God is a great God. There's nothing that he's not able to do. There's nothing that we could tell him that he doesn't already know, past, present, or future. There's nowhere that we could go that he hasn't already been there before us. Not only is he great, he's good.

Every aspect of his character is absolutely perfect. He is a God of justice and a God of mercy all at the same time. And he's called out a people and it's just seemed good for him to pour out his mercy on them. So church planning is fundamentally about God, about his greatness, and about his goodness, and about it being known, and about him being worshipped. Man, on the other hand, is nothing like God.

We were made to reflect the greatness and the goodness of his character, but something really significant happened at the Garden, and the result of that is us being very warped, very twisted, very hindered from representing and reflecting that great and good character of God. We truly are in a helpless estate but Christ has regarded our helpless estate and has shed his own blood for our soul. That's the other thing that church planting is about. It's about a cursed ground being reclaimed for a great and good God. It's about the people of God planning another flag to say Jesus is king here.

This is what church planning is all about, that the God who is, the God of the Bible, would be worshiped more, as he ought to be worshiped. He's a great God and a good God and he has not been worshipped nearly enough and church planting is one of the things that he's doing to correct that problem. And church planting is about cursed ground being reclaimed, that times of refreshing would come from the Lord upon his people as they live lives of repentance before him. Let's begin in prayer. Oh God, oh God, you are great, you are good, and you deserve all the worship that your creation can muster.

May it be so, Lord. We thank you that you do desire to reclaim cursed ground, to make it fruitful again and to bless it, and to have mercy upon whom you would have mercy. God, we pray that you would raise up many mighty churches, maybe little churches, but mighty churches who fear you, who desire that your glory would be spread and known. We ask that you would help us during these time to understand the passages that would be spoken of and that it would be a help to us and a blessing. In Jesus name, amen.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jason Dome. I live in Roseville, North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina is a suburb of Roseville and because we think the world revolves around us a little Roseville has a big suburb but something like something like 30 years ago at a United Methodist Vacation Bible School of all places. God put the gospel in my ears through just a radical Christian woman in that congregation, a woman who was really somewhat, it was viewed as somewhat of a sideshow because she was evangelical in this church, but she was faithful and she preached the gospel at this vacation Bible school. I was probably 10 years old or something like that, I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I know exactly where I was standing when she called for a response.

And I know that God put his hand upon me and granted me the gift of repentance at that time. Something like 25 years ago I began to be seriously discipled in my teen years by just a bunch of radical Christians who only wanted Jesus Christ and to obey him. Coming up on twenty years ago, I married one of those rabid Christians who had helped disciple me. About 16 years ago, I became a father and now I'm a father of six with children ranging in age from 16 down to four. About eight years ago I became an elder in a local church and that's really the two-minute story of my life.

As John Newton says, I'm a great sinner but Christ is a great savior and so thankful that for whatever reason, for whatever reason he thought it would please him that he decided to have mercy upon me. I also do have a history in church planting, although not as extensive as my wife's, the lady who discipled me in my teen years. About 10 years ago, I participated, not led, but participated in a church plant. Just got to kind of see that from the front row and that was life-changing to me in many ways. About four years ago I was founding elder along with Scott Brown of Hope Baptist where I currently serve as an elder And then next spring on April 3rd, we'll be having our first church service in a new church plant.

So these are things that are very near and dear to my heart right now. And it's been a great time to be studying about planning for a church plant. Actually the title of this address is Church Planting, it's practice, planning for a healthy lasting church. This is the target, that the churches that we plant would be healthy, and we'll talk about how to define that, but that they would be healthy and that they would be lasting. Many church plants are not lasting.

And there are things that we can do on the front end to improve the chances that it will be both healthy and lasting. My church planning history is a mixed bag. There have been some really good things that have come out of it. There have been some big mistakes that led to a fracture in a church because of groundwork that we should have laid that we didn't, and now we're smarter because we have scar tissue. So some of these things, I'm teaching from positive examples we did it well and we know how to talk about it so I'm talking about it.

Some of it is a result of scar tissue and I'm saying come learn from my scar tissue. We've done some things horribly wrong and looking back on it it's really clear what we did wrong and so hopefully both from positive example and from negative example you'll find that to be helpful. Here's why I love church planting. This is it. Because I grew up because of church planting.

