What Did Jesus Actually Mean by “Church”?

This is actually my first question after watching your documentary was,

are you, would you consider yourself Christian?

Because it didn't like, in the video, in the documentary, it was never really discussed.

I consider myself a Christ follower, for sure, through and through.

Like, I believe Christ is the way the truth and life when no one gets the Father except through him.

But like, my faith journey has been one of wrestling since I was a kid.

That's what I saw on the documentary.

Like, why not just call yourself a Christian?

Because words have meaning and the term Christian is a very clouded term.

And so if I say, I'm a follower of Christ, you know, I can speak very clearly to that.

And I follow Christ and his teachings out of the Bible and what he lived for and what he proposed.

Now, when you say that, dude, does it mean only things he said, what about acts?

Oh, no, yeah, for sure.

So everything in the Bible is inspired 100%.

Like, one of my brothers is an amazing theologian.

And he and I debate nuance all the time.

Okay. Because there are people who are like, I only listen to what the red letters in the Bible.

No, no, no, I'm like, I'm obsessed right now with Isaiah and Jeremiah.

You know, like, I love the Bible and all.

It's a, it's the book of humanity.

Yeah.

Okay. So that kind of sets the stage.

And we prayed right before this, too, which was great.

So you divide a lot of people in the Christian world, right?

Because on one hand, you've got, I would call them more people who don't like the church,

but call themselves Christians and they don't like how big they get.

They don't like the show of it and all these things.

And there's good reasons for that.

Then you've got people who don't like you because maybe you're ignoring a lot of the good things

the churches are doing and focusing on the negative things.

So for those who've never watched the documentary or seen your content,

like, what is your position?

Like, what are you trying to fight for or against?

I would say in a nutshell, we're trying to bring light into darkness.

You know, and I think it's John 318, you know, Christ came into the world to be the light,

but men loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil.

And so Christ is the light.

And I believe both, we were talking about it prior, both the body and the institutions that we've

built need to be the beacon of light to the world.

Because if that's dark or either of those are dark, there's no man made institution

that even stands a chance.

And so right now the institutional structure is very dark.

And I hinted at a potential why on Sean Ryan when I went on Sean Ryan.

And I, from our research and people that have talked with us,

I think it was strategic to dark in the church.

And the reason why is if the church, the institution is locked up,

then there's no way to unleash the true power of the body.

And that's what we were talking about earlier too.

Like 55% of the world's wealth is owned by Christians.

200 million, 214 million Americans call themselves Christians.

You have a literal army for Christ, but it seized up.

And I believe that seizure was strategic.

And so that's what we're trying to unlock.

How do you think it happened?

Why was it strategic?

I got a call like six, six months, six, eight months ago, three months before the show released

from a gentleman at the CIA.

And he's like, what do you know about 1913 in the 60s?

And I've gotten to sit with some unique political figures and figures at the IRS.

And so my wrangle on why America did certain things is good from a historical sense

in regards to defining the nonprofit sector and then creating the 14-point checklist.

But I'm really interested in the 14-point checklist, which every religious organization,

Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Scientology, they all play by this rulebook in America.

I was interested in the 14-point checklist, but I never thought about why it was created.

And religion is dangerous.

Islam is dangerous.

Christianity is dangerous.

Local Christianity did to Rome, you know, in a matter of a couple hundred years,

a couple thousand Christ followers transformed the biggest like nation in the world within a

couple hundred years. They didn't really have much money.

They didn't have much infrastructure.

They just had a message and they lived out a way of life.

Amen.

And so that's extremely dangerous to government.

And so this agent said the reason why that 14-point checklist was built was

every faith has to shove itself inside this box.

And if you don't play by the rules of this box,

we're yanked and you're done.

And the carrot to get in that box was tax exemption.

And so that was what that was.

And so this is, you know, one phone call on my phone, but when I started looking at it,

I'm like, why would everybody hop into this box that we have to play by these rules?

And so that's what I'm very fascinated in that architecture of that box.

And so that's one thing that I became obsessed with is why did we all climb into that box?

Well, I mean, you mentioned tax exempt status as a big reason, right?

Yeah.

But I mean, so I run a nonprofit as well.

And I don't even know the 14-point checklist, right?

I'm like, yeah, I mean, we take donations.

