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How Malakoi (Soft) Elder Boards Destroy Churches | Special Guest - Chris Goble

from America Held Hostage

1h 12m 18s

How Malakoi (Soft) Elder Boards Destroy Churches | Special Guest - Chris Goble

Chris Goldble, of the White Rose Resistance, exposes a deep crisis in American churches caused by "squishy" elderboards—soft, emotionally sensitive, and unwilling to confront sin or truth. These boards, often composed of unqualified, passive, and feminized leaders, operate like Plato’s cave, where false narratives are accepted as reality. He identifies the "long house" culture as a key driver, where "niceness" replaces biblical kindness, leading to gossip, manipulation, and a culture of silence. The root causes include theological neglect, lack of biblical training on elder qualifications, and a flawed church leadership pipeline that produces soft, sheltered leaders who lack real-world experience. Pastors and elders are often attacked behind the scenes while being shielded from accountability, while the broader church fails to confront lies, feminism, and egalitarianism. The solution demands a generational shift: churches must teach sound theology, emphasize biblical elder qualifications, and cultivate a culture of bold, loving confrontation rooted in Scripture. Real-world experience and men with "bark" instead of "softness" are needed to lead and discipline. Leaders must stop waiting for others to act, take responsibility, and embody the gospel’s call to stand firm in truth—just as Jesus did. This requires a revival of biblical shepherding, accountability, and courage, especially in a culture of fear and compromise. Without such change, churches will continue to struggle with spiritual decay, disconnection, and the erosion of gospel integrity.

