Why People Are Leaving The Global Church? - Pastor Wesley Livingston

CH me now the gone there's I [Music] live glory and it's yes it's welcome everybody as you're coming in to our webinar for tonight we are so excited to have you joining us I see folks piling on in and our webinar thank you for being here really quickly as you're coming into the webinar tonight could you do us a favor Could you um just kind of put into the chat where you're from we want to know where you are watching from um and we also want to know how you're doing so uh just go ahead and start

communicating in the chat with all of our VB BMI family from around the [Music] world as you guys are coming in you're probably listening to charity Gail uh an amazing worship leader um with some amazing Crystal Crystal Centric uh just verses of scripture um and so this is one of my favorite worship leaders that I listen to In My Own Private study and so I pray that you are enjoying it as you're coming in again her name is Charity Gale and listen that we got a lot of time with we got a lot of ti

me tonight so if you want to uh share this webinar with friends who may have some time tonight feel free to share it with them we want to make sure uh that everyone can get in contact with this communication with the word uh that the Lord has for us tonight as it pertains to why people are leaving the global Church am I am who I am awesome awesome we have folks from Spain we have folks from Orlando Florida we have folks from Canada Michigan San Antonio this is amazing guys keep coming in share s

hare share I I believe tonight is going to be an exciting time of teaching um it's also going to be an encouraging time for us as Believers in Jesus to be strengthened in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so again if you haven't shared this go ahead and share this with those who you [Music] know our executive director Katherine bayaw has let you guys know in our chat that you will have the opportunity uh to submit questions into the chat area and then those question

s will be filtered and funnel to me um and to the best of my ability I will answer those questions for you uh so that we'll be able to provide those proper responses awesome keep on coming in folks from the Philippines thank you guys folks from Barbados Charlotte North Carolina we're going to get started momentarily going to give folks about maybe two more minutes uh to come on [Music] [Music] through [Music] for those of you who've been asking who is this singer uh her name again is Charity Gai

l I put that in the chat for you so that you would be able to go and and follow her maybe find some of her songs on YouTube if you're familiar with a particular group called people and songs um she is a part of that songwriting Collective um and they focus on writing songs straight from the word of God so again uh charity Gail is her name and I also posted it into the chat for your [Music] [Music] viewing we want to thank everybody for joining us again remember share share share we're going to g

et started pretty soon so we want to make sure we can get as many people in as we can and as we're waiting I want you guys to do something really fast just something fun um what are you anticipating uh to learn from this webinar put that in the chat really quickly what are you looking forward to or anticipating in this webinar tonight go ahead and put your answer into the [Music] chat it's 6:35 right now one more minute we're going to get started awesome I'm seeing some of those already coming t

hrough people are looking forward to learning more of the insights into the church today what is happening so we'll definitely be able to ask answer some questions there I love that one how to um how to address people leaving the church so they won't leave really really good [Music] very good very good all right so what we're going to do right now I'm going to go ahead and turn charity Gil off and then we are going to go ahead and get started and feel free continue to engage in the chat um it's

our hopeing as we do these webinars guys that uh it's as engaging as possible um I I want to be a facilitator of the learning that we have and that I want us to engage in this way so that we all can grow in the grace and the and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so again I just want to welcome everybody to uh the webinar tonight we know that you could have been doing anything you could have been anywhere but you have made uh a decision to join on to this webinar and we pray that

it's going to be to your benefit and a blessing to you uh and your family and so what I plan on doing tonight is really um wanting to start opening up with prayer first um and then after prayer I'm G to kind of go into the objective of tonight what is my job tonight in relaying the gospel message in a way in this particular way as it pertains to why people are leaving the church and so hopefully we'll be able to answer those questions but for now could you do me a favor bow your head with me uh

so that we can pray together all right Heavenly Father we thank you for this opportunity to be able to gather uh through technology through these mediums in order to grow in our knowledge of you to be sanctified in our knowledge of you and ultimately Lord that you may be glorified in our lives Lord we know that the pandemic that we've gone through has uh been tumultuous father and it's been difficult for many people we've lost loved ones and Lord uh many people after this pandemic have left the

church many people disgruntled many people broken many people lost many people asking questions and Lord Our Hope tonight that by opening up the word of God that you will allow us to truly understand what is happening and what is going on but also to be encouraged in knowing father that you are coming back soon so we thank you and we praise you and we pray that in light of what we know that your word says that we stand fast that we stand flat-footed trusting in The Sovereign word work of God Jes

