Here Comes the Church (Pt 1)
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
That's the right song. Oh, yes, you baby see that and That was the right song as soon as Brian asked me which song to sing for this week. That's the song, okay Let's pray before we start Father I just ask you that you would work through me with your spirit and guide the Words that would be said help it If I say stupid things, blot them out of people's ears. If I say the right thing, reinforce them. Have this be a service that glorifies you and what you would have us do. Thank you again, of course, for your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. All right, I'm going to start this off very simply. Here's the church.
Here's the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people. Now, Jim read Ephesians 4. And basically, I could reread that, and then we could sit down and go home. But I'm going to try to explain and talk about how we got to where we are historically, building-wise, different traditions we have. And I want to be faithful, I hope, to see why we want to guide back to the Bible, not necessarily what's been done over the ages. So the whole point of that verse is that we are to be raised up, okay, and that he gave, Christ gave his apostles and prophets and the evangelists and some his pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, that's all of you and me, for the building, for the work of the service, to the building up of the body of Christ.
The body of Christ is us, the universal church out there. You people are the ones to do the work, not the professionals. This is a big hobby horse, okay? This is the whole issue. It's not the dude standing up here talking, it's you people doing the work of the service that magnifies what's going on. Each one of us has different gifts and all kinds of different ways to display them. And you exercising those gifts is what builds the universal body. And that can be anywhere on an airplane, at the grocery store, at your job, or teaching in a life-to-life group, or just sharing your heart. All those things. That's the real work.
And as Christ lives through you to those other people, that is the church. So the idea of reading the section that I had read is after we've read it, can we really improve upon it? I know we're instructed to explain the text, but it's pure there and anything else we say, we're probably going to screw it up. Because we come with a lot of presuppositions and we have to keep guarding against the presupposition that we have. Why do we do certain things? Why do we come in this building? Why am I in a platform? Why am I standing behind this pulpit? Why are you sitting in pews? You have seats. Do you realize that people weren't even allowed to sit in church before 1378?
How crazy is that? Now, obviously, we can make the argument when the house churches were meeting in Jerusalem, People probably came in the house and set out and, you know, they had meetings, like when Christ taught in the house and that kind of thing. But formally the church graduated to a point that the people, the saints had to stand out there while the bishop sat behind the altar in a big chair. And people then conducted the service through this formal ritual. And in 1378 in England was the first time that they saw people actually constructed pews or benches they could sit on to listen. And it caught on because all these people were tired of standing up, okay?
So it's interesting just that alone, and we take it for granted or we complain, oh, this one isn't comfy enough. And I have some pictures that we'll see later of pews where people actually bought their pews, their family, whichever got a donation, to sit in this special box. And if somebody fell asleep during Jonathan Edwards droning on and on in his monotone because he didn't want to have any personality come in his sermons, a guy would come by with a long cane and wrap you on the head if you fell asleep. So these are different traditions that have gone by the wayside that maybe we don't do or maybe we should reinforce.
I'm not sure. But the whole idea is, how do we get here And why are we doing what we're doing? One of the things that came immediately to mind as I read through this book and Kuiper noticed, why did we make this aisle in the center? What's going on here? And why would he have it? Oh, I know why. Because when we have weddings, then we'll have this place for the bride to come down. That isn't why it was that way. It's the way to come here to the table for the elements in our Protestant services. Okay. What did this replace after the Reformation?
This piece of furniture, this pulpit. What was in the middle of the church at the back up until this time and the the traditional churches for like after 400 AD on till the 1500s, the altar where the Catholics would re-sacrifice Christ every service. The Mass is a re-crucifixion of Christ over and over and over. Then the Reformation comes around, and all of a sudden the Word does this because he died once for all, okay? And this, the communion table that we partake together in remembrance of what he did for us. We're not re-crucifying him. That's why we don't have an argument that that bread is his body and the wine is his blood.
We're not going to duplicate the argument that Luther had with Zwingli, that those are symbols of these things that we partake to show our unity with him. That's a huge deal that we're doing that. And that we then stand here and talk from the Bible through this situation like this is like, that's a big, big deal. Before this time, we had to do the first slide, not just the first one yet. That's kind of weird for our first slide. Who do we think that dude is? That's Luther. And look who's playing Luther as a flute, the devil. That's the devil blowing in his ear, and then Luther mouthing all the words. This was a Catholic cartoon against Luther in the 1600s.
