Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good evening, everyone. It is Saturday, December the 6th, 2025. It is currently 910 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now we need to take a road trip. I guess what we need to do is I need you to use your imagination. So instead of saying, let's take a road trip, let's do this. Imagine the following scene, the following scenario, okay? Is your imagination turned on? Do you have it ready to go? Is your imagination working tonight? I hope it is, all right? Imagination's on, here we go. Think, imagine this. You're driving through Atlanta. It's an ordinary weekend morning. Nothing unusual, nothing, there's nothing on the schedule. You're just driving through Atlanta. It's the weekend morning. You're not giving it much thought. You're just driving along. You're not expecting anything out of the ordinary. You're expecting it just to be a normal weekend morning drive through Atlanta. That's what you're thinking. That's what your expectation is. And then, You see them. Lines of people stretching down the block, wrapping around corners, filling sidewalks, cars pulled up on the grass. Young people, older people, families, all crowding towards a single building with an energy you probably would typically see before a major concert. At first you assume, well, this has got to be a concert, right? I mean, look at these lines of people waiting to get in. Look at the excitement. Look at the emotion. This must be a major band or a major pop star. Maybe it's a surprise show that was just announced and that's why there's all these people here. But then you look and you're like, wait a minute. Some people have notebooks. They, okay, wait, wait, what? Are they carrying, is that a Bible? Like, well, okay, what's going on here? Wait, some people are live streaming from the line, okay? All right, so this has got a lot of buzz going on in social media. Well, there's groups of people praying. Okay, what is happening? A few are rushing, literally running to get in the line. You kind of slow down, you roll down the window. And you ask a question, you're like, hey, hey, what's going on? Who's performing? And the answer kind of catches you off guard. It's church. Wait, what? No, it's church. They almost laugh at your confusion, my confusion. They're like, it's 2819 church. It's 2819 church. 2819 church. 2819 church. What's 2819 church? Like, you're a little perplexed, right? And they can see that we're confused. They see that I can't even say it correctly. 2819 church. And they're like, you haven't heard about it? You need to get inside. You have to go hear Pastor Mitchell. You have to. My life changed the first night I came here. People are driving in from hours away just to be here. I've never felt anything like it. This is revival. You know, like 2819 church, lines of people, clear excitement, lots of emotion, lots of zeal, lots of passion. So we kind of roll up the window or you do, I do. We start driving, we're driving away and we're like, wait a minute. So it wasn't a concert. Wasn't a celebrity appearance. Wasn't a playoff game. It's a church service. A church service drawing crowds like a headline world tour. People are standing in line for hours. some for days, hoping to get a seat, hoping to get in the room, hoping to experience something, something big, something emotional, something everyone is talking about. Well, that begins to raise some questions, right? What exactly is going on inside that building? What is producing this kind of level of excitement, this level of hype, this level of devotion? Now for me, I don't know about you, I'm going to start asking questions like, I wonder what theology is being preached? I wonder what hermeneutical system is being used? I wonder what is the message What is the message that's powerful enough to make thousands people stand outside just for a chance to hear it? I mean, it has to be a pretty powerful message. It has to be pretty revolutionary if people are standing in line, thousands driving from hours away. I mean, what's going on inside this building? There's got to be something pretty significant, something pretty powerful, right? So that brings us to this episode. That brings us right here now back at the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas, far from Atlanta, right here in West Texas. I'm turning on the microphone to say, hey, guys, I need your help. All right. We need to do a little bit of investigating here to try to figure out what's going on. All right. We got to figure out what's happening. We got to figure out exactly what we're going to do here because something is going on. And I think we have to I think we have to try to I think we have to try to figure this out. I think we have to do our best to understand. So first, let me explain how I came to find out about 2819 Church, all right? Because there's gotta be some answers here, all right? So what I did is, I don't even know how I found this. I was looking on some news site, and I came across the Associated Press. And here was the headline. This is in the religion section of the Associated Press. Young adults are waiting in line to worship at the fastest growing Atlanta church. So you have young people waiting in line to worship at the fastest growing Atlanta church, all right? This was published today at 8.35 a.m. So it's relatively a new article. I know it's, you know, it's been a little bit for the day. I didn't get to it first thing this morning, but I'm getting to it as fast as I can, all right? So, here's just a little bit from the article itself. After Atlanta pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell stopped dwelling on growing his congregation about three years ago, its attendance surged. Now lines packed with young adults snake outside 2819 Church, some arriving as early as 5.30am to secure a spot for Sunday worship. Christian rap and contemporary music blast like a block party as volunteers cheer into megaphones for