All right. So you are at the Q&A. So if-- make sure you're at the right place, okay? Let me start and then we're going to try to finish about five minutes before-- it's 3.30. So 5-- about 4.25 is when we're going to end. Give about five minutes to kind of move around or maybe you're going to be taking a break but that's what's going to happen.

And then if you have specific questions that you want to ask after the second session or maybe in between the session, we can have a brief conversation. But I'll try to make myself available after the second session. If you have something very specific you want to ask that's more kind of personal rather than do it in the larger context, okay?

All right, let me pray first and then we'll get started. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the retreat. We thank you for the opportunity for us to get together and take some time answering some of the questions that our members have. We pray that you would bless this time and any kind of questions or misunderstandings or anything, Lord God, that may come up, I pray that it would be a useful time to bring our church together.

We pray for your grace. We pray that anything that is being spoken, that it would be according to your word. We thank you in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, so as I mentioned, I'm gonna try to stay away from subjects that are only gonna be pertaining to a few people.

I'm gonna try to focus on the questions that came in that I think is gonna be beneficial for everyone, okay? So the first question was about our denomination. If you didn't know, we are Southern Baptist affiliated. The very genesis of our ministry, we were EM of Irvine Baptist Church, which Gin was also a part of.

And I grew up as a Presbyterian, but I became a Baptist after I became a pastor. And it was deliberate because I was studying scripture and the things that I was convicted about. And then so I was infant baptized. Then after I became a pastor, I got baptized. And then so when we first came out as a church, we weren't affiliated.

It was just, we just happened to be Irvine Baptist. I didn't know anybody in the Baptist circle. It was just, it just happened to be in a Baptist church. When we came out, we weren't really specifically attached to the Baptist denomination. Even though we're Southern Baptist, the Southern Baptist in our area in Orange County, they're very heavily influenced by Saddleback.

And so the way Saddleback does ministry, philosophy, their theology, I felt like we weren't on the same page. And so even though we're Southern Baptist and I was ordained Southern Baptist, we weren't heavily involved. Until maybe about five years ago, I was helping a friend of mine get ordained through the Southern Baptist Board.

And they asked me to come and help oversee this. And I met the director of the Southern Baptist in our local area. And some of you guys may know Dr. Michael Prout. So it's been more than five years, maybe about seven, eight years. So after meeting with him, I felt like, this is a really like-minded brother, theologically, ministry, philosophy-wise, teaching.

And because of him, we started getting more involved. And so the first thing I did is I went to India with him. To be honest, I didn't go to India for ministry purpose necessarily. I went to India to really connect with him and with the Southern Baptist. And I came back, seeing what was happening over there, and then that's how we got involved with India.

And so since then, our involvement with the Southern Baptist is, it's still minimal, but he's always trying to get our church more involved because he wants to plant churches like us in Southern California. So whenever he sees somebody who's like-minded, he usually calls me and asks me to kind of mentor or meet with these pastors to help them.

So there was a church down in Corona Del Mar, and he actually taught in, yeah. So Alex went and helped with the worship of that church. And so he used to be a professor at Masters at Southern, at Talbot, and so he's comes highly credentialed, and he wrote commentaries for Baker Commentary for First and Second Chronicles.

And so like-minded brother, so we try to help him with the church planting. And so in that way, that's how I was involved with the denomination. And so even now, Southern Baptist, the way that they are organized is local church autonomy. So it's not like a typical Presbyterian church where you have the session, and you have all the elders meet together, and they vote for things, and it's kind of like Congress.

So all the other churches are under this denominational head and then they give like annual dues to them based upon how many membership you have. Southern Baptist has none of that. Southern Baptist is local church autonomy. So it's the closest thing to being non-denominational. And so it's really voluntary.

So if we feel like this is gonna be helpful, so we donate money, and then we kind of collectively do things together, but it's completely voluntary. So what we've been doing up to this point is because we've been helping out, or we've been kind of involved with the local chapter of the Southern Baptist because of Dr.

Proud, we support the local chapter. So we give anywhere from 200 plus per month to our denomination locally to help like-minded churches getting planted. Okay, so even if they're not connected with us, we get involved with that. If there's any kind of like emergency relief, like a flood that happened in Katrina and all this other stuff, instead of just donating to just any group, we usually take offering or take a part of our finances and we donate it through that group.

So at least we know that they're Christians who, at least in Bible, theology, they're in like-minded context in our denomination. And so Southern Baptist has a very elaborate program where they are able to respond to emergency. So they will go and find a Baptist church in that area and work through that church to help the people who've been hurt.

That's also in Haiti. I mean, Southern Baptist is the largest denomination in the world. It's also the largest mission sending group in the world. So it's larger than any other mission organization worldwide. Most people don't know because it's denominational. So if you're not Southern Baptist, you probably are not aware of it.

And so because of their mass network, anywhere in the world we wanna get into, all we have to do is call the denominations, do you know somebody there, and they'll connect us. So as you know, Harry is preparing to go out to China. And so we made contact with a Southern Baptist local guy there.

And so Harry has already met up with him. And so he's gonna be the one who's gonna walk us through the town and show us, this is what's going on, these are the needs. And so Harry is not gonna be underneath that umbrella, but he's getting support from them to be able to initially get in.

There's gonna be a community there, other missionaries who've kind of worked in that area so that he's not going in completely blind. So that's our involvement with the Southern Baptist, it's kind of mutual cooperation. And then because our pastor Alex, he's gonna be completely under the Southern Baptist, and he's gonna be under their care and under their accountability and under their support.

So up to now, the way that we've been doing missions is we were raising up, we were raising up our missionaries and were directly connected under us. But we realized through the last four or five years of doing ministry out in China, it's too hard for us to support them from here, whether it's financial, whether it's spiritual or accountability.