There were so many idols that I carried forward from my youth that were around my neck like a ball and chain, that the pressures of the blessed pressures of church planting caused me to leave behind. I'm a self-described recovering sports idolater, and that is an example of one of the things that I carry forward from my boyhood, that the time constraints of church planting squeezed out of me, and I'm so thankful to God for that. Every time a church is planning this happens. It's not maybe the main reasons we do it but it's one of the wonderful fruits from it is that the bar gets raised on everybody and the opportunities for people to come and just be fed and enjoy the things that happen on the church but not make an investment those the probabilities of that happen go way down because in a church plant the workload doubles and so the bar gets raised and really when the bar gets raised idols get squeezed and the pressure gets put on the idols and I'm for doing anything that puts pressure on our idols and church planting can do that. So this is an extremely exhilarating slash terrifying time for our family.

It's both all wrapped up into one but I'm thankful to have the opportunity to speak about church planting today. As you know, this is the second part of a three-part series. Tony Convalan did the first part talking about the purpose, and the glory of God is the summary of that message. That is the purpose. This is why we plant churches is for the glory of God.

I'll be talking about the practice and really focusing around what should we do to plan and lay the groundwork for a church plant. And then Steve Bragey, I think it's tomorrow morning. Is that right, Tony? Steve Bragey tomorrow morning will be speaking about the pitfalls and man are there a lot of them. All the holes that you can step in when you go to to plant a church.

So Steve will be talking about that tomorrow morning. This talk picks up right where Tony left off. The assumption is that the purpose of the church is understood and that the decision has been made to plant and now we're starting to ask the question what now? We're going to plant a church what ought we be doing to lay the groundwork for a healthy and lasting church. A word about what this talk isn't.

It isn't a set of magic techniques to guarantee a beautiful outcome. Those don't exist. I don't have them to offer to you and neither does anyone else. There are not magic techniques where we say if we pull these levers in this order then it will all be light and beauty at the end. God is sovereign.

We can do everything right and God may have a different plan so that the outcome isn't what we'd hoped it to be. God is sovereign. We can make a ton of mistakes, but God through his mercy can cover over them all and lead to an outcome that we think is beautiful. And so while we'll talk about the means that God has given and some things that we ought to give careful attention to, we cannot lose sight of the fact that God determines all outcomes. He gives us duties.

He works through means. Yes, amen. But at the end of the day God determines. He always plays Trump. He always determines the outcome of things and so this should cause us to give careful attention in the areas where we have a duty but also to fall on our faces and pray because it is not enough to attend to our business and our duties.

God must come and establish things unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain. You can rise early, you can stay up late, but if God's hand is not in it, we will not get the desired outcome. So one of the things we won't talk about today, and it's probably a great shame, but that I want to acknowledge at the beginning is that prayer is so central to all this. You could do everything I'm getting ready to talk about and fail. You should be on your face in prayer because God is the great variable in all these things and prayer is central to it all.

So we know what the talk isn't. It's not magic techniques to be applied to get to the right endpoint. What is the talk? It's a small number of elements, just three elements that I'll be talking about today. Not techniques, but characteristics which are well established in the New Testament and which are essential to having a healthy church.

Here they are. Leadership, doctrine, practice. That's it. We're going to talk about three things today. Each one of them will have a text of Scripture.

We'll look at the text and we'll just talk about what the text says. Leadership, doctrine, and practice. These are elements that are so fundamental that we should plan on having them to whatever, to the greatest extent that we can on the first day that that church is planted. It's an acknowledgement that you will not have any of these probably in maturity, in their full maturity on day one, but to the greatest extent possible we want to lay the groundwork so we have leadership, doctrine, and practice as established as it can be the first time that we meet. Here's why we should give careful attention to these things.

Because good intentions do not equal healthy churches. Good intentions do not equal healthy churches. Church planning begins pretty uniformly. Everybody's got the same objectives. We want the gospel to advance, so it's evangelism.

We want his people to become mature, so it's discipleship. We want community, New Testament community, where we're in each other's lives and we're edifying one another. And while The beginnings are uniform, the endings are not nearly so uniform. Some of these plants become healthy, become lasting. Some of these plants develop very unhealthy patterns and very unhealthy dynamics.

