Point of View May 2, 2024 – Hour 2 : De-Sizing the Church

[00:00:04] Across America Live.

[00:00:07] This is Point of View.

[00:00:17] And now Kirby Anderson, you know, one of the things we've talked about every once

[00:00:22] in a while is the church growth movement, and in particular, this has been an issue

[00:00:27] that certainly had some pros and cons, and there have been all sorts of various

[00:00:31] comments made about this.

[00:00:33] And I thought it would be good to have you in this one hour here from an

[00:00:37] individual that has really looked at this for some time and also is

[00:00:42] encompassed in the book, Day Desizing the Church, How Church Growth Became a

[00:00:47] Science, Then an Obsession, and What's Next.

[00:00:51] It is a new book out.

[00:00:52] It is published by our friends at Moody Publishers.

[00:00:55] It really gets into great depth into this whole issue of church growth.

[00:01:00] And it is written by Carl Vaders.

[00:01:02] He serves in church ministry, actually has been really involved in small

[00:01:07] church ministry for over 40 years.

[00:01:09] Perhaps you have seen some of his books, The Church Recovery Guide, 100

[00:01:14] Days to a Healthier Church, Small Church Essentials.

[00:01:18] As a matter of fact, he also has a bi-weekly podcast called The Church

[00:01:22] Lobby, Conversations on Faith and Ministry.

[00:01:26] If you go to our website, you will see that we have a

[00:01:29] link to carlvaders.com.

[00:01:31] Scott McKnight says this book is needed more than ever.

[00:01:34] So I think you would certainly appreciate the conversation.

[00:01:37] And so Carl, thank you so very much for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:01:42] Thank you, Kirby.

[00:01:42] It's an honor to be with you.

[00:01:44] Let's if we can talk numbers and you start off by reminding us that

[00:01:48] we do use numbers, you know, how many social media followers do you

[00:01:51] have, so many individuals, all the rest.

[00:01:55] And, you know, I travel around and been in a number of churches over

[00:01:58] the years and speaking to others.

[00:02:00] And I've been in some churches where numbers really matter.

[00:02:03] And the pastor wants to know how many were in the service last week,

[00:02:07] how much came in in terms of tithing and actual contributions.

[00:02:12] But I know other churches where the pastor couldn't even tell you

[00:02:15] what the church budget is, wouldn't even know who some of the

[00:02:19] big givers in the church are.

[00:02:20] So there is wide variation in terms of numbers, but unfortunately

[00:02:25] numbers, though sometimes helpful in putting together a budget,

[00:02:29] can be our downfall.

[00:02:30] And that's been part of what has come from the church growth movement.

[00:02:34] Yeah, very true.

[00:02:35] What you've just described is actually some unhealthy extremes

[00:02:38] on either end of things.

[00:02:40] It's not that numbers don't matter.

[00:02:42] It's that numbers have to be used in the right way.

[00:02:44] And I think of those two extremes you described of the pastor

[00:02:48] who's obsessed with numbers or the pastor who can't even tell you

[00:02:50] what the budget is, I think you're going to have far more pastors

[00:02:54] on the obsessed with numbers end of things.

[00:02:56] Yes, I don't know that I've ever met a pastor who isn't concerned

[00:03:00] with numbers, who isn't aware of the church budget, but I've met

[00:03:03] a whole lot who seem to live their entire lives obsessed

[00:03:07] with getting the numbers up and in fact, who end up getting into

[00:03:10] some very difficult and even unbiblical situations because the drive

[00:03:14] for numbers becomes so dominant in our thought process.

[00:03:17] I might just mention too that not only are we going to be talking

[00:03:19] about church growth, but you have a whole section.

[00:03:22] And of course, you have that on your website as well about why

[00:03:25] Christian celebrity culture guarantees moral failure.

[00:03:30] And of course, you have many examples of that as well.

[00:03:33] But part of this is idolatry, you say.

[00:03:37] And I think it is that when all of a sudden and this is maybe more

[00:03:41] a North American phenomenon, bigger is better.

[00:03:44] More numbers is better.

[00:03:46] Success is determined by numbers.

[00:03:48] You can go to places in Africa where they are actually measuring it

[00:03:52] in terms of whether or not you are still involved

[00:03:57] in some kind of demonic activity or the occult or whether you're growing

[00:04:01] and raising a family, whether you're true to your family.

[00:04:04] And so in some respects, we have a real problem

[00:04:07] in this North American culture with numbers and with our, if you will,

[00:04:12] maybe ideological success definitions, right?

[00:04:17] Yeah, that's very true.

[00:04:18] That's part of what I discovered in doing the research for desizing the church.

[00:04:23] I've worked with small churches for a lot.

[00:04:26] I've been in small church ministry for my entire ministry life over 40 years.

[00:04:30] But for the last 11 or so years, I've been writing and speaking

[00:04:33] to small church pastors about how small churches have a great role

[00:04:38] to play in the body of Christ and trying to find small church

[00:04:41] specific resources for them.

[00:04:42] But a couple of years ago, I started asking myself,

[00:04:45] why is this a thing that we're constantly having to push back against?

[00:04:49] Stop worrying about getting the numbers up.

[00:04:51] Where did this obsession with numbers come from?

[00:04:54] Because nothing comes from nowhere.

[00:04:56] It's not a natural human state necessarily that bigger is better.

[00:05:00] So it had to come from somewhere.

[00:05:01] So I did the research that I did.

[00:05:03] I did a deep dive, first of all, into church growth history.

[00:05:06] And that actually led to a deep dive into American history.

[00:05:10] And it turns out that our obsession with numbers in the church

[00:05:14] I think the primary culprit is some unintended consequences

[00:05:19] to some of America's best ideas.

[00:05:22] Yes. And I appreciate that because that's how you start out

[00:05:25] one of your chapters.

[00:05:26] This great idea can have unintended consequences.

[00:05:30] But you begin with a quote from Francis Chan.

[00:05:32] Will your church grow?

[00:05:33] He says, well, that's actually the wrong questions to ask,

[00:05:36] because Jesus never used those things as metrics.

[00:05:39] But let's since you've done such a deep dive,

[00:05:42] go to the church growth movement, Donald McAvran,

[00:05:46] and just some of the things that probably would be familiar

[00:05:51] to some of our listeners.

[00:05:52] But maybe we need to put on the table so everybody is working

[00:05:56] from the same assumption.