us we thank you we ask that you speak to us tonight open up our eyes that we may behold wondrous things in your law and open up our minds that we will understand the scriptures in Jesus name I pray amen and amen well as I mentioned before um we we have a particular objective tonight and that objective is really simple and it is that the listener you and I will to explore several reasons as to why people are experiencing a falling away from the faith in the church and it's our hope that in the en

d we'll discover how the body of Christ should respond to this falling away from the church as it pertains to this great apostasy that is happening and in order for us friends to begin this topic of discussion tonight I I would like to begin with scripture as we always do with the ministry and what better way to start off this conversation and discussion than that uh and the reality is is that we can look and begin really with Statistics and graphs and charts about church attendance and the like

but again our best guide to understanding this pattern that is happening is going to scripture itself so with that being said I I invite you go ahead and open up your Bibles with me and we're going to turn to Second Timothy y chapter 4 and we're going to read verses 3-5 again second Timothy Chapter 4 verses 3 through 5 and this is what Paul writes to Young Timothy for the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for them

selves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths but you be sober in all things endure hardship do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry can I just repeat verse 5 again but you but you Timothy but you believer be sober minded in all things endure go through press through hardship do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry so the big question friends that we have on the table tonight is why are people le

aving the global church and this question has been addressed by several Evangelical research institutions who have pulled several churches in America alone and and the results of these polls although they are startling they are not alarming and if you've been a student of the Bible for any time you know that scripture has revealed this reality of this apostasy centuries ago so here I just want to kind of start off with um a few statistics that the Barna group has come up with um in doing researc

h and polling different churches regarding is falling away from the faith so I'll put the first one up on the screen for you here's our first statistic one% of the young adult population in the United States alone have a Biblical worldview 1% here's here's our next one here less than half of 1% of Christians between the ages of 18 to 23 have a Biblical world view now when you see this particular data and these data points we we want to make sure that we Define terms I believe that terms are impo

rtant it helps Define what it is that we're seeing in context and the term that we want to speak to regarding these statistics that I just mentioned earlier is the word or the term rather biblical World viiew biblical worldview now we covered this term in a previous seminar but I I want to provide context according to how the Bara group is defining this term and this is how the Bara group defines the term they Define Biblical worldview as absolute truth exist meaning that the Bible is true it's

inherent um and it's infallible the Bible again as I said before is inherent uh they also say that according to their definition of biblical worldview Satan is real being he's a real being and he's not not a fictitious fictitious excuse me character uh a person uh can't earn their way into the kingdom of God through good works Jesus lived a sinless life on Earth and God is the Supreme creator of Heaven and Earth and Reigns over the entire universe so again just to put it in context this is what

the Barna group identifies and defines as a Biblical world view so if only 1% of young adults and the young adult population have a Biblical world view then where does that leave the other 99% the question friends that comes to the head here is what does this reality speak to we we're going to examine two specific items and we may hit a third one if time allows and these two specific items and I'm going to call these factors are are things that are um causing and are involved rather with this fa

lling away is regarding this falling away from the faith so some of these again we're speaking to the global church so I want to make sure that we really define global Church versus the local church the global church is dealing with the invisible Church those who are of the remnant of God who are believers in Jesus versus the local church where you'll have a mixture of both believer and unbeliever and how is that working in as it pertains to this falling away from the faith so the two items that

we're going to look at tonight and again we may have opportunity for a third the reason why we are seeing people falling away from the church our first one is biblical illiteracy biblical illiteracy uh and the second one that we're going to talk about and mentioned tonight is a lack of biblical accountability or we can also say a lack of dis discipleship within the church as it pertains to really growing people in the faith so again biblical illiteracy is our first point that's dealing with the

global church and then secondly a lack of biblical accountability again or lack of discipleship and that is going to pertain both the global church as well as the local church so what I want to do we're first going to address biblical illiteracy all right so the greatest danger facing the global church today as I've mentioned is biblical illiteracy within the body of Christ rather friends than teaching the gospel the the word of God every Sunday Sunday to Sunday there are many pastors around th

e world not just in the United States but around the world who are abandoning the true Gospel of God they're abandoning the very word of God and they are exchanging it for a sugarcoated gospel I want to share a quote with you really fast from ignacius of Antioch he's an early Christian writer and this is what he said regarding the importance of the Gospel being preached he says this now I say this beloved not because I know that there are any of you that are thus but because I wish to warn you t

