Welcome to the Faith Debate on 930 WFMD. I'm Troy Skinner. You are you. He's Daniel Razvi. And he's... I don't know. I'm punchy. I don't know. I'm just... I'm totally punchy. Anyway, so you're asking me. David Forsey is the closest to me. He can rescue me if I get too punchy. So let me start and tell you why I'm punchy. So we record this show in advance. And so this is a weeknight when we're recording it. I went to the dentist today. And these dentists, I don't think they use Novocaine anymore. I think they used something besides Novocain. And actually, I went online to look and see if my suspicion is correct, and it seems I'm correct. It seems like Novocain's still out there, but there's this new thing, I think it starts with the letter I, if I'm not mistaken, that's like a replacement for Novocain. Ivocaine. Huh? Ivocaine. Is that a thing? I'm not sure. Oh, anyway. I know Iocane is from Princess Bride. Oh, well, maybe it's that. That's the poison. That's what they're using now. They're poisoning me. Iocane powder. Anyway, it kind of felt the same going in, except I will say, you guys have had Novocaine at some point in your life? Both of you? No? I have once. Probably. Yeah, they take a needle and they jab it in your mouth. You'd remember. You wouldn't forget this. It would be a long time ago at this point. Anyway, it hurts, right? You're sticking a needle in your mouth and it hurts. Well, we'll say that either the dentist was really good at being gentle because it didn't hurt anywhere near as much when he jabbed me. So, I'm thinking either he's really good at this or maybe this isn't Novocaine. Maybe there's a different product. Well, Novocaine, my experience, I've had Novocaine shots, I don't know how many times, but a number of times over the years. And I'm telling you, in the past, my face would be numb. You know that Novocain, your face is numb, it starts to tingle and come back to life over time. And that tingling, come back to life thing, usually, hour and a half, two hours later, like, you have your face back. Right, and then you can eat. Because you don't wanna eat when you're loaded up with Novocain, because you're gonna chew the snot out of your nose and side of your face and your lip and stuff. The chances of you biting yourself are pretty high. So you wanna wait till it wears off. Well, this other stuff they stick you with now that I'm pretty sure I was stuck with, it lasts longer. And if it's the stuff that I think I got stuck with that I think starts with the letter I, it says online that it lasts for three to six hours. So that's pretty significant. That's like four times longer maybe than the old stuff, or at least twice as long as the old stuff. Well, thankfully your speech is pretty clear. It doesn't seem inhibited. Yeah, well, that's because I'm so unclear. Usually you can't tell the difference. So anyway, on top of that, I was dead tired. I never was dead tired after a Novocain shot. So I think one of the side effects is causing drowsiness. And I had a massive headache for like an hour and a half. And I never had a headache with Novocain before. Maybe you can take a nap and we'll finish this show ourselves here. So I'm drugged. I've been drugged. You've been drugged. Yeah, the guy in the wilderness got the little blow dart and hit me with the blow dart and I am loopy. So I'm a little bit crazy right now. So, but I'm not so crazy that I don't want to tell you about this. This is me in all sincerity. I ended the show last week, but I'm going to make sure we do it at the beginning of the show this week. And you're going to start to hear this as a habit. So either beginning of the show, end of the show, somewhere in the middle of the show. Time is short. I think time is short, just globally speaking, generally. We don't know when the end is going to come. And by short, it could mean a thousand years. It could mean a year. It could mean a day. I mean, we don't know. But in the grand scheme of things, short. Right? It's unlikely that we've got billions and billions and billions of years ahead of us, so time is short. But even for you hearing my voice, your time is short. Because even if the planet continues to exist for another hundred years, you won't be here to see that in all likelihood. You might not be here to see the end of the next decade. That's possible. We could leave here today, the three of us, and on our way home, it's lights out. Like, time is short. We only got so much time. And so, shame on me for not making this a more urgent part of the show in the past, but given the climate of the times and the current strength of my convictions, I want to make sure that people hear what the gospel is. So you guys had kind of a heads up warning that you might be asked to kind of just share an elevator speech version of the gospel, you know, 90 seconds or less, if possible. Would one of you want to step forward and for the uninitiated or for those who need to be reminded what they feel like they already know what the gospel message is? Well, the gospel is good news, and there's only good news if there is something bad first, right? And the bad news is that we're all imperfect, and we have all offended the God who made us. And so, because of that, because of our sin, we deserve... You were talking about how time is short. there's also an eternity ahead for each of us. You know, our time here is short, certainly, and even, you know, the length of that shortness we don't know. But there is an eternity ahead, and our offenses against God those mean the bad news that we cannot be with Him in eternity, and we have to suffer eternal judgment for our sin. So, the good news is that God has made a way for us to be cleansed, made right, for us to be forgiven of our sins. And