Episode 950: Going Deeper - 6/14/2026

>> Dear Lord, thank you for this morning. We thank you for the Board of Great Sarmine. And, boy, are we dealing with that right now in our country, in our world, and sometimes in our neighborhoods. But, Father, we know we're dealing with some of those issues even within our own convention from a group of churches that we are a part of. And so, we pray for your wisdom. We pray for a good, clear art and articulate debrief on what took place this last week. And, I know as I get older, I see the importance of the SPC more than I've ever seen it. So, thank you for that. Thank you for Mark and his commitment to our church, to what we hold as truly what we believe is in your will. Well, thank you for Malcolm and Karen, and their willingness to be out there. And, I know Malcolm was in the middle of that and be talking about it, but we thank you for his life. And, for giving us that insight this morning. So, we ask you to bless this morning's time in Jesus name. Amen. One of the things I know to start off with, I want to know how did the elections go? Because I saw a guy's name that I thought I was familiar with that lost. Yeah. But then the guy that won, I didn't know him. Yeah, I know better the guy that won than the guy that lost. But, let's just say this, there are often close votes for Presidents of the Southern Maps Convention. Willie Rice, who I've known for probably half a dozen years as a pastor in Florida, and of course the convention occurred in Florida. So, he had the home field advantage, but he won the election and came up to me afterwards, by the way, and wanted me to know. He had an entourage around him. That's how they do now. It's like a literal politician. But he said, Malcolm, I want you to know that I really like the emphasis on classical theology. And our church uses the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed alternatively in our public worship at least once a month. And I really appreciate your work in that regard. And so, I'm thankful for his affirmation in that way. And Joshua Powell from North Carolina was the other major contender. And he was the one favored by most of the entity leaders, or all of the entity leaders, as far as I know. But he lost. And yet he came up to me afterwards, and thanked me for something I had said publicly, affirming just the Christian spirit, which he showed after his loss. It was very generous and very kind towards Willie Rice. And so, yeah, I mean, in actuality, there wasn't much difference between the two as far as their ideas and their policies. So really not anything to be that much noteworthy about, to be honest with you. That's awesome. That's awesome. Some of the things that you and I visited about that you thought would be important to not just for our group, but to broadcast, the commissioning the new I&B missionary. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. And the International Mission Board, which is really the key entity that holds all Southern Baptist churches together. Our church supports what is it, Brad, four or five families that are international mission board missionaries and couples. And some of the folks in here may support even financially, maybe extras, to support some of those same families. And so we are very interested in continuing the support of the International Mission Board. And our budget makes a priority in particular of the International Mission Board. But also, Karen and I, Karen as an adjunct teacher and me as a full-time teacher, both of us have opportunity with students that we engage with. And almost every year, we have several students that are being appointed as I&B missionaries. A particular couple that we have both invested time in, were appointed this year. And they're going as missionaries to Japan and McLean and Rebecca. And we're very hopeful for what the Lord will do through their ministry. That's to learn the Japanese language, and they have to engage the culture. It's fascinating to me, because this young man is particularly bright. And he's also interested in pursuing a PhD. Because of the electronic way that we have to deliver education now, he's been in several of my classes, including sitting as a master's level guest in a PhD seminar. But he will probably go on and do a PhD with me, even while he's in Japan. And so you can be trained for those, too, in particular, as they go into their ministry. Well, some of you may or may not know. Some of you know Phil or Gay, and they're one of their sons, and his wife, Josh and Kayla, they have four kids, four kids. And we had them over a couple weeks ago playing on the water and stuff. But we had Huffees and his family there. And that was put that together on purpose, which worked out very nice. And Paul was there, too. And they're going back a week after next to their country. And I didn't know this. But Josh had lived there 15 years. And I think 12 or 13, I'm married. He was over there as a single. And he's an Aggie. That was the only thing wrong with him. He was an A&M Aggie. The second item that we wanted to address-- and you may have to explain some of the background for some of these, because I'm sure everybody would know about it. Some of the-- one of these I didn't know-- the Mueller Amendment. Yeah. So Albert Mueller, I've known Al for almost three decades now, shows how old we are both getting. But he is currently the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, one of our six Southern Baptist seminaries. He's actually endorsed several of my books. Years ago, I think a lot of this comes out of Al's own biography. So years ago, he and his wife took out a full page ad with several others