Weird Church | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered. And welcome back to me. To me. Yes.

I've done about nine of them.

You have not.

Yep. Without your presence with me. I had a few.

Yes.

And this. The views go down.

No, they do not.

They go down when you're not with me.

But I'm glad to be back.

But I'm back.

Yes. What's in here?

Tell them how bad I used to drink Mountain Dew.

This is Mountain Dew.

Okay. It's been like, how long has it been since you seen me with a Mountain Dew?

Years, years. Years. But he used to drink at least a six pack of Mountain Dew a day when we first got married, when I first met you, even when we were dating.

And.

And then when we got to say.

It was a six pack of Mountain Dew. Because I have. People getting here, won't know which beer I like.

We're talking about Mountain Dew.

Yeah. Okay. Six pack of Mountain Dew.

Okay. So he would drink those and then wonder why he stayed up all night.

Yeah, I couldn't sleep. And then I went to the doctor. Well, I was about 30, 20 years old.

You already shaking your leg?

I haven't had one in a while. Here we go. 28, 30 years old. And doctor, he's a much older guy. He was about at retirement age. Then he looked at me, said, son, you're high. Remember? He said, you're high. He said, that's why you can't sleep. But I did. It wasn't that I guzzled Mountain Dew. It's that I had these big thermoses. You remember those giant thermoses I had? And I would just keep Mountain Dew in it from morning till I went to bed at night. And by the time you got through, ain't no telling how many of them.

And then we had our first child.

And you think maybe some of the.

Gloves and because you always had a Mountain Dew in your hand. You know how kids will want to just, like, gravitate? They want to drink whatever so they want it. Ron let him taste it one time, and he loved it.

And then I gave it to him in his bottle.

Yes. I came home one day and there was Mountain Dew in Chase's bottle.

And let's on the record bottle, they don't know Chase.

Not sippy cup.

The last person that needed Mountain Dew in a bottle was our oldest son, Chase.

He had tears going down his face and wanting more.

He was struck on that bottle as hard as he could because he absolutely loved it. But anyway, I trained them up in the way they should go. Started them when they were young. I am glad to have you back. And I went out to a little vending machine and got me something to drink because you got me drinking greens and it has left the worst taste in my mouth. I don't know what it is. And I had to get something. So Mountain Dew just seemed like to be the right thing to do.

Okay, well, I'm glad you did. What we talking about today?

Tell them. Because I've been going off on a tangent. So you've been trying to calm me down and then you said, I'll tell you what, get it all out at the podcast. So tell them.

No, I said, let's talk about the subject. You know, the subject matter kind of spinning off of what you've just started preaching about. The worship series. Let's talk about weird church and how so many people don't want to be a part of a church. That's weird.

And how you may not get another word in. So get it all in there. Because when I go off, I'm going to go.

You know, if you read your Bible and a lot of people don't, but.

If you read your Bible, that's the problem right there.

Well, I'm just talking about people in general.

That's the problem. I'm talking about leaders.

If you really read your Bible and just read through it. There's a lot of weird things that happen when Jesus was around.

Foolishness to us. Yeah. But wisdom to God. Because God takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

Because Jesus, when he was on earth doing miracles, signs and wonders.

Not coming in Bethlehem in a manger is foolishness.

Yeah. Everything about it is weird and odd.

To an unwed 15 year old. That's foolishness right there. Just coming out of the gate with.

That story, spitting on people's eyes.

That's foolishness.

Foolishness.

That's foolishness. I mean, and I can go over and over and over again, taking a blind man and removing him from his familiar surroundings and leeching him out of town, when that's all he has is to remember how many steps left and then how many steps right. And that's his only navigation system. And Jesus removes him from all of that to get him a heathen. Why can't he just look at him, say eyes open. Yeah. You know, I mean, his ways are not ours. As the ways are above the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts. And I do have an axe to Grind. And I'm not this kind of guy. I don't jump in on political stuff. I don't jump in on when entertainer has said this or done this or what do you think everybody's talking about Taylor Swift and the guy for the Chiefs and you know, I'm like Kanye.

And everybody, we don't talk about it.

When Kanye was going around doing church stuff and I'm like, I could care less. I just really have never been, even when I was younger and now I'm just not into that. I'm so into the kingdom, I'm so into what the word of God said. I'm so into trying to accomplish mission. And I just never have been interested in pop culture. But there's something that is happening that I think has a chance to have major negative reverberations. And I'm going to speak to it because honestly, I've been doing this now with you hope three and a half decades, almost 35 years. And sometimes when you're 55, you think you've earned the right to speak sometime. Because I've been through a lot, I've seen a lot, I've lived a lot and I've come through a lot. So you get a perspective that a 28 year old spouting everything off like he got the world by the tail. He just does not have because he hasn't had a chance to live in the world.

Yeah, you just haven't lived long enough.

You know, there's a lot of people that are leading churches now and they still think all this is just fun. They haven't got out of the fun stage. You remember that stage? Yes, it's just all fun. They hadn't been sued.

Right.

They hadn't been investigated. They had the people invested in most.

Kids problems or marital problems.