Not because the intentions weren't good, but because critical things, like things we're gonna be talking about today, were not attended to. If we give careful attention to these things, then our efforts, our investment of time and money and everything, our investments are toward planning churches that honor God blesses people and stand the test of time. So let's look at the first one, leadership. Maybe we should call this shepherding instead of leadership because a lot of times we think of leadership, we start thinking corporate mindset and think of ways that are unhealthy. So maybe if I just say leadership in the shepherding sort of way, because shepherding is really the New Testament type of leadership, then you'll know what I mean.

And we won't hook all this unhealthy baggage to the term leadership. And our text for that is Titus 1. Titus 1. So if you've got a Bible with you, open to Titus 1. So Titus 1, we'll begin in verse 5 and we'll read through 9.

Paul is writing to Titus. Titus 1 verse 5, For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. If a man is blameless, a husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict. Paul starts this passage by saying, for this reason I left you in Crete, Titus. There was something important enough that instead of Titus going with Paul and continuing the ministry that Paul decided this is critical, let's leave him behind to attend to this.

And here's the compelling thing, here's the reason. Something was lacking in these churches. Something needed to be set in order in these churches. And it's this, that these fledgling churches need to be shepherded by a certain type of men. And so this is a passage about what type of men they ought to be.

It's qualifications for elders. One of the things we should notice is that Paul was willing to start churches and have the end state catch up. These are churches that Paul started during the course of his ministry. And their starting point wasn't what their end point needed to be. And that's important as we think about church planning to know that Paul was willing to start these churches and have the end state, have the ideal state catch up.

You've probably known people who have to know everything before they do anything and consequently they don't do anything because it's just that hard to get all the I's dotted, all the T's crossed. In the business world, we call this analysis paralysis. You just are frozen because not everything is known. And you've probably also known people who try to do everything before they know anything. They just launch out in a direction, no forethought, no planning, no laying of the ground work, and they're off and the results are disastrous.

I think what we see in this text is that Paul is somewhere in the middle. He's doing things. He is not suffering from analysis paralysis, read Acts. This is not Paul. He is doing things and how.

But there's no compromising with Paul on the end state. He's not leaving these things to chance. He's leaving behind men to attend to things, to make sure that the right things are in place for these fledgling churches. We should take our cue from Paul. We shouldn't be frozen by the fact that we don't know everything.

You'll never start a church. If you have to know everything, you are not a church planter. But nor should we just say, well let's just go do it without any counting of the cost, any laying groundwork, any careful consideration of the things that ought to be done in advance of starting a church, but we should be like Paul. So here we have a text on qualifications. We should round this out with 1st Timothy 3.

It's a companion text that also has lists of qualifications for elders and 1 Peter 5, which is my personal favorite. We're not going to cover either one of those texts today, but go read 1 Peter 5. It's fantastic. It's from an elder to elders. And in this text, Paul in verse 6 starts out, if a man is.

Titus, you stay behind. You tend to things that are lacking in these churches. You Set in order things that ought to be set in order, and you appoint elders in every city if a man is. Elders have to be men who fit these qualifications. And We're not going to talk about this qualification by qualification.

Otherwise, we'll never get to some of the other points. But there are three buckets that these qualifications fall into. One is character. Two is household management. And three is able to teach and defend sound doctrine.

If a man is to be an elder he must have character that exhibits the fruits of the spirit. I think it's D.A. Carson that says that the most remarkable thing about the elder qualifications are how unremarkable they are. In other words, there's nothing that you find in the elder qualifications, at least in the bucket of character, that you won't find exhortations to every Christian. So elders aren't super Christians, they are verifiable Christians and there's a difference.

It's not a different plane of Christians but it's someone who's exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit in their life and you can say yes they passed the test they have the fruits of the Spirit it's nothing more complex if we'd made it into something we need to backtrack and get that out of our minds because elders are not super Christians they're Christians and it can be verified through their life that they're Christians. And that should be able to be said of all of us who have been walking with the Lord for a period of time, shouldn't it? That the Spirit of God has really taken up residence and is bearing fruit in our lives. And elder, you can verify that. So number one character, number two, household management.