And so they need to have a community there and we're just too far removed. And so even though they are getting into a group where it's just kind of, with the Southern Baptist, they could be reformed, they can be charismatic, they could be seeker-friendly, they could be Calvinist, they're all over the place.

But one thing that we do know is they do believe in the inerrancy of God's word, and they believe the doctrines are theologically sound. How they practice that is all over the place. The reason why I committed to the Southern Baptist is because when I studied the history of the Southern Baptist doctrine, I didn't know that when I was at the Southern Baptist Church in Irvine.

But as I was preparing to figure out which denomination where I felt the most akin to in theology, I realized that the Southern Baptist historically traces itself back to Spurgeon. So Spurgeon, I think it was 1687, he basically refined, or I don't know, the right word for that is, he basically took the Westminster Confession, Catechism, and he's kind of adopted that into the Southern Baptist framework of thinking.

So I would say 95% of that is probably similar to the Westminster Catechism, except for the baptism part, right? And so I felt like that's me, I'm a Reformed Baptist, if you were to ask specifically what you believe. So I didn't commit to the Southern Baptist because I looked at what's going on today and felt like I can relate to that.

I did it more for historical purposes. But within the last 10 years, I've been ordained maybe about 18 years, but the last 10 years, there was a resurgence of Reformed theology within the Southern Baptist. So when I first became ordained, there was almost nothing. In fact, they were actually headed down the liberal path.

The last 10 years, the Reformed portion of the Southern Baptist have been reviving and they're actually growing. And so more and more, there's other Southern Baptists that are meeting, or we're partnering with, and having fellowship with, and other churches are popping up that have very similar theology as us.

A lot of that has to do with the Southern Seminary, with Al Mohler and that group that's kind of pushing that agenda. Al Mohler, David Platt, Mark Dever, these are the guys who are up in the forefront that we feel like we have a fellowship with. So that's the background of Southern Baptist.

And then once Pastor Alex comes under that, our mission offering, at least a portion of our mission offering is gonna be sent to the Southern Baptist because they're supporting him, so we're gonna support them. This was asked by somebody who's coming to come to the next session, so I'm not gonna answer this.

Our church, when it's asking the question, First Timothy three, is talking about the qualifications of an elder and deacon. If you look at First Timothy chapter two, at the end of it, it clearly spells out that women should not be leading or teaching. And so our church practices male leadership.

So we do not have female elders in the church. I'm not gonna go too deep into this because it's gonna require a whole session for me to explain about that text. This is one of the texts, like when I first became, went to school and I was a Bible major, this is the first text that I wrestled over with because it didn't make any sense to me.

I naturally tend to root for the underdog. And I felt, when I first came up to that, it's like, oh, how can this be fair? Why would it be? In fact, the first pastor that I admired and I actually traveled to hear was a female pastor. So I used to drive down to the valley just to listen to her.

And then when I was doing a paper, and then initially I thought, okay, I'm gonna really study this to make sure that this is not just prejudice. And after studying and presenting the paper, I came to the conclusion like, this is clearly taught in the scripture. And then I had to reconcile, well, then how do I believe this?

How do I practice this? Just to give you a short version of how I came to the conclusion of why this is being practiced. In the end, I had to learn to submit what my sense of fairness is with God's word. Because everything that I know to be fair has also been tainted by sin.

And so I had a conversation recently with somebody who asked that same question about like, how can that be fair? Because we naturally think if men are in charge and women are in a submissive role, then how is that fair to the women, especially after all the years of suffrage and treating for fairness, equal pay, which all of these things are necessary things.

And I think good things for the society. And when you come to a church, I mean, it just seems so backward to even say that, right? But the way that I've reconciled, that it made sense to me was, even in our culture, if somebody rich comes into the church and we treat him differently because he has a higher standing in society, 'cause he makes more money, maybe he's better looking, or maybe he's achieved more, maybe he have better grades.

I don't think anybody in the church would consider that fair, right? I think everybody, Christian or non-Christian, would automatically have a knee jerk reaction saying that's not right. We shouldn't treat people who have better things, or you have better grades, so you get better seat, or you're better looking, so we treat you better.

We automatically think that that's wrong. A CEO of a large company comes and then he gets special treatment, we automatically say that's not right, right? Christian or non-Christian. So why do we automatically, when we say, when God says for men to lead and women to have a submissive role, right?

Now how that plays out, I'll share in a minute, right? Why do we automatically have a knee jerk reaction as it being wrong? Is that a fallen nature that we're applying as how we understand good and bad? Or is that a kingdom principle? Because scripture says that in the kingdom of God, those who serve are the greatest in the kingdom of God, right?

Because our ability to determine right and wrong, good or bad, was tainted by sin. And so our sinful nature looks at people who have more money, they're better. Our sinful nature thinks like if you're a CEO and you do great things, you should have special place, right? That's our sinful nature, that we recognize that we're fighting against.

So when we have this knee jerk reaction against this hierarchy of men and women, is that coming from a kingdom mindset? Or is that coming from a world mindset? So I realized that, again, my sinful nature is fighting against that because that's, I'm learning fairness in the world that I live in, right?

But if you look at the kingdom, God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there is a hierarchy in that God is the initiator, Jesus is the mediator, and then the Holy Spirit is the one who initiates, right? He's the one who kind of makes things happen. It would be blasphemous to think that any one of them are qualitatively less than the other.

The Trinity is three in one, right? Three in nature and then three in personalities and the way that they function. So when we look at the perfect picture of the Trinity, where they are, each one of them are submitted, but yet glorifying the other, and never will we ever say that God is better than the Holy Spirit, you know?

Because Jesus himself said, if you wanna, in the kingdom of God, in the way that he created his mindset, right, in the eternity that we're going to, that our idea of good and bad, great and least, is completely the opposite of what Satan is doing in this world. So when it comes to this hierarchy, God didn't say, you know, man is better than a woman.

