Honestly dude the reason I want to do a church plant is because I'm baptist, and there aren't any historical baptist sites around me, and I want to make a church that is basically a local community oriented logistical powerhouse for good works. As a basically required statement, the good works are not needed for salvation, the good works are to glorify God, follow the commands of Jesus, and make new believers.
@@alisatoniian9718 that's my first option, and the current church I go to is very close to that mindset, but there are places outside of this town I live that still need something like that. Have you ever heard of a "cowboy" church before? it's horrific and mostly in rural places without any historical church to begin with. In the meantime however I am trying to find more ways to make my current church busier already.
@@thomasc9036 well not everything is a metropolitan area. To more people than you know, 30 minutes is "just down the road from me". I grew up in a place where it was less than 40 people per square mile and it's still like that today. Those people still need church.
Me and some friends had planned to be missionaries abroad in China or Europe or somewhere after college, but due to COVID and other life events that didn't happen. So we decided to take our missionary training and move somewhere in the US where the church is dying and work on trying to revitalize the church kinda like domestic missionaries. One of the friends specializes in Youth Ministry and the town of the church we moved to is very family centric, so we've been working with the church of Christ we're at to build up their youth ministry to reach out to young families. We're working on hosting community events to connect more people in town to the church and reach new people. I want to encourage as many people as possible to consider small dying churches when looking for a church home. Look for a church that needs you, especially if you're a young adult. My father once preached on a Sunday and redid a jfk quote, "Ask not what the Church can do for you, rather ask what you can do for the Church".
I grew up in a mainline church (UMC). Female pastors as far back as the 80’s. But we were good church goers and put on our nice clothes and sang hymns in a pretty building. I had no choice. I also never heard the gospel all those years. Until I came to faith independent of that church, I wanted nothing to do with it. And then I left for a church that actually taught the Bible and had a youth group where I was discipled. Had I stayed, I would have only more resented the forced empty formality devoid of any power and likely would have walked away completely. Thankfully God had a better plan. Now as a parent, no way would I put my kids in a church like that during their childhood when their faith and values are being formed. As my pastor says, if we make church something boring for kids to endure, when they grow up they will vote with their feet and want nothing to do with it. If you have a dead tree in your yard, you can’t revive it by sticking a sapling in its trunk. You chop it down and allow a new vibrant tree to grow in its place.
I think a lot of the problem is people use churches as social gatherings as opposed to assembling together to edify each other and stir up good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). Ephesians 4 also tells us to strive to keep unity among believers.
I agree. I have had the hardest time finding a good church where I am staying now. I want a church that assembles, and instead of just preaching to the audience, a pastor gives us something to discuss with one another, and guides us to the answer via scripture.... then after meeting we go out into the world and share the gosepl... that would be incredible!
@@unit2394 I think youtube broke itself; the time in the recommended is shorter than the video. I even refreshed the page and the video's time was off, the video is supposed to be 21 minutes, but youtube is weird and the actual time in the video was increased to 26 minutes. So I have no clue what happened.
There are parts of America where church planting is the only option. Church planting is a very good thing in certain places, as not every town has a Presbyterian church as you seem to imply. We should encourage men who want to plant churches to go to somewhere that needs good churches, like the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky. The dearth of good churches is real in these places.
we must remember Zoomer is from New York - he is metropolitan through and through. i find a lot of his advice does not take rural needs into consideration at all, so i just figure what he talks about past a certain ... density ... to be very sound advice. also, even in a town with just one church, it isn't that hard to add your voice and concerns, and often the churches are fairly conservative and welcoming for more discussion about these things. it is also quite welcome for some churches to rent out/ share their building with another body, as it helps both communities with bills and outreach programs, etc
@@dragonjo7550 Also from a rural area here, I agree. However, we must remember the majority of Americans are not in rural communities. So this applies to probably the majority of those that watch.
@@DownBadDonk Considering how far apart some people are in rural areas, that isn’t a lot. Depends on your definition of rural. It’s not terribly uncommon for folks to drive a hour or more to church in rural areas to find a good church. That’s the thing too. There may be a church or few closer, but they might be snake handling churches for all you know… 😂
My first thought when seeing this thumbnail was Zoomer hates Baptists (meaning our actions and not us personally since I know that isn't true), but then I realized it was gonna be about offshoot denominations. Telling a Baptist not to plant churches is like telling a bird not to fly.
I come from that background. I don't have a problem with church building networks, but sometiems I wonder why they build in certain places. They're mostly only thinking about whether their ministry or one they know shares their exact beliefs are reaching certain segments of a city/area instead of thinking about whether or not there are good churches nearby. I attend a church plant, but i don't really have any serious issues with it because they preach the gospel, encourage spiritual growth, and do good in the community.
Started attending a local LCMS church a few months back because I was curious about that more traditional style. Good people there but it’s mostly just older folks, generally under 20 people. There have been a few kids brought along to the last couple services though so that’s been nice to see. I want to convince my sister to come someday but I’m not sure how. She’s gone the agnostic route.
As a “tiktok convert” myself, i must say, God has been so merciful and gracious. I wasn’t raised in a christian household. I heard the Gospel on tiktok in 2020. That is also the place where i learned about the faith, but ofc, i barely knew anything about the Bible. In the meantime, i got kind of involved in this, i guess sect called “shincheonji” but a brother called me out and told me that that group was a sect. Now i’m part of a church, not that close to where i live but since i live in the Netherlands, it’s not even that far. God has been so, so kind and patient with me. The fact that i’m still here, in the faith is only because of His grace.❤️
20:39 - I disagree that it is an issue with selfishness. Coming from someone who goes to a congregation with many elderly people, divisions are so often caused by the elderly and the cliques they have formed. There is a massive bias against young people and older people simply assume that they know better. So no matter the skills you have, the elderly will not admit that you might have a point because they would see that as bowing to someone lesser than them. This may be just a Midwest attitude, but I definitely see it
I totally understand this, it even happens with middle aged people too. My parents and I went to a church that devolved slowly into a glorified social club with the death of our old pastor. My folks have recently joined a plant church because unlike other much older churches in the region they are thriving and spirituality active in both their internal and external affairs.
You definitely have a point here, and neither I nor Zoomer can really respond to this because we're in cities that take the ideas of the youth more seriously than they should. Looking at what you say, I would even ask myself if these leaders are narcissistic or something. I imagine you're showing service, but I'd say it's still a marathon to be run, not a short-term race. I'll pray for God to soften your leaders' hearts. No one escapes from His will.
Definitely a midwest attitude. Exactly why the churches filled with only the old have stagnated. For better or worse, ai attend a church plant, but they've got a good head on their shoulders and are doibg the essentjal things they should be doing, and there's a good age range with old people, young people, and families alike.
I think you overlooked what is, in my experience, one of the largest reasons for church planting in the modern day: the old church got too big. Church planting isn't always done as an alternative to reviving old churches. It's often done as alternative to overcrowding good churches. If you don't like mega churches, then you should love church planting, because that's how healthy churches avoid growing too big.
this is a very good point, my church is experiencing that problem, we have ballooned up to almost 700 members, we have out grown our sanctuary, we are looking at either a second service or just that, starting another church.
@@ejvr99in my area it is. Although I suppose that depends on what you mran by "too big." In the case of one of the previous churches I attended who did this, they'd have about 1k and max out around 1200 people.
Our OPC has planted 3 churches so far, about to plant another one. The reason we keep planting them is our church keeps outgrowing our space (which is a beautiful historic church btw-beautiful brick, with bell tower, stained glass windows in the middle of town). We don’t want to be huge becsuse no one will know each other, much less know the pastor-if it becomes a mega church. I wonder how many OPC churches you have been to. With the way you describe them I suspect not many. All of our church plants are around city centers. Our last one is a huge old baptist church-purposefully bought right on a bus line, and hoping to serve the immigrant community. There is an ESL program, a school, and an ongoing Muslim Christian dinner every other week-initiated by the Muslims-where our families get together with their families-taking turns to host each other and discussing the Koran and the Bible. At one of our churches we host a Presbyterian church from the largest Presbyterian church in Mexico. Their pastor visits once a year from Mexico to do home visits. We provide a pastor and our presbytery provides oversight in the interim. Are you also not aware the OPC has faternal relationships with reformed denominations around the world who go to our Ga every year and report on their denominations? It really seems like you don’t know what you are talking about when you speak about some things. I’m not trying to be rude. I think you’ve got a wonderful testimony. But seriously maybe you shouldn’t talk about things you aren’t an authority on?
Also, if you had kids maybe you would understand why families do not want to just ‘inject’ ourselves and our children into a church that is teaching false doctrine every week. That would be sinful. Bad company corrupts good morals (1 Cor. 15:33. So scolding the OPC and PCA for not wanting to send its people out to give up any solid teaching or accountability-it may sound like a good idea to someone who is young and doesn’t have children. Again, not trying to be mean. I’m just stating a fact. I didn’t understand the weight of responsibility to educate my children until after I had them.
In Metro Manila, the Philippines, we have very few confessional Presby churches, so I’m glad my pastor planted ours in Quezon city nine years ago. Love your content, brother! May God keep you from stumbling as you flourish as a UA-camr.
Im a missionary in Mexico that is helping to plant the first Presbyterian church in our city. We work with the Mexican National Presbyterian Church, which is the mainline, but presbyterianism isnt very big outside the south of the country, such that the closest other church in our presbetery is like 1000 KM north. Obviously we dont have a lot of money and are still renting a patio, but I do think it is interesting that only the Catholic church has beautiful cathedrals around here, and even the other churches that have been here for a few decades are just depressing in their atmosphere.
@@HolyKhaaaaan It varies a lot depending on region a lot of it is mixed with folk religion, witchcraft, and superstition. A lot of Mexicans would consider themselves catholic but in practice it is more nominal and few of them attend mass or practice the sacraments in any meaningful way.
