Okay, welcome. Here we are. We're going to talk about small church ministry and it's a real joy to have some of my dear brothers with me here. Chris Law from Geneva Lakes Church. You want to just say hi so everybody knows it's you, Chris?

Yeah, good, so glad to have you. Good to be here. And Joe Rosales from Old Paths Christian Church in El Paso, Texas, The land of my mother's family growing up and spent lots of summers in El Paso growing up as a boy. I love El Paso. I love the desert and all that you all have there.

I guess, what is it? 106 there today? It's gonna get to 106. Right now we're what? Around 100 already, 101.

Wow, wow. So what are you at Geneva Lakes Chris? I think we're low 80s today. There you go. Oh my.

Yeah Geneva Lakes is like a promised land at this time of the year. It's just amazing. We also we think we're going to get David Fry here from Grace Reform Fellowship in San Antonio. We think he's gonna pop in in a minute, but hopefully you'll see it, you'll see his face when he comes in. Well, so we're having this discussion in some of the most challenging, absolutely the most unusual times in the history of the church in America.

There are things that have been happening all around us and to us and in our states and our cities that have never happened in American history in terms of restrictions on the church and movements in the society that look fairly ominous to all of us. Around here in North Carolina most churches still aren't meeting even though they're allowed to meet. And I was looking at some surveys. One survey indicated that about 30% of church-going people are willing to come back now. There's a large mega church and I understand some others who have done surveys indicating 20% are willing to come back and one pastor here on the East Coast is saying that they're suspending what he calls on-campus experiences for the rest of the year and in the next year.

He's calling his church an on-campus experience. So there's some very very odd things happening all around us. I think it would be interesting just to hear from you guys what some of the pressure points are in your communities and your churches what you're experiencing now. Joe why don't we start with you way out West in El Paso? What's happening in your town and in your church?

What's the landscape look like? Well, right now there's a lot of misinformation. Supposedly we have 11, 000 cases now. And then because of our proximity to Mexico, you have people coming from there and then going there to Mexico, coming back. And so we have 11, 000 cases right now.

7, 000 have recovered, 148 are in the hospital, and then I don't know what where the other ones are. And you know, but there's a lot of misinformation, and the reason is because my son's friend, his mother-in-law went to get tested and she signed up, she got a number and she had to get in line to get tested. Well, the line was very long, so she went home. She just left the line. And in three days, she got a call that she was positive.

I mean, a week after she got a call that she was positive. And she's like, what? I haven't, I wasn't even tested. So there's a lot of, you know, misinformation out there. We don't know exactly how many truly are sick or not sick, whatever.

And so the church right now, we're doing okay. They haven't told us anything. They haven't said we're going to go through a second lockdown, nothing like that. So we have mostly everyone back in our church, I'd say 90%. The problem is I lost four elders.

I lost four elders. And I have a Spanish ministry and an English ministry. I lost three elders in the Spanish ministry, and then I lost one elder in the English ministry. And some of it was on disagreement, disagreeing about what I'm doing here in the pandemic, during this pandemic. And so, the God's really, the Lord has really shown us that he's with us.

I mean, he's sustaining the ministry, We're doing fine. We have experienced no loss financially. Everything's, people are so excited. We resume home Bible studies and people after the service, they still hang around. And I have to tell them, you know what?

You have to go home. They just love the fellowship. They're not worried about all of this because of the numbers out there, which are not correct. And then we're going to have baptisms in two weeks outside the church in one of those horse cross. We have all the people around.

And so, I mean, the whole community is looking at us doing all this and we haven't had any complaints, any reports. So there's no real pressure. It's just the loss of some of my dear elders. That's been real hard for me. The past month, just three of them just disappeared and never came back and one of them did, you know, come up to me and resign.

And their reason was, well, I did get to call two of them and they just told me, you know, we I just disagree with you on certain points and I asked them on what points and they wouldn't answer. So I said, you know what, let me pray for you. And so right now I have a bunch of young men, you know, young people, you know, early, late 20s, early 30s, and I'm taking some of those men through mentorship, really preparing them for ministry, because, you know, it's just me and another elders doing all the work and it's getting difficult for us but other than that, everything is just going well for us. Praise god. Good.

Thank you, Joe. Hey, so looks like we got David Fry from Grace Reform Fellowship in San Antonio. Good to see you, David. Can you hear me? Well, I don't know if your mic is on there.

