Examining "Truth Be Told" by Matthew West - Ask The Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.

Andy Griess

We had another question come in and I think it's one that'll be interesting to you. You guys listen to KCMI on the regular, and while you're listening you may run across this Matthew West song called Truth Be Told. And a listener sent us a question about some of the things they were wrestling with that were brought up in this song. And so we're just going to read through some of the thoughts here in this song and interact with them as pastors, and just give you our perspective. So the song begins with line number one: "You're supposed to have it all together. And when they ask how you're doing just smile and tell him never better." And so this song is dealing with some of the things you sometimes see in the church that might be off putting to somebody who has some hurts, has some needs, has some baggage, and they're coming into the church expecting something from God that can bring peace, joy and love into their life. But when they come through the door, they see this vision of something that they're not sure if this is the place for them.

Bruce Peterson

Or they don't even come in the door because it's what they expect.

Andy Griess

Yeah. Our culture definitely gives us the conception that this is what you're going to find. If you come to a church, you're going to find people like this, who they act like they've got it all together, they smile, and you ask them how they're doing and they just say "Oh, never better. Life is good."

Bruce Peterson

And in my experience, I think part of that's true. So let's just deal with this, right? A lot of churches are judgmental. Certainly today, a lot of churches that get quoted or are in the news are there because the news loves to paint us as a group of judgmental people. Right? So they find the bad case scenarios and make us seem more judgmental. But to be fair, I grew up in judgmental churches. I certainly know judgmental people that go to church. I would also like to say a lot of people who don't go to church are judgmental as well.

Andy Griess

Yeah. (chuckles)

Bruce Peterson

Humans are judgmental. So the question is, is it okay if we take that judgement and put it on God and say that God therefore is judgmental because people are? So lie number one: Are you supposed to have it all together? Do you have it all together?

Andy Griess

No. No, but I look nice on Sunday morning. And that's what we do - we put on what we call our Sunday best. And if it's not dressing up, on the way to church you might have fights going on in the car, you might have arguments. Everything might be falling apart, but you step out of that car and you walk into church, you're gonna have it together.

Bruce Peterson

If your kids act out, it's like "You're gonna get it." (laughs)

Andy Griess

Of course we're going to do that. But the problem is, if you carry that over and act like spiritually and relationally I've got to be that way too. I think one of the things that the church doesn't do a good job of, because we put on those airs, is we don't open up to one another and we don't share our hurts and our struggles and our failures, and the efforts that we're making to overcome those failures. Those are things we don't talk about until we're on the other end of them and we got it all figured out.

Bruce Peterson

That's right. And I think this is a real shame. I think it's true that this is the expectation, we act like we have it all together. I think it is terribly detrimental. The message we should be talking about with every fiber of our being is that we are a group of people sojourning together on our way to heaven. We are learning from each other, we're mentoring each other, we are growing... which implies that we have growth to do. I don't have it all together, but I have it way more together than I did 30 years ago, right? I mean, there's progress. And yet I can say without any hesitation that I have farther to go. If this is a marathon, I'm about two miles in.

Andy Griess

And I think part of the struggle for a pastor and for a church member is remembering if you're 30 years into this journey, you didn't learn all those lessons and make that growth overnight - it's been 30 years of that. And more importantly, remembering that the starting point of that was God calling to you in your sin and saying "You are broken. You are my enemy because of your resistance and your rebellion. Are you ready to leave all of that behind and accept the forgiveness that I have for you? Let's start here with faith in Jesus." And if, 30 years out, you look at where you are today and you're only concerned about your own progress, then you're not part of a church because there's people coming in that are brand new every time, and they need that very first lesson.

Bruce Peterson

And I think when we have that attitude, we look at the church and we don't see how we fit in when the fact is, if you have 15 years in you have advice you can give. You have support you can give. You've made progress. How did you make it? Sit next to someone who's clearly entering the church and say, "Listen, I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to tell you if you hang in there for 15 years, here's what it took me. You can do this!" We can all be encouragers instead of judgers. We can all own our sojourning progress and really contribute significantly to other people's lives.