arguing for women pastors-- not women in ministry, but women pastors. And ever since then, he's kind of had that hanging over his head. And he had a conversation. He always talks about this. He told me one time he had a conversation with Carl Henry. He's a very well-known evangelical theologian. And Carl told him that he would regret that. And so out of that sense of having to shift his opinion, he has become stronger and stronger in his opinion on that, ran into difficulty, his motion, because of a couple of things that he was saying that he meant by it, that he then later changed his mind on. It was going to fail the way he first put it. And it's still a good number voted against it, not because they agree with women lead pastors. As Pastor Mark explained, we believe in a male lead pastor, also known as a single elder model. And so we all know who, in our congregation, the pastor-- you can come to one of our pastors-- but then we know that when there's a need for a critical decision between business meetings of the church, the pastors, the one that leads us. And this is a God-called man. So there are no evidence of female lead pastors in the convention. So the timing of it, the desire for it doesn't seem to fit the need. Of course, it had been a couple of years ago. Yeah. It's actually more like 20 years ago. We really haven't had this as part of the discussion, except from a more radical group in the last few years, many of whom show attitudes that our church would actually find offensive. So we have some arguing that-- and Al Molar himself said that even a woman coming in on a podcast about a sermon, he considers to be a crossing a pastor's line. His others argue against women being on the stage during worship or leading in song. Others that you would have like we do with Don Weeks as a preschool minister, because she has responsibility for preschoolers. And they find that problematic. They think only a man should do something like that. They don't respect our model, our understanding of authority. Some of them go so far. They don't want women to have a voice in congregational votes. They don't think women should be able to vote. And they think that's true in the church and in the state. So I mean, there are some real hard fundamentalists in this that are just totally out of line. And they ignore those parts of Scripture. But he's not part of that group. Who is he? Al. Al. He is to an extent because he came. - He ignited it. - He ignited it. - He ignited it. - He ignited it, but he had to backtrack and change some of his language because a lot of churches and leaders like ours got upset about it. And so he changed his language in the last week or so. The backlash was so severe that two of our former SBC presidents and the widow of Steve Gaines, the Bellevue Baptist Church, asked me to stand with them and to speak on their behalf against it, not because we disagree with the basic idea. We do believe in a male only lead pastorate. We have to understand that in the Southern Baptist Convention there are actually two models of church leadership that are active right now. For our church, a technical terminology. Mark was gonna use this language to explain, but most of our church doesn't know it, so use the language of a lead pastor or a senior pastor. But technically we have a model known as a single elder. And so we have one pastor that all of us look to, he's the normal one who proclaims the gospel and leads our church and gives the authoritative doctrine of the church. There are other pastors that come alongside him, but we look to that lead pastor. For many of these churches, they follow what is called a plural elder model. And for them, they have become so rigid that for them, only men can speak, for many of them only men can lead worship in music and so on. So it's a very masculinist understanding and that has a tight grip on Almolar and Southern seminary. It is not the opinion of the overwhelming majority of our churches. And so that's kind of what you've got going on is you've got two different models of church leadership that, and their model doesn't even understand our model. What's surprising about this, Adrian Rogers was the pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church, next to RGlee and Steve Gaines, really the most well-known pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 20th and early 21st century. Adrian Rogers called together this committee that revised our Baptist's faith and message in 2000. And he made it clear to the convention that this was not about associate pastors when we added language that all Christians, both men and women, Mark repeated some of that language, are called to serve in the church. But we have only a male as a lead pastor, right, or as the pastor. The question that Adrian Rogers was asked, what about associate pastors and so on? He said, this has nothing to do with that. Adrian Rogers' own church would be considered out of line with what many of these radicals are trying to force on the Southern Baptist Convention. And they're trying to do it from above. And that's why Pastor Mark mentioned that we are an independent church. We don't mean that we're alone. What we mean by that is that we have one Lord, one Head, one ruler, one Master of this church, and his name is Jesus Christ. Not other churches. So we cooperate with other churches, but a Baptist church has one Head. And that is Jesus Christ. And what some of these guys don't understand, they have more of a Presbyterian polity where you have authority coming from the Presbyter of elders or a synod that are controlling the local churches. That's not Baptist, but it is what the former Dean and