I definitely agree that it is better to focus on shoring up old, established historic churches than starting new poorly resourced church plants. One thing that I think is a good strategy here is churches sharing buildings, even if they may be from different denominations. For instance, the only Moravian church in my state meets at a large, beautiful UMC church which is the oldest denominational church in that town. There are also two CREC churches near me that meet at an SBC and UMC church respectively. They are meeting in buildings that aren’t necessarily super flashy, but are still decent looking, classically styled church buildings, which is better than meeting in a gym. I have also seen plenty of ACNA churches meeting in various already established denominational churches, including in LCMS churches. With declining membership in almost all denominations, this strategy can help separate congregations to both have beautiful worship spaces while sharing the upkeep of those spaces, even if they are separate doctrinally, etc.
I agree with your strategy! I'm a Lutheran part of an old established church in the LCC (in communion with LCMS), but around me I've seen many good examples of shared buildings especially in United Church of Canada buildings. While the U.C.Canada is a lost cause with no hope of Reconquista, in my town, the United church (oldest church here) closed down this year with the building now used (rented/bought) by a faithful church plant with great community outreach/evangelism. The same thing is happening a town over, a University friend of mine helped plant a church renting the United building. I'll visit them for the first time this Sunday since they have to start service at 1pm rather than the normal 10am. (almost) every UCC church I can think of has either closed down for another church plant to buy it (ones I picture are now, Antiochan Orthodox, Pentecostal and Seventh-Day Adventist churches) or they rent the building during off-hours to stay afloat. I've also seen a couple other churches doing the same outside the UCC. (examples: an old mainline Anglican church sharing the building with a Romanian Orthodox parish and an Evangelical Covenant church sharing with a mainline Presby church.) Sometimes church plants can end up joining established churches anyway. An example in my town is a Nondenom church plant in a school gym that eventually realized they had the exact same doctrines/practices as the old baptist church and merged together with them.
This sounds like the modern version of the old debate about whether the catholic church could be purified or reformed or whether we needed a clean break
Church plant = _I'm first! Or if not, i am the only one in my sector and i have the following competitive advantages..._ How about stopping competing against each other? Add evangelism fervour of the "planters" to the pastoral continuity of the established congregation?
im from colombia and we have a catholic church in every town, and a lot of prots in main cities. but for example rn im in my grandparents town which is mainly rural and there is only one prots church (and is a pentecostal sect so that equals nothing) i wish gringos would plant churches in OTHER countries instead of just putting another non denom church in a town where there’s already 200
You don’t NEED a Biblical reason to prefer sacred church settings, and it blows my mind Evangelicals can’t understand this (or worse, take a perverse pride in ugly churches and “Pastors” in blue jeans). It’s just theological common sense. The location where we WORSHIP God should not look like a high school auditorium. It shouldn’t have the atmosphere of a Ted Talk. The Pastor shouldn’t make sacred Scripture casual and folksy. When you enter the House of God, you should feel reverence for all those faithful Christians who came before you. That doesn’t mean you have to be high church! Traditional Baptist churches in small towns in the South are a different kind of beauty.
The thing is that building is almost always at the bottom of the list when it comes to choosing church. It's always doctrine and practice first. BTW the early church did meet in homes so...
Id say the building is a secondary concern. Beauty is one of Gods characteristics and it awesome when the building is as well. But its a luxury, not a requirement.
@@maxxiong When Christians were a desperate minority … not 70% of the population! As soon as it was possible, they built beautiful churches and employed liturgy.
@@WastelandArmorer I agree 100% it’s secondary. But some of these contemporary churches have plenty of money and practically take pride in building an ugly church. And that’s not okay, IMO.
@@redeemedzoomer6053 hey I know this unrelated but you should do a video about which books of the Bible you’ve read and about which books are canon I’ve heard many books were cut out of later editions of the Bible so it be intresting to hear ur perspective on that
This really doesn't work if you believe in apostolic succession. If your local episcopal church waves an LGBTQ+ flag and has a woman priest, it isn't possible to retake that church because there's no church left. The building is ornamental to the form of bishops, priests, and deacons--and so if you try to sit in that church and retake it, you go without a valid Eucharist. It's better to rebuild, since ordinations carried out by a female bishop arent valid anyway (so vying to replace the leadership doesn't work anyway, unless you replaced the whole diocesesan structure, which could take decades--in which time you could have built a new Anglican church and had the sacraments under a lawfully ordained bishop and priest)
I'll also say--this is why your critiques of the ACNA don't work (e.g. starting the ACNA instead of remaining in the episcopal church). Because female bishops can't ordain priests validly, and can't administer the eucharist validly, you *need* to come under another bishop and dioceses if you want your church to have more priests. But the structure gets so corrupt that you basically need to coalesce faithful dioceses to have new priests. That's what the ACNA is.
Im not even Catholic, formally, but everything you just said sounds like a TED Talk on why you should just become Catholic. Despite the hiccups, scandals, and corruption -- the Catholic Church has remained identifiable and distinct. As opposed to all these other churches who have hiccups, scandals, and corruptions and either a.) embrace them or b.) crumble.
@@WilliamMcAdams Catholics have massive scandals too, like the whole German Bishops conference. I don't see why discerning lines of succession--which actually isn't difficult to do--is a motive to become Roman Catholic.
Coming from an evangelical perspective without any belief in apostolic succession, I'll add that another factor separating the way the Episcopal church needs to be treated vs. other mainline denominations is that, from what I can see, the other mainline denominations have issues with severe error and with heresy, whereas the Episcopal church, the Archbishop of the whole denomination has preached open blasphemy from the pulpit (back in the mid-2000s I ran across a sermon transcript where she alleged that Paul and Silas were thrown is prison in Acts 16 as divine punishment for failing to recognize, and for driving out, a benevolent spirit, and that they were miraculously freed only when they repented). How can any believer have fellowship with that? And if you *do* believe in apostolic succession, how can you trust any ordination in such a denomination?
@JonBrase Yup--I certainly don't. That's supreme ground for leaving that body as an apostate body and preserving the apostolic deposit with others who also are striving to preserve it.
The church plant in my area started because the mainline presbyterian church had a bunch of structural issues and sat empty for 20+ years until the city had it demolished.
Hey Zoomer! Wondering if you'd ever consider making a video about "house churches"? They seem to be increasingly popular amongst Protestants so I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the matter.
@@redeemedzoomer6053Yes I agree (I'm Orthodox so you can imagine why lol) Many of my friends and family have left their old churches and started 'new' churches without any formal structure, I'm hesitant to see to happens
It’s past time we start to restrict the label of “Protestant” to only those Christians who carry forward the belief of the actual Reformers. Non-Denominationals and even some Baptists need not apply.
I'm with LCMS, and typically are motivation for planting new churches is to reach the unchurched and make more Christians not make more Lutherans. As such, we ofren have multiple churches in an area to reach different demographics of people, because some people in general struggle to fellowship outside their demographic. Such democraphics usually in age, marital, and parental status, but gender, nationality, and other things may be an initial focus depending on the need. For example, a chirch I helped plant was originally focused on reaching single, adult men arounf 20-40 in rhe area due to that demographic lacking in Christian fellowship. It also by proxy appealed to women and couples of fhe same age range, but focusing on them as well would do whay you said, and just move a lot of people from one church to another. Any church plant should focus on reaching new Christians where expanding services, outreach programs, and such at an existing church won't be enough. Likewise, existing churches should be ever open to expanding services to reach new people.
I moved to a smaller town outside of Atlanta for work. There are only 2 historical churches in the town and they’re both what you referred to as crusty. I wanted to build a community since I have no friends here. There was no way that was going to happen at one of these historical churches. You would probably see the church I joined as a plant, but I don’t see it that way. The church has grown rapidly in the past year and is now one of the larger churches in the area. I even helped get our new college young adults ministry put together recently and it’s growing. We currently worship out of a converted warehouse (we are Baptists, it’s cliché, I know) and we are close to our funding goal to build our permanent church to better serve the community and congregation. None of this would have happened if we were not a “plant church“. I understand what you’re getting at with this video but I heavily disagree.
I'm increasingly starting to believe RedeemedZoomer is still living in his own local-community-picture of the entire US, meaning he's viewing the ENTIRE NATION as if they were ALL like the people living within maybe 100 miles of him. I've seen hints of it in other videos as well. He'll grow out of it, I'm sure.
I'm only about halfway through the video, so perhaps you address this later, but I feel like you're saying "Here's some issues you might face with a church plant, so maybe don't make very many," but I don't think facing problems is a reason to not do something. The issues you mention early on are far from unsolvable. Bc like, you also say we want to revive local communities. Are not church plants the solution to that problem? We'll dedicate our church to one small area, and if we grow too big, let's plant a church and reach another nearby community. Keeps it local. As opposed to a mega church serving an entire major city.
Yeah I feel like that’s a great point. Plant churches can sometimes bring life and a resurgence of spirituality to regions that have old dead churches that seek to uphold status quo or act as glorified social clubs.
12:08 I used to go to a Non-Denominational Church until the pastor started endorsing Sodomy, Transgenderism, and BLM. So that’s why I have more respect for Catholic, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestant denominations because there are structures in place to make sure that the Priest/Pastor is genuinely Christian and not out to subvert the faith or exploit believers for financial gain.
Would you support a church plant if the only option for the faithful is a non-bible believing church? I think reconquista is a noble goal, but as you say yourself it is not for everyone. If the only option is a liberal PCUSA church I wouldn't feel comfortable sending baby christians there. You may countersignal conservative churches that split from the withering mainline, but those are legitimately healthy communities that are better for new Christians and families than the battleground of the mainline which is mainly for established single Christians.
a liberal PCUSA is never the only option. There’s usually every single denomination and every offshoot of that denomination in a community. This is how it goes in every small town medium to large city in the US. If a town is so small that they really only have one or two local churches, those are probably so rural that they’re conservative anyway. If that is the case, swallow your denominational pride and allow that town to continue to be baptist or Lutheran or Presbyterian only, and focus your efforts on places totally unreached. Utah would be a great candidate for church planting.
