Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 Dude, it is uh it is good to be back with you, man. It's We just we Yeah, I would say we just watched uh one of the greatest I think the last World Cups had had some of the greatest games I've ever seen like in a row with with Argentina. Like they just had 2022 is like the coolest run watching Messi just like run through. But we just watched uh we're coming off today when we're recording this. We just watched Argentina play Egypt. And I haven't watched a lot of soccer. I'm going to be honest. But we just watched the best 10 minutes of soccer I think I've ever seen in my life when Argentina coming down from 02 to win 3-2. It was crazy. It brings I didn't know we were going to go like current events. But like it goes it goes it brings my heart great joy when I get a text from you going like dude are you watching this and what did I text you back? Is the Pope Catholic? Of course I'm watching it.

1:45 Dude, I love I love all I love all forms of sport but watching greatness man. I think the older I get, the more I just love watching great people be great. Um, like I used to be I used to be such a LeBron hater. I've never been a messy hater. I I like but I used to be such a LeBron hater and now like with LeBron's longevity and what he's able to do, it's like dude, you can't hate this guy. I mean, you you appreciate what people you appreciate the price that's paid to build something. I remember I heard somebody talking about Peak Humanity and they were talking about Usain Bolt running the 100 mileer or Adele singing like at the at her absolute full th and it does make you appreciate cuz like look we're just a reflection of God's glory and but when you see like a peak reflection of what we know is peak there is something that just makes you stop and go like wow I did not know that was possible and it is a beautiful thing to behold so I'm glad that you appreciate that. Well, I think I think that's a deep thought, man. I think the tr that's the truth of what it is is you're watching on on a physical level, you're watching uh someone operate in the full measure of their potential.

2:51 Yeah. Right. For sure. And and like God's given us all that. And I think it resonates with everybody where everybody's like, "Man, I I it's so awesome that I'm watching someone be great." Because most people, right, are mediocre. With all due respect, I I just I think there's something special about when you see somebody who does something peak or when you you know nature is this way as well. I love that God put reflections of himself that you don't need an interpreter to understand. No one needs to tell you when you're watching like you know a ma a dribbling like a guy who's 39 dribble around people or just pop up again with yet another crucial goal like snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Like no one needs to tell you this is great. You're just sitting there going, "Wow." Like, you're just like, "How is how is he always in the right place?" It's amazing. I love it. And well, and it's such a it's it's like the word glory, you know, the word glory in the Bible, it's such an interesting word like this Greek word doca. It means it means how God reveals himself to the world, you know. So, when we say God gets the glory, it's or like the glory of God, what we're talking about like the heavens proclaim the glory of God, you know. Or in the book of um Romans, the Bible says that since the beginning of time, God's invisible attributes have been clearly seen in nature. Right? When we're like in the beauty of nature, it's like a whole spiritual message that God's sending us of of his of his glory and who he is. And the glory in in humanity, like even to me, the greatness of humanity is a reflection of God's greatness on some level.

4:23 No, I agree. I I think it's it was really um profound to me when I was reading in Exodus this year and I don't know if it somebody pointed out to me or if it was the Holy Spirit. I can't remember but I just remember when I read this it made so much sense. Moses asked God to show him his glory and God's response is and this is in Exodus 33. He says tomorrow I'll make all my goodness. Right? So when you say like what is God's glory? It's all his goodness. Then he proclaims his name the Lord the Lord. Right? And I just I love that so much that it's like so how do we what's our purpose? is to glorify God, to bring him glory. How do we do that? We proclaim all his goodness everywhere we go. Which means that whether we're whatever we're doing, right, whether eating or drinking, all things like that, we we would uh we would give glory to God and do it as unto him. So, I just I don't know. I think it's kind of a cool little initial thought and it's very much departed from where we're actually going cuz No, I don't think I don't think it is. I think uh it's cuz what's the purpose like what's the purpose of life on earth? you know, what's the what's the reason why God's put us on the earth to do anything that we're doing? It's to reveal the greatness of the, you know, Matthew 5, Jesus said, "Let people see your good works so they glorify your father in heaven." You know, and go ahead.

