Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 27, 2025. Let’s talk church.
Good morning, Good morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Turning On the Lights! for Thursday February 27 2025.
Interesting set of conversations today about church attendance and accountability as well as our first foray into the Gospel according to Luke and our journey to the cross.
There are 10,080 minutes in every week – how many of those is your church asking for? HHHmmmmmmm
I pray that you find this conversation interesting, challenging, and edifying. God bless you and, as always, WE WILL SEE YOU IN CHURCH!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 27, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 27, 2025. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, February 27, 2025
Good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. Welcome to the Church Town Church of God. It is a showery showery February. It is a showery February when dead snake. No, it’s only Thursday or I mean it’s Thursday, showery. February, Thursday. I suppose I’m trying to get out. You’re looking at the church. You’re looking at my office. This is my office. The peace, oh my goodness. And you consider the 13 inch thick double brick walls of this sanctuary, you want to find peace. You can find peace in the middle of a hurricane here. Now we do have the single pane stained glass, but we have put some amazing material on the outside of those to preserve them. We’re very, very happy with that and the way that they’ve been refurbished and restored. It’s a beautiful sanctuary and I don’t mind, you know me. Good morning, Barry. I don’t mind using the word Christian. I don’t mind using the word religion. I don’t mind using the word sanctuary. I don’t mind using the word blood, blood on the cross, blood of the Jesus. I hear so much and see so much of people that are just trying to do anything. But you know, when you use all of those carnal things to draw people into church, you’re going to have to keep on doing all of those carnal things in order to keep them here at church. No, no snow here. It’s 44 to 44 degrees, 41 degrees, something like that. But I’ve been having some very interesting conversations with fellow pastors. I’ve been having some very interesting conversations with church goers and church people and church members and council members and just talking about all kinds of things. Looks like this better turn on a light since that’s what the title of this is. There you go. And we’ve been talking a lot about church and what it looks like to be in church, what church should look like. What church attendance means. And it’s just it’s been very, very interesting because it is a unique conversation. It’s a unique conversation. When we talk about church and church attendance and the investment that a human being makes in the body of Christ, you talk about a wide range of things, right? Well, first of all, Father, thank you for the time that we get to share together today. In Jesus name, we pray that your word will go out that even the commentary will be pleasing to you and strengthening to your church. Amen. I mean that. I have grown out of being reactive as a church leader and saying something happens. Oh, I don’t care. Just leave. And and really trying to reflect upon my role, their role, leadership role. And then you can go on to conference role, denomination role. What are the various roles here? And how is each layer held accountable for their role? It’s an interesting conversation because it’s not a business structure. You can say, well, any denomination is like corporation, that sort of thing. And to a degree, that’s very true. But it’s not like, okay, you’re not doing your job, you’re fired. You’re doing a great job, you’re promoted. It’s different. And now we throw in the fact that every battle is a spiritual battle. Right. Every conversation is a spiritual conversation. We’re talking about the eternal life of human souls here. We’re not talking about getting a five dollar an hour raise. The conversations are different. So, you know, I want to hear from my friends, you know, Dale and April and Barbara and Mark, Dennis, my small church pastor circle of friends, round knob. To what degree do you hold individuals in the body accountable for their investment in the church? To any degree. You have an interesting dynamic here because, of course, you have the idea. I’m just reading in First Corinthians now. You have the will to do as you wish. You’re grown up, right? You’re a grown up. You can do as you wish. Corinthians teaches us that you can do all things. Not all things are great for you or even good for you, but you can do all things. So on the one hand, they’re grown ups. On the other hand, I’m supposed to be a spiritual leader. And I’m supposed to be caring for the souls of the individuals in the church. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. We’re having a conversation about church leadership, church membership, church investment, the body of Christ. Just I’ve had a very interesting week. And it seems to be around this. We are eventually going to get into Luke chapter 13 and begin our journey. But I just wanted to share with you a little bit of behind the curtain. Right. So on the other hand, yeah, if you’re you see a brother or a sister and they were here and they professed their faith, perhaps they took vows of membership. Vows, not just like, hey, you know, I think whatever I want to come vows of membership. Where and how do I intervene? Do I say anything? And I also have to remember here’s a third dynamic that Sunday mornings church is the pinnacle of my week. It’s what I’ve been called to do. I love church. I view it probably differently. Good morning, Cheryl, than anybody else. It is everything from the moment I wake up Monday morning, really, from the moment church is over on Sunday, everything is pointing toward 10 a.m. Sunday morning. So not only do I love church, and I hope that that comes across, I enjoy being there. I enjoy doing what I’m doing. I love my calling. It is my vocation. So I view it differently. It’s not optional for me. It’s optional for everybody else. So there’s that dynamic as well. So like I said, it’s just a conversation. I don’t know if there is like, here are the five steadfast rules, whatever. I hear is how you but I want to be held accountable. This is one of the conversations that I’ve been having regarding our conference and our denominations. I’m not accountable for anything. If I go off the rails, the people who are going to hold me most accountable are the members of the body and those in church town that are to have taken positional leadership and they know that. That’s what one of the reasons why I want everybody well versed in scripture, so that if I ever am like, you know what, maybe God said maybe God meant and whoo, it No. So that that’s the that’s the accountability that I have. And we’ve created that here, because even before the current policy that we exist under in the Constitution and the church council, there was nothing. It was me. I could very easily done a bunch of other stuff. But unless it goes up the chain or makes the news, I’m not accountable in the region at all. I’m not accountable in the denomination at all. I want that accountability. I want it. So then how does that transfer? So we’ve established that here at church town through years of working on our Constitution and polity and what it looks like under this search situation and that situation and what do the terms of leadership look like all of the responsibilities, all of that. We’ve established that here. And that’s good because we’re just people were just men and women and who can be easily led astray. And this is why society should have structure and order and accountability in church polity should church body should have structure and order and accountability and all of everybody that’s like, No, man, it’s a relationship, not a religion, man. Like we you, you want to put all these rules on us, man. How about a rule that you don’t preach heresy? That’s what I’m talking about. That sort of thing. But what about a rule regarding accountability for one another? Do not forsake meeting as some are want to do. In other words, you should go to church. No, we don’t, Dale. Like I said, you would have to be reported. Or you’d have to make the newspaper. Right, what’s the what’s the saying, Dale? You know it as well as I do in the region. The conference has no interest in you until they do. And that’s not what I want. I want spiritual leadership first and foremost, which just doesn’t exist. Spiritual leadership. I crave spiritual leadership because that will flow that will emanate from the top down, united in Christ as our cornerstone. That’s the only message I want to hear. Then we can take care of all of the other stuff that needs taken care of. I crave that and that’s, you know. Exactly. 100%. That’s what being faithful is about, Rick. When you’re faithful, that happens. And you can say, well, I’ve strayed or I’ve had other thoughts or I’ve wanted to do this or I’ve been angry in church. I’ve been doing whatever. But if you’re faithful, God will bring you back because he knows your heart. And there’s the football coach in me that says, you know, in the off season training program, I would tell the kids. There are 168 hours in a week. We would like three of them. So you can train off season. You have 165 hours every week to do other things. You want to take that one step further? If you just go to church, listen to this. There are 10,080 minutes in a week. Church, give or take, is about 90 minutes. You have 9,990 minutes to do whatever else you want to do. Hopefully, like you preach here, you’re out there living the word and being a disciple. 10,080 minutes in a week. But somehow, right, Satan will get a hold of those 90 minutes. And this is a real thing. It’s real for me. My pastor friends know this. You wake up on a Sunday morning and you’re like, I don’t love church. I hate church. I don’t want to do this. I don’t even like these people. I mean, you’re like, whoa, what’s going on? Kind of to Rick’s point. But you are faithful and you move in in the spirit. And then those things is like, get behind me, Satan. So you know that very well. And that undoubtedly happens for individuals. And he’s like, you know, you’ve got to take your kid to camp. You’ve got to. It’s a beautiful day. You should take a drive. You know, you can worship God just as much on a mountain road as you can in a church or all of those things. You’ll sleep in. It’s cold and it’s dreary, whatever the case may be, whatever temptation. Don’t you think it odd that it always happens during those 90 minutes? Coincidence? I think not. But, oh, but I have to go on the pastor. We had a conversation last night in council because that you and you’ve heard me talk about the big Christian butts. And I said, why don’t I write a book called our big Christian butts? And I can list like seven biblical principles to live by and then but right, all of the reasons why we don’t want to live by them. Don’t you think that would be