How Christians Can Respond to Spiritual Abuse and Hypocrisy in the Church, with Costi Hinn

the wife of the pastor when she found out the family was leaving said how dare you if you dare to leave this church and you dare to leave this covering the anointing and protection that has been over your life is going to be removed and you better watch out sister and that's spiritual abuse [Music] [Music] welcome to the alisa childers podcast today we're going to be talking about the subject of spiritual abuse and how christians can process through some of the abuse stories some of the scandals that we're seeing come through our news feeds and one of the podcasts that's frankly it's the most popular christian podcast in the country right now and has been for several weeks is a podcast called the rise and fall of mars hill and it documents the spiritual abuses of pastor mark driscoll at mars hill church but i think as people are listening to this the reason it's so popular is because people are resonating with these stories i think there have been a lot of people who have listened to the podcast and maybe identified an abuse situation that they may have gone through that they didn't quite know how to process before they heard it and just as a side note i want to direct you to a shorter video that i have on my youtube channel that offers some commentary on the podcast the rise and fall of mars hill i let you know what i think the podcast is doing a really good job doing and maybe a couple of cautions to think through as we listen to the podcast going forward but i wanted to have kosty hen join me for this topic today and the reason for that is because i just finished reading his book god greed and the prosperity gospel and while i expected the book to be a biblical answer to the the false gospel of the prosperity movement uh one of the things i was so impacted by was how much the book highlighted the spiritual abuses that we see come out of that movement and they they really uh sort of touch upon the types of spiritual abuses we see even in non-prosperity churches and so i'm going to go ahead and bring kosty on kazi thank you so much for joining me today i think that you're going to bring us so much great insight uh and and wise advice both as somebody who came out of an environment in which that kind of spiritual abuse was happening but also currently you are a pastor and so it's your heart to protect the sheep and to to help them through some of this stuff so welcome thanks so much for being here thank you so much for having me lisa good to be with you today well you've been on the podcast before but before we get right into the weeds of spiritual abuse i'd love it for anybody who does not know who you are they're not familiar maybe with your ministry you have kind of a famous last name there kosty hinn and that's going to bring up mem you know the memories people have of watching your uncle benny hinn on tvn and other networks doing all of his faith healing and those big crusades and all of that so uh you have a story to tell you that's what you were born into it's what you grew up in but you are you have gotten out of that movement and now you speak out against it and so walk us through that journey just as we begin uh so that people can get to know where you're coming from on this yeah so now a pastor at a bible church and planting a church in chandler arizona here in several months and it's called the shepherds house bible church so bible church pastor through and through and we love god's word and want to preach and shepherd and honor the lord by caring for the church but yeah the last name usually is a trigger people will say hey you know him benny hinn so i grew up in that movement my dad is is uncle benny's brother and i grew up riding the coattails of the ministry and then working for the ministry and flying the flag of the prosperity gospel for me personally i viewed god as a magic genie so you rub them right with enough money or enough faith or the right positive declaration like you know joel osteen or somebody will tell you that you just need to confess it and you can have it reaching back to the new thought teachings of guys like e.w kenyon and phineas quimby you go way back to the 1800s and into the early 1900s and it was new thought ideology this idea that you can declare something and get it from god and so uh or the universe for some of them who didn't really believe in god that was my world our heroes were oral roberts kenneth copeland kenneth hagin uh our modern day partners and heroes were baffled church and jesus culture and that was our normal you know paula white and rod parsley and all these famous preachers like jesse duplantis private planes were our transportation of choice homes were always multi-million dollar homes the best hotels in the world and i viewed ministry through that lens and life through that lens over the course of several years from my teenage years on into college i call these cracks in the damn there were these moments of questioning people saying hey you know why don't you guys empty hospitals if you have this gift of healing even me wondering when a gal that i went to school with uh who had cancer we couldn't really heal her didn't want to heal her didn't bother to go healer because they didn't believe like us and that's because a lot of these people who we viewed in dead churches were reformed baptist lutheran conservative so we would view you guys as dead christians or dead churches that didn't quote believe in the holy spirit that was the real idea and for us we had the power we had the holy spirit we had the gifts of the spirit and we could do whatever we want and heal and do this that and the other and you guys had had god and you had jesus too but you weren't really down with the holy spirit like we were and so i believed that way was very arrogant i viewed myself as extra anointed as though i had a better in with god and the way that we led and manipulated in ministry was by saying you know god told me the lord told me i'm going to this and i'm going to that and the lord has told me to do this and you need to do that and it was a ponzi scheme in the end i came to understand that what the bible teaches is not absolutely in line uh in many ways with what we taught although there are some things that we would teach that's true because you know you you got to have some truth for people to believe it and so there was a lot of poison laced in what we were putting in front of people and eventually i went and played baseball at dallas baptist university a nice d1 school in texas where the coach is a real disciple maker and he started putting things in front of me like the sovereignty of god and the the true gospel and the work of the spirit and he was kind they were gracious to me at the time i would wear a watch a lot different than this one ten thousand dollar watch breitling watch a hummer was my car in college on 22-inch rims and i just lived that same luxurious luxurious lifestyle uh even on the campus as a college student they were so gracious to me and eventually i came to a point where i started being impacted by what they were doing but also pushing it away a bit thinking um i don't really think they have the anointing and the power like we do my coach after all still drove a white camry and i drove a hummer and these people lived very humble normal lives and in my mind they were still stuffy baptists who didn't believe in the gift of tongues and couldn't heal and didn't have the big bravado in ministry like we did but eventually i met a girl and longer story shorter she just asked really clear questions my wife now christine and then i meet a pastor and he brings me onto the team in ministry we were a seeker driven church back then people always ask what in the world kind of pastor ends up mentoring you and becoming your your disciple making pastor and really a best friend of mine still to this day but you were a hint it wasn't like you had this stuff figured out what was a bible church doing hiring you well mission bible church was where i got truly saved we weren't called mission bible church we were called moment church we planted that church tony wood did out of a mega church in california and it was all the bells and whistles to attract people so i go from the prosperity gospel to a seeker driven church which i know this is going to sound funny and i'm not i'm not promoting that style of ministry but it was better than the heresy i was in right it was just a cooler form so um we were there and then eventually the lord takes uh our lead pastor teaching pastor at the time on this journey he's going to study and starting to pray and think through how do we keep this