[00:05:58] And can you give us kind of a brief history of the church growth movement?

[00:06:01] Sure can. It'll be as brief as I can make it.

[00:06:04] But just so your listeners know, it will be fairly lengthy

[00:06:07] because there's a lot in this, but it's very engaging as well.

[00:06:11] So Donald McAvran was a minister, a missionary in India

[00:06:15] for his entire time of ministry.

[00:06:17] And we're talking from the 1940s, 50s, 60s.

[00:06:20] And during that season, especially during the end of his season

[00:06:24] in India, he started hearing about entire villages in India

[00:06:29] where everybody in the village had come to faith in Christ all at once.

[00:06:33] Yes. And at first he dismissed that and thought, well, that's just crazy talk.

[00:06:36] There's no way that's the case.

[00:06:38] But he was serious enough about this that he actually went to these villages

[00:06:41] to see what had actually happened.

[00:06:43] And he discovered, yes, there were villages where every single person

[00:06:47] in the village has become a true believer in Christ and is being discipled.

[00:06:52] And so he thought, there's something going on here.

[00:06:54] And I want to study this because maybe there are principles

[00:06:58] undergirding this that we can learn from

[00:07:00] because we want to see Christ's church grow.

[00:07:03] So he studied several villages.

[00:07:05] And then after he retired as a missionary,

[00:07:08] he spent several months in Africa, going to several African countries

[00:07:12] where similar things were happening in different African villages.

[00:07:15] He then came home and took all of this research and put it together

[00:07:19] in his first book called The Bridges of God,

[00:07:22] which came out in the early 1960s.

[00:07:24] And this book is considered universally understood

[00:07:28] by any church growth leader you talk to as the first church growth book ever.

[00:07:32] In fact, it was the first place where the term church growth ever appeared in print.

[00:07:38] And a whole lot of the basic thought processes and kind of questions

[00:07:42] we ask about church growth started in that book from Donald McGovern.

[00:07:45] So his book and his name are almost forgotten today.

[00:07:50] But that's where it began.

[00:07:51] Let me jump in real quickly.

[00:07:52] So we have to take a break.

[00:07:53] And I want to go from there because one of his early students was Peter

[00:07:57] Wagner. We want to talk about that.

[00:07:59] We're going to also go from there to not only the bridges of God

[00:08:03] to understanding church growth and this whole idea,

[00:08:06] because once you understand the history, you can see that it was well intended.

[00:08:10] And it really came from great observation.

[00:08:13] But at the same time, it took some detours that, of course,

[00:08:17] we are still living with today.

[00:08:19] And so I think it's very important that you understand that part of it.

[00:08:23] It is part of the D sizing the church book.

[00:08:26] It is published by our good friends at Moody.

[00:08:28] Carl Vader's is with us.

[00:08:30] And if you would like to know more about him, we have a link to his website.

[00:08:34] You will find all sorts of information there.

[00:08:36] You can subscribe to his newsletter.

[00:08:38] I even get more information about this book and some of the videos.

[00:08:42] So let's continue our conversation with Carl right after these important messages.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Today is the National Day of Prayer.

[00:09:06] It is a vital part of our American heritage.

[00:09:08] The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution.

[00:09:11] In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonists

[00:09:15] to pray for wisdom as they considered how they would respond to the King of England.

[00:09:19] Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President

[00:09:22] Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War in 1863.

[00:09:25] He issued a proclamation for a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer.

[00:09:29] Here is some of that proclamation.

[00:09:31] He said, We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven.

[00:09:35] We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity.

[00:09:39] We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

[00:09:43] But we have forgotten God.

[00:09:45] We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace

[00:09:47] and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us.

[00:09:50] We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts

[00:09:53] that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

[00:09:58] Intoxicated with unbroken success, we become too self-sufficient

[00:10:02] to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace,

[00:10:05] too proud to pray to the God that made us.

[00:10:08] In 1952, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a resolution

[00:10:12] declaring an annual National Day of Prayer.

[00:10:15] In 1988, President Reagan signed into law a bill that designated

[00:10:18] the first Thursday of May at the time for a National Day of Prayer.

[00:10:22] It is estimated that there have been more than 130 national calls

[00:10:25] to prayer, humiliation, fasting and thanksgiving by Presidents of the United States.

[00:10:30] There have been 60 presidential proclamations for a National Day of Prayer

[00:10:33] because every President has signed these proclamations.

[00:10:36] Today is the National Day of Prayer.

[00:10:38] Please pray for this nation and its leaders.

[00:10:41] I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] The book is Desizing the Church.

[00:11:06] Carl Vader's with us, How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession and What's Next.

[00:11:11] And again, we left Donald McGovern with the book The Bridges of God.

[00:11:15] But then he had a second book called Understanding Church Growth.

[00:11:20] That came out in 1970 and that really kind of launched

[00:11:23] the whole church growth movement, didn't it?

[00:11:26] Really did.

[00:11:27] His two books, The Bridges of God and Understanding Church Growth,

[00:11:31] are absolutely essential works to understand how we started thinking differently about

[00:11:38] church growth.

[00:11:39] And it was out of those that he was invited to go to Fuller Seminary in Pasadena

[00:11:43] to begin the Church Growth Institute, which again is also considered a landmark

[00:11:48] place for the church growth movement.

[00:11:50] But what's really weird is for the first seven years

[00:11:54] that he taught the Church Growth Institute at Fuller Seminary,

[00:11:58] he did not allow American pastors to attend.

[00:12:01] And that's something.

[00:12:02] Yeah, it's really strange.

[00:12:03] Now, obviously he can't just say no American pastors allowed.

[00:12:06] So what he did was he put up three restrictions.

[00:12:08] He said you can only be in the class if you have mastered a second language other than English,

[00:12:13] if you have been in ministry on a foreign field,

[00:12:18] and third, if you can express an expertise about an Indigenous people group that's not your own.

[00:12:25] And that of course excludes 99.9% of American pastors.

[00:12:29] And in wondering why he did that, I actually had a conversation

[00:12:33] with several conversations really with Gary McIntosh, who is McAvron's biographer.

[00:12:38] And in talking with McIntosh, he said,

[00:12:41] yeah, the reason Donald McAvron didn't want American pastors in is because

[00:12:46] he knew that the American setting was very different from the African and Indian settings

[00:12:51] that he had done this study in.