This has to do with how a man relates to his wife, to his children, and that he has mobilized his home to be a ministry center through hospitality. Hospitality is a key qualification. So household management wraps these things together. Does a man have the right kind of relationship with his wife? Does a man have a right kind of relationship with his children?

Because a man needs to be faithful with the things that he's been given before he's given the next set of things in the local church. He needs to be proven faithful in his home before he takes on very, very similar obligations in the local church. That's the beauty of this qualification, isn't it? That there's a direct parallel. If the man's not relating to his wife well and he's not relating to his children well yes let's turn that man loose on the local church.

No, bad idea. So this qualification weeds out men who will be a disaster in leadership in the local church. And hospitality is a key one because this shows about the man's heart for ministry. Has he turned his home into an engine of ministry in his community? Is his door open?

Are people being blessed because his home is there? So first was character, second was household management, and third is able to teach and defend sound doctrine. This is going to be his work in the church. Prayer and the Ministry of the Word, Act 6. And so he's going to be teaching and he's going to be defending sound doctrine.

Can he do that? Better be able to prove that he can do that before you make him an elder. That's why it's a qualification. So when a church has this, watch out. When a church have men who are rock solid in these three categories, watch out.

Wonderful things can happen when you put men who fit these characteristics in front of the church. Maybe not the most talented guys in the church, maybe they are, but maybe they're not. Maybe they're seminary graduates, but maybe they're not. Maybe they're really powerful communicators or maybe they're just able adequate teachers of the Word of God. But when you put men in front of a church who fit these three categories, they have it in spades, they're rock-solid, wonderful things can happen in a church like that.

And it's best when a church can start with this already in order. When Steve Bragey comes tomorrow, that's as clean and good of a church plan as I've ever, my own two eyes have ever seen. Steve was part of our elder team for over a year. He proved himself extremely faithful. He's always had a heart for church planting and then a man who was an elder in another church down in down in Fayetteville Allen Smith we supplied an elder they supplied an elder both men seasoned both men experienced and on day one they had two recognized, qualified, faithful elders on day one.

That's as good as it gets. If you know a better story than that, come up afterwards, but that is really rare and really wonderful as we've seen how their first year and a half has has progressed. Sometimes churches start without this being perfectly in order. Paul did. And when that happens, two things.

One is there ought to be a point out on the horizon that we recognize is the ideal and we're headed to that point on the horizon. We're going there. We understand what the ideal is. And the ideal is local church government by a plurality of qualified men. A local church being governed by more than one man who meets the qualifications.

That is the point on the horizon that we're tracking towards. So if you don't start with this perfectly in order, there needs to be that point on the horizon where you understand the ideal. Secondly, there needs to be a clear line of sight from how we're going to get from here to the point on the horizon. There needs to be a roadmap, there needs to be a plan for how we're going to get there. Here's the circumstance for the church we'll be planning.

I'm an elder in the church now and I'm going to go and I'm going to bear much of the preaching load, but at the start I'm going to continue to be on an elder team with myself and Scott and Dan just like I am today and this one elder team is going to provide shepherding for these two local congregations. You know what? Something's lacking with that. That's not ideal. Something needs to be set in order with that.

That's not ideal. But what we're tracking to is God raising up a man in this new congregation that meets the qualification and that desires the work. Desire of the work, by the way, is a key qualification. If a man has the fruits of the Spirit but doesn't desire the work, then God hasn't placed his hand on him to do this. And many times we want to force men who have the character qualifications into this, and God has put no fire in their bones for the work, and that's a mistake.

And so we know where we're going and we desire to be there and we're acknowledging upfront it's just there's something that's lacking and needs to be said in order and we pray that God will do it as quickly as possible and we know that he'll do it when he sees fit. And we don't know how those two points in time relate to each other. And you might say, but what about a group of people who have a passionate vision for family discipleship, but there's really no one who's elder qualified to lead them. They want to start a church. They just have this passionate vision.

They see what you're doing down in Wake Forest or San Antonio or Tennessee or wherever that church is, and they want that and they have this passionate vision. They are driven by the vision, but there's no one really to be out in front of that, no one who's really character qualified. What should we do? I said the answer is easy. Do not start a church.

