebranding leaders, you know, one of the things my team always asked me, you know, pastor, we need more leaders. I said, well, make disciples. Said leadership comes out of discipleship.

And so you'll know who needs to be a leader when you disciple to people. And so I think that starting, I think leadership rebranding starts with us getting back to an intrinsic discipleship culture as primary in the church. Because, you know, and I hate to use white church, black church, you know, charismatic versus conservative kind of things. but there are certain things that are valued in all those traditions that don't necessarily give play to disciples being made. Like in a hypercharismatic arena, discipleship is laying on the hands and you get up and God just, it's like the matrix. He put the thing in the back of your head. I know kung fu now.

I know jujitsu. Or school of prophets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like that. Whereas on the conservative side, if they know the doctrine, they're mature. Yeah, wow. You understand what I'm saying? And so we have to have to have a better outlook on this.

Because it really starts with a disciple making culture. And as that disciple making culture goes good, when someone says I'm called a minister, I feel I call the leadership, you put them in a leadership process, they're already disciples. But it's so many pastors that are in need of discipleship because their competency compensated for their character.

I want to ask one more Not one more thing But this thing Okay go go back And then I'm a stop talking It's okay Because We are leaders

We're not in a leadership position In the church But we have been And I know we have a lot of people Listening to us Who might be gifted with leadership Called into leadership at some point And they have character

But they're being pruned And they know The Lord is trying to mature their character to a certain degree. Like, I guess what is your encouragement? Because it's like, character is something that has to be cultivated. Absolutely. And so even when we say that's a requirement, how do you develop character?

Yeah, so one of the things that I think is very important is character development. Growth is not your responsibility. Say what? Spiritual growth is not your responsibility. No flower grows itself. That's why every illustration of spiritual growth usually in the Bible is agricultural. My legalistic heart disagrees. Now listen, now listen.

Hit keyword legalistic heart. What is your responsibility is going to the outlets that help you grow. God, the Bible said God adds growth. That's not just for sociology. That's for sanctification. So God, like, because somebody can read, read, read, read, read, read and never grow spiritually. You know, so God, like, you got to understand that he who began a good work, he's, he's working, he's, he works all things. He has, he gives you trials.

You understand? He, he lets money get thin. You understand? He lets relationships break. You know, his, his whole, you know, the whole passive and God's passive will in your life is a, a huge way he, you know, sanctifies you. And then it's getting in the word, getting in prayer, community. I'd say also one of the things that lost discipline, this is a whole other podcast. The lost spiritual discipline is enjoyment. We would need less counseling if we applied

the, and I'm not saying, don't go to counseling, but enjoyment is a spiritual discipline. I was telling me, President, I was one of the first things God said, and he said, freely you may eat. I said, that is a declaration of enjoyment. I said, then you go over to the idea of abundant life in John 1010. That's about enjoyment. You know, it says, you know, First Timothy chapter 4, all foods have been given to be enjoyed by those who believe and know the truth. First Corinthians, first Timothy chapter 6, enjoyment. Are those who are rich according to this world, be generous, but enjoy it.

Like enjoyment, like God's saying and it was good was him enjoying creation. And he gives us an invitation into enjoyment. And so I think that when you're able to. because listen, enjoyment helps you be more thankful. Enjoyment helps you not to be entitled. Enjoyment lets you know you didn't create nothing. You know, it's just so many things. So you got enjoyment.

You got all of these different pieces of these disciplines and those things where community grows you. God sovereignly putting you around the people you need to be in relationship with and all of the friction and messiness. Listen, let me just say this. Community is messy. It is. Let me say that again.

Being in relationship with human beings that are in a sanctification process is messy. Have you ever seen a fish processing factory? A meat processing factory? It is a mess to get to the good stuff. I'm just, and to believe it, you have to go, we have to set the expectation that you are going to get hurt here. Somehow somebody's going to hurt you. Somebody's going to offend you. but you do not have the right.