hough I am less than you not to fall into the snare of vain Doctrine but to be convinced of the birth and passion and Resurrection which took place at the time of the procurers ship of Pontius Pilate for these things were truly and certainly done here it is by Jesus Christ Our Hope from which God grant that none of you be turned aside again this is Ignatius of Antioch an early Christian writer and Ignatius emphasizes the importance of not falling away from the centrality of the Gospel message yo

u see we first must cling friends to a crucified Christ and Trust in knowing the one in whom eternal life is found in and our Salvation is found and rooted upon a person and that person is Jesus Christ and as Paul would say what is first importance is knowing that he died that he was buried and he was raised from the dead according to the scriptures you can see that in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 veres 1-4 so the reality is a gospel that is not accurately taught or not accurately preached is not a

gospel at all and will cause men to miss what the gospel is about the gospel is about a person repent repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ have a change of mind knowing that Jesus is who he said he is the father sent him so that those who believe upon Him may be saved we're believing in a person and his name is Jesus so this is why friends as a Ministry uh with vbvmi we dedicate ourselves to teaching through whole books of the Bible verse by verse in its proper literal hisory historical g

rammatical contextual context you see the moment that one steers clear of teaching the scriptures in context is the moment that one loses focus on the word of God friends the scriptures were given to us by God and not by men you can see that in second Peter chapter 1 verse 21 now there's another thing that many people will ask well what is the purpose of the church why why is the church here what is the church about right I I want us to go to scripture to understand what is the purpose of the ch

urch because I think that many folks many pastors many Elders have lost track have lost focus on what the church is about so let's go to the scriptures go with me to Ephesians chapter 4: 12-6 let's read that again I'll give you some time to get there Ephesians 4 veres 12- 16 this is what it reads for the equipping of the Saints for the work of Ministry for the building up do you see that the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the S

on of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of who Christ as a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of Doctrine by trickery of people by craftiness in deceitful scheming but here it is but speaking the truth in love we are to grow up do you see that friends we are to grow up in essence we are to mature in all aspects into him who is the head who is the head that is Christ and here's verse 1

6 from whom the whole body that is every believer in every church not just in the United States around the world being fitted together being knitted together and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in in love so the purpose of equipping the Saints according to Paul is to grow in unity in the faith and the knowledge of the very person of Jesus Christ now what are we witnessin

g today as it pertains to the church are we seeing equipping happening in the church what we're witnessing friends are hearts that have moved away from the centrality of Christ and to the centrality of the culture we have moved the church's Focus to a social gospel we have moved the focus of the church to social issues that centralize on a kingdom now lenss and not realizing that this is not the aim of the Gospel message Jesus told us in Luke chap 19:10 this that the son of man came to seek and

save the lost so Jesus's first coming was very clear in his ministry as we can see in the gospel accounts and that Focus was to offer the kingdom of God to those who would repent have a metanoia a change of mind and believe upon Him Upon Jesus Christ not believing on a social movement not believing on a social cause believing upon a sovereign person and that is Jesus Christ so hear me when I say this and and I want to be very clear not all social causes are bad when it comes down to things perta

ining um making sure that folks are not going to the abortion uh having children being aborted and things of that nature making sure that people are taking Tak care of the Widow and the orphan those types of things matter we need to take care of those in need and love on our neighbors however friends when we exalt the cause when we exalt the social issues above Christ we miss the gospel message we miss what we're about and the reality is if we stick with the teaching of the text if we stick with

the word of God being taugh T it is going to address every need that any person has why because as 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us the word of God is profitable for reproof for correction for training up in righteousness okay now here's the problem the problem arises when we have pastors that believe that the teaching of the whole counsil of God is not necessary for people to mature in Christ this is where we begin to see issues here's one well-known Pastor in the United States that said this about exp

ository verse by verse teaching and I'm just going to warn you now you may get a little irritated as I was in preparing for this but I feel like you need to see this for yourself his name is uh Andy Stanley this is what he said he said guys that preach verse by verse through books of the Bible that is just cheating it's cheating because that would be easy first of all here's the kicker that isn't how you grow people no one in the scripture modeled that there is not one example of that again this

pastor Pastor a church I believe over 10,000 people and friends if this isn't far from the truth I don't know what is here's what Matthew chap 5:8 tells us here's what the here's what the Bible tells us again Matthew Chapter 5 ver 18 for truly I say to you until Heaven and Earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the law until all is what accomplished Matthew is speaking here to uh a very single word the very single word in Scripture that are written down to

the very letter to the very title it will be fulfilled so how does this relate to the quote that we just read well it means that every section of scripture matters and it should matter to the believer in Jesus Christ I just mentioned 2 Timothy CH 3 verse 16 there are people and pastors who feel like the word of God is not the word of God they feel like there are errors there and so they teach according to philosophy versus teaching according to the text so clearly the more churches that have a