Do not start the church. Here's why I say that. An elder is to be a man with a demonstrably mature Christian character, not a superhero, just demonstrably mature. He's to be a man that manages his household well and he's to be a man that can teach and defend sound doctrine. So you're saying that there isn't one man in this group who fits those three descriptions and you think it's a good idea to start a church?

It is not a good idea. It takes more than just a passionate vision for family discipleship to end up with a church that is healthy and is lasting. Number two, doctrine. And doctrine flows from leadership, right? We saw one of the key qualifications is that the man is able to teach and he's able to defend sound doctrine.

So these things are completely married together. Doctrine flows from leadership as mature Christian men discern what the scriptures teach on topics and they say this is what we are. And our text for that is actually on the same page, believe it or not. It's 2 Timothy starting in 3.16 and going through 4.5. So we're going to start in 3.16, we're going to plow right through the uninspired, unhelpful chapter break and continue into chapter 4 where the thought really ought to be continued and end at the end of verse 5.

2 Timothy 3 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry." Here Paul is writing to Timothy and he's putting his finger on particular risks of churches.

And not just churches, but fledgling churches are all the more at risk that there will be wolves that will come in and attack with unsound doctrine. And there will be people who want to hear it because their ears are itching. And they'll heap up for themselves teachers and bring in all manner of unsound doctrine. You see how this fits together with your leadership, the need for sound doctrine. And we're back to the centrality of the word of God and sound doctrine.

We always end up right back there, the centrality of the Word of God and the need for sound doctrine in our churches. From this text in 2 Timothy, we learn a couple of things. One, we learn that Scripture is a gift from God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is God-breathed.

It is a gift of God to the church to let us know his mind, his character, his ways, his commandments, his mercies towards us. Scripture is a gift from God. Secondly, we learn that Scripture is God's normal means for governing and protecting his church. Scripture is for governing and protecting his church. It is God's voice to us.

God is speaking to us anytime we read the scripture. You say, well of course he is, but let's not just go right over the top of that, even though it's obvious doesn't mean that it's not critically important. Scripture is God's voice to the church, and if we desire for God's to be at the center of our church then his word must also be there because it is his voice to his people. It is his normal means for governing and protecting his church. Are there other means, Are there other ways that he governs and protects his church?

Of course there are, but the normal means is he uses his word to govern us and to protect us from teaching that is false. And thirdly, God puts mature men in place to dispense this profitable gift to his people. God positions men in his churches and he exhorts them, preach the word in season and out of season. And this is how his word is dispensed to his people through preaching. And God puts men in place to preach.

If God is to be at the center of our churches, then we must have a continual devotion to Scripture Because it is his word. And at this point I'm preaching to the choir. That's why you're here because you have a love and affection for these things. But think about this. Think about this.

We can get staunch Armenians and staunch Calvinists to say, yes, the Word of God should be at the center of things. We can find the most committed covenantalist and the most committed dispensationalist and they say, yes, it's the Word of God, it's paramount, it should be central. And so what we learn from that is that people who agree that Scripture is paramount sometimes disagree drastically, dramatically about what Scripture teaches on very foundational matters. So I might be preaching to the choir that we say scripture is paramount, but I might not be preaching to the choir when I say that the doctrines of grace represent the teaching of Paul the apostle. Some may, who hold, who before were nodding, now are nodding in a different direction.

And my exhortation based on that is to say be confessional. Be confessional churches. Adopt a historic confession that has stood the test of time so that you don't end up with everybody nodding yes when we talk about how scripture is central and paramount but nodding no when we say Christians should still obey the law today. For instance, one of many, many issues that is debated. Our church affirms and recommends the Baptist Confession of Faith 1689, sometimes called the Second London Baptist Confession, but there are many good confessions that have stood the test of time.

The year 2010 minus the year 1689 is something like 320 years. That's a long time to weather the assaults from those who would oppose and stand the test of time. Find a confession like that where you say this is what we believe the Bible teaches. Now a word about confessions. They're never to be placed on the same level of Scripture.

Confessions are not as important as scripture. They're not even in the same category as scripture. Scripture is the authoritative word of God. So confessions are not authoritative. But they are very, very helpful tools To help local churches identify what they believe is taught by the authoritative word of God.