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Coming up, he's back, Chris Goldble of the White Rose Resistance talking about squishy elderboards in the churches, a pandemic in America, next. But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect men. We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or as theologians would put it the doctrine of sin. There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Coming to you from the epicenter of the Constitution of Blaze, this is the America held hostage podcast, America's economy on life support. Now here's your host, John Hinton. Coming to you live and on demand from the Stally Brand Digital Studios. Welcome back to the America held hostage podcast as we settle up and ride for Jesus. We thank Aik Butger and the Stally Brand team for all their support of the America held hostage podcast, and here's the ad read. Well, without further ado, we need to get to Chris Cobel in just a moment. We'll give you all his Twitter handles, his social medias, and the rundown. But you can find me on Twitter @jhinton_, find us on the web at americaheldhostage.transistor.fm. Find the podcast on Twitter and Instagram @ahpodcast_, email the podcast at [email protected] Find us on patreon @americaheldhostagepod Also, if you want to support our endeavor to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ boldly and to expose the lies that hold us hostage each and every step in the way, and you like what we're doing, you know what? You can always send some money our way at my Venmo @jhinton_. But once we get the patreon up and running as well, then your gift will be possibly tax deductible. But I digress on that point. So Chris, it is good to have you back on the program. Thanks for making the time, buddy, all the way from the Rocky Mountains. Well, thanks for having me back on, brother. I really appreciate it. Excited for this conversation. So the last time we were on, we had a lot of downloads and a lot of questions that came about what you were talking about with your story about how you were forced out as a pastor due to squishy elderboards that are basically soft woke and they don't want to confront. I think you and I would agree that what we've seen since we last talked has been outright anti-Christian and pro-demonic in the culture. A happy and men who have not led their homes well or the culture, then give way to a cul-de-sac Karen Jezebel generation that then say, "Hey, you know what? If I can kill my children inside the womb, I can also strangle them with exercise bands outside the womb or shoot them in the face or hang them from my rafters a two-year-old in Illinois and I should be able to get off-Scott free for reasons." Don't forget the GoFundMe. Don't forget the GoFundMe. Yes. Correct. And get a GoFundMe for it. And part of that reason is because men are not willing to biblically put their wives in their place and men are not willing to lead in the culture and just actually say, your emotions do not control a household, a business, a culture or a church. So with that as the intro, Chris, begin. What did you want to share with us about squishy elderboards that is now legion and a pandemic in America? Yeah. Thanks, buddy. You're absolutely right. In our last episode, we were able to talk a little bit about this in my experience. You know, it was back in January. I finally, after five or six months of an absolute living hell behind the scenes fighting an elderboard that was effeminate, compromised, totally squishy, we're really living in their own version of Plato's cave. And for those not familiar with the analogy, Plato's cave is this idea of, you've got this group of people who are living in this dark cave and all they know about reality are the shadows that are projected on the wall for them. And they think that these shadows have the actual real thing. And I think sometimes the job of us as faith leaders and especially as pastors and undershepherds is that it's our job to preach the entire council of God and to confront the lies and go, no, no, no, you don't understand. You are not engaging with the true story of reality. That's a shadow on the wall and it's a lie. Let me bring you out of the cave and show you what the truth with the true story is. This is Jude talks about this in verses three and four. Paul talks about this in Colossians two. And man, I fought that fight against, you know, your very typical suburban squishy board that was very insular and just, they didn't want to pastor. They wanted to pump it. And so after just bullying me, slandering me, gossiping me, my family, and putting us through hell, we finally had a step away. And so we covered that last time when I'm excited to come back and talk about this time in part due to bookend it is, you know, we talked about what it tells us, but if we were just to leave it there, I think we'd be doing John a disservice to the church. I think it's incumbent that we now circle back and finish the conversation with a hopeful promise that Jesus guarantees us and talk about what are some of the actual ways forward? How do we, okay, this is the problem, but how do we fix this? What do we do practically and specifically to move forward in much healthier ways? Gotcha. Before we get to those examples of solutions, what would you say are some of the problems that you've seen because you are now interacting with pastors and you have for some time as a former pastor? Now you're working with the White Rose Resistance, your former work with TPUSA Faith. This seems to be something that in my limited work over the last 15 years in Christian ministry, basically, para-Christian organizations, you can tell that there are passive men across America that are leading churches in pulpits and in elderboards and pews, and they are legion, and there is a big problem. What are some of the problems that you see that need to be addressed and then we'll lead into the solutions that you have? Yeah, that was a good question, but, and like you mentioned, you know, now I travel the country as one of the directors of the White Rose Resistance working with my buddy and boss, Seth Gruber, previous to that I was with Turning Point Faith and then I myself was a lead pastor for years before that. And as I've traveled, what I've found is that when I meet with pastors, other faith leaders, I'm finding that my story, like you said, is legion. That I'm finding that there's this corrosive epidemic that very few people in American suburban churches are talking about, and it's a big part of it is the problem with the boards. Get into this a little bit more here in a second when I talk about solutions, but it's, it has to do with the makeup of the boards, how they're chosen, what, what, where they come from, what is their background, and the people who are choosing the boards, which is the body, big B, how they are just not equipped to choose it in a biblical way and how that just compounds issues. And then like what I went through and what I've heard from so many other pastors from Billings, Montana, to Durango, Colorado, you know, some of these guys breaking down and crying in front of me and just pouring their heart out because they've gone through similar situations, you know, these pastors are just getting chewed up and spit out. They're getting bullied from behind the scenes. They're being absolutely sabotaged, manipulated. They're being gossiped about. They're being slandered. And all the attention is on the pastor and his family in the fishbowl. And everybody is obsessed with the guy on the stage. What is he doing? What is he not doing? What is he not saying? Oh, I saw a look from his wife. Oh, I saw his kid do this. Like, it's under an absolute microscope that is chewing up and spitting out an entire generation of pastors. But in the meantime, most people in most churches have no idea who's even on the board. And so you've got a lot of these guys who are functionally anonymous from the body that they are charged with shepherding along with their fellow elder who is the pastor. And they're not held to the same standards of accountability. They're not being examined the same ways. They're getting to run around in church lobbies and dark corners and gossip on the sidelines of basketball courts just because the pastor doesn't want to obey them and isn't giving into the manipulation. And I'm hearing and seeing that story, John, across the country over and over again. And like I said in the last episode, brother, if you're out there listening to this right now, if you're one of those pastors who's living or has lived this story, I want you to know that you're not alone. And you're not crazy. One of the things that my wife and I struggled with so much, John, when we were going through this this time last year, was my wife and I were just getting beat up and going, is this just us? Are we the only ones that have ever gone through this? Are we the only ones experiencing this? And what I have learned this spring and the summer traveling around on the nation is that we're not. And you're right. It's legion. And so some of this is I just want to encourage my fellow pastors to know. You're not alone. You're not nuts and it is a problem and we need to start talking about it. So when it comes to passive men before we get to these solutions What what are three or four things specifically that you're seeing? That these elderboards are doing to God's anointed the shepherds that oversee the flock if you have three or four I'd love to know and if not, what do you give me one example of what it is? They may do that would be broad enough that it would apply to people that are listening that they may know about it and Why do you think in your opinion your discernment? Biblically, why do you think that this is occurring and why is it so rampant today? Yeah, I'll just share a few examples from my own story of what they're doing. Okay, right? So I had examples where everything that I did in including my family my wife and my two teenage boys Everything we did or how we did or didn't do Every little look every little facial tick every little gesture Was scrutinized to the end the degree I had there's a group of ladies that we found out Barely six months into my tenure that were just gossiping horrifically about my wife because at one point in time She passed them in the lobby before service and in their own words Well, she only said hello and that she kept walking Well, what what did you want her to do not say hello and church was starting like it's it's it was stuff like that like my wife was literally At one point speaking at our women's retreat and while she's on stage teaching the women of our church There is a table of women a couple of whom were past were elders wives As my wife is teaching Gossiping and talking about our family right in front of her Now what I experienced with the elders and some of the husbands is apparently the only person that can ever be confronted The only person who can ever be corrected the only person that ever be rebuked is the pastor Everybody else gets maximal grace everybody else gets glossed over everybody else gets all the excuses and rationalizations Apply to what they're doing and how they're doing But the pastor and his family Everything is interpreted through the most negative asemptive lens possible And that is a yoke that nobody could live under we we couldn't we we finally had to step away So that's just one example another example was You know, I was doing my best during this entire conflict or a board because we were meeting with mediators Both from outside the church and from our denomination behind the scenes trying to get to the bottom of this rectify it fine reconciliation And everybody just kept pointing at every little perceived knit that I had that they could pick And blown up from an ant hill to a mountain proportion In the meantime, I'm literally bringing receipts and pointing out and trying to confront and correct and gently rebuke Where maybe they had apologies to make and everything was whitewashing excused And so there's there's an application of unequal weights and measures and that's what I was gonna say Before you before you at me on Twitter here I know that that we as teachers are held to a higher standard But when you have board members who are literally going around and gossiping behind your back in between services 10 feet behind you as you were talking to personers That's bad and that needs to be confronted when you have a board member Who jumped up at me and tried to physically intimidate me and stand over me and yell at me in the middle of a board meeting That must be confronted and not just well, we're just going to gloss over and move forward And we're instead going to focus on your tone this one time like stuff like that was happened in me and my family constantly and while I was trying to abide by Matthew 18 and go hey listen what happens Inside the room during a board meeting stays here Those guys were absolutely running around gossiping sharing leaking everything leaking to their wives I was running around leaking it and so it was this You know, it's like Churchill's old saying John You know, a lie gets halfway around the world before truth has a chance to put on its pants And there I was month later and the well had already been poisoned with my people in the pews Because they had heard all the gossip and slander and the false narratives and so the false narrative was Chris's arrogant and he's the one who's wrong and he's not abiding by the elders And the reason that that narrative was allowed to permeate through the water table of my church was because I was the one trying to hold My integrity and not gossip and slander my fellow elders But they weren't doing the same courtesy to me And so now even to this day months and months later I still sometimes get messages and texts from people who are who are asking me questions But really the questions are accusations within with a question mark at the end of it And I've had a cutoff communication with people who are like