particular dis uh disposition Like the quote that we just read earlier from that Pastor the more people we will see falling away from the faith why because the true hope in knowing that we are able to be kept from an eternity in Hell separated from God the only hope is in Christ and if the word of God is true we can Bank our bucks that God is Sovereign and he is who he says that he is okay now if we refuse to take scripture seriously we leave more room for the enemy to come in and if we do not k

now the scriptures if we don't know the Bible friends we are prone to fall for anything we see that in First Peter chapter 3 verse1 15 I want to read it for you really quickly here it is on the screen but sanctify who Christ as Lord in your hearts always being ready to make a defense to every one who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you but with gentleness and respect sanctify Christ not a social movement not a Starbucks hour when you're gathering at church coming and sitting

down for 30 minutes no if you're not growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ you friend are prone to fall away it is the the grace of God by the word of God that sanctifies the hearts of men to grow and if we don't know our word if we don't know our Bible we miss it our next item uh for tonight is the lack of biblical accountability and the lack of discipleship again the lack of biblical accountability and the lack of discipleship I I've recently read a startling statistic that 69% of

high schoolers who go to college who were connected to a local church that they do not get plugged in into a local fellowship at the start of their college life and the question that comes to mind is with that 69% of high schoolers in those youth Ministries at those local churches once those kids graduate the the question is who is discipling them and who is discipling them who is doing life deeply with those young kids as they're transitioning from high school to college now some data has been

found that those who do not have five or more contact points or five or more uh disciplers or mentors in the body of Christ they tend to fall away from the faith when they get to college but here's the flip side to that statistic if that child or children have five or more contact points of faithful men and women pouring into their lives statistics tell us data tells us that they remain in the church and they remain here's the big key spiritually healthy so understand that authentic Fellowship

in the church is a key factor to strengthening the believer in Jesus this is why we read in Hebrews not to forsake the assembly because the moment that you begin to try to do this Christian Life in isolation is the moment that you become prone to wander this is why Fellowship is so key and is so important because if you are fellow shipping and being held accountable in the word of God as you're going through certain seasons of Life those men and women who are coming alongside you will be able to

help strengthen you not in their experiences although their experiences can speak to God's faithfulness but in their shared experience it's leading you to understand how God is able to be faithful in your life as you continue to grow in Grace in the word of God so when we fail to model in the church what proper Christian witness looks like we set up the Next Generation for failure there is a um an amazing Ministry that I know uh that has done this why are people leaving the church video series

um and it's speaking to several men and women who have left the church and one of those individuals was a pastor in the church and the goal for this ministry uh session or series that they were doing was to ask people why they left the church and towards the end the the founder of that Ministry along with some other pastors would provide biblical responses to the questions that the people had regarding their faith and while in the recording there was a young lady that mentioned that one of her r

easons for leaving the church is because her questions were not answered she had so many questions so much confusion about what the pastor was preaching and it wasn't able to click for her and so when she would go to seek ansers and seek understanding the pastor turned her away and there was nobody in the church who would be able to provide the response that she needed in order to grow and be strengthened in what was being taught in one way friends this answer to her question comes from the firs

t point we made tonight that there are many pastors who don't know their Bibles and because of their lack of understanding the scriptures they seek philosophical things social formats in order to provide their answers but friends philosophy and all of these other things and mystical social formats are not gospel responses Paul warns us of this deviation from scripture I I want you really quickly to check out with me second Timothy CH 4 verse3 I'm putting it on the screen here right now for the t

ime will come when they will not tolerate sound Doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled they will ACC accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance here it is with their own desires their own desires not what the Bible says not what thus sayith the Lord what do I want what do I want out of a relationship with Jesus what do I want out of a fellowship with people I don't want to be convicted of sin I want to enjoy it I don't want to have to deal with a being cornered by people that love

me and in order for me to come to grips with where I am in my life I just want to live life on my own and I don't want to have to worry about being held accountable to anybody else this is what Paul was letting Timothy know was going to be happening and men and women are going to want their ears tickled one thing that we see in conjunction with a lack in biblical literacy is the lack of biblical accountability every Pastor must be held accountable to the heralding of the Gospel message we must

be willing to bring men and women of God to the scriptures for their answers and not our opinions on philosophical pontifications within the same recording series guys another person was willing to speak up and mention a situation regarding a relative who served in the local church and one of the interesting things that this person mentioned is that they had an issue with this person who is a family member living one way in private versus living another way in public you see the sense of double-