5:33 No, no, no. You keep going. Sorry. I was going to say and and we're going to talk about the church like the Capitol C church and there's no better there's no there's nothing on the earth that has a higher intention or potential or plan to do that than the church. Yeah. That reveals the glory of God to the world. Yeah. And that I mean that is the that is the design, right? Is that it's the church is meant to be uh it's what Jesus set up on the earth, right? So, it's like it's God's instrument in the earth um to oversimplify it. And it's interesting because you and I were talking about this beforehand. You know, there's so much research now, dude. I don't remember growing up that like Barna and Pew, I don't know if they existed back when we were kids, but like nowadays you have so much like great data on the church and like all this like you have factual stuff to talk about. And you know, Gen Z is coming back to the Lord, which is amazing, right? I think it's amazing to see how they're like they are, as they're saying, they're spiritual. A lot of them are are coming back. They're finding Christianity. And you know, one of the big influencers, I was actually listening to him because John Bevere was on his podcast, is Bryce Crawford. And Bryce Crawford's out in LA, and he's part of a home church. And I've been part of a home church. And now you and I are part of what would be considered quote unquote a mega church. As much as I hate that terminology.

6:49 Well, and you're part of like a really cool, more than a home church. You're part of a really cool church movement in the UK that like a lot of Americans especially don't know about. like the right the the church model that your that your wife Rian and her dad uh were a part of is like one of the coolest things, you know. Yeah, it it I mean, honestly, I didn't realize how special it was when I was there. I I'll tell you that that network is not I I don't know that it even exists anymore, which really, you know, I think that that's kind of what we want to look at today. What I'm I'm curious to pull out of you cuz I honestly don't know what where you're what you're going to pull out but like is just there's so many different ways of doing church right and people argue over stuff I when I was in my 20s I was like all four church like house churches because I was like look man you know I just I attended so many churches where you I don't believe in this you know it's all corrupt like I don't believe in like like gen like Jen these saying jin I don't like saying generations because it makes me feel like the old guy in the room right But but but everyone every generation thinks that they're the first one to be like disillusioned and dissatisfied by institutions or organizations, you know, like oh we're you know we're questioning authority for the first time in history.

8:02 Okay. Yeah. Okay. You know what's you know what's so funny is like dude the book of Ecclesiastes is so deep on this man cuz it it actually has one I read through it recently the entire book in two days and that's not that long. It's like 13 chapters. I made it sound like it was like a massive accomplishment. Um it took me 20 minutes but reading it like that was great because so many lines jumped off and one of these says is is he said to think of um to think of older days uh of the fondness of days past is is not wise. It was just very simple way of like saying don't dress up the past like don't don't over glamorize what's already been before and I we all do that but like when I was in my 20s I was hardcore like house church guy man I was like this is the greatest thing I've been like why would we waste so much resource on a building when we're the church which like okay that's a logical thought process and then it's like also you can't hide from relationship here like that's really important so I mean it had all these great things and like when something went wrong with people because the relationships like there were people that that were really there to help them right now. Was there weaknesses and and difficulties? Yeah, for sure there was.

9:07 You know, like all the every model has a unique challenge to it as well as a benefit. But I think you can sit there and you can go like cuz people get staunch on this stuff, man. Like people will argue and often times like you said, it's generational. You know what's so funny, Josh? You and I are going to die before Gen Z, man. Like we to sit there and argue with the people who are like the future um arbiters. Our time is going to be up someday. Yeah, it's stu it's stupid that we would sit there and argue, but like that's always the case. Like all these young guys and I'm I'm prone to it, man. Sometimes I'm like, "What are they doing? All these guys have the same haircut, dude. It looks like they just woke up out of bed. Like what's wrong with broccoli tops, dude? Dude, the broccoli top. I'm not the broccoli tops." No, I Yeah, I think that's a great thought. I mean, I think that the that we we usually like human beings throughout history, you get you get one of two decisions or like you get one of two experiences, right? you either get to be a part of creating the future and enjoying the future or you get dragged into the future like kicking and screaming.