We're going to get tax exempt status and all those things.

We're running a nonprofit.

So what is it that, let's say, is so strategic about that box that's causing these things?

Because there's political mechanisms that you can't play in.

It's just kneecaps you.

You have to have a building.

You have to meet once a month, at least once a month.

And so church today, whether I walk into Catholic Mass or a non-denominational, you know,

yeah, mega church or whatever, they all are identical and Islamic mosque.

Like I've walked into plenty of those and everything is structured the same.

If you remove the people and you have no kind of nuance to architecture, they're all the same.

And you have to ask why and that was because of that 14-point checklist.

And so it just pigeonhole everything.

It's, hey, you're going to sit in this one building.

And if you don't meet there, you don't get this exemption.

And so it dumbed down for lack of a better term.

And it took the bite out of faith, whether that be Islam or Christianity.

And I want that bite.

Like I think the bite of faith is where it is.

Why do you think this role of meeting in a building once a month is

like dumbing things down?

I don't get that.

Because almost churches people meet all the time.

So what is church?

And we talked about this again.

Like what is church?

What is biblical church?

The body of Christ gathering together.

The body of Christ gathering together.

So it doesn't matter where.

It doesn't matter when.

It's where two or more gathered in my name I'll be there also, right?

And so I would consider this church because we're encouraging and exhorting each other

to flush out and wrestle with our faith.

I wouldn't, but you wouldn't.

I wouldn't consider this church.

Why not?

Because we're having a discussion about business and different things.

So we're not sitting here talking about Jesus and the Bible and worshipping.

But I want you to finish your point.

Well, I think I'm talking about Christ.

And I'm trying to promote and edify his body.

Yeah.

I think we're in the body of Christ, right?

I think we're in the body of Christ.

But I don't think what we're currently doing is church.

And I also don't agree with the people that don't go to physical church

because they're like, oh, we're one or two are gathered.

You know, that's church.

Like church is when you go to a place that is designated for God

and is led by a pastor or a priest or a leader.

That's not in the book of Acts.

If you say that's not in the book of Acts,

I mean, is it in the book of Timothy?

But I don't want to argue about scripture.

But the point is like, I personally don't agree with people that are like,

oh, if I talk to someone at the gas station, we're at church.

That's not church, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Well, that's what's beautiful, right?

Exactly.

That's where it's like, it comes down to edification.

Yeah.

It's like, hey, if you want to meet in the building, go for it.

Yeah.

You know, like I've some of my greatest, in my opinion,

church moments have been in the mountains with like three or four people

where you're just in the middle of know what you're in nature.

And you've been back there for three or four days.

And you're, you got your Bible and you're just like grinding.

Yeah.

And you're in a lot of times you haven't eaten much, you know?

Yeah.

And it's like, there's, and I think that's beautiful too.

Yeah, yeah.

But I just think it's a little dangerous when you start to say like,

oh, you don't have to go to a physical place and you don't.

I've never said that though.

Yeah.

This is where people, people put a lot of things in, yeah, in my mouth.

And I've never said that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've just said the building to what we talked about earlier,

the body is not the building.

Those are two separate things.

Yes.

And we just have to tear those apart.

Because right now there's been this, um,

a brilliant, uh, philosopher and teacher in the show,

his name is Dan Braimer.

He's, he works at a Catholic university on the East Coast.

He talks about it like an infection.

And he goes, right now the terms are infected and you need to separate the two.

And the infection is not inherently bad.

Yeah.

But you have to be able to separate the two.

Because he goes, right now the institution

has trumped the organism.

And there's, especially in the Catholic church, it's, it's,

there's an organism in an, in an organization.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there has to, and he says there has to be this pole between the two.

Yeah, they would say it's kingdom theology.

But when one trumps the other and chokes it out,

yeah, that's when we, when we seize up the system,

well, if kingdom theology, there's always going to be a king and a queen and,

you know, leadership, the way you're describing it.

It's almost like the problem that most people have with,

most apostolic Christians have a, have a problem with non-denominational.

Because it's kind of like what you're talking about where

you're like on the extreme end of non-denominational.

Where it's like, there shouldn't even be any institution, any buildings.

It's just completely fractured.

And it's like, it's us three.

Yeah, it's us three.

It's you and the guy at the gas station.