@@gumbyshrimp2606 But what about places that have lots of Pentecostals of the snake handling variety, or only the Hardshell Baptists which believe 90% or more of all men to have ever lived are in heaven? This is why places like Southern West Virginia need better churches as well. Many parts of Appalachia's Protestant churches are just as devoid of the gospel as the Mormons are.
I live in Frederick, MD. Our old historic churches are incredibly expensive to upkeep. $1 million to replace an historic organ, for example. Just not worth the cost. Rather spend the money on ministry.
I sort of agree and disagree here. I've watched my local church greatly reduce in size because people have left for church plants twice in the past few years. A recurring reason why people leave the church for the new ones is to get away from all the "gossip" and cliques that come from the parent church. Which I can attest to them being very gossipy and cliquish. I don't even go to my home Church anymore because of it (and I've moved away for college so I go to church there). I know dozens of people with the same experience. So I understand why the church plants were created, but I also find it very unfortunate that they couldn't work it out and stay together. The big irony of all this is I have no direct experience with the reasonings of why people do this or that, I get all of my information through gossip. It's so frustrating to watch this happen and not be able to do anything since I'm not in the clique. It's also generational/familial cliques so it isn't just a specific age, it's entire families that have been part of the church for generations. These families also happen to provide the most in tithings. So if they ever left the church out of spite, the church would lose lots of funding. TLDR: I grew up in a Church where people like to gossip and cannot have an honest conversation with one another if their life depended on it.
Interesting to hear RZ talking about the need to renew communities, and something I agree with. It is why I get a bit sad to see Christians who have bought into the reagan/thatcher model of neoliberal capitalism because those ideologies are built upon extreme individualist principles, to the detriment of communities. If the church isn't helping people to meet all their needs, (not just the salvational ones) then how can it be said to be helpful or useful?
Long, long ago before time had a name there was man known as the spinjitsu master who roamed the continent of ninja, but he split it in 2 to preserve the good from evil today his power lives on through the legndary green ninja and the 4 golden weapons.
I'm not sure if you're aware but your mic situation sounds amateurish, I can hear your room I mean and with your videos getting bigger it could use an upgrade or maybe different recording settings.
Hey Zoomer have you thought about people creating local non-internet community oriented fraternal groups? Like a protestant version of knights of columbus or a christian version of freemasons (minus the deism) or an adult version of boyscouts. Get offline and actually do stuff with people irl to build community and serve their community?
@@blakebonecutter I was thinking more like a club, wouldn't matter if you were Baptist, Methodist, Wester Branch of American Reformed Presbylutheranism. Meet Friday or Saturday, learn skills, do charity work, etc.
12:56 you might want to read a little more about Rome. I'm pretty sure Rome was in the real world and lasted a long time and it was won one soul at a time. Grafting a new branch into a rotting/dead tree is a great way to lose the branch and the tree. 17:03 God divorced Israel for their apostasy. Should we try to revive Judaism? 20:31 We did "lose" anything, it was thrown away. It is not welcome anymore.
I think the reason that churches don’t graft good branches into a dying trees is because they don’t want to see the death of good branches. One of the largest churches in my state (and the one I attend) is a conservative non-denominational (essentially baptist) megachurch. This church plants individually run campuses around the region because, in my estimation, they see the monetary cost of planting a new tree as worth it to avoid inadvertently killing a good branch.
So aging Christians are bad branches and dying roots that should be walked away from? These are human beings not vegetation, it’s dehumanizing to call them dying trees.
I like the idea, but there are some logistical concerns that come up. Big, old, ornate buildings are easy to move into, and they're hard to stay in. You gotta pay for the mortgage (if there is one), the water bill, the electric bill, the gas bill, insurance, maintenance, upkeep, repairs, etc. Even with tax exemption, that's a five-figure monthly expenditure just to keep things running business as usual. You can't send a couple of handfuls of theologically conservative families to take things over when the liberal elements of the congregation die out or realize there's no reason for them to keep going to church every Sunday. You gotta send the horde to take back those beautiful old buildings, because if you don't, the conservatives will inherit the building, and they'll also be the ones to sell it off when it becomes too expensive for their undersized congregation to pay the bills for.
In some ways, Zoomer seem obsessed with classic church building designs more than the Reformed form of worship. I commend his effort in attempting to "reform" PCUSA to the word of God like Luther did with the Church in Rome. However, he is equating church buildings as some outward historical signs of reformed Church tradition which NONE of the confessions or doctrines ever mention.
I think he is hoping to make changes within traditional older buildings. I find it embarrassing that there all these empty churches. What do other religions think of this!
Finally someone mentions it. I honestly don’t get it. Yeah I know my church isn’t the most beautiful building around, but we make the absolute best effort of preaching the truth that the Bible teaches. Isn’t that all we need?
You should use UA-cam Studio to trim off everything after 21:19 because I think you made an export mistake. The rest of the video past that point is a black screen.
Cap. Slap cap. Planting churches does not "thin out the already established Christian population." I think this video is trying to fit in with your personal agenda. Maybe you think this somehow supports the Reconquista (a great movement btw) instead of talking about facts. 127,000 people live within 20 minutes of a church I'm planting and only 9% of those people are attending a bible-based church. There are plenty of churches in the area but they're small and mostly dying. More church plants in the area means more access to a faith community folks might not otherwise have. The churches that are established in the area and are dying stepped away from the Gospel message and have lost focus of making disciples of all nations. We as a church do not make Christians. We as a church do not draw people to ourselves. If we lift up Christ, He will draw all people to Himself. It's not about our logo or our denomination or even our church. It's about making disciples, and that's something church plants, statistically speaking, do better in their first few years of being open than some of these established churches have been faking doing for decades. I'd rather meet in a pizza hut and preach the Gospel to the community and experience explosive spiritual growth than be in a beautiful building and be a community center and have a dying congregation. I support your channel and love your content but this video is rife with bias and lies about church-plants homie. Let's get the facts straight. The viewpoint of not planting new churches and instead reviving old ones is not biblical. If we're gonna look at the church as what it's defined as in the Bible, we're gonna see that even a house church of 5 is still a church. To those 5 experiencing Jesus in their lives on a daily basis, that has immense value. Those same 5 attending the dying Presbyterian Church up the road with 20 people, but a beautiful building, and not being fed spiritually, are going to be far worse off than had they kept meeting in their homes. I strongly disagree with you man. I hope you look into church-planting more and come to see that church-planting is part of the Great Commission and something we should always be doing as the Church.
I did a quick search of some US cities with 127,000 population and they have churches representing the different denominations and the standard non-denominational/evangelical churches (both theologically conservative and liberal) Are there no similar churches as yours in the city you're located in? Theologically what way is your church plant geared (Baptists, reformed, etc.), that's not already represented in the city minus small differences? Edit: also just to note you mention dying churches that left preaching the gospel. Most of the Epistles are written to churches to correct their errors and guide them to correct doctrine, not to tell them to die and go start another church plant. Just a minor correction to your argument, with a biblical example.
your intro sounded like advocacy of attending megachurches and centralizing everything into one campus that grows bigger and bigger. Couldn't this lead to an insane amount of corruption? (see all megachurches)
I hear the criticism, but I also don't see the leadership giving up their role is reasonable. Most likely, they will want you to conform. In my experience conservatives take over, liberals slide. I would love you to speak to this on a future video. The SBTS seminary has a worthwhile study in this story Al Mohler. Keep thinking
Very nice video zoomer! I don't know if you care or if it matters but i think you left a cut music clip at the end of the video so it's just like 6 minutes of a black screen at the end.
Are Baptists in a unique situation? The conservative offshoot denomination (SBC) has 12 million more members than the liberal mainline denomination (ABCUSA). Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on keeping the larger conservative denomination conservative rather than directing our efforts towards reclaiming a smaller, more liberal denomination?
I'm not sure I'd call the SBC an "offshoot" denomination: it was simply a mainline denomination that managed to expel its liberal wing rather than being conquered by it.
Day 6 of pretty please asking to get unbanned from the server. Another great video which i can resonate with lol. I grew up as a pentecostal and the church where i grew up in was actually a storage building hahaha. But yeah all of the examples u gave are pretty much correct
Revelation 14:12 New International Version 12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
Hey RZ have you ever heard of Come Over and Help (COAH) It ministers in eastern Europe, spread reformed theology throughout these countries. You talking about calvinism in Hungary and how you want support it, so this ministry might be something you could be interested in
I mean you said it yourself, people don't wanna do communities that much, my take is that it's internet nobody going planting communities around, since they do it on the internet, you basically have to do same, you did it yourself, almost 300k people following you, 20 years ago you would just say those things to few dozens of people in your local church I think we should focus on how to crack christianity correctly into internet instead of focusing on keeping tradition of local communities, because it may naturally die out Maybe im wrong, but let's not lose the opportunity of millenium
I'm going to watch this whole thing, but my reflexive reaction to the thumbnail and title is that it's what I would expect of a diet catholic such as yourself. But I'm gonna give it a good faith listen
@@redeemedzoomer6053 from the standpoint of a sola scriptura boy, all you mainline denoms appear to adhere to some level of extra biblical ceremony that we thought Luther was correctly bucking against with his thesis.