[00:12:52] And his concern was that American pastors would take these principles,

[00:12:56] which were intended to help increase Christians as a percentage of the population,

[00:13:02] and that we would turn those principles into how do we make a bigger church,

[00:13:06] or what I like to call we want to have a big church contest.

[00:13:11] And he thought that's not the point.

[00:13:13] Bigger churches aren't the point.

[00:13:14] Bringing people to Christ is the point.

[00:13:16] Increasing the percentage of Christians in the community is the point.

[00:13:19] If the best way to do that is to have a whole bunch of small churches,

[00:13:22] then let's have a whole bunch of small churches.

[00:13:24] If the best way to do that is to have one big church,

[00:13:26] then let's have one big church.

[00:13:28] But the idea of individual churches getting bigger was not even close to his central thing.

[00:13:33] But once we did get a hold of that, basically for seven years he taught it without Americans.

[00:13:38] And then he and as you mentioned earlier,

[00:13:41] C. Peter Wagner, one of his first students, in 1972,

[00:13:44] they taught the first ever class that included American pastors.

[00:13:48] There were only about 20 people in the class, but that is

[00:13:51] the spark point for the entire church growth movement, that class in 1972.

[00:13:55] And as it turns out, while the church growth movement did a lot of great things in America,

[00:14:01] we also did the things that McGovern feared,

[00:14:03] and that is we made it all about individual churches getting bigger.

[00:14:07] Yes.

[00:14:08] Well, and you refer to this as kind of a made-in-America phenomenon.

[00:14:13] And if you think about this, what preceded him,

[00:14:15] let's just give a little bit of church history because you do so in a chapter or two.

[00:14:19] We had the first great awakening, we had the second great awakening,

[00:14:23] we've had other kind of awakenings and revivals.

[00:14:27] So once you had this kind of gasoline putting on the revival fires,

[00:14:33] you have a forest fire, you have a conflagration, don't you?

[00:14:38] Yeah, you do.

[00:14:39] And the question becomes, of course, where did it, why is it that America was the place

[00:14:44] that this bigger is better came from?

[00:14:46] And as I mentioned earlier, it's actually an unintended consequence of some of our best ideas.

[00:14:52] And by America's best ideas, I mean like the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights

[00:14:57] to the Constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press,

[00:15:00] freedom of assembly.

[00:15:02] These are America's best ideas.

[00:15:04] They are just phenomenal.

[00:15:06] It is hard for us to understand today how revolutionary they were in their time.

[00:15:12] But here's kind of what happens with that.

[00:15:15] The people who wrote those great words, those revolutionary world changing words,

[00:15:21] mostly came from Northern Europe.

[00:15:22] And in Northern Europe, they had church, they had state churches.

[00:15:27] State churches.

[00:15:28] Yeah, part of what they were rebelling against was we don't want to be in

[00:15:31] the state church, we don't want the state to tell us how to worship,

[00:15:34] we want to be in a place where we can worship the way we want to believe what we want to.

[00:15:38] And so they found this document.

[00:15:40] But what we don't understand, it's really hard for us to believe today in America,

[00:15:44] is when the European countries they came from, if there is a state church,

[00:15:51] then the state actually collected the tithes for the church through the tax base.

[00:15:57] So if you were in a church that was approved by the state,

[00:16:01] the pastor and the church received a check monthly from the government

[00:16:05] pay the pastor's salary and to keep the upkeep of the building.

[00:16:09] Now, when you come to America, there's no state church, which is good.

[00:16:12] But that also means the church, the state ain't paying your bills.

[00:16:16] So what you have to do now is in order to get more money,

[00:16:21] the pastors who can draw a bigger crowd can get more money,

[00:16:24] can build a bigger church and the entrepreneurial pastor is born.

[00:16:29] And again, you talk about that.

[00:16:30] Nathan Hatch talks about that and all the rest because

[00:16:33] again, bigger becomes better because bigger means you have a bigger budget.

[00:16:38] And so you are again, I'm glad we don't have state churches,

[00:16:41] but it then created sort of an entrepreneurial mindset among church leaders,

[00:16:47] pastors and others.

[00:16:49] And then it began to take off.

[00:16:51] So what then happened is that you then have a series of what you call streams

[00:16:58] that kind of come together and you sort of illustrated some of those.

[00:17:01] But it'd be probably good to talk about how those streams came together

[00:17:05] and how that gave us the world that we find ourselves in today.

[00:17:10] Yeah, so what we've just described are the MacGavran stream and the American stream.

[00:17:14] The American stream pre-existed the MacGavran stream by several hundred years

[00:17:18] and MacGavran as an American missionary,

[00:17:20] you know, missionary from America to other countries,

[00:17:23] he was aware of these streams.

[00:17:26] So MacGavran put words to it and MacGavran put principles behind it

[00:17:30] and MacGavran gave a base of study and understanding.

[00:17:34] And he was even a student of sociology and anthropology.

[00:17:38] So he gave some clarification and some language to all of this.

[00:17:45] But the pre-existing American stream was so much bigger,

[00:17:50] so much stronger and so much more in our lives every day.

[00:17:54] This is the water we're swimming in.

[00:17:57] We are fish swimming in the American stream

[00:17:59] and we don't recognize the some of the characteristics

[00:18:04] of the water that we're swimming in

[00:18:06] because fish just don't know what water is.

[00:18:08] And that's what we are.

[00:18:09] MacGavran comes in, he's got these new ideas,

[00:18:12] but the overwhelming American stream comes in.

[00:18:15] So some of the key differences were, for instance,

[00:18:17] MacGavran is studying how God builds churches and how God does things.

[00:18:24] But the American stream that pre-existed from folks like Charles Finney,

[00:18:29] who was probably the first one to do this, and folks like Moody and so on.

[00:18:35] Here we are on Moody radio, on Moody as my publisher.

[00:18:38] But they, in addition to being men of God who believed in God

[00:18:43] and who absolutely were moved upon by God to do great things,

[00:18:47] they also came along and kind of codified it and said,

[00:18:50] well, but here's also how to draw a crowd.

[00:18:53] And so they really came along with not just how to it,

[00:18:55] but here's how I did it.

[00:18:57] Now you duplicate that.

[00:18:59] And so if you look around at most church growth books or church growth conferences,

[00:19:05] it's really not, hey, here are some basic principles we can learn from.