That's why we have the Ministry of Reconciliation. You don't have the right. But now there's some people that because they refuse to repent, you got to remove them until they come to repentance. But in a normal situation, like there is going to be friction if there are human beings present. If you are expecting kumbaya,

that's another thing we need to rebrand. We got to rebrand our relationship to trauma. We got to rebrand our relationship. Like, we got a, because I'm sick of people calling everything trauma. I'm like, no, that's life. That's a relationship with humans. It's relationship with humans. That's good.

You know what I'm saying? Like, when you get married. You're like the dad that's like, be quiet. Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? Like, even in marriage, even a marriage. Like, if you looking for that person to make you happy, you're in trouble. Yeah.

Trouble. Trouble. You're in trouble. Like, when people's, like, when people's, like, I got a guilty pleasure. I watch country waneskits. I got scared of what I said. I thought he was supposed to say you watch that.

What's that show? The love something? Love and hip-hop or something? Love highly. Yeah, I got scared. I don't know what that is. Good. So I don't watch all the other ones.

But this guy on there, Anthony, he's got a baby mama. And so he's married, whatever. So he's like, when I come over here, I need you to be my peasant. peace. That language is scary to me. Yeah. I know a prince.

Now, come on. It's not a peace. Now, I want peaceful relationships. Now, I want peaceful relationships, but I can't expect people to be my peace. And if you come into relationships and the church, you got to rebrand danger peace. They're called to be peacemakers.

Wow. That's good. that's totally different. And if you, but then you got to see yourself as a culture creator, as a Christian, too, and not put everything on everybody else to be Christian. If you're a Christian, your responsibility is to be a culture creator yourself. That means you got to love people. That means you got to share the gospel.

That means you got to restore the broken. That means you got to hold people accountable. You can't come to, and at some point, you got to help Christ be formed to somebody else. Like, I'm sick of, like this whole consumeristic, me, me, me, me, me, me, what I get, I like the preaching, I like the worship, I like the children's ministry. I'm like, okay, what about you liking to be something for somebody else? Employ your gifts and serving one another. And so I think that rebranding our relationship with the church, one of my favorite verses on

that is Acts 242, which says, and they devoted themselves to their positive teacher. When people hear that, they think more so they were sitting and listening and understanding it. Devotion is application of what they heard. Yeah. You know, and so I think, you know, because always, I always say this, information without transformation leads to constipation. It just, without application, you do it. Information with application leads to transformation.

And it's so important for us to want to do something about things. When I talk about rebranding, I'm talking about, I'm walking in an expectation that every Christian is wanting to be serious about God, wanting to press towards the goal of the market, a high call of God in Christ of Jesus. Not that I've gotten there yet, but I strain the Greek word is. And so I would just love to see a litany of people

that we normalize. We're walking towards holiness. We're not perfect, but we're not playing the I'm not perfect card, even though we're not perfect, but we're utilizing it as a way to lock arms upon another so that when we fall, we experience grace, we experience challenge,

we experience accountability, but we also experience encouragement. Like if we can just rebrand up, I was locking arms. And I was talking, I don't know who I was talking to. I said, I said, one of the things that we don't realize, when God, when the Bible calls God the Lord of Host, who do most people think it's talking about? When they call the Lord of Host, it means the Lord of Armies. Who's in his army?

That usually in those passages in our mind. I think because I know what it means. I don't know what people think it means. Yeah, I don't know. It's the angels and stuff, right? Demons. Yeah, angels, the Lord of hosts. The Lord of Armists.

there are multiple armies. We're his earthly army. We are a part of being under, we are part of his host. We'll eventually become heavenly hosts when we're with him. Which is, one of your,

with three Ws, it's so important for believers. We're witnesses, we're worshippers, and we're warriors. That's good. We're witnesses and that we talk about Jesus. We're worshippers, we show Jesus.

We, we, are warriors we fight for Jesus. That's good. Period. That's good. You understand? And so we don't understand our identity. Your identity is entrepreneurialism.

Your identity isn't getting a husband or wife. That's not your identity. Yeah, that's good. Those are just assignments to placate your identity through. That's good. Yeah. I had a question. I hope I can, yeah.

Remember how we wanted to phrase you, but... I'm sorry. No, that's not your fault, but... I wanted to go back to read, branding leadership. Yeah. You know, because realistically, all the things that you said, I think that's how the Bible wants us to look at leadership or whatever.