that way is Jesus. And by faith in Him, we can spend our eternity with God. By faith in the perfection of Jesus, and in his power over sin and over death, proved by his resurrection. So repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen? That was the voice of David Forsey. He's the pastor of the house that meets at David's house. It is a house church on the southern end of Frederick County. And on the other end of the county, there's a house church that's connected with Conquered by Love Ministries. I'm not sure if that church really has an official name either. Not really, no. But their ministry has a website. It's conqueredbylove.org. And so you can find out. And it's pretty cool resources. It's mostly focused on child rearing kinds of things, like how to raise your kids and to conquer them with love, you know, to conquer them into obedience, conquer them onto a successful life, conquer them onto all the blessings that God would have for them. through biblical principles applied to everyday lives, particularly in a parenting context. I'm not sure if that's how they would say it, but that's kind of the way I understand what that ministry is all about. They've written a number of booklets, several dozen booklets, I think. I say booklets because books can scare people. They're like long articles. 30, 40 pages, 50 pages. Yeah, they're really long articles that are bound together, that are focusing on it. So you can kind of check some of that out. Their stuff is pretty darn good. And then I, Troy Skinner, I'm the pastor of Household of Faith in Christ. That's kind of... equidistant between these other two house churches, as it turns out. And so last week we started talking about, we all do house church. We all lead house churches. And so, why? And we began to ask that question by looking at advantages and disadvantages, and we decided to start with looking at the disadvantages. So after last week's show, nobody would ever want to join a house church if you talk about all the disadvantages. But now we're going to try to reel you back in. So some of the advantages. What are the, what are the, I could go on forever. I'm going to let you guys go on forever. What are some of the really cool, nice, attractive, beneficial things about being a part of a house church? I would say the number one advantage is, aside from it's the biblically prescribed method and everybody should be doing it. Everyone else is a heretic. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. No, but the number one advantage, I would say, or at least really far up there, is the much tighter and close fellowship you get with other believers. for being in a house church, as opposed to a church that meets together in a building someplace. And you get them every once in a while. There's a church that I'll go and visit. They are a really close group of people. But the larger the group gets, and that's the function of being in house churches, you don't get a very large group. I mean, there's some mansions that could fit 100 people in their living room, but that's about the most you can get. And so if it gets much larger than that, you have to be in a building, and suddenly you don't have a close relationship. How many best friends can you have? I mean, maybe you could have... If you're me, none. Nobody likes me that much. How many people can you really have a strong relationship with outside your immediate family, and you... The smaller that group of believers is, the deeper that relationship is, and I think that's a very wholesome experience. Yeah, I guess to add to that, I would say, or just to build on that, right, is... You know, larger churches will try and still accomplish those close relationships, right, with Bible studies, small groups, you know, that have various and sundry names, you know, but... Always these very clever marketing names, right? So, you know, but the, I guess the advantage of the house church, the way that I would say that is that, right, well then you have your small group, and then you also have, you know, which probably meets at your house, you know, or your friend's house, and then you have your larger gathering, which then meets at a building, And so now your time, your energy, your attention is sort of divided. It's not just focused on that smaller group. It's also focused on the larger group in the building where the larger group meets and everything that goes along with that as well. All that to say the advantage isn't just of the closeness, but of the amount of time and energy that you can put towards those relationships. And how much each member of the congregation is participating in the main functions of the Church. Right. Instead of just going, I think sometimes people go to church like you go to a movie or you go to a concert, and you go and sit there in the pew and you listen and then you go home. And unless you are one of the people that's heavily involved in all the church activities and ministries and all of that, which by percentage is not very many in a normal church. Right. Um, then yeah. And a house church, you can't avoid going to the small group, right? You are there. Yeah. So one of the things I hadn't even thought about this, that's why I love doing this show. Uh, David, you talked about the, the administrative concerns not being there. And having been... Lack of distractions. Yeah. Having been a pastor of a church with a building, you know, I've been three different places where I was, you know, in a pastoral role where we had a building, and it never occurred to me to think about it this way, but thank you for this. Whenever we would have our leadership, you know, our elder meetings, well, one of the churches wasn't elder-led, it was something I was working