around 6,000 weekly churchgoers. up from less than 200 in 2023. So in 2023, they had less than 200, less than 200 people, right? Same pastor, but he decided, you know what, I'm going to stop worrying about growing my congregation, according to the report. But all of a sudden, something has obviously dramatically changed. Inside the sanctuary, the atmosphere turns serious. Many drawn to 2819's riveting worship are hungry for Mitchell's animated intensity and signature preaching, no sugarcoating the Bible. I'm going to stop right here. He's intense. There's no sugarcoating the Bible. There's all kinds of buzz, goes from a little small number and explodes to over 6,000. Is anybody getting any flashbacks? It wasn't Atlanta, it was Seattle. Wasn't it Mars Hills Church? Mark Driscoll? Wasn't he known for his signature preaching style of being intense and not sugarcoating anything and saying things that may be somewhat shocking, controversial, and a crowd exploded? I mean, it all came crashing down, but are you getting the same kind of vibe? Listen, this is just my initial response. This episode is all about all of us investigating this. I had never even heard of this church. I've never even knew this church even existed until right now. I will have to look under one podcast series that I did. I don't think we reviewed a sermon from this particular church. I don't think I even knew this existed. I mean, the 2819 church, that's not like, oh, you think I would remember that. But it is numbers, so it'd be much more likely for me not to remember it. They go on to describe it, after spirited prayers and songs, leaving many crying. So we have strong emotions, we have buzz, we have hype. Mitchell ambles on stage in his all-black uniform, sometimes in quiet contemplation or tears, before launching into a fiery sermon. All right, so he is emotional. He preaches with emotion. His messages, unpolished and laden with challenges to revere God and live better, often spread quickly online. A recent prayer event drew far more people than State Farm Arena could handle with many flying in. crying, shouting, storming across the platform, punching the air. Mitchell preaches with his whole body and an urgency to bring people to faith before they die or what he calls Jesus impending return to earth. It's life or death for me, Mitchell told the Associated Press. comparing preaching to the front lines of war. There are souls that are hanging in the balance. I think the fact that in that room somebody might hear the gospel and that might be their last opportunity. It's, according to this, it's non-denominational, but it is supposedly philologically conservative with beliefs opposing abortion and in support of marriage only between a man and a woman. Now again, those are conservative issues, but are we saying conservative from a cultural war perspective or are we saying conservative from a theological perspective, I don't know. I mean, it's the Associated Press, so that's why we need to do more investigating here to get maybe a more theological understanding. The congregation's growth has attracted people of many races and ages, but it's predominantly young black adults. Their youth is notable since Americans age 18 to 24 are less likely than older adults to identify as Christian or attend religious services on a regular basis, according to the Pew Research Center. So this is 18 to 24 year olds lining up to get into a building for worship and to hear preaching. Again, wasn't Mars Hill predominantly that 18 to 24 demographic? Wasn't it the same thing? I don't know. I'm not saying there's direct parallels. Wouldn't Mark Driscoll be classified as somewhat conservative in his, not in everything he said, but I mean, he would have been conservative in some of his views, right? I would think so. An expert on fast-growing churches believes the right leader is key to a church's growth, along with supposedly God's help. So I guess it's God's help, but you've got to have the right leader. Okay, well, we could get a whole discussion about that. He described Mitchell as speaking a language that connects with young people who other pastors haven't reached. Churchgoers say Mitchell's messages resonate because he carefully walks them through scripture and talks candidly about his spiritual transformation, including his past, dealing drugs, praying for abortions, and attempting suicide. I'm still a little rough around the edges, right? I still got a little hood in me, said Mitchell, who still speaks with a regional New York accent. So he's kind of rough around the edges. I think we would have said Mark Driscoll would have been a little rough around the edges, right? Has, of course, dramatic stories about the past and great sin and things. Now it says he walks them through the scriptures, carefully walks them through the scriptures. Now that sounds like, does he really take the scriptures apart? I mean, I want to hear this, right? Don't you? I mean, I want to hear this. Many at 2819 want more than motivational speeches and say Mitchell's sermons are counterweights to the feel-good American preaching he criticizes. Well, didn't Driscoll kind of criticize a lot of the feel-good preaching as well? Again, it sounds very similar to me. I could be wrong, but that's the vibe I'm getting. They go on to quote him, I'm preaching without watering that down, without filtering out things that we think might be too controversial, said Mitchell. We want people to mature spiritually and insist they can't deal with sin and its consequences without Jesus. I think that there's a generation that is gravitating towards that authenticity and truth, he said. As a result, we are seeing lives being radically transformed. That's a typical message. Whenever you have one of these churches that explode and everyone's drawn to it and there's excitement and there's buzz, that's what everyone says. Lives are being transformed. Lives are being changed. I mean, that's always the big thing that is said. I mean, it's said in—you just name it. Brownsville Revival, remember that? Was it Lakeside? It was in Florida. Big revival. I don't remember. I remember Jesus was going to show up and all kinds of craziness. What was that? Thank you. It was Lake Something Revival in Florida. It's not ringing a bell immediately. Some of you are yelling at me right now because you remember the name. But you can name some of the famous supposed revivals, some of the supposed movements. You name the church that everyone's being drawn to. Everyone's talking about, oh, this is amazing. And everyone says the same thing. Lives are being transformed. Lives are being changed. It's... It's how everything is sold, right? Everything is sold. This church is where your life will be transformed. Not that church down the street with seven people doing in-depth exegetical work on Isaiah chapter 40. