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The Resilient Heart Podcast


Sep 7, 2021

Pastor Brian Anderson Eastland Life Church Metropolis IL.

Brian shares his thoughts on the state of the church today.

The church has gone through a lot of different changes in the last 30 years. I've been a pastor for 30 years. And we had a lot of different movements, something started probably in the 80s or 90s, the church growth movement, which in this statement is okay, church growth, that's a great idea. Yes, God wants his church to grow. And God wants us to reach people. But what happened was, we got so focused on that, that the church itself kind of became a business. And we started using business models. And we used things even in missions organizations, we would do all of the research and see where the location was going to be, and what kind of person was going to lead it and what our demographic was going to be in all of these things. This reminded me of when I was in business, I used to run businesses. And so it didn't really look like it was all that bad. But now we're seeing the end result of it. Because right now, it's just not great to be in business. For the kingdom right now, because we're on the other side of what everybody else is doing. Pretty much what I've seen is that some of the most successful business people in the church have gone silent, since COVID started.

 

 One man who has a huge following in his church said we're just not going to meet this year. And I'm like, I don't know how you do that.  And what I think is happening is we've gotten so used to marketing our product, instead of being the body of Christ, and going after the Great Commission that we just lost our way. And look around, you see it. We're enthralled with entertainment, we have to have the best musicians, we have to have the best speakers, even the speakers get trained on how to not offend.

We studied spiritual warfare last year, we praised it, probably last winter. The idea of spiritual warfare is that the enemy comes after us. But we have tools to use. None of those tools is a mask, there is a helmet, there's a shield, there's a sword, there's the shoes of the gospel. And all these things have something to do. And the way that we learned to put on the full armor of God is through prayer. You see, that's another thing that's happened in the church. Prayer has become completely about me.

The kingdom of God is first. It isn't the US government, or the state, or anything else that is under the kingdom of God. And so when we get that upside down, what is the result? 

 I think the truth is that the human government of the US thinks we're going to solve this medical problem. And they almost think they are to be worshipped for doing it. But I say God won't share His glory with anybody. 

God can heal Jehovah Rafa, he can heal me, you, anybody else. 

The kingdom of God is about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So you don't find fear in any of that. Right? So when someone's living in fear, they're not surrendering to the King. And so, that's what I try to do in every case, the scripture tells me to pray for the sick. Scripture tells me to do that. I do that. I believe that. And I think in large measure, the church has lost its power because we kind of trust the world more than we trust God.

What about the persecution of the church?  Where do you think we are headed?

What is the difference between “calling” vs occupation?

Find Pastor Brian at:  https://www.facebook.com/eastlandlife

https://eastlandlife.com/

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