10:06 So people that talk about like the old ways and the good old days and people that are like traditionalists um that's fine, right? It's fine to have a preference, but there's a reason why that's not going to exist anymore. It's because the world is heading in a new direction that's probably actually better than the old ways, right? In a lot of ways, right? It's like to what Solomon said, like one of the things I've heard people argue and debate a lot is Solomon saying there's nothing new under the sun, right? And uh I've even heard heard I've talked about Earl McManus and our relationship on this podcast before. Like I've heard him say that Solomon was wrong, you know? It's that's which is uh awesome. And when you hear him talk about it, he's not actually a heretic, but it makes him seem like a heretic. Uh because you can't you're not allowed to say the Bible's wrong, right? So Oh, no, dude. I definitely shouldn't. Yeah.

10:58 I mean, it is heretical. So, it's not It's not like, "Oh, it makes you sound like a heretic." Like, it's actually heresy. It actually is. Yeah. Because everything falls down the moment you go like, "Well, this part's wrong." It's like, "Yeah, no." Yeah. So, that's he's not actually saying that that Solomon that Solomon is wrong. By the way, you can go Google this and watch the video. But the the idea that that he has um or the way I hear the idea that he has is that we're wrong in how we receive what Solomon said in that uh what Solomon was talking about was there's cycles and patterns throughout history of stuff and there's also principles that exist, right? that those things are not you're not going to discover um a new like there's u there's winter, spring, summer, and fall, right? We're not going to find a new season, right?

11:50 I mean m who knows maybe but at this point in as as long as we've measured human history, uh there's not going to be like a fifth season that shows up because someone just creates it. Like I don't doubt the ingenuity of humanity and what people maybe in the future with scientific advances can do. And also if you're like a conspiracy theorist and you believe in like cloud seeding and all this weird all the kind of like weird stuff that uh people in that space believe in and I'm going to get like a lot of maybe chatter from that. But if you're in that space you're like oh but they're already controlling the weather. It's like all right well you know all right cool. Uh but we're not but we haven't so far been able to create a fifth season. So that's like the idea to me of Solomon saying there's nothing new under the sun or even to what you're saying is that one of the things I think that God wants us to realize that we don't really realize a lot is that there's principles that govern the universe. And um if you want to be I think one of the things uh about success is success is really and I'm learning this even right now in my life. Success is really about pattern recognition.

12:55 Oh big time. Yeah. you know, and if something happens one time, it's it's just, you know, it's an event. But when something happens 20 times, it's a pattern. And patterns are truth. Like the more you see a pattern, the more you see something that's true. So, um, since the since the dawn of time, God's invisible attributes have been clearly seen. And so, what's interesting to go back to, you know, what Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. One of the things that's not new under the sun is people complaining about established institutions. Right. Right. So, we just celebrated 250 years in America a few days ago. Um the foundation of America was paraphrase summarize the way that government exists in the earth doesn't work. And so we rejected that form of government. We said our rights are given to us by God. Really great thing happened. and America establishes independence. We won. We won the revolutionary war.

13:58 And now, you know, for a lot of people, they don't believe the government should be questioned anymore. But the pattern is the old way doesn't work. The new way works. And then the new way becomes the old way. Like we live in a context now where this is something I've thought for probably 10 years of my life. Okay. The modern way that megaurches do church is the tradition is like our version of the traditions of the churches of the 1980s. Huh. Okay. The kind of churches that I grew up in right in the 80s and 90s when I was a kid were uh no lights, no screens, you had an overhead projector. Uh the room was bright lit up, right? like the the way that churches are now is is like a concert venue and it wasn't like that. Like the churches I grew up in, you'd walk in, the lights would be the same the whole service.