But realistically, the way leadership is looked at nowadays is different because of the age of social media. You're right. Right. The way we look at leaders, a lot of times, is shaped by our favorite pastor influencer and stuff like that. And I think it can be a lot of pros and a lot of cons to looking at the global church through the lens of social media.

but how does one gauge if they're looking too much at spiritual influences online and getting their framework of how leadership should be the voices that they should listen to

and how do we encourage because I think the way we do what you used to do is to encourage people to be in a local church body and I think God when we see the scriptures God kind of encourages us

like Paul was not encouraging Timothy to worry about the church in Philippa. He was telling him to worry about Ephesus. And so now with the age of social media, it's such a big global phenomenon. You know what I mean? And church influences are, church passes are, you know,

criticized for online. So how do we encourage people to like listen to their local leadership and build their local communities first before listening to outside voices? Yeah, one of the things that I think is, like, and I'm going to keep harping on this. I just think that

believers there are a lot of good passes out there, great passes out there. I believe that believers need to learn how to be discerning because when you're discerning, you're impressed

with the right stuff. Like, at the end of the day, like, you know, I like me, hear me some hooping and I ride the loan. I like all that, you know. And, you know, the And look at her.

She's about to go to church. And I like that. And I like, you know, you got the spectrum. You got the Tim Keller mind all the way to, you know, Jasper Williams teaching hoopology on this end, you know, in the sense of the skill level of communication. And when you're, and it's nothing wrong with either one of those. When God highlights a person that I believe like a Philip or,

or somebody that God gives them a platform beyond their church. One of the things I think people should be careful of is judging their pastor off of the image of somebody online and then say, hey, we're in script because that dude got, he got a pastor that church. Yeah. The stuff's just showing online. He got to deal with whatever issues in that church.

He's not your pastor. Yeah. He's not your pastor. He's not giving an account for your soul. Yeah. He not. He not. That's what the Bible says,

shepherd the flock among you, First Timothy 5, 1st, 5, 1 through 2. And then it says, you'll give an account. They'll give an account for your soul. And it's funny. It even teaches proximity in Hebrews 13. It says, listen, submit to your leaders and help them to do it without being just tired of you. That's my translation.

You know what I'm saying? And so in bringing your question home, I think that people need to be impressed with pastoral proximity. I just think that that's, I don't like when I feel like, because I know I have a little platform. I don't like when I feel like somebody's more impressed with me through a podcast or through people than they are their own local pastor who's doing their pre-metal counseling, who's shepherding them through hard times. And I said, you know, that's a, that's a thing that I really believe we need to be rebrand. And I think a lot of mature Christians, I've heard Christians say, I'm not really into the whole dot-a-d-d-d-other thing. I like a simple church that has simple community, simple outreach, available elders who just shepherd the flock.

Yeah. There's no, there's no frills about it. Because as a past, I can tell you right now, I'm sick of doing things to keep believers attention. Yeah. not non-Christians. Like, in church, they say, you have to have children's ministry like this in order for people to come to your church. You have to have, and I was like, and I remember I was sitting in a room with my staff, one staff meeting. And I was like, I'm sick of playing to baby pamper soft people who don't want to pick up a goddamn cross.

this is the most non-cross picking up people I'm just like I'm like for me I'm like we have to demand we can't create everything in the environment to be perfect for somebody to want to be committed to coming it just doesn't

that's not even the gospel you understand so I'm in Africa these folk you know and it's not even in the bush we're talking about to bite my entire arm off they're wanting and I say man we are so in time And so one of the things that I see, but I do see, but I do see on the upswing, as I see some people, that's why I've been using this term remnant, where I've been seeing just a remnant of just Christians that are like, I need more. Like I feel like even in my congregation, I'm just seeing people are just so hungry now.

