Imagine, if you will, a world unlike anything you have ever known or experienced. A world without Sunday morning gatherings, without the echo of hymns and sanctuaries, without pulpits, pews, or the sounds of a preacher's voice calling souls to redemption. A world where no deacons serve, and no pastors shepherd, and no congregation unites in prayer. In this reality, the church as we know it never was. It is not history nor memory, it is nothing more than a figment of imagination. You are about to step beyond the veil into a dimension where faith has no fellowship, where the body has no unity, and where hope walks alone. Welcome to For the Love of the Church, Season 3. So we continue this conversation of, hypothetically, the church does not exist. So as we've been walking through the other episodes and thinking through this, we kind of keep going to this. the church doesn't exist, how is this gonna affect these particular aspects? And then, okay, let's plug the church back in and see how this comparison contrasts. And hopefully you've, as you've been journeying through this, you've enjoyed kind of the, a little bit more of a deeper thinking type of, theoretical concept that makes you go, huh, well, I never thought about that. That's certainly what our hearts desire in this season. Not that we didn't want you to think in the other seasons, but I think this particular season to say, okay, let's just actually stop for a minute and think our way through some stuff and really force ourselves to kind of go deeper in our thinking through this process of the local church. And so, one of the areas that we haven't talked about, we've talked a little bit about evangelism, but we haven't really talked about missions. How, if the local church did not exist, how would that impact missions? And we all, I mean, all of us that are listening, I'm sure, know of missionary, somebody who lives overseas, somebody who's doing some sort of mission work, some sort of aspect of that. Missions is definitely very, very much a part of every church and every ministry. And so we're very well acquainted with missions. But we have to ask ourselves, okay, so if the local church didn't exist, what would be the impact or what would be the difference that we would see in missions and particularly in this idea of mission agencies and sending agencies and the church not existing so there's nobody to send out missionaries and we're not doing church planting. So we're gonna kind of think our way through that a little bit and think about, okay, so, Does the local church not existing, does that have a negative impact or a diminishing impact on missions? So what do you think, Caleb? This might be a strange answer. You might not be expecting this one, but realistically, very little. Well, that was not what I was expecting. And I'll tell you why, I'll tell you why. I think there's a lot of things in missions that's already broken, right? So if we had like a healthy idea of missions, then the whole thing would be completely different. But from what I've seen from modern people who do missions, So, quote-unquote, missions. A lot of it is, you know, I'm going over to so-and-so place. I need your money to go over to so-and-so place and I'm going to live there and I'm going to impact the culture for Jesus. They're not really doing much. They might be doing a little thing here, a little thing there. They got these incredible stories of people that they meet, right? And they're in the newsletter. Didn't we have some of these ads in the first season? We do. So, we all have those people. Now, I know that the question is, would it change? I think the things that would change would be, we're familiar with some very biblical missions organizations that do things not necessarily what's culturally practical, but what's biblically correct. Some biblical ministries that serve around the world. And so they require, like what? You need to have a sending church. You need to be tied to a local church. You need to have local church support. And they're probably planting churches and making disciples. So in that scenario, where do you go? You don't have... Not even existent. Yeah. Who sends? Who's the sender? Where are they being sent? What are they doing when they're there? What is the great significance of me giving Dave Dietz a whole bunch of money if there's already believers there? all you're doing is just telling people about Jesus and doing like coffee shop discipleship? Like, why do I need to send money? Why do I need to send Dave Dietz over there with a whole bunch of money to live there other than he just wants a cool place to live, right? So, in that sense, you wouldn't be so energetic about missions. Right. Right? Because I'm not building anything. Yeah, you would just be doing believer stuff. You would just be a normal believer who works a normal job, who tells normal other people about Jesus Christ as you have opportunity. That's right. So you would lose out on that reality of the need, like you say, to invest and to send over and you wouldn't have, like you say. So I like what you said. about the fact that our concept of missions is really skewed and messed up in a lot of ways. But the ministries that we're familiar with and that we, you and I, do a lot of work with and engage with are very local church-oriented. They're very local church, church planting, that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, those types of ministries would definitely be impacted. There would be no church to send out. There would be no church to plant. And so a lot of those ministries would go away. Here's one practical thing that would go away is all the companies that print prayer cards, they might be out of business. So that would go away. There'd be no C&D? We need to have a moment of silence for C&D Church Supply Company that would, wow, we hadn't even thought about that, Caleb, that C&D, our primary sponsor, C&D Church Supply Company, would be gone. Man, that's a killer. All right, anyway. back to the reality. Yeah, so obviously a lot of those ministries are impacted and there's a difference there with how that works. One of the things that as you think about missions, and this'll be an interesting component to bring up, if the church does not exist and we're not living in the reality of the local church, probably what we're going to see is a drastic increase in social activity. Doing good, benevolence, doing social justice type of activity. So even before we jump into that concept, which I think