And you say, but Jason, we're no king but Jesus, no creed but the Bible people. Okay, good luck with your church. All I can tell you is I've seen that movie before and I know how it ends and it isn't pretty. It's the movie that ends with the ball of fire in the background. I ran across an article on the internet this past week, and the author was Kenneth Gentry.

I don't know about Kenneth Gentry, but I really appreciated what he had to say. And he said this about creeds and confessions. He says, it is imperative to recognize at the outset that creedal standards are not independent assertions of truth. That's really what this hinges on. Your confession is not an independent assertion of truth.

They are derivative from and subordinate to the only source and standard of Christian truth, the Bible. The God-breathed, infallible and inerrant word of the living God. And to that I say a hearty amen. Confessions start with the Bible and then they organize systematically and harmonize across the full Council of Scripture. Now listen, you're going to have to do that whether you adopt a confession or not.

You're going to have to organize systematic unless you unless you're just gonna say we're gonna have a church that doesn't have any positions on anything. If you're going to have positions in your church, you're going to have to organize systematically and harmonize across the entire council of scripture. I just want to submit to you that work has been done. Now, you may find one you say on this point or two we disagree, so we're going to modify, we're going to adopt the 1689 confession with these two exceptions. Fine.

But to me, when that work has been done so carefully and so well, it is insanity to start at ground one and say, we're just going to reinvent all of this. Please start confessional churches. So when that work has been done, systematizing and harmonizing across the whole Council of God, a local church can say, this is what we believe the Bible teaches about the Bible. This is what we believe the Bible teaches about salvation. This is what we believe the Bible teaches about the Trinity and baptism and the law.

Here's two frustrating things. We've seen this a lot. Just being a co-laborer with Scott, I end up seeing a lot more than I would otherwise, just because he has contact with lots of church plants across the country. And we've seen this happen again and again and again and we've begun to know that we can predict pretty reliably what the outcome will be. Here's frustrating thing number one.

A group of people start a church completely without identifying what the church believes to be sound doctrine. So if we're going to defend sound doctrine, we have to do what? We have to define it. If you can't define it, you can't defend it. So all churches have to do that, but it's very frustrating to watch a church just launch out and they haven't, they can't defend sound doctrine because they haven't defined it.

But this one thing they know in their heart of hearts, They love family integration. Oh, they love it. Never mind all that doctrine stuff. We just want to be together and worship. Let me tell you how quickly the honeymoon ends in those scenarios when you find out that the people that you've invested two years in, three years in, and relationships with believe fundamentally different things about fundamental matters of the faith.

Frustrating thing number two, a group embarks on a process of defining the church, the doctrine of the church where everyone, the mature and the immature, the Arminian and the Calvinist have an equal say. We're going to get our, the people who might be interested in this thing together, we're going to hash out doctor. We're going to decide what the church is going to believe. Oh, you've been a believer for two months? Come on in the discussion.

You've got a vote. Oh, you're Armenian? You're Cal- come on in here. We're just going to hash this out. This is going to be a great time.

No, this is going to be a three-year process in futility. Do not do that. We've seen it and we know how the movie ends and you don't want it to be you. These things are a recipe for disaster And there's a reason for that. There are more important things than family integration.

Family integration is just a little sliver of the pie. And there's lots bigger slivers and more important slivers to the pie than that. When you start a church, start it with elder qualified men who know how to defend sound doctrine, who plant the flag of a confession and say, this is what we believe. This is what we believe. If you can come and happily be a part of this and this is what we are and this is what we will be, then come.

Come be among us. Come be blessed. Come be a blessing. But if you're something else, please go somewhere else and be that other thing with other people because we're just not that. We're not going to be that.

Otherwise, you're building in a church split. Do you understand that? If you don't do that, you're very possibly building in a church split to the foundations of your church. Number one, leadership. Number two, doctrine.

Number three, practice. And it's third for a reason. It's not as important as those first two things but it's still essential. Just because it's not as important doesn't mean that it's negotiable. It's not negotiable.

You should consider practice. You may think that a strange statement being at an NCFIC conference that is organized around a practice, integrating the generations in the life of the church. It's an important practice. It's a timely time to fight that battle. But understand this, we are championing a practice for theological reasons.