[00:19:08] It's let's put the guy on stage who's pastoring the biggest church in the room.

[00:19:13] Let's have that pastor tell us how they did it in their church.

[00:19:18] And now let's see if we can duplicate it in our church.

[00:19:20] But it doesn't work that way because God always

[00:19:24] insists on doing things differently in different places with different people.

[00:19:29] The underlying principles stay the same, and that's what McAvon wanted to discover.

[00:19:33] Mike Hichsendorf Well, we need to take a break,

[00:19:35] but I thought when we come back, we might talk about how did we get mega churches?

[00:19:40] Because mega churches historically did not necessarily exist.

[00:19:45] And of course you have a quote from how mega church was one, the heart of America.

[00:19:51] And some of those are in the Catholic tradition.

[00:19:54] Some of those are in the Pentecostal tradition.

[00:19:56] Some of those are in the what we would today call the evangelical tradition.

[00:20:01] So there were a few, but very, very few.

[00:20:04] Now there are many more.

[00:20:06] So I do want to talk about that just briefly when we come back from the break.

[00:20:10] But then I'll really get to the meat of your book,

[00:20:12] and that is the consequences of our Sives obsession

[00:20:18] and why the Christian celebrity culture guarantees moral failure,

[00:20:23] in which you have some ways to resist that by lowering the platform,

[00:20:27] sharing the platform, leave the platform, remove the platform.

[00:20:31] You have a lot of that material on your website as well.

[00:20:34] And then when the church growth movement went sideways,

[00:20:38] a very significant issue as well.

[00:20:41] And then we'll come back and talk about the size and scale and influence

[00:20:45] and really one of the most important issues, of course, is integrity.

[00:20:49] It's all part of this book, Desizing the Church,

[00:20:53] how church growth became a science than an obsession.

[00:20:55] And what's next?

[00:20:57] Carl Vader's with us.

[00:20:58] And if you would like during the break to go to his website,

[00:21:00] it's carlvaders.com.

[00:21:02] Don't even have to know how to spell his name

[00:21:03] because it is right there on our website at pointofview.net.

[00:21:07] If you'd like to get a copy of the book,

[00:21:09] I would imagine you probably would find it in your local bookstore.

[00:21:11] But if not, we have a way in which you can get it in paperback or Kindle,

[00:21:15] of course, you can go to his website and find out more as well.

[00:21:18] Let's take a break as we continue looking at this whole idea of church growth

[00:21:22] and in particular the church growth movement.

[00:21:24] We'll be back right after this.

[00:21:31] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle

[00:21:36] not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:40] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism

[00:21:44] and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:48] London was in many ways the center of the world economically,

[00:21:52] militarily and intellectually.

[00:21:55] Marx sought to destroy religion, the family

[00:21:57] and everything the Bible supports.

[00:21:59] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:22:04] Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth,

[00:22:08] it is truth for all of life.

[00:22:11] Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom

[00:22:13] to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:16] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues

[00:22:19] delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints Commentary

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[00:23:10] And now here again is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:14] Continue your conversation today as we talk about desizing the church.

[00:23:17] Carl Vader's with us and Carl for just a minute we might talk about the fact

[00:23:20] that mega churches are not a uniquely American phenomenon.

[00:23:24] There are certainly some other examples of that in South Korea

[00:23:28] and places like that, but you do remind us that because of the suburbs

[00:23:34] and because of just the kind of American entrepreneurialism,

[00:23:38] we ended up getting a lot more mega churches here in the United States,

[00:23:42] didn't we?

[00:23:43] Yeah, that's very true.

[00:23:45] The mega church like you say is not exclusively American,

[00:23:48] but it is particularly American.

[00:23:51] And as you said even some of my study in American history fascinatingly

[00:23:55] had to do with the rise of the suburbs.

[00:23:56] So in the 1960s when the interstates came in,

[00:24:00] it allowed people who used to have to live and work inside the city

[00:24:04] to be able to buy a home outside the city with lots of land

[00:24:07] and then generally dad would commute into the city and back out again.

[00:24:11] So you had the explosion of the suburbs and in the suburbs,

[00:24:14] you had all kinds of space.

[00:24:16] And so now you had large schools and large parks and large malls.

[00:24:20] And when the churches moved out, they kind of followed that pattern

[00:24:25] and made larger churches as well and kind of even made them look

[00:24:28] and feel like the typical suburban shopping mall.

[00:24:31] So today when you think about a mega church,

[00:24:34] what pops into most people's mind is a large campus

[00:24:38] in a very wealthy suburb just outside of a large city.

[00:24:43] And that's the picture we have because that's about where 80% of mega churches are.

[00:24:48] But in 1969, there were only 16 churches in the entire country

[00:24:53] that were at 2000 or more, which is what a mega church is.

[00:24:56] Today there's over 1800 of them.

[00:24:59] So there has been a huge explosion of the big church

[00:25:02] over the last 40 or 50 years.

[00:25:04] This is not a bad thing,

[00:25:06] but it's something that we need to come to terms with

[00:25:08] what kind of consequences are behind that.

[00:25:09] Well, we're going to spend the rest of time talking about consequences.

[00:25:12] One of those is the celebrity culture.

[00:25:15] You got a quote from Beth Moore,

[00:25:17] humans were not fashioned by God for celebrity.

[00:25:20] We can't take it.

[00:25:20] I'm telling you it's too much.

[00:25:22] And again, if you get prominence in media,

[00:25:27] prominence with bestselling books, prominence as a pastor,

[00:25:31] I've oftentimes said that both the strength and weakness,

[00:25:35] the positive and the negative of being a talk show host

[00:25:37] as I get to interview so many of these great people.

[00:25:41] And some of them are just genuinely nice people to be around.

[00:25:44] And a lot of them are really believing their press clippings.

[00:25:48] And we've created a celebrity culture, haven't we?

[00:25:51] We really have.

[00:25:52] I want to be careful in the phrasing of this.

[00:25:54] The title of the chapter is inevitable.

[00:25:57] Why the Christian celebrity culture guarantees moral failure.

[00:26:01] I am not saying that becoming a Christian celebrity

[00:26:04] means you have or will fail morally.

[00:26:07] There are, as you have met,

[00:26:09] many well-known Christians that we would call celebrities

[00:26:12] who are maintaining their faith,

[00:26:13] who are maintaining their integrity,

[00:26:15] who have a high moral standard

[00:26:17] and who are wonderful and delightful to be around.

