The Bullpen with J.D. Greear

Pastor J.D. shares why humility and repentance are key in any discussion about Critical Race Theory.

Pastor J.D. briefly explains CRT and how injustice should be considered humbly, soberly, and charitably in the light of Scripture.

In this re-broadcast of one of our most popular episodes, Pastor J.D. looks at the creation narrative and explains that an open Bible and an open mind are key when contemplating the concept of evolution.

A glimpse inside this episode:

The short answer is, “Yes.” This is one of those areas where Christians should be free to disagree. There are many conservative Bible scholars who believe in something like evolution.

Others do not. But they are able to remain in close fellowship with one another, because this is not a “first order” issue. I have serious problems with theistic evolution, but I don’t consider it a first order issue. Now, just because we can charitably disagree doesn’t mean this discussion is irrelevant. It has a lot of implications for how we read Scripture, which makes it crucial.

If you are a Christian who believes in evolution, you’ll have to believe in what’s called “theistic evolution”—that even though the earth is billions of years old and it took millions of years for animals to come to their present form, God was orchestrating it. Hence theistic evolution—God + evolution.

Now, many conservative scholars have issues with this. For instance, Wayne Grudem has an article called “12 Ideas You Must Embrace to Affirm Theistic Evolution.” His whole point is that if you affirm theistic evolution, you deny basic principles that are plain in Scripture, such as:

According to Grudem, this position is just too fraught with problems for a serious Bible reader.

Many people look to Genesis 1 and they want to know timelines. Are we talking about 24-hour periods here? Or does each day represent a period of time—millions of years, perhaps? Maybe there were gaps somewhere along the way?

This is one of those questions that some Christians take very seriously. It often acts as a litmus test for whether you’re a “real” Christian at all.

When it comes to the age of the earth, that’s a question that scientists and theologians should explore together.

My encouragement to everyone in this discussion is to study it out with an open Bible and an open mind—and not to look at other believers wrestling, in sincerity and faith, with disdain.

God’s Scripture is never wrong. But we theologians and scientists often are. So we’ve got to resist the temptation to turn into a dogma a question that Scripture did not intend to settle.

As Christians, we can agree: the universe is not the result of blind, random forces (NOT nothing x nobody = everything); God is the miraculous author and creator of all we see. That’s actually a significant common ground.

Great book: 40 Questions on Evolution and Creation by Ken Keathley and Mark Rooker, two of my professors at SEBTS

Pastor J.D. explains that it’s more about why than what we ask God.

A glimpse inside this episode:

Short answer is no, it is not wrong.

Psalm 27:13: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!”

Examples of things Christians prayed for. Here’s a handful, in no particular order:

I could go on. Throughout the Bible, you find people praying about anything that matters to them: anything that seems essential to doing what they think they’re supposed to do. Just like God wants them to.

Has to do with idolatry and motive:

Context: Christianity Today article about prosperity gospel in Africa

Pastor J.D. talks about why the definitions of friendship and marriage are vital to understanding the Bible’s intent for relationships.

A glimpse inside this episode:

I’ve heard more and more people propose some sort of committed, same-sex, non-sexual romantic friendships for those who want to uphold the Christian sexual ethic.

This, they say, avoids the supposed loneliness of singleness while upholding biblical standards of sexual behavior.

Sam Allberry has written on this question and is, I think, very helpful on the topic. He writes:

Friendship is different than marriage

Pastor J.D. discusses the purpose of the Second Amendment and a Christian perspective of self-defense.

A glimpse inside this episode:

Is self-defense ok for the Christian? 

In Romans 12, God tells the Christian to not ever seek vengeance, but to leave it to God. And then as an application of that, he says that God has given governments the responsibility of earthly justice in his name. So, if that government gives a part of it back to you, is it ok to defend yourself with lethal violence against an intruder putting your family in harm’s way?

We’ve been talking about the 2nd amendment in terms of self-defense, but the real purpose of the 2nd amendment is a protection against tyranny. Founding Fathers were terrified of a government that could very easily overwhelm the people and force them into submission of a tyrant. Governments will always have superior power, of course, but a well-armed populace will make that much more difficult. And, it was one of their safeguards that made foreign occupation nearly impossible. As Prisoners of Geography noted, if some foreign government (or even are own) tried to take over an area, because of the number of guns in Amercan’s hands, entering every single town and hamlet in the nation would feel like entering Fallujah. Eventually you could prevail, but at what cost? The Founding Fathers wanted any government to have to consider that cost as a safeguard to liberty. 