Andy Griess

Yeah, and I think we should have the attitude that "If it took me 15 years to learn this, I want to make sure it doesn't take that guy 15 years because I'm going to take those things that I learned the hard way and give him a hand up."

Bruce Peterson

Yeah. And the other side of that coin is, I'm not going to expect him to make in four months the progress that took me 15 years. Or, I'm not there yet, I'm faking, and he better really turned around and yet I have all this secret stuff going on. So we agree that's a lie - you shouldn't have it all together, but we do also agree that the church is a place where you can make progress.

Andy Griess

Yeah, absolutely. Line number two says that "everybody's life is perfect except for yours". I think that's what comes out of church, people pretending they got it all together. It leaves people coming in with this idea that everybody's got it figured out. And so it says, "You keep your messes and your wounds and your secrets safe behind closed doors."

Bruce Peterson

That's right. So the idea is if I come to church believing that everyone's telling me the truth and I'm going to church to find help because I have problems, but I get there and they're all saying they're fine, then somehow God has forgotten about me. They have power I don't have, they have blessings I don't have, somehow there's a gap between me and God because clearly if you're doing fine, you're healthy, you're wealthy, you are blessed, your children obey you every time, you have perfect self discipline...

Andy Griess

This must be a place for people who have it all together.

Bruce Peterson

...or God has lost me somehow. So that's terribly detrimental. Again, James says to confess your sin to one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Love like church should be a place where we acknowledge that we're sojourners. Paul says, "Listen, I know you want to give up. I know your tears. And I'm telling you, hang in there, suffer with me. Do the long haul." Paul himself says "I haven't arrived yet, but I have to get up every day and forget yesterday and press on to what God has called me for." Like, this is hard. Living by faith is hard. The world does a great job trying to suck us in. And if it's a war, there must be a battle. Like God describes it, our battle is not against flesh and blood. But again, if there's a real battle and none of us are struggling, then it's not even a battle.

Andy Griess

And this is one of the key reasons why the church is so important - because if every one of us has to start off that huge battle with just whatever we've got, it's overwhelming.

Bruce Peterson

It's overwhelming.

Andy Griess

When I do pre-marriage counseling, when I'm getting a couple ready for marriage, I'm gonna tell them marriage is the hardest thing that you've ever done, but you're not the first person that's had to go through all of that. This church is filled with people who've been married 20 years, 35 years, 60 years. And if you're a part of this body and you're getting to know these people and your lives are connected and you're raising kids together, somebody here has gone through that and failed, and they can tell you why they failed or did it successfully. And they can tell you what the keys to success were. But being connected to a group that isn't just pretending, we've got it all together, that's open and sharing, that's the thing.

Bruce Peterson

Honest, open and growing, that's our theme, right? But getting people to actually do it is much trickier than putting it on the wall.

Andy Griess

In the question that was sent to us, they keyed in on the second verse which says "There's a sign on the door that says come as you are, but I doubt it. Because if we live like that was true, every Sunday morning pew would be crowded. But didn't you say the church should look more like a hospital, a safe place for the sick, the center and the scared and the prodigals like me."

Bruce Peterson

And that's going to come out of passages like this. Jesus in Matthew 9:10-12 says this: "While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' On hearing this, Jesus said 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means - I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'." So out of that idea comes this idea that churches should be hospitals. How do you react to that?

Andy Griess

It comes from this idea that Jesus said, "I came for those who are sick." And I take that to mean - we're all sick.

Bruce Peterson

Yeah, that's right.

Andy Griess

He came for those who are willing to recognize that they are sick.

Bruce Peterson

When he says "I'm not here for the righteous". He means the self-righteous.