[00:26:20] But the celebrity culture guarantees

[00:26:23] that there will be moral failing

[00:26:24] because that celebrity culture attracts narcissists.

[00:26:28] It attracts, if we put a spotlight on a stage,

[00:26:31] it attracts people who want to be in that spotlight.

[00:26:34] So the culture itself, that whole vibe around it,

[00:26:38] you're going to have narcissists attracted to that.

[00:26:40] You're going to have egotists attracted to that.

[00:26:44] And sometimes from the seat,

[00:26:45] it's hard to distinguish between the person

[00:26:48] who's in the spotlight because their content is good

[00:26:51] and that God has just simply given them a larger audience

[00:26:54] and those who are in the spotlight

[00:26:56] because they just simply want the spotlight to be upon them.

[00:27:00] But we need to be able to come up with ways

[00:27:02] to distinguish between those two.

[00:27:03] And I might just mention that you talk about this in the book,

[00:27:06] but also if you go to carlvaders.com,

[00:27:08] you've got a section on to resist the relentless pull

[00:27:11] towards celebrity, I suggest, for steps.

[00:27:14] And one of those, of course, is to lower the platform,

[00:27:17] another to share the platform,

[00:27:19] another is to leave the platform,

[00:27:21] and another is to remove the platform entirely.

[00:27:24] Can you kind of go through that real quickly

[00:27:26] before we get into the next consequence?

[00:27:28] Because this is an important issue

[00:27:30] and I'm hoping that you will get to speak

[00:27:32] maybe at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention,

[00:27:34] Christian Booksellers Convention,

[00:27:36] some places like that because this is a message

[00:27:39] that needs to be heard and you need to be able to give it.

[00:27:42] Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

[00:27:44] Yeah, let's walk through the four of them.

[00:27:46] First of all, we need to lower the platform.

[00:27:52] When I speak, I speak to small church groups

[00:27:54] and so I typically speak to a group of 70.

[00:27:56] Every once in a while, it'll be a group of, you know,

[00:27:58] a couple hundred or so, but recently I had the chance

[00:28:00] to speak to a very large conference of 7,000 pastors

[00:28:04] and I was on a stage that was literally taller

[00:28:08] than the roof of the building of the church that I pastor.

[00:28:14] And the people in the front row were twice as far away from me

[00:28:18] as the back row is in the church that I'm serving.

[00:28:21] Isn't that funny?

[00:28:22] And so I'm standing up there and I'm thinking

[00:28:25] just the physical placement of this

[00:28:28] and the fact that it's being live streamed,

[00:28:31] there is something about the height of that

[00:28:33] and about the spotlight of that

[00:28:35] that can be very, very dangerous.

[00:28:37] And what I also noticed was when I left,

[00:28:41] when I go to a typical conference again,

[00:28:42] I usually talk to small church pastors

[00:28:44] and if I go to a conference of 100 or 200 pastors

[00:28:46] and often a dozen or so,

[00:28:48] I walk in and I don't know anybody,

[00:28:50] but by the end of the day, I walk out

[00:28:52] and I actually know some people

[00:28:53] because we've had time for conversation

[00:28:55] and Q&A and back and forth

[00:28:57] and we've shared contact information.

[00:28:59] I walked into that conference

[00:29:01] not knowing anybody of those 7,000

[00:29:03] and I walked out not knowing one of those 7,000 people

[00:29:07] because the platform created a distance

[00:29:10] that we need to be careful about.

[00:29:11] So lowering the platform means getting closer

[00:29:15] to the people and not purposely distancing yourself.

[00:29:18] Secondly, we should share the platform.

[00:29:20] I think one of the great trends

[00:29:22] that's happening right now is the teaching team

[00:29:25] and also when I see worship teams,

[00:29:27] they are often sharing the lead.

[00:29:30] It used to be that a worship team

[00:29:31] had only one lead singer

[00:29:32] and now you can have three songs

[00:29:34] and have three different lead singers for that.

[00:29:36] Yes.

[00:29:36] You can have a teaching team at a church

[00:29:38] where you don't know which pastor

[00:29:39] is going to preach on Sunday

[00:29:41] and it doesn't matter

[00:29:42] because you're committed to Christ and his church

[00:29:44] and not necessarily to the person on the platform.

[00:29:46] So sharing the platform is helpful.

[00:29:48] Thirdly, we need to leave the platform regularly.

[00:29:52] There's a reason why my podcast

[00:29:54] is called The Church Lobby

[00:29:55] because you can tell more

[00:29:57] about the health of the church

[00:29:58] by walking through the lobby

[00:29:59] than by what comes from the platform

[00:30:02] and in this next generation or so,

[00:30:05] this generation is going to care more

[00:30:07] about connecting to the pastor

[00:30:09] and to the other church leaders in the lobby

[00:30:11] than by the excellence

[00:30:12] of what's coming from the stage.

[00:30:14] In my generation, the Boomers,

[00:30:15] we were impressed by the stentorian voice

[00:30:19] from the platform.

[00:30:20] Today, that feels phony

[00:30:23] and the person standing with you

[00:30:24] and taking time to look you in the eye

[00:30:26] in the lobby, that's what matters.

[00:30:28] So pastors, we've got to leave

[00:30:29] the platform more often

[00:30:31] and then finally some platforms

[00:30:33] have got to be removed entirely.

[00:30:35] We have all heard story after sad story

[00:30:38] of pastors who have fallen,

[00:30:39] who have failed many of them

[00:30:40] because they were pursuing numbers so much

[00:30:42] that they compromised in order to get there

[00:30:45] and then after they got into a point

[00:30:47] of hopefully recovery,

[00:30:48] it seems that they want to rush back

[00:30:50] to those platforms again

[00:30:52] and there are times

[00:30:53] and there are places

[00:30:54] where some platforms should never be

[00:30:56] re-erected because the damage

[00:30:58] has just been too deep.

[00:31:00] Just amazing.

[00:31:01] So some really important issues

[00:31:02] to address in terms of celebrity

[00:31:05] but just before we take a break,

[00:31:07] there are some places

[00:31:08] where you think the church growth movement

[00:31:10] got it right and then some other places

[00:31:11] where it went sideways.