14:58 Um there wasn't like creative stuff. There wasn't like the the music was depending on what kind of church you go to, the music was very was just bland, right? And um preaching was different. All that stuff was different. So what happened was around like the early 2000s in the history of like let's say the quick history of the modern church is all these churches like our church around same time started. So you have this like rise of the new thing. So this rise of the new thing happens around late 90s early 2000s where churches start to the criticism was churches started to become nightclubs. So, screens and smoke and lights and show and entertainment and big events like massive events that people are coming to, big draws that we're drawing the community to. And um now we're almost 30 years into that model or maybe more than 30 years into that model, right? And people love it and they think to themselves uh this is how church is supposed to be done. like this is this is what church is now and forever and this is the model of church that works like this is just this is just how it works. Um and that's the same thing that the church leaders were saying in the 80s and 90s about going to screens and going to uh cameras in the service and everything else that's now become kind of kind of like old hat. So people what they tend to do is they cling to traditions. Traditions are just preferences. You know, traditions are um there's this word called dogma, right? And dogma is used a lot like in Catholic circles, in the Catholic world. Dogma is like established truth, right? Well, right.

16:43 Do dogmas are actually um opinions that people had that everyone agreed with. And so now this has become not dogma isn't truth itself. Dogma is like a take on truth. Right? So, one of the dogmas of the Catholic Church is uh purgatory. Okay? Right? So, where does purgatory come from? It's not really in the Bible. It's not clearly. It's an opinion that Thomas Aquinas had based on him reading the Bible. No way. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. So then, so Thomas Aquinus lived in the I think the 12th century, like 1,200 years after Jesus. Okay. So this guy a thousand years later says, "Oh, here's what I think that I see in the Bible." And then the church goes, "Yes, it's actually that way." And now we're going to develop an entire theology around that, right? There's nothing wrong with like interpretations, but interpretations become opinions, right? And opinions for a lot of people, they don't realize that opinions become truth. So opinions like I was saying this on a on a Bible study that that I that I host this week.

17:53 I was saying that telling telling the group I said the problem of you guys doing this Bible study or going to church or listening to worship music is if that's the only way you interact with God, you're just hearing someone else's version of God. Like even like doing this podcast or me being a communicator from a platform, there's good things I have to say and there's things I have to say that I feel like on a level or revelation from God. But also, if people don't read the Bible, you really don't have a relationship with God. You have a relationship with that person's relationship with God, right? Yeah. You know, big time. And so that's what but that's what human beings do because uh we're tribal and we we build communities and we build in-groups and outroups and there's a certain way to be in the in-group and a certain way to be in the out groupoup and there's things that are trendy and there's things that resonate with a certain generation of people. So for me, there's things that resonate with me that I just like, but that's based on the time of like I was listening the other day, I was listening to music with my kids and they're like huge into Forest Frank, right?

18:54 Nice. And I think Forest Frank is great. I think he's a great guy. I think he's really got a heart after God. I think he's awesome. Yeah, I like Forest Frank a lot. And um he's he's my kid's genericized driving in the car. He's my kids generation Carmen. Yo, 100. Oh, dude. What a guy Carmen was. Like, literally, I cannot tell you how much I love Carmen. I got to I got to know He died. He died a few years ago, but I got to know him and it was like one of the coolest things. He got married at our church, actually. No, I Dude, how have I never heard this story? Yeah, it was like this is like a few years before COVID and I got to hang out with him. I got to get his number. I was like, "Dude, I have Carmen's number." It was amazing. That is a Christian flex and a half, man. If you don't know who Carmen was and you're listening to this, Carmen was Forest Frank before Forest Frank. He was selling out stadiums. He had he had one of not not just like a large Christian artist. He was like one of the biggest artists on the planet. He's like Yeah.

