I’ve been reading my own blog in the last couple days. I’ve posted soooooooooo many videos of cops abusing people who were doing nothing wrong. But, this is probably the best thing I’ve written.
https://countysecession.com/a-church-that-has-lots-its-saltiness/
Tag Archives: evangelism
A Church That Has Lots Its Saltiness
The American church has lots its saltiness. My former church in particular is completely without savor.
I used to go downtown and witness to the bar crowd on Friday or Saturday night. We did Way-of-the-Master style witnessing and we had a seven foot tall wooden cross we carried. People would come up and ask us why we’re standing on the sidewalk with a cross. That was a great way to start a conversation.
I tried over and over for a long time to get people from my church to go with me and the one other guy that was coming. I taught an evangelism class and about 10-15 people attended. I was only able to get three or four different people to come, one time each. One guy was called some dirty name (I can’t remember what it was) and that seemed to really hurt him or make him think it was dangerous. One guy who came thought we were doing it wrong but he wasn’t willing to show us the right way either. The assistant pastor said we were doing it wrong. He said we should offer people free coffee, and the cups could have a Bible message, but we shouldn’t preach.
Occasionally, there would be heavy metal concerts on a Friday night at the Eagles club and mostly teenagers attended. I thought it was really good, because the kids were somewhat hostile to start out, but a lot of them asked really deep questions and we had a lot of good conversations. One of the guys in the band didn’t like that the kids would leave the concert and go outside to talk to us. His dad was a pastor, and he asked my pastor to get us to stop witnessing at the concerts. My pastor told him to contact us. We ended up meeting him and had a long conversation where he told us we were evangelizing all wrong. His arguments were the typical weak arguments, and easy to answer. I was surprised at the time that a pastor openly opposed the preaching of the gospel.
For the first several weeks we were going downtown, we were harassed by the cops until an experienced officer threatened to arrest us. The lady who had called the cops said she didn’t want to press charges, so we didn’t get arrested. We got a lawyer from Liberty Counsel to write a letter to the Police, city council and city attorney, and the chief of police wrote a memo telling them not to mess with us if there was no report of an actual crime. The cops had no idea what basic constitutional rights were. Apparently not many Christians are into free speech.
One bar was particularly confrontational with us. They were having a wet t-shirt contest and they sarcastically invited us. I told the pastor and asked for help. I thought it was important that there be a Christian presence, but of course, no one would come. I ended up going alone as my usual gospel partner couldn’t come until later in the evening. An older guy walked up to me, and said, “You’re moving or I’m going to move you.” I said something like, “This is a public sidewalk. I’m not moving.” I really should have seen it coming, but I guess I didn’t take his threat seriously. He hit me near my eye with his cane. I ended up with a black eye.
I say all that to point out that the church in America has lost its saltiness. They have no gumption to stand up for what’s right. They clearly don’t believe in the power of the gospel or the effectiveness of God’s Word to confront the culture. America is rotting because the church cowers in fear and the vast majority believes things will only get worse and we will eventually be defeated before Christ’s return.
I was a premillennialist for most of the time this was happening, but I was being schizophrenic. I believed the Bible passages that say the gospel is powerful enough to change lives at least and change the culture if Christians could step up and spread the good news. Unfortunately, most Christians are consistent with their premillennialism and think they’re going to be defeated so they shrink back into the four walls of the church.
I’m now a postmillennialist who believes that the gospel will spread and more and more people will be saved. God’s Word will be applied more and more consistently to every area of life and culture and God will bless our obedience. God’s kingdom will grow like a mustard seed into a great tree.
The pastor at my former church was the only one who never really openly opposed us. But he never did much of anything to help either. His sermons are 55 minutes long every week, and even the members of the congregation who attend weekly are shockingly immature and unable to apply Scripture to life. Ongoing attempts I’ve made to help them apply Scripture to various topics has been vehemently opposed. I was kicked out of the church Facebook group. One lady’s only comeback to my arguments was that I have beady eyes. Others have accused me of being provocative and argumentative. I’ll concede to those, but I deny that I’ve done anything sinful. They certainly haven’t come up with any persuasive responses to my arguments.
Whatever sin or cultural battles that are to come, I predict that that church and the vast majority of other churches in this country will sit out entirely. They haven’t done squat. They’ve accomplished nearly nothing for the kingdom of God. They have only been defeated and they will continue to become less and less relevant. They are salt that’s lost its saltiness and are worthy of nothing more than to be thrown out and trampled.