He just says that he created man, and then the women came along to be a suitable helper, and so they're playing different roles, right? So when you have a conflict, when Eve was created for the purpose of supporting her husband so that he could create, right? God said to be fruitful and multiply, he can't do it.

He's completely helpless to be fruitful and multiply without her. So she came to help, but when sin came in, what happened? He says that your desire will be for your husband. In other words, you're gonna contend and fight against your husband. So instead of coming along and helping, she actually comes along and challenges him.

That's what it says. It happened as a result of the fall. The man is gonna do the work, and at the end of the day, instead of producing fruits, it's gonna produce thorns and thistles. In other words, his work is going to be hard and difficult because of sin, right?

So God created order in the family for the husband to lead and the wife to be supportive, and then the church is to reflect that. Now having said that, that's the principle that we see in scripture, and it makes perfect sense because you can't have two captains on a team, or they're just gonna go at it, right?

How is that played out in the home? There are some homes where the woman's personality is stronger, they may be more gifted, they may know the Bible more. Does that mean that the woman, if you're gonna be submissive, that you should never open your mouth, no head, no opinion?

Absolutely not. It's talking about in our attitudes, right? And sometimes in the church too, there are people who are very gifted. It's talking about the church should reflect the order in the home that God has created, right? If you look in the Bible, Priscilla and Achilla, Priscilla is always mentioned first.

And most scholars believe the reason why she's mentioned first is she was probably more prominent. She was probably the outspoken one, she was probably more the extroverted one, and so her name is mentioned first. In that culture, to have the woman mentioned first before the male was kind of like a, it was a no-no, right?

So the fact that she's mentioned first, it kind of meant that she was probably more out in the front, right? But the husband is mentioned. So what does that specifically look like in a family, in a home, that really, if we start making a box and it's like, this is what submissiveness looks like and everybody needs to follow this, this is what leadership looks like, and typically a lot of men struggle with what it means to be a leader because they look at somebody like me up on the pulpit and leaders in the church, and unless you have that kind of personality, you can't lead, right?

And so people try to become more like somebody up in the front, and more than not, their personality's not like that. So does that mean that God only wants leadership to look like that? Obviously not. You know, leadership, biblical idea of leadership is to sacrifice, right? That's the biblical view of leadership, is that you sacrifice for the benefit of your wife, and then your wife submits and honors the husband so that he can sacrifice.

How that plays out in your home, how that plays out in the church, that's really up to the church, right? So I don't have this like cookie cutter model that every church needs to look like this and every house needs to look like that. It's just talking about principally, God wants what he designed in creation to be reflected in the home and in the church.

And in God's wisdom, in my opinion, in my observation and experience, in God's wisdom, God created that way, and that's when there's most peace, you know, because that's what God intended to begin with, okay? Anything more specific than that, we can talk in person. Okay, this is a big question, and I'm just gonna answer it quickly just to tell you what it is, and then if you want to discuss more, we can discuss more, okay?

Cessationism basically is that the sign gifts that was happening in the early church no longer exists and does not happen today, and it ended with the apostolic period. When the apostles died and the canon of scripture was ended, so everything is closed and it does not happen today, so all the charismatic stuff that is happening is just, it's not from God, maybe even demonic, and so that's what the cessationism is.

So even within the cessationist camp, there are different degrees, right? And I'm not gonna go into all of that, but basically in a nutshell, that's what cessationism means. The charismatic, obviously, is where it's everything that happened in the New Testament, not only does happen, must happen today, right? Because why not?

Because it happened in the early church. If we want to be like the early church, we have to practice these gifts. That's the charismatic. Open but cautious view basically is that, again, and there are different degrees of this too. There's people who are open but cautious, but they're more open than cautious, right?

And then there's open but cautious where they're more cautious than open. My view is open but cautious, and the reason why I'm open but cautious is I don't see anything in the scripture that definitively says it cannot happen, and I know all the arguments for it. You know, the dangers of opening up, you know, new scripture being written, of the prophecies being wrong, the tongues not being gibberish, but the known language, the apostolic period has ended historically, you know, and all the chaos that's happening in the charismatic circle, all of those arguments I agree with.

I got saved in a charismatic group. I was discipled in a charismatic group. I actually spoke in tongues for seven years, and then one day I just stopped, okay? And the reason why I stopped is because the scripture says where there's two or three to find an interpreter, and I tried for years to look for an interpreter, and I always found people who said that they knew somebody, or they prayed with an interpreter, and I prayed with hundreds of people who prayed in tongues, and I couldn't find a single person, and so as a result of that, I was no longer confident that this was tongues.

I can still do it now, you know, but I stopped doing it because I lost the confidence. So if there's supposed to be an interpreter for every two or three, I should have found at least one out of hundreds, but the fact that I couldn't, and then I've gone to healing services, and I had people who called themselves prophets, you know, and so I've spent plenty of time in that group, so every argument against the charismatic movement of caution, I personally experienced that, and I agree with it, right?

So the question is then why aren't you a cessationist? To be honest, if I told you I was a cessationist, my life would be much easier, you know, because there are people who won't come to our church just so I won't, 'cause I won't say it, you know, because if I never said it to you, you probably assume I'm a cessationist, just the way that the Bible is taught, the way we practice ministry, but the reason why I won't say it is, is for that very reason.

It has to, I have to see it in scripture. Just because I didn't experience it, just because I don't see it, just because it didn't happen historically, for me to say God does not do this, I need to make sure that it's coming from scripture, not from opinion, not from experience, not from inference, right?

The only clear passage in the scripture where it says it has ceased, that the cessationist used, is 1 Corinthians 10, 13, where it says, "When the perfect comes, the imperfect shall pass away," and oftentimes that perfect is interpreted as the Bible. So when the Bible comes and it's ended, so there's no need for these gifts.