man you we were former friends But we we can't be in relationship anymore Because you are literally just operating off the gossip and the false narrative that you were led to believe about me that isn't true And it's because I held my tongue to the standard of the Bible and they didn't and now I'm the one paying the price for it That sounds like classic narcissism I'm gonna get to that more here Yeah, some of the things that you're describing sounds like stuff that I dealt with when I was a youth pastor When I stepped on some people's toes during the 2016 election and basically said one of your candidates is more Christian than the other And I was said That I needed to pipe down and then a year and a half later because I had said that I had offended the wrong people and got forced out But I've also seen it with Some other people in my extended family and but I digress on that Yeah, I mean we live in a culture where people are conditioned to think That the worst thing you can ever do is if as offend us a feminine sensibility And so if you say something that's quote unquote controversial then you're the bad guy It doesn't matter whether or not you say it's true I mean I sat in board meetings where I literally because I would write out word for word a manuscript of my sermon And I would print them out and pass out copies and be like guys Can you show me here where I incorrectly handled the word of the lord Can you in can you show me who I lied and it was like no, but you know, it's all tone struggle session It's all the long house and this is what I mean by the people in the plateaus cave These were guys who didn't even realize how compromised they were They didn't realize how conditioned and how given over they were to the long house And the struggle session of the humiliation rituals of like you you you need to get out there and perform a humiliation ritual In the in the podium this weekend because you've offended the sensibilities of a 38 year old liberal woman That's really what a boil down to Would you describe for our listeners what you mean by the long house Yeah, the long house is a term that if if you're probably on if you're not on x you're probably not familiar with it The long house comes from sort of a couple of different places originally But it's this idea of in in matriarchal cultures Or if you know if you're familiar with the idea of a den mother That that you have this matriarch Who she is the one who runs roughshod over that that community or sub community And she's the one who's in charge and her feminine sensibilities is the one that rules the quote-unquote long house This comes from like Native American culture And as our buddies Steve Dase often says Boy if you think the patriarchy is bad. Wait till you see the matriarchy And so everything is filtered through the lens the over 10 window of what's acceptable The over 10 window of what is deemed right and wrong of what is allowed and what is strong verboten Is is all about the the the whole monitor Karen and her sensibilities And then if you if you offend her then you've offended the long house And now you must be brought before the matriarchal tribunal of the long house And struggle session and put forth your humiliation rituals in order to cleanse yourself of violating the 11th Commandment which is thou shalt not offend the most sensitive woman in your congregation In other words you you violated thou shalt be nice Yeah, and I think Johnny I think we talked about this in last episode we did The word nice isn't actually in scripture No, it's goodness but we must take niceness as righteousness It's kindness, right? You know what's ironic about this brother is that you could go Well, actually now you can't I was gonna say you could go into my former church's YouTube channel and see all my All my old sermons because I preached on all of this I literally preached a series through Jude Called believing the true story intent wink wink guys I preached sermons against gossip. I preached sermons against all of this stuff And I would watch as people in the seats with like not a long and like fist bump And then literally five minutes later walk out into our lobby and do the very thing that they were just nodding so I think there's this disconnect that we have where we think Christianity is just If I just believe in not a long with certain propositions, I'm good But then I can go and do the thing functionally and say I'm justified because you know, it's all about not offending The other and so that's the 11th commandment and righteousness must be nice rather than kind And I actually preached a sermon on the difference between niceness and kindness in my church And I talked about how church people are great at being nice We put on the plastic Sunday morning smiles, we sell the right things and the right gentle voice tones, we contort our faces and our eyes in the pre-accepted ways, but then as soon as that person walks away from us we turn around and we're gossiping about them in the lobby. I literally had board members in the time of my church who would come into my office close the door and gossip about each other. I literally had board members wives who in the lobby of our church on a Sunday morning would gossip about the person who they said was their friend who they literally was just talking to. That's what I mean by nice. That's nice. But you know what kindness is? Kindness is a genuine other focused loving. It means that I am genuinely kind to you, not because I'm trying to shine you on or get something from you. It's because I'm focused on on who you are as another amago day and what you need. And I'm going to be kind in the sense that I'm going to be genuinely welcoming and all that stuff. And then as soon as you leave, I'm going to be kind in that I'm not going to talk me on your back. And so there's a difference between niceness and kindness that we have lost in the American church. Nice is phony and perfunctory, but kind is genuine and authentic. I think that what you're describing when it comes to the long house and niceness, not being the same as kindness, it relates to your story because niceness is basically agreeing with you and fist pumping to your face, what you preach. But then stabbing you in the back 10 minutes later by gossiping about you. Kindness would be that you know what it is that your pastor is doing for your spiritual health and what it is that he's enduring and saying, Hey, brother, I know you're going through this. How can I pray for you? What do I need to do to stand alongside you? These are false allegations. You know, what do you guys need a meal? Can we come over and pray for you in that instance? And you probably had people that did that, but that shows the difference between niceness and kindness. And I think I played it on one of our podcasts when we were talking about the sin of being maliquity, the sin of being a soft man, according to 1 Corinthians 6.9 in the Greek, it talks about being an effeminate or a soft man. And when combined with another Greek word, it is vernacular and slang for homosexuality. But when you allow this type of reckless behavior to occur within the church, I think you're literally seeing the warning that Jesus talks about when he says, be where the yeast of the Pharisees, because that leaven will ruin the entire batch. And they want to be praised in public, but in private and behind people's backs, they are the living equivalent of white wash tombs full of dead men's bones. And I think that that's what you're talking about and what you want to get to. Yeah, that's a really good equivalency. You know, the Pharisees were the only, the Pharisees are a really good example, because what you see is you see them constantly attacking the person who's trying to be bold in the truth. And our American suburban churches today in this cultural moment are full of Pharisees who they will rationalize their own sin, though rationalize the most dysfunctional and unhealthy in any congregation, and then like paper over it with like fluffy cliches, like, well, we just want to be loving and graceful. Well, how about loving and graceful to the other 200 people in the room right now who are being constantly, whose worship is being disrupted by this other person making a scene? How about loving and graceful towards them? So I think, you know, with these boards, what ends up happening, I'll talk about this more in a minute as we get to my list here, but what I experience and what a lot of pastors are experiencing across the country is that these these men who are not acting like men, the only person that they will be strong with and that they will confront to the to bullying proportions is their pastor. And everybody else gets all the excuses, all the rationalizations, and all the free rides, and that's we have to confront that and stop that. So with this list, what do we need to find as solutions for groups of overseers to not critique and criticize their pastor, but to come alongside them and build them up? What are the solutions that you see are lacking in America's churches today? When it comes to men who we think are spiritual leaders, but in fact they're just a habby and cocks in suits who claim Christ a savior. Yeah, that's yeah. Well, I'll set it up this way. This is my preface for this list that I'm about to go through. I'm about to go through eight specific things. Now, in my mind and my thinking, all of these solutions are very simple and straightforward, but notice that I said simple and not easy, and I'll talk about why I think they're simple but not easy here at the end. But to kind of set it up this way, pastors and elders or deacons, if you have any position of authority in your church, I'm talking to you. And the thing that I want you to know for this entire list, and again, I'll circle back at the end, is I need you to think through this list generationally. What I'm about to specify and what I'm about to propose, this isn't like a quick fix. Do these three things, Joel Olstein, and you'll love your best church left now. We have to get out of this microwave thinking. So pastor, if you're listening to this going, oh, Chris is going to give me the magic wand away to fix everything this weekend. I'm sorry to just point you, but you're listening to the wrong guy. And we got to get that microwave thinking out of our head. What I'm talking about right now is a generational project because we did not get here overnight. And therefore, if we truly want to fix it and get back to healthy churches, then we have to think generationally. And how do we build cathedrals and not strip malls? So nice analogy. The first one that I'll say is this is this is the headwaters, bro. And again, like in our secret sensitive mega church unity age, this has been chased from the church. And it's a shame. But theology matters. Number one with a bullet. Whatever your practice, I promise you this pastor, Lord member, whoever you are, whatever the issues or challenges or tensions in your church right now, I promise you this, they are downstream from either crappy or under taught theology. Let me ask you guys this. One was the last time that you taught your church, your statement of faith. One was the last time you taught your church on, hey, this is what we believe, whether you're 1689, Westman, whatever it is, I don't care. One was the last time you taught your church this. One was the last time you taught certain distinctives. This is who we are. And this is who we're not. And how did you teach them and give them discipleship lenses to be able to understand both of those and then apply them to their lives? And so I'll give you an example on this, Johnny, my good buddy, Tom, is a pastor of gospel church Durango. It's the southern Baptist church down in the very pagan four corners of here in Colorado. And he got into a little spat today with some big, heavy Baptist leaders, including Bart Barber and some other squishes about ecclesiology. And Tommy was really confronting this idea of how we bastardized congregationalism. And what he's confronting is egalitarianism, that this idea that that everything in the church needs to be a referendum. And every Tom, Dick and Harry needs to say on every time we paint a wall or move a chair. And there's a lot wrapped up in that. But if you want to go to my ex, if you want to follow Tom, he's done some really good work on that. But it's this idea where like if you've got people coming to you and they're griping because they feel like they weren't heard on you painted a wall or you moved a light or something. I'm guarantee you that it's because it's downstream of the fact that they have bad theology somewhere or they haven't been taught good, proper, biblical ecclesiology and what that means. So number one, theology matters, man. You know, if we don't teach our people what the truth is, they are going to fall for lies. And guess what? They're going to live those lies out. And that could be a big reason why you're having the headaches that you're having in your church. The second one, this flows from the first. We got to get back pastors to preaching the whole council of God. And here's what I mean by that. Yes, verse by verse. I love the late great John MacArthur. He was a spiritual father to me. But not only do we not need to stop teaching these like shallow, topical, some earth, the movies, church sermons. But we need to stop editing God. You might be an expositional church. You might preach verse by verse. But what books are you choosing and why? Right? We've all heard the verse by verse sermon series through the gospel of John, which is great or Exodus or whatever. But when was the last time that you preached on Ephesians and didn't skip over Ephesians 5? When was the last time you preached through Habakkuk or the post-exilic prophets, which teach about a strong masculine warrior conqueror Jesus that combats and mitigates this namby, pamby, hippy, surfer Jesus that a lot of people have in their brains. And so we need to stop editing God. And that includes what books we