They're babes. They're trying to work through their discernment. But they're like, Pastor, I need more. And I believe that's a work of the Lord. Yeah. That there's a, there's like even with people that follow you guys' platform, if they grow spiritually enough through their local church

and engaging you guys and in their own engagement in their own spiritual life, they'll know the difference at some point between you all and some mess. And the goal is,

the goal is for people to get to the point where they know better. Yeah. Like when we talk about rebranded church, we're talking about knowing better. So when we talk about

rebranding church leadership, and that's like a whole big conversation. And I think the brand of leadership should be more, shouldn't social media, even though it's, it's saturated with preaching. It's not saturated with leadership.

So leadership is only something you can be impacted by in proximity. Yeah. And so I just believe that people need to, like we've defined in other podcasts, what a healthy church is, what a solid church looks like, you find that church and lock in. And I'm not saying church has to be boring, but I just don't like that we got to do too much

to keep people's attention. Yeah, I think that's a great answer. And one of the reasons why I asked that is because I do think that the age of social media is disciplining a generation to not be able to look at fruit properly. And we're going back into our local communities and we're judging our local communities based on these 30-second snapshots we're seeing on social media, and it's just not fair.

Like when the Bible tells us, you know, we don't know a good tree about the fruit that produce, if you're judging an apple tree from 18 miles away, you're not going to judge it properly. And proximity is very, you know, very important. I've even had young dudes, not even in the sense of leadership in the church, but leadership in their home. I start disciplining them, start walking with them. And the first thing they want to do is criticize their wife because the relationship they think I got with my wife. I want my wife to be like Jackie. It's like, you don't know Jackie.

You don't. It's like, you, it's like, no, I have a, he is grace for me. I have a great wife, you know what I mean? But at the same time, it's like, stop looking at my life on social media, engage and thinking, like, stop having these parasocial relationships. That's so. When you're on. Word alert.

When you're online and engaging your church based on what you see. You know what I mean? I just think it's dangerous. and I think that we really have to start developing, disciplining. I think that we need to develop social media etiquette. Like we need to teach young believers how to properly engage with social media.

Don't come in here trying to make the church be what you've kind of formulated in your mind because you're scrolling all night looking at your favorite influences. No, like honor the church community, your local church community for what it is. Let me ask you all this. So I've talked with y'all over the years about your as a relationship with Legacy Church, right?

And how would you all say, and this is on a very positive note, by the way. Yeah. I feel like the stuff I see in y'all is deeply shaped by... Deeply. Yeah. The discipleship, the community, the teaching, and the need to be a real freaking Christian.

Yes. Like, what, from this conversation, Like, what did, from this perspective, what did that experience at Legacy Church give you all that made you the type of disciples you are and the way you think through Christianity in the church based on it being, y'all were in obscurity. And even when y'all got notoriety,

they didn't care none about that. So talk to me about that because I think that's an important framework for our conversation. For me, I'll start. For me to be pastored under Brian Dye, A man who started this huge conference, but never wanted any glory. You know, I've always saw him, you know, run away from, like, attention in that way.

So I was disciple under that. But also, too, you know, when we, our platforms started to grow in Chicago, started with spoken word poetry. I mean, we was doing 44 city tours in the fall doing poetry. And Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we was on a row. and then we flew back home, you know, every week. And every Monday, I was sitting down doing heart checks with him. So it was true accountability. I know you're on a road with your wife, but are you loving your wife?

I know you're doing ministry with your wife, but are you serving your wife? Are you all dating? You know, are you loving community? Are you checking in with the guys back home that you're disciplining? Do they feel abandoned? You know what I'm saying? Are you dealing with pride? You know, where's your heart at?

What you're reading in the scriptures? Yeah. And so, one, I think it was good for me because, I saw how easy it can be for a public minister to start depending on the people outside that don't know them to confirm their Christianity. It's like they can't confirm where you are in the Lord just because people saying amen to you. It's like people in your local community. And so for me, the local church in that aspect was just really good.

And then we grew up with them. And so our faith and our platform began to grow. But as it began to grow, we were still president jacking. Yeah. You know. And so for me, it was just, it was transformation. I think Legacy taught me a lot. One, I think, similar to what Preston is saying,

I wasn't just a member of a church. I was also being pastored by our pastor. And a lot of that was because I went to Legacy, but I also worked at Grip Outreach for Youth. And Brian was my boss. And Monday, we would have to have these one-on-one meetings where he would track my progress throughout the week related to my different tasks.