No, almost no scholar believes that that word, teleos, or perfect, is in reference to the Bible. It's talking about the second coming of Christ, or the end, conclusion of our salvation, right? When it's taken into completion. So when you take that text out of the way, everything else is inference.

Well, the way that the tongue's being used today, it sounds like gibberish, so therefore it's not normal language. The gifts were used in order to qualify the apostles, so therefore the apostles don't exist, so therefore we don't need the gifts. So these, they may be good arguments in inference, a secondary argument, but it's not the primary argument because there is no text that says it does not and it cannot happen, right?

Does that mean that I'm open and I'm searching for these gifts? So open but cautious means I just can't say those words 'cause if I'm gonna stand up in a pulpit and say, "This cannot happen, I need a passage, "I need a specific thing that's said "where I can be confident," and I can't just come to a conclusion to exclude all, everything that's happening in the world that has ever happened and say, "That's not from God." I need something more authoritative than something inferred or because of danger, right?

Now, if somebody said that they have prophecy and I've heard, again, John Piper, I've heard explained 'cause he's a reformed charismatic and somebody asked him, "Well, people prophesy and they get it wrong, "so how do you explain that?" And he said, "Well, they're human beings, "so sometimes they interpret the impressions "that they're getting wrong." I was so disappointed with that answer because if you, in the Old Testament, if you prophesy and you got it wrong, they got stoned.

There was no, it's like, "Let's get this right next time," right, they got stoned. You can't say, "God said this," and then be wrong even 10% of the time. If I came up to the pulpit and I'm preaching and even 5% of the time I get it wrong, none of you will tolerate that and you shouldn't tolerate that because how do you trust the other 95% if I'm so loose with the other 5%?

You have to make sure that it is scripture, it is authoritatively coming. So just simply dismissing it like that, it just kind of, you know, I don't think it's wise, it's not biblical, right? The kind of miracles that we see today, a lot of it is just kind of like somebody's leg that was crooked and it's fixed and then you ask them, "Did you know it was crooked?" He's like, "No," right?

Or for some reason it feels better or they had back pain and it disappeared. So the kind of miracles that we, I'm not saying that it can't happen, it's not from God, but the miracles in the New Testament, even the non-Christians couldn't deny it. It was miraculous. So my question is, if you actually have that gift, why do you do it in private where only certain people can see that's contained?

Why do you not do it the way the New Testament do it? Go into the public, go to Angel Stadium before the game starts, get the people to come down, heal somebody in a wheelchair and get them off and see what kind of evangelism breaks out. That's what I would do.

I would cling to God. If this gift is something that I can have, and I did for five years, I beg God, if this is real, let me have it because I don't have to prepare sermons. (audience laughing) I would just heal people every day and then say, "Look," and then just show them the passage.

Like that's all I want to do, right? So if these things are actually happening, why not do it in stadium? Why is it happening just in closed quarters? And then if it doesn't happen, it's always because you didn't have enough faith. It is not consistent with what I see in scripture, right?

So when I say open but cautious, only reason I'm open is because I don't see in the scripture to be confident and say it cannot, does not happen. I'm not gonna speak with my authority. I have to speak with the Bible's authority. But what I have experienced in the charismatic community, the majority of that I can explain humanly.

And that's why I'm open but cautious, okay? But I know I have plenty of friends who would say, "Well, then just say you're a cessation." I can't, it would go against my conscience. Okay, this person is not in this room, so. (audience laughing) But there's a, let me just give you a short version of this because there's some people who say King James is the only version.

When I was studying through 1 John, I came upon this. The King James Version is based upon a manuscript called the Texas Receptus. And Texas Receptus, as far as we know it, is only about 800 years old because they found it around, or at least they date it around 1200 something, right?

But we have the text that our NIV, NASB, and ESB is based on is a much older text. And so there's a lot of arguments going back and forth. So the King James only people, they say that there was a conspiracy to teach non-lordship salvation, or to teach works-based salvation, and it was basically a conspiracy by the devil introduced to the church so that the salvation by grace is being weeded out and the salvation by works is being worked in.

So that's kind of like their base of why they're fighting so strongly against it because they think that King James is the only version that actually teaches salvation by grace alone, which is absolute nonsense. So if you study the history behind their conspiracy, which is primarily being propagated by the independent Baptist community, and if, again, I don't have time to go into the details, but the independent Baptist community look into their history, look into what they stand for, and look into how they practice, and you'll have a hard time taking it too seriously.

I'm not saying the argument is not serious, but the conspiracy theory that's coming out of that group, there's a lot of other weird stuff that's coming out of that group as well. Okay, so I'm not gonna get too deep into that, but there's clear evidence that the Greek manuscript that we are using for ESV, NASV is much more reliable, and the evidence to me is clear.

There's no, I would say majority of the scholars today agree that the manuscript that we're using today is the manuscript or closest to the manuscript they had in the early church, not the Texas Receptives. Okay, this is a very big question, and I've been getting this question quite a bit.

How do you do discipleship? Some of you guys came from a background where discipleship was looked upon very one-dimensional, meaning that you had a leader and you had a follower, and the leader met with that person and discipled them one-on-one. That's how I learned discipleship when I was younger.

I came through a group that was kind of like navigators and very, you know, and navigators, the Korean version. So you had the leader follow, but on top of that you had the Korean culture, so it's absolute authority, basically whoever's older than you, right? That's kind of like how I learned it.

I had some issues with that because some of the things that they taught was kind of extreme, and they basically taught that if the leader tells you to do it, you just jump through the hoops, and even if they're wrong, God will honor that because you're submitting. Submitting to them means submitting to God, right?

Now, I know majority of you, if not all of you, probably didn't experience that, but I came out of that and I didn't agree. The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible clearly tells the elders, do not load it over their faith, right? And so I came out of that group, but that was my understanding of discipleship, leader, follower.

