Where has this guy been all my life? We could have been delivered of church manipulation!! More of this please.

Ohhhhh....... SO Good!!!! Thank you.

Totally agree. The system is the problem, it is Diotrephes system. 3 John 9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.

I am so glad to hear someone go here! Been trying to tell Christians this for 50 years. They always look like dear in headlights.

I love this! Something the Lord has been showing me little by little. The system is rigged! 😱😱🤦🏽‍♀️ Thank You Holy Spirit for your revelation and give me wisdom to navigate my steps, in Jesus name! 🙏🏽

Thank you Holy Spirit ❤

Finally, Finally, every church I have ever seen is top down. Even the home and communal fellowships I have been a part of have slowly morphed into a power struggle. Jesus said, In my kingdom IT WILL NOT BE SO. ( not it shouldn’t be so or might not be so) Using the vocabulary of the Bible to feign servanthood does not fool Jesus. When it is done it is NOT HIS KINGDOM.

God is shaking things, yes! Amen to that

Lance, I have come to the exact same conclusions as you concerning Matthew 23. I believe Jesus was very clear on his warning to not let anyone call you Raabi, (spiritual) Father or instructor. I also believe Jesus when he said, we are not to Lord it over our brothers as the Gentiles do. I have never heard someone say these things in front of a large audience as you just did. THANK YOU! These two issues come straight from the masters mouth, and yet still our system overrules His very words. THANK YOU for saying it, it needs to be said, nay shouted. I have lost pastor friends because I simply point out the words of Jesus. I think it is amazing how pastors will spend years in seminary to learn Greek and parse verses down to the smallest detail, but miss these crystal clear words of the one they say they serve. The vast majority of our leadership issues in the church would be solved if these two clear statements of Jesus were followed. duh! I actually had a senior pastor tell me that these statements were only for pastors who could not handle it. When our system practices speak louder to us than the very words of Jesus, WOE to us! Thank you for speaking up Lance.

So good 🎉🎉🎉!

I agree with what he's saying but can believers/sheep/denominations/leaders, etc. really live the answer out? I don't see it happening until Jesus sits on his throne on earth. I'm glad to hear this though. Hopefully it will wake someone up.

The last 15 minutes of this are gold! The executive pastor should *never* have been a thing. However, I worry that the idea expressed in the first half (anti-hierarchical, entirely egalitarian church leadership), is an extremely American, quite naive approach. (Disclaimer: I could be totally misunderstanding the presenter here lol) As a former minister in a tradition that emphasized and attempted to do this very thing, I found it to be pretty unworkable when the rubber met the road. Not to mention, this approach is by far the outlier in church history. A hierarchical structure was in place from the very beginning (Acts 15, Jerusalem Council) and on through the first 1000 years of the Church. Should the pastor be a dictator with no checks on his power? Absolutely not. The person on the top of the hierarchy should be held to the absolutely highest standards. However, an organization with no one in charge is simply an elective social club. Unfortunately, I feel that's the direction most of non-denominational evangelicalism is going. Thanks for this presentation and all your organization does!!

Peter is the first person listed every time the Apostles are listed in Scripture. Nothing wrong with having hierarchies. It's just about using ones authority with humiliy,

Awareness, such as asking, "What am I doing and why?", offers up the reality of systems, story, narrative whatever you wanna call it, at work within a given society or people. And, they are not as modern as you might think. The system the church has used for years is centuries old, it's called Empire. It is a hierarchy of dominance built around acquisition and wealth (size). Whereas, the system God develops in the Torah is one of Shalom and is characterized by Isaiah 30:15, with a context of Israel relying on imperialism. See, the struggle that so many aware "Christians" have, myself included, was our system of viewing the Bible. When you're able to strip your doctrinal brainwashing, and see scripture, The FIRST Testament, as Christ saw it, then we begin to be able to read a complete book, with the beginning offering grounding on how to read the rest of the book! What aware Christians are doing with the best of intentions is work backwards. It takes a long time to tread back 2,000 years of tradition to get to the contemporary context of Jesus and his efforts. He was trying to orient the Israelites off traditions onto the perspectives and expectations on and of scripture, the FIRST Testament, specifically the Torah. Forget what you think Matthew 5:17-20 means and read the Bible as a Jew. Then, just maybe, the approach of God-fearing Gentiles in Acts 15 will finally make sense and cause an awakening to colonial appropriation. This isn't our Bible, it's Israel's Bible. The Bible isn't about America, it's about Israel's land. These two posts can establish a contextual trailhead for a journey that strips away Triumphant jargon, Replacement Theology rhetoric and Supersessionistic thinking, and enable the modern thinker to realize the book isn't about them but a Jewish guy declaring himself to be the Jewish Messiah to Jewish people, and we get to be the Rahabs, Ruth's and Naaman's that join with Israel’s God in making him our God and joining his family. Such thinking makes it easier to understand Romans, especially Romans 11. So my encouragement is don't stop digging cause you'll eventually reach the starting point you've been looking for, Genesis 1 (A Jewish Poem).

Bill Clinton?! 😂 How appropriate.