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's dead. But this has the buzz, so lives are being transformed. Now, I'm not saying lives aren't being transformed. I'm not saying lives are being transformed. I'm saying, because I've heard this a million times, I'm always approaching it with some sense and some level of skepticism, and I think any reasonable, rational person should, because the church always markets itself as, lives are being changed. They always do. You need to come here. Well, are lives being changed Because of the church or lives being changed because of God? Is God only working to change lives within that building? There are a lot of questionable things when this kind of idea tends to go that way. They talked to some people here. A Christian podcaster, Megan Ashley, said she brought a friend to 2819 who had stepped away from her faith. and Mitchell had an impact. Please note, who's now getting the credit? Mitchell had an impact. Wait, wait, wait. Not God, not Jesus, not scripture. Mitchell had an impact. See, that's always concerning. The friend told Ashley, when he speaks, I believe him. Oh, so you're going to believe the sinner. She didn't say, I believe the scriptures. She didn't say, I believe in God's Word. I believe in Him. These are red flags, okay? The tougher messages might hurt some people's feelings, said Donovan Logan, 23. Now remember, Mark Driscoll was the same way, that his messages may hurt some people's feelings. But they go on to say, but that's what it's supposed to do. If you don't come to church and want to change, then that's not the church you're supposed to be going to, Logan said. Sounds very, again, like Mars Hill. That's some of the same kind of comments that were made there. I'm not saying it's the same. I'm just being honest with you. This is what's coming to my mind, right? Go listen to the entire podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, that entire series that Christianity Today did. That podcast series was so eye-opening about everything that happened at Mars Hill. I mean, what a spectacular disaster that all turned into. Another person said Mitchell's sermons about sin touch on what's happening around him in Atlanta. And Mitchell's story shows that there's life in what God has commanded. There's life in what God has commanded? Are you telling me there's life found in the law? See, I'm already seeing the theological red flags already, all right? He also values Mitchell's pleading to wait until marriage to have sex. He biblically talks about sin and repentance and how there's actually hope in the gospel, McCord said. Churchgoers say 2819's draw goes beyond Mitchell. All right, well, that's good. It's the entire worship experience. Well, that's bad. All right, now we're back to an experience, all right? Passing the dancing greeters. So the greeters dance, I guess. Okay, so you pass the dancing greeters. The Sunday crowd enters the dark auditorium. It's permeated with prayer and bold instrumental music before the service, which 2819 calls a gathering. Officially begins with hands already lifted amid shouts of praise. Tissue boxes sit at the end of aisles ready to aid those moved to tears. The worship is crazy. The Holy Spirit is just there like tangible presence. You feel it. Okay, so we have personality, because already some of the comments are about him. We have experience. We have emotions. We already have seemingly a conflating of law and gospel. Already from a theological perspective, I'm already already concerned. Mitchell spent 10 years preaching, racking up unfruitful notes from church growth conferences, and eventually started struggling with depression. During that time, he took a transformative trip to Israel where he said, encounters with God Okay, here we go. And other Christians changed him. Then in 2023, he changed the church's name to 2819. Mitchell, who has spent, oh, 2819. I bet you I know where this comes from. Hang on, I'm gonna reach down here. I'm gonna grab my Bible. 2819, you know what they changed the name to, right? Come on, did you catch it? 2819 church. Come on, you got it? Come on, we all know it, right? Matthew 28 19 go therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the father son obviously that's where they took the name from okay hey i wasn't it wasn't ringing a bell but oh he changed the name okay no sometimes that's good now listen I know he's probably going to say God told him to change the name. I understand that. That's what I'm assuming. But changing the name is also really, really smart. If your church is not growing and it seems dead, well you do a reset. You do a hard reset. Change the name, maybe change the building, change the marketing, change the logo because you give the community. Oh, something has changed. This is new. Even though it may be the same, you give the impression that something new is going on. It's also kind of a typical marketing thing. I'm not saying that was the motivation. I'm just saying it's kind of interesting. Nothing was happening. Hey, all these going to church growth conferences, nothing was working. Then he