But let me state, I love your videos because I'm coming from a evangelical wing, and grew up never hearing good arguments from mainline denoms because those communities basically don't exist around here. I'm in the PNW and the only thing that can survive here are evangelical churches, the mainline churches eventually "evolve" into the furthest elements of the PCA and the Lutheran church. Since I don't like all their adherance to catholic dogma, why would I want to revive their church? I have another reply I am gonna add with more thoughts, but this did make me think of another point: different areas will respond to different denoms more positively. Mainline churches that I think we'd both agree are now outside the tent on "closed hand" issues of doctrine are basically all that's left here. Whereas you have thriving non denoms (which I understand potentially carry their own issues of accountability) that are actually preaching the gospel the mainline churches have now forsaken. And culturally, the PNW is new, there aren't lots of old buildings, and I don't tend to personally like old buildings for anything other than to walk through and temporarily admire. I don't want to attend church in a cathedral, I'd much rather go to a home church like we see in the new testament.
It's funny, I grew up in the far extreme of the evangelical wing. Not crazy, just almost entirely detached from the history of the church itself. Very sola scriptura folks. I never considered the "traditional" denominations worthy of consideration because YOU DON'T GET TO ADD ONTO SCRIPTURE, so all the ceremonial stuff the Vatican added is nonsense that actually detracts focus from God. In the end, from an evangelical standpoint, this argument comes across like a (forgive the odd metaphor) like you're some sort of a Presbyterian protectionist who wants to quell the free market and maintain some sort of self appointed authority. The denomination I'm from is Foursquare and is an offshoot of Assemblies of God, but that is a secondary and, frankly, far far less important self identification for me. I'm a Christian, and anyone who believes Jesus died for their sins and accepts that sacrifice is also a brother of mine, regardless of denom. I generally like your idea of grafting vs planting, but there is a problem with that. I think we're both saved and will go to heaven, but I think ANY extra scriptural BS that the "mainline" denominations have added to their extra scriptural bureaucracies will result in a slap on the wrist when we arrive together in heaven. So if a local Presbyterian or Lutheran church is the only option for me to graft onto, I will very much and rightly be perceived as a cancer and not a branch. In the end, I don't think you're making a false argument, but I think you are treating the denomination like the church instead of the people. "Presbyterians" are not "the church", we (you and I) are. So if individual branches of that body need to die, let them die. I think this is a great video about the virtue of working to revive a dying branch of the greater body, but I don't think it passes my first principles issue where scripture is authority, not any one denomination (except for the leadership you submit yourself to of course), so why should I have any allegiance to anything other than The Word? I think a flock will thrive or fail based on their leadership. You know a tree by its fruits. If a church is not producing fruit, maybe it's not a church anymore. I also think you massively disregard the revivals that have occurred in the last 100 years.
@@GoingwithafakehandlehereWe are just regular Protestants, not “Diet Catholics.” Maybe it’s time YOU start calling yourself something else if you’re this out of step with historical Protestantism…
Do you have a video "why I'm not Muslim"? I would love to hear a purely theological discussion of this. I. e. from a non-believer's perspective, why the idea that Christianity is objectively true should be more appealing than the idea that Islam is objectively true?
John 3:16 New International Version 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Look up the shroud of Turin. It's impossible to remake and the closest they ever got to debunking it. They took a sample from the wrong piece of the cloth
I really appreciate your historical videos, but there’s something off about this one, brother. The Bible says God looks at the heart, not at the outside and there’s a lot of emphasis on earthly measures in this video as well as flat out prejudice against evangelicals. Demanding unity in the body and yet insulting that very body is not consistent. Give yourself some time and more life experience in IRL churches and come back to this topic after.
Couple good tests. He will never direct you to do somthing contrary to scripture, and examine the fruit of what the spirit says. Also ask God for wisdom fully believing he will answer and he WILL, James 1:5. If the spirit still directs you after these tests, SEND IT!
Imagine having to go to the bishop who has to go to the archbishop who has to send a request to Rome who says “no, you have a beautiful , historic church in your community that has a school attached. If you have extra funds, give it to the poor or fix your roof.” Ahh, Catholicism.
This isn't necessarily an either/or. There's a decent case to be made that the church as a whole is stronger if we do some of both. Especially in large cities where the population we need to reach is massively larger than the capacity of the existing church buildings. And these cities are the places we need to put the most focus on if we want to retake the culture of Western countries, since they are the places where most of the culture is made. I'm part of what Americans would call a non-denominational church that was planted 25 years ago (I happened to join it when I was a student a little bit before the official church launch), and we have actively sought to work together with all the churches across my city (which has a population around 3000 times more than the total number of churches). And some of the things we have been involved in starting have actively strengthened all the churches in the city. We have recently (after many years of looking) acquired a building that was abandoned by a liberal denomination some years ago. And even though the building still needs work to become copletely usable, we have already started reaching out to the local community in that part of the city. I think you're a little off on the reasons people do church plants. In our case, the church was founded on the basis of things God had directly said to the people who were involved in the initial founding. But in cases where a plant is a purely human initiative, a church plant is done because it's thought of as an easier job than reviving an old congregation. Starting a plant from scratch (if there's a group of you) basically gets you immediately to the point you'll be at after you've taken over the mainline congregation. And in many cases taking over an old building is thought of as a huge unnecessary hassle. Many older buildings are a massive money and time sink in terms of maintenance.
@@DrGero15 Scripture mentions lots of prophets whose prophecies aren't recorded in scripture. Philip's daughters (Acts 21:9), the prophets in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 14:29-32), the seventy elders in Moses' day (Numbers 11:25-27), King Saul and the prophets he briefly joined (1 Samuel 10:9-11), the prophets who prophesied with Saul's men (1 Samuel 19:19-21), and the prophets who were with Elijah (2 Kings 4:38-41) being a few examples. So your understanding of the relationship between direct revelation and scripture is at odds with what scripture teaches, since prophecies that the human authors of scripture clearly knew about were not recorded in scripture. The reality is that God directly giving somebody guidance about what they or their local congregation should do clearly does not have the universal authority over the church that is the hallmark of scripture.
@@stephengray1344 There is no more revelation from God. God no longer speaks to us that way. You are saying scripture isn't good enough for you. Look into Justin Peters ministry and the new documentary. The belief you hold came about with the Quakers and is foreign to scripture and the history of the church.
@@DrGero15 I am not saying that scripture isn't good enough for me. I am saying that we should agree with what scripture teaches about prophecy. A position that you clearly do not agree with. Here are some of the things that scripture explicitly says about prophecy: That it will not pass away until the second coming (1 Corinthians 13:9-12), that we are to eagerly desire spiritual gifts - especially prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:1), that prophecy should be part of our church meetings (1 Corinthians 14:26-31), and that the last days (which began at Pentecost) are characterised by - amongst other things - prophecy (Acts 2:14-17). And no, continued revelation from God is not foreign to church history. There are instances of prophecy throughout church history. To give you just two examples, there were multiple recognised prophets during the Scottish Reformation (including its main leader - John Knox). And Charles Spurgeon reported God revealing to him specific knowledge, such as the precise takings somebody in his congregation had got by opening his shop on a Sunday. As for the Cessationist documentary, the arguments it puts forward are incredibly weak, and actively misrepresent both scripture and church history. You might want to look at the brief response from Gavin Ortland over on the channel Truth Unites, or at the point-by-point rebuttal series over on the channel Remnant Radio.
ok so making Christianity more appealing to the younger generation so in turn fulfilling what we were told to do in the bible and not making it look more like an old person religion is bad?
Honestly dude the reason I want to do a church plant is because I'm baptist, and there aren't any historical baptist sites around me, and I want to make a church that is basically a local community oriented logistical powerhouse for good works. As a basically required statement, the good works are not needed for salvation, the good works are to glorify God, follow the commands of Jesus, and make new believers.
Use an existing building, hostile takeover a dying church.
Why not make it with an existing church?
@@alisatoniian9718 that's my first option, and the current church I go to is very close to that mindset, but there are places outside of this town I live that still need something like that. Have you ever heard of a "cowboy" church before? it's horrific and mostly in rural places without any historical church to begin with. In the meantime however I am trying to find more ways to make my current church busier already.
As you said, a local community. Driving 30-45 mins to church is not exactly conducive to building a local community.
@@thomasc9036 well not everything is a metropolitan area. To more people than you know, 30 minutes is "just down the road from me". I grew up in a place where it was less than 40 people per square mile and it's still like that today. Those people still need church.
Me and some friends had planned to be missionaries abroad in China or Europe or somewhere after college, but due to COVID and other life events that didn't happen. So we decided to take our missionary training and move somewhere in the US where the church is dying and work on trying to revitalize the church kinda like domestic missionaries. One of the friends specializes in Youth Ministry and the town of the church we moved to is very family centric, so we've been working with the church of Christ we're at to build up their youth ministry to reach out to young families. We're working on hosting community events to connect more people in town to the church and reach new people. I want to encourage as many people as possible to consider small dying churches when looking for a church home. Look for a church that needs you, especially if you're a young adult. My father once preached on a Sunday and redid a jfk quote, "Ask not what the Church can do for you, rather ask what you can do for the Church".
I grew up in a mainline church (UMC). Female pastors as far back as the 80’s. But we were good church goers and put on our nice clothes and sang hymns in a pretty building. I had no choice. I also never heard the gospel all those years. Until I came to faith independent of that church, I wanted nothing to do with it. And then I left for a church that actually taught the Bible and had a youth group where I was discipled. Had I stayed, I would have only more resented the forced empty formality devoid of any power and likely would have walked away completely. Thankfully God had a better plan.
Now as a parent, no way would I put my kids in a church like that during their childhood when their faith and values are being formed. As my pastor says, if we make church something boring for kids to endure, when they grow up they will vote with their feet and want nothing to do with it.
If you have a dead tree in your yard, you can’t revive it by sticking a sapling in its trunk. You chop it down and allow a new vibrant tree to grow in its place.
I think a lot of the problem is people use churches as social gatherings as opposed to assembling together to edify each other and stir up good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). Ephesians 4 also tells us to strive to keep unity among believers.