Andy Griess

If you consider yourself to be righteous, you don't need any help, you're going to stay where you are for the rest of your life - Jesus has no help for them. His help is for those who recognize that they're sick, that's why you go to a hospital. And the church was founded with people who recognize that they're sick. They found that Jesus had the answer. He's forgiven their sins, His spirit now lives in them, they've been given new life. They have now a mission to be the light of the world to take the message of Jesus to the world. They're to go to the rest of the sick and say, listen, if you recognize you have needs Jesus is the answer. We found him. We're learning to be what he called us to be. And we want you to join us wherever you're at. Jump right in and let's go. So it should be in some sense, a functional hospital.

Bruce Peterson

A functional hospital, that's the key. So the full range of a hospital is not just an emergency room, right? Our message isn't just, "Hey, Jesus forgives sin, so just sit in the pews, be as sinful as you want with no expectation of health, you're here simply for forgiveness." I think that's wrong, the church isn't just an emergency room. A hospital's not just an emergency room. You have the emergency room, and people who need real help should feel totally welcome, that's where they can go for help. Then you go from the emergency room to a care room, you get your own room maybe on floor two and three. And then four, you go to rehab. The goal is to leave the hospital healthy or at least relatively healthy, right? It's the whole gamut. So yeah, you should have people who aren't judged. You should be able to come in because you don't know the message of grace and what God's love can do for a person. At the same time we're all patients, but we're all also doctors, we need to help and we should have an expectation of growth, and we are the light of the world. So we can't stay people who need an emergency room. We have to move all the way to people who are just coming for a little rehab and we're leaving healthier to go reach our world.

Andy Griess

And just to kind of wrap things up: if the church is going to be that kind of a hospital, the goal of everybody should be, "I'm gonna take what Jesus has done for me, and I need people in this town to know that if they're broken and sick they don't have to stay there. There's a place where they can come." And so the people that have been healed are the ones who reach the rest.

Bruce Peterson

That's right. In this whole song. I think Matthew West is pushing the church to be real. Be sojourners, don't be fake. If we all own our issues, then we can demonstrate a real process and real progress, and then we can actually be real help to those who need it. So people who need help - all of us, but some desperately - should be able to come sit in our pews, get our healing, get our help, because we have all gotten help. We should offer help instead of judgment, and we should have a "in" door and "out" door. You come in sick and you leave a little healthier. And if we do that for the course of our life, we'll make a huge difference.

Andy Griess

And I think the reason this song kind of conveys a sense of sadness is because the world knows this is what the church should be. It should be our vision as the church that we want to be the light that Jesus intends us to be.

How Should Christians Respond to Government Involvement In Our Faith? - Ask The Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Jeff Banks, Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.

Bruce Peterson

So this week we have an absolutely tough, tough question. It reads easy enough, but the answer is tough. The basic question is: In the political environment that we are in as Americans, how many liberties should we as Christians be willing to give up? The question went on to talk about the vaccines are coming around, and as this person wrestled with the Bible they went to the character of Daniel. And in their estimation, they said, "Do I think that Daniel would get the vaccine? I think Daniel would get the vaccine, but then Daniel wasn't American." So as we live in our unique political environment, with our absolute unique word of God, how should we think through all of the liberty issues in our culture today? How do we respond to them as Christians?

Andy Griess

And I would add specifically that this question was in this context: What if the government doesn't give you the option of taking the vaccine, or what if they were trying to take away the freedom to make that choice?

Jeff Banks

So mandating the vaccine. And maybe we could preface it with - this isn't new, right? I think American Christians have been grappling with constitutional freedom, religious freedom through history, but certainly we can all agree over the last year that this has just come to the surface.

Andy Griess

It is a hot topic.

Jeff Banks

It's hot, and we know it's polarizing, and I don't think we want to add to that. Like, I think we've had enough - I've had enough - of some of that happening. And so we want to try to bring some pastoral care and yet - I'll be honest - I think we're all wrestling through it ourselves personally.

Bruce Peterson

Right now it is 4:36. The three of us started this at 3:00 and we've been talking for over an hour and a half on this subject just between the three of us, trying to really wrestle through what our perspective is. So we don't in any way want to suggest this is simple, or suggest that we have a definitive answer that you can take and never think about it again yourself.