select, what passages we select, what we emphasize. We need to stop just selecting things that are easy that tickle ears because we just want to impress people and make sure that the pagans like us. to break it to you. They're never going to like you. So stop aiming for that false target. If you, I think your buddy that you were talking about on Twitter is Tom Thieson, correct? Yep. Okay. And you can find him on, Tom Thieson, the S is two fives in his name on Twitter. I just retweeted that on our ex account. He did some, he did some good work today on the day that we're recording this on good biblical ecclesiology. And we were actually interacting in our text thread earlier that we knew he was on the right track because of the people who were showing up to confront him, to combat him. And we're like, Tommy, if Bart Barber is opposing you, you know you're doing the right thing. You can always judge a man in the arena by the enemies that come after him and the anger that he invokes in those enemies. That's absolutely correct. Number three, this will, this will flow out of the first two brother. And here's where we start getting real specific. We have to also along with the whole council of God, we have to teach what the actual biblical qualifications are for elders, pastors and deacons. Now preach. I'm sure everybody listening to this has gone to Bible college or seminary and they, they know exactly where it is. But how many people in your church can even spell Titus, let alone find it in their Bibles, let alone tell you what Titus one says or what first Timothy three says, what Paul says in that passage, right? This gets back to what we were talking about earlier with unqualified boards. I could literally, if I wanted to go individual by individual of my former board and tell you why they are not biblically qualified. A few of them were like never put me up on stage and I'm like, well you're not qualified because this is, you got to be willing to teach brother. A couple of them had a post date or just wicked kids who are living openly perverse lifestyles and that I think a lot of it boiled down to the fact that they were mad that I was offending their, their pagan kids to be honest. We had, we had guys who were just doing all sorts of stuff that just disqualify themselves from Titus one and first Timothy three. The problem is, we've got churches full of people who are voting in elders that don't know why or how or what they should be voting for. And so you know, if you're a Baptist like me, you know, if you're in a congregational polity, you know, where the congregations got a vote in a new pastor or a new elder, what training have those voters ever received of what the Bible says and what their criteria is that they're voting for. It's a little bit like, John, if you've got a 16 year old, would you put him behind the wheel of a car without first explaining, hey man, that's the steering wheel. That's the brake. That's the gas. Don't mix those up and those lines that you see painted on the road. Here's how you obey them. So we've got people in the body, big B, with authority to vote in the spiritual leaders of that church and have absolutely never heard of sermon or even a five minute talk on the biblical qualifications of an elder. I think this right here is why so many churches are the way they are. I remember a few years ago, we were about to vote in a couple of new elders. This was actually during the 2024 election. And I, I, you know, I had a prior bylaws. I had announced that we had elder candidates. And so I just like cut my short, my main sermon short that week and I actually did like a little mini six or seven down it six or seven minute down and dirty on first on Titus one and first Timothy three. Dude, I had like over a dozen people from my church come up to me that Sunday after service and go, oh my gosh, thank you for doing that. Nobody's ever told me what that stuff means and what I need to be looking for. Like John, how many how many people in churches across America right now would say the same thing. So, hey, we're giving you part of the authority to determine the spiritual direction and leadership of this church. You've never been taught and discipled on what that actually means and what that looks for. And so instead, what we have is we've got all these suburban churches across our country who just instead make their decisions on pastors and elders based on very pragmatic worldly thinking. And here's how I think it often sounds. Feel free to jump at any moment. Here's how I think it sounds. Well, that guy's kind of tall and he doesn't look like a dirt ball and he usually wears pretty nice clothes and oh, I heard he makes good money and oh, I think he's got like this nice successful corporate job. Let's put him on the board. Does Titus one or first Timothy three John say any of that stuff that I just mentioned? No. No, it's all about the health of the prayer live praying for the church, the ability to teach and help others understand the word. And the biggest thing that Titus one and first Timothy three focuses on is is that person demonstrably leading a godly family? Because if they're not demonstrably leading a godly family, they cannot be given the authority over the church. If you're faithful with a little, you'll be given authority over a lot. Well, and so then what we have now are boards full of dudes who don't meet the biblical qualifications, who are picked for all the wrong reasons. A lot of them come out of the corporate world. And I mean, listen brother, you've been around. You understand the corporate world. So now these guys are coming out of 20 or 30 year careers in white collar HR, Nambi Pambi, white washed, risk averse corporate America. And they're bringing that experience onto church boards. And so now what they're now, how are they ruling? Risk averse, whitewash, thou shalt not offend patheles resistance. And then we wonder why things are the way they are. Because they've been trained by their effeminate HR departments that they're insurance company for the last 20 years that thou shalt not offend. So that's why our churches are the way they are. What we need to do is we need to get back to teaching the whole council of god, including instructing our churches on what the biblical qualifications of elders are. It has nothing to do with the clothes they wear, how much money they make. Man, give me 10, deeply prayerful, deeply truly pious guys who are plumbers. Give me those guys on a board over some like corporate exec or CEO any day of the week. Man, and I will show you a healthy church. Keep going, Chris, you're cooking. I'd say the fourth thing, brother. And this kind of dev tails off number three with the qualifications of elders is that we also, and I talked a little bit of today's about this, we have to rethink the typical pipeline that we have for most of the guys who are in charge of most of churches in American. Here's what I mean by this. The typical pipeline for your pastor or youth pastor or associate pastor is this. Probably grew up in youth group back in like the 90s or 2000s. You know, in youth groups that are like secret sensitive. Let's just do pizza parties and light shows and play DC. I love DC talk, but if that's all there is, then like man, you're feeding people wafers and not me. But they grew up in this like secret sensitive youth group party, pizza party with maybe a five minute divo. And then maybe they went off to Bible college or YWAM. Or if we're lucky, maybe they did a couple of semesters of seminary. And then they went straight from that back into the church. And maybe they became the underpaid or unpaid youth pastor who then threw all the same pizza parties that they grew up in. There's not a lot of meat there. It's a lot of milk. And then maybe they got promoted, you know, when they hit 30, maybe they got promoted to being the associate pastor. And then eventually they became like the lead pastor. At any point in what I just described, did they ever inhabit in any substance of ways? What I would call the real world? No. No. They've been in the church youth group bubble their entire lives. They've never gone out and worked with their hands, been dirty. They've never really spent substantive time learning how to get along with unbelievers. Like Paul was a tent maker, Jesus was a carpenter, and Peter, James, and John were all fishermen. Exactly, man. Listen, I said this, I say this all the time, I would have made a crappy pastor in my 20s and 30s. And I don't know, maybe I did my 40s. But I spent years in law enforcement. I spent years in the military. Man, when my boys were babies, I was shoveling manure, literal poop, and the forehand shift at Home Depot 20 years ago. So I spent a lot of my life out in what I call the real world. And there's a lot of other dudes and churches with similar experiences. And those experiences harden you. The guys that have lived in the church bubble their entire lives, those are usually the really soft people pleasers. Because those are the waters that they've been swimming in their entire lives. It's what they've been conditioned towards. Just be, you know, as we talk about be nice, be people pleasers, don't offend, don't ever go too deep. And you've done your job, right? But you get like a construction worker or an ex-cop. Or dude, I don't know, fill in the blank on like a real world thing where like you're the type of dude that Louis Lamore describes is like a man with a bark on a real guy who's lived in the real world. Like I've been shot at. And that's going to be a different caliber of person because of the experiences the Lord has walked them through. I think our churches are soft because our leaders are soft. And I think our leaders are soft because they've gone through this Charmin protected bubble church world pipeline their entire lives. And I think we as the church need to make concerted efforts as pastors and elders and leaders today to start looking at dudes and their teens and their twenties and even in their thirties and going, Hey, you're a dude who's out in the real world earning his bark. Let me start discipling you so that you can bring some of that barkness, if I can coin that term, to the character and personality of our church. Because if we exegy the times in which we live, we need hard, strong men right now, bro. And most of the people in our churches are soft because they didn't come from a hard pipeline. And we need harder men right now. I need a scrote check on aisle four, scrote check on aisle four, that's what you're talking about. We need men that have, that have a set for Jesus. That's, that's Job saying, Hey, you know, gird your coins like a man. In other words, sack up for I will question you and you will give me an answer. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth or I set the stars and the heavens? Obviously, you were there. Well, that's a guy getting railroaded and questioned by the king and creator of the universe. You don't think that that was a rough time? Guys that get shot at or guys that when I was in Joplin, I got taken into a job where I was literally going to be fired three times as I'm doing my work because of false allegations. And that caused me to rely on the Lord even more because one was a false sexual harassment allegation, one was a false time theft. And another one was falsely accusing me of lying on government documents. Each and every time the Lord vindicated me because I knew I was in the right and I knew that I hadn't done these things, but people were coming after me because I stood boldly without wavering upon the hope that we confess. And men who are in the real world are not going to be led. They're not going to follow soft weak men in the pulpit. They're not going to be discipled by soft weak men that are deacons and elders. You know who they're going to listen to? My grandpa was a farmer for 60 years in the state of Iowa, right County Iowa. And he was saved for 50 of those years, came to know the Lord when he was 24 years old. That man was a man that he would disciple younger pastors who were younger than him when he was older as a father figure when they had gotten fresh out of Bible college. And we're doing their first pastorate at his church, why? Because he had failed to do it with his sons. And he saw that he needed to take that step with younger men to help them know, "Hey, I'm here to support you, but you're the head, but you need to know I'm here to work with you, not against you." And I'm also here to help guide you because there's other people that are going to try and take advantage of you. And this is your first job in ministry. And you need to know that even if we're in the back fields of North Central Iowa, they're still fallen people and they're still landmines to be aware of. And we're not doing that with an entire generation of young men who over the last 20 years, 55% of them after five years will leave the pastorate. Why? Because it's too hard. Too hard for what? What? You just thought that you were going to sit around and have some, "Jesus, sermon, Ted Talk," for like 15 minutes and sit around talking about the apostles on Twitter for maybe another 15 minutes. And then you'll grab coffee and have discipleship or some sort of Bible study at a Starbucks for an hour, that ain't going to cut it now in this cultural moment, Chris. And men in elder boards and in pulpits and pews who are in real life jobs, who listen to podcasts like this, they are attracted to a grittiness that Jesus embodied by being a stone mason or a carpenter because most theologians believe he was one of the two. And he gathered real men who were tax collectors, they were fishermen, they did work with their hands, and they were young men. He was 33, they were teenagers. And then guess what? You, I discipled you, now you go disciple the nations. And they changed the world upside down by being passionate about the gospel and gathering men for the next generation to then fight against the scourges of child sacrifice, of pagan idol worship, of