church going he was so over it he'll tell that story um on our for the gospel channel we have i got to interview him recently he finally let me interview him he's a very non-sensational type guy doesn't want to tell big stories and be somebody he's just humble serving i convinced him to let me interview him it's called confess confessions of an ex-seeker-driven pastor preacher and tony tells the full story but he was like a furtick he was in the green room with louis giglio furtick when furtick was just starting out he was the man he was everywhere that people wanted to be because he had run a young adults ministry that had like 4 000 people coming every week and he was the cool guy and he plants this church the lord brings him to the end of himself and he says we're going to preach through a book of the bible and we're all staring at him like what like okay what are we calling the series like what what what text are we going to just pull out and do something fun with we start preaching and he says it's called expository preaching we're all like what in the world is this we go verse by verse through the bible and he ends up uh giving me a text john 5 1-17 and the healing at the pool of bethesda i think i have it nailed it's healing i'm a in and even though i'd left my family in the dust so to speak in a lot of ways because they were doing some weird stuff i didn't really know my theological positions and i truly don't believe i was saved yet i just knew i didn't want any of the crazy stuff they were doing and i start studying and it gives me a commentary and says hey this will help you keep the train on the tracks it's a commentary and it's by a guy named john mcarthur i'm like i don't okay who cares whoever this guy is i don't even know remember that like him and my uncle did not get along theologically at the time i still love my family very much i'm not looking to jump ship to like the other extreme it was just simple this is a commentary i've never used one i study the passage and see jesus heals one man not everyone that was weird because he's supposed to heal all people it's always his will that's what we taught and then he heals the man immediately john records and that was weird because we used to pace people back and forth on the stage and rip off their braces and do all this stuff to kind of put on a show and they would still be limping and if healing didn't happen we would blame them right and say oh you just don't have enough faith or keep on believing god but jesus heals this man immediately and then the final blow to all of this for me was the pharisees come and say who told you you can pick up your palate walk it's the sabbath you can't do that and the man says john records this the man who who jesus healed doesn't know who he is the greek word that he uses is the greek word i do and it means basically he didn't even perceive who jesus was let alone know him and the man doesn't know who jesus was he says the man who healed me told me i could pick it up and walk i don't know and that was enough for me i thought what in the world how did he have enough faith to get healed if he didn't even know who jesus was how do you you can't get a healing if you don't have enough faith so i grab the commentary and macarthur goes off in that commentary this is the cruelest lie of faith healers today that people they fail to heal are guilty of negative confession unbelief and jesus here puts on display his sovereign power in healing and i remember my coach at dallas baptist always talking about the sovereignty of god and so i get wrecked by this passage in this study and macarthur goes off and says you know god is a sovereign healer and all of that there's nothing this man did he didn't have any merit that made jesus want to heal him jesus is a sovereign healer he heals but he does so in his own timing based on his sovereign power and so i start crying and my whole life essentially makes sense at that point in a lot of ways i didn't just you know i didn't know who macarthur was i just knew this guy is saying what i know i used to teach and i believed up until about five minutes ago and so i repented truly of my sins i ended up getting biblically baptized because i confessed that i was a false convert and i went from being a pastor the youth pastor on the team to being a pit pastor in training i went to seminary my pastor mentored me and now we're going on about eight years ago so i mean we're talking almost almost a decade ago i'm starting to feel old but god has done some incredible things and my life is uh centered around christ my first ministry to my wife and my children and then certainly my service to the body of christ as a local pastor and then the last thing that we try to do when we can is what tom askle in his book dear timothy calls helping and you know as a christian a father a husband a pastor i need to do those things really well but when i'm able to i want to help and so my effort in writing and podcasting and christian resourcing is to help serve other people hoping there's another kosty another lisa another you know you just had jack mourinho on from our church and another christine my wife and another tony there's other people out there that the lord is going to use elisa childers to reach and hopefully costing him to reach and even macarthur when he's dead and gone in heaven youtube recordings to reach people and so that's that's our effort now in this regard yeah it sounds like you got your priorities straight and i love that for all of us to think through our priorities in that order that's really good uh one of the things that was particularly powerful to me in reading god greed in the prosperity gospel was the role your wife christine played in sort of bringing you out of that i wonder if you could expound on that a little bit because she didn't grow up in the prosperity gospel and so this was kind of all new to her she was trying to be open-minded and then that started to cause some tension talk about that a little bit yeah it was not a clean road where you know yay i got saved and here we are in seminary and you know yippee now a pastor and i don't really have any other rabbit trails to go down there are so many winding twisting detours and one of them was witnessing the spiritual abuse that my wife went through now at the time i was a party to that and so i got to be honest with you and say i was pressuring her all the time i can't marry you if you don't speak in tongues i can't marry you if you don't believe like we do i really want to marry you i love you with all my heart and you know i i would love to but there were multiple points where family members came and said you know she's not your wife i'd say what do you mean well god spoke to me and told me she's not your wife another family member said god spoke to me and told me this gal is going to ruin the anointing on your life and you're called to great and mighty things you're called to take your uncle's mantle the elijah elisha double portion thingless always thrown around and christine represented the demise of my calling why well she was a blue collar gal from rancho cucamonga california she worked at tgi fridays and put herself through college at azusa pacific university she has a father who my father-in-law wonderful hard-working man worked as a metal decking vp for years and was building buildings everywhere my mother-in-law a teacher and has a special needs class that she has served for quite some time and is part of that community and i mean amazing amazing blue collared people she drives like a yaris at the time to save on gas i drive a hummer the only job i really ever had was prosperity gospel and it's your client it's like a movie script i mean you can't write this stuff god does we are polar opposites she is a black and white thinker left brain logic the bible says this your family teaches this you seem like a really nice guy what's going on i mean basic questions and so there were things that i actually would teach her that she had never understood she didn't grow up in church her first time hearing about god and i mean this i used to think she was she was being hyperbolic she wasn't first time hearing really about like jesus the gospel and god was at azusa pacific university as a student there and she started to want to know more about god she was always a very moral person in that sense a rule follower but overall i started teaching her about you know the father the son and the holy spirit and the trinity and she gets helped by that she's like that makes sense so that's what the trinity is but then i'd say other weird things like you know and then our family obviously can move in power and we heal people my uncle he does a