Professor of History at Southwestern Seminary, W.W. Barnes warned against what he called a creeping Presbytgenationalism. And what he meant by that is that you have some Baptists that are moving towards Presbyterian views. And that's currently what you have. You have traditional Baptist churches like ours, which are the overwhelming majority, but you have a radical fringe group that is really, they find their base primarily in Southern Seminary and Louisville. And they want to institute a model of church governance that usually has much smaller churches and that is ruled rigidly by plural elders rather than these larger churches. Now notice this, larger churches can have, and this gets a little more into the weeds, can have single elder and multiple elder models. - That's the same. - But they understand that the authority lies with those elders, which are also known as pastors, which are also known as bishops. So Baptists are themselves split, and it's because we have a party that is being fed by Calvinism in particular, but not only Calvinism, but by a type of masculineism that wants to have only men be able to speak. And it is against that, and that's why Donna Gaines, the widow of Steve Gaines, asked me to stand with her to remind people that her church, and by the way, our church, and many other churches, we don't follow that model. And under Christ, we don't feel that we have to follow their model, we have to follow what we believe, scripture teaches, and this is what we've always done. This is what most Southern Baptists historically have done, and that is the single leader or elder model. - Well, we've, Gene and I, our son-in-law's parents, were, they retired, but they were co-pasters of a Presbyterian church in New York, their big argument, which they almost left that denomination when the vote for gay men was in. And they were praying that their church, 'cause their church took a vote. - Yeah. - And this was up in New York, Upper State, New York, and fortunately, the majority voted conservative, not to accept that. - But there are denominations. - There are, yeah. - So let me explain this. We believe in what is called the local church autonomy, that every church is directly under Jesus Christ, and so the authority comes from Christ to the local church, and then we elect leaders, right? And that's what we do. That's why we have pastors. That's our model, right? When you have a hierarchical model, which can be either Presbyterian or Piscopalian or Roman Catholic, you lose the direct relationship between the local congregation in Jesus Christ. And that's why you will find a number of denominations that are Presbyterian, or that follow more of an episcopal model, like the United Methodists and the global Methodists, like the Anglicans, including the world Anglicans, and then the Episcopal Church of the USA, which is very liberal. But some of these churches have split because you have a higher authority, a denomination, that actually controls the local church. That's what Pastor Mark was saying. That's not us. Nobody controls this church. This church is controlled by this church under Christ. And that's why we together discern the Word of God, the will of God, for our congregation. And so Fred Luder and Ed Litten were talking with several of us. And I like what Fred told us, and he's former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And for him, he said, you know, it used to be that Southern Baptists were primarily focused on the Great Commission, on world missions. That's why we get together and we support the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, for theological education for evangelism. And he said that he's discovered that over the last several years, the conversation has shifted towards making laws. And it's kind of odd for a free church denomination like ours to have anybody impose a law on us. And that's why you have so many that are like, what are you doing here? And that's some of the difficulty that we have. But other things happened in the convention as well beyond this. Well, we'll talk about that. I know Swindall, he quoted Swindall today. I remember when Swindall, this is 20 years ago, at least. He made a comment that because, you know, especially, and he wasn't directing it at SBC, but it could have been. Because his comment was that a lot of people feel like they don't want to be a part of an association. And that's not good to be says, no, no, no, you want to be a part of the association. If you join a church, join a church that is an association. He said that does build accountability. And he said, "If you don't, then he said, 'My experience has been that if you are unattached with other churches, you'll be unattached in many times your relationship with God.' And he said, 'I see the wildest things coming from churches that have no affiliation with some a group that can hold them accountable in some cases.' And it works both ways. You think about it. The United Methodists, just a few years ago, split, and it's because the UNC leadership was becoming increasingly pro-LGBTQ. And that's why our old worship center down the hill is now inhabited by a group of global Methodists that would agree with our understanding, which I think is the biblical understanding of human sexuality. So these are big issues. But they have a female pastor. Yeah. And that's where we would disagree. Well, and I talked to one of their elders when all that was going down a couple of years ago. I don't know if David, you and I, you were both responsible of that. But I know one of the guys shared with me, I ran into him somewhere out in town. I asked him about, we got around talking about the