This is the guy that started the ball rolling to where we are today. If he hadn't started asking, why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? It's by faith alone. we would be still standing, or we'd be sitting because in 1300 we could get a pew, but we would be re-crucifying Christ over and over. But as he studied, they commanded him to study the Bible, to translate it into German. He comes across the verse that by faith alone, and out of that he writes the pope. Now the problem was, the pope was Leo X at this time. Leo X was a Medici, a banker. He was the son of Lorenzo de Medici who started the Florentinian banking system.
They ruled the world. His son became pope after a really bad pope that was there that also came out of Florence. The debauchery in the Papal Palace was unbelievable. You can read about it. Get on Wikipedia if you want.
Luther, when he went to Rome, that's what was going on. He climbed all the stairs, did all the things, came back and realized, that can't get me to heaven. It's my faith in Christ. So as he started asking those questions and then started getting the response back, he thought, I want them to reform. Remember he was a reformer. He wanted to reform the Catholic Church. They should have seen the wicked ways that they were going and they should have reformed. They didn't reform. What did they do? Luther had to meet at the Diet of Worms and he stood there and said this, unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often aired and contradicted themselves. I am bound by the scriptures. I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen." That was his answer to those people. Now,
sometimes quoted and you see in the movie where he says, here I stand, I can do no other. Scholars are not sure he actually said that, but they feel confident in what I just read that he did that. Whether he said it or not, that's basically what he was doing standing in front of him and said, on this I stand. Over the next five days, conferences would be held to determine Luther's fate after he said this. The emperor presented the final draft of the Diet of Worms on May 25, 1521, declaring Luther an outlaw, banning his literature and requiring his arrest. We want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic.
It has also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Now, how strong do you believe what you believe? So I get up here and say this stuff, and tomorrow the Marysville Police Department says, that's it, you can kill Dave with no problem. That's a big deal. A lot of people wonder, like when I first got saved, I couldn't figure out why these guys didn't just read their Bible and move on, and why didn't they understand that Israel wasn't the church and all of this kind of stuff. Remember who they were. They were Catholic priests that just discovered, by faith alone, they got saved.
So they're coming with all this baggage they had. 1,500 years, well, actually, 1,100 years of tradition from the Roman Catholic Church, that they're going, whoa, this is outside what it says in the Bible. So for me, it's not a big stretch why they didn't get other things. They were like, this is how I get saved, And now I am able to be free in that, but nobody wanted to hear it. And they were pronounced heretics, and they had to run for their lives, basically. Luther was protecting the castle. Calvin got thrown out of France. And it's crazy town. And lots of people died at the stake. People lesser known that were probably very bold, that were declared heretics and burned for these beliefs.
earlier than this Wycliffe and all these people translating the Bible burned at the state for doing that, to bring God's word to the people, understanding that's where the power is. So after all of that, then comes the Protestants because they realized at that point they couldn't reform. They wouldn't reform. So the Protestants said, now we have to move on from that stage and create something different. The dictionary definition is, any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern church. Notice that Anglican is in there. And this is where those of you in your English history, when you study it, notice that the Anglican Church is nothing but kind of a settled, watered down Catholic Church.
And why was that? Why did it even get created? One of the most famous letters in history. Henry VIII wrote to the pope for a bill of divorce, and he wouldn't give it. So he declared himself head of the church in England and created the Anglican Church. So how great would that be? Let's join a church that the king decided to have so he could justify his indulgence in wanting to get a divorce. That's kind of a weak way to start a church. So a Protestant is anyone that goes against that. Any adherent of those Christian bodies that is separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation or any group descended from them.
Now, as those people separated from them, what common thing did they keep looking for that they wanted to know about or wanted to know how to react was what? The Bible. So as they read their Bible, they went, well, why are we doing this? It says this. It says that. And so people said, believe and be baptized. So now you have a bunch of people reading in the Bible says, believe and be baptized. What's that all about? I was baptized as an infant. I'm in the church. That's how I, you know, that was my intro into it and I did good in my catechism and I passed all the tests. So I'm a Christian, but in the Bible, it says, believe and be baptized.
So the Anabaptist came around and they said that baptism was no good. We need to get re-baptized because we now believe, and now I want to do it as a symbol of what God has done for me that I've been dead and resurrected in my new belief. So they started doing that. Well, part of the reformers, the other people that still believe in the infant baptism, they went after those people and started drowning them. You want to be baptized? We'll drown you in the river. We'll kill you for that belief. Now how much of you, you know, we talk about being a Baptist or being a Presbyterian, how strong are you a Baptist? Would you die for believers' baptism?