lot of things and it might seem weird or we might seem like we have too much money or this stuff but those are the blessings of god as he provides and so he does prosper us and she would just ask basic questions well eventually i bring her home and the big question that gets asked before they meet her is she's spirit-filled and i went oh i no we're not going there and remember i'd been to dallas baptist so i had a little bit of baptist teaching sort of in my tool belt enough to to defend the gal that i wanted to date but not enough to really abandon my theological positions and i said hey everybody gets the holy spirit when they get saved i'm pretty sure that she's spirit-filled quote that she's saved no no that's not what we're talking about kosty does she speak in other tongues has she been baptized in the holy spirit filled with the holy spirit is she saved and sealed in the holy spirit i said no they're like well then she's not saved you can't you can't marry a gal that's not spirit-filled so i break up with her and i did that twice and eventually coming back and saying forget the world forget even my family everyone i'm marrying you and again it wasn't theological i wasn't like oh you're you're you know so sound and doctrine and i'll have to be saved now and leave my family in the dust and live matthew 10 34-39 i didn't know what was happening god was working but i just wanted to marry this gal and loved her and so of course the lord is providentially working through that but one of the things that starts happening when we get engaged is the family fix is on so they take her to services she has been to my uncle's crusade she raised her hands they laid hands on her she tipped over in her you know you know when you're younger you're engaged you're always dressing cute for each other she's in her cute little outfit in her heels and just she just tips over and the whole deal i remember these images vividly in my mind and i used to cry thinking maybe she got it now because at the time i still spoke in tongues i had my little prayer language that i would do and i just thought okay you're gonna get it like me and we're going to be fine my family had sort of given up on breaking us up and decided we'll just fix her and i was so hopeful that she could get the anointing and fall over you know the aura of my uncle and my dad and the family and then be accepted well eventually she starts just crying one day after a service and she i thought she got tongues i was looking over this woman was up at the altar teaching everyone saying just say what's on your lips just just utter the words that are going to come out and i look over it and her hands are up and the music's going she's sitting there and she's going like this and i'm think i'm crying i'm like i think she got it like this is it i can marry her now in peace the whole deal we get in the car and drive home the tears start the waterworks are on and this gal's not getting it and so we sort of give up and we're at a loss somehow some way obviously god working providentially we go to the bible shocker like okay we'll try the bible now first corinthians 12 30 comes up we finally had google right and we're searching things and paul says not all do they with regard to tongues with regard to healing interpretation of tongues so we're so excited she's off the hook but at the time i still i'm like i got tongues you don't but at least we can get married so the lord continued to use her and crack in the damn after crack in the dam she would just look at what the bible says and one day even in marriage she wanted after the commentary situation a macarthur study bible by that guy who wrote the commentary and i i said no no no this he doesn't believe in the holy spirit he doesn't believe in miracles look this guy was helpful on that one thing the sovereignty thing but you ain't getting no macarthur study bible and put into my apartment one day we're gonna have kids you're gonna soil the children and their minds with this stuff i'm not kidding you this is the stuff that i said we argued in the lifeway in tustin california true story over the macarthur study bible she had those one of those little forty percent off coupons that lifeway used to give out via email and i call my wife small but mighty she's five two she's little but that woman has got a backbone and when it comes to the things of god she's got an even stronger backbone and she said i am getting this bible and i i finally gave in i said fine but i am highlighting everywhere that man is wrong and grieving the spirit with his narrow-minded theology and all this stuff she does fine so she gets a pink macarthur study bible she still has it reads it all the time to this day and i ended up reading it all the time so i got this pink bible and my theology got turned upside down but even then it wasn't enough that you know macarthur says or rc sprole says or steve lawson or paul washer says or voti bakum says it became the bible says i simply saw men who went and trained in seminary stuck their noses in the book and their knees on the ground in prayer and said god what your word says is what i'm gonna believe and teach and so i just followed in their example older wiser men my own pastor and studied and came to similar positions as many conservative reformed types and that's what god did and i'm grateful i call my wife my secret sauce that woman is godly and so i think some of the even the undertones of today in the world we're in where you know conservative theological circles abuse women or look down on women and you know women are just relegated to the kitchen and the bedroom all this stuff it's all a caricature the reality is most if not all faithful pastors will tell you the key i just talked to a brother about this i was preaching in tennessee this weekend we were talking about the wife as the secret sauce as the crown jewel and the gift from the lord most pastors will tell you your wife makes or breaks your ministry you talk about value and the priceless nature of the woman of god in your home it is everything a woman could bring down a man's ministry because he married the wrong one a woman who hates god and doesn't believe in god you could have the greatest calling and gifts in the world and the wife is the key to everything why because if you have a godly warrior princess warrior queen in the home who loves the lord and she's mighty in spirit and mighty in his word that home is going to if you have a woman who is the contentious woman that proverbs describes it is better to live in the corner of a roof and then proverbs later solomon obviously had even more wisdom on this he decided it's better to live in a desert he goes on and says even further from the corner of the roof women are highly valued highly called and god used my precious wife and right now there's a season where she's home with our four children and i could not do what i do without her but also she's my best friend and my accountability partner my favorite study partner and we're growing in the lord together and i'm watching as he continues to use her in my life from my conversion all the way through now to active ministry well that really comes through in the book as well because she plays such a pivotal role in you coming out of the prosperity gospel and so evident and just want to recommend that book to anybody who might be curious i think this is actually the perfect book to give to somebody who's actually in the prosperity gospel movement because it's so story driven it's it relies so heavily on your story and i think that storytelling can be a really powerful way to uncover some things and to help people navigate situations they might be going through in their actual lives and i want to just highlight this verse that you brought up first corinthians 12 30 this is where paul says do all possess the gifts of healing do all speak in tongues do all interpret of course the implication is that no of course not every christian does have the gift of healing or speaking in tongues or interpretation of tongues and that was the pivotal verse that you you went to and that she went to to say hey you know she doesn't have to speak in tongues in order to be considered a christian and i just i do want to take a moment and acknowledge that there are theologians and pastors who would maybe find themselves a little more on the continuation spectrum or what you might call charismatic that would agree that that that you know that's an abuse of of an actual doctrine you you don't have to speak in tongues to to prove that you're spirit-filled or that you have the holy spirit and so i just want to acknowledge that um but but so cassie you you mentioned that your wife was sort of