[00:31:12] I do. I am actually a,

[00:31:14] I am still a fan

[00:31:15] of the church growth movement.

[00:31:17] I think it's been around long enough

[00:31:18] that now we have enough distance

[00:31:20] to be able to make some assessment

[00:31:22] and see some of the unintended

[00:31:23] negative consequences

[00:31:25] and so that's what I try to do

[00:31:26] in my book but I do believe

[00:31:28] the church growth movement

[00:31:28] got several things right.

[00:31:30] The church growth movement

[00:31:31] had a great emphasis on the importance

[00:31:33] of the local church and that's huge.

[00:31:35] Church growth movement

[00:31:36] and mega church pastors

[00:31:38] in particularly are some of the most

[00:31:39] generous people that I've ever known.

[00:31:41] There's nobody out there

[00:31:42] who comes up with a church growth idea

[00:31:44] or church leadership concept

[00:31:46] and trademarks it.

[00:31:47] They immediately put it out as quickly

[00:31:50] and as cheaply as possible

[00:31:51] on a free podcast or in a book

[00:31:53] or at a conference.

[00:31:54] There is a great generosity

[00:31:56] and a great sharing of that

[00:31:57] and the whole church planting movement

[00:32:00] to a large degree really became

[00:32:02] came to the forefront

[00:32:03] because of the church growth movement.

[00:32:05] So that and many, many other things

[00:32:07] are very, very great positives

[00:32:10] about the church growth movement

[00:32:11] for which I'm really appreciative.

[00:32:13] So again, those are just a couple of issues.

[00:32:15] When we come back,

[00:32:16] we'll talk a little bit more about

[00:32:17] what to do with this whole idea

[00:32:20] of a big small divide

[00:32:22] and really again how to smart

[00:32:24] start as you said, desizing

[00:32:27] because it seems to me that integrity

[00:32:29] and competence are really important.

[00:32:32] So we'll talk about some other issues

[00:32:34] related to that.

[00:32:35] But if you find yourself saying,

[00:32:36] well, I've peaked my own

[00:32:39] peaked my interest.

[00:32:41] You've whet my appetite.

[00:32:42] I'd like to know a little bit more.

[00:32:43] Let me just mention that this book

[00:32:45] is published by Moody Publishing.

[00:32:47] It has about 230 pages,

[00:32:49] some great content,

[00:32:51] a lot of which has come out

[00:32:53] of the years of experience

[00:32:54] that Carl Vader's has been involved

[00:32:56] in ministry.

[00:32:57] We do have a link to his website

[00:32:59] and you go there,

[00:33:00] you'll find a number of great resources

[00:33:02] whole section on helping

[00:33:04] small churches thrive.

[00:33:05] So whether you're in a church

[00:33:07] that is very large or very small,

[00:33:09] I think you're going to find

[00:33:10] some great resources there.

[00:33:12] If you'd like to have him come

[00:33:13] and speak to your group,

[00:33:14] there's a contact section.

[00:33:16] There's information about his other

[00:33:18] books and resources of which

[00:33:20] there are quite a few that I mentioned.

[00:33:22] And then you can go to the speaking

[00:33:23] and see kind of his menu

[00:33:26] of speaking and topics

[00:33:27] and conference material.

[00:33:29] And so if you'd like to contact him,

[00:33:31] again, it's very simple.

[00:33:32] It is CarlVaders.com

[00:33:35] and if you would like to know more,

[00:33:36] it's on our website at pointofview.net.

[00:33:39] We'll be right back.

[00:33:56] You're listening to Point of View,

[00:33:59] your listener supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] Back for a few more minutes again

[00:34:02] as we talk about the book,

[00:34:04] Desizing the Church,

[00:34:05] Carl Vader's with us

[00:34:06] and you have a whole section

[00:34:07] on how to start desizing.

[00:34:09] And one of those issues,

[00:34:11] you say is integrity.

[00:34:13] It's the new competence.

[00:34:15] And then you also talk about

[00:34:16] the very significant need

[00:34:19] for discipleship.

[00:34:20] And it does seem to me

[00:34:21] that when you talk about

[00:34:23] some of the things

[00:34:24] that need to be changed in the church,

[00:34:26] maybe we need to go back

[00:34:27] to the manual called the Bible.

[00:34:30] Yeah, there's an idea.

[00:34:32] Yeah, those two chapters

[00:34:34] are where the book makes

[00:34:35] the all-important turn

[00:34:37] from describing the problem

[00:34:38] and where it came from

[00:34:39] to let's take a look

[00:34:40] at some potential solutions.

[00:34:42] And it's very easy

[00:34:44] to want to get technical

[00:34:45] and say, well, if we do this method better

[00:34:47] or that method better.

[00:34:48] But I really push back against that

[00:34:50] because you're not going to find

[00:34:52] anybody out there who says

[00:34:53] they're deconstructing their faith

[00:34:55] or calls themselves an ex-vangelical

[00:34:57] or whatever the terminology may be.

[00:34:59] You won't find anybody out there

[00:35:00] who says, you know what?

[00:35:02] I left the church

[00:35:04] because of technical problems.

[00:35:07] Yeah, I didn't like the drums.

[00:35:09] I didn't like the music.

[00:35:11] I didn't like the skinny jeans

[00:35:13] of the pastor, whatever it was.

[00:35:14] Yeah.

[00:35:15] Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:15] And so we're working on

[00:35:16] all these technical issues

[00:35:17] and they ought to be

[00:35:18] we ought to get our technical stuff right.

[00:35:20] I got no problem with getting it right.

[00:35:21] But we're not going to

[00:35:24] fix the problems

[00:35:25] of the American church

[00:35:27] through better techniques

[00:35:28] and better management

[00:35:29] because that's not what got us here.

[00:35:30] What got us here is a lack of integrity

[00:35:32] and we're only going to fix it

[00:35:33] by getting our integrity back again.

[00:35:35] So the first chapter

[00:35:37] where that term makes is,

[00:35:38] as you said,

[00:35:40] called Integrity is the New Competence.

[00:35:42] For 40 years now

[00:35:44] in the church growth movement,

[00:35:45] we've been teaching better technique,

[00:35:47] better methods, better systems.

[00:35:49] And I'm all for

[00:35:50] the best techniques

[00:35:51] and methods and systems we can find.