minded Behavior speaks directly to the reality that true spiritual maturity comes through equipping Believers for spiritual growth in the word of God here's the goal the goal is to bring you into what full maturity the goal is to bring every believer who has put trust and faith in Jesus Christ knowing that he is who he says that he is that he came he died was buried and raised from the dead to bring eternal life the goal friends is to equip brothers and sisters to answer the hard questions that

people have recognize that within growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus it requires one to be taught the excellencies of the word of God check out how Paul addresses Titus regarding and concerning the churches in Creed I'm going to put this on our screen really quickly Titus chap 1 verse 9 holding firmly the faithful word which is in accordance with what the teaching so that he will be able to both exort in sound Doctrine and to refute those who contradict it if you notice here Paul is add

ressing young Titus on Creed and Paul is emphasizing holding fast to the faithful word of God not only holding firmly to it but Faithfully teaching it this is what we see in Titus Chapter 2 verses 1-10 regarding this necessity to teach the people well real quickly I'm going to put that on the screen as well Titus Chapter 2 ver 1-10 this is what it reads but as for you proclaim the things which are fitting for sound Doctrine do you see that older men are to be temperate dignified self-controlled

sound in faith in love and in perseverance older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior not malicious gossips not nor enslaved to much wine teaching what is good so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands to love their children to be sensible pure workers at home kind being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will not be what Dishonored likewise urge the young men to be sensible in all things show yourself to be an example of Good Deeds with

Purity and Doctrine dignified sound in speech which is beyond reproach so that the opponent will put be put to shame having nothing bad to say about us urge slaves to subject to their own masters and everything to be pleasing not argumentative not stealing but showing all good faith so that they will what Adorn the doctrine of God that word adorn means to wear to put on to put on the word of God what you know to live out the truth of scripture in every respect so when the global Church shifts it

s focus from equipping the Saints to being a more Seeker Friendly Church it becomes a weak Church Believers have to grow in understanding why they believe what they believe because if we don't have that defense as Jude mentions in his letter then we miss it Peter and second Peter mentions the same thing always be ready to have a defense for what you believe and why you believe it I I recently received an email on a question about if Believers should call out these false teachers and preachers in

a public forum and I began to really think about that question and the more that I thought about it the more I began to see by the holy spirit's illumination is that's that's the wrong question right the proper question should be what should we do in the midst of this ever growing apostasy people falling away because they don't want to be correct Ed or people walking away from the faith because of something else that become an epiphany to them and the answer friends is simple it's what Paul Jes

us and Peter have been saying all along study the scriptures teach the scriptures teach the word of God this was this was also said in the Old Testament in Exodus teach the commands of God the word of God is the only thing that can change hearts and change Minds by and through the illumination of the Holy Spirit the reality is as we read as we read rather earlier tonight false teachers and false teaching creeping into the church friends is not a surprise God is not surprised by this as a matter

of fact Jesus told us in the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the wheat and the tears that this would happen really quickly uh turn with me to Matthew chap 13: 24 through3 Matthew chapter 13: 24 through 30 this is what it reads Jesus presented another Parable to them saying the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field but while his men were sleeping his enemy came and SED weeds among the wheat and left and when the wheat sprouted and produced grain then the

weeds also became evident and the slaves of the landowner came and said to him sir did you not seow good seed in your field how then does it have weeds verse 28 and he said to them an enemy has done this the slaves said to him do you want us then to go and gather them up but he said no while you're Gathering up the weeds you may uproot the wheat with them verse 30 is the key allow both to grow together until the Harvest and at the time of the Harvest Harvest is also synonymous with that of judgm

ent I will say to the Reapers first gather up the weed and bind them in bundles to burn them but gather the wheat into my Barn notice verse 30 both will grow together and both will be ultimately judged at the end one for their Eternal rewards to be received and the other for judgment due to unbelief friends we also see uh this further meaning of this expounded in the parable of the mustard sea you may have remembered when we've been going through uh the gospel of Mark and what did we see there w

e talked about about this the kingdom of God christiandom would grow and be this world known um Faith but there would be as the parable mentions birds that come into this tree into this fold and they would take rest in that tree well interesting is when you read through The Parables Jesus told us in Mark's gospel that the parable of understanding the soil is the one that's going to help you really understand the remaining Parables so if you understand that first Parable everything else is built