the recipient of some of the spiritual abuse that came out of this movement so as we kind of dive more into the spiritual abuse element can you just give us a definition of what spiritual abuse is and then maybe highlight some of the spiritual abuses that are specific to the prosperity gospel yeah so i think just a layman's definition right up shooting from the hip here spiritual abuse is two words put together that form a very clear idea using spiritual means spiritual truths or spiritual uh suggestions and abusing people what is abuse it's hurting them exploiting them it's crushing them it's intimidating them all of those things using spiritual means to crush the hearts the minds the lives to intimidate to put into bondage people that god wants to liberate and so if physical abuse is beating on someone physically and verbal abuse is lashing out and crippling someone with our our tongue what i call the three inch razor blade our tongue like james three talks about lighting fires in life because of our nasty and sharp and cutting words spiritual abuse is doing all those things but with a spiritual undertone and so this can be as covert as somebody grooming and manipulating someone through spiritual authority and power in order to do something that is entirely outside the mind and heart of god certainly through his word and then the there's more uh you know overt where people are just flat out abusive this would be uh maybe akin to the mark driscoll story that many of us have become familiar with and the the screaming of you know how dare you and cussing and pulpits and intimidating people and using foul language and being very very overt uh threatening people we had a woman recently who came to our church and is going to be coming to the church plant with us who had left a church not long ago in the area that we're planting it's not why we're planting but it was an affirmation that the lord clearly wants us in that region a church nearby that's a bible church in which the wife of the pastor when she found out the family was leaving said how dare you if you dare to leave this church and you dare to leave this covering the anointing and protection that has been over your life is going to be removed and you better watch out sister and that's spiritual abuse now you're going to put fear and intimidation in the mind of a precious soul because they're leaving for a lot of good reasons and you have nothing left except using abusive manipulative and deceptive tactics and that's the same as threats in marriage people will say if you don't do what i say i'm going to divorce you or if you don't do this i'm going to commit adultery these are threats these are abusive threats that intimidate and manipulate and so when people do that spiritually though uh it's it's not just a horizontal issue meaning person to person you are dealing with something that is vertical the glory of god and you are trampling a foot on the bride of christ and how you treat her matters to the lord and so watch out and i say that with the mirror on myself watch how you treat the bride of christ and how you lead it it's not our empire it is not our mom and pop shop it's not our piggy bank and the people of god aren't some thing to manipulate while we do our little growth tactics and try to manipulate the whole thing to have our own little empire and say look what we did we're carrying his undershepherds for the flock of god every decision every person every soul every staff member every dollar is a stewardship so we're pretty big on that because what we came out of um and we're probably pretty big on it too because our generation has watched 30 to 40 years of we grew up in the mega church era where we were part of a machine and we're just a number and so a lot of millennials in gen c are just sick of it we want real authentic ministry that is centered on the bible and clear on truth and just to know that we're loved and we're walking with the lord we just want truth yeah i love that what do you what do you think is the future of the mega church i mean i i'm so conflicted on it because i know that there are people who have found the lord in mega churches you know similar to you your story of actually becoming a true convert or at least that being a part of your journey uh in the in the seeker so it's it's like there's there's this thing in me where i don't want to throw the whole thing under the bus but man am i really questioning that right now because it seems like it's it provides an environment that's ripe for abuse the whole celebrity platform you know you listed earlier those priorities family and then all the way down the last one was what you might do for the nation or more globally like through youtube or through writing books that's last on the list there it seems like in so many of the the bigger church models the seeker friendly models that's flipped where you have the platform the big platform is number one and i think that provides an environment that's ripe for spiritual abuse because the priorities are off um i just i don't know if you could maybe expound upon that a little more of course you know we are both of us have a heart for the sheep for the church we are for the church and uh but you know where do you see this all going yeah so i'm i'm going to be honest with you in about a month and a bit i'm november 12th i'm 37 so i am young i don't know as much as older wiser men will know so you know i your your macarthur's your your paul washers your lawsons your james whites you know these guys are going to have better wisdom than me on this but i will take my shot here as a young guy saying here's what i think these things are because i have to go to bed at night and i can't stay up all night trying to solve all the world's problems i have to categorize things quantifying things is helpful what i view a lot of those movements the mega churches and all that stuff as right now i don't think they're all heretics i don't think they're all you know false churches just because they're big i think they're religious entrepreneurs that's what they are religious entrepreneurs is the term i've started to use because it helps me categorize them i can still pray for them you know what they're still doing some things that are quote unquote christian and they preach the bible it could be a philippians 1 where paul says whether in pretense or in truth so long as christ is preached look there's lots of things that they do that are going to be christ-centered and help the the christian cause but there's an entrepreneurism there and they are religious entrepreneurs even from a standpoint of like good bible churches now are are online using youtube and using media and we're doing that through for the gospel in a media ministry and you're doing it right now through your ministry and all these things are good helpful things but what the mega church has done is decided even through our online media and our entrepreneurism and being innovative and creative with media we're not going to give people the hard truth we're going to stay shallow i talked to a megachurch guy not long ago and look nice guy loves the lord i think he's a believer we'll be in heaven together he was saying his he said i just stay in my lane massive church he said i stay in my lane i said what lane is that he said i already know that you as a bible church guy man you're the deep end you guys are the deep end people swimming and going deeper we're the shallow end where we're like they're coming into the stair area the little beach entrance and they're getting in and look i already know you know that's where we are and that's where we're going to stay that's our job in the body now that almost sounds appealing except when you study biblical ecclesiology you do not ever have the right to segregate the body of christ in that way it's a it's a false dichotomy to create a separation like this church is shallow and that's why they have 30 000 members but they're sort of a feeder program for for for you and i our churches you know the church you attend the church i pastorate and we're we're like the deep end and they're like the farm system we're the big leagues there's a lot more players and the miners than there are in the major like you can't do that to the bride of christ biblical ecclesiology levels the playing field there's no such thing as the shallow end it's all one pool now some people need to be taught to swim and that's great and there's ministries for that there's new believers classes and fundamentals of faith and foundations classes and equipping classes people are always growing and being taught and cared for but what the megachurch has come along and done many of them is say we're just