female pastor issue and all that. He said, you know, he said, "We probably are different than you guys in some things." He said, "We're, he said, he didn't use the word mixed up, but he made a comment that he said, we're probably quite conservative on a lot of things that you guys would agree, you guys mean our church would agree with, but we're probably less so on those issues." And one of them was the female pastor they had. And I only met her one time, or she was fine, but I'm never, yeah, I'm never, that's the only time. One more, not one more, but what, but what, let's go to the next area. You made a motion. I did. You and I talked about that and I let, I kind of let that, well, we did because I kind of let the cat out of the bag last week. We did. That you were going to follow the process this time and not try to come in from the outside as a whipper snapper. Yeah. Tell us about it. Tell us what, tell us what the issue was and why you made the motion and, and, and, and yeah. So a few years ago, a couple of years ago was the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and that's why we did it. And so a pastor, a friend of mine, Stephen Lawrence, made a motion that the Southern Baptist Convention addenizing Creed, it was referred because, you know, Baptist love committees. It was referred to-- And committee on committees. And committees. We even have nominating committees on committees. And so, I mean, we're just full of committees. That's being a Baptist when we try to organize. And there's good reason is because we want to have council with one another and we want to respect one another in these processes. So I mean, we laugh about it, but it actually is a good thing to work through committees. I mean, that's why we have a pastors council because we find that in a multitude of counselors there is wisdom and we need one another. So yeah, we laugh about it, but it's actually true. And what--and this is why Willie Rice actually agreed with me on this. That's why he came and approached me afterwards. But I made a motion this time. Well, let's try a different process and let's work through these committees and entities. And so I prayed about it, talked with you and Mark and Karen. I think really, y'all are the only people I talked to about it because-- >> Yeah, I was going. >> Yeah, because if others had found out about it before I did, they'd be trying to derell it and that kind of thing. Well, they couldn't. And so I made the motion and I did it this time rather than somebody else. But I made a motion and had one of the leading pastors in Mississippi who's standing with me. One of the few guys taller than me in the SBC, by the way. And he--so I made the motion that we ask because of the widespread data from professional posters like Lifeway Research and George Barna, we have discovered that there are a lot of evangelicals who are holding to false doctrine, not just minor issues, but primary issues. For instance, and here's from the latest Lifeway Research poll. Let me read to you a clear majority of American evangelicals, 53% in the latest poll, although I've seen some numbers a little higher, agree with the heretical statement that the Holy Spirit is a force but is not a person. That's a problem. That means they don't really believe in the Trinity. That's a huge issue. When you have a majority of self-professed American evangelicals actually being heretical in their view of the Trinity. Well, you got to remember that who supports them, agnostics, atheists, and Muslims. Yeah. Yeah, those agree with those that would limit who the Holy Spirit is. Exactly. Look at half of American evangelicals, 47% in the latest poll, agree that, and this gets to your point, and I quote, "God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam." And you look at their views of Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and their ideas that we all worship the same God. No, no, no, we all teach different gods. There's no doubt about it. You're more of an expert on Islam, but I'm pretty convinced by reading the Quran myself that they don't worship our God. They deny the Trinity. They pervert the doctrine of the Trinity. They deny that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man. I don't consider Muslims to worship a true God. I consider the God of Islam Allah to be a false God. Am I right in that bread? You're perfect. You're right. Correct. But we have half of American evangelicals don't think that the God of Islam is a problem. It's a problem that American evangelicals don't hold to basic truth. That's what the problem is. That part right there, and that's why I'm really praying in the near future. I think we need to deal with that issue alone because of the growth of Islam. One of the senior most important characters within Islam in the West is an epic city which is in Dallas. And this cat is the governor and this guy are there having, they're war with each other because they want to create this incredible Sharia presence in parts of North Dallas. And so we have got to deal with that before it gets to be guns and weapons and all that. And what is interesting is that you have Christians, evangelical Christians, these are not all Christians, but evangelical Christians that don't see that the God of Islam and the God of Christianity are two different gods. The third issue is that I saw your hand, Don. Yeah, we'll call on you a second. In your 53% of evangelicals, you're not included. I mean, it's actually really like the Muslims and everybody else is included in that, can you free percent? No. No, okay. No, that's just evangelicals. That's what I thought. And that's shocking, isn't it? Yes. It's