The Backwoods Baptist

As church attendance across America shrinks more and more professing Christians are skipping church. Even worse is the lack of instruction on the role of the church among this generation of pastor/teachers. The problem goes back for generations, back when evangelism began to out paced education. Many churches today have no criteria for membership at all, virtually anyone can join and they will never remove you. We even have churches with no formal membership at all. Does the Bible speak of church membership? Join me as I lay out 12 Biblical reasons for you to be an active member of a local church.

Just because you meet a Baptist who believes in election doesn't mean they are a reformed baptist. Nor does it mean that you need to keep working on them in order to get them to fully embrace the Reformed tradition. They might simply disagree with several reformed doctrines and they probably even have biblical support for their disagreements. That leads us to address some of the problems with the reformed baptist movement and it's not doctrinal. Many of Reformed apologist on social media are often young, educated, and over confident. This leads many fellow Baptist to hold a low view of these cage stage cowboys, and in turn a low view of Reformed Baptist in general. I'm speaking in generalities because I'm speaking of the movement in general. I have many close friends who consider themselves Reformed Baptist, most if not all of them agree with the assessments I make in this episode. It's not an attack on our Reformed brothers, it a caution to the dangers of the current trajectory.

Christians enjoy a bond that the world doesn't know anything about, we are one in Christ. We love to worship together, eat together, study together, and spend time together. True Christians share fellowship with other Christians everywhere they meet. The evidence of Christ's love for us is demonstrated in our love for fellow Believers. In this episode I discuss the joy I have had by fellowshipping with saints all over the country.

This is a sermon that I recently preached at the 11th annual Preachers of Grace pastor's conference. In this message I seek to get beyond the fruit of America's problems (LBGT, abortion, gender confusion, corrupt politics) and lay the axe at the root. I firmly believe the root cause for the shape we are in can be traced directly to our independence from the person, presence, and plan of God. We as believers need to examine this issue and call our neighbors to a proper understanding of God.

Every church has a story. If we take the time to learn it we will be educated by the past and encouraged about the future. Give me 30 minutes of your time as I exhort you to learn your local church's history.

Will you be ready to speak if called upon without any notice? Impromptu speeches occur without warning and don't offer any time to prepare. These opportunities to "say a few words" often come up at family events, retirement parties, holiday gatherings, or during times of grief. God providentially places His children before an assembly to give a word of encouragement, advice, or comfort but all too often we shy away from them. The fear of not knowing what to say drives us to decline these invitations. I want to discuss the two biggest hindrances to impromptu speaking as well as give three keys to being ready if the opportunity arrises. In the end, I want more Christians to speak up when the world is looking for answers.

Fred and I discuss our concerns and Biblical objections to a loose but growing movement under the banner of Christian Nationalism. The movement has many leaders and varying opinions but all fall under a desire to merge Christianity with the nation. We give a brief recent history of this movement and discuss many of the errors committed by Christian Nations in centuries past. With the lack of clear biblical support and a track record of oppression and persecution we want to make a case for rejecting this ideology.

Should every God called, Spirit filled, Bible preacher go to seminary? Regardless of your personal feelings on the subject of formal education, there are many in academia who push young preachers to enroll in a Bible college or seminary. Many churches have a certain level of education listed as a criteria to even be considered as a pastoral candidate. Much like the business world, some churches have a pay scale that favors higher education. In certain circles you are measured by your level of education and all to often by the school you graduated from. Is there still a place for effective yet uneducated men in the ministry? In a society that pushes college I want to push back.

How big is your church? This question is all too often used to judge the health of a church. We live in a society that says size matters. But does the Bible say church size matters? Is bigger always better? Is attendance the best factor to measure church health? In this episode we will discuss the weaknesses of using attendance as a standard of church heath as well as identifying some better indicators of true church health.

Rejecting the proper role for each gender in the home and in the church is not our downfall, it's the fruit of it. We began this downward spiral when we rejected our Creator. We were created in His image and mankind has sought to dismiss that truth by explaining it away. This is most recently seen through the folly of evolution. The natural out flow of having chaos as your creator is confusion as to order of this creation. While the world falls headlong down this rabbit hole the church should be clear about our God given gender roles. Sadly our silence and even participation is adding to the confusion. Let us go to the Word of God for the answer to this problem.