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Podcast 40 - Why do we need the church
1 Playsin 7 hours
Join us as we discuss our God given need for community
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of Church
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. And I'm going to be honest, I've been pretty excited to listen to the podcast, especially when I'm not on it, when we have special guests or people who don't typically come on here. There's some excitement building around the podcast.
00:00:25
Speaker
and i'm excited that you're here to listen i've heard more and more people in the church talking about this podcast and so i'm kyle hess the youth pastor here at grovefield church this is my friend john ballard the associate pastor and today we have a special guest whyat holmes yeah he's the student life intern and so he's been working with me and he's really been working me with me for the last three years or so within student life um he's just an official leader now and so We're going to about something today that I think is discussed among many and that is kind of like the purpose of the church or why we have the church or why is the church important, should I go to church, all those things.
00:01:04
Speaker
um
Belief Without Attendance
00:01:05
Speaker
You think of some of those people in your life where they're like, I'm a Christian, I believe in God, but the church is not for me. I don't go to church. What do we think about that mindset, John? I think the the mindset has really kind of shown itself throughout all of time.
00:01:23
Speaker
There's kind of waves of the mindset that shifts. Some of you all in the last 20 some odd years can probably attest to. things that were very pivotal. I think Ridley has mentioned them times before in sermons, but we see things like 9-11 happen.
00:01:41
Speaker
People go to church. ah We see things like war break out, or we see things when they're very just pivotal, polarizing moments. And that's sometimes the only time people will go. right
Misunderstandings and Negative Perceptions
00:01:53
Speaker
But people, I think,
00:01:54
Speaker
fall into that trap because a lot of them, they first of all, they weren't given an example that was anything good of what it is to go to church, even the definition of what the church brings. They don't understand. That's so true. I've got to interrupt you right there yeah because people do that all the time where it's a hypocritical mindset. So mom and dad went to church, but they came home and they treated you like garbage. Maybe your dad was abusive. And so your brain goes, if that's the type of person that goes to church,
00:02:24
Speaker
I'm never going to associate it with the church. right Even though that person may believe in God or that person might have think they have a personal relationship with Him, they're distancing themselves from the church just from someone else's behavior who went to church. Oh yeah yeah yeah, definitely. So I think all those things draw you into the camp of why people have pushed away the church is just because they don't know what it is. They they don't understand and have a good definition. So Ignorance, I could say is some of it, even though it sounds a little harsh. I think just people don't know. And I also think they they don't see the fullness of what God designed when he designed the church. Yeah.
Church as a Living Body Metaphor
00:03:05
Speaker
What do you guys think of when you think of the word church? I think the first thing you think of is the the physical church or the steeple, but the more you're involved in it, you and you're involved in God's word, you can start to actually see, like, okay, there's body parts to God's church, you know, we're His church in His eyes. I actually heard someone the other day, funny you said that, it reminds you you know, you think of the building or the steeple. um when you ask, tell me about your church.
00:03:33
Speaker
You're gonna say, oh well, here's the address, here's the building, here's this or that. You say, tell me about your family. you say You don't say, here's my address, my house looks like this. You don't say any of that.
00:03:43
Speaker
mean, they say, tell me about your family. You say, man, I've got these two children and they're amazing. My wife, you know she just stands next to me. We never describe our church Often we don't. And so if someone says, what is your church like? i'm like, man, it's a living living, breathing organism that serves, that reaches people, that communicates God's word. And it should be like that. It should have
Community vs Isolation in Church
00:04:04
Speaker
this feeling of these are my these are my people. And so that's an ah incredible idea because you're saying,
00:04:09
Speaker
Hey, the church initially is a building, but as you know God and know His Word, you realize that the church is is comprised of individual people with gifts from God that functions like a body to bring glory to Him.
00:04:22
Speaker
the The metaphor of the body, and I've always thought about this, I'm like, I've used such, and I think it's good, obviously it's in Scripture for a reason, you mentioned it, Wyatt, you kind of elaborated on the the notion and metaphor of the body. And I've always thought, i wonder what people think that I've never been to church.
00:04:41
Speaker
I'm like, what do you mean the body? But there's so many different parts of our body, but they're supposed to be cohesive. And to your point, I thought that was great. Like when you tell me about your family, you don't tell me the address. And tell me, you know, give me the explanation that somebody gives and I can almost tell you what they believe about the church.
00:05:04
Speaker
Because if somebody goes and says, hey, yeah, this is the church and they give me the address. A lot of times i can see where their maturity is. and and by the way, for those of you who are new Christians and you've ever done that, it's okay. Because yes, it is a place that, a location that we will gather together, but the church for all intents and purposes is the body of Christ. Whenever we gather together and whenever we get together in a corporate setting that God designed for us to worship.