utterly shocking. And now you understand a little bit of why I made the motion, which I'll describe the motion in a second. Thirdly, only 68% of evangelicals disagree with the heresy that Jesus was a great teacher but he was not God. That means about a third of evangelicals think that Jesus was not God. And even though he says, you know, he is the great I am, he is the one, everything that the father has is my, I mean, there's so many claims, especially in the New Testament to the deity of Jesus Christ. When you have that much confusion about, now these aren't secondary issues. This is not an issue about who is preaching or singing. This is a primary issue about who God is, about who Christ is, who about God is. This is where we would plant the flag. We're either dying or winning. I mean, these are those issues that most of us in the secular and the lay people world, we don't think about those kinds of things. We can read it, but we don't always understand it. I guess, Lusit's not to take your fervor away, and I'm going to paraphrase it. You're not going to take away my fervor, but I mean, I ain't messing with your fervor. But, you know, C.S. Lusit's something after he wrote the book, "Mirr Christiantity." He was basically d-classed. Why did you write this? Why do you feel like you have to address some musicians? By the way, "Mirr Christiant" is a classic. It is. For a lot of reasons. Theological, filipologetics. Apologetics, the whole bit. He said, and you know, paraphrasing poorly, you can check me out and look it up. But he basically said, "I felt it was necessary to address the things that most people would not know. Therefore, those of us who do know are indebted to teach the people." Absolutely. And I just want to show, that's what this guy is. Well, you're kind. Okay. That's what this guy is. This is what, you know, both the people you and I have studied, whether it's C.S. Lewis or others, that's why these people are so critical for us because they're spotting things. And some of the profs that I've had, these guys are on the forefront, not just Islamic, but on apologetics and polimics. And these guys are on the very, they're on the cutting edge of what we are getting ready to deal with in this country. You see what's going on in Europe. Yeah, yeah. And it's not good. And so, but we need to -- that's why you -- you know, if you want -- you can't -- I can't think of anybody to pray for this guy. Because this is -- this is the guy and guys like him that are studying this because they -- and they're not holding it on to their own. They're letting out -- that's why those books that he wrote, that he's brought some of those in -- we need to be supporting that. Those systematic theology books that are written for the average person in a church, it doesn't have the degrees, can read and understand. And I'm using it. I'm using it as a resource for some of the things that I'm writing about. So I appreciate that. But anyway, I defer. So I made the motion -- call on you a second, Lowell. I made the motion that -- because of this problem, which is the most -- I would argue is the most critical problem facing contemporary evangelicals, is the large number of evangelicals who are not in agreement with basic Christian orthodoxy, with regard to God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. I moved that the convention request the seminaries, the six seminaries. And we know that at least one of our seminaries has a teacher who is undermining some of the basic truths. That they report to the convention what they're doing to address these critical issues in evangelicalism, as well as life-way research, excuse me, life-way Christian resources, which is, by the way, my publisher for most of my books. So I've also been published by Oxford University Press and the Center for Baptist Studies and so on. But, you know, life-ways, my publisher, this is not to hurt them. This is to prompt them and to say, "Turn your great theological minds, turn your publishing, and answer the question, how are you dealing with what is the greatest crisis facing American evangelicals?" And the SPC agreed to request them to give a report on these matters. Also, one thing that-- Hold on a second. Don't breathe by that. So was there a formal vote needed or requested? When I made the motion, they act on them all together. And they passed it. Yes. They rejected a lot of them. And that's how we do that. So there were motions for task forces, there were motions for all sorts of things. Some were ruled out of order. Some were tabled indefinitely. This one was one of the few that got passed through. And so it goes to the convention entities at this point. And then the convention can react to it as well as the executive committee can react to it as they see fit. My purpose was to say, this is something important. Let's deal with this. And as a matter of fact, I've written in life way as published my works in this regard, both at the popular level and the academic level. This is the critical issue. Social issues are important. And I dare say we have to answer those political issues are important, and we have to answer those. But this is primary and cannot be put to the side. And for too long, we have been putting it to the side. And that was my purpose. And I'm thankful for that motion getting through. That's good. It was overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, there is no opposition to it. And it's hard for-- It's just by vocal. It's just they let it go forward. They didn't vote against it. So they took a bunch that they voted against. And this was not voted against. So that's-- it's a roundabout way that the SPC uses it. And I