This is a serious business. And I think both of these people on both sides were, quote, Christians. OK, remember those five fundamentals. But then they want to kill people that want to re-Baptize. Now how strong do I feel about it? I feel very strongly about it. That's why we see the two ordinances as baptism and the Lord's Supper. But that's a big deal when people died for it. Thousands of people died for it. And so as church history goes on like that, you realize, wow, how did we get here? And how do we get there? And why do we have this building in this shape? This is basically a nave the way this is shaped. What is a nave?
Well, let's go to slide two, Jesse. And the nave, that part there on the left, that little insertion there where you sit, looking toward the rounded part, that's the nave. And that's what we have recreated, or this building is recreated. You're sitting in the nave. You notice that the altar is the part in the back. That's where they had the re-crucifixion of Christ in Catholic churches. And as churches developed, they started dropping the altar off or leaving it is a place for a communion table. And then they started putting the pulpit off to the side. And so you have a different, you know, now the pulpit's off to the side, but not quite moving over here to the place of the altar.
So in this construction, we come in a building. We sit down. The person comes up front, and you talk. And it works out fine. There's no big thing. But what about this baptistery thing? What's that all about back here? So we got a big tub back here. So now we're making a statement that, wow, that must be important. That's even back where they used to have the altar. Is that really the right place for that? I don't know. What do you think? Have you ever even thought about it? Why am I standing up here three steps up above you? Why should I be above you? You'll notice at night when Sean teaches, he comes down on the floor down there.
That's not by accident. We're trying to think all these things through. Should I be elevated above you? Now, Susan Boyne pointed out when I'll show you a picture. Go down to the, let me see which number it is. Yeah, go down to nine. And that's Calvin's pulpit. That actually, go up to eight. That's the nave of Calvin's church. And the kind of dark, windy staircase off to the left is Calvin's pulpit. Notice that the nave, though, is the traditional Catholic Church. In the background, there was the altar. And Calvin's pulpit's off to the side. We as Protestants advanced the pulpit out to the front, away from there.
But Calvin's pulpit was up on the side. Now, it could be that they elevated it because they didn't have microphones and acoustics so you could hear. So they put the guy above and he talked. But if any of you have ever toured these churches, the way they're constructed, the acoustics in them is incredible. I mean, the reverb is like, wow. And so if you talked with authority, you could have been hurt. So do you want to elevate the guy or don't you? And what does that mean? I mean, some of you have gone to Southern Baptist churches where the preacher talks here and the deacons all sit back and big golden chairs with big arms behind them.
I mean, where's that coming from? Who are those dudes? How do I get that seat? It's kind of like if I go down to 12, Jesse, this is an example of pews where you could have bought the pew and had the pew of prominence. And so you give a bunch of money, and you get to have the pew of prominence in the church. Well, why is that? Well, because we were the church, or we were the noted family in town, so therefore that's where we sit. I mean, we even get territorial around here. I mean, you notice that this is almost San Chrisank, nobody ever sits there. Ooh, who wants to sit there? That's crazy, that's just another seat, come on up and get up here in the spit pit, it's good.
So the whole thing is it's interesting to watch how people do certain things. It's like the whole discussion of when you come church, shh, shh, shh, you know, we're worshipping God. And yet, your best friend that you haven't seen for a month is six people down, and you can't go over and say hello to him. What are we doing? You know, it's crazy. And especially in big giant churches, where you got, you know, auditoriums, where you got 3,000 people. You know, you see Bob over there. You know, it's a half a mile to get over to him. But the thing is, where's that relationship if you aren't relating to Bob? because we are corporately together worshipping God.
And not in some mystical deal either. It's real. It's our hearts that are worshipping Him. So as these things went down and all these particular pieces of furniture, go back up to two, I think it is, Jesse. Is that old altar? No, not two. Five. There is an altar that actually they uncovered in Israel, where they actually sacrificed sheep and goats and stuff on. And out of that, we end up with the high priest, six. There they are, the brazen altar, cooking up the meat there in the tent as they're going across, and then do seven. And out of that tradition comes this. Now it's dark, and it's hard to see, because I had to stretch it out so you could see it.