19:51 I mean, he wasn't like Michael Jackson, but he was the Michael Jackson of Christian music. Dude, he was my first concert ever, and I could still see it in my head. I don't know how old I was, but you know, dude, he had this song called Witch's Invitation, which was when he got invited by Witch. Dude, that song scared the living daylights out of me. Yeah. Like I remember I was like I you know I was young enough that it's it's like I had I had a thing about Devil Worshippers. No Monsters. I love I love No Monsters. Riot was a great album. Oh yeah, dude. Just Yeah. What a hero. Anyway, so I So I'm I'm thinking about this and my kids are listening to Forest F. I said, "Let me let me let me let me I'm going to have you listen to this guy. What do you think?" They don't like it at all. Oh, dude. I'm like, dude, taste of music. Carmen's I wouldn't say Carmen's better than Forest Frank, but Carmen's I have a different connection to Carmen than I do to Forest Frank, right? Yeah, of course, man. But but for me, a lot of my taste and all that comes from this nostalgia of remembering what it like was like when I was a kid and experiencing that, right?

20:51 So, my kids are having that same experience with a different person who creates who creates something completely different. And I could look at him and I could be like, "Hey, man." You know, if you were a lot more like Carmen, I'd probably listen to you. Well, guess what? No one's listening to necessarily that anymore, right? Well, I'm gonna start, dude. I'm I'm going to look it up on Apple Music cuz I Man, I need to do get him some Spotify streams, man. You know, dude, I'm going to get it. We got to get Karma back into the charts. Get it back in the game. But but that everybody, you know, I think that's something that's hard for us all as we get older is like we have really do have a time in our life where we're in the there's a a word the zeitgeist. It's a German word. It means spirit of the age, right? We're we're we're in the zeitgeist. Like we're a part of the trend and we're we're like cool and the way we dress is cool and the stuff we listen to is cool. And then you wake up one day, you're like, "Oh my gosh, nobody listens to the stuff I listen to.

21:43 Nobody likes the stuff I like." Dude, I work with a bunch of I work with a bunch of like early 20s people at one of my clients and sometimes I'll reference movies that I'm like every person should see. Like I'll reference Anchor Man, they have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm like, "What's wrong with you?" Like, but like you think about Anchor Man came out when they were either one or not born, you know? I mean, like if you're 22, 23, you're like, I think Anchor Man came out in 2003. They don't even like they don't care about Will Frell at all. Yeah, dude. He's just some old guy that they're like, "Oh, I mean anyways, but you know what's so interesting? The thing you said about purgatory, man. Um, this is, like you said, there's nothing new under the sun. These patterns repeat themselves." I'm reminded of the Pharisees and like if you know uh about phariseaical tradition, they would basically argue with each other and then what they did a lot of was they would interpret the law and build fences around how to interpret it. So when it's like you're not allowed to to work on the Sabbath, it's like well how do we define work? Right? And so then one guy goes, well if you're mixing any fluid with mud because you're make that that's how you make things for bricks. So you're not allowed to do that at all.

22:45 And when you start understanding all these fences that they had built around the law, you understand how Jesus like like took a 4x4 and backed over their fences 400 times to make sure like it it is actually like cuz otherwise you read the scripture where Jesus heals a man by spitting in the mud and rubbing on his eyes and you're like what the heck Jesus that is such a random way to heal somebody and then you realize well it's because he healed him on the Sabbath and Pharisees said that that was violating he was showing them over and over again from a place of love what you guys have built. built around the law is not the law itself. You've missed the heart of what God has. And so I I translate that to what you said about purgatory and then also what you're talking about with Carmen and then also to what we we have with church preferences. So like we've got house churches, we've got megaurches, we've got church plants, we've got like remote locations, dude, what what is actually right? Like cuz you you once said there was three models that are scriptural. And I don't know that you ever went into it, but I remember when you said it like piqu my curiosity. So I'd love to hear more about that. But like you know what what's right I guess is the question.