So small group leader discipling the younger people, and then they get discipled, the disciple, and then the multiplication principle. One disciple, two, two disciple, four, four disciple, eight, and then instead of adding, we multiply, right? So the first, maybe about 10 years of ministry, that's what I did with the high school students up to the college and the young adults, but I started seeing a problem in that system in the local church.

In the college campus, it works well because it starts with the freshmen, and by the time they get to seniors, and if they've been faithful, you have a small group of leaders, and then people who didn't fit into that fell out. And then if you came as a junior, sophomore, there was a clear hierarchy that was already in place in the college ministry, right?

So Jim may or may not remember, but the problem that we had was, I discipled the younger guys to come up, and then we had a group of older people, Jim's age, that was in the group, and there was about a, maybe about seven year age gap. So these guys were in the church excited, but the older group, you know, they've never been discipled, and then so it created this hierarchy, like, so every time somebody came to the church, who's gonna disciple this person?

So if you clearly had somebody who could fit under that system, it's like, yes, great. So if you're 19 years old, we have a 22 year old that can disciple you. But if you happen to come in and you're 35 years old, like at our church now, we have 50 year olds, 55 year olds coming in, who disciples them?

You know, which system do they fit under, right? So the problem with the local church is, if the local church is filled, it's generational. You have older people coming to Christ, younger people coming to Christ. So that, like, leader follower model only works in a contained environment where you have clear hierarchy of who's older, who's younger, right?

But when you have a system of 19 year olds to 60 some year olds, and then people are coming to faith from all backgrounds, who do they fall under for discipleship, right? So I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it does not cover the discipleship of everybody.

It doesn't fit everybody. And then you have the kind of discipleship where it's easy to disciple singles in that context, but once they get married, it's completely different 'cause you have to disciple the home, right? And married couples 'cause they don't have that kind of time, right? So discipleship in our church, when we were younger, and it was mostly young singles and collegians, that's what it looked like.

We had small groups, small group leaders, disciple the younger guys, and it was working great. So up to about 150 to 200 people, we had a highly committed, highly mobilized church. And when we were at 200, 170 people in our church went out to China for short term missions.

Out of the 170, 40 of them actually lived in China for anywhere from six months to a year or two years. We had Friday night prayer meeting, almost the whole church attended. Every time we sent people out to China, the whole church would show up. So we actually had to tell them to stop coming out.

We don't need your support, right? We were just causing chaos at church. That's how the church was like in the early church. We would go out to eat, 100% attendance. So anytime we were at church, if somebody didn't show up, they got 15 phone calls. And it wasn't because of our welcome team.

It was just our church was that tight. When we started having problems was, as our church started going beyond 200, the people who were at the core, we have about 35, 40 leaders in the church who were trained that way, all of a sudden got married and started having kids.

So they started dropping out because, or taking a break, that's the term that's used. They're taking a break because they have to take care of their kids, understandably. So we went from 30 leaders to maybe about 15. And then we went from 200 to 300. And so the small groups, we weren't able to run this discipleship program in it anymore.

And so the small groups that we were running, I started understanding why the large church is just pump anybody in. Because we have a small group, we have these people who are in need. So we just get the next best person. And as a church kept on growing, that temptation was growing.

So anybody who has any kind of interest, any maturity, who speaks English and has a Bible they can read, you know what I mean? There's temptation to kind of plug them in so that they can serve, to keep this going. And so we came to the conclusion that we don't want that.

That's not what our church believes. And so this is not working. We're not producing leaders fast enough to deal with the number of people coming. And even the leaders that we did disciple, they were dropping out 'cause they were having kids. And that all happened all at the same time.

So that's when we went from, okay, this small group system is not working. We're gonna go back to the larger teaching and then break up into small groups where it's not discipleship necessarily, but we're hoping that within the small group, there's gonna be community and discussion and maybe some discipleship in some of the groups that are able to handle it.

And so that's kind of how we did it. But there is a gap. You know, it's not like we don't wanna raise up leaders. We don't wanna be serious. But since then, obviously the church has doubled. You know, and we've also sent out a church out to BMC. Majority of the BMC were core members that went.

It wasn't like the fringe people. It was like the core core members were at a church for 10 years. They packed up their bags. And a lot of those people were people who actually lived in China, who were praying about going out to China. And then when BMC was being planted, said, "Well, we'll go there instead then," since that's where our church is doing mission.

That's why about 30 people, majority of them were young singles or married people who went up with Pastor Aaron. So with Pastor Aaron, our former youth pastor went up. We had two deacons. Yeah, two deacons all go up along with core members. So even the small group of workers who were there, you know, they packed up and they went.

And then, so we had this gap. Okay, so we want to disciple the church, but how do we do this? So the way that we have it now, okay, and again, we're not saying that this is exactly what we're gonna be doing for the next 10 years. There's three tiers of discipleship.

The first tier is kind of thrown on a net, right? Thrown on a net is like on Sunday, we're preaching. And the primary way of discipleship for the whole church is through the large teaching and preaching, right? And it should be at some point in our walk with God, the word of God should be sufficient enough, right?

It should be sufficient enough. Because God did not put like, here's the word of God, but it needs, the word of God has to come to you in this avenue, or else you can't grow. That's not what the scripture says. And typically, when we talk about this one-to-one model, it's always talk about what Jesus had the 12 disciples.

Paul says, "And trust the faithful men "who will be able to disciple others also." Even in Jesus's ministry, there were the multitudes, right? Within them, there were some real followers and there were not. And then the second tier, he had disciples who followed along with him, like Simeon, like his mother, James and John's mom, sister.

So we had a group of women who were following him, who were called his disciples, but they weren't apostles. So if you look at Jesus's ministry, he has a public ministry to the multitudes, he has ministry for the few that he's been ministering to, and then he had a ministry to the 12, and even within the 12, he had the three that he really committed to, right?