Christians can disagree on this. 

Other ways of looking at this? 

Pastor J.D. explains original sin and why it’s bad news that makes the good news of salvation possible.

A glimpse inside this episode:

Original sin is where we all sinned in Adam. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned” (CSB).

The result of this choice was that death (physical and spiritual) spread to all people. Even if we struggle with the logic behind why original sin works like it does, we at least have to concede the presence of its effects. As G.K. Chesterton put it, “Original sin is the only doctrine that is empirically verifiable.” Everybody dies. Death and disease affect everyone—nice people as much as cruel people, smart people as much as ignorant people, rich people as much as poor people, innocent infants as much as adults.

And, the kind of death mentioned in Romans 5:12, spiritual death, means we’re all born in a posture of rebellion toward God, with a fist clenched toward the heavens, assuming our way is better and our desires most important.

Original sin sounds like bad news: We are all born in sin. But it is bad news that makes good news possible. Because if the whole world was put under sin by one man, that means salvation could also come to everyone through one man. And that is precisely what happened in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:14–17).

The first Adam selfishly disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden tree, bringing a curse on the earth. And in that moment, he made the same decision we all would have made. When Adam sinned, we all sinned. The second Adam, Jesus, sacrificially obeyed God and climbed up onto a cursed tree to take that curse into himself.

The first Adam brought death upon the whole human race. The second Adam restored life to all who would receive it. That’s much better news. 

Pastor J.D. discusses how the Summit approaches multisite and what the Bible has to say about it.

A glimpse inside this episode and some bonus material:

I continue to get questions about the “multi-site” strategy on a regular basis. It’s not nearly as bizarre as it was when we began, but is still controversial for a lot of people. In light of that, I’ve revisited and expanded a post from a few years ago about our decision to go multi-site.

In 2005 we at The Summit Church moved to a multi-site strategy for spatial necessity. God was graciously bringing to our doors more people than we could handle. We were doing as many morning services as we could in our rented school facility, and were having to turn people away. So we opened another campus 3 miles down the road, where I preached between our other services at the main campus.

Since that time, we’ve stuck with the multi-site model for the church because we believe it’s both biblically sound and practically helpful, and we have embraced multi-site as a strategy for growing our church and reaching our city, not merely as a temporary way to deal with a space problem. We currently are a church of about 12,000 attenders, meeting on 10 campuses and 12 venues throughout Raleigh-Durham, NC. 

The essence of a local church is a covenant, not a manner of assembly.

Some argue that since a local church is by definition an assembly, a multi-site strategy fundamentally skews the nature of a local church. The essence of a New Testament local church, however, is not “assembly” but “covenant body” and one of the functions is assembly. 

The New Testament nowhere demands that a local church meet all together each week. Nor is a single-service assembly the only model given in Acts. While it is certainly true that we see evidences of local churches assembling all together (1 Corinthians 11), we also see evidence of single local churches which met in multiple locations. The new congregation in Jerusalem is frequently referred to in the singular, one “church” (Acts 8:1; 11:22; 15:4). However, they obviously had to meet in different times and locations. Historians tell us there was no space in Jerusalem available to the disciples in which three thousand or more people could have met on a weekly basis. 

Quite simply, the New Testament neither demands nor uniformly models that all members of one local church are to assemble weekly in the same place.

General rule: The New Testament gives guidelines, but not specific details, on how to best organize a congregation for pastoral care and effective ministry.

John Piper has written, “Neither here [in Acts 2] nor elsewhere in the New Testament do we get detailed instructions on how to organize the church for pastoral care and worship and teaching and mobilization for ministry. There were elders in the churches (they show up very soon in the Jerusalem church) and there were deacons, and there were goals of teaching and caring and maturing and praying and evangelizing and missions. But as far as details of how to structure the church in a city or in an area or even one local church with several thousand saints – there are very few particulars.”