23:46 Well I'll say yeah I'll say one thing. Have you ever heard of an anouv? No dude sounds like something that happens at the dentist. It's funny in Judaism they have these things called called ors. I don't really know how to say it. So what they what there's a there's a there's a rule about the Sabbath, right? One of the rules about the Sabbath is you can't carry anything outside, right? Can't carry a box. You can't carry but you can carry stuff in your house. Hm. Okay. So, what they what they do is they take these wires, like you can see this in Jerusalem, and there's even places in New York that are like this if you look up. They take these wires and they do like a big like they take a like a city block and they they do like a wire above the above all the houses and all the buildings in the city block and then they say, "Oh, this is my house." Huh? Right. So they can violate so they can carry stuff around without violating the law of the Sabbath, dude. That Yeah.

24:44 So there's this whole there's this whole thing about legalism, right? And that's that's what Jesus always talked to the Pharisees about is like you're you're so legalistic you clean the outside of the cup but not the inside of the cup. Because the Pharisees in the Bible were uh their whole job was to interpret the law for people. And they and they did this because they really cared about following God. Like that's that's what made them the bad guy. What made them the bad guy was they cared so much about following the law um and getting and getting everyone else to follow the law. But they were hypocritical in that the law is actually Paul talks about this in the book of Romans. The law is actually impossible to follow. And this is why we need why we needed a savior, right? Yep. So, and what what humans do like we're always trying to put stuff into boxes. We're always trying to compartmentalize. We're always trying to make sense of it. Yeah.

25:39 Yeah. Like I was I was telling you this before we started recording, there's a guy, you know, we were we were talking about I was talking about like getting better and overcoming like your life and developing yourself. And um on in this Bible study and one of the guys asked me a question. I was talking just about this idea of sanctification, God making you into a better person. And he was like, "Man, I so understand that. How do I make that?" He pretty much asked me, "How do I make that easier on myself?" It's like, "No, it's not easy. It's just going to be hard. It's just going to require a lot of maturity." So, we try to compartmentalize things and we create traditions and structures and all these things because they make us comfortable. Like, the reason why the reason why churches in the early 2000s did all of these new models was not to be comfortable. It was to reach a new group of people that were attracted to something different. Right now, really, one of the reasons why churches continue to do this, and this is more my opinion, is because they're just comfortable with it. And it's now become the play that we run, and it is on a level what people right now are attracted to. Um, but someone's going to create the new model. So, but but back to but back to what we were talking about. Um there's there's I think there's all this stuff in scripture that you see and I talked about patterns a second ago.

27:00 There's all this stuff in scripture that you see about patterns. So there's um all throughout the Bible there's there's all kinds of discussions about organizing people, right? So in the book of Exodus, Jethro advises Moses. The book of Judges is about organization, trying to organize God's people. God establishes kings. Solomon builds a structure to build the temple. Nehemiah rebuilds the wall of Jerusalem. Jesus uh feeds the 5,000. And he does it in a certain way with the disciples. Uh on and on, right? There's there's all these different things. So, um, typically for me, like what I see, so the one of one of the big questions that people have and we'll jump in because I want to talk about maybe two things. I'm going to talk about how a church should be run, um, and what a church is. So, right. Yeah.

27:54 Talk. Let's talk Let's talk since I'm already in the in the in the flow of that, we could talk first about how a church should be run. So, here's what a lot of people say and maybe if you're listening to this, you've heard this. You know, churches, the best churches in the world, and what the Bible teaches is that church should be run by a board. A church should always be run by a board, like a board of elders, right? That's a model. That's just one model, though. So, there's not like a verse in the Bible where God says, "Here's how you should run a church." And that's one of the big, I think, key distinctions between following God in the Old Testament and following God in the New Testament world is in the Old Testament, God is very clear. Here's all the rules. Very clear. So clear, right? Here's how you Here's how you enter the temple. Here's the outer court, the inner court, the Holy of Holies. Here's what the sacrifice is. Here's what the sacrifice isn't. Here's what you should do. Here's what you shouldn't do. If you're unclean, here's all the different You can read the book of Leviticus and see all the different laws, right? There's 613 laws like enumerated throughout that that part that time in the history. Then then Jesus comes to the earth and he goes, "Okay, I'm going to build my church."

