Yo, welcome to the bar, come on and pull up a seat And open up your Bible, what a wonderful feast The living bread and we're discussing what it means for the streets The inner cities and the burbs in every person we meet It's where we challenge world views that we hear from world news In light of the scripture, we are here to serve you You were your source for resources, to help you on your way as you battle mean forces. This is for the people who can see the importance of sound theology and the scripture that support it. This is for the truth lovers, biblically performing, preaching Christ to the nations. Welcome to the modern reformation. Welcome everybody to the bar. It's your boy Dwayne in the building right back in here another Tuesday. Super excited as always be coming through your speakers, through your earbuds, wherever you listen to the bar. We're grateful that you are listening and I love to start the show off the same way by thanking the listeners. Thank you guys for listening to the bar, tuning in to the bar and big shout out to those that came to G3. We're live at G3 now and It's just so touching to see Bar listeners face to face, and I appreciate you guys stopping by and showing us love. And like I do every week, I bring in awesome guests. Big shout out to my sister April for hooking me up with this young man here. We're going to talk about some really interesting things, but I have on none other than Pastor Steven. How you doing, man? Pretty good, Dwayne. I appreciate this opportunity. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm excited to have you on. April has not stopped talking about the new church and things you got going on. You even suggested she might need to come on the show. Yeah, I think she'd be better than me. I do. Good deal, man. So I always like to start, Shaw, by giving my listening opportunity, I mean, my guest an opportunity to introduce yourself, share anything you want to share, personal, professional. Just give us a little background on you. Lord have mercy. Well, my name's Steve, and I bang on about helping small churches have a big impact. For 30 years, we've been practicing ancient church growth strategies that Jesus left the early church. And this is stuff to liberate small church pastors from conventional unbiblical expectations and downloading how the early church did things. Did you know, Dwayne, the Bible says they turned the world upside down in the first century? It says that. The enemy said that. Well, you know, they did it using some of these early church practices that nobody knows about today. Not because it ain't true, but because it ain't studied. And so it hadn't been tried and found wanting it, it just hadn't been found. Well, we found it. So for 30 years, all over the world, China, India, Sri Lanka, Russia. We've been talking about this and we finally decided it's time to do it right here in the United States of America. And so this is our first conference we've ever done right here at G3. And so that's what we talk about. So I came from a Methodist background, and then I got saved, and I turned Baptist, and then I picked up the doctrines of grace along the way, and I went from being a traditional Baptist pastor to being a nut. That's what some people think. So we're still Baptist, we're Southern Baptist, doctrines of grace, but our churches that we start are all New Testament size. You know, in the early church, There wasn't no church building. They met in people's homes. And they did that for the next couple of hundred years. So everything in the New Testament was written to church. It met in somebody's living room. And we're not pushing house church, but what we are saying is it's designed to work in a smaller setting. And so we can't all be like John McCarthy. That's just the truth of it. And so we shouldn't even try to be. So what we ought to do is there are some things we can do as small churches, because you live in a small church down in Orange. And so there's 400,000 churches of a hundred people or less. And so we want to empower those guys to do the best they can and take advantage of what we would say are divinely designed size advantages and not try to do like the big churches do. And so we're missing an opportunity because we try to be like the big churches and we just can't compete with that. So we need to go back. I think we do things the way Jesus set it up. What you talking about? There's a blessing in that, bro. That's awesome. That is awesome. Well, I appreciate that. And my listeners, I'm sure they can hear your passion about that. And I love it. I'm excited to dig in a little bit deeper. I'm going to back up, though. I want to hear how did you get to the place where you even decided to go outside of conventional ideas? Like, how did we get to that place? I was pastor of a traditional Southern Baptist church all throughout the 1980s, and we used every gimmick that came down the pike on how to grow your church. We had about 300 people coming, but the auditorium would seat 1,000, and I was trying to fill that rascal up. But nothing we did worked. I mean, we tried everything they said. Pragmatism. What works? Well, anyhow, it didn't work for us. But it kept driving me back to the Bible. And I thought, well, how did the original church do it? Maybe they did something we're missing. And I started seeing all these things in the Bible that we weren't doing. And I got a little bit, well, disturbed that we weren't doing it. And so I felt the desire to do it that way. And Lord gave us an opportunity. That's here in Atlanta. We started a church in Chattanooga, and we decided from the ground up that church would be more of a