I think you're muted there, David. There we go. Are you on now? There we go. Okay.

Well, maybe you didn't hear it. I've introduced you twice. So, you know, there you have it. You're in great shape. Good to see you.

Good to see you. Chris, Joe, good to see you all also. So we're just talking about what's going on in our communities. It's such an unusual time, but I thought maybe we'll move to, Joe is just telling us what's happening in his community. Chris, What's it like in Geneva Lakes?

Well, we're fairly a rural community, kind of between Milwaukee and Chicago, but also a place where a lot of people vacation. So our county itself is fairly small. I think as of yesterday, we had three cases who were hospitalized and thankful for being on the north side of the Illinois-Wisconsin border where we have freedom to gather. Currently, there are no restrictions on us and we've been thankful to be able to be meeting and the church body has been excited to be together and I think eager to pursue and to grow and to get back to things that were more normal and I think overall people are not fearful. I think there's just three people who haven't come back after the kind of the lockdown and continue to try to stay in touch with them.

But it's been, I think time away is always good to stir our hearts for what sometimes we take granted. Amen. Yeah it's been a good time for our church too. Attendance is way up for us. We've been meeting consistently for about three and a half months altogether, just like normal.

So it's been a very sweet time here. We had, I guess, the blessing of a lawsuit that was leveled against the governor that slapped a restraining order on his restrictions so we've had no restrictions here. On the church now there are restrictions on the general populace but the church has really escaped any government orders at you know at this point I think maybe there'll be a time when that won't be the case I've been preaching in a series of messages on the church and the family and the civil government individual, jurisdictional rights, church jurisdictional rights, and the government, you know, preaching through. I want to prepare our people to understand what Romans 13 means, what 1st Peter 2 means, but I'm spending time right now walking through the various expressions of civil disobedience that are in the Bible because the command in Romans 13 is not absolute. That's obvious because many of God's people did disobey government orders.

So I started with the Hebrew midwives and went on to Moses' parents who hid their child and I just did a sermon on Daniel and I'm going to keep working through the different kinds of civil disobedience that godly saints engaged in in obedience to God just to try to prepare our people to try to think through the distinctions. The different narratives that speak of civil disobedience, they actually are very different and they respond to different conditions and so I've been wanting to just prepare our people to understand what Romans 13 actually means in terms of the scope of all of Scripture. Scripture interprets Scripture So trying to do that there but the church has been very happy it's been just a very sweet time for us it's been a joy. So David what's happening down in San Antonio? Well similar things of course and in the governor's declaration, Governor Abbott, you know, he made an exemption for churches in regard to those that are meeting and various aspects of the particulars and parameters, and yet we have a mayor who likes to defy what the governor is saying, and so we have that going on.

We've met, our community center which we meet has, let's see, it's two Sundays now, We were able to meet there, but the last couple of Sundays, they've shut it down for all activities. And so we've met in houses the last couple of Sundays. We are small, we're very small, but that's kind of the deal now. We do have one member that we're praying for a lot who's come down, has been hit hard with it, and right now it's in the middle of that sickness. So, but yes, we are, when we get together for Bible studies and church meeting now It is a it is a very sweet time very good time to be in the word together To sing together to hear each other sing.

It's really excellent No, that's great. Yeah, the church the church is a is a physical operation. It's not just spiritual. And you greet one another, you sing together, you take the Lord's Supper together, you speak to one another. It's a very, It's not just an ethereal, spiritual thing and I think many churches have defaulted to kind of a spiritual, pietistic model of church which allows them to feel okay about live-streaming without actually meeting and doing the things that churches do that they're commanded to do.

So it's been very disturbing to see you know great swaths of the church not meeting to me and not doing the things that Christians do. It looks very un-Christian to me. So, but anyway, we're here to talk about small churches. You guys are, you know, you're pastors in churches in our network and most of the churches in our network are small churches. For some reason when you embrace the doctrine and the practices that we have, the churches tend to be small and We don't despise that.

I think there's not a pastor in the world that doesn't wish there'd be a massive revival and thousands and thousands would come and overtax our buildings. I think we all would so desire to see that. We should desire to see that. But our work has been in you know the day-to-day of small group you know church ministry. So I just like to talk about that particular challenges.