[00:35:53] But during that time

[00:35:55] where we have really become

[00:35:57] very, very good at some things,

[00:36:00] we have also seen a decline

[00:36:02] in the percentage of Christians

[00:36:04] in America

[00:36:05] and in simply the moral

[00:36:06] and ethical state of America.

[00:36:08] And let's face it,

[00:36:10] of many in the American church as well.

[00:36:13] So we have got

[00:36:15] if we spent 40 years on technical,

[00:36:17] let's spend the 40 years

[00:36:18] getting our integrity back in shape again.

[00:36:21] Because techniques change

[00:36:24] and even if we have a great revival,

[00:36:26] revivals cool down,

[00:36:28] but integrity is what will last

[00:36:31] in the long run.

[00:36:32] And that's what people

[00:36:33] are looking to us for.

[00:36:34] They're asking,

[00:36:35] are you going to be people of your word?

[00:36:38] And when we're not,

[00:36:39] we lose them.

[00:36:40] And when we are,

[00:36:41] that's the only way

[00:36:42] we have a chance to keep them.

[00:36:43] You also talk about discipleship

[00:36:45] and lots of times at a conference,

[00:36:47] people say,

[00:36:47] well, how do I fix Sunday school?

[00:36:49] And you go back and ask them,

[00:36:50] well, what's Sunday school for?

[00:36:52] And that is the best way

[00:36:54] to help people love Jesus

[00:36:56] and know the Bible.

[00:36:57] So it does seem to me that,

[00:36:59] you know, discipleship,

[00:37:01] I have a concept.

[00:37:01] Let's talk to people.

[00:37:02] Let's minister to people.

[00:37:04] Let's use biblical principles

[00:37:05] to disciple them in the word

[00:37:07] and to help them grow as Christians.

[00:37:09] Yeah, I actually had the nerve

[00:37:11] to entitle that chapter,

[00:37:13] discipleship fixes everything.

[00:37:15] I know.

[00:37:16] And I really paused and thought,

[00:37:19] Emma, do it.

[00:37:19] Is it really?

[00:37:20] And as I thought it through,

[00:37:21] I thought, you know what?

[00:37:23] I cannot come up with a single problem

[00:37:26] that a church could have

[00:37:27] that discipleship doesn't fix.

[00:37:29] Think about it.

[00:37:30] If you're in church,

[00:37:30] think about it.

[00:37:32] Lack of volunteers,

[00:37:33] discipleship fixes that.

[00:37:34] Lack of finances,

[00:37:35] discipleship fixes that.

[00:37:37] Conflict, immorality, immaturity,

[00:37:39] discipleship fixes it, fixes it, fixes it.

[00:37:42] And if I look through

[00:37:43] all the list of problems of church,

[00:37:45] discipleship is the fix,

[00:37:46] which makes sense

[00:37:47] because that's the thing

[00:37:48] Jesus told us to do.

[00:37:51] Jesus said,

[00:37:52] I will build my church.

[00:37:53] And then he looked at us and said,

[00:37:55] you go make disciples.

[00:37:56] And I've got this kind of

[00:37:58] comical conversation

[00:37:59] that goes on in my head

[00:38:00] where Jesus says that to us

[00:38:02] and we look at him and go,

[00:38:02] got it.

[00:38:03] We'll go build your church.

[00:38:04] And Jesus has to go,

[00:38:05] no, no, no, no.

[00:38:06] I will build my church.

[00:38:08] You go make disciples.

[00:38:09] And we go, oh, okay, I get it.

[00:38:11] We'll go build a church.

[00:38:12] No, no.

[00:38:15] Jesus called us to make disciples.

[00:38:18] And when we do that,

[00:38:20] all of the other problems

[00:38:21] becomes become less

[00:38:23] because discipleship

[00:38:24] is the fix for all of those things.

[00:38:26] Well, as I put in the book,

[00:38:27] there's one thing

[00:38:28] that discipleship won't fix.

[00:38:29] And that is discipleship

[00:38:30] will not fix the size

[00:38:31] of your church for two reasons.

[00:38:33] One, because the size

[00:38:35] of your church is not a problem to fix.

[00:38:38] And two, because there will be times,

[00:38:40] not often, most of the time,

[00:38:42] our integrity and our disciples

[00:38:45] and our growth go hand in hand.

[00:38:46] Most of the time,

[00:38:47] discipleship and numerical growth

[00:38:49] go hand in hand.

[00:38:50] But there will come occasional times

[00:38:52] where the church leaders

[00:38:54] have to make the choice.

[00:38:55] I can either choose for discipleship

[00:38:57] and possibly lose people

[00:38:59] or I can choose for numerical growth

[00:39:01] and water down the discipleship.

[00:39:03] And we need to pre-decide.

[00:39:05] We will always be on the side

[00:39:07] of discipleship over numbers

[00:39:08] and we will always be

[00:39:09] on the side of integrity over numbers.

[00:39:12] And if we can't make that decision

[00:39:14] easily, then we are in a dangerous place.

[00:39:16] John Ankerberg For sure.

[00:39:18] Well, just as we wind down,

[00:39:19] of course, there was this article

[00:39:21] years ago in Christianity today

[00:39:23] talking about the evangelical

[00:39:25] industrial complex,

[00:39:27] which is, of course, borrowing

[00:39:28] from Dwight Eisenhower's

[00:39:29] military industrial complex.

[00:39:31] So Keith Green referred to it

[00:39:32] as Jesus junk.

[00:39:34] And there's just a need to rethink

[00:39:36] a lot of things about the church.

[00:39:38] And that's why I really wanted people

[00:39:40] to know about the book.

[00:39:42] But Carl, for just a minute,

[00:39:43] let's talk about your website

[00:39:44] because it seems to me that people,

[00:39:47] if they would like to know more

[00:39:48] about this book

[00:39:49] or if they'd like to subscribe

[00:39:51] to your newsletter

[00:39:52] or if they would like to maybe

[00:39:54] even be able to hear your podcast

[00:39:56] on the church lobby

[00:39:58] or maybe invite you

[00:39:59] to come and speak.

[00:40:00] There's a lot of resources there.

[00:40:02] So can you kind of go through

[00:40:03] those real quickly?

[00:40:04] Carl Vaders Thank you.

[00:40:05] Yes, it's carlvaders.com

[00:40:07] and I've been getting

[00:40:07] a couple notices while we've been chatting

[00:40:09] that a couple folks have found it

[00:40:10] to be down.