It's our doctrine that has taken us here. That's the reason we're the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, not because a practice ought to be at the center, but because our doctrine says that our practice has gone off course. We believe that Scripture is completely sufficient for defining the life of the church. Scripture is completely sufficient for defining the life of the church and more than that, that God regulates his worship. He wants to restrict us in the category of worship.

We are not free to do what the best ideas of our minds would present to us. God Almighty regulates his worship So that anything without a clear scriptural warrant is forbidden. John Knox said it's idolatry. Anything that comes from the mind of man that does not have clear scriptural footings in the Bible is idolatry. And John Knox doesn't know what God you're worshiping but he knows what God you're not worshiping when we will not submit ourselves to the regulation and the restrictions of the Bible.

It's called the Regulator Principle of Worship and many reformers believe this to the point of death. They died for this. And so we don't just look at Sunday school and youth group through this prism. We look at everything associated with the life of the church through this prism. Does it have clear scriptural warrant either in command or in principle or is it a necessary inference from the things that we see in Scripture.

When we get to practice, for me Acts 2 is the gold standard. I know of no passage like Acts 2 that is such a condensed, consolidated listing of what we ought to be giving the best of our time and energy to. So we'll be looking at Acts 2. You can turn there. It's impossible to read Acts 2 without saying, I want that.

I want that. I want that as my church life experience to look at what the New Testament was New Testament believers were experiencing together and not just go God give us that in our church make us like this church. In Acts 1, Jesus meets with the disciples for 40 days and he teaches them about his kingdom. I wish Acts 1 was about 75 pages long so we could get a little of that content. What were those 40 days like?

What was he teaching them about his kingdom? But we do know what they were devoting themselves to when they can't come out of that 40-day period. That's what we get in Acts 2. So in Acts 2, this is the day of Pentecost and we're skipping most of it. We're going to start in verse 37 and Peter is right at the end of this powerful sermon and it talks about what happened as a result of the sermon and then what the church did on the heels of this.

And I just want to submit to you anytime Jesus meets with the 12 founders of the church to discuss what his kingdom happens, what is to be done in his kingdom, the things that follow that we need to pay special attention because that's what they're doing is the things that Jesus talked to them about. Acts 2 starting in verse 37. Now when they had heard this, when they had heard Peter's sermon, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, men and brethren what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all afar off as many as the Lord our God will call and with many other words he testified and exhorted them saying be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3, 000 souls were added to them.

And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

So for me, it starts in verse 42. They continued steadfastly in. This should have us on the edge of our seats. And in this passage, we see the things that we ought to be about. We see a bold proclamation of the gospel including a call for repentance in verse 38-340.

We see baptism in verse 41. We see a devotion, a continual devotion to the Apostles' doctrine, verse 42. We see a commitment to fellowship in verse 42. We see the Lord's Supper in verse 42. At least I'm arguing that the breaking of bread in verse 42 is the Lord's Supper.

If you don't agree with me it doesn't matter because the Lord's Supper being central to the life of the people of God is well established in other places so just give me this one. I can get it elsewhere if you make me but I believe that there are good reasons to believe that this is the Lord's Supper. You see in verse 42 a devotion to prayer. You see in verses 44 and 45 the sharing of possessions together as anyone had need. You see in verse 46 hospitality, this great phrase, breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.

It's probably just sufficient to say go and do likewise. Go and do likewise. Go and craft a life in the local church that matches up with Acts 2. Yeah, we might want to add a few things. We want to add singing.

That's well established. It should be added. We want to add church discipline. That's well established. We should add it.

But most of the things are here in Acts 2. If we would throw away everything but these 11 verses and give ourselves wholeheartedly to them, we would find that we have infinitely healthier churches than what passes for church life and 95% of evangelical churches today because we've added baloney and when we add baloney we subtract the ability to give the attention that the practices that God has given us deserve. Let's bet the farm on the simple, beautiful practices that were given by God and relentlessly cultivated by the early church. Relentlessly cultivated by the local church. Look at verse 42.

They continued steadfastly in. The early church was like a dog on a bone on these principles. They would not let it go. If you reach for that bone you'd get growling. You might draw back a knob because they were continually, they continued steadfastly in these practices.