But that's Bernini's canopy over the high altar in St. Peter's. That's St. Peter's Basilica. The nave in St. Peter's is 299 feet long, 100 yards long. And in the middle is the altar where the sacrifice, where they re-crucify Christ in the Mass is. And you'll notice all those little white little things laying there. Those are initiates into the priesthood, laying face down in front of the altar to be blessed. That's a long way from Christ was already crucified. We don't need to keep re-crucifying him. There's something really wacky. And how does that fit with our chapter 4, that we, the saints, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of the church.
The people that are gifted, the apostles, the prophets, all those people were gifted, especially to do what? To train you guys up to do the work of the ministry. The work of the ministry is not that. It is not seminary graduation. It is not some guy singing a super solo in front of everybody, or some orchestra playing the hallelujah chorus on Easter or whatever. That's really not ministry. Those are all flowering things. But ministry is each individual passing on the gospel to each other and living it out in practical form. So that picture from there, and then this is an interesting picture, go to 10. That's a little blurry because it had to be blown up again.
That's John MacArthur in Calvin's pulpit preaching. Interesting. So now you carry on another 500 years, and a basic Baptist preacher can go and preach in Calvin's church. Now, how did he get to do that? Was it a big deal? No, they paid him money and got, yeah, you can get up there and preach. How crazy is that? You see the disconnect here? I mean, it's like really nutso. But it's cool to see these things because there are points of history. I'm not saying that it's nuts that MacArthur preached there. What I'm saying is the idea that pay the money, get the permission, you can go there too. The whole purpose is what we're doing here, not to glorify the man.
So that's that one. The other interesting one, do 11. That's Bunyan's pulpit in England, the guy that wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. It has smaller versions, smaller little church. But the idea is the focus on the word. And I think the word should be focused on. Don't get me wrong. I'm pounding pretty heavy on this thing. But I'm doing it because if you start to worship the word, what have you left out? You're not worshiping God. The word is the instrument that he uses to describe who he is to us and give us instruction. But to worship the word or worship the preacher of the word, obviously you don't do that, but you can get stuck in just learning bits and facts.
And we as evangelicals can get that way. I fall victim to that. I love the rabbit trails. I like all the information. I like the history. I like the parsing of the things and all the rest of the sentences and oh, help me understand this and oh, did you realize this was plural and couldn't possibly mean that and getting all in these things. But if I don't love Gail and I don't love you as fellow brothers, that's nothing. I'm an empty gong and a clanging cymbal. I'm just barking stuff. And it may be true stuff that I'm saying, but it's not out of love. It's not ministry. And the other part is, just because you faithfully make every work party and you go mow Ralph and Mary Kay's lawn or you fix somebody's thing or you help an old lady across the street, if you're doing that with the wrong motive, it's the same problem.
And that's why it has to be supernatural. It has to be God working through you. And in order for God to work through you, he can't live with darkness, so you have to be confessed up, which we did to start off. And as you keep confessing up, he keeps piling on more grace, more grace, more grace. And as you get that, you then become a more effective instrument for God. That's an incredible trip we're on. And then what's the end of it all? We die and then we really get to be perfect and we get to see God face to face for eternity. That's like crazy, crazy town. There you go. That's for you. But that's like amazing.
You know, that is how much better can it be? Because you know, shuffle off this mortal coil, right? All right. So that's the pictures of that thing. All right, I got that. Now, now I'm really going to start to kind of step on the Reformation people, Kuiper and that sort of thing. I had never heard of this until I read this book. We are conventicles.
Anybody else, anybody in this room heard conventicle? We are conventicles. I thought to myself, wow, I don't know if I wanna be one of those, what's that? So I looked it up. A conventicle is a small, unofficial, and unofficiated meeting of lay people to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening intimate manner. Philip Jacob Spencer called for such associations in his Pia Disparia and that they were the foundation of the German evangelical Lutheran Pietus movement. Due to a concern over possibly mixed gender meetings, sexual impropriety and subversive sectarianism, sectarianism, conventicles were condemned, first by the mainstream Lutheranism, and then by the Pietists, within decades of their inception.
In Finland, conventicle has remained the base activity, especially in the Finnish Awakening, the revivalist movement. Today, the cell groups used in some churches are similar. So here's the thing. Kuiper in his book said, as in America, there are just a bunch of conventicles. They get together because they love the Lord, but they don't have the structure of the historical church behind them. Now, talk about putting a foot firmly in both camps. How firm do you want your foot in the Catholic camp and the Reformed camp if they got a foot in both things? That's why we are Protestants. We've realized they were headed down a wrong path.