I did a broadcast with Joel Beekie talking about it and I hope you're able to see that maybe there are some things gleaned from there that you might be helpful. Also if anybody's listening please feel free to ask questions. We'd like to field any questions that you have. You can type those in on the site here that we're broadcasting from. So let's just begin talking about particular things about small church ministry that you're experiencing right now that might might be different compared to the larger churches?

Chris, how do you how do you see your church different than perhaps the functioning of the larger churches you know in in your area? Is it different? I think in one way when you're trying to navigate some of the things going on today, Being able to coordinate a smaller group of people makes that a little bit easier. When you're maybe trying to abide by some government restrictions where they're limiting numbers of people, you're not trying to think of how are we going to do 20 services. You're thinking of how can we do one, maybe a second service.

So I think there's the blessing on that side of it, but also just the ability to communicate, to I think reach out personally to people on a regular basis. And when that spread in a small church, even among even a couple elders, the ease of that, there's a great joy in that. And I'm thankful for the ability to really stay in touch with people and to hear more of not just from a hearsay from one person who says to another but really hearing it from each person. Amen. You know I've felt that there are in the environment that we're in right now, there are advantages of not having thousands of people to minister to.

Joe, what are your thoughts about that? Do you think a smaller church has had any advantages compared to larger churches? Oh, yes, I agree with David. I mean, being able to shepherd those people, love those people, mingle with those people, visit those people. And not only that, but again, in the situation that we are, I mean, we don't worry about numbers because we've always been small congregations.

So we are able to enjoy everybody there together with us. And I mean, it's just getting to know everyone. And you stand in the front door when people are coming in and leaving and you meet everyone you don't get tired you don't get exhausted and my elders can well my elder my other the other ones are gone Can also help me out with that. So, I'm really, I'm so blessed when you know, years when in my early years of the ministry now, if I'm going too fast, let me know because I have someone that's speaking in Spanish in me, you know, and then to kind of speak too fast. But I in the early years, yes, being in a Calvary Chapel, with Calvary Chapel, it was all about numbers, you know, the question everyone would ask you, how many people do you have?

How many people do you have? And if you have enough, a substantial number, they will sit down and fellowship with you. If you didn't, they would just shake your hand and then move on. But now, you know, I'm very thankful that our church from 250 to about 90 right now or 80 has really been a blessing for me. So, no, especially in these times, It's, no, I agree with David and it's good, it's good.

You know, somebody just asked a question online. When does a church become too big? What are your thoughts about that? I think when you're not able to minister to the families, I mean, you can visit everyone in one day, of course, there's time, people are busy and all that, but I think When you're not able to reach out to everyone, minister to everyone, speak with everyone, at least try. I think for me personally, it's becoming too difficult to minister.

The church has grown too much and it's time for, you know, either having more elders and then, you know, just trying your best to reach out. So I think for me personally, I have 250 once and I was so exhausted doing ministry with all of them, visiting the people during the week or the month. And for me personally, I think when you're not able to minister to the people, you're not getting to know the people. I think that's when you start, stop being a shepherd to God's people. Chris, what are your thoughts about that?

About when a church gets too big or can a church get too big? I think a lot of it has to do with the ability to shepherd and have the people in place. Thinking of Moses when he had too many things going on and Jethro comes to him and says, hey, here's a way to work that out. But maybe another way to put it is, if you're not accessible, if there's so many layers in which people can't access one of the elders for shepherding. And then there's a problem there.

And I think the single pastor focus quickly runs that out. But when we see the beauty of the plurality of elders throughout the New Testament to carry that load, though there's differences in some of the functions, but the ability to shepherd more people and to see each one of those elders as their pastors and the ability to love on them, to care for them, to know for them, to know them well, and as elders to be communicating those needs. So maybe you personally haven't spoken to that person in the last week, but you're hearing another elder share, and so you're aware to know and that you're available if somebody is wanting to specifically talk to one elder or another. Yeah, amen. David, what are your thoughts on that?

What is the ideal size? Can it be too big or what? Well, yeah, it just boils down to those practical things, really, in terms of how you're able to minister to one another, to train and equip one another, and when the size becomes to such a number that you're unable, there's an inability to minister to people, to speak the word, to pray with people, and the people aren't growing. There's a problem with that. That's not just with the congregants either.