off of it well what was represented represented excuse me of the bird in the first Parable enemies those who are counterfeits those who are coming in to find refuge and hide in Christendom named as false teachers named as laymen who think who who want people to think that they have a love for the people but really and truly they're coming in to corrupt the Saints once again reiterating the reality that this work of the enemy is not surprising but should simply put the Believers on alert friends

we have to be able to stand firm in the word of God even with the growing deception and great falling away from people who claim to love Jesus but don't know him see this really puts the spin on the matter of avoiding spiritual deception that in order to do that we have to grow in the word of God by his grace so that when individuals creep into the church to move the church off of the centrality of the gospel and onto a social gospel that we become aware of it and if we call those leaders out an

d say hey this is not what the Bible says let's go back to what the Bible says and that church says no this is what we're going to do then you know what to do friends find a church that is centered on teaching the Bible if the church is not teaching the scriptures and you start hearing that your church is beginning to take a turn in a direction that is far from truth you need to leave and find the church that God is calling you to what are some ways in which you can do that we're seeing now some

statistics and data is coming out home churches are beginning to increase because the home Church movement is now focused on what has always been the focus in Acts two studying the scriptures together gathering together breaking bread together growing together we must stay alert and if we don't stay alert we're also going to find ourselves buying into well Jesus did say that and oh I do need to be compassionate about this I got a email and I know don't want to go over time because I want leave

time for questions but there was an email that I received from a a church here in San Antonio and this church decided that they wanted to plaster pride and they wanted to support Pride right and in one instance you want to support people that are created in the image of Jesus but what you can't stand for is allowing folks who claim to love Jesus but still want to walk in sin this is what Paul is dealing with the with the Corinthian Church you you you you have to walk in Grace mature in Grace thi

s is not permission for you to continue on in sin don't just take what Paul said where sins abounds Grace abounds all the more because Paul also said something else shall you continue on sinning certainly not so that being said I'm going to stop here because I know we got some questions let me pray a sound and after we pray I'll answer some questions all right bow your heads with me Holy Father we thank you for your word I pray father that we stick to the Bible help us to stick to the scriptures

not to anything else let us focus on you may your scripture Enlighten our hearts moving our feet in sanctification so that we can grow in Grace and attain those Eternal rewards and help us not to turn to secular society for answers or responses help us to be bold in our faith so that you may be glorified and that people may know the only one who can save their souls that is Jesus Christ Lord it's in your name Jesus that we pray amen and amen so what I want to do now is I want to go ahead and cr

eate some opportunity for individuals to be able to answer questions so uh start answer um bringing those questions in and I'll do my best to make sure to answer those for you all right so one question that we got here once that you mentioned said less than half of 1% of Christians between the ages of 18 to 23 have a Biblical world view is this referring to people who claim to be Christian or are actual actually uh Jesus followers so the question is is this referring to people who claim to be Ch

ristians or are actual Jesus followers these are people who are claiming to be Christan chrans um and and here's the reality what we see from the visible church for those who are participating coming to church Sunday to church uh Sunday to Sunday um the reality is in our churches today there's a mixture of Believers and unbelievers and this becomes difficult right on how how do we how do we differentiate the two for some people they'll say well I can look at their lives and I can look at their w

orks and I can see this and I can look at this and I can can see that but the reality is is although um you can see these works from people the reality is is that salvation is based upon grace alone by faith alone so maybe these individuals that are claiming to be followers of Jesus these individuals may just be spiritually immature Christians that need sound men and women to come around them and to really coach them in the faith if you will sitting down and doing Bible study with them so that t

hey may grow in truth and what you'll see is that those who are truly going to grow in truth who are being set down and walk through the Bible if they have the Holy Spirit which means if they are a believer in Jesus the holy spirit is going to do the work that the father is already determined to do in those in whom he's called and he's going to work in them salvation with fear and trembling so that again is speaking to those who are claiming to be Christians and again as you can see there's many

who can claim um as the scriptures tell us many will say uh Lord Lord but the Lord will say depart from me I never knew you next question is what is a practical way for people to find spiritual mentors for their children you know that is a a really good question um you would hope that um children's ministry at particular churches or youth Ministries would be kind of that first place to do that be um outside of the home right so I would say this that the first disciplers as it pertains to your c

hildren are concerned is Mom and Dad if Mom and Dad are believers in Jesus Christ mom and dad I would say are the two out of the five mentors disciplers that the those individuals need to grow in faith now when you get into the church you'll have individuals that would be able to uh come alongside them in youth ministry or in children's ministry um and really walking them in the faith when you have a very strong Bible teaching Church the prayer is that you have a very strong Bible teaching child