killing innocent life and worshipping foreign gods. Lewis put it best, brother, when he said, you know, we make men without chests and then we wonder why we have traders in our midst. You know, we castrate the gilding and then bid him be faithful. And so the church at Corinth, when Paul says, hey, be strong and act like men, you got to remember who and when he's talking, that men at that time and that part of the world were men with the bark on, men who worked with their hands, all the things that you're talking about, tough, rough men. But not only are we, not only do we have this weird churchy entity pipeline for the last few decades, where men are just conditioned to be soft because they come through a soft pipeline, but if we do get not soft men, if we get men with some freight edges, if we get men with heavens to Betsy, they're a little bit crude. The second they walk into that church, what are the looks that they're getting in the lobby stairs, how are people talking about them behind their back? Are they being welcomed? No. Are they being, are they being said, hey, you've got some strength from the real world. Let me bring you in and disciple that or do we only give them soft men who give them soft sermons who scold them for being malfunctioning women and chase them out of the body? Is there any wonder why our churches are 60 to 65% female because when we actually get hard men from the real world into our churches, we either try to castrate them or we run them out and we give them no reason to stay. So this is for me, this is a big, big one with a bullet number four that we need to rethink our leadership pipeline and who we're welcoming in and who we're creating opportunities for. And I think that that would relate to finish up. It would relate to what you talked about when it came to suburban mega churchy entity. And we have focused on the middle class or upper middle class suburbs of America with seeker-friendlyism and we have not realized that we have shown partiality in how we've evangelized the gospel and we did not go to the broken places in the broken spaces where the working class was hungry for hope. Yeah, no, but we had to, I mean, this is probably a whole separate podcast, but the hermeneutic for most suburban church outreaches is we have to go to the places where the people are brown or the people don't look like us or the people are whatever. And I'm like, well, white-colored white people need the gospel to, man. And on that note, like rich people up on the hill need the gospel to. And it's like, well, that's not cool or trendy and that doesn't satisfy CNN so we can't do it, which is dumb and a whole another reason. But I think a lot of this ties into why David Murrow 15 years ago wrote a book called Why Guys Hate Going to Church because they're soft and effeminate and it's because we got soft, effeminate men who came down a soft pipeline that if we get actual real man walking into the building, we run them out passively and we wonder why our churches are the way they are. Correct. Do you want to be the Matt Chandler of today or the Matt Chandler 15 years ago? I would rather not be Matt Chandler at all. Well, at least he was actually not preaching about white guilt and white fragility, but I digress on that. Keep going. So that blows into point number five, right? We need harder men who've come through harder pipelines because we're at war right now. We need to understand the times in which we live. And so we need strong men to fight these battles. And I think the most important battle, you know, judgment begins with a household of the Lord. And that leads me to point number five. Point number five is we have to cultivate in our churches. We have to cultivate a culture of confrontation. Paul warned us of this in Colossians 2, Jude warns us of us in verses 3 and 4, where Jude literally says, man, I was going to write to you about one thing, but like I had to call an audible and talk about like, there are wolves at your door, baby, and we need to confront them. I used to preach about this all the time and people would be like, that's not mean. Or that's not nice. We need to confront and we need to confront with truth and love because it's hateful to allow lies to go on a post. If I'm your kid's teacher and they write on their math quiz, the 2 plus 2 equals yellow. If I don't confront and correct them, I'm on loving and I'm not doing my job. Our churches are filled with people who are passive and won't confront anybody except maybe the pastor who's bold enough to offend their sin on Sunday. And that's got to stop. And so we need hard men and then we need those hard strong men to call. cultivate cultures of confrontation. Listen, pastors, elders, you are meant to be biblically the immune system of your church. Correct. Means you have to confront viral bacterial infections. And sometimes some of those are the people. I mean, I've said this before, man, I can't remember if I said this on your pod. But some of the worst people I've ever, I mean, some of the like the meanest, cruelest, most two-faced people I've ever met, weren't when I was a cop and I was working behind a 7/11 at 2 a.m. Fighting a drug dealer. It was people in my own church lobby. We have to confront gossip. We have to confront slander. We have to confront this mean spiritiness and lack of charity in which we refuse to give the benefit of the doubt to our brothers and sisters. We have to confront. We have to confront people who are narcissistically trauma bragging and making Sunday morning worship all about them. We have to confront so many things in the suburban church today. And we can't do that because one everything's feminine coded. But two because we got a bunch of soft dudes who are cowards. And so we have lies like feminism, communism, egalitarian politics, pragmatism, consumerism, absolutely invading like cancers in our churches today. And nobody's confronting them. Because we're worried about the three holy bees bodies, bucks and buildings. If I confront, they might leave. Okay, well so what? Either we believe that God is sovereign or we don't because I'm telling you right now gentlemen, the target is faithfulness. Correct. Outcomes of whether or not how they may or may not react. That's between them and the Lord. And you need to cultivate a culture of confrontation so that you can be that immune system to your body and make your big B body healthy. And yes, sometimes that means preaching certain people out of your church. And they might leave. And you know what? You shouldn't go chasing them down the block struggle session in yourself to appease them. Jesus. Jesus didn't chase the crowds that after he preached the be honest. Okay, Matthew, he goes to Peter and says, you want to leave too? Doesn't chase after the rich young ruler. He answers his question and gets to the heart of the matter. But the guy turned away and was very sad because he was very wealthy. And to support your point, Chris, not to cut you off, but confrontation. We have said this on this podcast. That relates back to mine and Dr. Everett Piper's podcast about Sophie Cunningham and the doctrine of non-confrontation. Taking on the men cannot play in girl sports. She is being used as an instrument of God as a Christian woman in the WNBA to show the scrollness in our pulpits to not stand for truth. The basic embodiment of a man is a man and a woman is a woman and men do not invade women spaces and women do not invade men's spaces. And male and female he created them. But also it relates back to our friend Steve Dase's point where he said last week on a show, if you want to know what men in the church need to know about this cultural moment, you need to get your men's group to do a study through the book of Nehemiah. Why? Because Nehemiah 13 confrontation is not a negative thing. 13 verse 11, so I confronted the officials. Why is the house of God forsaken? Chapter 13 verse 17, then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said, "What evil thing are you doing profaning the Sabbath?" And then 13 25 and I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair and made an oath to God in the name saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves." And then he ends the book by saying, "Remember me God, for what I have done for you. Sometimes you need to confront and you need to do it in a stern, firm yet loving way, but sometimes the most loving way showing the fruits of the Spirit is overturning the table of the money changers and saying, "WWJD! You're right on brother and I'll just say this to the guys listening. I preached that sermon on Nehemiah. I preached the entire book of Nehemiah literally a couple of months before everything fell apart at my church. And so unfortunately you can preach it for him, but you can't understand it and live it for him. Correct! That is correct! But you've got to be faithful and do it nonetheless. And you know Sophie Cunningham or you know Megan Basham on X. You know those are mighty and faithful Debra's today, but if you remember from your scripture in what book did Debra operate? Judges. And Debra had to do what she did because you know the feckless men refused to. Because Barak didn't want to go to war without her. Exactly. And so when you can tell the condition of a culture when it's the women who are fighting the battles. And God God bless Megan. She's amazing. God bless Sophie Cunningham, the Alli best stuckies of the world, whatever. But men, they're standing in the gap that you're supposed to occupy. And so they exist because men are refusing to cultivate a culture of confrontation. And we need to confront these lies of feminism, consumerism and egalitarianism. And before I move on to point number six, I'll just end this one on this. If you're sitting there going, well that's a really good point. But I'm just gonna wait for somebody else to do it. You're already wrong. You need to be the one to confront. Stop waiting for the guy whose paycheck comes from the church building. You're a man. You've been given the dominion, dominion mandate too. If you're not gonna lead in confront, then get the heck out of the way, get off your board, resign your associate church pastor ship tomorrow because you are not the man for the times that we need. Right. Stop waiting for someone else to do it. Gandalf ain't coming over that hill on the light of the fifth day. You are the one. God has put you in this moment in this time. Regrow your spine and do your job. It's just like I say on this podcast, Chris, to relate to that as you go to point number six, men who fail to take a stand and do something because they're afraid of failure. They've already failed themselves. Well, not taking a stand is a stand. You're taking a stand for your own comfort. You're taking a stand for your cowardice. You're taking a stand for the path of least resistance and all of those things are wrong. If you doubt me, go back and read Genesis 3 and focus on verse six. Adam was standing right there the entire time. You know what Adam was standing around taking a stand for when he kept his mouth shut as the enemy of our souls was okay, doaking his one flesh. He was taking a stand for his own comfort and convenience. And how many of our men, even in positions of authority and churches today, are taking the same stand. And that's why things are the way they are, Charlie Brown. We're following Adam rather than Jesus. Amen. Point six, point six, going back to boards. We have to remember that again, on the biblical training of these boards of who's supposed to be on the board and what the board is supposed to do. Again, this comes into the white culture, the white, sorry, the white color culture that these unqualified members bring onto the board. The board is not supposed to exist. It's like, hey, we just got a business meeting. We got a rubber stamp the budget and maybe yell at somebody who did something that's one of our wives isn't like. The purpose of a board is to be the spiritual leaders and praying for our people. And if your church doesn't know who's on your board, that's a big giant dashboard flashing light that your board is constructed wrong and they're not doing what they're supposed to do. You should be spending the majority of your time as a board, mutually praying for each other, mutually encouraging each other, doing all those things and then praying for your body. You should take the roster of your church and split it up equally amongst your board members and go, hey, every week you are going to reach out to at least a few people who you are assigned to and check in on them, whether that's an at home visit for somebody who's sick, a phone call that somebody needs who's feeling lonely, whatever the case is, you all are under shepherds. What you'll see in the New Testament over and over again is that the word that is used for pastor and elder is the same. And so they have the responsibility to spiritual lead as well. And so your board needs to be set up to do the right things in the right way. Point number seven, we talked about this a second ago, but in Corinthians, Paul says, be strong and act like men. Guys, this means leading. It's all the stuff that we've been talking about. If you're sitting around, if you're passive, if you're making all the excuses white, this moment in this time, you're the one that gets to be passive. Well, it's you need to be wait, you know, whatever the case may be, you're not leading, you're abdicating. I got to imagine that standing there in the garden as the snake was just working over Eve, Adam probably had all the excuses and rationalizations in his head why he needed to wait. And it's probably the same ones that we tell ourselves today. Those are lies from the pit of hell that are born out of your sin of cowardice and yes, cowardice is a sin. And you need to forsake that repent of it and you need to get to work. You need to be dangerous towards evil men. If you're not acting like a man, you're not dangerous towards evil. You should be dangerous. Body, soul, mind, strength, your