Putman Plumbing makes a living by servicing their clients' needs. They make their life by how they service their clients, from the first phone call to when they leave your home when the job is done. Putman Plumbing is dedicated to providing top-of-the-line quality work. Call Putman Plumbing. That's with a P, as in your preferred plumber. Putman Plumbing. How can we make you smile? Welcome to the Frederick Faith Debate. I'm Troy Skinner, and I've been pelted by... A cap, what kind of cap would this be called? I don't know, an Irish cap? What sort of Irish does it say? You know, it's like a golf cap. It's a 65% polyester, 35% wool cap. That's right. And apparently the spot... Spot clean only. Yeah. And of course, you know, Halima's got a, it's a very Philadelphia kind of hat, right? There you go. What's it called? What's it called Vera? Let's see, my sister in Christ, you know, the Federo. I don't know what it's called. I just call it flip to the side. That's a cousin of the sombrero is what that is. And Vera's wearing a hat too. And Vera's wearing a hat. What kind is that? What do you call that? No name. No name. Yeah, we all decided we're having a bad hair day today. I looked over at Troy and realized that he was too, so I threw him my hat just in case. All I'm wearing is the helmet of salvation. Oh, so spiritual. That's all I've got on today. Anyway, Jonathan Switzer, Senior Pastor at Crossroads Valley Chapel. I'm Troy Skinner. We're joined this week, third week in a row, Halima Harrison and Vera Bagley with Angel Wings Transportation and We Are One Body Ministries. The last two weeks we talked specifically about the two ministries that you guys are involved with, and we'll still probably be touching on some of those, but we're going to talk a little more generally. And in between shows, between last week and this week's show, we're talking about – in case you missed the last couple of weeks' show, I don't want to force you to go online and listen to the podcast. If you can at all avoid the pain, we don't want you to have to do that. Listening to the show once is plenty. But We Are One Body Ministries is a traveling Bible study. You go around and you facilitate Bible studies and train people up so that they can maybe continue the Bible studies after you move on to other locations, that sort of thing. Interesting concept. And we're talking about, why is there a need for this? And then, after the show was over, Jonathan was talking about, George Barna, with Barna Research, was talking about this and that, and there's going to be this backlash against the megachurches, and I don't want to steal all the thunder. Can you kind of recall something he said? He came out with a whole book that basically argued that the church is not living up to mission from Christ to build disciples, and that what was going to happen was that – I'm forgetting the name of the book. One of them was called Pagan, and then there was another one called Unchurched. I think Unchurched was Barnas. And the gist of the book was that we're seeing this major backlash of people rejecting the megachurches, because they were going to megachurches that had these great ministries and, you know, this really hot pulpit and, you know, great music ministry and dramas and, you know, flash, flash. And, you know, it felt really good, but that at the end of the day, they felt like they got lost and that they weren't a part of a community of believers. And so they're going back home, and they're starting Bible studies in homes. They're calling it the home church movement, saying that, you know, that that's the way it was in the New Testament. In fact in the New Testament you find the phrase in the temple and from house to house they seem to do both You know and so at some level there should be both but unfortunately there seems to be this backlash and Barna who for so many years has had his Finger on the pulse of the Church of the United States Just a couple years back was basically arguing that we're gonna see a ton of movement in that direction you put that together with with the technological revolution that's happened since 2000. I mean, we all have cell phones, we're all on the internet, Facebook is a networking tool, blogs, all these kinds of things. The environment has changed, and so the move towards people doing their own thing, small, but they've got all the resources of the internet. They've got Bibles, they've got Bible studies, they've got all these things they can tap into so they can look professional in a small group and really do a good job. there seems to be movement that direction it's interesting because on the one hand it feels like what's a good thing you know the the smaller really relational connected bodies of believers it's a good thing and yet there's a new testament perhaps model therefore but you know in the new testament there's also been the churches in asia for example yeah were tied together by letters from paul or letters from john or what there was still like this super church thing that was connecting it all together. Right, so the first question somebody would ask you is, okay, so you're ready to get back together with the Catholic Church and submit to the Pope? Well, I'm not going to submit to the Pope. To be one big super church? No, no, no, but my point is, no, well, therein lies the rub, right? There's all these doctrinal things that we've split over, but now it's not going to be doctrinal things. It's going to be practical things, technological things. We're not going to split over uh... believers only baptism versus infant baptism we're not going to split over uh... the body and blood of christ are literally