Jeff Banks

And I guess even as we say that, I appreciate that we can do that. And maybe that's a good starting point - hopefully we can model that, even with different perspectives, we're sitting at the table and having a discussion and it's good. I think that's good.

Andy Griess

Yeah. And one of the things that I was just thinking about is as we've thrown out all of our different viewpoints and how we handle this, we kind of have different ways of coming at this. And that would come out if somebody came into my office as a pastor and asked this question, I'm wrestling right now with the idea that I think I know how I would handle this specific question, but I'm not certain that's the advice I would give for the person sitting across the desk from me, because their situation and their way of thinking might be different than mine. So I think there should be a lot of freedom for Christians to have different ways of coming at this and that's one of the trickier things - in the Western world and in the United States, as we seem to be having less and less and less freedom, there might be points where you got to make some hard decisions. And if I would be willing to stand up and make a hard decision that might put me in a situation where I would have to defend myself, or be arrested, or whatever - if I would be willing to make that choice, I don't know that I would look at the person across the table and say they should have to make the same choice.

Bruce Peterson

As pastors, we bear a unique responsibility and serve in a special role, so we might lay our lives down in a different way than congregants necessarily would. Here's something I think we all three do agree on, let's start with this. There is a major, major distinction between being an American and being a Christian.

Andy Griess

For certain.

Jeff Banks

Absolutely.

Bruce Peterson

Different kingdoms, different agendas, different morals, different responsibilities, different goals.

Jeff Banks

Absolutely. And I think it's difficult because there can be a climate where we're trying to merge some of those too closely.

Bruce Peterson

And we live in both worlds.

Jeff Banks

And sometimes they're opposed, right? So I think we have to acknowledge that.

Bruce Peterson

So I think we'd all agree that our, our primary fight - maybe that's just that they're separate ideas. And we aren't called in the Bible to be good citizens of whatever country you live in, right? America wasn't around when the Bible was written. We're called to be good citizens everywhere. But literally of everywhere. Wherever you live, you should be a good citizen there.

Jeff Banks

Yeah. That's not distinctively American, right? Christians and other countries, be a good citizen in the country you live.

Andy Griess

And that's where I would say my goal personally has to start individually. I want to live as a resident of the kingdom of God. Jesus is my king. I want to live in service to him. And then I want to take that to my family. I would love for him to be the King of everybody living in my household.

Bruce Peterson

Especially my twins, yeah.

Andy Griess

And then beyond that as a pastor, I'm going to go to my church family. I think all of these run together between my family and my church. I want everybody there to know that Jesus is King and want to live with Him as their king. I would love for that to spill over into a nation who wanted to live with Jesus as their king. That's not the nation that we live in. So how do we work towards seeing more and more of our nation wanting that? If we have a nation that's going to try to limit our freedoms, how do we handle all that? I'm starting back with myself, my family, and my church family. That's the area where I have influence. And that's honestly the only area where I want to put all of my focus, teaching the gospel in such a way that I'm hopefully inspiring other people to see that they want to live with Jesus as King. I think the only freedoms that I'm really worried about, is the freedom to not be able to do that, as long as I have the freedom to do that I can operate in any other kind of system.

Jeff Banks

I think if someone's coming into my office and asking this question, the two-minute version is to address these two distinct places or tensions that we live in as American citizens, and to be thankful - grateful - for the freedom that we have, grateful for those who have fought and died for freedom, to exercise the freedom you have as a citizen, to use the avenues that you have available to you - which includes voting - and whatever the blessing of living in this free country may be, to embrace that. And then I would transition to, you know, we are also citizens of this kingdom, right? And so I would just invite them to prayerfully discern with Jesus as your King, and not allow your American citizen freedom and the loss of that to trump that aspect of it. Jesus is King. If you lose your freedom, if America derails, Jesus is still King and Jesus is still building his church, and the church can flourish regardless of that. So that's my initial approach right there.