body should be healthy. Your mind should be healthy. Your marriage should be healthy. That makes a man who is dangerous towards evil. And so I'll just end this part on acting like men. I see this all the time, man. Guys are so terrified of the names they might be called. Man, I stopped worrying about what my enemies call me a long time ago and know that doesn't make me a calissociopath. It makes me a grown man. It makes me a grown man with a perspective of somebody who's actually been shot at. And so snarky comments and big scary names. Don't confront me because if I'm standing on truth and speaking on truth and so what because at the end of the day I'm called to act like a man who loves and worship and serves the line of Judah So I'm not gonna act like a cowardly little lamb. We need to stop being so insecure neurotic We need to stop functioning like eighth-grade girls who are terrified of what somebody else may think of them We need to be strong and act like men To round it out point number eight This was a late addition that the Lord gave me this word right before we went on so breaking news So circle back to how I frame this when I said hey, we need to think that this is a generational project Men we need to do these previous seven things and therefore build Generationally and no, I'm not getting into dispensationalism versus post-millar any of that junk. Here's what I'm talking about We need to start cultivating redwoods again and not dandelions You know, there's this there's a beautiful cathedral in Spain. I think it's in Cologne No, France the the Cathedral of Cologne where it took 600 years to build that sucker Which means that there were multiple generations of men who chiseled on those rocks Who worked faithfully for years knowing that they would never see the beautiful end product of that creation How many of us are just trying to microwave Instant meal Amazon prime overnight everything and so instead of cultivating mighty redwoods that bless the generations We build these cheap strip malls. We and we we plant and cultivate dandelions that are here today gone tomorrow That aren't resilient that burn away at the first frost and their weeds to begin with Right, but if you think about building generationally When was the last time you ever went to a national park of dandelions? But in my home state of California, there's a national park of redwoods and there's a reason for that difference a redwood is strong It's mighty. It's built by ever it they usually grow by everlasting waters and when a redwood dies and falls over It usually becomes a nurse log for other redwoods who will grow out of that dead redwood and become mighty redwoods in their own right I think right now in the church we're constantly looking for the fast and instant famous We're looking for the Instagrammable solution. I want to wave a magic wand I want it my way right away at Burger King now, and we need to get that thinking out of our brains because it's not biblical What made what made chrysanthemum great for our first 1,900 years was that we thought and we built and we worked Generationally and it wasn't about my instant gratification You know, I'm thinking in terms of like what's gonna bless my grandkids and I'm 44 and they don't even exist yet We need to get back to this and so I think a real practical way that this could look like Is let me ask you pastors this in your churches? What are the opportunities and pathways for men in their 20s and 30s to take dominion lead and exert themselves as Burgeoning leaders in your church Do those pathways even exist? Are you actively and intentionally creating those opportunities because I'll tell you what I've seen for this last generation man We got a bunch of boomers who were still up there in their 70s and 80s and refuse to get off the stage And they haven't poured into the next generation and so we've got boomer pastors who are dying off and their Churches are folding because nobody ever poured into the guys in their 30s 40s and their 20s We have to generational Think about this we've got to think about the fact that right now I've been put in this moment as like a running a race of a baton and I have the baton right now But guess what eventually I have to hand that off and if I'm not thinking and planning faithfully to intentionally hand that off Eventually, then I'm failing this project Because if you look back at the patristics right just a martyr and John Christusum We're mentored and discipled by John the Apostle and then they went on to mentor guys You know all the way through Augustin and Aquinas and so forth Who are you identifying that are in their late teens 20s and 30s now? And what are the opportunities that you're creating in your church for them to I don't know get up and preach a sermon Lead a Bible study Be discipled and and I don't know mentored to eventually be future elders if you're not doing that now You're not building generationally and if you're not building generationally then brother I've honestly questioned If you are leading an actual Ecclesia or if you're just leading a small cake kingdom in your name And that's a hard thing that we all have to ask ourselves are we just trying to build The instant gratifying small cake kingdom right now for us Or are we actually building generationally and it's not about us? And we're working towards the big cake kingdom We have to get back to doing that if we want our churches to be healthy again And I would agree as we wrap up. That is what built Christendom for the last 1800 years because the rise of denominational and Theological Bible colleges, seminaries, universities that turned basically Christianity into Big Eva and a Sutto Christian big business. You're finding out a giant gimmick man. Just a giant It's just a mega church entity now is just a giant Marketing gimmick Sunday after Sunday and that's not building generation. No, it's not just trying That's just that's just this pragmatic Madison Avenue How do I track the El the neighbors? Oh, let's do a football theme Sunday. Listen, that might be fine every once in a while But if you're just jumping from gimmick to gimmick, you're not building generationally. No, you know How did how did Christianity take over the world without a pizza party without a theme weekend? We Eugene Peterson's definition of obedience a long discipline in the same direction That's what it is and it has to be generational obedience and What I was going to say was Chris church is need to be in the business of raising up leaders not your seminaries They need to be in the business of discipling young men This is someone who has the gift of teaching and preaching we need to pour into him because he could be the person who in 5 to 10 or 15 years we could send him out as an ordainment He then goes and does his church comes back and he pours into the life of his hometown Because he has a heart for it. We haven't done that for 50 to 70 years in this country and we're seeing the ramifications of it But when it comes to things like Lindsey Clancy for example Well, you said something a second ago brother that's really interesting. Hey, this this guy might have the gift of teaching and preaching Pastors elders. Let me ask you this How and where would you even discern that? Where where in the life of your church from one week to another are there even opportunities for that dude to be in a position where you can Evaluate that in him Does that exist? Are you spending all of your time in meetings talking about more programming that is just basically a version of a pizza party Because you just are obsessed with marketing gimmicks to get people in the door Well, I'm telling you right now and I know you've seen this John and a lot of other guys who were listening to this probably have all the data Coming out of Barna and Lifeway and some of these others since COVID especially people in their 20s and 30s are sick of that crap There's a massive pendulum swing going on especially amongst young men and praise be to God church You're behind the curve for the first time in human history You have to catch up to young men who are sick and tired of the gimmicky crap and want you to get back to the business of actually being the church and Building generationally and that means you're gonna have to prune some stuff You might have less programming. Well your church isn't supposed to be a religious goods and services co-op anyway And so one way to come back consumerism is cut some programming and then refocus those resources to like what you were talking about John which is let's go back to maybe some apprenticeship models Let's create opportunities to identify those guys and that's actually a apprentice and disciple them That would be a much better generational use of our time effort and resources than just oh The big church down the street did like a football theme kickoff weekend. Let's do one two like people are so sick of that crap Man, we have to stop we have to stop building cheap strip malls And we need to get back to the business of building glorious cathedrals to the glory of the Lord Correct two examples would be find people that have great testimonies in your church and have them come up before a sermon and Give a five to ten-minute testimony where they preach about the exclusivity of the gospel and what it did for them in their life And if they have the gift of preaching and teaching you're gonna see it by stories from the pews another thing Do that in your youth group find people that are on fire for the Lord and let them give sermons rather than you giving small dead Docs and challenge them to challenge their peers That's what Charlie Kirk was doing with TPUSA. That's what Seth is doing with white rose resistance And that's what any person who has been effective in the Christian faith for two thousand years since Jesus walked the earth They followed his model. They found young men. They trained them. They set their souls on fire They went to glory and they passed the baton to the next generation Chris And that is what we need from our boards from our elders from our deacons from our overseers and from our Pastors and I thank you for bringing that up on this podcast. It's been a pleasure brother Well, thank you brother and just to finish the thought at the beginning I said all of these are straightforward and simple, but they're not easy. You know, they're not easy Because us because at some point in the last hour plus I said something that that niggled you a certain way that made you furrow your brow because it's uncomfortable because it's going to require change because it isn't easy overnight. Men for sake that impulse and do the right thing get back to this and we win. Absolutely. Chris, where can people find you on the web and also on your socials and tell us what you're doing with the last stand? Yeah. So I am the director of the ambassador and speaker's guild program of the White Rose Resistance. We are doing this very thing that we're talking about. We are trying to partner with and raise up both internally and externally the next generation of Charlie Kirk's and Seth Groober's trying to come alongside guys in their 20s and 30s who have the talent and the passion to teach them and train them to be better speakers out there in the cause of life because life is our revolution and our revolution is the gospel applied to the preborn. So proud to be part of that fight. You can email me at Chris @TheWhiteRose.life Chris @TheWhiteRose.life and you can find me on X with all of my random thoughts that are mine and mine alone at C Global 04 on X and so that's C GOBs and BoyLE 04 on X. Well, brother, it has been great to have you back on the program. I look forward to doing it again and we will have you back on because what you talked about as a little teaser. We'll do that the next time. You can find me on the web at america held hostage.transistor.ifm. Find me on Twitter @jhinden_, along with C Global 04. It's X but it'll always be Twitter to us. Thank you, Elon Musk. As millennials, the geriatric millennials. Find us also on the web. You can find the WhiteRose resistance at the WhiteRose.life and you can also find me on Twitter as well and on Instagram at AHH podcast_. For Chris @Google, I'm John Hinton. Remember America? Where there is a remnant. If God's remnant cries out for repentance, there's always a revival. And with repentance and revival, there's always a resurgence. Until next time, concessions 2-8.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Squishy, passive elderboards in churches prioritize emotional sensitivity over biblical accountability, creating toxic environments that suppress truth and silence spiritual confrontation.
  2. These boards often operate like Plato’s cave, where followers accept false narratives, mistaking shadows for reality, and fail to confront sin or false teachings.
  3. A widespread cultural issue known as the "long house" culture replaces biblical masculinity with a feminized, "niceness-first" mindset that rationalizes sin and enables gossip and manipulation.
  4. Theological ignorance and lack of biblical training in elders and church leaders—especially on qualifications and ecclesiology—lead to unqualified, risk-averse leadership that undermines spiritual health.
  5. Churches have a soft, protected "youth group pipeline" that produces soft, passive leaders who lack real-world experience, leading to ineffective leadership and a failure to confront cultural and spiritual threats.
  6. A culture of silence and avoidance of confrontation is rampant, with leaders failing to uphold biblical standards of truth, accountability, and shepherding, allowing lies and sin to fester.
  7. Boards are often unqualified, unaccountable, and functionally anonymous, with members who gossip, manipulate, and suppress pastoral leadership without facing consequences.
  8. The solution requires generational, biblically grounded leadership development, including real-world experience, biblical qualifications, and a culture of honest confrontation rooted in Scripture.