I have no doubt that I could do many things better. I would love to be shown what I can do better. I would love to look up to men who have won great battles and have advanced the kingdom of God. I know of some, but very few, and none personally. Most of the men I know personally are losers who plan to go on losing. They expect to be locked up in a ghetto and they’re just fine with their ghetto. They’ll go on a retreat, even though they’ve never been on the advance. They’ll have a pot luck and their wives will put up the decorations for the ghetto Christmas party.
No thanks.
The Worst, Typical Church
When AHA started doing “Church Repent” several years ago, I thought, “How can they go to a church they’ve never been to and pick on them?” Over the years, I’ve realized that you can go to any random church and exhort them and it is a great way to tell whether they are good or bad.
When confronting an American church with abortion apathy and IVF information, the typical, bad church will say, “Why are you picking on us? Have you listened to a sermon? We love the Bible!” A good church says, “What can we do to help? We want to repent of our apathy. We want to do something.”
If they’re a good church, you can go to them. If they’re a bad church you can go to them. The object is to raise awareness of the abortion holocaust and stand up for orphans. Not to please people. Here’s an example of a typical, worthless, wicked church and pastor. Maybe you can hold out hope that they were caught off guard or need more time to consider the situation, but I don’t think so, based on my analysis. I would hold out hope that if they were humble and studied the Bible a lot more, God could change them but their errors are just so basic and egregious.
Playback on other websites has been disabled by Matt Wiersema, the guy who posted it, but you can go watch it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBgJJXNgp6o&t
It starts out with an off-duty cop working security for the church. That’s the first problem. Cops are contrary to Scripture in many ways, which I’ve gone over in the past many times. I don’t have a problem with someone trained with the ability to use a gun roaming around the church property to protect people who are to a certain extent sitting ducks for a random gunman, but I do have a problem with hiring a cop, but that’s just a minor point so far.
A huge problem is that the cop, as is typical, doesn’t have any idea that a sidewalk is a traditional public forum for free speech. Anyone can stand on a sidewalk in any neighborhood with a sidewalk running along a public street and hold any kind of sign, pass out literature and speak loudly any message they want, even if it’s offensive. I think this cop is stupid and ignorant rather than knowing the law and intending to deceive. This indicates that he is poorly trained, and also that Christians aren’t out spreading their message. There may be limitations to sound amplification, and that would depend on local ordinances.
The cop doubles down on the stupidity saying that if anyone is offended by the message, it is disorderly conduct. I don’t want to be too critical of Matt, but I want to point out a couple things that he could have done better (from my armchair quarterback, 20/20 hindisight position), so that we can all do better next time. Matt should have said he was offended by the cop and by the guy that walked up on him saying he doesn’t want Matt to mess with his kids and eventually the pastor. Would the cop have written himself and those other guys tickets? No, he’d be put to shame for saying that if anyone offends someone, they can be cited for disorderly conduct.
When the cop says the church has asked him to leave, so he has to leave, I kind of suspect that he’s lying. Can anyone be that stupid? Surely he’s deceiving, but maybe he actually is that stupid. You can tell he’s quite stupid, but is he that stupid? I don’t know. You decide whether he’s extremely stupid or just that evil.
Starting at 3:12, the cop says he has to provide ID, because he’s being detained. Over and over again, there are copious examples of Texas cops demanding IDs. They can ask and they can demand all they want. No one has to provide an ID unless they’re under arrest per Texas Penal Code 38.02. In a couple of videos I’ve seen Matt, while in Texas, identify himself even though he wasn’t under arrest. Every state is different, so look up the law in your state, and generally, I’d recommend obeying the law because police, lawyers and judges are psychopaths and unpredictable. You can sue them later. But, don’t identify if you’re not required by law, either.
At 3:56, the jackass in the blue plaid shirt says, “Your rights end where mine begin.” This is just absurd retardation. No one has the right to not be offended. This is just shocking stupidity. How did we get to this point in America where people can be this stupid?
As they go on making fools of themselves, the biggest fool walks up. While the lame-brain “pastor” talks, the disorderly conduct talk is put on the back burner. I would bet that if the pastor had stood up for common sense and Scripture and said that it’s the cop’s job to protect everyone’s right to free speech, the whole thing would have been over.
If you look at this church’s website, you’ll see that this is Doug, the senior pastor. If you read his bio, you might even be impressed. He has a pretty good pedigree, suggesting he may even be reformed, which would put him in the top 10% of pastors as far as I’m concerned. The website of the church looks very good and biblical. But the shocking stupidity that comes out of his mouth in this interaction is just such basic false teaching.