I agree. I have had the hardest time finding a good church where I am staying now. I want a church that assembles, and instead of just preaching to the audience, a pastor gives us something to discuss with one another, and guides us to the answer via scripture.... then after meeting we go out into the world and share the gosepl... that would be incredible!
One of my pet peeves is seeing a town that has 100 people have like 20 churches, often with multiple churches from the same denomination.
Came for the theology, stayed for the void at the end of time.
Yeah what the heck was that? I thought my UA-cam was broken.
@@unit2394 I think youtube broke itself; the time in the recommended is shorter than the video. I even refreshed the page and the video's time was off, the video is supposed to be 21 minutes, but youtube is weird and the actual time in the video was increased to 26 minutes. So I have no clue what happened.
There are parts of America where church planting is the only option. Church planting is a very good thing in certain places, as not every town has a Presbyterian church as you seem to imply. We should encourage men who want to plant churches to go to somewhere that needs good churches, like the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky. The dearth of good churches is real in these places.
we must remember Zoomer is from New York - he is metropolitan through and through. i find a lot of his advice does not take rural needs into consideration at all, so i just figure what he talks about past a certain ... density ... to be very sound advice. also, even in a town with just one church, it isn't that hard to add your voice and concerns, and often the churches are fairly conservative and welcoming for more discussion about these things. it is also quite welcome for some churches to rent out/ share their building with another body, as it helps both communities with bills and outreach programs, etc
@@dragonjo7550 Also from a rural area here, I agree. However, we must remember the majority of Americans are not in rural communities. So this applies to probably the majority of those that watch.
In his instagram post, zoomer DOES say Church planting works in these cases
I’m from southeastern Kentucky, up in the mountains. There’s probably a church for every 15 people
@@DownBadDonk Considering how far apart some people are in rural areas, that isn’t a lot. Depends on your definition of rural. It’s not terribly uncommon for folks to drive a hour or more to church in rural areas to find a good church. That’s the thing too. There may be a church or few closer, but they might be snake handling churches for all you know… 😂
My first thought when seeing this thumbnail was Zoomer hates Baptists (meaning our actions and not us personally since I know that isn't true), but then I realized it was gonna be about offshoot denominations. Telling a Baptist not to plant churches is like telling a bird not to fly.
I come from that background. I don't have a problem with church building networks, but sometiems I wonder why they build in certain places. They're mostly only thinking about whether their ministry or one they know shares their exact beliefs are reaching certain segments of a city/area instead of thinking about whether or not there are good churches nearby. I attend a church plant, but i don't really have any serious issues with it because they preach the gospel, encourage spiritual growth, and do good in the community.
Started attending a local LCMS church a few months back because I was curious about that more traditional style. Good people there but it’s mostly just older folks, generally under 20 people. There have been a few kids brought along to the last couple services though so that’s been nice to see. I want to convince my sister to come someday but I’m not sure how. She’s gone the agnostic route.
May God bless you and your sister.☺
As a “tiktok convert” myself, i must say, God has been so merciful and gracious. I wasn’t raised in a christian household. I heard the Gospel on tiktok in 2020. That is also the place where i learned about the faith, but ofc, i barely knew anything about the Bible. In the meantime, i got kind of involved in this, i guess sect called “shincheonji” but a brother called me out and told me that that group was a sect. Now i’m part of a church, not that close to where i live but since i live in the Netherlands, it’s not even that far. God has been so, so kind and patient with me. The fact that i’m still here, in the faith is only because of His grace.❤️
20:39 - I disagree that it is an issue with selfishness. Coming from someone who goes to a congregation with many elderly people, divisions are so often caused by the elderly and the cliques they have formed. There is a massive bias against young people and older people simply assume that they know better. So no matter the skills you have, the elderly will not admit that you might have a point because they would see that as bowing to someone lesser than them.
This may be just a Midwest attitude, but I definitely see it
I totally understand this, it even happens with middle aged people too. My parents and I went to a church that devolved slowly into a glorified social club with the death of our old pastor. My folks have recently joined a plant church because unlike other much older churches in the region they are thriving and spirituality active in both their internal and external affairs.
You definitely have a point here, and neither I nor Zoomer can really respond to this because we're in cities that take the ideas of the youth more seriously than they should. Looking at what you say, I would even ask myself if these leaders are narcissistic or something. I imagine you're showing service, but I'd say it's still a marathon to be run, not a short-term race. I'll pray for God to soften your leaders' hearts. No one escapes from His will.
Definitely a midwest attitude. Exactly why the churches filled with only the old have stagnated. For better or worse, ai attend a church plant, but they've got a good head on their shoulders and are doibg the essentjal things they should be doing, and there's a good age range with old people, young people, and families alike.
I think you overlooked what is, in my experience, one of the largest reasons for church planting in the modern day: the old church got too big. Church planting isn't always done as an alternative to reviving old churches. It's often done as alternative to overcrowding good churches. If you don't like mega churches, then you should love church planting, because that's how healthy churches avoid growing too big.
Maybe 50 years ago, but do you think that is the issue is now?
this is a very good point, my church is experiencing that problem, we have ballooned up to almost 700 members, we have out grown our sanctuary, we are looking at either a second service or just that, starting another church.
Why not just add more services?
@@jessefoutz597 we don't want to because that will make the church feel more disconnected
@@ejvr99in my area it is. Although I suppose that depends on what you mran by "too big." In the case of one of the previous churches I attended who did this, they'd have about 1k and max out around 1200 people.
Our OPC has planted 3 churches so far, about to plant another one. The reason we keep planting them is our church keeps outgrowing our space (which is a beautiful historic church btw-beautiful brick, with bell tower, stained glass windows in the middle of town). We don’t want to be huge becsuse no one will know each other, much less know the pastor-if it becomes a mega church. I wonder how many OPC churches you have been to. With the way you describe them I suspect not many. All of our church plants are around city centers. Our last one is a huge old baptist church-purposefully bought right on a bus line, and hoping to serve the immigrant community. There is an ESL program, a school, and an ongoing Muslim Christian dinner every other week-initiated by the Muslims-where our families get together with their families-taking turns to host each other and discussing the Koran and the Bible. At one of our churches we host a Presbyterian church from the largest Presbyterian church in Mexico. Their pastor visits once a year from Mexico to do home visits. We provide a pastor and our presbytery provides oversight in the interim. Are you also not aware the OPC has faternal relationships with reformed denominations around the world who go to our Ga every year and report on their denominations? It really seems like you don’t know what you are talking about when you speak about some things.
I’m not trying to be rude. I think you’ve got a wonderful testimony. But seriously maybe you shouldn’t talk about things you aren’t an authority on?
Also, if you had kids maybe you would understand why families do not want to just ‘inject’ ourselves and our children into a church that is teaching false doctrine every week. That would be sinful. Bad company corrupts good morals (1 Cor. 15:33. So scolding the OPC and PCA for not wanting to send its people out to give up any solid teaching or accountability-it may sound like a good idea to someone who is young and doesn’t have children. Again, not trying to be mean. I’m just stating a fact. I didn’t understand the weight of responsibility to educate my children until after I had them.
Its always a good day when Zoomer uploads
We are being absolutely blessed with your content lately
In Metro Manila, the Philippines, we have very few confessional Presby churches, so I’m glad my pastor planted ours in Quezon city nine years ago.
Love your content, brother! May God keep you from stumbling as you flourish as a UA-camr.
Interesting. Where and what is the church's name?
@@jjjsalang Pilgrim Community Church, in Detroit, Cubao.
0:19-0:30 Outhouse? More like Devout House! 🥁
hahaha good one
Im a missionary in Mexico that is helping to plant the first Presbyterian church in our city. We work with the Mexican National Presbyterian Church, which is the mainline, but presbyterianism isnt very big outside the south of the country, such that the closest other church in our presbetery is like 1000 KM north. Obviously we dont have a lot of money and are still renting a patio, but I do think it is interesting that only the Catholic church has beautiful cathedrals around here, and even the other churches that have been here for a few decades are just depressing in their atmosphere.
What is the state of Catholicism in Mexico?
@@HolyKhaaaaan It varies a lot depending on region a lot of it is mixed with folk religion, witchcraft, and superstition. A lot of Mexicans would consider themselves catholic but in practice it is more nominal and few of them attend mass or practice the sacraments in any meaningful way.
I definitely agree that it is better to focus on shoring up old, established historic churches than starting new poorly resourced church plants.
One thing that I think is a good strategy here is churches sharing buildings, even if they may be from different denominations. For instance, the only Moravian church in my state meets at a large, beautiful UMC church which is the oldest denominational church in that town. There are also two CREC churches near me that meet at an SBC and UMC church respectively. They are meeting in buildings that aren’t necessarily super flashy, but are still decent looking, classically styled church buildings, which is better than meeting in a gym. I have also seen plenty of ACNA churches meeting in various already established denominational churches, including in LCMS churches.
With declining membership in almost all denominations, this strategy can help separate congregations to both have beautiful worship spaces while sharing the upkeep of those spaces, even if they are separate doctrinally, etc.
I agree with your strategy! I'm a Lutheran part of an old established church in the LCC (in communion with LCMS), but around me I've seen many good examples of shared buildings especially in United Church of Canada buildings.
While the U.C.Canada is a lost cause with no hope of Reconquista, in my town, the United church (oldest church here) closed down this year with the building now used (rented/bought) by a faithful church plant with great community outreach/evangelism. The same thing is happening a town over, a University friend of mine helped plant a church renting the United building. I'll visit them for the first time this Sunday since they have to start service at 1pm rather than the normal 10am.
(almost) every UCC church I can think of has either closed down for another church plant to buy it (ones I picture are now, Antiochan Orthodox, Pentecostal and Seventh-Day Adventist churches) or they rent the building during off-hours to stay afloat. I've also seen a couple other churches doing the same outside the UCC. (examples: an old mainline Anglican church sharing the building with a Romanian Orthodox parish and an Evangelical Covenant church sharing with a mainline Presby church.)