chose to use that method because I knew how it would work. And very thankful. But to have the new president of the SPC come to me and say, thank you. That's good. That's helpful to me. And to have-- and to have-- you know, I know that as soon as I made the motion, the guy standing next to me, the pastor from Mississippi, got a text from one of not my seminaries president who agrees with me. But from another seminary president said, tell Malcolm, I really like this. And so I mean, I know that there's agreement, although, you know, we'll see if all the seminary presidents get behind it. There's more to come. Any questions from any of you that you'd like to ask? I have a little. I have many, many Catholics are there in this country. And their poll, which is an American poll, is pushing for love of Muslim. Yeah. He's stating all over that we ought to excel. Besides the E.I. Yeah, I don't really-- I'll be honest with you. I have not kept up with that conversation. There are lots of Roman Catholics in the country, more Roman Catholics than Southern Baptist. But I think if you compared all those denominations that are Protestant with Roman Catholics, we're actually-- they're more Protestant. It's just that Protestants, we like to disagree with one another. And so, you know, there's the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Biscopalians, the Baptist, and even Baptists like to disagree with one another. Baptists, yeah. Yeah, it's just a Baptist thing. You know, a funny story just as a comedy break. Okay. And I've got to go soon to help with the closing of the service. I was traveling through North Louisiana. We were driving from-- Karen and I were driving from Hope, Arkansas, down through Plain Dealing. Don't you love Louisiana names? Through Plain Dealing down to Shreeport, right? And so, we're on this highway. I think it was Highway 1, or 71, one of the two. And as we're driving down it, I see a sign that says, "Hope Baptist Church." And I'm like, "Oh, there's a Baptist Church." And a little further, probably a mile, maybe a little less. A new Hope Baptist Church. And this is not a metropolis. I mean, this is hardly any houses. I'm thinking to myself, "Hmm, they had a church planning effort otherwise known as a church split." And then a little further, Karen can verify this. No hope. No, no, no. They had a little further, new Hope Baptist Church number two. Or at least they're Black and white. And I thought to myself, "Okay, here we go." And that's just because Baptist do believe in liberty of conscience. And we do believe in reading our own Bibles. And we do believe that every believer has been given the Holy Spirit by Christ. And we also believe in the local church covenant. And sometimes some churches actually have major disagreements. Most of them are not about the faith. That's about the color of the church, or whatever it is. But those things happen. We don't stop recognizing each other as Baptists or Christians. But sometimes those things happen. But I think that shows the robust or vigorous understanding of freedom in Christ that Baptists hold to. And that's something that I don't ever want any of us to lose. You're man. Karen. I just want to mention that any member of Lakeside can go as a messenger. And next year it will be in New Orleans. I think you can have 12 per church. 12 per church. And so you want to consider that per next year. But also you can always watch it online. And so it might be interesting for you to actually hear it online. And see what happens. And the process, it's Robert's Rules of Order. And the process, it seems kind of bizarre. It's arcane. But it is a way of that order. Yeah. And with that 20,000 people were in the room. Yeah. And so to hear the music. Oh yeah. And so to hear the preaching, it's, when you hear 20,000 people praising Jesus, it's pretty weird. And then we heard from the convention speaker, was an African American man. His grandmother had been a slave of a Georgia Baptist leader. And here he was preaching elsewhere. And it was very moving to. It was just so many moments that were God was lifted up before. As well as the business. And I want to end on that note. I mean, Baptist argue with one another. We typically come back together. But we all like to put forward our own opinion. I know none of you are like that. No, I'm just joking. I know you're probably as much like that as I am. Don't look at me. No. But in the end, it was nice to renew fellowship, to actually see people that I, that sometimes don't like what I say. And I sometimes don't like what they say. But we recognize one another as fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Let's close on that. Father God, thank you for today. We thank you for the brief update. Thank you for Malcolm and Karen and Father appreciate the, not just the effort before. of the passing of something in my mind, it's just so simple for the nice and creed, why churches would debate over that, but obviously there's something else going on. Father, we know that Satan attacks those areas and people, organizations that are doing something on for the Lord. So just pray for us to be solid, not to be rigid, but also to be loving, but be sure of our beliefs, and our stance. And Father, let us let some of the second, third tertiary things go beside. Father, let us stand strong, though, for the existence of God, for the miracle God is, through His Son, Jesus Christ, through the resurrection, Father, for the Trinity. Father, let us never give up on that. Father, those are the tenants of what you gave us, because you loved us so much. So thank you for that. Thank you for Malcolm and Karen. We ask all this year name. Amen.