present verses it's merely a symbol or a sign that we're not going to split over the pope is infallible or not you know we're gonna split over those sorts of things we're gonna split over uh... well it's a lot easier just to do church via my thumbs texting back and forth you know i i did church for an hour today i texted a hundred people's my favorite bible verses that was church And it was spiritual. And I got a lot out of it. And you know, one of the concerns really is... Right, the problem there, Troy, is that you have never tried that. It's not what we get out of it. I bet you don't text hardly anybody ever, am I right? True. Right? And so this is precisely the difficulty. Those guys in my church that text, they do it so often that you can't even imagine how connected. I mean, there's really a deep sense of being connected when people are texting back and forth throughout the day. wherever two or more gathered. They're not gathered. They're on their phones texting back and forth. That's not gathered? No. That's not connecting? You know, praying for you, here's a verse for you? I don't want to overstate it too much, but think about it. In 1 John, right? I believe that John wrote 1 John. Two thousand years ago. Some people would argue with me, okay? John, the Apostle John, he talks about the testimony of their witness of Christ. They saw him, they heard him, they listened to him, right? But they can see him on their cell phone! They touched him! They can't touch, but they can do everything else. Alright, so would you like to have a marriage where you and your wife never actually see or touch one another, you just text back and forth? Would you like to have a virtual marriage? I wouldn't. That is not a relationship. It's a virtual relationship. Yeah, but only because there's certain parts of marriage that can't happen. But it has to start somewhere. I mean, people are getting married over the internet. They're meeting their mates now over the internet. So, I mean, it's taken off. It sure can have its place and it can start there, but it certainly can't end there. And my point is it can't start somewhere else and go there. That's not the ideal. It's a tool that can use to get us to where we want to be, but the ideal is we're together. Ideal is precisely the tricky word. We provide shoulders to cry on. Show me. Agree with me, otherwise I'm going to go over here and cry on Halima's shoulder. That would be nice. Which I could do because she's... You could. Yes, you could. That would be very interesting, yes. I think you should do that, and then they can experience it from a distance. God gave us bodies for a reason. Yes, yes. We're not these disembodied thumbs floating through the universe. Show me the point in history at which the church was ideal. The point in history is when Christ returns. Yes. And then we will all be caught up to be with him bodily in heaven. He's not going to text us forever. He's going to actually physically show up. He does kind of text people now. But in the meantime, we Facebook. Prophetically, we're moved along by the Spirit. But it's not the ideal. Well, in a sense, though, he tabernacles within us. And so we do have his presence. And so it's a physical, real, spiritual anyway. Physical? Hmm. I don't know. I gotta think about that how to slice that for example when Paul wrote a letter And they passed it around to everybody and he could not be with them, but he said I'm with you in spirit Is there a spiritual transaction that's going on between Paul and the churches that was reading that we're reading his letter Right, but then they called together, they came together, and the letters were read to them as a body, and his letters didn't replace personal interaction. And that would be my fear with the direction that our society is going, and if the church buys into that, my fear would be that the church would end up being all of these individuals having their own individual spiritual experience, and we wouldn't have a unified… This is a surprising debate, and I'm enjoying it, because I'm going to… I've got a couple of thoughts, but go ahead, Helene, you first. No, but you know it's not about buying into it, but it's just to start to get them You know it's like the bait come on. You know this is what it's here for and then you could bring them together You know the but it's not I don't believe that the tenet the technology is what keeps you current You know people have to relate to something You want to be relevant? Absolutely. There's two things, though, that I want to make the point. One, and I don't want us to get bogged down in this unless Jonathan or Ramon or Vera want to come after me on it, but I do believe that we've got to be careful because oftentimes what it takes to get them is what it takes to keep them. So if you start there, you might end up there whether you want to stay there or not. And this has always been the Church's fear with fellowship of Christian athletes or something like that. They get caught. by going to fellowship christian athletes and then when they show up in the church it's like well this is quite well fellowship christian athletes was that was all athletes but here i got a bunch people that aren't athlete but the thing i had to deal with them to the finger and there's a man who is the you know what johnson was saying about the barnard george barner research group stuff saying that it's his opinion that maybe the direction the church is going is the church is going to explode into the splinters that i can be so Fine. It's going to be individual splinters. Let me ask you, is there global warming or is there not? Yes. Yes. But what has it been? I