goes to Israel, supposedly has encounters with God, and I will put that in quotations, supposedly, because, you know, I believe we encounter God and his word. I don't believe in any extra biblical things like that, okay? That's very charismatic of them. So, all right. And then change the name to 2819. So, all right. Mitchell, who has spent three years preaching just from the book of Matthew alone, now that's a good sign. If you spent three years in the book of Matthew, maybe it is far more exegetical, right? But remember, Mark Driscoll was known for a long series going in-depth in scripture as well, right? He said God told him to preach without bringing prepared notes on stage. Oh boy. Now we have God talking directly to this person, outside of Scripture. Preach without any prepared notes. God told him that. Oh, is he going to claim God is giving him the exact words? Oh, red flags are going up everywhere about this, right? Okay. He says, Although he attended Bible college, he sometimes doubts himself because of his past. I shed a lot of tears because I feel often ill-equipped, undeserving, said Mitchell. I would not have called me if I was God to steward something like this. And sometimes I don't know why my preaching is reaching people. I'm still shocked myself. When preparing to preach, I think about the brokenness of the people in the room, the troubled marriages, the one who is suicidal. I'm thinking about the young lady who's battling crippling insecurities, and I don't know that she has a father up there that loves her more than any man she's going to find down here. When not preaching, Mitchell's demeanor is quieter. He and his staff are here to serve, he often says. His large online platform exposes him and sometimes his family to public critique, pushback, and even threats. Some accuse him of self-righteousness or say he's too harsh. He's also issued a public apology. earlier this year for comments in a sermon about obeying authority that were seen as dismissive of police brutality. At times he says he is deeply affected by criticism and says he repents of some of what critics decried, but Mitchell also finds solace in better understanding Jesus by enduring it. Now I think he may say a lot of things if he's going into the pulpit completely I don't know, is he prepared and he's just memorizing it? I don't know. We don't get a lot into how he does his sermons, just know he doesn't supposedly take any notes into the pulpit. It says, the church recently moved into its own building, having outgrown the charter school where they held services, and they added a third one. On the first two Sundays at the new location, they added an impromptu fourth gathering because so many people came. The staff faced similar problems. The church's October prayer event that drew an estimated 40,000 people. 40,000 people. Write that number down. 40,000, all right? State Farm Arena was filled to capacity, as was an overflow space in a nearby convention center, leaving thousands outside the church reported. Wow, I mean, that's crazy. They're talking about how fast it is and packed parking lots and traffic. They do small groups they call squads. All right, so that, you know, of course, every church does that. They engage with about 75,000 people weekly who gather online. So 75,000 people are watching them online every week. Wow. Okay, so there you have it. And that's kind of the end of the story. There's not really much, there's not much more there. I mean, it gives you the basic overview. That gives you the basic overview, okay? I was gonna give a lot more, but I think that gives you the basic interview. So that's all I wanna do for this episode is just, there's the story, that's what's going on. But I'm going to ask for you to help me, all right? Because what we're going to do is I guess we're gonna launch the 2819 Project, right? If this is the fastest growing church, If 40,000 people showed up for their prayer meeting, if over 70,000 people are tuning in weekly online, then this is something of significance, right? Something we need to pay attention to. Now, the first thing I'm going to do, hang on, give me a second. I'm opening up the Church One app. I'm opening up the Church One app, and I'm going to sermons, and I'm going to series. All right, now I did a couple of series. Hang on, let me look here, let me look. All right, I'm gonna go to the series Christian Podcast Spotlight. All right, Christian Podcast Spotlight. Oh, see, some of these may not have names. All right, okay, hang on, let me, I'm gonna look here. Uh, yeah, that doesn't tell me anything. I'm going to go here. I think there's a part of me. I'm almost positive. Yeah, I didn't name the churches in the, in the descriptions I should have. So we, um, yeah, I think we've covered this church to some level. Hang on. I'm going to look for this church online. Hang on. Give me a second here. I'm going to look for this church online. Give me one second here, waiting for Google to open. All right, here we go. I'm going to look for 2819 Church, Atlanta. Here it is. There it is. All right, there's the hub. They obviously have Instagram, and they have Facebook, they have YouTube, and they have X, okay. They have new merch. Oh, 2819 Church. New season, new colors, same mission, right? Okay, so let's, oh, let's look at this. Oh, okay. You gotta know, whenever you got the buzz going, you gotta sell some merch. You got 70,000 people watching you online. You have 40,000 people showing up. You have over 6,000 people showing up. But no, no, no. We have to sell merch. Of course I should have known this, right? So if I want a long sleeve Disciple of Christ shirt, it's kind of a greenish color. kind of an army green, and all it says is Disciples of Christ. There's no design. There's no logo. That will cost me 45 bucks so I can get some merch from 2819 Church. Now my tone is starting to get a little bit more cynical, right? See, this is the kind of stuff where I'm just like, give me a