We got to go back to the Bible and learn how to behave from what the Bible says. So that calls into question, what do we do, and how much of that history do we throw out? And the great criticism against us that our Protestants, independent, fundamental type churches like ours, independent Bible-believing church, is we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. We've thrown all those great historical confessions out. We don't do the Westminster Confession. We don't do the Heidelberg Confession. We're not a confessional church. Well, we are a confessional church, though. Our confession is what Christ did for us. But do we want to sign on to a bunch of people that were processing what they were leaving and start to drop out of these things?
I mean, the Westminster Confession is incredible. The purpose for man is to glorify God. That's why we are here. Amen, brother. I'll sign on to that one. But then as you go down further in the thing, do I want to sign on to infant baptism? I don't. I don't. But do I want to say that that person isn't a Christian if he does that, if he is an infant baptizer? And that's why I read the five fundamentals here. Just because we put what we believe, do I think that person's a heretic if he subscribes to infant baptism? I think it's a heretical belief, but I don't think he's a heretic. Get the distinction? Now, keep in mind, we are all heretics.
All of us don't have it right. None of us have it purely right. We're struggling to be as exact and try to be as biblical as we can. So as we do that, that whole process sharpens each other. As we do the ministry, as we think through these things, as we're open to criticism, we always go, wow, I never thought of it that way. I never thought of this. That's why I found this book really engaging. Here's a man that really understood that it's your life that you live out. He is the prime minister of a country, then goes back and writes a theological book on how you should worship God. That's like crazy. That's really good.
That is exactly what we should do. If you're a ditch digger, you're dicking the ditch for God. If you're changing the diaper, you know, you are doing that. That's the great Puritan thing that was brought to America. What were the Puritans escaping? Anglican Church. Now, when they escaped the Anglican Church, they ran into real problem, okay? In 1664, the Conventacle Act of 1664 was an act of the Parliament of England under Charles II. Charles I got his head chopped off and forbade conventicles, religious assemblies of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England. Wow. Think about that. If you don't do the Church of England, five of you get together, you're in violation of the law.
So what's going on here? Is this a religious thing? Are they protecting the truth or are they protecting the government? They're protecting the government and the church because the church is part of the government. Now Now, this is 1664, and a lot of these people book it over to America, and what do they want? Do they want to get rid of religion? No. They got their religion. They just don't want the state to dictate what religion. They were big-time religious. So, forbade the Convenicalists five or more people. This law was part of the Claritin Code, named after Edward Heil, first Earl of Claritin, aimed to discourage non-conformism and to strengthen the position of the established church.
However, the Clarendon Code was not actually the work of Clarendon himself who favored a policy of greater tolerance towards dissenters. The dissenters weren't, they were the ones not going along with the Church of England. These prohibitions led many, such as the covenateers, to vacate their parishes rather than to submit to the new Episcopal authorities. Just as the ministers left, so too did the congregation. following their old pastors to sermons on the hillside. From small beginnings, these field assemblies or conventicles were to grow into the major problems of public order for the government. Major problems of public order for the government.
Not to mention, major problems for people that are following tradition instead of what the Bible says. As they study their Bible, they're going to ask more and more questions. As I hope, that's why we want you to read the statement. We want you to look for yourself and try to understand why we're adopting the language that we basically lifted from John Piper as we admit in the forward. I called them and asked that. They were so excited that people wanted to use their statement of faith as a foundation. And I told her, I said, but we're going to change a bunch of stuff. She said, oh, no problem. We love it when people get in and wrestle with it.
We want to see your individual thing. In fact, she said, send us a copy of yours when you finally decide on it. Maybe we'll change ours. So that's the attitude we want. Now, don't let that worry you. I'm not saying we move away from the fundamentals. If somebody wants to write in there, God is not God, then we've got a problem, or that Jesus is not the one. So that's not what I'm talking about. During this time, the Quakers in 1662, which required people to swear north of allegiance to the king, the Quakers would not do that. The Act of Uniformity, 1662, Charles II, which required the use of all rites and ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer and church services.
So you could have a church service, but you had to use the Book of Common Prayer to do anything. If you did that outside the Book of Common Prayer, that wasn't a church service. That's a problem, isn't it? We're not going to use the Bible, we're going to use the Book of Common Prayer, that's crazy. Okay, the operation of these laws, at least as far as Protestants were concerned, was mitigated somewhat by Charles II's Royal Decoration of Indulgence in 1672, which suspended the execution of penal laws and allowed a certain number of nonconformist chapels to be staffed in construction with the pastors subject to royal approval.