1. We believe it’s the most effective way to reach people, especially in our city

The multi-site strategy has allowed us to have a greater reach in the Triangle and surrounding communities by enabling members to worship and serve in communities closer to their homes. We have always and only launched campuses where members of the Summit already live. These are people God has called to be a part of this church to reach their community. We believe that the multi-site strategy platforms them to fulfill this call.

2. The Best Way to Keep Pace with Growth

Statistically, we can’t plant churches fast enough to deal with the growth God is giving to our church.

We are very committed to church planting, having sent out over 660 of our members in the last ten years to plant 54 churches in the United States, including several right here in the Triangle. When we plant a new church, we are typically able to send a core group of about 25 to 30 people. By God’s grace, we replace those 25-30 people in just a week or two. When we plant campuses, however, the core group we send out averages several hundred, sometimes as large as 1,000. Church planting is one of our most important missional assignments, but it will not by itself deal with the growth God has brought to our church.

Multi-site is not an alternative to church planting; it’s an alternative to building one big, gargantuan building.

3. A Better Pastoral Alternative to Building “Six Flags over Jesus”

At one point, we considered building one central building for all of the people of the Summit to attend for worship. Fortunately, logistical reasons kept us from making this decision, because we now see that no central building could possibly be expanded fast enough to account for the growth at our church. Building megachurch buildings is time-consuming and resource-exhausting. We’d rather use our time and resources to multiply campuses throughout the Triangle than erecting some kind of mammoth “Six Flags over Jesus” facility.

The longer we’ve done this, the more we’ve found that multiplying people into smaller campuses is more effective at pastoring and shepherding than having them all together in one large gathering. The multi-site strategy has provided us a way to effectively pastor a congregation of 12,000. It takes a problem (too many people for “the pastor” to shepherd) and makes the solution more obvious (diversify and expand your pastoral team).

The hardest ecclesiological shift for me happened when we grew to a size where I realized I couldn’t know every member in a meaningful way. I think that happened when we went to about 500 weekly. Most research shows that pastors can’t personally pastor a congregation of more than about 150. If you are willing to grow above 150, you’re going to have to adopt a “multiple elder” model, where everyone is known and pastored by an elder, though not necessarily the “lead” elder.

Things we wrestle with:

–We believe the “one body” needs to assemble ever so often, but how often?

—What is the best way to organize budgeting and staff structures so that each campus has freedom to organize its ministries effectively while at the same time ensuring that each campus retains the DNA of the whole church?

–How do we best do membership and discipline in the multi-site model? How much can a subset of the congregation represent the entire congregation?

–How can congregations vote on issues when gathering everyone takes a good bit of planning? Can online gathering techniques be used for voting?

–We believe local churches should be local, and thus won’t plant campuses in other cities. But how far is too far when planting a new campus in our own cities? Even if we never went farther than 15 minutes in planting a campus, eventually you could span the state of NC. How far out does our “city” extend?

–If people rotate which campuses they attend, will that make it difficult for elders and other leaders effectively to watch over them?

–How exactly will we know when a campus would function better as an independent church?

Learn more about North American church planting at The Summit Church at summitcollaborative.org.

Pastor J.D. reflects on his two-sermon series on Ecclesiastes—his underrated favorite.

A glimpse inside this episode:

Well, like a typical pastor, I just can’t narrow it down to one–I say whatever I am preaching at moment– and so many have spoken and challenged me directly in real, tangible ways before they ever made their way onto the stage.

A few years ago, I did preach a short, two-sermon series on the book of Ecclesiastes which has always sort of been an “underrated favorite” of mine. The first sermon was called “It’s all gone to hevel,” because that word “hevel,” is a Hebrew word the author uses in the second and third verses, which set the theme for the book. He says, in our English translations, something like “Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity. What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?” Probably the best way to sum that up is to think about a cloud or a vapor. When you look at a cloud, it looks like a giant, fluffy pillow you could lay down on. But if you’ve ever been in an airplane (or jumped out of one), you know that there’s really no substance to a cloud… you just pass right through it. They’re full of nothing. 

The goal of any sermon should be worship.

Others that are life messages that typically turn into books later: Gospel, What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? 

Listen to Pastor J.D.’s sermons on Summit Life.