And they were all being raised up for the purpose of planting churches and their apostles. When apostle Paul says, second Timothy 2.2, "And trust the faithful men who will be able "to teach others also," he's talking to a pastor, telling him to establish leaders in the church. He wasn't saying that that's a system that every single Christian needs to be under or they can't grow.

Because if you look at the early church, who discipled the 3,000 people who got converted? Who discipled the 4,000 people who got converted initially, right? So the only thing that is mandated in scripture that is necessary for salvation and spiritual growth is his word. Now, it doesn't have to be from the pulpit, it can be from one to one, it could be in a small group, but anytime we put confidence in human system, you're gonna eventually get burned 'cause they're gonna disappoint you.

And you're gonna end up going from church to church and group to group looking for another person to attach yourself to. Is it wrong? No, it's not wrong. But having a disciple who disciples you is a great gift that you can have, but it's a crutch. It's a crutch because God didn't say, if you don't have somebody committed to you to guide you, you can't grow.

God said everything we need for life of Godliness, we have in the knowledge of his son, right? So anything that we put in between that, we're adding a mediator that's necessary. It is not necessary. It could be helpful, but it's not necessary, right? The way we approach discipleship is throw a net, right?

And then the second tier are people who are responding and bearing fruit and we're aware of them. So they're serving, right? They're serving in the background, they're volunteering. And then the tier where we pay more special attention are people who are hungry saying, hey, can I be discipled for this purpose, right?

If somebody ever asked me to disciple them and they're serious and I see that there's a pattern of seriousness in their life, the first thing I check to see is, are you being obedient to what you already know, right? Somebody came to me, you know, not too long ago and asked me to disciple them.

And then I asked him, I went to, are you doing these things? And he said, no. I said, what do you think is gonna happen if I meet with you on a regular basis? I'm gonna ask you to do these things, right? Then he stopped asking me, right? So discipleship, sometimes the way people think of discipleship is somebody to kind of life coach.

It'd be great to have somebody older that I can pour out to and they can pour out into my life. But, you know, the discipleship is teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, right? And so does everybody really want that? You know, and if you do, yes, it is available.

It's just not publicized. We don't just come out and say, anybody who wants discipleship to come, we have 200 people that come and show up and maybe we have 25 people who are discipling in the background. We don't have enough resources. So what I encourage you to do is, if that's the kind of discipleship you want, you wanna be challenged, you know, being fed, you know, in a larger scale where just being thrown out, like you want something more specific, right?

And you wanna be challenged that way, come and ask us and we'll connect you to people that can actually sit with you and disciple you. But it is not proclaimed, it is not just given, you know, because not a lot of people respond to that. They want it up to a certain point.

And then beyond that, they're kind of like, ah, I don't know if I, you know. So I'm not saying that every Christian shouldn't be discipled, but for the most part, what's mandated in scripture is the Word, right? So if you're thinking that preaching of the Word of God is not enough, look carefully into the scripture, right?

Because predominantly from the beginning to the end, God said it is sufficient. The Word of God is sufficient. Not man, not system, not one-to-one, not an older brother, not older sister, but the Word of God, right? And how we respond to that. Everything else is kind of like charity, right?

It tastes better, it's a blessing of God. Sometimes it's great to run with people, sometimes you're completely isolated. So there's benefit of being in a group where it's like, oh, it's great, it's better. Sometimes it's great to have a mentor, an older person that's speaking into your life. And I've grown tremendously 'cause I benefited from that for a short period, about four years.

I was personally discipled for about four years, but I've been a Christian for like 35, 36 years. So who decided me to be the all that other type? You know what I mean? The Word of God is sufficient. So if you have that, great, but don't make that a crutch that eventually becomes a problem, right?

If you have a broken leg, you need a crutch. But the purpose of the crutch is to heal your leg so that you can walk. But five years later, you're still walking on that crutch, that crutch isn't helping you anymore. That crutch is actually hindering you from your walk, right?

So we believe the Word of God is sufficient, right? Okay, so that's, I said I was gonna give you a short version but I'll give you a long version. Okay, this person's not in the room either. Okay, I'm gonna give a sermon on this later, so I'll deal with that another time.

Okay. All right, let me address this issue too. Local outreach, there are people in pockets who are doing evangelism. But let me tell you, local outreach in our church is not a program, okay? It's not a program that we do Tuesday and Thursday, come out and we're gonna have this and we're gonna have this event, invite your friends.

I'm not against that, but the most effective way of doing evangelism is to equip people to do evangelism. Right? So if you are being affected by the Word of God, you are the best evangelist wherever you are. But when we turn it into a program, what happens is that program becomes the church evangelism.

Right? And how many people are involved with that? Well, the outreach team or a few people in the church. Right? Evangelism should be, if we have 450 people who are members in the church, 450 people should be engaged in evangelism, not evangelism program on Tuesday night. Again, if I was free from all other responsibilities and said, "Do whatever you want," my natural heart is evangelism.

I like being with non-Christians. I like being out in the street, talking to people, missions, people say, "Aren't you tired going to missions?" But it rejuvenates me, 'cause that's my natural heart. I don't have anything against evangelism, street evangelism, I wish we did more of that. But the best way to do evangelism is to raise up people who are convicted to share their faith wherever they are.

Right? And so, is there anything wrong with having programs? No. Right? Sometimes having programs is very deceptive, and the whole church thinks that we're doing evangelism because we have a program. And we've always said from the beginning, even when we were smaller and we would go out on the streets regularly, we always told our church, "Our goal is to raise up people who will do evangelism, "not have evangelism program." And that's also true about social justice ministry.

You know, it's like, we're not trying to create a program where the church is doing social justice. That's something that, that's an outworking of a life of a Christian. Right? So, does compassion need a program? Right? Do you need to have the church say, "Tuesday night, we're gonna get together." Like, do you need to, in order to be generous, do you have to have a program in the church to be generous?