going to stay in a lane that's religious entrepreneurism i don't get too deep in my books i don't get too deep in my sermons i'm five ways to just love people and that's my lame brother and what that does is that attracts a whole lot of unbelievers who will never take the next step they're goats enjoying your entertainment it's actually easy to be even a a professing believer in those circles because no one's ever pushing you further your next step is you know get involved in the turkey giveaway at christmas and look i'm all for giving away turkeys to the poor and the inner cities and wherever else they're needed but that's not the gospel the gospel is a message and so i do think this though there is a renewal and a revival happening churches are exploding that preach the bible because a generation is done with all the shenanigans and the shallow stuff they want to swim why because the tide is rising and there's no such thing as the shallow end now when your kids want to know why you teach what you teach on gender when politics are so extreme that people can't even sift through the rubble right now of what's true and what's not the shallow end is gone so you got two choices keep selling your bag of goods for as long as you can with a generation that's going to grow old and die soon or start preaching the bible and fill your church again with a young generation that wants it but there's going to be two roads you've got liberalism that's the only way to get the liberal young generation the church you can you can never go back there's dogmatism everywhere the young people are just as dogmatic for lgbtq and then over here they're just as dogmatic for truth the middle of the road is getting run over left and right and i don't know how far i can go on your program but i'm going to say it anyway and just blame me if you get flashy okay go for it the challenge that the sbc is facing and has been facing for a very long time is they have dabbled in the middle trying to be diplomats playing the politics for decades guess what those days are gone the era of the american mega church and the entrepreneurs and the little purpose-driven thing everyone was doing to sort of play nice is over a generation has risen up that is demanding truth in the pulpit and you can't ride the middle of the road that's why even in the sbc election you notice where mueller was nowhere the amount of votes he got was irrelevant why because people either wanted one extreme or the other now there's a whole lot there we could talk about as people say well we need balance again and we need to walk the middle of the road jesus was the middle of the road the bottom line is jesus probably i say probably because i'm not infallible would have never tolerated the past 30 to 40 years in mega churches with gals twisting down on the the things with the cirque du soleil stuff we used to see at our churches with the the goofballing and the bands and playing secular music before the service starts to make the unbeliever feel comfortable as if david would have strummed his heart his little harp with pagan beats you know to warm up in the temple the game that people have been playing is so serious and we have been trampling on what is sacred and so i would say where does all this go preach the bible and watch your church experience revival keep playing the game and you'll get a little further for a little longer and then the coffers will empty the seats will empty and they'll fill with only liberals who want your shallow end stuff and there's no truth there and probably just mostly goats and god will take the sheep and he'll place them somewhere where there's faithfulness man i uh every what you just said kosty is so important it's like i'm having to hold down my my inner charismatic right now like i want to jump up and shout honestly you know we're still allowed to say amen right we can raise hands we can love jesus no um such valuable words that you just offered us um so many my heart has been so burdened for the church lately um you know especially you mentioning the whole all the sbc controversies we're getting in into that a little bit in a moment but i just want to camp here because you brought up an amazing metaphor of the shallow end in the deep end and you're so right especially young people who are digital natives they've grown up speaking the language of the internet unlike me and and you who grew up we had to learn that language right this is their native language that is the deep end they are in the deep end from the time they have a screen in their hands and and we think that giving them a nice little place to play in a kiddie pool is going to do anything to counteract some of the messages that they're encountering the information they're gleaning they need solid biblical teaching and i it's it's my heart is burdened because so many churches just think well people won't come if if we do that and i was i was actually just at a a a conference this past weekend and and that's this topic came up and it was like yeah you start preaching the bible you start teaching through the bible there are going to be people who leave but as we've seen in churches that have done this then people are going to start coming the people who are hungry for that you know and i really think that god shining the light on some of this abuse shining the light on some of the hypocrisy is his mercy to the american church because we don't have a lot of persecution we don't have uh you know like what our brothers and sisters are going through in the middle east afghanistan like we don't have to deal with that so god is maybe refining it in a different way but um my my heart just shouts amen to what you said because it's an and you know i go to an sbc church and and so i'm my heart's real heavy for the sbc um and some of the things that i've seen so let's let's get into that just a bit um one of the reasons the other reason i wanted to have you on today is a recent facebook post that you wrote and i thought it was so clarifying so filled with hope but also just really i you know not being afraid to identify what's going on and so i'm just going to read this post and then i thought you know with maybe a bit of the time we have remaining we don't have a ton of time but we can drill down in some of these points to to leave our listeners with some encouragement like yes we are acknowledging spiritual abuse exists there's hypocrisy in the church we're seeing a lot of that come to light and but but the question is now what what do we do now and so your your post said this litten cheats driscoll abuses now what and of course litten cheats is in reference to the the sbc scandal of the new president uh with credible evidence being brought that he's been plagiarizing sermons for years which um you know has been heavy on my heart and of course driscoll's abuses from rise and fall of mars hill which i think really serves as a model for what people are encountering at many churches and then your question is now what here's the now what number one plant churches number two work hard and study number three appoint qualified elders number four make disciples who make disciples number five take doctrine and membership seriously number six waste no time on church growth experts number seven stop overestimating our importance and relevance this is such great stuff so this first one you know when somebody goes through spiritual abuse the knee-jerk reaction is to not go to church i mean that would seem like the last time on earth to start planting churches so why is this number one for you now what plant churches talk about that i think you've got to raise people up and plant churches and you've got to get into areas where there are not good churches and not faithful churches and you need to put faithful people there that'd be one two i i think a lot of these mega churches and large let's call them radio stations for a second for an illustration i want to use um they're not ready yet to usher in another uh john mcarthur pick your favorite turnaround pastor they're not ready yet they're still playing religious entrepreneurism um the likelihood of them opening the door like you know grace communities so many years ago to a macarthur type is so low because there's too much to lose now god can do that he can take over radio stations and change the signal and change the sound that's why i use that illustration um but we don't sit around waiting for you know the big the big church with the big building to give us all their stuff and and let us in the door you've got to go to some of these places and plant a church but here's the greater reality is the church has always advanced through church planting so while i'm all for