Bruce Peterson

I would say this: I think it's a wonder to live in America. Our constitution is very liberating and has caused wonderful things on this planet and in our personal lives. I can't imagine being in a dictatorship that's going south or something like living in Cuba 30 years ago. So I'm super thankful. But with that comes responsibility, right? I mean, it's been handed to us and we should try to the best of our ability to hand it down. I appreciate our government, but I think that can get in the way of our gospel presentation because politics divides. So here's what I would say: I believe that God will lay it on the hearts of certain Christians to rise up and to be politicians. They should follow that lead. They should go, they should stand, they should fight, they should argue, they should try to pass laws that keep our freedoms and keep it possible to spread the gospel. But we're not all called to politics. If we were all called to politics, we would be a political party. We're not, we're the church of God. In Daniel's prophecy, the church of the kingdom of God is going to wipe out other governments, including ours. But this government should last as long as it can.

I think we should vote for those people - we should know them, we should know the issues, we should vote - but the freedoms that they're fighting for, we should use. We fight over the freedom itself, but we don't use the freedom. The vast majority of Christians should be in the business of trusting God with our politics, voting, and then using our freedom to spread the Gospel without a false hurdle. If you first have to agree with me politically before I think you're a Christian, or if I'm so loud politically that you won't hear the Gospel from me because I've alienated you, I think I've done a disservice to the kingdom of God. Maybe I have served the United States but I won't hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You really defended America." I am called to spread the kingdom of God, and I'm with Paul - I don't put any hurdles in the way of that.

Andy Griess

As I imagine somebody coming into my office to ask me this question, "What do we do with this issue that I think is limiting my freedom? I think the government has overreached and is trying to make me do something that they don't have the authority to do." I think I would sympathize with them to a certain extent and say they're in a tough spot and they've got to think through a lot of things. And I think part of me would share with them how I think about the subject, but I don't know how specific I would get regarding what I would do. I would point them to the fact that within the systems we have now in America, there is a legal, civil way of making your protests heard. If you feel like this is overreach, then there is an outlet for you to do that. But the truth is, you would probably have to put yourself in a position where you are going to defy a mandate, which means that you may be charged with something, you may be fined, you may have to go through some kind of a civil trial ordeal, where that begins the process where you can challenge it.

So you've got to count the cost. Is it worth me trying to go through the legal mechanisms to do this? And that's where I would say, "I could tell you what I might be willing to do, but I would not want to tell you what to do." I try to make them aware of what they would have to go through to take it through all those legal channels, and then I would not center on that. I would say the worry you have that freedoms are eroding, there's things that Christians haven't liked for generations about the direction our nation is headed. But at every step of the way it's the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have to focus on, it has to be central to everything that we're doing. And fighting every one of these political battles, politically I don't think that has served us well. I think it's taken our attention away from is Jesus, our King first and foremost. And are we conveying to the people around us that he should be their king too? Here's why, here's how awesome He is. Here's what he can do for you. Here's what he wants to do for the world. That's the message that I want to make sure people have at the forefront of what they're trying to accomplish.

Bruce Peterson

I think the gospel can thrive in any political government, and has for 2000 years. It is the one kingdom that has the promise of God that it will conquer all other kingdoms, including democracy.

Andy Griess

And I think if that would have been our focus as the church all the way through, to focus on the Gospel rather than trying to fight these fights politically, maybe there would have been a slide in a different direction, where things could be a lot different. So if we're going to make the changes we want to make, it starts with being serious about that. That's what I would say.

Bruce Peterson

I think you're right. If you're afraid of anything, be afraid of not being serious about the Gospel.

How Do We Reach Our Communities For Christ? - Ask The Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole

So this morning, our question is a little bit different, but it's one that I know I have a passion for and I think you do too. And so we'll just get into it. This question is from a young man who recently shared with me his burden to reach our community for Christ, but he struggled with how best to go about doing it. If you were to advise him on how to proceed, what would you tell him? So Gary, let's think about that. What kind of advice can we give this person?