It's with the leaders who may have so much going on that they can't take time to read and to study and to pray with one another. So it affects everybody. It doesn't just affect the masses of whatever that number might be. Yeah, I've heard people say that at the point where a shepherd can't know the sheep, then the church is too big. And I, that's probably, you know, a function of how many elders you have, particularly, and the amount of time that they have.

My view is that you probably could get bigger if you had more elders to actually shepherd people and actually know the flock so that you understand how the flock is doing. The sheep should be able to know the shepherd and it's difficult to know the shepherds if there are too many layers in between, but at least at minimum I would say that people need to have personal relationships with elders, with shepherds, because they have watch over their souls. And so at least at minimum there should be some relational component, you know, to the to this question, when does a church become too big? That was the question. I don't know what the number is.

My experience is once you start getting over about 200, the relational mix of the church changes pretty significantly and if you just have a couple of elders it's hard to keep up with how everybody's doing and but that may depend on people's capacities and number of elders and things like that but I don't know when you know when a church gets too big but it's getting too big when the sheep can't know the shepherds and the shepherds can't know the sheep for sure and because you know Shepherding is not just preaching. Preaching is a really important component to it, but it's not the only way that you shepherd people. And so there's some real difficulties there if you get much beyond the 300. You get over 300 and then the relational mix changes again. You get over 500, it kind of changes again.

So if we have a big revival, which we all are praying for, maybe we'll have a thousand people, we'll have to figure out how to shepherd, then we won't be getting any sleep for a little while. And maybe we'll plant other churches. Our view in our churches, we'd rather plant churches than get too big. So we've done that over the years and spun groups out. So talk about what, you're talking to pastors, you're talking to church members who are in small churches.

What kind of advice do you have for church members who are in a small church, you know, much smaller scope of resources in the church, relationships, all that kind of thing. What would you say to the church member who's in a situation like that where there are just fewer resources and fewer components that you might find in a large church. So talk to church members. Chris, how would you encourage folks to think about their little church? I think resources doesn't necessarily mean ministry.

You can have large budgets and they're not actually be ministry going on. And so not to go to a one to one and to recognize that the one another commands is the picture of true ministry among one another and I don't see anything that says you have to have a budget X, Y or Z size. It's more based upon the heart and then the care for one another, a love for one another, the Christ-like character to see needs, to meet those needs, to consider others better than ourselves. And so those things are not hindered by budget. If anything, budget and bigger flash in ministry can sometimes skew and people walk away thinking, wow, that was a great event or I love this or I love that.

But at the end of the day, if we look at what scripture speaks about what is true ministry, maybe that's actually not even happening. And so not to say if something is large it's sinful, and I think we also have to guard our heart from that, but to say at the end of the day, what was the true ministry that took place? Is there a growing of Christ likeness through one another? Whether it be a shepherd to the flock or among the flock to see people growing and being known and cared for to be held accountable in their walk with Christ. Amen.

Joe, what are your thoughts about that? I think, what is ministry? The question, what is ministry? And people need to understand that it's not about what I get from it, but what I can put in it, what my part in this small church. I mean, God has us in the right place at the right time.

We're there for a purpose. And I spend most of my time encouraging people to be committed to the local church, you know, put to practice the gifts the Holy Spirit has given them. As a matter of fact, we're going through the book of Romans and I just finished chapter 12 and we're going to chapter 13 next week. And I need to listen to your sermons, Scott, to see how you expanded that text. But because people are loving one another, present their bodies as living sacrifices, worship to God is a life that is surrendered, a sacrificial life that consists of community in the church and also those outside the church.

That's what you see in chapter 12. And so, for example, I look at the letter of Paul to the church in Thessalonica where he says that he sees their faith is growing but also their love for the brethren is increasing. And the problem is that, you know, there's so many models out there of big churches, you know, and people are tempted to compare those churches with our church. And it's unfair, of course, but they spend most of their time online. They spend most of the time, you know, listening to celebrity preachers and they see their big congregations.

And so when they come back to reality, when they wake up to reality and they come to church on Sunday and they see a small church, One of the things that we heard from some of the families that left since March because of the pandemic was that my needs are not being met in this church anymore or I'm not getting fed. And so while I listen to so-and-so, I've been listening to so-and-so, and I came to realize that, you know, I need more than what this church can offer. And so people take their focus from the word. It's no longer, thus says the Lord, it's thus says John MacArthur, thus says, you know, Bali Bakhba, great man of God, thus says so and so, and thus says Pastor Joe. And it's not thus says the Lord anymore.