taking over existing radio stations and changing the signal and the sound i'm just as much and maybe even more for raising people up and not sitting on you know our own kingdoms getting fat on ourselves but raising up a generation and deploying them and sending them with money and people or what in church planting people and pennies to a place and getting people deployed it's like in the new testament the book of acts you know the the holy spirit set aside barnabas and paul you see this all the time paul assigned timothy titus you just got movement in the new testament and so the the one of the larger dangers is going to be and i'm going to this is going to happen to me as a church planter i've already told our team hey in about five years when we get comfy and you know pastor kosti is all happy and we're all together we're this little family and it's growing and stable and the finances are there and the elder candidates are coming through and we're just having a great time and all of a sudden there's a need and i start going no no guys we we've got to establish i mean we don't even have this we don't we need to do before we plant i'm going to be tested already in that if there is a godly qualified man and a group of people that are willing to go the only thing holding me back there may be some practical elements however the only thing holding me back from being all in on starting that journey for that group is probably going to be my own insecurity my own fear that well well now our little thing that was growing and it was so good is gonna get hacked into and i have a friend who said once church planting is cutting off your arm and sticking in the ground and trusting in faith that god will grow it it is risky you are gonna lose you're losing something yeah because it's not about you so these are things that i'm preaching to myself they are good for us but planting churches is a great way to uh get over ourselves and for me to get over me and all of us to just think about the mission of god the mission of god the mission of god advancing it's good number two work hard in study talk about that yeah we've got to go deep in doctrine if we're going to faithfully lead people you can't take them where you haven't been as a principal so we've got to go deep and study pastors need to be focused on accurately handling the word and prayer as well in the study praying for our members praying for god to illumine us to truth never to hit cruise control and to come out swinging on a sunday so to speak for the fences if you will with truth give the people something that will exhort them comfort them encourage them convict them challenge them don't stand up there and waste a moment give them god's word get in the study some of these too have undertones of you know issues that i've taken with the american church work hard and study means you're not out golfing four days a week work hard in study means you're not plagiarizing sermons work hard in study means you're not watching you know four john piper videos to preach your own sermon from that and getting ideas no go to the text go to your knees pray prepare and let it fly there's nothing wrong i know guys will share their thoughts on sermons or peop pastors have have men on staff we do this at redeemer hey what do you guys think of this text or you know how did you outline that what are all that's good you know i didn't think of that that's just iron sharpening iron but that's part of working hard in study is talking to the brethren and even being sharpened by older wiser men but we got to get after it and feed god's people that's good number three appoint qualified elders this is uh this is key i think in in the now what when it comes to spiritual abuse talk about that yeah spiritual abuse will occur occur when you have unqualified men who are influential or they have big personalities or even they're quiet mellow but they're they're very manipulative and they they know how to pull all the strings or whatever you have qualified men first timothy 3 1-7 if you appoint qualified men then god's design for eldership is leading the church if there's plurality there and there's not some single dominating dictator at the helm then you're going to have a godly family being led by godly men no one's perfect there's going to be conflict whether there's people there is conflict but overall if you appoint qualified elders i'm not talking about your rich friends i'm not talking about the people who want power i'm not talking about your golfing buddies i'm not even talking about the guy who gives a ton of money and wants to be an elder and you and we can justify oh he's he's so generous and jesus said well your treasure is your heart is oh his heart's with the church i mean i know we're not there together doctrinally and he believes some weird things but he's such a nice guy no the room is protected by the room i mean that elder room when they meet you look around the room and you know every one of those men would stand back to back with you in a foxhole and say what you say believe what you believe and see it like that and then once in a while they're going to turn at you and we look at one another and we speak the truth and we sharpen and we're god's means of protection and care for one another we've got to have qualified leaders that's good number four is make disciples who make disciples talk about that a bit what does that mean yeah you can make a lot of followers in a church nowadays you've got lots of followers online i've got some followers online i we can make followers all day now are you making disciples and then even then you can make a lot of quote disciples after yourself but are there disciples who then in turn are inspired to make disciples you see this it's not even about prominence you see this in ministries that are well known and not as well known you see it across the board what's the running theme well god decides how wide the the messaging goes that's up to him but in a lot of those churches you will see duplication and we need to look at the church and say okay am i making disciples all right now is that enough no they need to make disciples and so there's exhortation there to be a church that's about duplication that means that at the shepherd's house i need to pour into men and make disciples and then expect them and encourage and exhort them and even equip them to make disciples of others and so it's not the kosty show it's not the alisa show it's not about us it's about us spending our lives and expending ourselves for someone else who then does it again and again and again and in the end what you have is the church being the church and i think that ties into number one that's how you plant more churches you've been pouring into people and not just getting high on your church growth stuff yeah well and that brings us into the next one which is waste no time on church growth experts i i remember the first time i even heard that this was an actual thing and it's uh it was disturbing to me when i heard about it and i you know of course i'm not trying to offend anyone who might be watching this who is a church growth expert but i just think that sometimes just because something exists or some you know it's the way that people do things it doesn't mean that it's the right way to do things so what why do you put that on there waste no time on church growth experts yeah notice i didn't say waste no time on a ministry coach or mentor waste no time on seminars or workshops on how to you know serve your church i'm not i'm not down on guys or gals who do different things to teach other people how to do what they do to be honest if you decided to put on a seminar workshop and charge for it here let me show you how to make your podcast more effective for reaching the hearts and minds of women around the world i'd send my wife to that that's a great thing that's awesome we're all for that what i'm referring to is religious entrepreneurism there is a massive culture of church growth experts these are guys who say i'm going to help you grow your church numerically pay me 800 a month or a thousand dollars a month or 1500 a month or 500 a month here's the package you get here's how much you can hang with me here's our little hangout you know at the beach house that my friend owns all that junk that is what a lot of these experts are doing i'll name one of them larry osborne he's one of the guys connected to mark driscoll and he's a guy who's at a biola talbot university he's got north coast church in san diego and he's built himself a business church growth expert if you have parking problems he can solve them but even more so if you want to get people in the door he'll help you with