[00:40:11] So we're getting some glitches

[00:40:12] but keep it up.

[00:40:13] Carlvaders.com is the website.

[00:40:15] The ministry is called

[00:40:16] Helping Small Churches Thrive.

[00:40:18] So at least once a week,

[00:40:19] I write an article that I put up there.

[00:40:21] It's typically small church resources,

[00:40:24] although recently it's really

[00:40:25] on desizing the church

[00:40:26] and some of these bigger issues.

[00:40:28] I also have guest articles

[00:40:29] by small church pastors

[00:40:31] and people who are in the small church space

[00:40:32] to help ministry like that.

[00:40:34] But we that's also the home

[00:40:36] for my podcast called The Church Lobby

[00:40:38] where we interview a church leader

[00:40:39] every second week

[00:40:41] and we talk about some of the things

[00:40:42] that really apply.

[00:40:43] And again, particularly

[00:40:44] and specifically we are very interested

[00:40:47] in helping the small church

[00:40:48] because small churches

[00:40:49] are 90% of the churches in the world

[00:40:52] and they serve half

[00:40:53] of the Christians in the world

[00:40:54] and they are typically

[00:40:55] vastly under resourced.

[00:40:58] Most of the resources we get

[00:40:59] come from a big church context

[00:41:01] and I'm grateful for them

[00:41:02] but most of them only work

[00:41:04] in a big church context.

[00:41:05] So we want to find

[00:41:06] and create resources

[00:41:07] that help small churches

[00:41:09] which again are 90%

[00:41:10] of the churches in the world

[00:41:11] and they serve half

[00:41:12] the Christians in the world.

[00:41:13] Wow, so again some great resources

[00:41:16] at carlvaders.com.

[00:41:18] This book is written in such a way

[00:41:20] that I would certainly

[00:41:21] encourage people to go through

[00:41:22] it individually

[00:41:24] but you do have in an appendix

[00:41:26] a church health assessment tool.

[00:41:29] So this could be something

[00:41:31] it seems to me

[00:41:32] that the church could go

[00:41:33] through collectively.

[00:41:35] Maybe pastors could go through it

[00:41:36] with their elder board

[00:41:38] or their deacons

[00:41:39] or something of that nature

[00:41:40] and so you really have it

[00:41:42] put together in a way to

[00:41:43] maybe start some conversation

[00:41:46] and get some people

[00:41:46] thinking a little bit more

[00:41:48] about whether or not

[00:41:49] they're accepting

[00:41:50] maybe the wrong church model

[00:41:53] to really be all

[00:41:54] that it's supposed to be

[00:41:56] as the body of Christ.

[00:41:57] So that's really kind of

[00:41:58] how you put the book together

[00:41:59] isn't it?

[00:42:00] It is and there's also

[00:42:01] another survey in there

[00:42:02] 10 questions based on

[00:42:04] do I need to desize

[00:42:05] where pastors can go.

[00:42:07] Have I been caught in this

[00:42:08] and you can actually

[00:42:09] answer 10 questions

[00:42:10] and if you answer them honestly

[00:42:11] you'll discover either

[00:42:13] you know either you don't need

[00:42:14] to desize or you've got

[00:42:15] some issues that you may not

[00:42:16] have been aware of.

[00:42:17] I want I don't want to prejudge

[00:42:20] I want people to be able

[00:42:21] to take the assessments themselves

[00:42:22] and get a good understanding

[00:42:24] of where they and their church

[00:42:25] are right now so they know

[00:42:26] what issues to work on.

[00:42:28] So again if your pastor

[00:42:29] go to chapter 14

[00:42:30] and that has those questions

[00:42:31] of course for everyone

[00:42:32] some of the questions at the end.

[00:42:34] So Carl I appreciate you

[00:42:36] putting the book together.

[00:42:37] Thank you in your busy life

[00:42:38] for giving us an hour today

[00:42:39] your own point of view.

[00:42:41] Thank you it's been great

[00:42:42] to be with you again desizing

[00:42:44] is of course choosing

[00:42:45] to evaluate the health

[00:42:47] and vitality of your congregation

[00:42:49] maybe your denomination

[00:42:51] maybe even a movement

[00:42:53] or a parachurch organization

[00:42:54] so I would encourage you

[00:42:56] to find out more about this.

[00:42:58] He has been in small

[00:42:59] church ministry for 40 years

[00:43:00] brings a lot of wisdom

[00:43:02] to the conversation

[00:43:03] desizing the church

[00:43:04] carvators

[00:43:05] and you've been listening

[00:43:06] to Point of View.

[00:43:11] Have you ever met a child

[00:43:13] you knew would do great things?

[00:43:15] They displayed

[00:43:16] remarkable imagination

[00:43:17] understanding and a zest

[00:43:19] for learning.

[00:43:20] Now imagine someone

[00:43:21] takes that child

[00:43:22] and instead of fostering

[00:43:24] their potential

[00:43:24] with a real education

[00:43:26] they feed them nothing

[00:43:27] but lies.

[00:43:28] You know that scenario

[00:43:29] isn't so far from reality.

[00:43:31] From a young age

[00:43:32] Americans are fed

[00:43:33] a consistent stream

[00:43:34] of distorted facts

[00:43:36] from the secular

[00:43:37] indoctrination

[00:43:38] they receive in many

[00:43:39] public schools

[00:43:40] to the biases presented

[00:43:41] as fact in many colleges

[00:43:43] and universities

[00:43:44] to the barrage

[00:43:45] of misinformation

[00:43:46] from the mainstream media

[00:43:48] and the lack of moral grounding

[00:43:50] in our society.

[00:43:51] It's not that Americans

[00:43:52] aren't capable

[00:43:53] of understanding the truth

[00:43:55] it's that they aren't

[00:43:56] exposed to it enough.

[00:43:58] You can expose more

[00:43:59] Americans to the truth

[00:44:00] when you give

[00:44:01] to Point of View

[00:44:02] where listeners receive

[00:44:04] facts perspective

[00:44:05] and biblical truth

[00:44:06] they don't get from society.

[00:44:08] As long as we have truth

[00:44:10] we have hope.

[00:44:11] Give today at pointofview.net

[00:44:14] or call 1-800-347-5151

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[00:44:28] Point of View is produced

[00:44:30] by Point of View Ministries.