break, right? Oh, it's about Christ. It's revival. It's about pushing merch. See, now this is where I get upset. Now, if you want a hat that has an A on it for access, I guess, 30 bucks. If we want a breathe shirt from Psalm 150, that's gonna cost me $40. It's a breathe T-shirt. It's a T-shirt that just has the word breathe on it. Psalm 150, $40. Another one, Until All Have Heard, 40 bucks. If I want a little tote bag, $20. If I want a Preach the Word t-shirt, $42. If I want a long sleeve tee that says Until All Have Heard, that'll be $45. If I want a I guess this is kind of like a sweatshirt kind of thing. $55. If I want a hoodie, that'll be $65. Give me a break, man. There's just all kinds. It looks like a, it's the 2819 store. Oh my goodness gracious. But hey, that's what everyone's going to go listen to. That's what everyone's going to pay attention to because, oh, it's so good. God is moving. But hey, buy us, buy some merch. Okay. So, all right. And just note this, I found their merch before I found any online sermon. I see their merch tab before I find a sermon. Okay. Now let me see if I can find their sermons here. Oh, there's a little dropdown menu. Let me see here. Oh, they have podcast. Okay. Here we go. Oh, on Spotify. Hang on. Here we go. Let me open it up. 2819 church. I, wow. They have five, five star ratings, 1,705 star ratings. Now, of course I can't get five star ratings because you know, I tick everyone off, but I guess, but he's supposedly so controversial, but you got one, 1,705 star reviews, but you're supposedly ticking people off. You're obviously not ticking off that many people, all right? I have far, I obviously tick off more people. And yeah, so I'm gonna, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna hit follow. Okay, I'm gonna follow it because we can keep up with what's going on there. All right, but guess what? They don't have any of the sermons. What is this? This is, oh, I get so irritated. If you're a church, you can make sure I can get to buy your merch, but you don't put your sermons easily online so that I can download them. Don't even give me an RSS feed. Let me see. I think they're on YouTube. Let me see. Let me go to YouTube. Oh, there they are. All right. 2819. All right. So I'm going to save there. They have 1.42 million subscribers. Over a million subscribers. Oh yeah, obviously we're gonna have to see what's going on here with this church. We're gonna have to see what's going on. We're going to have to. Now I should be able to take the video, rip the audio from it, and do something with it. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to... Oh, this is unbelievable. All right, I'm gonna share. I'm gonna share. I'm gonna hit copy link. I'm gonna go here to my notes. All right, I'm gonna put paste. All right, so the fastest growing church in Atlanta. 70,000 people a week online. Over 40,000 people showed up to our prayer meeting. Lines, people trying to get in. Over 6,000 people, I guess, inside the building at any one service. They've had, I think, four gatherings. They call them gatherings. They're growing. There's buzz. They're selling merch, okay? Of course, you gotta sell some merch, okay? Oh boy. And we've got some red flags. The red flags are when the people they're talking to talk about the church, they seem to be focused on him. Not on him as in Jesus, but on him as the pastor. Now, this always happens. Look, if you've got that many people listening to your podcast, if you've got that many people subscribed to your YouTube channel, you've become a celebrity whether you want to or not. I'm not saying he intended to become a celebrity, but he's a celebrity. And if your website can start selling merch for 45 bucks, 55 bucks, whatever, okay, yeah, you're becoming, there's a sense that you are becoming a product, at least to a certain degree. To a certain degree, you can't deny that. I'm not saying he intended it. I'm not saying he wanted it. Now, clearly they made a conscious decision to start pushing merch. Clearly, they'd made a conscious decision to create a merch store on their website. Clearly, they'd made a conscious decision to put a merch store, but they didn't put anywhere on their website where I can just download their sermons. But they do have podcasts, which I do appreciate that. So because that, you know, that will hopefully give me an ability to... find it and download episodes. So what we need to do here, though, is we need to start our own research project, all right? This is what we need to do. We need to get people to start looking for things, all right? So we need to figure out 2819 Church, maybe a little bit about their stated mission, their doctrine. Do they have a doctrinal statement? Well, let me go back. Let's look at their website. About All right, our beliefs, here we go. Here's our beliefs, all right? God, there is one God who eternally exists in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. These three are co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct from each other, yet one. The doctrine of God's triune nature is called the Trinity. That's actually very good. So at least they're Trinitarians. They're not oneist Pentecostal. They're not Sabellian. They don't hold to Sabellianism or anything along those lines. modalism, or anything along those lines. Jesus Christ is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity on earth. Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, hypothetic union there. He's the only man ever to have lived a sinless life. Okay, that's good. He was born of a virgin, performed miracles, died on the cross for mankind. All right, so that believes in a universal atonement, not a limited atonement. So therefore, clearly not... reformed most likely, atoned for our sins through the shedding of his blood. He rose from the dead three days after he was crucified according to the scriptures, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and will return again in power and glory." Very Apostles Creed-like there, okay. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is the supernatural agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ. Okay, so baptism of the Holy Spirit for all believers doesn't seem to be the doctrine of subsequent, in other words, coming after salvation. and dwelling and sealing them until the day of redemption, seemingly to believe in eternal security. According to the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit comforts us, teaches us, gives to us, reminds us of everything Jesus has spoken, and leads us into all truth." Okay, well, major problems. He does not remind us of everything Jesus has spoken and lead us into all truth, because if he leads us into all truth, there would be absolute agreement in Christianity. There's not. That's a promise to the disciples. So he's taking some of the apostolic promises and applying them to us. So, major problem there. The Bible is the authoritative word of God. It alone is the final authority in determining all doctrinal truths. Well, we could get into all kinds of things there. In its original writings, it is inspired, infallible, and inerrant. That could be controversial to some. That means the original writings are inspired, the original writings are infallible, and the original writings are inerrant. But our translations are not necessarily infallible or inerrant or inspired. Only as they agree with the original, but we don't have the original. So you could get into a lot of issues there. And I'm not saying whether agree or disagree, I'm just trying to point out where they're coming from theologically. God created man in his own image and likeness as an upright, moral, and spiritual being. By volunteering, transgressing against God's Word, man fell. His only hope of redemption is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Doesn't say anything about do they believe in total depravity? Are they semi-Pelagian? Pelagian? We don't... We have no way of knowing. Salvation. The fall of man caused separation between God and all people, rendering man ultimately hopeless and in danger of eternal damnation. God in his love, not wanting anyone to perish, sent Christ into the world. The sacrificial death of Jesus and his blood shed on the cross provides the only way of salvation through forgiveness of sin. Salvation occurs when people place their faith in the death and resurrection of Christ as sufficient payment for their sins. Salvation is the free gift from God, and it cannot be earned through any self-effort. Amen. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen. His death, burial, and resurrection. Amen. Salvation is a gift from God. Amen. Not a result of our good works or of any human efforts. All right, that's pretty good. Oh, no. What just happened? Okay, now I'm really confused. The next section is two sacraments. Are they sacramental? Remember, a sacrament is a visible means of grace. In other words, if you say baptism is a sacrament, then through baptism you receive grace. Something happens. So like in a sacramental situation, say a Lutheran, you take a baby, you put water, boom, they become regenerated. It imparts grace. It washes away sin. Sacraments do something. They impart grace. Sacramental system. Verses and ordinances. Two ordinances. Is this something God has ordained for us to do? Something for us to remember? Something to show something? To teach us something? Ordinances are different than sacraments. Sacraments impart grace. They're visible signs, visible means of grace. So, sacramental churches would be like Lutheran, Catholic, Greek Orthodox. says, Water Baptism. Following faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a new convert is commanded by the Word of God to be baptized in water in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Check out this baptism video. Well, but you called it a sacrament. If you're calling it a sacrament, then baptism does something. It washes away sin. It does something. You just called it a sacrament. Remember, 70,000 people, oh, this is the greatest, five-star ratings, this is amazing, and already you're theologically just drove into a brick wall. Either you're sacramental or you're not. That definition of baptism does not sound like a sacramental definition of baptism. So are you sacramental or are you believing in ordinances? The Lord's Supper is a unique time of communion in the presence of God when the elements of bread and grape Jews, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are taken in remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice. If it's taken in remembrance of, and it's not a means of grace, then you don't believe in sacraments, you believe in ordinances. This is like, you know, first year of Bible college. This is like, no, you don't even need Bible college. This should be like, I don't know, junior high Sunday school. What's the difference between a sacrament and ordinance? If the kids don't know that, then what's the point of them going to church? Stay at home and watch cartoons. Sacraments, what? Okay. All right. Let's see here. Oh, here's their future. Let's see their eschatology. Let's see if we can figure it out. Jesus Christ will physically and visibly return to earth for the second time to establish his kingdom. All right. So they believe in a literal millennial reign of Christ. This will occur at a date undisclosed by scripture. After living on earth, unbelievers will be judged by God and eternally separated from him and tormented with devil and fallen angels in the lake of fire. Believers will spend eternity with God in a conscious state of bliss, thinking of Him for all eternity, to the victory of overcoming this life, and will enter into eternal blessing. So it sounds like they believe in a literal millennial reign, doesn't say a thousand years. So it sounds like maybe kind of a, maybe they don't mention the rapture either. So there's no rapture mentioned there. So they may not, maybe they just