towards changing. It was board-led and not an elder board, you know, the kind of the civil board model, if you will, the secular board model. The trustee board. Exactly. Don't get me started. Anyway. So, so much of our time in those meetings were addressing building issues. You know, the HVAC is on the fritz. It's going to cost us $17,000 to replace it. What are we going to do? Or who wants to sign up to clean up next week after church? Exactly. And people are upset about the color on the walls, so we need to form a committee to figure out what paint color to choose and what carpet would be a good complement for that. And you start talking about all these issues that have nothing to do with what elders are primarily called to be dealing with, right? Which is the spiritual health and direction and praying for the people and discussing how you're going to invest in somebody's life. I wouldn't just say elders, though. I mean, I'd say, you know, these should not be the primary concerns of anyone in the church. I'm saying when elders are specifically tasked with the spiritual well-being of the church and teaching and leading, you know, the church as the church, and you're spending all your time worrying about... And the bigger churches, they had to create an extra-biblical pastor's position. It's called the executive pastor. That pastor doesn't really teach or... I mean, they might teach on occasion, but that's not their... Their role is to handle all the building nonsense and all those infrastructure issues. Well, there's an example in Acts 7, right, of the church getting too big, in Jerusalem. And the elders, the apostles, came together and said, look, we're getting too bogged down with all these unnecessary details about, you know, how to care for this thing and that thing. It was a point for people. Unnecessary details like caring for the orphans and the widows. That's true. That's true. But it's in that same vein, right, is that the church was now so large that the apostles could not do all of those things at once, so they delegated and they appointed different people, and then God actually took care of that problem in the next chapter with the death of Stephen and the intense persecution, and he spread everybody out, and now they had to meet in houses, and they didn't have that issue anymore. Anyway. Well, they still had the issue because they still had deacons, so I think even in a house church, let's say we could somehow poof you know, Puff the Magic Dragon shows up, and poof! There are no more institutionalized churches with buildings anymore, and every Christian is gathering in a house church. in and around Frederick County. So that's the new reality. You'd still need a diaconate because the people who are preparing the messages, leading the teaching, dealing with the pastoral, counseling issues, those sorts of things still aren't going to have enough time and energy to focus on the other things that the deacons take care of. But the diaconate would not be worried about the carpet and the walls and the lawn. Exactly. They'd be focusing on the diaconate. Except at their own houses, right? And at the houses of, you know, of the widows. Right. You know? And so all of the resources and energy would be going directly into serving people. Now, one of the advantages, and I agree, but for somebody who's not thinking in terms of it being an advantage, it could be seen as a disadvantage, is, wait a minute, like, I can't just go to your church and hide? Like, I have to be involved, and I'll be seen, and people might expect me to maybe, like, say hello, and participate, and share a meal afterward, and grow in my walk with the Lord, and actually be able to contribute something. Like, that doesn't sound good to me. But seriously, it might not... in your fleshly nature might not sound like a good thing, but I'm telling you, if you're going to a church because it's safe and you can kind of hide and disappear, you're going to one of the bigger churches in Frederick County, for example, and there's several from which you could choose or you could easily hide, you could go to that church for three years and then stop going, and I don't know that in some of these churches they would ever notice. where if somebody comes to one of our churches for three years and they stop coming, they miss a week and we notice. It's like, where's so-and-so? I hope they're okay. They normally would have texted me or called me, said they couldn't make it this week. Like, what's going on? And you can't hide. But that's a good thing, right? Do you want to be invisible? Do you want to have all lack of accountability in your life? Do you want to have no opportunities to exercise certain muscles and get good at providing a defense for the faith and giving a reason for the hope that lies within and being able to share the gospel with people and be comfortable praying in front of other people? You know, somebody's at the hospital and you Well, I don't know, you guys have kind of grown up immersed in the church, so you might not have, but I can promise you, there are people that they're at the hospital visiting a loved one, or a dear friend, family member, dear friend, something, and they feel, they're a Christian, they go to church, they feel it, I wanna read a passage of scripture to them, or I wanna pray for them. And they can't. They can't muster it up. They're just not comfortable. I've never prayed aloud in front of somebody before. I can't do it. Do you want to be that person? Listener, do you want to be that person? The person who feels this compunction to pray, but I can't. In a house church setting, you're going to have an opportunity in a safe environment to begin to develop that sort of comfort level and practice