You run into people all the time who are in need. Right? And then if your natural thought when you see that is, what can I, how can I, how can the church do something? That's not, that shouldn't be your natural thought. Your first thought should be, what should you do?

Why? It shouldn't be, I see a bunch of homeless people, how come our church is not doing anything? That should not be your first thought. Your first thought is, what should you do to that, for that person? Right? So, oftentimes people will come and they ask me, "How come we don't do this?

"How come we don't do that?" Think about every pastor in our church. We're juggling 15 balls. So, every time somebody asks, "How come we don't do this?" It's like, "Why don't you juggle this too?" Okay, and "Why don't you juggle some of this?" I read the scripture and you should just start juggling that.

You know what I mean? You hear a good sermon, it's like, "Hey, can you juggle some of this too?" Who is the, who has more time and more energy, right, that can do this? It's usually not the pastors. Because we're all, like, our calendar is full. In fact, every Saturday we have our elders meeting and then we say, "Hey, we need to do this." And then the next question is, "When?" Right, and we look at our calendars, like, "We don't know when and who." Well, it can't be any of us 'cause, you know, our calendar's already full.

So, we have to find somebody, right? And so, the best thing is if you are convicted about that and you want to do more than just individually, you're probably the best person. So, come and ask us and we'll support you, right? But I don't think that's something that the church, instead, we need to hire somebody to do social justice.

We need to hire somebody to do counseling. We need to hire somebody to do evangelism. That's something that we want the church to do, right? The primary thing that the church is called to do is to preach the word in season and out of season, to equip you so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And so, just like what Pastor Aaron said, to be a committed expository listener, you know, also means to be committed expository practicing, right? Living, right? So, every time you hear God's word, it's our way of equipping you and discipling you so that you may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Okay? Again, you know, I can't answer all of your questions. If you have more specific things that you want to ask, having said that, does that mean that we're doing everything exactly the way we want? Absolutely not. We're just doing the best that we can. So, there's some things that you could probably do better.

Right? There's certain things that we don't do because we don't believe in. There's some things that we want to do, we're just not good at. There's some things that we want to do, we just don't have manpower. But we're not gonna drop what we're doing to focus our energy on something that's secondary.

Just like the Grecian widows that weren't being fed. Imagine how serious that problem would have been. But they're literally, their parents or grandparents or somebody that they knew weren't eating. It wasn't just somebody who was cold out on the streets. They couldn't eat. So, if there was any emergency that the apostles would have dropped everything to help, it would have been that situation.

And it's not situation, he said, no, you choose among yourself seven people who can handle this. 'Cause we can't take ourselves away from the preaching and the praying. Right? The word and prayer. 'Cause that's a primary thing that we're called to do. Now, having said that, you know, Rachel and Bethany, you know, like last couple of times, I'm sorry, not, Leah, Leah and Bethany have, you know, like we have some of the sisters in our church that have been going out on the street and they've always had, I'm already always encouraged when I see that.

So, that's why I posted up on Facebook to see if more people would join them, you know. And it's great to see, like people just taking initiative and not just waiting for something to happen, but to take initiative and say, hey, we're just gonna go on the street, right?

And then to share the gospel. So, I would like to see more of that happening in the church. Just kind of organically serve, give, you know, evangelize. Okay. Yeah, 'cause I didn't have any. I'll come back to that. Actually, that's the last question. Okay, I'm gonna answer this. Meanwhile, if you have questions, and this being predominantly Asian, normally I would just ask you to just raise your hand and ask the question, but a lot of times either you will not ask or sometimes you ask questions that I don't wanna answer.

And so, I don't wanna go off topic. So, if you wanna write it down, if you have something you wanna, doesn't mean I'm gonna answer it. If I feel like this could be beneficial for the rest of the group, I'll try to get to it. But let me, while you're writing this down, let me just address this really quickly.

One, I think I mentioned this last couple sermons. Part of the reason why there are so many pastors who are being led astray is that there isn't enough filter for people entering into ministry to begin with, right? So, a lot of these pastors came into the ministry where they shouldn't have been in ministry to begin with.

Now, I say that because I've been in ministry since I was 19, 20, you know? And this is, I end, I don't know how much I'm gonna share. Basically, I was an undergrad Bible major. And so, most of my friends in undergrad were headed into ministry early on. And then, I was in seminary.

And so, obviously, everybody in that context would head into ministry. And this is gonna sound arrogant to you, but I'm just being honest. The people that I was most discouraged by were people who were entering into ministry. And the reason why is, if we were taking a class, 20% of the class was based upon an honor system, that you say you read something.

If the professor said, "You have to read from Genesis to Revelation." And then, at the end, when you take a final, they ask you, "Did you read it?" And if you said, "No," that's 20% of your grade. So, if you happen to be an Asian that has to get an A, and you didn't read it, if you say, "No," you get a C.

I had so many of my friends who would come out and answer, "Yes," and then joke about how they didn't read it. Whether it was the Bible or a book that they read, this was very common. And they would joke about it. And I would just stand there and say, "You just lied about reading the Bible.

"Sunday school kids wouldn't do that. "These are pastors for teaching." And it was very routine that this was happening. They were plagiarized papers, right? And again, I'm not saying every pastor is like that, but I saw enough of it where it was very hard for me to just assume that these pastors had integrity.

And so, it was hard for me. So, there was a period of time I stopped going to these pastors' fellowship because I came back more discouraged. I had another pastor friend. He said, "You know what? "This large church called me to be a pastor." Very gifted guy. Great speaker, musically talented.

He was so good at drawing, right? And so, he would draw pictures. And like literally, I'd say, "I have this idea." He would draw it on the piece of paper, and this fantastic drawing, like in a matter of like 15 seconds. Very talented. He was invited to a large church to be their pastor.

And he's told us that he's gonna go out to Korea and have his last fling before he enters into ministry. Because once he gets into that ministry, too many people are gonna, too many eyes are gonna be on him. So, I'm gonna get it out of my system before he goes into ministry.