00:05:36
Speaker
Not for religious order or for right, because there's plenty of people that do gather together right all throughout the world. They'll gather together for sometimes even worthy causes, but they're not the church. right There's a difference. And if you you think about it, like the difference between isolation and community, even atheists,
00:05:57
Speaker
have gatherings. Yes. Right? And it's like, it's it's a different type of gathering. Okay. all these other religions or ideas or pride or whatever it may be, people look for community in what they're doing, right? Because God created us as communal creatures. He created us people who need relationship, who walk each other through things. And so the actual idea of the church is built in by God for community. Yeah. um what's What's the opposite side of that? The isolation. Where do we find ourselves when we're in isolation?
00:06:34
Speaker
COVID. good yeah I mean, that's point blank. I think that's the freshest thing in our mind of when we saw isolation at its finest. And I think it's still kind of permeating to today. Like you have a lot of people that are elderly people that they may have some sickness and know we understand in certain situations, but I think it's created a subset culture that says...
00:06:58
Speaker
I'm good. Like if it was good back then, like I'm good. Just keep church at a distance. And I believe that's where Satan wants everyone that desires or intends to seek out faith is to keep them isolated. So I think that's ah a big portion of what this culture is trying to do. They they want to give you a facade of community, social media. i mean, it's the same concept.
00:07:21
Speaker
You have this facade that you have so many people around you. But in all reality, you can do it on your own. You
Importance of Church Community
00:07:28
Speaker
can have it on your own and you can dwell within your own. And and that's just never been the concept. I think you see more failure whenever you see people on their own because there's things that we weren't designed to shoulder that's right that's right i think uh going off of the whole isolation side is people think oh you have to be alone sitting in your house not doing anything but if satan can't get you in that temptation he's gonna make you busy you know and i feel like what's scarier a place it feels worse to be at instead of just being by yourself is being so busy and still feeling isolated you know like you could be doing stuff
00:08:05
Speaker
you could be serving at church on Sundays and be doing it for the work side of things instead of doing it to honor God. And you can get home and feel absolutely drained and not in a good way. you know That's true.
00:08:18
Speaker
um Let's go personal question. Let's go in your own life. where do your Where do you find your spiritual walk when you've isolated away from the community of believers?
00:08:30
Speaker
I honestly go right to... um the the visualization of the Bible of the whitewashed tomb. You know, like, man, on the outside, you're doing all the right things, but on the inside, like, you're you if you're constantly pouring out to people, you're going to run dry, you know? And I get run off of visualizations of different things, you know? So, like, it'd be way better to be pouring into other people because you're pouring, you're getting poured into by God's Word and by mentors, you know? That's a way better...
00:09:01
Speaker
ah pouring yeah you know for lack of better words he says out of the overflow our cup should run over right yeah and so we should be being poured into so much with the community that when we're pouring out to people we're not running dry it's just an overflow of what's already in our heart when you isolate what where does your spiritual walk go i actually had a season in my life where there was isolation um even in my adult life and You know, people almost will go to the explanation of, man, it's good to be alone. You know, you just kind of get to flush your feelings. No, that's whenever I am at my worst.
00:09:38
Speaker
I am my own worst enemy. And people think that that isolation can create healing. um Sometimes, maybe when other people aren't included, like you can avoid from hurting other people from words you say or things you do. But isolation has never benefited me in the sense that um even isolation from God, like whenever I was away from the church or away from what God designed as a benefit,
00:10:08
Speaker
I never benefited because it left me alone with my sinful self. And we all have a sinful nature. And where what I saw in that season and that time was, I can't trust my feelings. I can't trust me being isolated because i will communicate to myself, even if it's not just the blatant wrong answer, chaos. Yep.
00:10:31
Speaker
You will eventually justify everything that you do yes when you're with yourself. It's it's around that accountability of other believers where they could look at you and go, no, you're on the base, right? And a lot of people don't like that. And that's why probably a lot of people don't like church is because there is an accountability to the way we live our life. And that's why it's designed that way.
00:10:52
Speaker
When we talk about the isolation, I think of of a fire. And so if you're listening to this and you're driving, don't close your eyes. But if you're if you're sitting on your couch right now, um envision a fire, right? And there's there's coals and there's logs and there's different things and that fire is burning and it's warm and it's producing heat, it's producing energy, it's it's alive.
00:11:12
Speaker
But if you take your fire poker and you take one of those coals out and you set it out outside the fire, maybe two or three seat feet, that coal is going to burn out quickly and it's going to go dark.
00:11:23
Speaker
It's going to lose its its energy, it's going to lose its production of heat and it's just going to become a lump of coal. yeah If you take that coal and put it back into the fire quickly, it reignites, it glows, it produces energy, it it gives off heat, it's now productive again. And it's a perfect, perfect, perfect analogy of what you are as a Christian. If you're around fellow believers and you're surrounded by those who are seeking the Lord, we're productive.