As soon as the “pastor” starts talking, it’s all about him and what he’s doing and there is zero humility. Matt is there about IVF. I’d bet $10,000 right now that that church has members who have taken part in IVF and those people currently have babies frozen in test tubes, and the “pastor” knows about it and can name their names. Even if they don’t, I would bet $10,000 that he’s never preached a sermon against IVF. I’d bet another $10,000 that they are doing nothing more to fight abortion than maybe an occasional sermon and maybe donating to a crisis pregnancy center. But no one will take those bets.
One million babies are murdered by abortion every year. NO ONE has a strategy to fight abortion that is 100% effective at this point. Abolition is a glimmer of hope that the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. It is at least Scripturally correct, even if it hasn’t produced a lot of results yet. Our hearts should break and we should humbly receive any ideas or correction on this issue. Orphans are being murdered among us and no American Christian at any church has any room to receive Matt’s exhortation with the conceit this guy has. The way we treat unborn babies is heartbreaking. Keep that in mind while listening to this pompous, lost (lost as in, unregenerate, unbelieving, dead in his sin and headed to hell) “pastor”.
At 6:35, this evil “pastor” says Matt should respect the dirty, ignorant cop. He would have told Jesus to stop calling Herod a fox. He takes the Hitler hermeneutic in his interpretation of Romans 13. That is the typical, but wrong, approach towards Romans 13 among most Christians.
At 7:29, he says that he’ll call out Matt’s sin of judging. This is absolutely moronic. There’s no way this guy has read the Bible in decades. The Bible teaches that judging is good. Hypocritical judging is bad, but one of the main goals in Christianity is to mature to the point that you can judge properly (John 7:24, 1 Cor. 2:15, Hebrews 5:14, etc.). And, if he thinks it’s a sin to judge, then when he tells Matt that it’s a sin to judge, he’s committing the type of hypocritical judging that is forbidden in Matthew 7. I feel like I learned this stuff so long ago and I cannot believe that someone who has read the New Testament once in the last 10 years could say anything this stupid. I’m shocked.
Furthermore, the “pastor” has obviously NEVER done any type of public evangelism. If you do any type of literature distribution or public evangelism more than a couple hours, you will have the cops called on you. You will learn very quick what the law says. You will learn to stand up for your right to preach the gospel publicly. So this idiot “pastor” turns Matt over to the state. Rather than being wronged (which he wasn’t being wronged) he turns the matter over to laws created by unbelievers.
At that point, the dirty cop asks for Matt’s ID. What I would have done at this point, were I Matt, is to tell him that I’m not required to identify. As I said earlier, I would generally recommend, if there is any doubt about the legality of the situation is to avoid arrest or citation and deal with the misunderstanding via lawyers. I’d pay a lawyer if needed or I’m sure Matt has a pro-bono Christian civil liberties lawyer. I’ve had two situations where I’ve needed a lawyer, and both times Liberty Counsel helped for free, and I later made a donation. There is no shortage of lawyers who will take a case like this. In this situation where Matt was obviously right, I’d ask for the dumb cop to call a supervisor. And if the supervisor is just as idiotic, which is a real possibility, I’d be tempted to take the ticket or even be arrested. If you’re arrested, you will sue and win a lot of money quite easily. The only gray area in this case was the use of amplification, which wasn’t in the video.
I hope Matt did something about this, but he could spend a lot of time on these types of situations at the detriment of preaching the gospel as well, so I don’t blame him if he didn’t.
What’s the lesson? As far as you could tell by looking at the website, or attending the service, this would appear to be a good church. You could attend for years and be content that the Bible is being preached. Matt comes along and exposes the idolatry and stupidity in a few minutes. I support Matt and Church Repent Project in general. I oppose ministry industrial complex businesses like this one.
There are good churches out there. They would respond humbly and with sorrow for the orphans who are being led to the slaughter in our country. But you can’t tell whether the church is good or bad by looking at their website or even attending their services for years. One way you can tell is by standing in front with a graphic abortion sign. You will find out what kind of church they are very quickly.
America Needs the Gospel
I asked 15 people (mostly young men) at the Christmas parade tonight: If you died today and stood before God and He said, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would you say?
Sadly, not one had the right answer, though several later claimed to be Christians. One said his dad asks him that question all the time, but he couldn’t remember the answer. Another said, “Because he is a Christian and does good things for people.”
In case you don’t know the right answer, Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and lived a sinless life, died on the cross and rose from the dead. His blood is the only payment God will accept for sin. Out of gratitude for what Jesus did, we must repent and trust Him alone for our salvation. There is no other way to have our sins forgiven.