But he would turn that into a house your heart How are you in Preston? Da da da da da da. And it's like when you got to meet with your pastor every week, it kind of already trains you to live and be and expect a certain kind of accountability and stuff like that. On top of that, legacy was a house church. So we didn't have a ton of resources. Therefore, we didn't have a ton of expectations. It's just we're in a living room with 15 people.

We come. We're going to make breakfast. We're going to eat together. ain't no child care, all our kids just running around, da-da-da-da-da. You got people from the neighborhood that's coming in. They can't even read. So you got to actually teach them to read before you can even teach them how to read scripture. Stuff like that.

So I think that lowered this understanding. None of these people know a lot of the preachers and teachers. They knew scripture, but they weren't good communicators. So you also got to humble yourself when they come to listening every Sunday to somebody that's walking through that text, but born as a mug. You know what I'm saying? So, and I remember coming to church on Sundays and dealing with depression or dealing with this. But again, because it's so small, you can't hide.

Jackie was wrong. You cool. You straight? Like, everybody is catching everybody's needs. And so it was an actual community. So I think being taken out of that and placed in Atlanta and doing this podcast, every, all of that is always coming through. The accountability, the community, the, the humility, like, all of it.

So I think without legacy, truly, we would be different people. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. How do y'all, like this is, I feel like I'm interviewing y'all now. But how would you all encourage the average believer to rebrand their expectations? Oh, when it comes to the church? When it comes to the church, yes.

Because I think what y'all just said, lack the frills, but it had the, it made disciples. Yeah. I mean, the main thing got done. Yeah. Without a lot of stuff. Yeah. Like, what would you all, particularly in a sensory generation of people who have a lot of attention expectations. What would you all's encouragement to them be in rebranding the expectations of the church?

Yeah. I think one thing that Legacy Church showed me is the church is truly a family. Mm-hmm. And how much I did not look at the church as a family. And I think when you look at today's Christian, especially with social media, we go, we engage with the Christian community as a way, what can this thing, what can this pass to give me? Yeah. How can this influence support to me? How can this church serve me?

And we don't look at the body of Christ. Like a family. And when you look at people like family, you don't really all, you don't think about yourself only all the time. Yeah. You think about fellowship. You think about communion. You think about labs. You think about crying.

You think about all of these things together that makes you a family. And I do think that people, especially this generation, really have to look at the church like a safe haven, like a family, you know. And I think also, too, I know we kind of beat a dead horse when it comes to discipleship with true discipleship. Like you have to be built, like built up in your faith, not with just theology but character. Absolutely. Like you have to develop good character if you are going to be a faithful witness in the world. You just can't know. Because with so many podcasts, with so many different influences, I mean, Instagram and TikTok is just filled with just clip after clip, out of the clip, out of the clip, out of the clip, out of the clip.

And you just loading your mind with all of this spiritual information. But if your character is not building, you're going to go out in the world thinking that you're a mature Christian when you really ain't. And so that's what another thing that, you know, our first church did, like everybody had disciples over them, everybody. And but also we was holistically being discipleed as a church with proper theology. We had to do hermeneutist courses every week, you know. And so like I think just being a family and also character ability is key. And so much to say. I was sitting here trying to synthesize it in my head. I think, because your question was about entitlement, right?

Yeah, basically, how would you encourage? people to rebranded expectations of the church? One, I just, I think our greatest expectation is the Lord wants me to look like his son. Yeah. And his son was a servant. And so I think we, we move about the world and we move about the church, not like servants, but like kings. And I think that's a part of the problem. I also think that the higher your expectations are, especially when they're undue, I think

undue expectations increase the amount of disappointment. Absolutely. Wow. And so I think, I'm not saying lower your expectations, but moderate them. Have a sober minded view of people, have a sober minded view of leadership. I think the Lord has allowed us to always be in close proximity to all of our leaders. So we just understand their humanity, their capacity. And so we just don't put these unnecessarily, unnecessary expectations. And I just think read the scriptures. I think really read through acts and not just reading through acts looking at the miracles

but looking at the community. Reading through 1st Corinthians or particularly 2nd Corinthians are really like convicted and challenged by how Paul continues to push through his suffering to love other people but how he is often comforted through other people.