29:01 And he uses the word ekklesia which means a gathering like a political gathering or like a gathering of you know it means the gathering of called out ones. So it's people who have a shared common purpose in gathering and the re even Jesus's conversations were a lot about questions. He would ask questions, people would ask him questions. He wasn't like giving a whole bunch of answers. But in the New Testament especially uh we see or let's say the whole Bible there's really three three church leadership models that get presented right one is uh the one I just mentioned which is elder and board governance okay so in the book of Acts like Acts 15 1 Timothy 5 Titus 1 those are common scriptures that are used to support this model and so the church is governed by a group of elders who aren't on staff at the church and a single board or even you know if you look at certain churches there's multiple committees so there's like a top board and there's a board for everything. There's like a missions board and a men's board and a women's board.

30:06 Um and then all these boards are like accountable to a higher board. Okay. So that's that's one model and a lot of people say that's the b that's the biblical model. That's just one biblical model. Okay. Okay. Another another biblical model is congregational governance. Right. So people that like this model in first Peter 2, the Bible says the Bible talks about the priesthood of all believers, right? Okay. I was wondering where this came from. Yeah. Yeah. The the priesthood of all believers. All believers are the pastor of the church. All believers are the leader of the church. You know, it's this very democratic form of government uh of leading a church where a lot of things are congregational votes. You get the whole church together, everyone who's a member, and they vote on decisions. They vote on who the pastor is, all that, right? Um you see that also in the book of acts and the book of 2 Corinthians as uh you know these these local congregations of churches are very autonomous. They're not like run by a central governing board. Right.

31:03 Right. So that's another model that's not like so if you're if you're a part of a congregation church cool man that's a biblical model. If you're part of an elder church cool that's a biblical model. Uh another biblical model and this is probably the one that uh the average person dislikes the most but it is biblical is pastor governance like pastor or like overseer governance which is just an hier a hierarchy of individual leaders. Okay. So um this is where the word episcopal comes from. Right? So the word episkopos in Greek means overseer. and the way that the church this in this particular structure. So, so I I'll talk about this one a little bit more because this is the one that rubs people the wrong way the most. Mhm. Right. And I'll say this as a caveat up front. Like you actually can't in America run a church this way now. Okay.

32:01 Really? Yeah. Well, you can't and have a bank account or like Okay. Nonprofit, right? So nonprofits are like if like for our church even if we go to the bank and we establish a nonprofit, we're required to have a board that makes the decisions for the nonprofit. Huh. There's nothing there's nothing we can do to change that. Like we can't say like of course a nonprofit could could technically form and not run that way. Um, but if you ever get a loan for a nonprofit, you have to have a board. It's just the way that these things are structured in the country that we happen to live in. So, people will look at churches and they'll go, "Oh, that guy's just doing whatever he wants." That's not really that's not really ever the case, right? Based on how even the legal structures of things like this are set up. Um, so at the very least, let's say like, you know, pastor X or whatever starts, you know, starts this movement and then they they, you know, people start following him. So they form a 501c3 become a church, he has to name board members before the before he can go get a bank account and if they let's say they need a loan for a building or whatever, right? Is that that's what you're saying?