Sometimes church plants can end up joining established churches anyway. An example in my town is a Nondenom church plant in a school gym that eventually realized they had the exact same doctrines/practices as the old baptist church and merged together with them.
This sounds like the modern version of the old debate about whether the catholic church could be purified or reformed or whether we needed a clean break
Church plant = _I'm first! Or if not, i am the only one in my sector and i have the following competitive advantages..._
How about stopping competing against each other? Add evangelism fervour of the "planters" to the pastoral continuity of the established congregation?
I thought he'd talk about plants outside of churches. 10/10
🤣mine likes to put them inside around the pulpit
me too
im from colombia and we have a catholic church in every town, and a lot of prots in main cities. but for example rn im in my grandparents town which is mainly rural and there is only one prots church (and is a pentecostal sect so that equals nothing) i wish gringos would plant churches in OTHER countries instead of just putting another non denom church in a town where there’s already 200
I so agree.
You don’t NEED a Biblical reason to prefer sacred church settings, and it blows my mind Evangelicals can’t understand this (or worse, take a perverse pride in ugly churches and “Pastors” in blue jeans). It’s just theological common sense.
The location where we WORSHIP God should not look like a high school auditorium. It shouldn’t have the atmosphere of a Ted Talk. The Pastor shouldn’t make sacred Scripture casual and folksy.
When you enter the House of God, you should feel reverence for all those faithful Christians who came before you. That doesn’t mean you have to be high church! Traditional Baptist churches in small towns in the South are a different kind of beauty.
The thing is that building is almost always at the bottom of the list when it comes to choosing church. It's always doctrine and practice first.
BTW the early church did meet in homes so...
Id say the building is a secondary concern. Beauty is one of Gods characteristics and it awesome when the building is as well. But its a luxury, not a requirement.
@@maxxiong When Christians were a desperate minority … not 70% of the population! As soon as it was possible, they built beautiful churches and employed liturgy.
@@WastelandArmorer I agree 100% it’s secondary. But some of these contemporary churches have plenty of money and practically take pride in building an ugly church. And that’s not okay, IMO.
My city is unbelievably unchurched. We’re in the US and yet we have no historic churches here that aren’t LDS. Church plants are about all we got here
Utah is the exception. Praying for your local community that they leave the Mormon church and come to Christ
Any Catholic or Episcopal? Just curious.
@@redeemedzoomer6053 hey I know this unrelated but you should do a video about which books of the Bible you’ve read and about which books are canon I’ve heard many books were cut out of later editions of the Bible so it be intresting to hear ur perspective on that
@@redeemedzoomer6053aren't Mormons christians?
This really doesn't work if you believe in apostolic succession. If your local episcopal church waves an LGBTQ+ flag and has a woman priest, it isn't possible to retake that church because there's no church left. The building is ornamental to the form of bishops, priests, and deacons--and so if you try to sit in that church and retake it, you go without a valid Eucharist. It's better to rebuild, since ordinations carried out by a female bishop arent valid anyway (so vying to replace the leadership doesn't work anyway, unless you replaced the whole diocesesan structure, which could take decades--in which time you could have built a new Anglican church and had the sacraments under a lawfully ordained bishop and priest)
I'll also say--this is why your critiques of the ACNA don't work (e.g. starting the ACNA instead of remaining in the episcopal church). Because female bishops can't ordain priests validly, and can't administer the eucharist validly, you *need* to come under another bishop and dioceses if you want your church to have more priests. But the structure gets so corrupt that you basically need to coalesce faithful dioceses to have new priests. That's what the ACNA is.
Im not even Catholic, formally, but everything you just said sounds like a TED Talk on why you should just become Catholic.
Despite the hiccups, scandals, and corruption -- the Catholic Church has remained identifiable and distinct.
As opposed to all these other churches who have hiccups, scandals, and corruptions and either a.) embrace them or b.) crumble.
@@WilliamMcAdams Catholics have massive scandals too, like the whole German Bishops conference. I don't see why discerning lines of succession--which actually isn't difficult to do--is a motive to become Roman Catholic.
Coming from an evangelical perspective without any belief in apostolic succession, I'll add that another factor separating the way the Episcopal church needs to be treated vs. other mainline denominations is that, from what I can see, the other mainline denominations have issues with severe error and with heresy, whereas the Episcopal church, the Archbishop of the whole denomination has preached open blasphemy from the pulpit (back in the mid-2000s I ran across a sermon transcript where she alleged that Paul and Silas were thrown is prison in Acts 16 as divine punishment for failing to recognize, and for driving out, a benevolent spirit, and that they were miraculously freed only when they repented).
How can any believer have fellowship with that? And if you *do* believe in apostolic succession, how can you trust any ordination in such a denomination?
@JonBrase Yup--I certainly don't. That's supreme ground for leaving that body as an apostate body and preserving the apostolic deposit with others who also are striving to preserve it.
You should do a video about the inside baseball of the PCUSA, like which presbyteries are more conservative or discussions at the general assembly.
The church plant in my area started because the mainline presbyterian church had a bunch of structural issues and sat empty for 20+ years until the city had it demolished.
Hey Zoomer! Wondering if you'd ever consider making a video about "house churches"? They seem to be increasingly popular amongst Protestants so I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the matter.
That's already been recorded! Will post in the next couple weeks
as you can expect, my take on them is mostly one of opposition
@@redeemedzoomer6053Yes I agree (I'm Orthodox so you can imagine why lol)
Many of my friends and family have left their old churches and started 'new' churches without any formal structure, I'm hesitant to see to happens
It’s past time we start to restrict the label of “Protestant” to only those Christians who carry forward the belief of the actual Reformers. Non-Denominationals and even some Baptists need not apply.
@@mrseal662 SUPER cringe
I'm with LCMS, and typically are motivation for planting new churches is to reach the unchurched and make more Christians not make more Lutherans. As such, we ofren have multiple churches in an area to reach different demographics of people, because some people in general struggle to fellowship outside their demographic. Such democraphics usually in age, marital, and parental status, but gender, nationality, and other things may be an initial focus depending on the need. For example, a chirch I helped plant was originally focused on reaching single, adult men arounf 20-40 in rhe area due to that demographic lacking in Christian fellowship. It also by proxy appealed to women and couples of fhe same age range, but focusing on them as well would do whay you said, and just move a lot of people from one church to another.
Any church plant should focus on reaching new Christians where expanding services, outreach programs, and such at an existing church won't be enough. Likewise, existing churches should be ever open to expanding services to reach new people.
I moved to a smaller town outside of Atlanta for work. There are only 2 historical churches in the town and they’re both what you referred to as crusty. I wanted to build a community since I have no friends here. There was no way that was going to happen at one of these historical churches. You would probably see the church I joined as a plant, but I don’t see it that way. The church has grown rapidly in the past year and is now one of the larger churches in the area. I even helped get our new college young adults ministry put together recently and it’s growing. We currently worship out of a converted warehouse (we are Baptists, it’s cliché, I know) and we are close to our funding goal to build our permanent church to better serve the community and congregation. None of this would have happened if we were not a “plant church“. I understand what you’re getting at with this video but I heavily disagree.
I'm increasingly starting to believe RedeemedZoomer is still living in his own local-community-picture of the entire US, meaning he's viewing the ENTIRE NATION as if they were ALL like the people living within maybe 100 miles of him. I've seen hints of it in other videos as well. He'll grow out of it, I'm sure.
yep read it waiting for the warehouse bit and there it is
I'm only about halfway through the video, so perhaps you address this later, but I feel like you're saying "Here's some issues you might face with a church plant, so maybe don't make very many," but I don't think facing problems is a reason to not do something. The issues you mention early on are far from unsolvable.
Bc like, you also say we want to revive local communities. Are not church plants the solution to that problem? We'll dedicate our church to one small area, and if we grow too big, let's plant a church and reach another nearby community. Keeps it local. As opposed to a mega church serving an entire major city.
Yeah I feel like that’s a great point. Plant churches can sometimes bring life and a resurgence of spirituality to regions that have old dead churches that seek to uphold status quo or act as glorified social clubs.
12:08 I used to go to a Non-Denominational Church until the pastor started endorsing Sodomy, Transgenderism, and BLM. So that’s why I have more respect for Catholic, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestant denominations because there are structures in place to make sure that the Priest/Pastor is genuinely Christian and not out to subvert the faith or exploit believers for financial gain.
I’ve seen mainline fall too which sucks. But catholic and orthodox seem to be hiking the fort
Amen and 500th comment ❤ Hallelujah🎉 😊
Would you support a church plant if the only option for the faithful is a non-bible believing church? I think reconquista is a noble goal, but as you say yourself it is not for everyone. If the only option is a liberal PCUSA church I wouldn't feel comfortable sending baby christians there. You may countersignal conservative churches that split from the withering mainline, but those are legitimately healthy communities that are better for new Christians and families than the battleground of the mainline which is mainly for established single Christians.
Very important consideration.
a liberal PCUSA is never the only option. There’s usually every single denomination and every offshoot of that denomination in a community. This is how it goes in every small town medium to large city in the US.
If a town is so small that they really only have one or two local churches, those are probably so rural that they’re conservative anyway. If that is the case, swallow your denominational pride and allow that town to continue to be baptist or Lutheran or Presbyterian only, and focus your efforts on places totally unreached.
Utah would be a great candidate for church planting.
@@gumbyshrimp2606 But what about places that have lots of Pentecostals of the snake handling variety, or only the Hardshell Baptists which believe 90% or more of all men to have ever lived are in heaven? This is why places like Southern West Virginia need better churches as well. Many parts of Appalachia's Protestant churches are just as devoid of the gospel as the Mormons are.
Non-denominational Mega Churches: the recirculation of the saints.