They were relentlessly cultivating them and so should we. Let's be limited by scripture. Let's be joyfully restricted by God in what we do in our church life. And let's guard against the additions that don't pass the test of clear scriptural warrant. They creep in over time unnoticed.

We let them pass the gate. And then they're established and then they have inertia and then That's the way we always done it. We can't possibly live without it. This is how it happens. This is how it happens, just a little at a time.

Our job of guarding church practice is never done because there's always somebody with a great idea. And it even seems like a great idea to us, and we just have to keep going back. Is there clear scriptural warrant? Is there clear scriptural warrant? And the issue is that the additions compete with.

The additions compete with. They crowd out. Can we agree, brothers and sisters, can we agree that there are limited resources? That there are only so many seconds of the day, and we're deciding how we're going to divvy them up. That there are only so many dollars within a local church and we're deciding how we divvy them up and that when we spend a second here we can't spend the same second somewhere else.

When we spend a dollar here we can't spend the same dollar somewhere else. And so either we're going to devote ourselves to the things that God has given us clear footings for Or we're going to put them in competition with our great idea, with the thing that we think would be super. And the unintended consequences will catch up with us. God's ways are pleasant ways. All his paths are peace.

We can trust them. We can give ourselves wholeheartedly to them. In conclusion, God is great and God is good. Wherever his government spreads to, it's for the happiness of people. It is always good when God's government spreads to somewhere where it wasn't.

And cursed ground is reclaimed. People are happier. Evil is restrained. Sins are forgiven. The good news is proclaimed to the poor.

What about you? Aren't you thankful that God's government reclaimed cursed ground in your heart? Shouldn't we want that for the people who live next to us and work next to us? And one way to advance the cause is to plant a new flag and say Jesus Christ rules here. This is Jesus Christ's ground.

We're going to honor him the best we know how, the most we know how, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength until we die. And then we'll let our children do it. Until they die. At which point we'll leave it to our grandchildren. What if God gives us what we're praying for?

You say, what do you mean? Well, aren't we praying for a move of the Spirit? Are we content? Don't we desire that the Spirit would fall on us like he fell on the people in Acts 2, that maybe 3, 000 would be added and baptized in one day. This reading of this account makes my heart burn within me.

Doesn't it make your heart burn within you? What if God gives us that? Let's say you don't have a thought in your head about church planting today. I think that's highly unlikely given that you're here, but let's just say we should be making ourselves ready for that. If God does that, there will have to be new churches.

There will have to be more leaders. There will have to be more of everything. We can't make the Spirit come and do that, but we can lay the groundwork so that if He does, that we're ready to do our duty. It isn't enough to wish for healthy churches and admire the thought of them. It isn't enough.

There are good intentions will not lead us to churches that honor God, that bless his people, that stand the test of time. If we're going to plant a church, careful attention must be given to planning for these three essential elements, leadership, doctrine, practice. Leadership, having a line of sight to a plurality of biblically qualified men who desire the work. Doctrine, defining what the church is going to defend as sound doctrine so that we can rally people around it and say, this is who we are. Come, be with us, invest with us.

This is what we are now. This is what we're going to be like in five years. Come build a life with us. And practice to be happily limited by scripture, not letting the next great idea replace what God has given to bless his church. And we need to pray, we need to fall on our faces before God Almighty and pray that he would establish all these things, that he would lead us into them, that he would give us fire in our bones to accomplish them.

These three essential, these three things, these three elements are essential, they're not magic. And unless the Lord builds the house we labor in vain. Let's pray. Oh God, we are thankful that you've given us duties or thankfulness when you clarify in our minds through the scriptures what our duties are and call us to them. And we rejoice when we're able to do our duty faithfully and We always find it to be a blessing, Lord, that your ways are pleasant, your paths are peace, and the more we obey, the happier we are.

We also know that, God, you rule the universe and not the doing of duty that your spirit has to come to accomplish and do things. And so we cry out to you Lord that you would reclaim cursed ground, that you would give yourself the reward of your sacrifice by making enemies into sons and that you would help us to be faithful as we Think about planting churches and as we actually do plant churches, oh God, help us to plant flags in many, many, many communities and say that Jesus Christ is King. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the For more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.