Gary Schick

And this one comes with a little conviction because you know, whatever we say, well, are you doing it? And if not, why not? Evangelism is kind of an interesting thing, because as evangelicals that is our business. That's what we're about is sharing the good news. And yet statistically, it's amazing how many "evangelical Christians" have never shared the gospel. Is it because we don't know what to say? Is it because we're afraid? What is it that holds us back? Is it maybe that we actually put too much on ourselves and not enough on what the Lord can do, or are we just waiting for the Lord to do it for us?

I guess I could say this: I'm really happy that in the last 15 years that I've been a part of this community, the one thing the pastors and churches have really come together on over and over again is a passion to do this - to do it individually, to do it together. Way, way, way back at the beginning of our time here, it was a really cool thing. Evangelists Bill Fay came into the Cougar Palace up at the college. Many churches in the community actually gave up Sunday morning service for this Sunday to come together for joint worship, where he trained us in a method of personal evangelism. I think he was quoting DL Moody when he once said, "If you don't like my method of evangelism, that's fine. What's yours?" You know, just go out and do it. That was great, and through the years whatever we've come together for, like Love In Action and most recently just bringing food to the Albertson's parking lot. The underlying component there is - in some practical, felt way - to let the love of God be known and hopefully open up a door to share the gospel. Now have all those occasions bore fruit? God only knows, but there is a passion in this community for that. Like all the other questions, this one's huge.

Ben Poole

Yeah.

Gary Schick

We could spend a week on this one, on different approaches, different methods. But if we were to boil the topic down, for myself, I would just share three things to our listeners today in terms of sharing the hope that is within us, salvation through faith in Christ. Number one: Pray. Yes, we are messengers of God's good news. We are sent out into the world just as the early apostles were. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" - that includes us. But Jesus first says, "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send and to equip and to prepare hearts." Ultimately it's not you or I, or anything we say that changes a life or saves a heart, it's the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

I had the coolest experience many years ago when I was a seminary student. A small group of us went over to Kenya in East Africa for eight weeks. And through translators we were sort of stumbling through the gospel. And did we see people come to Christ? Yes. But one of the coolest things was when somebody showed up and said, "You never spoke to me, but I saw you sharing the gospel. And I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and I accepted Christ." We had never spoken to him, but others had planted the seed and we were reaping the harvest of what others had planted. And there was a great harvest that summer. That was messaged to us - yes, you are here being faithful, God's blessing it, but there is a very real sense that you've got nothing to do with it. This is all about God's work in the human heart.

Then number two: Make it felt. Love, develop, not just to get you saved, but develop sincere relationships with your neighbors and coworkers, and just love people where they are and be the fragrance of the gospel. And as Paul said, "To some we are the fragrance of life, to others who are rejecting it we are the fragrance of death. But whatever it is, be the fragrance of the gospel in people's lives." So are we producing those fruits of the Holy Spirit? Are we being Christ-like to our neighbors and to our community? And are we salt and light?

And then third: When the opportunity comes, speak up. And I think this is where a lot of people kind of check it off. "Yep. I can pray. I can do that. Yep, I can be kind and loving, so I'm going to do that." But boy, I don't know what to say. Well, and it's okay. Drag them to church, let them hear an evangelist. But you know, there are people that you may reach that I will never meet, or that you will have an inroad with because of a relationship that I will never have. So I'm kind of limiting things to three, but there's three things to note. Number one, know our need. We are all sinners. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. We all are separated from God by sin and we need a savior. Number two, know the gospel. Jesus is that savior, He is the sinless son of God. He died for our sins and He rose again. And number three, know how to respond. Receive Christ. Put your trust in Him. There's nothing magic about words in a prayer, but prayer is the way we talk to God and just acknowledge it. "Jesus. I need you to forgive my sin. I believe in you. I accept you as my Savior. My Lord, come into my heart and my life." It's not a specific set of words like God to say this it's a response. And then right back to number one - pray, pray, pray.