Read through Ephesians and the pure spiritual aspect of being united with each other and the warfare that like the warfew It's not purely just that you open in the door because you wore some waste beads. The warfare is coming against the unity that Christ died for. And so I just think getting the scriptures, humble yourself, look like Jesus, and I think it had changed the way we show up.

Yeah. And I'll say one one thing, too. I think that we also have to have a proper view of our own sin and a realistic expectation of how much our sin affects the church. Because a lot of times, you have people on two sides of the extreme. We have people who are hurt by the church and complain about the church. You have people who are super critical. And I think it's because they don't have a realistic expectation about their own sin.

And the truth is, you know, we heard the church nine times for the church for us once. And so we are also a part of the church that we are condemning or talking about. Yeah. And if we have a proper view of our own mess, I think it allows us to show up graciously in the church. And I think it just helps the health of the church holistically when we can assess our own hearts and our own sin. That's real good because I wonder how do we disciple people or develop a culture in the church where in everything we do we keep score like God does? Like I wonder how do you like are you thinking how God scores that or are you thinking like how you would score that? Because a natural promotion in man's eyes could be a spiritual demotion in God's eyes.

That's good. And so, you know, so how do you, what are your metrics? What's your metrics for community? Right? What are expectations? What expectations should other Christians who are in proximity with one another have for one another? What are your metrics for preaching? Like what, in teaching?

What, what is, how does God keep score or preaching? He says, with the goal of our instruction, there's love for and pure heart and sincere faith and a clear conscience. You know, I consider myself to know nothing among you, but Christ and them crucified. You know, I didn't shrink back from preach. presenting to you the whole council of God. It's the way my editors going to need a whole bibliography of scriptures

to put up on the screen for you, but go here. Yeah, because it's like, and so all of those areas, what is, even more of the felt need place, how does God keep score in a man and a woman courting? How does God keep score

for you as a single in the single, without any spouse insight, what's God's metrics for you? That's good. And are you building your metrics on other people's expectations or gods? Like the more you align your expectations with God's expectations, you don't really, you'll begin for stuff that not phase you the same way. Particularly when you're abiding in him and it begins to become a part of the matrix of you. I remember it's a young lady that is like a gift.

I don't want to cry talking about it. She's just a gift to us. She's like 43, beautiful young lady. She serves our family. I just don't understand why she's not married for all kinds of reasons. And I ended up asking, I said, how are you doing with your, because I said, I'm pretty sure you want to be married, don't you? She said, yeah, I said, you know, you strike me. You're the most committed to biblical.

singlehood, man or woman I've ever seen. Wow. And I said, and she laughed. She said, well, pastor, she said, it wasn't always like that. And she said, but it's taking me time. She said, I still want to get married. But she feels in, I just love the way she feels in to families. She's everybody's auntie.

You know, she has her own niece and nephews, but then my kid, she teaches my kids. And then she'll just go on a trip. like to Puerto Rico or somewhere and I love the way she's not with people with her friends and stuff but what I like about love about her is she's not waiting on life

as a believer she's branded herself as I'm single I'm here I want to be married but I'm locked into God and I'm keeping score like him what does he want me to do he wants me to maximize my faith I'm going to help families I'm going to teach children

I'm going to do this and man she's killing and it's like it's convinced for me because I'm like, am I, God, am I locked into you in every area of my life like she is? Yeah. Like, because the way she locked in, it's convicting. Yeah, storing her time well. Yes, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. I want to say this and then we could probably start to wrap a little bit. I feel like it needs to be said. Why do we need the church? That's such a good question. Because you have people listening. It's like, I hear you.

That's cool and all. But I really felt like if I got the Bible, I got my prayer closet, I got my William Augusto, I got my podcast, I got these YouTube's, I'm straight. And people are unsafe. People, like, I don't need leaders. I don't need small groups. I don't need none of that. Yeah. I believe that the concept of church did not start in Matthew 16, 18.