a great title? It’s a catchy title. And, you know, we all I mean, it’s not rocket science. I’m as human as anybody else. And I’m like, I want to go to church, but I want to walk in the spirit. But I know that I’m feeling led to go intervene in that situation. But we’re full of them, aren’t we? Or you have loving Christian wife who gives you a godly kick. We both have those, right? You and I both there. We out kicked our coverage on wives. There’s no doubt about that. We’ve been catching up ever since. There’s no doubt about that. Miss Lori and Miss Kelly, we’ve out kicked our coverage on on wives. And the Lord good Lord knew what he was doing when I was 17 years old. The good Lord. Good morning, Emma. The good Lord knew what he was doing when he put me with Kelly and we decided to give it a shot even though we were going off to college. Never looked back. Been a lot of years since then. And like I said, he knew what he anybody else. Well, the Lord is sovereign. He can do as he wishes. But let’s just say you and I are lucky men. And we’re very grateful. So anyway, that’s the conversation. What are you doing with your 10,080 minutes? What are you doing with your 168 hours? And to what degree does the body hold each other accountable? Should another member of the body say, Hey, man, I know that you’ve been missing a lot lately. Is everything okay? Should a pastor do that? Non make sure he do it to non members, he or she do non members, members only counsel. You got a council member that barely comes to church, what should you do? It’s interesting, because again, three things. On the one hand, you’re a grown up, you’re making your own decisions. You know, you’re going to deal with it one way or the other. On the other hand, we’re called to be in unity and to attend and be with one another. We read it in Acts 242. We read it in Hebrews, we read it all throughout Paul’s letters, of course, the churches are meeting. And then the third dynamic is I have a very skewed vision of this, because it’s what I do. And so I very well may be the only one on that given morning, for whom church is not optional. It’s interesting stuff to think about. And I, you know, if you like I said that to that dynamic that I am a man who knows I am weak. And talk about our wives, Dale, I am a man who knows I am weak. And I have God and I have Kelly and I have church. And I want not only accountability here, but we’re a part of, we’re a part of a larger body. Is there any accountability there? And I’m talking about mostly, primarily, spiritual accountability. Well, I know that we have a firm rudder, right? And there is a godly human being at the helm. And that authority with that godly, and that godly human being speaks to us, speaks to me with authority, not just as name the position, secretary, executive director, treasurer, but with spiritual authority. And I crave that. I want that in my life. And that’s why I have Dale and that’s why I mean outside of my family, and we have our body here. But outside of that, this intimate circle. So I have Dale and Barb, who is actually both in April, and Mark and Dennis. And these are folks that are faithful. And I know if I talked, I know that if I don’t speak to them for five minutes or five years, I know that I can go to them. And I hope that they know that as well as well about me. So I’ve been checking in, I’m gonna check in with you, Dale. See how everything’s going. Mark third, Luke 13. We are beginning our journey to Easter over the next eight weeks. And we’re going to begin in Mark 13. Now if you’re a churchtonian, even if you’re not, I mean by TOL by virtue of being a member of the TOL watchers, listeners, you’re a churchtonian. You can just count on those chapter reading through those chapters from now until April 20, March, April, April 20, April 20. You can just read through them 1314 1516 all the way to 24. But I love the beginning of 13. And I wrote about it in the church town weekly. If you don’t get the church town weekly, you can send me your email address. But this is what I wrote the devotion about. And this is where we’re going to start on Sunday. And I’m going to read a couple of different sections. This is just beginning with verse one. About this time, Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the temple. I want to point out just the one thing here. Oftentimes, Pilate gets to skate on the whole Passion of the Christ thing, on the whole persecution and crucifixion. of Jesus. Pilate was not a good dude. We see even this man who murdered people who are offering sacrifices at the temple. Don’t do that. Well, we have to do that slash you’re dead. Not a good dude. And we see even him in a spiritual battle when he meets Jesus. Are you the Christ and you say so? Who are you tell me? I’m not judged by man. Right, that sort of thing. You would have no power over me whatsoever, except the power that my father gives you. I mean, there’s this boom, boom, boom, but we need to understand that it’s not just a guy who like, he was a Roman prefect. He was a Roman appointee. He was a Roman leader and he will maintain order according to Roman law, which as often as not clashed with Jewish law. So those are very important words. When you hear I find no fault with this man. I wash my hands of this situation. You’re like, okay, Pilate, you were putting a really tough spot. Well, he was. But he was also a wicked dude, a wicked man. Okay, I’ll make sure that it’s on there. Okay, Rose. I will. Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the people from Galilee? Jesus asked. Is that why they suffered? Not at all. And you will perish too unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. And what about the 18 people who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? No. And I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish too. And he’s talking to the crowd and ostensibly he’s talking back into the leadership as he often does. It’s like talking to a group of people about something and you’re speaking loud enough for another group of people to hear and make sure that they get the message too. And the message is of repentance. Did this person deserve to die? Did that group over there deserve to die? Did these people deserve to die? Were these people worse sinners than those sinners? What are we doing judging all of that? We will all die one way or the other. That’s a non-negotiable. What is undetermined if you have not yet repented is where you will spend eternity. So there’s a point that he’s making. Government is murdering you. Buildings are falling on you. Suffering over here because of this, that or the other thing. This individual who seems to be a wonderful person gets a disease. Why did God do that? Well, God didn’t do it. The world is absolutely broken and so is your body. Is this person a worse sinner than that person or that person over there that doesn’t even appear to follow God? They’re 89 years old. They smoke two packs a day and drink a bottle of Jack. Like what’s going on here? Well, guess what? All of our souls are condemned. We’re born rebels. And if we want to spend our time trying to decipher judgment, so be it. Spend your time doing that. But you better look in the mirror first because that’s where it’s going to begin with you. You’re not going to like, “Oh, you die and you’re with Jesus and Jesus is so, I’m so glad you’re here now, Brian.” We can begin to judge everybody according to what you think. It doesn’t work that way. John 13 or John 3, right? Judgment has come into the world. The Son of God has come into the world. We know what the standard is. We know what the way and the truth and the life is. We know who the way and the truth and life is. And regardless of how our lives play out, He is the judge because He is the standard. And He’s come into the world, but men…and the light has come into the world, but men love their darkness. They kept on walking in their darkness. So be it. It’s just what we talked about in the lighter conversation about church attendance and church matter, that sort of thing. You’re a grown up. You have all the information you need to make the choice. The one thing that you can’t do is say, “That doesn’t apply to me.” What do we say all the time here? Because I’m a rush fan? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. That is your choice. Exactly. So there’s one standard and it’s Jesus Christ. And it’s faith in the completed work of the cross. One standard, faith in the completed work of the cross. I believe in my heart that He is raised from the dead. I profess that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Lord of my life. One standard. It’s not an earthly standard and God is not precocious. He doesn’t say, “Oh, well, those people are wicked. I’m going to make a building fall on them.” Those people are less wicked, so I’m going to make them just suffer a little bit without any food for a few days. Now, the world is wicked. Human beings are born wicked. We have the standard of righteousness and through faith in Him, we are covered by that righteousness. Now we walk as new people. We walk as He did by the power of His Spirit alone as light in darkness. And our bodies are susceptible to death, disease, destruction. We are susceptible still to temptation and the machinations of Satan, the opposer of God’s will. Probably even more so because we have professed to be and we have become a child of God. We have professed faith and we’ve become a child of God. As I heard yesterday, you can always tell a good leader by the number of knives in their back. So you’re a Christian out there in the world. You can kind of expect those attacks. Not kind of, you can. So Jesus is preaching the same message here as He did when He came out of the wilderness. Repent. There’s a little more context here. And I think sometimes as Christians, one of our big Christians, but big Christian butts is, but I’m a faithful Christians, a Christian. I’m a faithful Christian. Why is this happening to me? I’m a faithful Christian. Repent. That’s the only standard. As most of you are indicating right here, it’s you know that. You don’t judge. I don’t, you know, you don’t judge yourself over about against this other person over here. Well, there are more righteous than me. I think I’m going to die a horrible death or I’m super righteous compared to that person over there. They’re going to die a horrible death. That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. One standard. And He came and He died for all. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He wants no one to perish eternally. He wants all to have eternal life. And that’s why He created the church. And that goes full circle back to our then what is our responsibility in the church? What is our responsibility as a part of the church? What is our responsibility as what our as church leaders? What layers of accountability and responsibility do we have to be faithful to the word? One of the things that we believe here at Church Town is that it come, you know, we, we as a body have to be well versed so that we like the Corinthians, like the Thessalonians, like the churches in Revelation six out of seven. So like we don’t stray away like they did. And you need, you need to be very intentional. You know, I stay away from the word works, but you need to be very intentional because it is this relational aspect of it. The Lord has provided. What do we do with that? We do with it as He wills and one of He tells us constantly, I will meditate on your word day and night. I will stay in your word. I will know your word. I will know you through your word. I will know you through prayer and godly conversations with other submitted Christians. And together we will be very intentional in seeking and following His will and together we will be very intentional, perhaps in holding each other accountable. All that in one paragraph. Now in the church down weekly, I actually go a different direction with this and that’s the beauty of scripture. What direction do you want to go? But I go a different direction. Good morning, Scott. I got the Carolinas cover. Vermont, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California. I’ve got the man who was the best man at my wedding and his sister, California. They enjoy turning on the lights. I send it out to them every day. They subscribe to the podcast. Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. Rate and review it. Because that’s how Apple podcasts and Spotify, that’s how it goes. Oh, people are listening to this. So if somebody types in Christian teaching or Christian or church, whatever, it may come up and they’ll be able to hear this. That’s just the way it works. It goes on to talk about the barren fig tree, which I relate in my devotion this week because. When the seed is planted and again, I can go back to First Corinthians is talking about a lot of this stuff. The seed is planted. How is it watered? How is it nurtured? How is it given an opportunity to grow? And so the barren fig tree, it’s been barren for years. It should be yielding fruit. It’s not yet. The gardener says, wait, wait. Let me nurture this tree. And that is an example of us turning to Christ in him saying, I have all you need. Right. So that’s it. That’s where we are today on Thursday, February. What is it? Twenty seven. It just keeps coming up. Kim White is watching. Kim White is watching. Kim White is watching. Kim White is watching. There’s like twenty seven. Kim White is watching. Are you getting that on your end? Kim? It’s weird. I mean. Kim White is watching. Kim White is watching. It’s like you’re trying to tell me you’re trying. It’s like I’m trying to. It’s like you’re trying to send a message. Kim White is watching. No, I don’t know. It’s probably technology oriented, that sort of thing. But anyway, there we are. There are ten thousand eighty minutes in a week. I don’t know. Maybe your church. Maybe your church, give or take, is asking you for sixty of them. Ten thousand eighty minutes in a week. Maybe your church, give or take, is asking for ninety. Maybe even one hundred and twenty. Really? And you can’t. It’s just you can’t. Because of all the times during the week, you can find time to sit down and watch all three episodes of Reacher. But man, Sunday morning comes around and you just don’t feel like it. Do you think that’s coincidence? No. It’s not coincidence. It is the opposer of God’s will giving you every Christian but in the world for you not to attend. So pray through it. Get up and go and walk in the spirit. Shake off. Shake off the words of Satan. Shake off the thoughts in your head. Get behind me, Satan. I’m living in the will of God. I am living in the word. I’m gone. I’m living in the spirit. You can just go pound sand. I’m going to church. I’m going to hear the word. We’re going to pray with my brothers and sisters. We’re going to sing and worship. That’s what we’re going to do. Father, we pray that around the world, your church universal is in your word this weekend, every week, obviously. In your word, Lord, not trying to draw people in with carnal things and then providing those same things in the house of God or what is to be a house of God. Show those folks the way in the messages of repentance. The messages of the is of the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. Christ is our cornerstone. Christ is our foundation. He is perfect and our building will be perfectly constructed because of him and him alone. Nothing that we do. Grant us the faith Lord, the faith faith that we sinners need the faith that we weak vessels need Lord grant us the faith to walk in your will to walk in your way. In Jesus name, fill your churches Lord and let your word go out. Amen. God bless you all. Thank you for a fantastic week. And like I said, if you follow along, and this has been very good for me. Tuesday, turning on the lights Thursday, turning on the lights, Thursday’s written devotion and then Sunday’s preaching, you’ll see a lot that is interconnected interrelated, you’ll have a real good handle on the scriptures that at least I’ve been in that week. And I’m trying to design it that way so that it’s more poignant for anybody who may be participating. And it’s also more poignant for me. Like today, we had a little side conversation about church and church attendance and accountability, but you know what I mean? I know it’s good. I know it’s good for me. I feel good about it. So God bless you. Thank you for your participation and I’ll see you again. We’ll see you in church, right? It’s Thursday. We’ll see you in church. Kim White is watching in case anybody was wondering.
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