Summary:

Chris Goldble, of the White Rose Resistance, exposes a deep crisis in American churches caused by "squishy" elderboards—soft, emotionally sensitive, and unwilling to confront sin or truth. These boards, often composed of unqualified, passive, and feminized leaders, operate like Plato’s cave, where false narratives are accepted as reality. He identifies the "long house" culture as a key driver, where "niceness" replaces biblical kindness, leading to gossip, manipulation, and a culture of silence.

The root causes include theological neglect, lack of biblical training on elder qualifications, and a flawed church leadership pipeline that produces soft, sheltered leaders who lack real-world experience. Pastors and elders are often attacked behind the scenes while being shielded from accountability, while the broader church fails to confront lies, feminism, and egalitarianism. The solution demands a generational shift: churches must teach sound theology, emphasize biblical elder qualifications, and cultivate a culture of bold, loving confrontation rooted in Scripture.

Real-world experience and men with "bark" instead of "softness" are needed to lead and discipline. Leaders must stop waiting for others to act, take responsibility, and embody the gospel’s call to stand firm in truth—just as Jesus did. This requires a revival of biblical shepherding, accountability, and courage, especially in a culture of fear and compromise.

Without such change, churches will continue to struggle with spiritual decay, disconnection, and the erosion of gospel integrity.