think your opinion, if I know you well, it's a cycle. It comes and it goes. Correct. It comes and it goes. I know where you stand on that. We've talked often enough. Well, I think the same thing is true, has always been true about the church. There's been times in history where the church has come together and the unity was so strong that it was, overbearing even and so things broke out and then people come back together you know and then they break break out and so that so I think we're gonna we've had a megachurch period of time that that has been a swing and I think we're just gonna experience another swing and until Christ returns we're gonna keep getting a swing you know be a swing towards charismatic churches and then the swing back to more more more you know strict churches then and then a swing back to to a We'll probably even see a swing back to monasteries. Are you saying that Christians are a bunch of swingers? What are you saying? I'm saying that we've been swinging for a long time. By the way, you asked me, I'm not sure why you chose Constantine, if that was when the church was at its ideal, because I would say that the era of Constantine is when the church fell off the tracks. Well, that's precisely why I brought it up, because some people are of the opinion that that was a major high watermark for the church. The church had conquered the Roman Empire and had finally won so that Constantine, the very emperor of the empire, would have to say, these guys are the best religion for the entire nation. I mean, it was a pretty incredible time. Diocletian, who was emperor right before that, for ten years, vile, ugly persecution, and Constantine comes in, I'm sure, for at least five years plus, everybody was like, whoo-hoo, look what God did. This is the triumph of the Kingdom of God. And then, people, you know, and us, hindsight is 20-20. We just happen to think that we're seeing hindsight 20-20 forward. Did I say that right? Foresight, you know? But the point is is that is that the new technologies are not going to go away people connect people connect listen on a cell phone People are talking back and forth all day long I'll have a conversation with somebody over the over the course of a couple hours that it is as if I sit in the same office where they work, and I walk by every couple of hours and say, hey, what about blah, blah, blah? And they'll be like, well, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll blow on, finish what I'm doing, and then they'll walk by my office, and they'll say something. Facebook is the same kind of thing. It is so ubiquitous that where it used to be that you work with a certain group of people, And then you fellowship with another group of people, and then you've got your family in a different place. That's not the case anymore. Everybody is able to be connected all the time, and so they're able to communicate. And so there's actually more togetherness, not less, as a result of that. And all I'm saying is that I think these things are not going to go away, and that in the process of adapting, we're going to see some swings. Yeah, but my concern would be, and you guys feel free to jump into our argument here anytime, ladies. Does that make me the more progressive one and you the reactionary today? A couple weeks ago I called you traditional. I did, you did. I got to retract that now. I thought that that would be Jonathan's lost his mind. Yes, yes. My question is what difference does it make if it's Facebook, if it's texting, as long as we all get the knowledge? I mean, oh no, but see, who's thinking about the church? I mean, we're all mini churches. Here's where I'm going to disagree. What's better? Some sort of meal that's comprised, an important part of the meal is Ezekiel bread or Big Mac and fries. It's food, the person's hungry, let's give them something to eat. But these relationships that are virtual, that are texting, Facebook-oriented kind of relationships, yeah, you're connected and there's a relationship there. We're more connected and more relational at some point, but they're empty calories. Who's to say they're empty calories? I think they're meaningful relationships with some of these folks. Meaningful, constant interaction all day long. Welcome to the new age of technology. See, this is the thing. I would say that you've got people that you consider your closest friends. You've got people that you consider friends. You've got people that you consider acquaintances. You've got people that you consider co-workers, but you wouldn't necessarily call them a friend. You've got different kinds of people in your life, right? The reality is that the people that are your closest friends, the quality of your interaction with those people is what makes them the closest friend. And according to Proverbs, the pleasantness of one's friendship springs from their earnest counsel. You know, when you're in trouble, you know, like the snow happened. And it was very interesting. All of my brothers and sisters in Christ were far enough away that there's no way that they could have come and helped me to dig out. And I couldn't have gotten to them to help them either. And Proverbs says, better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away, right? And so all of a sudden I knew my neighbors Super well for a couple days because we're all digging each other out, and we're talking you know and we just couldn't go anywhere We're stuck and and my point is is that is that we have different levels of relationships It doesn't mean that I'm less of a neighbor. It doesn't mean that I'm less of a good acquaintance to somebody, but the quality of the friendship springs