Interesting, huh? They realized they couldn't stop this wave. These people want to know God. So we got to figure out a way to keep our fingers in the mix as best we can, OK? Now, this gets into the thing when we start this church. Do we incorporate the church with the state? Are we recognizing the state is above the church? No, and we talked about it when we did that. It just, in this state, it seems to be the way to protect ourselves legally and to make it a entity that's recognized. But to me, that really stuck in my craw. I didn't want to do that, but it seemed to be, OK, in this day and age, it looks like the right thing to do.
Now we can back out of that in the future if we want to. But these are the kind of things that maybe you never even thought about. And I think it's a great thing to think about what you're doing. How serious is this? I mean, we may, at some point in the world we live in, as crazy as it is, we might have to be lined up against the wall for our religion. There are people all over the world that are dying for their faith now. It's not an old deal to be a martyr. Fox's Book of Martyrs wasn't the last martyr. So that's kind of what I wanted to get into. And tonight, I'm going to go a little farther into the history of how we got to where we got, and where we're going, and why we're doing it that way.
But the thing that I really want everybody to understand is that we are a unique work in progress that I know about. I've been to lots of churches and been involved in missions for quite a while all over the world and what we're doing here is very unique in fundamental Protestant circles. You notice we don't have a Sunday school system. We don't have the pastor. I know that you think, oh, but Sean's the guy that stands up here and talks most of the time. Yes, we recognize that. He's a very gifted individual. But that's not the issue. It's governed by a plurality of pastors, the men to men. That's what we talk about all the time in there.
That is so crazy upside down in today's world. I can only think of one church that I think practices that, and that's Strauch's Church, the guy that wrote the book on elders and deacons. else it's a single guy and it can get into the cult of personality and it builds a pyramid structure and when you have a pyramid structure that's not cool because unless that guy's really listening to everybody if he's really a plurality of elders it's this way with a bunch of guys up there talking about it or you have this you don't want that the Bible clearly describes that it should be a plurality of elders. I want to end on a quote from the Didache.
The Didache was written in 50 to 120 AD by the church fathers on how to do church government or how to set your church up. Now, this is real close to the crucifixion, the whole thing here. I mean, this is right out of the box. This is how people saw that you should get together. Bishops and deacons, Christian reproof, appoint therefore for yourselves, bishops and deacons. Bishop is another word for shepherd, pastor, elder. Okay, don't get all hung up on pointy red hats. And the deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek and not lovers of money and truthful and proved. For they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers.
Therefore do not despise them for they are your honored ones together with the prophets and teachers and reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as you have in the gospel. But to anyone that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear anything from you until he repents. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds do so as you have it in the gospel of our Lord." So right from the get-ful, a point therefore for yourselves, bishops and deacons. So right when we started, we had a group of men that decided we would start, and right out of that initial group came the interim, okay, and I use that word not in quotes, the interim elders, and what we're doing is we're asking for that approval from you, just as we're asking for the approval of the art statement of faith.
This is not we're dictating to you, we're giving it out to you for feedback. And yes, there's a delicate balance. Obviously, we are acting as elders and trying to proclaim the truth. But the issue is, unless there is that supernatural thing going on, we are really not doing it the right way. I'll end on that. We can talk more about that later on tonight. Now we're going to move on to the communion part of our service. And let me talk a little bit about communion and the reason that Sean was so, oh, now they're going around to the sides, and now that we do this, and what do we do, and what are we doing with that?
And the other thing I want you to notice, too, in that, is when Sean is serving the people in the musicians, he's doing that showing just a picture that he's the servant. It's not somebody stepping up to him and handing him on high his cup. He's serving them. That's the idea. And it's, you know, I'm not saying that if you do it the other way that those people are, you know, oh, great Swami, I'm giving you your, you know, elements. But there is a purpose to what we're trying to do. And we're trying to mirror how we want people to act. So the first thing that we're going to have is the offertory now. And we'll sing and the offertory will be presented up here. And then we'll do communion.
And the other thing I want you to notice, too, in that, is when Sean is serving the people in the musicians, he's doing that showing just a picture that he's the servant. It's not somebody stepping up to him and handing him on high his cup. He's serving them. That's the idea. And it's, you know, I'm not saying that if you do it the other way that those people are, you know, oh, great Swami, I'm giving you your, you know, elements. But there is a purpose to what we're trying to do. And we're trying to mirror how we want people to act. So the first thing that we're going to have is the offertory now. And we'll sing and the offertory will be presented up here.