Lol, RZ casually calling out every single person building a church in his mc server in the first 10 seconds
What he said at 24:17 was pretty mind blowing
I think that Matthew 13:5-6 is the best verse addressing your discussion on both plants and revivals.
I live in Frederick, MD. Our old historic churches are incredibly expensive to upkeep. $1 million to replace an historic organ, for example. Just not worth the cost. Rather spend the money on ministry.
I sort of agree and disagree here. I've watched my local church greatly reduce in size because people have left for church plants twice in the past few years. A recurring reason why people leave the church for the new ones is to get away from all the "gossip" and cliques that come from the parent church. Which I can attest to them being very gossipy and cliquish. I don't even go to my home Church anymore because of it (and I've moved away for college so I go to church there). I know dozens of people with the same experience. So I understand why the church plants were created, but I also find it very unfortunate that they couldn't work it out and stay together.
The big irony of all this is I have no direct experience with the reasonings of why people do this or that, I get all of my information through gossip. It's so frustrating to watch this happen and not be able to do anything since I'm not in the clique. It's also generational/familial cliques so it isn't just a specific age, it's entire families that have been part of the church for generations. These families also happen to provide the most in tithings. So if they ever left the church out of spite, the church would lose lots of funding.
TLDR: I grew up in a Church where people like to gossip and cannot have an honest conversation with one another if their life depended on it.
Interesting to hear RZ talking about the need to renew communities, and something I agree with.
It is why I get a bit sad to see Christians who have bought into the reagan/thatcher model of neoliberal capitalism because those ideologies are built upon extreme individualist principles, to the detriment of communities. If the church isn't helping people to meet all their needs, (not just the salvational ones) then how can it be said to be helpful or useful?
Your content is awesome and explains a lot, thanks (:
I'd ask what you think of the microchurch movement, but I think I know. Basically an extension of this phenomenon, but taken to the extreme.
Amen! God became man to redeem planet earth, not create a new planet. You are very well intentioned with plans!
Long, long ago before time had a name there was man known as the spinjitsu master who roamed the continent of ninja, but he split it in 2 to preserve the good from evil today his power lives on through the legndary green ninja and the 4 golden weapons.
I'm not sure if you're aware but your mic situation sounds amateurish, I can hear your room I mean and with your videos getting bigger it could use an upgrade or maybe different recording settings.
Hey Zoomer have you thought about people creating local non-internet community oriented fraternal groups? Like a protestant version of knights of columbus or a christian version of freemasons (minus the deism) or an adult version of boyscouts. Get offline and actually do stuff with people irl to build community and serve their community?
Like a church?
@@blakebonecutter I was thinking more like a club, wouldn't matter if you were Baptist, Methodist, Wester Branch of American Reformed Presbylutheranism. Meet Friday or Saturday, learn skills, do charity work, etc.
do they have nestorian christology though????????
Who has Nestorian Christology?
@@redeemedzoomer6053 John MacArthur.
100% agree, great video!
Just so you know there is a huge portion at the end of your video that is just complete silence and completely black
12:56 you might want to read a little more about Rome. I'm pretty sure Rome was in the real world and lasted a long time and it was won one soul at a time. Grafting a new branch into a rotting/dead tree is a great way to lose the branch and the tree.
17:03 God divorced Israel for their apostasy. Should we try to revive Judaism?
20:31 We did "lose" anything, it was thrown away. It is not welcome anymore.
My issue as a western US guy is that we dont have a lot of historic churches, especially in like arizona or mew mexico
I think the reason that churches don’t graft good branches into a dying trees is because they don’t want to see the death of good branches. One of the largest churches in my state (and the one I attend) is a conservative non-denominational (essentially baptist) megachurch. This church plants individually run campuses around the region because, in my estimation, they see the monetary cost of planting a new tree as worth it to avoid inadvertently killing a good branch.
So aging Christians are bad branches and dying roots that should be walked away from? These are human beings not vegetation, it’s dehumanizing to call them dying trees.
I like the idea, but there are some logistical concerns that come up. Big, old, ornate buildings are easy to move into, and they're hard to stay in. You gotta pay for the mortgage (if there is one), the water bill, the electric bill, the gas bill, insurance, maintenance, upkeep, repairs, etc. Even with tax exemption, that's a five-figure monthly expenditure just to keep things running business as usual.
You can't send a couple of handfuls of theologically conservative families to take things over when the liberal elements of the congregation die out or realize there's no reason for them to keep going to church every Sunday. You gotta send the horde to take back those beautiful old buildings, because if you don't, the conservatives will inherit the building, and they'll also be the ones to sell it off when it becomes too expensive for their undersized congregation to pay the bills for.
In some ways, Zoomer seem obsessed with classic church building designs more than the Reformed form of worship. I commend his effort in attempting to "reform" PCUSA to the word of God like Luther did with the Church in Rome. However, he is equating church buildings as some outward historical signs of reformed Church tradition which NONE of the confessions or doctrines ever mention.
I think he is hoping to make changes within traditional older buildings. I find it embarrassing that there all these empty churches. What do other religions think of this!
Finally someone mentions it. I honestly don’t get it. Yeah I know my church isn’t the most beautiful building around, but we make the absolute best effort of preaching the truth that the Bible teaches. Isn’t that all we need?
You should use UA-cam Studio to trim off everything after 21:19 because I think you made an export mistake. The rest of the video past that point is a black screen.
What's a town? It's all soulless suburbs
Cap. Slap cap. Planting churches does not "thin out the already established Christian population." I think this video is trying to fit in with your personal agenda. Maybe you think this somehow supports the Reconquista (a great movement btw) instead of talking about facts.
127,000 people live within 20 minutes of a church I'm planting and only 9% of those people are attending a bible-based church. There are plenty of churches in the area but they're small and mostly dying. More church plants in the area means more access to a faith community folks might not otherwise have. The churches that are established in the area and are dying stepped away from the Gospel message and have lost focus of making disciples of all nations.
We as a church do not make Christians. We as a church do not draw people to ourselves. If we lift up Christ, He will draw all people to Himself. It's not about our logo or our denomination or even our church. It's about making disciples, and that's something church plants, statistically speaking, do better in their first few years of being open than some of these established churches have been faking doing for decades.
I'd rather meet in a pizza hut and preach the Gospel to the community and experience explosive spiritual growth than be in a beautiful building and be a community center and have a dying congregation.
I support your channel and love your content but this video is rife with bias and lies about church-plants homie. Let's get the facts straight.
The viewpoint of not planting new churches and instead reviving old ones is not biblical. If we're gonna look at the church as what it's defined as in the Bible, we're gonna see that even a house church of 5 is still a church. To those 5 experiencing Jesus in their lives on a daily basis, that has immense value. Those same 5 attending the dying Presbyterian Church up the road with 20 people, but a beautiful building, and not being fed spiritually, are going to be far worse off than had they kept meeting in their homes.
I strongly disagree with you man. I hope you look into church-planting more and come to see that church-planting is part of the Great Commission and something we should always be doing as the Church.
I did a quick search of some US cities with 127,000 population and they have churches representing the different denominations and the standard non-denominational/evangelical churches (both theologically conservative and liberal)
Are there no similar churches as yours in the city you're located in? Theologically what way is your church plant geared (Baptists, reformed, etc.), that's not already represented in the city minus small differences?
Edit: also just to note you mention dying churches that left preaching the gospel. Most of the Epistles are written to churches to correct their errors and guide them to correct doctrine, not to tell them to die and go start another church plant. Just a minor correction to your argument, with a biblical example.
None of this rings true for the Bible Belt, idk where you’re basing all of this off of, but the Bible Belt is very different
The Bible belt should not be seen as a model by anyone, given their rates of literacy, life expectancy, teen pregnancy, etc
@@redeemedzoomer6053 Spoken as a northerner who views all southerners as uneducated hicks in trailer parks.
New church, new money...
I beat the notification because I had the prior notification from the new UsefulCharts video. This comes first.
your intro sounded like advocacy of attending megachurches and centralizing everything into one campus that grows bigger and bigger. Couldn't this lead to an insane amount of corruption? (see all megachurches)
I hear the criticism, but I also don't see the leadership giving up their role is reasonable. Most likely, they will want you to conform.
In my experience conservatives take over, liberals slide.
I would love you to speak to this on a future video. The SBTS seminary has a worthwhile study in this story Al Mohler.
Keep thinking
A challenge is that most of the mainline churches have women preaching. Many of us in good conscience cannot sit under that teaching.
Very nice video zoomer! I don't know if you care or if it matters but i think you left a cut music clip at the end of the video so it's just like 6 minutes of a black screen at the end.
God bless and Amen
You should go to the nether in kingdom craft while talking about hell
Hey bro, Can I Join The Kingdom Craft Minecraft Server?
Are Baptists in a unique situation? The conservative offshoot denomination (SBC) has 12 million more members than the liberal mainline denomination (ABCUSA). Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on keeping the larger conservative denomination conservative rather than directing our efforts towards reclaiming a smaller, more liberal denomination?
We should preserve both. SBC in the south and ABCUSA in the north
Sure, but the SBC needs to regain the traditional attitudes of historical Baptists … they’re becoming indistinguishable from contemporary Non-Denoms…
I'm not sure I'd call the SBC an "offshoot" denomination: it was simply a mainline denomination that managed to expel its liberal wing rather than being conquered by it.
@@JonBrase Part of being Mainline Protestant (IMO) is being traditional. SBC seems to have gotten unfortunately very contemporary.
We should plant new Orthodox Churches in every town that doesn't have one 🗿
14:12 you blew my mind with this one 🔥🔥💯✝️
Church plants are common in Idaho's Treasure Valley where the population is exploding.
Saw this video had 666 likes, so naturally I did my duty.
I like your google maps
Day 6 of pretty please asking to get unbanned from the server. Another great video which i can resonate with lol. I grew up as a pentecostal and the church where i grew up in was actually a storage building hahaha. But yeah all of the examples u gave are pretty much correct
Dude it’s just a discord server
@@redeemedzoomer6053why aren't you asleep? Isn't it like midnight in the US?