If you understand biblical theology, Genesis. The people of God. It started with, first off, community started in the Godhead. That's number one. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. Although they are different persons, they're united in essence, and they've been keeping each other company forever.

God not only is love, he loved himself by loving the other persons that were with him. So he was experiencing community. The fact that Jesus was slain. before the foundation of the earth mean they talked. They decided stuff together. So when he said, let us make man in our lifeness and our image, that was a deep statement.

He said, I want us to make them with them not feeling self-sufficient without other people. And now I'm going to, and so I made Adam, but then I had to make. Eve. And then he called them to make global community. That's good. When he said, be fruitful to multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. The word subdue means make every person has the

responsibility to promote the flourishing of other people. That's what subdue means. It doesn't mean tear down trees and stuff in those cities. It means how can you, how can your assignment help other people to flourish. Good. Then you go to how God started drafted communities, so you had a Cane and Abel, then you go to Noah, then you go to Abraham.

Then eventually God says, this is my plan. This is my plan that I'm going to create a community from your loins that's going to bless everybody. Wow. But there's going to be a seed that redeems this whole thing. And so Israel was supposed to be an example

of a community of communities, Exodus 196. they're supposed to be a kingdom of priests. And so, and so, and God put everything in there. How do you deal with offenses in community? How do you take care of the poor? At Leviticus 19, how do you deal with judging cases? This is all community stuff, even though we talk about civic law and all of that.

Then you come to the church. The church is really an extension of God's community. And it's not replacement theology. Israel was to be the church. But now we have Jew and Gentile in the same community. and now it's God's way of showing how he wanted it to be. And so local ecclesias are apostolic outposts of showing off the reality of what life is like when people submit their lives to God and lock up together.

And so it's basically the manufacturer's intention. So if somebody say, well, I can create church on my own. I can, you know, I can just have my podcast. I can have the few preachers I listen to. I listen to this church on this Sunday. I have the few people from different places that I, but that's not how God designed things. So I give you an example, and I'm done. So I needed a plug real bad for my iPhone, I guess it was 12 at the time or 11.

And so I went into like Burlington Co factory or Ross. Wow. And you know, they got all of those, all that stuff at the front. Yeah, with the, so I. Coco nibs. So I ended up getting one of them joints, right? They purple. Yeah, yeah.

Purple and got flowers on them. So I plug it into my car, my car, and then I plug it into my phone. And it said, unauthorized item plugged into your device. I had never seen that before. And so it would, so I was like, I just need, I need to, it's, did it, did the things say, no, if it say don't, and the green thing come on, boom. And the little, the little lightning, I'm good. Long as it's working.

So I unlocked it, boom. But it would get hot all the time. It would get real hot. And I would be like, man, I don't know why this gets so hot. And then my phone just started breaking down. And then I found out that although that fit and it worked in some ways, it actually was damaging my phone because it wasn't authorized by the manufacturer. And a lot of times we don't realize that we're creating

plug and play spiritualities that we don't realize it may work in some areas but you don't realize it's not giving you all the juice you need to be all you need to be for God. And so I think that when we talk about church

it's God's thing. Like, like, Hebrew Israel, I say, he's not building camps. He's not. He's not building a place. He's building his church. The only thing Gahanna,

the gates of hell can't come against, is a church. And whether you like it or not, he died for her. He loves her and he's crazy about her. He don't play about her. And he's going to marry her and spend eternity with her. So at the end of the day, to not like church is to not like Jesus. Because if you tell me you love me and you don't like my wife, I don't fool with you.

That's all. That's good. Well, rebranding the church. Wouldn't that come out? September 30th. September 30th. I don't know when this is dropping. It would be before or after,

but check the link in the bio. And also, too, man, past the Eric Mason, has amazing remnant merch. You can check it out on this website. Passing emails, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's your, what's your Instagram website

and all this stuff? Oh, pass the emails on everything. Just do Instagram, and it'll lead you everywhere. Pass the email's website, lead you everywhere. All right, man. Love you, bro. All right, y'all.

Thank you. with the Perrys is produced by the Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing McBride video recording and audio production by Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley edited by the team at Tread lively artwork by hop and music by swoop thank you for listening

now go with God