So people don't come to church to be ministered to by the Lord and to minister to the Lord amongst his people and also among those outside the church. So, you know, we're going through a hard time in that area of people comparing our churches with other churches and they lose sight of the importance of the small local church where, you know, we grow in intimacy, not only with the Lord, but also with one another. And then we can exercise our gifts there, put to use our gifts. And so that's what I'm doing right now, especially when I taught chapter 12. It was, it's a real blessing because I saw a lot of people, we have Bible studies throughout the city and more people are attending most Bible studies.

And that's the result and the fruit of God's work in the book of Romans. So that's my view concerning this. David, what are your thoughts about that? A couple of things. One is the, you know, we seem, I'm in the smallest congregation I've ever been a part of, and we're extremely flexible in our week-to-week schedule, and it seems like The primary reason for our meeting is to meet either around the study of a Bible, especially on Sunday morning, or going through the book of Acts right now.

Then also we're going through a book, Respectable Sins. Then the other times that we meet, the men with the men, the women with the women, it tends to be about another book or topic or perhaps a scripture. So our time spent together is really solid and there's a lot of growth. And when we say, hey, let's meet this week, sometimes we don't have to have a certain night of the meet that we're going to say it's got to be every Wednesday. There's good to have a pattern like that but we're of a size where we can just let everybody know this week it's Wednesday or this week it's Thursday.

So we've got tremendous flexibility and there's this really concentrated effort of growth and it's excellent. A second thing I think of and I'm thankful for in a small congregation, but believe me the qualifier is we're always praying for a larger congregation, always praying for families, inviting families. We've had a lot of families come. A lot of families didn't stay because we didn't have a kids program or a music program, things like that. But the second thing I think of that I'm very thankful for is still having six sons in my household, I'm thankful to have good solid time with my sons as well.

So I'm not out feeling the pressures of making sure to be there for congregational members, even though I love to do that, but there's still adequate time that I can just take a deep breath and say, okay, I've got this evening or these mornings to be able to spend with my sons and disciple them as well. Amen. Well, what are some of the other blessings to capture in a small church? I think the ability to have people into your home and to be able to for them to see you to see the pattern of your life. We see the qualifications for elders and hospitality is one of those and in a smaller church you're able to open your home and get to know people well.

And conversations can happen in large group gatherings, but it seems like you tend to see some of those walls come down a bit more around a meal and the flexibility to do that and to get to know the cross, a larger cross section of the church and through ministry like that. Yeah, amen. Anybody else on that? What else? Well, the one-to-one ministry, one-to-one, you know, is when we first, one of the greatest benefits of a small church.

We feel like a family. Nothing wrong with having a big congregation, a big church. But if you're always expecting that God is going to do great things, but what are great things in our eyes that's very different from his eyes, from his ways? And so we're always preparing man for that, preparing man to lead the church together with us as pastors. But one-to-one ministry, I think, is one of the greatest blessings for me personally.

And again, the example, Chris, and I apologize, Chris. I call you David. But you know, again, I agree with Chris. Ministry is something we learn to love. And even in our most, you know, dark days, you know, when that what they call it the dark night of the soul, we still minister to them.

And we see that their problems sometimes are worse than ours. And, you know, self-pity tends to, you know, sip in and we kind of need to slap ourselves out of that. And that happens only when we minister to one on one, when we see other people's problems, what they're going through, and then your heart goes out to them, you pray for them, and you forget about yourself. And you know, my wife is a quadriplegic. I come home and she's unable to sit in a wheelchair for more than two hours.

So she comes home after service. Yeah, remember I have two services. I have a Spanish and an English service. So she can stay with me the whole two services. And I'm always concerned and worried about her being at home alone.

And so, but there's times when I have to sit down with someone in council for two, three hours after the English service. And I need to make sure I'm not worried about my wife. I need to entrust her to the Lord. And then when I minister to this person, I counsel to these people, this couple or whatever, your problems just overshadow my problems. And so I come home and I, and I, you know, I, I share what I can share with my wife and, and really, those problems begin to disappear for us.