@@ObliviAce I have a cold 😂 but good point it’s 4 am
@@redeemedzoomer6053 ohw, well in that case get well soon 😭😭
Not my town we don't have any church's in my Town
Revelation 14:12
New International Version
12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
Uhh, most based youtuber alert?
dang these look really nice
I don't agree with churches having plants either. Nature belongs outdoors, not indoors.
Hey RZ have you ever heard of Come Over and Help (COAH) It ministers in eastern Europe, spread reformed theology throughout these countries. You talking about calvinism in Hungary and how you want support it, so this ministry might be something you could be interested in
Is it Presbyterian or Baptist/Non-denom
Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian
I mean you said it yourself, people don't wanna do communities that much, my take is that it's internet
nobody going planting communities around, since they do it on the internet, you basically have to do same, you did it yourself, almost 300k people following you, 20 years ago you would just say those things to few dozens of people in your local church
I think we should focus on how to crack christianity correctly into internet instead of focusing on keeping tradition of local communities, because it may naturally die out
Maybe im wrong, but let's not lose the opportunity of millenium
There is a shortage of true churches. Also those 10 old ladies have a lot of power to prevent revitalization.
Supports protestant theology and wonders why there is no authority to control church plants.
Every Catholic smirking in the corner.
It would’ve been better to have told us what a church plant is first.
Bro in the video of hell
You did not go through go to he'll
I'm going to watch this whole thing, but my reflexive reaction to the thumbnail and title is that it's what I would expect of a diet catholic such as yourself. But I'm gonna give it a good faith listen
What do you mean “diet Catholic?” 😂
@@redeemedzoomer6053 from the standpoint of a sola scriptura boy, all you mainline denoms appear to adhere to some level of extra biblical ceremony that we thought Luther was correctly bucking against with his thesis.
But let me state, I love your videos because I'm coming from a evangelical wing, and grew up never hearing good arguments from mainline denoms because those communities basically don't exist around here. I'm in the PNW and the only thing that can survive here are evangelical churches, the mainline churches eventually "evolve" into the furthest elements of the PCA and the Lutheran church. Since I don't like all their adherance to catholic dogma, why would I want to revive their church?
I have another reply I am gonna add with more thoughts, but this did make me think of another point: different areas will respond to different denoms more positively. Mainline churches that I think we'd both agree are now outside the tent on "closed hand" issues of doctrine are basically all that's left here. Whereas you have thriving non denoms (which I understand potentially carry their own issues of accountability) that are actually preaching the gospel the mainline churches have now forsaken. And culturally, the PNW is new, there aren't lots of old buildings, and I don't tend to personally like old buildings for anything other than to walk through and temporarily admire. I don't want to attend church in a cathedral, I'd much rather go to a home church like we see in the new testament.
It's funny, I grew up in the far extreme of the evangelical wing. Not crazy, just almost entirely detached from the history of the church itself. Very sola scriptura folks. I never considered the "traditional" denominations worthy of consideration because YOU DON'T GET TO ADD ONTO SCRIPTURE, so all the ceremonial stuff the Vatican added is nonsense that actually detracts focus from God.
In the end, from an evangelical standpoint, this argument comes across like a (forgive the odd metaphor) like you're some sort of a Presbyterian protectionist who wants to quell the free market and maintain some sort of self appointed authority. The denomination I'm from is Foursquare and is an offshoot of Assemblies of God, but that is a secondary and, frankly, far far less important self identification for me. I'm a Christian, and anyone who believes Jesus died for their sins and accepts that sacrifice is also a brother of mine, regardless of denom.
I generally like your idea of grafting vs planting, but there is a problem with that. I think we're both saved and will go to heaven, but I think ANY extra scriptural BS that the "mainline" denominations have added to their extra scriptural bureaucracies will result in a slap on the wrist when we arrive together in heaven. So if a local Presbyterian or Lutheran church is the only option for me to graft onto, I will very much and rightly be perceived as a cancer and not a branch.
In the end, I don't think you're making a false argument, but I think you are treating the denomination like the church instead of the people. "Presbyterians" are not "the church", we (you and I) are. So if individual branches of that body need to die, let them die.
I think this is a great video about the virtue of working to revive a dying branch of the greater body, but I don't think it passes my first principles issue where scripture is authority, not any one denomination (except for the leadership you submit yourself to of course), so why should I have any allegiance to anything other than The Word? I think a flock will thrive or fail based on their leadership. You know a tree by its fruits. If a church is not producing fruit, maybe it's not a church anymore.
I also think you massively disregard the revivals that have occurred in the last 100 years.
@@GoingwithafakehandlehereWe are just regular Protestants, not “Diet Catholics.” Maybe it’s time YOU start calling yourself something else if you’re this out of step with historical Protestantism…
Do you have a video "why I'm not Muslim"? I would love to hear a purely theological discussion of this. I. e. from a non-believer's perspective, why the idea that Christianity is objectively true should be more appealing than the idea that Islam is objectively true?
John 3:16
New International Version
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Look up the shroud of Turin. It's impossible to remake and the closest they ever got to debunking it. They took a sample from the wrong piece of the cloth
I really appreciate your historical videos, but there’s something off about this one, brother. The Bible says God looks at the heart, not at the outside and there’s a lot of emphasis on earthly measures in this video as well as flat out prejudice against evangelicals. Demanding unity in the body and yet insulting that very body is not consistent. Give yourself some time and more life experience in IRL churches and come back to this topic after.
Wow
Shouldn’t we just listen to the Holy Spirit and do a church plant if he leads us to?
Wisdom is necessary for discerning which impulses are from the Spirit
Couple good tests. He will never direct you to do somthing contrary to scripture, and examine the fruit of what the spirit says. Also ask God for wisdom fully believing he will answer and he WILL, James 1:5.
If the spirit still directs you after these tests, SEND IT!
That’s how you end up with 10,0000 denominations.
Imagine having to go to the bishop who has to go to the archbishop who has to send a request to Rome who says “no, you have a beautiful , historic church in your community that has a school attached. If you have extra funds, give it to the poor or fix your roof.”
Ahh, Catholicism.
😮
.
This isn't necessarily an either/or. There's a decent case to be made that the church as a whole is stronger if we do some of both. Especially in large cities where the population we need to reach is massively larger than the capacity of the existing church buildings. And these cities are the places we need to put the most focus on if we want to retake the culture of Western countries, since they are the places where most of the culture is made.
I'm part of what Americans would call a non-denominational church that was planted 25 years ago (I happened to join it when I was a student a little bit before the official church launch), and we have actively sought to work together with all the churches across my city (which has a population around 3000 times more than the total number of churches). And some of the things we have been involved in starting have actively strengthened all the churches in the city. We have recently (after many years of looking) acquired a building that was abandoned by a liberal denomination some years ago. And even though the building still needs work to become copletely usable, we have already started reaching out to the local community in that part of the city.
I think you're a little off on the reasons people do church plants. In our case, the church was founded on the basis of things God had directly said to the people who were involved in the initial founding. But in cases where a plant is a purely human initiative, a church plant is done because it's thought of as an easier job than reviving an old congregation. Starting a plant from scratch (if there's a group of you) basically gets you immediately to the point you'll be at after you've taken over the mainline congregation. And in many cases taking over an old building is thought of as a huge unnecessary hassle. Many older buildings are a massive money and time sink in terms of maintenance.
If God said anything directly to anyone it should be written down cause that would make it scripture.
@@DrGero15 Scripture mentions lots of prophets whose prophecies aren't recorded in scripture. Philip's daughters (Acts 21:9), the prophets in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 14:29-32), the seventy elders in Moses' day (Numbers 11:25-27), King Saul and the prophets he briefly joined (1 Samuel 10:9-11), the prophets who prophesied with Saul's men (1 Samuel 19:19-21), and the prophets who were with Elijah (2 Kings 4:38-41) being a few examples. So your understanding of the relationship between direct revelation and scripture is at odds with what scripture teaches, since prophecies that the human authors of scripture clearly knew about were not recorded in scripture.
The reality is that God directly giving somebody guidance about what they or their local congregation should do clearly does not have the universal authority over the church that is the hallmark of scripture.
@@stephengray1344 There is no more revelation from God. God no longer speaks to us that way. You are saying scripture isn't good enough for you. Look into Justin Peters ministry and the new documentary. The belief you hold came about with the Quakers and is foreign to scripture and the history of the church.
@@DrGero15 I am not saying that scripture isn't good enough for me. I am saying that we should agree with what scripture teaches about prophecy. A position that you clearly do not agree with. Here are some of the things that scripture explicitly says about prophecy: That it will not pass away until the second coming (1 Corinthians 13:9-12), that we are to eagerly desire spiritual gifts - especially prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:1), that prophecy should be part of our church meetings (1 Corinthians 14:26-31), and that the last days (which began at Pentecost) are characterised by - amongst other things - prophecy (Acts 2:14-17).
And no, continued revelation from God is not foreign to church history. There are instances of prophecy throughout church history. To give you just two examples, there were multiple recognised prophets during the Scottish Reformation (including its main leader - John Knox). And Charles Spurgeon reported God revealing to him specific knowledge, such as the precise takings somebody in his congregation had got by opening his shop on a Sunday.
As for the Cessationist documentary, the arguments it puts forward are incredibly weak, and actively misrepresent both scripture and church history. You might want to look at the brief response from Gavin Ortland over on the channel Truth Unites, or at the point-by-point rebuttal series over on the channel Remnant Radio.
@@stephengray1344 Evidence of your claims on the matter of John Knox and Charles Spurgeon?
ok so making Christianity more appealing to the younger generation so in turn fulfilling what we were told to do in the bible and not making it look more like an old person religion is bad?