33:18 I don't know if it's specifically about getting a bank account, but if you have any kind of resources, right? Okay. that that uh are shared. Yes. Because because the nonprofit doesn't not no one can own a nonprofit, right? That's like the idea of being a nonprofit. So that Right. So they want to make sure that there's not one guy just siphoning money off going like, "Hey, we're nonprofit." He's supporting his lifestyle. Okay. Yeah. So people that do this get shut down by the government, right? Okay. So when you start operating with like millions of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, uh anybody who is going to give you money, resources, whatever is going to make sure that you have a um a board. So um but nonetheless, there is this model and this is the model of like the modern-day Episcopal church. It's the model of the Catholic Church.

34:11 Um, Lutheran, Lutheran churches, Methodist churches, Anglican churches, they don't use they don't they're not run with congregations and they're not run with boards. They use this is called the Episcopal model. And the reason why a lot of churches use this, especially churches that like find their history in like ancient roots, is because this is the way the Roman and Greek Empire functioned. So, what the church did, the early church did was they said, "Oh, here's how the government works. We should run a church that way. Right. Right. How early are we talking there, dude? Like first century first century church in the Roman Empire. So it's within touching distance of like the apostles basically because John John died Yeah. 809 or something. This is how they ran it. Right. Right. They they dis they they Well, here's here's I'll say it. They actually ran churches all three ways.

35:04 Like you look at the New Testament church, you look at the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, all three of these models are there. There's churches that are congregationled. There's churches that are uh uh led by a a group of people. And there's churches that are led by individuals. It's like they just got to pick. Right. So, um so like the Catholic Church today runs that way. The pope is the pope is not uh subject to a board of people, right? Like in the Can I ask Can I ask you a question about this though? Cuz I think what I'm trying to do is pull out, you talked about how principles are patterns. So what's the pattern? Because like you said, what we love, man, we love if we cuz like if I'm a house church guy, I'm like, if only everybody had a house church. And if I'm an Episcopal guy, I'm like, if only we love to have a right way. Because what's really confusing for us is for God to say like, "Hey, go make disciples." Yeah, but Jesus, man, I really wish you could give me like the exact process so that way I know when I'm doing it.

36:00 Because what we love is we love to look at all the things that are wrong most of the times with other people, right? Like go oh well this guy oh that like we're so prone to that and like I so what's the what's the what's the principle here? Because if there's different methods clearly they're navigating the same principle. What's the principle? Well, I think the question the question that people are asking is what's the best way to govern a church? Correct. Um whichever one you want at the church. I mean that is not an answer people will love, dude. Yeah. whichever one you want out of what God makes available. I mean, that's that's the thing about the church. You know, the church Jesus said he's going to build his church and then he hands it to human beings to try to build structures. And the thing about these three structures is that all of them have pros and cons. All of them have good things and bad things. Like there's an actual there's a um someone can go to my go to my website.

36:54 There's a there's a blog I did on this a few years ago. Um, I think it was 2024 probably. And you can read all this stuff and like I really What's your website again, please, Josh? Uh, it's it's jkc.is. Now, you can go to joshcraft.com. It'll go there. But Oh, bro, you got a lot of hate for changing to that. I did. I changed my Instagram name for for uh two weeks and then we talked about feedback on the podcast for a reason. So, um, but but the the thing that's interesting that's a unique it's like I see this pattern. This is like the pattern I see or the principle of church. Um Jesus establishes the vision of the church. The vision of the church is clear. Right. Right. Jesus establishes the vision of this environment that's about life and spiritual transformation and discipleship and fulfilling the great commission and fulfilling the great commandment. Right. All that. And then he doesn't tell us how to do it right.

37:48 He says here's what here's here's what you guys are going to go do. Here's what I've here's what I want you to do. I mean with the disciples he could have sat down with them and said look vision strategy vision structure strategy here's what the here's the why behind the church here's all you guys are going to have different roles and then here's what you're going to do right I think there's a lot of reasons why God didn't do it that way he did do it that way in the Old Testament then the New Testament church comes along and God's like hey here's and this is kind of how principles are in our life figure out how to apply what I'm saying, "Thank you for listening to The Dialog . Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com.

38:40 Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.