He was a pastor of a large church. And sad to say, if I was to tell you that that was a very isolated incident, and that would've been it, that's not the case. It was very common. When he shared that, imagine why he shared that with us. He shared that with us because nobody flinched.

Because that was the kind of environment that it was. And so, there are some people in that group, okay? Again, I'm judging them. There are some people in that group who are seminary professors today, because this is 30-some years of ministry. Some of them have fallen out. Some of them are speakers in large conferences.

Every once in a while, I walk by, and I see their picture on a poster. They were friends of mine when I was in school. You know? And I've been in ministry long enough to see everything. So, because I've seen enough of that, the way that people enter into ministry, there is not enough filter.

And so, part of the reason why all this stuff is happening is one, is that it's not the only reason, but one of the big reasons is, there's just, the entrance into ministry is just too easy. Imagine if somebody wanted to be a doctor, and they went out and got a two-week lesson on how to do surgery, and they open up shop.

You know what I mean? I'm not saying, I mean, it's exaggerated, but it's not that difficult, right? Secondly, though, even if, even if you came in with the right motive, with the right heart, and tried to have integrity, the way ministry is, there's not enough accountability. And once you become a pastor, you automatically, you're the spiritual giant of whatever group you're in.

And then, so you end, if you happen to be in ministry where you elevate human cleverness, and you're preaching, and you're giftedness, you end up automatically elevated to a celebrity status, and from that moment on, you have to play the role, right? So if you have a pastor who's saying and preaching spiritual things, and you're playing a role, it's kind of like formula for disaster, because he's a human being, right?

And that's why, in our church, we practice plurality of elders, right? Even though I'm the leader among the elders, the elders in our church have equal say, right? When it comes to finances, I don't get involved at all. Like, they have one, like, I just detach myself from that, just because, for accountability purposes.

We have a weekly meeting with our leadership, and we ask each other, like, where's your heart? What's going on? Like, I know the ministry that we're doing, but what's going on behind the scene? With our pastors, because they're paid staff, we, there's accountability system where we ask each other, we need to know where we're at at all times.

So every morning, we shoot out a tag saying, this is what I'm doing, this is who I'm meeting with, you know, and then this is how I'm spending my schedule. And again, it's not to like, I'm micromanaging everybody, but it's for the purpose of accountability. We don't have a nine to five job, so we're not in the office nine to five all the time, so we try to have accountability when we make sure.

And then I ask the elders to look in. So don't look at it saying, oh, your pastor's so assumed. Don't assume, 'cause we're men. You know, we struggle with purity, we struggle with temptation, just like everybody else. So we need to have integrity, and the integrity is not just by determination.

It has to be from accountability, right? And so I'm one person in this church. We have other elders and leaders. They are, some of them are better at certain things that are behind the scene. I just happen to be in the front. You know, I just happen to be the guy that most people see, but they're just as vital to the church as I am, right?

I can't do 90% of what I'm doing in church if they weren't there supporting me. Does that guarantee that people aren't gonna fall? Even with all of that, sin is sin. Sin is not rational. Every time somebody's sinned, you're trying to figure out what led them to that. Your flesh led them to that.

You can know all the right things, have all the accountability, and then you get tempted and you do it anyway. It's gonna ruin your family, it's gonna ruin your ministry, you know? It's gonna ruin your kids, your reputation, all the people who relied on you. And then you say, "I can't possibly do that," and then you get right in front of it, and you do it anyway.

Sin is not rational. Because sin is, you know all that. Like people who do drugs, they don't think this out. They know, you ask a drug addict, it's like, "Don't you know the consequences?" They know 'cause they experience it. But they do it anyway, right? So that's our flesh.

So we can't give provision to the flesh. So we have to, before we get tempted, to make sure that we block those, right? So one of the things that I do for me on the internet is, I only go to the things that I've tagged, what do you call that?

Huh? Bookmark, yeah. So the places that I go, I just bookmark. Because I learned early on, just doing random search is very dangerous. 'Cause you don't know what's gonna come up. Right, so I bookmark everything that I need, and I just, usually if I do need something, I just click on the top.

It only takes me to those places. Right, so you have to make provisions to make sure, because those things are there. So, you know, one is, some people probably shouldn't be in ministry. Second, you know, the way ministry is being done, the path usually gets isolated, and there's no accountability.

And then third, even after all of that, we have to recognize that without the mercy of God, even with everything, without the mercy of God, you know, we can't make it, okay? Oh shoot, I don't have time, sorry. (audience laughing) Sorry about that. Okay, all right, you know, I'm really thankful that you guys are here, and I know that there's a lot more questions that you probably wanted to ask.

And I mean this, you know, sincerely. Any Sunday, if you have any questions, it doesn't even have to be of the sermon. If you have something that you wanna ask, don't hesitate. You know, people have told me that I look intimidating, that I look angry. You know, people have told me that I know that that's my resting face.

They call that RF something, right? That is not the case, even though I may look like that. It actually, I'm very thankful when you take the initiative to come and talk to me, because I know that there are needs that I can deal with, but a lot of times at the church, our side, I don't know what you're thinking.

I don't know what you're struggling with. And so if you actually come and take the initiative to come talk to me, that would actually help me to pray for you. So I invite you, like, if you have other questions that you're just curious about, just come up and ask, or email me.

We can grab coffee, and I can give you a more extended version, okay? All right, let me pray for us, and then we'll dismiss. Gracious Father, we thank you for this afternoon. We thank you for our brothers and sisters. And we know that I probably only just touched the surface of so many questions, but we pray, Father God, that you would help us as a church to be united in purpose, that even though we may be larger in size, teach us and give us wisdom how to build a church where we're truly running this race together.

We thank you, Father Jesus, in your name we pray. All right, thank you. (audience applauding)