00:11:51
Speaker
We bring glory to the Lord. We produce warmth for the world to gather around. But as soon as you isolate and step away from that, your light is going to go downhill and burn out.
00:12:02
Speaker
And so just consider that as you maybe kind of go back and forth with whether you should attend church or why church is important. is It really is a place that just it feeds off of each other.
00:12:16
Speaker
And God designed it that way. Jumping to the next
Church as Family and Finding the Right Fit
00:12:19
Speaker
thing, the church is a family. And so in in scripture, we're referred to as brothers, we're referred to as sisters, we're referred to as children. What does that aspect of church mean to you guys or do for you guys?
00:12:35
Speaker
I mean, I would say that for me coming out of playing football last year, you know, like you build up that brotherhood of, um I was just at Weston, my younger brother's playing now. And so was at a practice and ah the offensive line coach was talking, And he added a new line at the end of practice that last year it was, we work together, we win together. And this year is five is one and one is five, you know, and of you're only as good as that one person. And that one is only as good as the five, you know, and at first you're like, okay, what does that mean? It's like, you're just saying things backwards now. like yeah But like right here in Galatians 6, 2, it says, carry one another's burdens in this way. you will fulfill the law of christ and it's calling us to like there's so many stories with like shadrach meshach and abednego you know like they locked arms and they were like all right right one of us is doing this we're doing it with you you know we're doing it for the one and that's jesus you know so incredible shout out to coach law have to get him on here yeah i um
00:13:45
Speaker
I can probably point to a couple different seasons in my life where I've seen the church be the family. and um There's been a lot of seasons to where i've eight years ago, before my wife and I had really established ourselves in a church. you know you ever been You've been church hunting before in the sense of like you moved to a new area and you're like, okay, these are the things we're looking for. Because there are some places you will walk into And it is strictly like a religious order. Like, hey, we'll go through the motions.
00:14:15
Speaker
And there are settings that you don't feel that because they don't embody the true biblical concept of what a church should be. But man, whenever you do... You feel the arms wrap around you in the way that they did in the New Testament time, imperfectly, but they will wrap around you whenever you need them the most. And sometimes even whenever someone else is in need,
00:14:40
Speaker
there there goes the extension of the arms. Like you said, the body parts will begin to work as they're supposed to, to feel and aid where God has called you to. But yeah, as I was searching for churches eight eight and a half years ago, i i was looking for someone who was going to teach, lead, and love my family. And I mean that in the sense of, I know as the husband that I'm leading my home, But I also have to know that there are others that are given little pieces of time to invest in my kids and my wife.
00:15:17
Speaker
And I want to make sure that whatever I'm allowing to be invested into their lives is something worth. It's salt. And it had to be somebody that was giving out the Word of God, and I'm glad that we found that. so I think ah going off of what you were saying with like the whole church hunting thing, when we first moved down here, you know now near being near Nashville, you know you have all these big artists who come and are around here. you know you can get caught in the dangerous like, oh, I like the worship here, i like the the preaching here. And worship's great, but going back to the body, like
00:15:51
Speaker
The church is to bring people together, you know? But what's the heart behind it? Are you there just because you have Lauren Daigle singing on worship, you know? Or are you there because you have a pastor who's not there for politics, who's not there to please people, he's there to honor God, and not going to compromise that, you know? And I think that's, to this point so far, what's been great about... Yeah, yeah um shameless plug. ah That's why Kelly and I stayed at Grove Hill Church. Mm-hmm. It was the second church we attended when we came here to Tennessee. The first one we went to is because we were invited. It was a couple towns over and we went because we needed to go to church that Sunday. But we knew we weren't going to go there permanently. And our second church we tried was Grove Hill Church.
00:16:31
Speaker
And after we got done with the sermon, I turned to Kelly and I said, that was scripture unfiltered. There was no agenda. there was no politics behind it, there was nothing other than here's the Word of God and here's what going to follow. And that's why we're still here. And if it ever changes, bye-bye. You know, like we're here for the Word of God.
00:16:51
Speaker
When that's preached, the structure of the church naturally gains steam. People
Handling Church Hurt and Seeking Healing
00:16:57
Speaker
want to serve, people want to obey, people want to lead. And so that's what we're seeing at Grove Hill Church right now. We're seeing a passionate a desire for people to actively live out their faith and be the hands and the feet and the eyes and the ears that we're talking about. um We're going to one more thing, and it's a little touchier. This next question going like four podcasts total.
00:17:20
Speaker
But um for the person who's been hurt by someone in the church, or you know we call it church hurt or hurt by a church, for that person, what do you say to that person who's considering, should I go back? Should I attend? Should i open myself up to that vulnerable place to people where I have the potential to be hurt again? What do you say to that person who's struggling?