FAQs

Squishy elderboards are composed of passive, emotionally driven men who prioritize avoiding conflict and offending others over biblical leadership. They often lack biblical qualifications, promote 'niceness' over truth, and enable gossip, manipulation, and spiritual compromise, which undermines church health and leadership integrity.

They create a toxic environment where pastors are constantly scrutinized, slandered, and bullied behind the scenes. Their families are often targeted, and false narratives spread quickly, causing emotional damage and leading to church members losing trust in leadership and the gospel.

The 'long house' refers to a matriarchal influence where a woman's sensibilities dominate church decisions. It promotes 'niceness' as a form of righteousness, leading to the suppression of truth and the acceptance of harmful behaviors under the guise of being 'loving' and 'graceful'.

Poor theology leads to flawed church practices and decisions. When churches lack proper teaching on biblical doctrines, especially ecclesiology, they make leadership choices based on worldly standards rather than Scripture, resulting in unqualified and ineffective boards.

Biblical qualifications include demonstrable leadership in a godly household, the ability to teach, and a life of integrity. These are found in passages like Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3, which emphasize spiritual maturity, not wealth, appearance, or corporate experience.

Churches should move away from a soft, youth-group-based pipeline and prioritize men with real-world experience—like construction workers, military personnel, or farmers—who have lived in tough, authentic environments and can bring strength and grit to leadership.

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