that too and here's the tough part he's written really helpful resources on how to structure your small groups who doesn't want to have really effective small groups he's written some helpful tools on how to be an effective leader with your team all this is good but a lot of these men will set themselves up as the key to it all the key to your growth i've heard some of them personally say you know church planting is a dumb idea that's a quote church planting is a waste of time everybody thinks they're the anointed everybody thinks they can grow the church there's one reason people are here and it's the man on the screen or the man on the stage he's the reason so you ride his wave as long as you can and then you figure it out after that which is why a lot of these churches are multi-site like driscoll and osborne james mcdonald's that whole culture there's nothing wrong with using technology and having to have overflow rooms we have one at our church right now we call it the family center um you know for a while it was called the video venue and we're like yeah we don't want people thinking you know we're starting these multi-sites or something like that so my encouragement was hey guys let's call it a family center grace church did something similar and so we use technology for overflow because sometimes there's too many people on the campus and unless someone's going to write a check for eight million dollars right now we're not exactly acquiring 20 acres at the moment and so that happens grace community lots of other churches there's a church on the west side of phoenix that had something similar they've had to build a new parking lot and their people are everywhere they've moved to three services it's chaos because people are hungry for truth i'm not talking about not using technology i'm talking about the idea that a church growth expert sells that you're the man it's all about you and if you listen to me i'm gonna get you there that is religious entrepreneurism let's spend more time with our people let's spend more time in prayer let's spend more time praying with our own elders that god's given us to solve the problems that god's put in front of us and watch the holy spirit work through qualified men and that is another element i think of the foolish things of the world confounding the wise i love when a session in prayer with elders solves a problem and the church growth experts can't figure out well how'd you do oh you that must be this it makes their wires cross and i just love that because it's god showing you got nothing i'm the one building it i'm the one doing it here's the qualified leaders follow i lead i love that kind of stuff when god shows people up well and i think you're right it's not that technology itself is the problem but in in my view it seems like it comes down to goal if the goal is growth there will always be compromise but if the goal is discipleship faithfully teaching the bible living in christian life together then there will be health it might be smaller but there will be a healthy church community there so all right last one is stop overestimating our importance and relevance god doesn't need us that's right he doesn't it is so fun and i'm so grateful that he would use us i'm grateful that god gave me a chair to sit on today he gave me a really nice camera that somebody provided and the lord used them to provide it i'm looking at you right now in your studio that god provided i'm so grateful that god has allowed us to have laptops and churches and buildings and bibles so grateful grateful that he would let you publish another gospel and blow it up with tyndale and reviews are bringing people to tears as they say this book just saved my life i've seen what they've wrote about you and about your book and for me to get to write on the prosperity gospel and on healing and for me to get to pastor and shepherd for me to get to have breakfast tomorrow with a brother six a.m this morning be with about 15 men going through first timothy and for me to have the opportunities i have what a joy but god does not need me he does not need you he does not need any of us nobody is the next john mcarthur nobody's the next rc sprole nobody's the next you know this seminary or that seminary we're just slaves we're stewards i was reading recently first corinthians 4 in verses 1 and 2 and reminding myself over and over in devotions just through kind of meditating on god's word my big takeaways that day i am a slave of christ i'm a steward of god's mysteries and i must be found faithful that's really the three main things that paul's saying in those verses i'm a doula spawn servant slave i am a steward of his mysteries i ain't got to grow it big i just got to be faithful if it grows big uh oh we better be faithful with that too and then i i gotta be found faithful in the end i sit with a brother recently who's from tempe his name is smedley yates he pastors grace bible just up the freeway we're going to be nearby when i plant and we sat and had some great food together and i asked him for wisdom and he said brother listen if it grows your church plant do me a favor would you please consider every soul as a big deal don't you know work we grew by 80. we're going to this we're going to that just do me a favor he said we're bursting at the seams right now we're planting another church and the greatest fear i have in the lord is every new family is a group of souls i have to shepherd care hebrews 13 17 they submit to us but we give an account for how we shepherded them he goes please please if it grows numerically take every soul seriously and that resonates when i sit with older men and i realize this is not about my importance or our importance this isn't about like you know we we deserve this or we're next or we should this or we should that and i it you know i should be at that conference or you know i i am that we got to be really careful we are nobodies and god decides to put our ministry in places sometimes where it becomes prominent but every day every dollar every resource is a stewardship we are supposed to be using it for his glory and his great name and then even if we do get influence and there's some responsibility there and maybe some power whatever we want to call it it is to influence the minds of people towards christ and win spiritual warfare which is the battle for the mind that's right and tear down and take captive thoughts that raised themselves up against the knowledge of god like paul says in second corinthians 10 and put truth in front of people so that's what i'm talking about with that i'm again i'm preaching to myself i'm preaching to my generation and hopefully i'm just with in my own home in our ministry and for others just stirring up our minds to think really seriously in a media driven age where a lot of us a lot of us are going to have a lot of followers we already do and a lot of us are going to use instagram and tick tock and whatever to reach people and it won't be just a john mcarthur john piper paul washer whoever with lots of instagram followers it's there's a lot of people now on platforms and thousands of people scrolling endlessly what are we putting out who are we and then what's left online when we've left the earth what are our kids and grandkids looking at what are they seeing from us that's a huge deal i think we need to think about now as a very as media natives yeah man such great stuff such a rich stuff um i i i'm aware that we're about out of time but i do want to make sure we cover a couple of things here very quickly i want to give you an opportunity to talk about the new book you have coming out which i'm excited to read but before we get to that i i want to just acknowledge that i know there's probably people watching this that have been through spiritual abuse themselves they've been on the receiving end of it and i wonder you know what would you have to say to someone as a pastor acosta as someone who's both been a victim of i would say and also participated in um and now a pastor with this heart for for god's church for the sheep what would you say to somebody uh who's been through that who might just be like you know what i just i don't even want any of this church stuff anymore it's just too hard it's been too much of a painful experience for me yeah i'll say something i think dustin benj said the other day you know don't blame christ for his disciples um there are some really bad leaders out there there's some even some christians that made really bad mistakes um as leaders and that happens we're we're a messy bunch at times but the church belongs to christ and i would encourage people not to give up on the church not to give up on the lord not to