00:17:42
Speaker
People are broken. um We all have, you know, you mentioned the the very, very familiar term to people that use the I'm not doing church again, other hypocrites. um I'll tell you this, in every church in America, by the way, in every house in America, you will walk into somebody and have a conversation and they're going to be broken just like the next person. So I would say,
00:18:08
Speaker
learn forgiveness a little bit. And even if you're still like, well, hey, you have no idea of what happened to me. I would say in that notion, try to walk alongside somebody as close as you can find in your proximity, family, friends, and just say, hey,
00:18:27
Speaker
I don't understand why this happened to me, but I want to understand because I know that and I see good parts of where God is working in other churches. I want to know maybe why this happened to me. So asking the questions and I would say another element is just give it a shot. like Just as much as um God has provided some of these other areas for people to have wonderful experiences in church.
00:18:55
Speaker
God desires that for everyone that walks in and desires to be a part of the the moving and breathing body of Christ. And i I don't know if I have a perfect answer, Kyle. I think um there's a lot of seasons of praying. There's a lot of seasons of walking through... um trying to connect yourself back to something you felt like you were severed from. Yeah, for sure. And i will say this other thing to end my response.
00:19:26
Speaker
that may have been a person that hurt you. Sometimes we like to cast a label on the whole whenever it's a piece. and And sometimes we end up doing ourselves a disservice and we can't feed ourselves if we throw the whole bit away whenever it's just a little piece of that church or sometimes even just a person.
00:19:51
Speaker
that really kind of tainted the whole persona or the the look on things. yeah Why? Anything on church hurt or why someone would consider coming back? or um i would say there's definitely reason I had John go first. You know what mean? But I think at the end of the...
00:20:09
Speaker
My first thing that comes to mind is it all depends on how connected you are with God. you know like If you're if you're on just a ah lukewarm level, you're going to get hurt and you're going to put your Bible on a bookshelf and you're going to say, oh man, one one person, everyone's like that. you know But when you look in God's Word, you know, and like you see who Jesus really was, you know, and his love, like if anyone was church or it was him. That's right. You know, and he said, man, y'all are going to persecute me. I'm going love you more. to crawl Yeah. Yeah. And ah I would say that if you want to like the best payback, you want to say like for that is forgiveness yeah because you benefit from that. that other person will benefit from that. Whether they're resentful, even though they were the ones who hurt you, they might think, man, like on the outside, it might be do nothing to them, but on the inside, it's going to through their brain to their heart. And then the Holy Spirit, that's where he comes in and he works and says and shows them the wrong, you know, and before you know it, that whole church is going to be
00:21:16
Speaker
prone to forgive, you know, because there's so much persecution. That's example for what's to come. um Last thing here before we close out in prayer um on on the idea of, you know, someone hurting you.
00:21:27
Speaker
I'm just very honest. If you're around me long enough, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to let you down. John's going to let you down. yes Ridley's going to let you down. Wyatt's going to let you down. Because we are all broken human beings trying to figure this out.
00:21:41
Speaker
Now, our eyes are fixed on the Lord. We don't intend to. We would never desire to. We hope
Engagement for Spiritual Growth
00:21:47
Speaker
we never do. But we're human. We just have to remember that that hurt is involved in man's character, not God's character.
00:21:56
Speaker
God's character is to love, to support you, to bring you into this family, to show you love, and to walk alongside you with others while they're trying to figure out their walk with Christ. And so, man, if you are looking for a place to go or have just been back getting into church and you're still trying to be reserved because you don't want open yourself up because that's what happens we love people and we open ourselves up and then we experience you know the pain of things but man what would it be without love right and so please consider getting in discipleship group getting in life group and really allowing yourself to open up to the love that God has within his church
00:22:37
Speaker
Amen to that. Yeah, let's pray. Father, we thank you for today and we thank you for your bride, the church. Lord, you gave everything on the cross for us to be able to to gather and worship you and be in community with you.
00:22:54
Speaker
Lord, it's so important that you outlined it in Scripture that that we're supposed to be amongst the body of believers. You describe the church as a functioning body with different parts, with different gifts.
00:23:06
Speaker
And so, Lord, where I may be weak in one area, someone else may be strong. And where I may be strong in an area, someone else be weak. So Lord, when we neglect and when we isolate, we're we're robbing the church of a gift that you've given us.
00:23:22
Speaker
And then the church is also robbed of of what we could provide for that. So Lord, I just ask that um we can continue to be with each other and gather and bring glory to you.
00:23:35
Speaker
Father, help us to watch our step and make sure that our eyes are fixed on you as we go through this process. We pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. we look forward to seeing you next week on who knows what the topic's going to be because we always figure it out like two minutes before we do it. Love you guys.
00:23:52
Speaker
Bye.