from their earnest counsel, from them being there for you when you need help. And the reality is that somebody could be there for you to have a shoulder to cry on via Skype I've got a friend that's over in Germany. My wife's been connecting with her. We were their youth pastor back in Chicago and has been connecting with her and literally having a cry-on-your-shoulder kind of conversation for the last couple of weeks that I've just been like, wow, is that incredible? And they see each other on Skype and they talk and they cry. So you're going to tell me that United Airlines got it wrong? Remember that commercial back, I think it was the 1980s, probably. It might have been the 90s. I think it was the 80s, though. You know what I'm talking about? There's a commercial where there's this office setting, a bunch of salespeople, and the CEO or whatever steps up and says, I just got a phone call from our longest client, and he's not doing business with anymore. He doesn't feel like he knows us. And then the United Airlines part is he then gives airline tickets to his entire staff and says, We're all going to go out and see our clients in person, face to face. And he holds up his ticket and says, and I'm going to lead the way. I'm going to go meet with that longtime client who just canceled his business with us. United got it wrong? We don't need to do that? That's not important anymore? I'm saying that the connection is the key, and that sometimes that connection requires face-to-face, and sometimes it does not. I'm saying that the way that the technology is going, that we're going to be surprised by how often that does not. I'll say this, though, that the best relationships will always have a face-to-face element to them. And I think we're agreeing, probably, or maybe disagreeing on a matter of emphasis. By the way, Jonathan Schweitzer, Senior Pastor at Crossroads Valley Chapel. I'm Troy Skinner. This is the Faith Debate, and this week we're joined by Vera Bagley and Halima Harrison with Angel Wings Transportation, and we are One Body Ministries. And this week it's three against one. They're all ganging up on me. I don't know what he's talking about. He ganged up on us. My fear would be that we would end up settling for something less. We would end up filling our lives and become so busy with these less-than-ideal relationships, these interpersonal strong relationships, and settle for Facebook, settle for texting. But see, that's when we rely only on ourselves. Like, for instance, when I first got saved, I started just by watching TV, watching the televangelist, and then Holy Spirit spoke to me, okay, it's time for you to go to church. So, you know, and then I evolved into going to church. And what we're saying is that, you know, the connection can be made initially, you know, to be that shoulder to cry on. Maybe I'm not, and I'm from Philadelphia, so I have a lot of people on Facebook from Philadelphia. I can't go to Philadelphia right away, but you have a crisis, I can be there for you virtually. And then, you know, as the connection is made, as We Are One Body does the traveling, we can come to you, you know, and maybe give you that face-to-face time. And we're not saying to totally, you know, remove the face-to-face, but it's just at least the option to have in order to facilitate what God wants us to do, you know, to be there for each other. It's just another option. For example, my wife has her kids at home and when she's got her kids at home and she wants to go meet with another lady, she's got to get in the car, get all the kids in the car and go meet with this other lady and then spend time and then get all her kids back in the car and then come home. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of it's a lot of difficulty to get back and forth in In everybody around town. I mean everybody that's got kids That's why they call them soccer moms because you got to get in the car and go drive here and get in car and go Drive there kids can't go to everything that they do unless they're driven. They have to be driven That's the only way to get there. Well technology has created this environment. We're all You know soccer mom crazy and and the soccer mom backlash is the text messaging, Facebook. Now all these soccer moms can be on Facebook and they can connect with one another, they can be like, I gotta go see you, you know, this is what I'm doing now, you know, what are you doing now? And there's that sense of sharing their lives with one another while they're buzzing all over town trying to keep up. And the point is that for a lot of people, their relationships have improved because they can connect in those kinds of ways. Maybe in some specific situations you could make that, but on the whole, in general... That's because you're a guy. You've got to admit that something's lost when there's not the personal touch, the personal face-to-face. Something is lost, right? I mean, we are one body. We're trying to do both. I mean, you have to think about writing people personal letters. When is the last time you actually sat down and wrote someone a personal letter and, you know, it was longer than two sentences? Probably haven't done that. So, I don't even email more than two sentences. I'll write you know a half a dozen to a dozen lines in a thank-you note to somebody. Okay, you are in the minority. That's the problem! Hello? So you might need to evolve. Do you have a Facebook page, Troy? We gotta get him a Facebook page. I don't have a Facebook page, actually, no. Then how can you meet the people where they're at? Does your wife? Does your wife? She doesn't? My daughter does. But I don't. All of my