New Testament example. and the way they did things. They're still Baptist, but do some of these practices that the early church did that I wasn't able to do in my traditional church. And they did it. They started that church doing these basic early church practices, and I would go up there and work with them, and I saw it lived out. It was so attractive to me. So I guess I could say, Dwayne, that I studied myself out of a job. And my church, I was a reformer. I was a Puritan for seven years, then I became a separatist in love. They love me and I love them, but I wanted to be free to work with churches that were more geared toward New Testament. So in 91, my last traditional sermon was, should Christians go to war? And it was when the start of the first Gulf War back under Bush senior. And that was my last traditional sermon and traditional church. And the next week I was out planting a more of a New Testament style church. That's how it happened. People can't see, but I'm holding my fingers crossed because I want to remember another question, but I got another question to get to because this has really got me intrigued. So for those that are listening, why haven't anybody else discovered this? Like, what did we miss when we were reading Acts that you grabbed? Is there anybody else, you know, going this route? I'm just curious. If I was the only one that saw this in the Bible, I guarantee it ain't true. And I was concerned about that. So of course, I researched it and we have produced a book that looks at the biblical basis for this, what the scholars all say about it, and how to do it in the 21st century. So here's the fact of the matter. The scholars of every denomination, Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, even Baptist, they'll tell you, yep, that's how the early church did it. So that makes me feel good when they all say it. What's disturbing is none of them do it. So they evidently decided it's not that important. For example, they wore togas. Everybody agrees with that, but nobody's saying we ought to do that today. Well, that's what they say about these practices. And I also discovered throughout history, and I mean all throughout history, there have been a small but steady group of people who said We need to do things like the early church did it. And so a lot of churches today operate on what I call the Constantinian model. Big changes happened when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. That's when all these things changed. And a lot of times our churches go back to the Reformation, but they just took Catholic churches and made them Protestant churches. The theology got right, but the practice was still awful Catholic. And so we're saying, let's go back beyond the Reformation. Let's go beyond Constantine. Let's look at how the other church did it. So actually, these things have been known and studied, but the reason they're not discussed in seminary is because they have been dismissed as less than important, like Warringtonians. And I'm not talking about Warringtonians or Latin or Medians with Orlands. I'm talking about their basic ecclesiology and these New Testament patterns. Let me give you an example. Every church, a lot of churches, meet on Sunday. Well, why is that? It's never commanded that we meet on Sunday. But that was a New Testament practice. It's in honor of the day that Jesus rose from the dead. Well, it's not commanded, but we do it because that's what they did. Believers' baptism. Baptists do it because that's the New Testament pattern. It never says you cannot baptize infants, but Baptists say, well, the pattern is to only baptize believers. Right. Separation of church and state. That's a big Baptist thing, right? That's why we do it in America, because the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut. Well, they said the pattern is not to have the state and the church all in one. together, welded together. That's a pattern. What we started saying is, what about the other practice patterns? For example, ready for an example? It is a fact. It sounds crazy. It's a fact. Thanks for prepping me. Go ahead. The early church celebrated communion. every Sunday as an actual meal. They had the one cup, the one loaf, but it was in the context of a meal. Now, that just sounds crazy. Oh, that's nuts. Well, it's not nuts. The scholars of every denomination will tell you that. It's obvious in the New Testament. It's obvious throughout church history for the next couple hundred years. And the scholars always say that. Well, if that idea didn't come from Jesus, where'd it come from? And if it did come from Jesus, do we really want to blow that off as optional? So that's an example of it. I'm not talking about wearing tuggers. I'm talking about how do they do the Lord's Supper? How do they do their worship services? How do they do their church government? What about the size of their churches? See, that's the kind of stuff we're looking at. Gotcha. Wow. I love it. So no, it's not that this is unknown. It's just it's been dismissed as unimportant. So I went through all seminary. I didn't learn any of this. But it's only because our gimmicks didn't work that I was driven back to Scripture and I thought, this is beautiful. And so the question is, why do we have to do things the way they did them? The question is, why would you want to do it any other way? And so all I can say is, for the last 30 years, this is what our churches have done. It's been a tremendous blessing. We want to let other people in on the blessing. And we're not saying everybody else is sinning if they don't do it our way. We're not saying that. We're saying, you're missing a blessing. Right. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So I'm going to go to my finger crossed question. Okay. So you mentioned that your last traditional sermon. So does this affect your sermon as well? We believe very much in the importance of expository Bible teaching. A major part of our meeting together is the systematic exposition of Scripture. But we don't typically do the traditional sermon that could be broadcast over the radio. In Acts, Paul visited that church and he spoke all night. The King James says he preached. It looks like the mother of all sermons. But the Greek word for preach is not there. It's the Greek word from which we get our English word, dialogue. and it could even mean in the Greek argument. And so Paul didn't just pontificate as if on the radio. It was a dialogue. It was back and forth. And so because our churches are intentionally smaller, Roman-villicized, the teaching can be more interactive or Socratic. And so you could see it as an interruptible lecture if you wanted to, but people ask questions, they make comments, it's okay to disagree. And so that's how it's different. It's not three points and a point. Right. It's not what criticism did in the early days. It's more of a dialogue. It's more Socratic. I guess you could call it a Sunday school lesson. I don't mean by that. It's boring. I mean, you want to be animated. I enjoy Sunday school. I used to hitch a ride to Sunday school when I was a kid because my parents didn't get up early. So I would get up and go down the street and ride with Miss Odell to Sunday school because I wanted to go. That's why you turned out to be a good brother. Amen. No, that's awesome, man. That is awesome. And that's, I mean, that rung a bell when you said, you know, traditional sermon. And I think that would also be encouraging for, like you said, a lot of the smaller churches and the small church model. Because again, my background, charismatic, it was all about copying whatever T.D. Jakes did, you know, because you wanted to be the Potterhouse, you know, everybody wanted to be, you know, whoever. But I think that's really cool, man. I am really, really enjoying this. And I said, I'll hold you for about 15 minutes. But if you got just a few more for just a couple more points, I would love to go there before my break. My listeners are going to freak out because I'm usually like in and out done. So we talked about the sermons changing. What is another just, you know, because we want people to get the book. We're going to have the book in the show notes. But what is another, we talked about sermon, we talked about communion, being an actual meal. What is another aspect that you would love to share? Oh, this is a big one. Worship services are not supposed to be a spectator sport. I agree with that. In 1 Corinthians 14, or 11, 12, 13, 14, that whole section is about church meetings right and when he's dealing with what we call today a worship service you know you go to a full service gas station in the old days they came out they did everything for you they pumped the gas they checked the oil they clean your windows clean your windows right well church is not supposed to be like a service okay it says in first corinthians 14 what is it then brethren when you come together each One has, and he lists all these spiritual gifts, music and teaching among them. So in Hebrews chapter 10, somewhere in there, it says, don't forsake the assembly. He says, before you come, consider how to stir one another. up to loving good deeds. So church is not about one man, me the pastor, it's about one another, each one of us using our spiritual gifts, especially your spoken gift, as led by the Spirit to what? Build up the body, to edify the body. So our church, the first hour of our church, I'm not the star player, I'm the coach on the sidelines. I don't want to be a star player. And my job is to be sure that what's said is edifying, but our first hour is singing and testimony. And we encourage people to get up and share, what's the Lord shown you this week? Did you have an answer to prayer? Did you have an evangelistic opportunity? Have you got a word of exhortation for the brothers? And my job is to keep it edifying, but That's a big change. That's the first hour. Second hour is teaching. The rest of the day is Lord Shepherd's meal. We start at 1030. There's still people there at 430. Wow. They like it. You can leave whenever you want to, but they like it that much. We used to have long services where I grew up, but they weren't eating it. They weren't that fun. It wasn't that fun, for sure. R. Dwayne, you get Dwayne. See, my Dwayne in my church, he's always the last one to leave. He's the man that's gonna be there at 4.30. Wow. R. Dwayne, you need to come meet R. Dwayne sometime. I need to, man. Y'all enjoy talking to each other. I need to. Awesome, brother. Well, listen, right here, we're gonna take a quick commercial break, and we'll be right back. All right, we're back in here with my new friend, Pastor Steven, and I really enjoyed this conversation. You really got my ears twitching and all the bad senses are going off. I'm really intrigued by this, and I definitely appreciate it. So, Steven, thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity, Dwayne. God bless you, brother. Yes, sir. To the bar listeners, appreciate you guys listening to The Bar Podcast every Tuesday, your favorite podcast. Make sure you go to thebarpodcast.com. Check out all the episodes. Also, make sure you check out everybody in the network, The Bar Podcast. And make sure you go to thebargear.com to get some bar gear. And until next time, God bless, and we are out.