give up on faith and to find a faithful church and unfortunately that's more difficult than it was maybe in the past and it can be challenging but i would encourage people to face their fear of being in a church and under the covering of a church find the right one pray test it for a while go listen learn get involved in small groups sit under the preaching observe things and as you see the lord moving there this would be the more uncomfortable pieces get in and probably stay in for a little while biblical counseling you're going to need wise counsel to guide you in the middle of that season and then here's maybe the even tougher part because trying out churches and going to some counseling could even be really helpful and sound appealing don't shrink back from things like church authority don't run from words like submit don't run from the word obedience yes an abuser has used those things to spiritually exploit you and hurt you but god's will hasn't changed his word hasn't changed the blessing of god and the joy you can experience doing things like submitting to church authority and and grafting into the body and being cared for spiritually those are things that can bring great joy because they're done in the right place just like no one abandons the institution of marriage or says you know i'm i'm giving up marriage marriage isn't something i'm ever gonna you know endorse or no people go through challenges in marriage all the time it doesn't mean they don't believe in marriage anymore the people who do that have given up on something beautiful that god has designed and so we want to be really careful are you getting a car accident people say i'm never driving again no you just you get in a vehicle you do it again you buy something safe and you trust the lord and so don't give up on the church because there was something hurtful uh please that's not god's will for you and so again find a faithful church or test out another faithful church stay get into counseling and stay there and then please don't be afraid as you grow and heal again of those same old biblical truths and at least if i can just poke in here one more time with this i i think that's the there's been some good things from the rise and fall of mars hill the christian today podcast and probably the first three or four episodes super helpful um really opening our eyes to this sort of thing but around episode five and beyond you can see a liberal agenda coming out the assault on complementarianism the assault on church authority the assault on honestly dogmatic truth and now it's you know everything strong is driscoll and that that's not the way it is we've talked already about god's high value and our joy over spouses and our wives especially in his high call for women and so complementarianism is not an abusive system there are people who abuse it but the reality is there's egalitarians who abuse people too so we want to be really careful not lumping in god's truth with the way that people behave and saying well that must not be true no it it is true god has a beautiful design and just like no one abandons sex or sexuality which the devil twists all the time through pornography and terrible sinful means and exploitation we need to see god design this this is his order we need to treat it with respect and honor it the way god has decreed and designed not throw it all away and say well that's just what they do when they believe that no there's just some really sinful people that make a lot of bad press come out for the lord in his word yeah and that's an observation i i would add to this you know i i i have the great honor of getting to travel from time to time not too much but but here and there i get to travel and do women's conferences and things like that and i get to encounter so many i know so many faithful non-abusive biblically faithful pastors all over this country who are doing a phenomenal job um shepherding god's sheep uh through their spiritual lives and you just those aren't the ones you hear about on the news you know those guys don't make the news and so what i would add to what kasi said as well is just to resist the narrative that there are no good churches or that there are no good pastors or that being a pastor is just by nature going to corrupt somebody and turn them into an abuser it's not true i've witnessed too much of the opposite to know that it's just those those aren't the stories that are making the headlines those aren't going to be the ones that get everybody's attention and get everybody talking all of the the faithful pastors all over this country and all over the world so i thought that was that was really good and and such rich advice there kosty for everybody watching um we are gonna go spend we're gonna do a bit of a little after party for our patreon supporters if you want to be a part of that go to patreon.com alisa childers there are different tiers you can select but basically what we do is we have a facebook group where we we ask specific questions of my guests and we just get a little bit of uh extra time with them so you can check that out on patreon.com but costy as we close out this portion of our discussion together uh i'm really really excited about your new book coming out it has to do with the topic of healing and so uh leave us with what what that's about what do you want people to know about healing and then if there's any sort of a pre-order situation or where can they find it you know let's let's use this time to let them know about that thank you so much yeah the book's called more than a healer subtitle not the jesus you want but the jesus you need chapter one he is healer um spoiler alert we have a son with cancer and our young son timothy uh is something he's going through and so um we came to understand firsthand what we preach the sovereignty of god trusting the lord and he's doing well now but there was a time where it was really challenging and so i started thinking a lot about healing and obviously it's familiar with our background and so chapter one is he is healer i want people to know jesus heals and you know elisa and i and so many others believe in the holy spirit we believe that jesus moves powerfully in people's lives but not with a guarantee snappy your fingers tell god what to do and declare it not with enough faith and not with a big enough offering he's a sovereign healer and so chapters 2 onward are about the aspects of who jesus is that can both strengthen us and bring comfort to us and give us confidence when we're on the mountaintop and we're experiencing the blessings of god and everything's awesome but also and especially when we're in the valley and he is our comfort he's our peace he's our hope he's justice he's sovereign he's savior he's truth and so these are things that i wanted to put in front of people it's a book that i believe will will grow people in their faith and it'll it'll help them grow closer to jesus in maybe ways that they haven't thought of yet and haven't been taught but also for long time christians will renew those affections what jonathan edwards refers to often the affections of our heart for the lord and so i was so refreshed i wrote it while kovan was going crazy in the world and i holed up in my master bedroom and wrote a book about jesus and i just got to be with him in his word that whole time and so selfishly it was a book i wanted to write for my own heart and my own mind but i am confident that it will bless people you can pre-order it right now it's available on amazon.com it comes out september 28th and so if you're watching this after that date it's already available amazon christianbook.com and wherever books are sold and then we've got some videos that we're releasing on healing at for the gospel that will bless people those are all free and we want to just keep blessing people with resources and help them heal where it matters most in their soul but also if the lord would allow you experience physical healing guess what you still got to serve jesus and love him tomorrow and share his saving message with others that's good well i want to thank my guest kosty hen for joining me today for such a rich discussion i really hope and pray that it's just very helpful to anybody who's watching if you're listening on audio platforms it helps us so much when you leave a good review if you're watching this on social media leaving a comment clicking the like button sharing it with your friends really helps us to get the word out to more people thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 26,289

Rating: 4.9344773 out of 5

Keywords: apologetics

Id: wQc0L08azl4

Length: 69min 56sec (4196 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021