guy friends, I kid you not, have kicked and screamed about not having a Facebook page. And I've watched them one after another. They finally realized they have to. I think that my point would be, if I'm going to have... I'll probably someday have either a Facebook page or something like it." And for the longest time, I was maintaining pretty actively the Faith Debate page, and that was kind of like my Facebook page in a sense. That's where I would post things and people could email me and I would post their things and whatever, that sort of thing. So some of that was taking place. I'm not doing that anymore, so there is maybe a void there that I'll have to think about addressing, honestly. but the point in doing that would be to meet them where they are and then minister in such a way that you bring them to where they should be and where we as a relationship need to be. My concern is that we would settle for the Facebook relationship. and say, well, it's just as good. You know, again, I find myself... In fact, it's better. Yeah. And it's not better. Go ahead, you first. Yeah, I agree with John when he said earlier, you know, some relationships require face-to-face. I mean, Vera is my bosom buddy. I need to see her at certain times. But there's certain times in which texting or if we're working on the businesses, you know, I'm the talker. I love to call her. But if we're working on a business, we can text or email each other. But it really is a discernment of the relationship, the person. If I haven't went to high school with you 20 years ago and I find you on Facebook, well, golly, I just made a connection with you. And you start there and evolve it. But intimate relationship with friends, I agree with you, Troy, and you have to have the face-to-face. But sometimes you just, I mean, we're agreeing with you, but we're disagreeing where it seems like you're just saying, forget Facebook at all. We don't need it. i'm not saying forget it but i am saying if if we're going to settle for that then forget it i'd rather not have face book at all than have people settle for that is not all or nothing because the best really you just said it is certain relationships right uh... require the face-to-face and he went on to see to describe really because as you follow question i don't need to know to describe what those with certain relationships are the intimate relationships well guess what what are the best kind of relationships intimate relationships. So if we don't have intimate relationships, we will forget what true godly relationship really is. And the definition of an intimate relationship, I think, is where you bare your heart to the individual so that they know what you're really going through, what you're really thinking, And you allow them into the innermost part where they can counsel with you about the most important parts of your life. And from my experience, amazingly, that can happen through technology. You don't have to be face-to-face to do that. Agree because you know I had one of the responses I had from my daily dishes someone just put a Notification on my page and said Halima you don't you won't realize how much you just saved me from myself Just by having a word of God to go out now. I don't know what she went through I don't know what was but I know there was a seed that was planted and you know and in that I was able to follow up with her you know and just say hey is everything okay with her and And though I may not have been there face to face with her, that still was like me reaching my hand out to her and touching her through a time that she may have been going through. And it was through the technology. You know, like, for example, shouldn't it be that you and I would all go to church with our neighbors instead of all going to different churches? You know, if we're trying to get to the ideal. Man, we started settling for broken relationships and not connecting with our neighbors a long time ago. I mean, we're so far from the ideal that I feel like for us to pitch our fork here to draw a line and say, this far, no further, you know, You know, like G.K. Chesterton said, his goal, his calling life was to stand athwart progress and yell, Stop! Stop! You know, well, I agree. We need to do that. That's the conservative impulse. It's a godly impulse, you know, that all this progress is destroying our relationships. But at the same time, the reality is that we got to adapt to the way that things are somehow. We got to participate in where people are right now. And I'm not going to say that we should pitch our fork in one particular place and that one and only particular place and live and die there. Sure, sure. I think we pitch our fork in all of the places it needs to be pitched and live and die in all of those places. And if we've surrendered too much ground in the past, shame on us for that. We need to correct those problems too. Yes. Anyway, we're out of time. So we're going to end with the three of them being wrong and me being right. I'm Troy Skinner. This is the Faith Debate. Halima Harrison, Vera Bagley, Jonathan Schweitzer with Angel Wings Transportation. We are One Body Ministries and Crossroads Valley Chapel. In that order, if you match up the names with the organizations. Thanks for listening. God bless. Putman Plumbing makes a living by servicing their clients' needs. They make their life by how they service their clients, from the first phone call to when they leave your home when the job is done. Putman Plumbing is dedicated to providing top-of-the-line quality work. Call Putman Plumbing. That's with a P, as in your preferred plumber. Putman Plumbing. How can we make you smile?