ren's ministry and youth ministry and so those youth leaders being able to come alongside with the permission of the parents to really speak into their lives the very word of God and walking them through the scripture to really reinforce what should be happening in the homes so again that is one way um in which one can have those individuals helping them grow in faith great question here's another one why do you think people leave the church Al together rather than just finding a new church so I

believe we find people leaving the church all together um in one sense and we didn't get to that point tonight but in one sense it could be Church hurt um due to spiritual abuses that happen maybe a spiritual leader that is not truly leading under the scriptures and is abusing their Authority and their leadership in order to cause harm to individuals that is one thing that causes folks to leave and what folks will do is is they'll kind of paint they paint the canvas in in this one brush stroke

is that they'll say well if this leader at this church acted this way with me then they're all the same and the reality is is that's not the that's not the truth that I can go to one church and the leaders are Godly men the elders are Godly men um and then a situation happens and things change or there could be situations where there's a church that have men in leadership that are not doing what the word says to do and they're changing things up to their own tune rather than being submitted to t

he Holy Spirit and so when you have instances like that but the biggest thing that you have to think through is how is that person seeing that and when you see that that person is probably being um they've been hurt by that leader my prayer is according to how uh the ecclesiology of scripture really brings life to these matters is Matthew 18 if those are issues that are happening the word of God gives us proper context as to how to deal with that rather than people who've been Church uh Church h

urt just leaving the church altogether and never coming back we need to learn how to reconcile as Brothers and Sisters in Christ so Matthew 18 listed out what do I need to do well I need to go to the person that offended me and when I go to that person that offended me I need to go with a witness or two witnesses so that they can know what's happened and if that person doesn't want to reconcile with me I need to bring it up to the next person in leadership but the first goal should never be just

to abandon the church and leave the church and never go back to any church ever again right so the word of God literally has all of this stuff ecclesiology es all of these things to point us to how should broken jacked up people work together and live together being unified under Christ all having the holy spirit in dwelt in them so I hope I answered that question for you here's our next question here many people stopped going to church when the pandemic started and haven't gone back now home c

hurches are becoming more popular among Christians what are your thoughts about this really really good question um my thoughts on home Church growth I believe this is where um churches are going going to move to okay um I believe that what we're seeing in this great apostasy where um church is becoming more about buildings and budgets and um things of that nature um that we're moving far away from the intention of what a eklesia is and I believe that home churches as we see in Acts uh in the bo

ok of Acts is going to be the thing that is going to come back again and I believe home church is going to be stronger than ever because here's the reality as you were going to as we begin to see governments beginning to allow more social um social things to happen that go against what the scriptures say um I believe we're going to eventually see um churches losing 501c3 credibility I think in the future we're going to begin to see um Church churches and pastors being censored for what they say

as it pertains to the lgbtq plus Community um as it pertains to other um particular social issues and as those things begin to grow the the the question is what's going to happen to the church well friends for for centuries the church has always been the church because the church is the people not a building so when we gather together we we gather together to lift up the name of Christ we lift up his word word and when we lift up his word whether we're in a building or in a home Christ is being

glorified so I think as it pertains to the the safety or or the safet if you will for men and women to gather and really speak um about the truth of God's word without having to sugarcoat stuff I think that we're going to see a rise in home churches so very good question I I definitely am a home Church advocate as long as it's properly governed by elders and and men who are leading appropriately here's our next question it seems like people have become disconnected how do you motivate Believers

to take the time to study the Bible and attend church yeah so you're absolutely right the pandemic has caused um a lot of people to be disconnected we we we do things like this over Zoom um and things of that nature and it really causes us to not have touch point with people and and that's the purpose of coia right that's the purpose of Fellowship is that brothers and sisters coming together to love on one another to equip one another to encourage one another but to glorify God with one another

uh and that's what it's about and the pandemic tested that for a lot of people um but you you'll notice that those who are truly connected um they stuck together in phone calls uh uh when when I was serving um as a youth pastor with the fellowship one of the biggest things that happened was we did a lot of Zoom calls with our students and we Zoom called our students every single week why because although we can't be in person and although we can't share Pizza together um we can share Christ thro

ugh this medium um and so the importance of Fellowship is essential to the body of Christ but most importantly as it pertains to taking time to study the Bible together one of the biggest things is being able to sit down with brothers and sisters over the phone and praying together um one of the other things that we see in in the book of Acts is that they broke bread that they Fellowship um some of them selling their possessions in in order to be together with one another and to be able to do de