It's you and the homeless guy at the stratosphere is the church.

That's where like I do understand where Catholics, orthodox,

all these faiths, they would say to you, and I'm not Catholic, but they would say to you,

what authority do you have to tell the church these apostolic priests what they're supposed to do?

I haven't told them anything.

Yeah, and this is the, this is the thing is like,

this is where I have massive respect for Catholicism.

Yeah, because some of the biggest bishops in the U.S.

are friends of mine now through the religion business.

And it's, I've gotten to sit and we'll talk with them and, and, and they've given me

graded, well, I don't know if it's graded vice actually, but they tell you to submit some room.

No, no, no, no, no, no, it's hilarious.

They're, yeah, they're just like, hey, then you need to surf more.

They're like, go surf, well, I, so to bring this back to why is a building a bad thing?

And I actually have a lot of opinions about buildings, because I think they can be a bad thing.

But who said buildings are bad things?

I never said buildings are bad.

Well, you said that the fact that you have to have a building to fit in this box is bad.

No, like that.

No, I said the 14 point checklist has put everybody into a box.

And one of the 14 points is you got to have a building.

Right.

And then you're saying that you don't think you have to have a building.

You think that this is, I don't think you have to have a building.

Yeah, yeah.

The early church met in homes, you know, it's underground.

It's what, when you look at Iran right now,

the Ayatollah says, you know, one of the biggest national security threats

is the underground Christian church.

Yeah, they're just meeting in homes.

So I'll tell you like our nonprofit tent makers, we actually probably,

biblically do it like acts more than we see today.

We start all of these small groups in homes, offices.

We've got a hundred plus of them all across the world.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and they meet every week.

And there's probably 10 people there every week doing their thing.

But I will say all of them, including myself,

still want to go to church on Sunday,

what we would call just normal church.

And be in a building, worship together, you know, all that.

But I think also too, it's like even with the verse that we're referencing,

we're two or more gathered, he's not saying this is church.

He's saying, I am there.

He's just saying, hey, I'm there.

You know, I'm here right now in this very moment.

But when you start talking about church structure, I mean,

he just starts talking about elders.

He starts talking about leaders, the fivefold ministry.

So I mean, there is this level of being a believer

and being part of the body of Christ.

But then even in the Bible, there is this part about,

hey, how does the organization run?

Yeah, 100%.

And just to give context really quick,

his nonprofit has a lead pastor.

There is a pastor that comes up with the curriculum.

It's not 100 Bible studies where they're all like,

oh, what do you want to read to this wing in it?

Yeah, there's a structure and there's a leader in place.

Yeah, go ahead, sorry.

Oh, no, no, just for the listeners too,

because I don't have to think like, oh, no, he's 100.

Yeah, when I can't remember the gentleman's name,

but he's like, oh, yeah, there's a, there's a, what's his name?

Justin Justin, where his son goes here,

and it's so, yeah, he had a hotspull too.

Oh my God, that's so cool.

Like I really respect that.

It's interesting like when you look at the elders

and all these, these positions of authority,

they were always in servanthood leadership roles.

Yeah, we're serving others.

Just like you're a lot of you from what I,

my quick scan of what you do,

you're, you're mentoring people, right?

Yeah.

So that idea of mentorship is super crucial.

Like I have meant to multiple mentors in my life.

Yeah.

And the more colorful mentors I can have,

the more I can smash what they're saying together

and say, okay, what is actually

biblically grounded, what is not,

what resonates with me, what doesn't, right?

Yeah.

And so like there is that structure of servanthood leader

that I fully respect.

And like I do that with younger generation too.

So it's, there's that,

this isn't like a Wild West.

And I'm quite the opposite of it in regards

to non-denominationalism.

Like the Wild West doesn't work.

That's why the body is the body.

There's unique parts.

Yeah.

You know, we're not all meant to be X, Y, and Z

or an elder or a Deakin or whatever.

It's we all have our strengths

and we all have our fivefold ministry.

So I, yeah.

So I think we're speaking the same language actually.

Yeah.

And I don't, in my wrestle with the building

because that's what most people come at me at.

They're like, you don't like the building

and you don't like the salary.

And I'm like, I don't actually care about either of them.

But that's the easiest thing to point at.

My deal is when the building

becomes the biggest burden on that body,

that can become a problem.