believe in a millennial kingdom. I don't know. I don't know exactly. But once again, this is what churches do. You give a doctrinal statement that can sound good, but you also leave a lot of ambiguity, because the more ambiguity, the more likely people will show up, but the more specific, the more likely people go, well, no, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. So you want to be vague. You don't want to be a great detail. Now, some churches will give you a simple one, but then they'll have a link to further discussion about their theology, and then you can start seeing it in there. So, there's a lot of issues they don't address there, but that's their doctrinal statement, okay? Let's see what else we can find. Yeah, there's no place to listen to sermons. You just have the podcast tab. So, 2819 Podcast. Yeah, so. Tomorrow morning, you can watch him on YouTube at 8 a.m. and 10.30 and 1 p.m., three services. All right, let's see, what else? Let's see, so we need to kind of find out. I'm doing some of the homework for you. I was gonna give this all for you to do, but I'm doing most of the homework for you here. Well, we kind of found the core doctrinal statement. I guess what we need to do is start listening to sermons. So here's what I would challenge you to do. Look up 2819 Church on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube and start listening to sermons and see what you discover. You listen with a discerning ear and see what you discover. What is it? And it may be a situation where we need to watch the video. It may be where we need to see the video to see what all the hype is. Why is so many people there? So really where we're left with is 2819. All right? What is going? Is this hype or is it revival? Is it buzz and social media buzz or is it something of substance? Is it anything new or is it just the same old, same old kind of thing that produces hype for a short period of time and then usually it all comes crashing down? Now, do you see a little bit of Mars Hill in this? I see a little bit of Mars Hill in this. I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it's going to end the same way. I don't know. I'm just having a hard time. I'm looking at them like, what's so radically different about this church? It's because the people are acting like, oh my goodness, I've never heard anything like this. This is amazing. What is it? I don't know, but here's what we're going to do. we're going to start reviewing sermons from 2819. How many? I don't know. How many do we need to? I don't know. we're going to start picking them. If you find one or see one that you think is interesting, let me know. I will then pick that one itself. I'll pick your choice. And we'll just start. And then guess what? We're going to review the entire sermons. We're not going to take things out of context. We're not going to, you know, ooh, he said this. No, we're going to review the entire sermons from beginning to end. and we will let the church speak for itself. We've looked at its doctrinal statement. We see they have a merch store. We see that the doctrinal statement is somewhat vague and a little bit of ambiguity. We see a major red flag. I don't think they're sacramental, but they're using the word sacraments, which seems to mean they do not have the theological understanding to know the difference between an ordinance and a sacrament. If they don't know the difference between those, then I would very much recommend the guy take some notes into the pulpit. Because that's a pretty basic theological distinction. That's not that controversial to go, whoa, sacraments? Ordinances. We are not a sacramental church. We are a sacramental church. Well, if you're a sacramental church, that raises all kinds of questions. How do the sacraments work? What kind of grace is imparted? What role do they play in salvation? I mean, on and on and on. Do you receive the forgiveness of sins? Like, I've got questions. But that's 2819 church. If I keep saying the number wrong, I think I... Now if I just think Matthew 2819, it's easier to get, I think, at the beginning. And yeah, I think that's everything. I'm sorry. I know there was a moment there after I kind of did my intro, I didn't know which direction I wanted to go. So I was gonna read some more things about the church, but I decided, no, the AP article's enough. I was making a change in what to do right in the middle of the episode. I just didn't stop to explain why I was changing everything. But yeah, I think looking at the website was probably, I mean, that's the very first step. I hadn't looked at it. I looked at it with you in real time. I had not looked at it before. And again, I would have to go back through some of my episodes I did where we turned the spotlight on different Christian podcasts. And we may have, oh, I know what we can do. Hang on. I'm gonna open up Spotify. Give me a second here. I'm gonna go to search. Oh, where is it? Podcast charts. Hang on. Top podcast by category. top religion and spirituality let me look here 2819 church is number 10 Number 10. I know, I know we've mentioned them. I know. We may have mentioned them a few years back before all of the hype even started. I'm going to have to go back and see. If we had reviewed one of their sermons years ago, then I'm going to come here and I'm going to take, mic drop. I was, I, I beat everyone. Okay. I was way ahead of all of you. Right. But, um, Yeah, 2819 church. There it is, number 10. Wow, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. I mean, that's some serious numbers. That's some serious numbers dropping every week for them to get there. And sometimes I'm baffled. And I don't say this, look, I gotta be very careful. I gotta be honest here, right? Because I'm a human being, right? So, There's always gonna be a part of me when I see these podcasts that are like number one, number four, number five, I'll go listen and I'll be like, what's the deal here? Like sometimes I'm just