You know, statistically most people need to hear the gospel about seven times before they respond. So we shouldn't be discouraged. I know naturally we are, if we go out and share our faith, and we just kind of get a blank stare. Well, you might just be the first one along the way. Some people only need to hear it once, but there are some who aren't going to need to hear it seven times, they're going to need to hear it 70. At least be one of those times, Pray for God to be moving in hearts, and pray for God to be preparing your heart, pray that You will be salt and light and pray for opportunities.

Ben Poole

Yeah, that's good. And I definitely echo everything you just said as key things to consider, and I want to pivot to some practical things that we can do. There's churches coming together, handing out food. What I would say is don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel, because our community and our churches are filled with ministries that are outreaching to the community for the gospel. If you're the one that asked us this question and you're going to a church regularly, go talk to your pastor or ministry leaders and ask, "Where can I use these gifts that I have with our body?. And if you're not part of a church, get in one and come visit. You can come to either of ours or any of the preachers that are on Ask The Pastor. Just pick a church that's a gospel preaching church, and get involved and see what you can do.

There's a point where we think these are large scale things - the food ministries, the food pantries, they're reaching large groups of people. But like you were alluding to, don't forget your neighbor, don't forget your coworker that you're with all day long, and the people you're around. Sometimes it's easy to think of reaching people on a bigger scale, maybe like in a church service setting, but there are people who don't necessarily come to church but would love to have a conversation. Most people that I talk to and have talked to who aren't Christian love to talk about what they believe in. And one thing I've struggled with - and probably still do - is that I want to spend more time trying to convince someone to come to Christ, and I struggle a lot with listening. And I think what people really need is for someone to listen to them. That is something that's hard because in your head you're thinking of arguments against everything they're saying, but we have to be careful when we're telling people about Jesus. What we're really doing is we're essentially dismantling their whole belief system, and that affects people emotionally and physically. And it's hard for people to learn what they believed isn't true. And so that goes back to when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, "To love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself." And I think we need to reach people for Christ, whether it's in large settings or in an individual setting where, if this was me that was being talked to, how would I want someone to share that gospel with me? In my struggles, in my unbelief, in my belief of something else, how would I want someone to talk to me about that?

Our church motto or mission statement is very simple: Love God, Love People, Repeat. We've got to invest into our relationship with God. Like you were saying, pray, stay in the Word and then go love people, just like Jesus did. He didn't say, "I'm going to go love those people, but not these people." We've got to get away from that nonsense teaching. He got a lot of grief for the people He spent time with. And He said, "I came for the lost, I came for the sick" - they're the ones that need to be healed. And I think we as Christians need to have that same mindset.

Gary Schick

Yeah. And you brought out two things: one, the need of believers for a church body to be a part of. We'll have individual witness opportunities, but it is as the church that we do this. On the other hand, the longer we're in Christ the farther away from the non-Christian world we become. So while it's important to be a part of the church, it's also important to be in the world, but as the Scripture says not of the world. So there are evangelical Christians who are saying, "Well, I'd be willing to share but I don't know anybody who doesn't know Jesus." Well, maybe you need to go make some new friends. I mean, I'm not saying to go and start doing a bunch of sinful things to be like that. But hey, there's people who don't know Jesus everywhere we go. Just get to know people and accept them where they are. That's the other stereotype Christians have, that we're very judgmental. And we're going to come off that way because, you know, we have turned from a lot of that, but we also have to meet people where they are and say, "You know, I'm not there. I'm not telling you not to be there, but I'm inviting you to know someone who makes all the difference and will turn your life inside out, upside down in ways you never imagined." And those surface things that set us apart from the world - they're there, but they're not even the beginning of the real change that Jesus wants to make inside us.

Ben Poole

Well if you're listening and you are looking for ways to serve, I can openly invite you to pretty much any church in our community. The churches in our community really are making some moves for the kingdom of God here. So we would love to have you join up and get involved in different ministries around the community, see where your gifting is and come talk to us and we can get you plugged in somewhere for sure, because the church really needs people that are going to get out there and get to work for the kingdom of God. And it is not God's desire that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. So the way that's going to happen is through His church that He established.