I mean, they don't disappear, they're there, but we can handle them now, because of one to one ministry. So I'm thankful for that. That's what I think is one of the greatest blessings of ministry, where you can be ministry to people and leading them, pointing them to Christ Jesus. And so I have to also look to Jesus because we look to our problems all the time, our struggles. And so I think that for me personally, is one of the greatest lessons of small churches.

You know, something that Chris said resonated with me in the sense of being hospitable, when you pull out that descriptor of an overseer. And the fact is, the smaller a church meeting is, again, this doesn't mean that we don't ask and pray for more people and such, but the larger your church is, the more of a specialist you might be. And there's maybe a few of those descriptors that you read through in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. You say, well, I basically do this one and this one and this one, Not that you're not equipped in many other areas, but in a small church, you become a generalist and often you're able to sink your teeth in to many more of those things that you might be involved in, hospitality, teaching, able to teach, and just some of the other things. So it can hone a man, it can hone an overseer in ways maybe that being part of a large congregation wouldn't.

Maybe there's some things he couldn't do that he needs to do in a small congregation. Amen. Let's just kind of, let's wind up with maybe some admonitions that you all might have for people in small churches, how to maximize their ministry there for the glory of the Lord. What would you say to the person who is in a small church to help them really glorify God in the context of that local church? What are some of the things that you would say to them just to encourage them to press on, to pour their hearts and their lives out for the benefit and the building up of the body of Christ?

Chris, what would you say? I think maybe two things, but I think it's kind of qualifying each other. One, then give your life. Give your life to people. Serve them.

There's a sense of doing life together and that they don't see the shepherds of the flock as some people who are above everybody else, but one who is a sheep himself, but is saying, follow me as I follow Christ. And they're able to see that, To see a man who's being humbled by serving others, one who's not above serving others in one capacity or another. And I know as a young man in ministry, that was a great blessing for me. I was serving as an associate pastor and the senior pastor at the time said, we help set up chairs. We help take down chairs.

It's not just for other people. And it was just a great heart set that he had shown and a love for people to get to know them. But in the midst of being a shepherd and you love ministry, you also have to put boundaries on that because we can give ourselves to the church and show ourselves unfaithful in our own homes. And so to pray for a biblical balance in that, that we are shepherds of our own home first. And if we're not faithfully shepherding our homes, we're not qualified to be shepherds of God's flock.

And so constantly evaluating how am I doing shepherding the flock? Am I praying for them? And not to downplay the little things. It's often been some of the things that I didn't think were that big of a deal that somebody has come back to me later and said, wow, I really appreciated this or that. And so don't get caught up in just big things, but be faithful in little things, especially in your home, but give your life to serving the Lord everywhere you are.

You know, that's so important. Just hearing you talk, it makes me reflect on the trend in the church today is toward depersonalization, lack of relationship, remoteness, live streaming. That's really the trend in churches, at least in America. And everything that you said is a total contradiction of that kind of a remote life, disconnected life. What about you, Joe?

What would you admonish a person in a small church? Cultivate the intimacy with God. Everything flows from that. You know, the problem I think with many today, many Christians is they, I mean doctrine is so essential. It's important because it informs your worship and necessary, but I think it's all about doctrine, but not cultivating a holy life, not living in intimacy with God.

And what I do, I give young men books by David Bernard, his, I mean, and you know, Robert Murray, Murray McShane, his biography by Andrew Bonar. And I try to help people cultivate that intimacy with the Lord, the growing intimacy. And it was what's happened that the personalization occurs when there's no real connection, real intimacy with God. It's all knowledge. It's all doctrinal.

It's all mental. But There's no hard relationship with God. And so that immediately disconnects us from others. I remember when I heard this quote, when you fall, you fall in private before you fall in public. And When people begin to disconnect from the church, they have already disconnected from God himself.

I mean, they have the doctrines, you know, I think it was when the Lord told the Pharisees, you know, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but they speak of me, you know. In other words, we search the scriptures, we think doctrine will save us when it is Christ himself. What doctrine speaks of, the author of doctrine, it's for us to focus on him. And in the book of Romans in chapter 12, that's what Paul says, I beseech thee, brethren, by the mercies of God, because of what he said to them in the first 11 chapters. And Paul is so overwhelmed with this great revelation of God's mercy and God's justice that he cries out in 11, chapter 11, verse 33, all the depths of his riches and knowledge always, who can know the mind of God.