baffled. I'm like, wait. Same time, Sermon Audio, I look at the top sermons. I go listen to one of the sermons. I'm like, why is everyone listening to that sermon? What was it about that? And in some cases, especially on the Spotify podcasting charts under the religion spirituality category, I'll be like, that's a total train wreck. That's like, It's shallow nonsense. And so sometimes I'm just like, if that's what people want, then why am I even broadcasting? But then I realize maybe not everyone wants that. So maybe the minority wants something different and I can try to be that voice that offers something different. Obviously, the majority look to be number 10 on the Spotify podcasting chart. You're not offending that many people, let me tell you, okay? I know that the article kind of said they offended people and get some threats. Okay, well, I understand that can happen, but you're not offending that many people. If 70,000 people show up at your prayer service, you know, 40,000, was it? I forget some of the numbers. You know, some of those numbers are their numbers. I don't want to misquote any of them. some of those numbers are utterly—70,000 weekly online, 40,000 to show up to the prayer meeting, and then about 6,000 or more showing up each service. So if they have three services—I think they may have added a fourth—if they have three, that's like 18,000 people showing up every Sunday. All right, that's some numbers, people. That's a movement. That's for us going, something's going on in Christianity. Now, look, I already have my, I already pointed out some red flags, right? I pointed out red flags from the article, going there and seeing the merch store before I saw, you know, that's the first thing that jumped out at me. not even having a way to listen to the sermons online, have to go to a podcast app. You would think you would want the sermons also embedded online so people could listen right there and then download them, okay? But I get, you know, they don't have that. Their doctrinal statement, it calls, seem to be sacramental, but they describe them as ordinances. So that seems some massive theological confusion right there. So there's some red flags. Now, am I saying it's all hype? Not gonna say that. Am I saying it's revival? Definitely not going to say that. I'm not going to say anything. Ultimately, I'm not going to judge the church. I'm not going to judge it based on having dancers, greeters who dance. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it about it comes across as a concert. I'm not going to do anything about style or dress or music or anything like that. I'm not even going to go after it even from its emotionalism. I'm not going to set all of that aside. What we will do is we will listen to the Word of God be preached, and we'll see how the text is being handled. And we'll look at it from a text-based criticism. In other words, the hermeneutical approach, is it saying what Scripture says? We're going to do that and lay everything else aside. And when we agree, we will be like, And when we disagree, we'll be a problem. And it may just end up going, oh, well, not our thing, not my thing. Don't really like it, but you know, no major problem. Or it may end with me going, this is straight up heresy. Now, but let's be fair. We just listened to a sermon that was on sermon audio. that basically taught the deification of Christians in this life, that we can literally live our lives as if God is living our life for us, and then made the claim that Job was happy during his suffering based off a horrible misreading of the book of James. There was some messed up stuff in that sermon. You never know what you're going to get, but we're going to be fair. We're going to be fair. I'm not picking a theological team. I don't care if he's Reformed. I don't care if he's not Reformed. I just want to know how does he handle the Word of God? Now, he preached in Matthew three years. We can just go to see how he handles the Sermon on the Mount. I bet you he obliterates the proper distinction between law and gospel. And the news article made it very clear that there's an obliteration of law and gospel, but it's a news article. They may not be as theologically aware, so they may describe things in a way not realizing the theological implications. That's why we're gonna let the preaching do its job. So that's what we're gonna do. I can't believe this went 55 minutes. This was supposed to be like 15 minutes, but that's okay. 2819 church. If you're going to be up late tonight, go listen to some sermons from 2819 and let's try to find out what's going on. To be fair, we're not going to find something. I do need to make this clear. When I ask you to investigate, I'm not saying go find something that's wrong. No, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you to go look. to go listen, to go consider, not to go find something wrong, to just find out what's going on. If it's got this much buzz that the Associated Press is now talking about it, then I think it's probably something for us to stop and go, hmm. And I'm assuming that there's already been lots of buzz about it way before the Associated Press ever got to it. And maybe we've already even encountered this church. Obviously, I didn't give it much thought after whatever we heard. I moved on, obviously, relatively quick. But now we'll take a stop and we'll do a deeper dive. I don't know how many sermons, and then we will see. I think we want to be fair. We want to be accurate. And yeah, I know. I know what you're thinking. December was supposed to be the month you clean everything up and you finish some series, and what you're doing is you keep walking into these other—I know, I know. All right. Everyone have a great Saturday night. I don't even know what night of the week it is anymore. I don't know anything. Whatever day, whatever time, wherever you are, thank you for listening to the Theology Central podcast, where we try to make theology central. God bless.