ep Community with each other and that's important and doing deep Community with people sometimes requires there to be a risk it requires there to be some uncomfortability meaning that although I don't want to talk on the phone today guess what I'm going to do I'm GNA pick up that phone and I'm gonna call my neighbor I'm gonna call my brother sister in Christ and we're going to talk about each other's day so those are some things I think are really helpful in bringing reconnection back into the f

ellowship especially with areas around the world that are not able to gather right now we'll do uh two more questions it seems like people have become disconnected I read that I'm sorry um do you know any good resources about beginning a home Church um really good question um answer to that I don't have any good resources right now um I do I am familiar with um some home church planning networks but I'm still vetting them um to see what do those home Church networks stand on uh so that's a quest

ion that I would love to follow up with you whoever ask that question I would love to follow up with you um on that but before um before I suggest anything to anyone I always want to make sure personally that I vet those organizations for proper distinctives uh proper beliefs um what is their ecclesiology what is their eschatology um their stance on soteriology and things of that nature uh because those are Essentials I feel um and when we walk through when we walk through those I'm looking at t

heir distinctives I wanted to make sure are we on the same page and if we're on the same page we can Fellowship together in that way so I would love to get back to you on um on that very good very good one more one more why do you think there are so many different denominations instead of of one Church centered on God's word you know what great question um I have asked myself that for many years why are there multiple denominations why do we have uh presperterian and why do we have methodists um

uh episcopalians why why why do we have all of these different denominations and not just one and the reality is um unfor there are many different people that choose to look at the Bible through a different hermeneutical lens um unfortunately with certain Presbyterian churches their um eschatology is a bit off right um in some instances there are denominations that their soteriology is off for for some it it can be in order to have salvation you need to have faith in works um in other denominat

ions it's uh Jesus plus something else and it comes about with how people want to interpret what the Bible says versus taking the Bible in its literal grammatical contextual context the way that the Bible should be understood if the Bible is the inherent word of God which it is then we should be able to read it knowing that the Holy Spirit who superseded the auor ship of with 42 odd men who wrote the the the scriptures that if the holy spirit is indwelt within us we should be able to seek the Ho

ly Spirit and say holy spirit open our eyes as David said to behold wondrous things in your law open up our minds to understand the scriptures so because we have the Holy Spirit we need to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us and not allow man to corrupt the interpretation and so um short answer is that is the reason why we have so many denominations is because people see and interpret it differently um and they stick with it and they create their own camps um that's why I believe non-denominationa

l is is who we are as a Ministry um we don't we don't um you know contain to what does this Camp say what what does this Camp say we we go with what does the Bible say what does the Bible say I don't I don't care about what the founder of the Methodist Church said I am concerned about what is Jesus in his word says and because I have the Holy Spirit because you have the Holy Spirit we can trust the Holy Spirit within us to understand and how to interpret what the word of God says here's our last

question for tonight oh I'm sorry I'm sorry that was the last question all right so again um guys we thank you so much for joining us please visit um our website uh at vbvmi org download the app for all Bible teaching resources if you if you um did not know I want to share this with you the Revelation study is out um the Revelation curriculum is out over 600 Pages worth of just amazing content uh through our founding and principal teacher Pastor Stephen Armstrong um my wife and I are going to b

e doing the study all over again and so it's our prayer that you guys will join in in those studies as well and I also pray too that um those of you who um feel as though maybe hey my church is not a church that is teaching the Bible well check this out still commune and fellowship with a believing body who who sticks with the word of God um and has a strong serology but also meet with other VB uh vbvmi um folks and families around the world start your own Bible studies going through some of the

studies that we're doing through the ministry re Revelation would be a great start um so uh buy the book the book can be downloaded from our ministry web page for free you can download those pages and do your own study you can also purchase it on Kindle for $1 um and have that downloaded to your Kindle device and then you can also go to Amazon and purchase the book I believe it's for about 30 books I believe um and so if um if that is the case guys buy it and if they're friends that you want to

for them to grow in Grace especially in the Revelation study buy a book for them we we want to make sure that we get these free resources out to people so that folks can grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and here's the ultimate thing those of your friends who may have left the faith guess what if they are a believer in Jesus Christ as Jude tells us reach out to that brother or sister pray for them bring them back into the fold because as scripture tells us now unto him who is able

to keep us from stumbling and present us faultless before his throne both now and forever more amen so Jude is a a great book to go through we've done a study on that as well check that out remember you have the greatest news in the world that is that Jesus died was buried and raised from the dead let's share that news so that men and women can believe upon that name upon that person and be saved friends we love you we thank you for joining us tonight we pray that you have a great one and until

we meet again blessings