Then that leads to, I beseech thee, brethren, to present your bodies as living sacrifices. And then how is that done? Because of that intimacy with God, what God has done for us, it flows into brotherly love. And now we seek to outdo others in honoring them. We outdo one another to honor them.

And so, you know, it has to start with the Lord. And as pastors, we need to exemplify that intimacy with the Lord and encourage people to become intimate with God, to seek God early in the morning, to search for Christ in scripture and love God so that they can love their brethren. And the ministry just flows from that. People begin to love one another and they connect again with the church. And all these things are so important.

And I see the church now, many Christians are, I look at church as secondary, something not that important. And as long as they have intimacy with God, but I think that that is a contradiction. You cannot love God and not love the brethren. So That's what I encourage people all the time. Amen.

David, what's your parting shot on that? What would you say to members? Many small time preachers might be like me in terms of having a full-time job besides being an elder. And in that, you know, I worked in 175-member manufacturing plant where evangelistic efforts are not few. They are many.

And it's a really excellent place to be and I'm thankful for it. And so there is a lot of blessing in that, in being able to do both of those things. So, You know, I wonder if sometimes we think too much about whether we're a small church, medium church, or large church and just thank God that we're part of the church, as opposed to not being part of the church, right? So, we belong to Jesus, the body of Christ, He upholds all things by the word of his power all things. So what a great God we have.

He's a great master we'd be foolish to serve anybody else and whether a person is what we call by vocational or Has this opportunity to shepherd his home? You know, what a great blessing, you know sometimes I sit at the dinner table and I look at my sons and I say, first, I'm an ambassador for Christ. Before anything else, I'm an ambassador for Christ for these fellows. And so, just trying to give them the word, trying to give the word at work whenever possible and certainly in the meaning of the church. So there's just so much faithfulness to be had in whatever role God has placed us and thankfulness that we are, that he has allowed us to be a part of the body of Jesus Christ.

Amen, Amen. Well these are great times that we're in the midst of, some of the greatest times ever. You know one of the people online wrote in that, they live in California, and of course in California, the governor has said, no singing in California. And this person said, we have treasured singing like never before in our church. And you know, all these things that have been happening really are for the glory of God.

They can all be maximized for the glory of God and the spread of the gospel, and really the experiencing of the delights of the Lord. And so let's just keep doing that. I pray that God gives us delighted, happy churches, faithful, spreading the gospel, not discouraged by what's going on, but recognizing that God's absolutely in control of all the nations of the earth. He's doing something far beyond anything we can imagine and he's put these things in our way so that our love for him would grow. And when you know people in a small church it's a blessing because you can kind of tell if people are struggling, whether the news has gotten a hold of them and gotten them discouraged, or whether they're feeding on faithfulness, they're feeding on the word of God, they're saturating their minds with the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I pray that's what our legacy will be in our churches. So brothers, thank you so much for discussing these things. My view is that God has positioned small churches uniquely for the preservation of the gospel, because it's in those kinds of places that you really can know whether people have embraced the gospel or not, because you're in close enough relationship with them and you see the overflow of their lives. They're not just coming and going to meetings, but we're small enough to where we can actually see whether the gospel has really gripped someone's heart and whether it's manifested in their lives. So praise God for small churches.

I'm really glad for them. I think they're glorious places. Amen. Yes, you want to say one more thing? Yeah, real quick.

I was reading a book by D.A. Carson. Well, I read it a year, like a year ago. And he mentioned, it was just a small sentence or a small paragraph where he said that God uses small churches to bring about a revival. It's always in small churches, revival break out.

And that's because God has used that which is not, that is by small ministries. And from there, God just forces his spirit. And that's why revivals are born in small churches, small ministries, because people love one another. They learn to love God and love one another. And I think the spirit feels, you know, safe in a sense.

I hate to say that word because I don't want to demean the spirit of God. But you know, that quote that said, the stench of the flesh frightens souls away. And when God is in a church, in a small church, the Spirit begins to do great work for them, a great work for them. So I have great expectations of what God's gonna do in a small church and we'll see what happens. Amen.

Okay. Well, let's go for it. Thank you, brothers. Have a great day. You too, thank you Scott.

We'll see you, bye bye. Bye bye.