is probably a heart of what we should talk about, but I do want to say, I think there is, I think there is a place for social things. Like I, I don't, I don't, I don't know where you are Kayla, but I don't personally take a position that says under no circumstances should you ever not do something that, that helps advance somebody in a social manner. I mean, I, I serve in, you know, different places around the world where there is just, I mean like poverty that you just can't wrap your head around. Sometimes before we can share the gospel with those people, you gotta meet a base need. You gotta at least get them. up a little bit and so I would never say under no circumstances should you never do something that's social. Where I get really upset with the social gospel, social justice, social work thing is when we do the social thing and we call that the gospel. Like I gave you a meal so therefore you know that Jesus loves you and died on the cross for your sins. I don't know if that's true. we would have a heavier concept or heavier interaction of social work. Mirage Entertainment brings you A Night with Caleb and Dave. This incredible show features the finest feats of male prowess on full display. Watch as Caleb and Dave perform death-defying stunts, soaring through the air like birds, showcasing the strength of wild stallions and the grace of a barn owl. People are already raving about the show. Let's hear from someone who has just experienced it. Excuse me, excuse me, hi. I was wondering if you could tell me about the show. It was pretty awful. The costume choices were bizarre. We didn't really need to see Caleb or Dave in a brightly colored leotards like a bunch of deranged rejected fruit with legs. They bounced on a trampoline twice and then collapsed from exhaustion. After about five minutes of heavy breathing and groaning, Caleb got to his knees and started screaming, I'm coming home, Mama. Tell Papa I'm coming home. When Caleb finally stood up, he limped to the microphone and, completely out of breath, mumbled something into it. I couldn't make it out while, meanwhile, Dave, still on the trampoline, was on all fours, wheezing and motioning for someone to bring him an oxygen tank or something. Caleb then whispered, when I catch my breath, I will perform our next trick. I will ride a motorcycle through a ring of fire. After about three minutes of trying to recover, as he ran towards the motorcycle, he tripped and fell flat on the ground. Dave noticed Caleb lying there and started crawling towards him, yelling, get all the doctors! Caleb is hurt! Get all the doctors! After about two minutes, Dave finally reached Caleb, who was only 10 feet away. He started crying and said, don't die Caleb, don't die. Then he reached down to his leotard, pulled out a Twinkie, and stuffed it into Caleb's mouth. At that point, about five people rushed in to wrestle Dave off of Caleb. Dave kept screaming, let Caleb die like he lived. Turned out Caleb was okay. He had just fainted from exhaustion during his sprint. They announced that there would be a second act, but we didn't stick around. The thought of Caleb and Dave doing an interpretive dance was more than enough to convince us to leave, especially after seeing those costumes. Some things shouldn't even exist in a person's imagination. Were you at least entertained? I guess. There you have it, folks. If you want to experience this entertaining evening, just check out the website for dates and locations. A Night with Caleb and Dave, brought to you by Mirage Entertainment. Yeah, I'm like you. It's really inconsistent to say that I love you and watch you starve, right? I mean, I think James points that out, right? Like, do you really love somebody? And he's like, oh, it's going to be a cold one out. I know you don't have a jacket. Stay warm. Be warm, be filled, buddy. Yeah, man. Jesus loves you. Yeah, because that would be inconsistent, right? That would be inconsistent. I think there are certain cultural things that are happening in the culture that the church has a we have the truth and we can defend those who can't defend themselves. And I think there's an aspect to that. I think it always has to be, like you said, coupled with the gospel, right? Like you can't, it's not like I get to pick either or. I got to do both, right? And so I'd agree with you. I think you're probably right. There'd probably be a lot more political movements, right? Christians would probably, get together to push probably more agendas. Yeah. I could also see the opposite happening, right? Like if there's no local church, why do I need to get together with somebody if it's just me and my family? So there might be a lot of compounds in Idaho, right? You know what I mean? No offense to all of you that live in Idaho. Or compounds in the mountains, you know, like you're gonna retreat. So as far as it affects missions, there's no impetus to send your kid into missions. If there's no church and it's just everybody for themselves, I don't know. I mean, why would I want my kids to go do that? I mean, there would probably be some scripture that would encourage to go out and share the gospel, but I'm not sure, apart from somebody constantly telling you that you need to do this, it would have to be mainly the Holy Spirit doing that, right? Because when I think about missions and every time I hear a missionary in the local church, there's a part of me that says, God, are you wanting me to go somewhere to plant a church? Are you wanting me to do something? What do you want me to do with this information? How can I help advance the gospel? If there's no regular meeting, who's telling us to go out and do missions? It would have to be solely on the person reading the word and being convinced by that. There would be no outside influence, really. Or that would be greatly diminished. How about that? I think that might be better. Yeah, again, a very individualistic concept. The collective group effort of missions would be gone. You might be able to rally around some particular thing as a group, but again, like all these other things that we've talked about, it really pushes us to an individualism and pushes us away from a group effort. There's really not a motivation to be engaged in a group effort. especially for evangelism or the preaching of the gospel or whatever the case may be. So again, you plug the church back in and it comes to life and it's real and it's part of who we are. Now we look at it and say, well, okay, on one practical