those sorts of skills, if you will, so that when you're out there in an unsafe environment, it'll just be a matter of course. Like, of course I'm going to pray with you. I pray in front of people all the time. If you're a Christian and if you're actually saved, you need to be ready for the three Ps at any moment. At a moment's notice, you have to be able to preach, pray, or perish. without any warning. And I think that's important. And stop and think about that. That's what we're called to do. My wife, post-pregnancy, would add a fourth P to that. All of our wives, post-pregnancy, would add a fourth P to that. Actually, go pee-pee. You got to be ready to go pee-pee. Whether you're ready or not, it might happen. So I think that maybe leads into another advantage of, right, Troy, with you talking about the disadvantage of being able to hide in a larger church, be not known by other people very well, or the disadvantage of not feeling comfortable praying or not being practiced, you know, at praying. So the flipside advantage of a house church or a smaller setting, right, of believers gathering together is those things have to be done, and so people have to do them. And so the advantage is putting those things into practice. And you may find that people are a bit more authentic in that setting. You can get a feel for who people actually are. In a larger church, you don't really know any of those people. You don't know how strong of a believer people are, and it's harder to find someone that you can feel comfortable having a deep conversation, asking for prayer about a very delicate, intimate situation that's happening in your life. Whereas at a home church you would presumably have more than one person that you know really well that you can go and ask for a prayer on something. And it doesn't happen immediately. It's not like if you've never been to the house church before and you go for the first time that that very first week you're going to feel this authentic connection and automatic comfort level because relationships are built But I will say this, I've been to churches where I was a member for many, many years, and you get to recognize faces. You get to have the happy talk moments with, hey, how was your week? Good to see you. You know, that kind of stuff. And it's all very surface level. It doesn't even oftentimes rise to the level of small talk. It's just merely those greetings exchanged and that's about it. And that's all you really know of the person. And then you find out that somebody's having a hard time. Their mother's had cancer for the last four months and you just find out about it. Or a marriage is in distress and you had no idea. And you're like, wow, what? I thought everything. But in the house church context, if you spend a period of time in the house church, I'm not sure how long it takes. It's different for every personality type. But inside of months, you begin to turn that corner. And it's no longer the small talk. It's no longer even the cocktail language talk. It's no longer even just the surface level. I'm pretending I have a conversation with you. It gets to the point where you actually have real conversations about real things that matter. And you might never get to that place in a more traditional setting. And I think a lot of that it comes with sharing a meal as well. And I think that's common. I don't know if you do it in your gathering, David, on a regular basis, but most of the house churches, if not all the home churches that I've either visited or been a part of, one of the core things they do is either before or after the church service, whether it's on a Saturday, on a Sunday, in the morning, in the evening, everybody does it differently, but whatever it is, there will also be a meal around that, and it'll be every week. So you'll get some churches, some mainstream churches, that'll have a fellowship meal, maybe once a month, every couple months, and those are usually the mid-sized churches, a couple hundred people, you know, they'll get together for a fellowship meal, like a potluck, Or, as some of the megachurches, they'll have cookouts every now and then at various places, but you don't get that every week. We're having our meal together, and we're breaking bread together, which is something that you see the early church doing in the New Testament. It's an example of, you come together to break bread, and you're sharing a meal together. That's a place to build relationships, and you have some of those deep conversations. All right, believe it or not, we've reached the end of another show, Graham. Daniel Razvi is involved with a house church, leadership at a house church, and a ministry connected to that called Conquered by Love Ministries, and conqueredbylove.org is their website. David, I don't think you have any sort of hip website thing, or even social media presence for that matter. He's like invisible on the internet, practically. I think I post once a year. Once a year? Oh, okay. All right then. That's more than I post. Somewhere. Somewhere out there you might be able to find David Forsey. Actually, the largest presence you might have on the internet is on my church's website. If you want to get a hold of me, call Troy. We're HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com, and I wanted to make a note to do this. I don't have time because I've got like 20 seconds, but remind me next show when I talk about one of the benefits and reasons why our church actually went through the hassle of building a website because it connects to some of the things that we're talking about. This is the Faith Debate on 930 WFMD. We'll be back next week about 167 and a half hours from right now. Until then, thanks so much for listening and God bless.