side, well, if the church is alive and it's real and it's okay, we're not in this hypothetical anymore. The church is what the church is. Well, then we're called to go share the gospel, to plant churches, to bring people together, to be able to assemble in the local church, the primacy of the local church in missiology. or in missions. And so on one hand, now we should be looking at it and going, well, dude, if I'm going to invest my time and energy in anything within the local church and within missions, it's going to be what promotes and helps the local church. So missions should be pushing us towards helping and aiding and assisting either in the planting of a local church or the revitalization of a local church or the bringing of health to a local church. That should be the emphasis of our missions, because if the church does not exist, then we would say, well, it's probably going to be a little bit, it's going to be evangelistic, but it's not like we're not planting churches. So it's going to lend itself more to like social gospel, social justice, social work type of stuff. Well, the church does exist. So the heavy emphasis of our missions ministries should be upon local church planting, revitalization, health, those kinds of things. You know, I was thinking as you're talking, there would probably be one other thing that would be really different for the missionary. So let's say, let's say you do feel a call to missions, right, to go somewhere. So you go, what, knock on everybody's door. Gives a whole new idea to George Floyd. Yeah, will you give me money? So like, right now a missionary will contact the pastor, the pastor will vet, the elder board will vet, the admissions committee will vet, and they'll go, we think this person aligns with us, doctrinally, Bible ministry, and then they bring them into the church, they introduce to the church, right? so the the missionary is kind of like the door is open to them to a group of people that they could see well now what where do they go yeah they have to go next door knock will you give me money to go on this trip will you give me the money go on this trip and could you imagine having to the support raising that would have to take place if you had to be rough you have to knock on everybody's door and then imagine when you're like then they're on the field and like having to send back a report of how you're being financially responsible with right with the money like you'd have to write every single individual like it would just compound the issue. And if the church didn't exist, what would you be doing there? You might be doing some evangelism. You might be doing some preaching. You might be doing some discipleship, but it's not in the context of a church because church doesn't exist. So it's really, again, a very diminished role. It's a diminished impact. Everything is weakened. Everything is diminished. Everything is less impactful without the local church. Again, I think we keep driving to this idea and driving to this concept that the local church is Christ's beautiful, brilliant, genius mechanism by which everything is exponentially magnified. my ability to function, my ability to do what God has called me to do is much more impactful through the local church than it is just out of my own, doing my own thing, engaging in my own capacity. And so I think as believers, as we, excuse me, as we think through this process and we think through this aspect of missions and mission agencies and what would we be doing, you know, in some regard there, there, there would be, um, I mean, I don't even know how many missionaries there are, like, currently, if we counted up. I mean, hundreds of thousands of missionaries across, and maybe even more than hundreds of thousands. There'd be a lot. There'd be a lot of people who would be, quote-unquote, out of a job, if you will, like a traditional, typical missionary, that would just be It would really just be believers doing believer things and living out the gospel wherever God placed them, which quite honestly, not a problem. We should be doing that as Christians anyway. We should be living out the gospel wherever God called us. And then there are people God has obviously called. to go minister to places and go be part of mission agencies and works overseas or here in the U.S. as we deal with or think about revitalization or health or church planting or whatever it may be. But the reality is when we think about missions outside of the local church, it's really kind of a null and void type of thing and not something that's as impactful as it could be as it is now. Yeah. Well, and there's some other things that I think about when I think there's no local church when it comes to missions, not just there's a whole bunch of people that are going to be without a job and all this, which is significant, right? I mean, that's significant. But one of the other things too is, so I have a sending church and it's kind of a church that my name's attached to. If things go wrong, they get notified about things and You know, even though I am a pastor in a church, there still is that accountability from another church. And a lot of missions organizations that we work with, they have sending churches, right? And that church offers a sense of accountability. If I'm just going around knocking on everybody's door, where's that accountability, right? Who am I really going to be accountable to? If it's just the individuals. Well, we'll take the Carl Ralph thing, right? Let's take Carl. Carl's going knocking on all the doors, stupid Carl, right? And stupid Carl gets money. He goes to Spain. He does things that are weird, right? Some of the things are good, some of the things are bad. There's no accountability. He starts this sin. The people from Spain, who do they call, right? Here's this guy going off the rails. How do you stop that? There's no accountability for stupid Carl to, you know. Which is why Ralph had to blast all over social media about stupid Carl. That's right. There's no accountability. No accountability. Yeah. So, and you got to broadcast it to the world. And so, yeah, that's important, right? That accountability is important to have somebody making sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, right? Because no accountability leads to some terrible things. So the local church offers that. No local church, that accountability is gone. It's like judges, right? We had mentioned that before. There's no king, so everybody does what's right in their own eyes.