They've never had a diagnosis, they've never had insomnia, they've never fought panic attacks, they've never had deadlines, they've never felt debt, they just have not had all. They've never had their wife walk in and say I don't want to be married to you in ministry. They've never had to take care of their parents. I mean they just. All these things that life teaches you and quite honestly humbles you. And there is this thing, I think when you're coming up in something, you see what everybody's doing wrong and you got all the answers and then life has a chance to begin to kick you in the teeth a little while. And you've done everything you can just to Find enough faith to hold on and recover.

Yeah.

And a lot of these people that are speaking so loud have not had these experiences yet. They will have them.

Yeah. I remember early in our marriage, I remember somebody said, when you first get married and when you start off in life, you know, there's so many things that are so important to you. You know, it's wide, and you have, you know, you want to do this, you think this, you got opinions about, but the longer you live, it's like the gap closes, and it comes just very, very, very, very few things that. That you love, and that's important to you. And the things that really matter, the older you get. Like, I had a birthday party with my family. Well, my family wanted to know what I want to do for my birthday. And I said, I just want to be with y' all and the grandkids and have fun. You know, I just want to go. It don't have to be a fancy restaurant. I just want to go somewhere where we can laugh and have fun and have a memory. Now, maybe 10 years ago, what I would have wanted would have been different. But the older you get, the more you learn and your priorities are different.

When you're young, these many things are important to you, and you got all these things you want to do, but you got this many options. When you get older, this many things are important to you, and you got a lot of options. And so, you know, it's just a different season of life. I want to speak from the season of life, and I don't want to speak just to be ax grinding. I want to speak out, and I want guys to send this to people, you know, and maybe even people who fit what I'm talking about. I want you to subscribe. I want you to, like, I want you to share. I want you to do all that stuff because I think this really has a possibility to have negative outcomes that if it is, that if it's continued, will be hard to recover from. And here's my major concern. My major concern is a whole generation never experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

When I say a whole generation, Hope, I'm talking about pretty much an entire generation. Because if you held a gun to my head and the generation after us, if you told me to name you a half a dozen leaders in the spirit filled thought and in the spirit filled move, I could not name you.

Six names that we know.

Not leaders in that now they're leaders. But that's not what I'm saying. I didn't say who has the most followers? I didn't say. Have they built a savvy church? I'm not talking about that. But they are leading people in the Spirit filled Spirit led life, where the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, because all three give gifts, are operational constantly and welcomed in their ministry and taught and discipled to their people. I could not name you five names.

And whatever it looks like, whatever it sounds like, Holy Spirit, come, do have your way in our church and in our service.

The only answer you have to the Holy Spirit is yes.

Yes.

Now, I want to say we got. I'm going to tell you where this has really ticked me off. I have a network of pastors, 249 now. I think what's seven? I've had just had two more join, got two or three more in process. So 250ish pastors and a network with varying levels of relationship to me. And I have somebody who oversees that, Pastors Dwayne and Tasha, who actually, I don't call them that, but they function biblically as a bishop. They oversee this entire network for us. I am apostolic. I am a voice into it, but they really run it. And so I sent them to one of the foremost church planting networks in the earth, maybe the greatest one ever since the Book of Acts. Really, really got their stuff together. They were not speaking. I want to make that clear because everybody knows who I'm talking about. Those gentlemen are my friends. And those gentlemen, right now, if they needed anything, I would get on a plane and I would be there. Okay? It is people who are speaking at the conference, at these extended conferences that are a little smaller on their behalf. So this was not the 2500 3001. This was a 100 3000, like a regional 101. I don't know if they call it that, but it was an extended one. And my. My guy, who is a millennial. Yeah, Pastor Duane's a millennial, came back. Honestly, I asked him about it, and he's not one to criticize. You know, Dwayne and Tasha, they're just not ones to criticize. But after I got with him, I pulled him a little side. He said, I'm really troubled. And he said, why? He said, well, let me tell you some of the quotes that I wrote down. Number one, he said, this is a quote. He's teaching all these prospective church planters. And the guy representing the organization who was training the pastors said this quote. Number one, if you are animated as a Preacher or delivery in your ministry, your church will not grow. That is a quote.

Okay, well, that's just not true.

That was, in other words, talk. You know, have props, talk, be topical, tell stories. If you're a preacher, you will, it will not grow.

Yeah.

Okay. And I can't even tell you how many scriptures the Bible talks about. And how will they know if there is no preacher?

Right.

There's so much. Second thing that bothered me bad was someone was asking them, what about if you are in the spirit filled persuasion and you know, you want to minister in the gifts, you want to lay on of hands, you want to anoint with oil, you want to see God move. And they said, nope. They said, those are the crazies. Wow. We let them come on Wednesday night and we don't promote it. Wow. That is a quote if I heard it correctly. So those are the two quotes out of everything. I heard that. Hope, I'm going to be honest with you. Have you ever seen me pick a fight? You've seen me fight, but I don't.

Think you've ever seen me maybe once in a denomination.

In the denomination. Okay. All on that.

Yeah.

The denomination that I was, that I was born in and came out. Yeah. I had some times where I had to defend myself and I had to fight pretty. But I don't go around just calling folk out and all that. That's not the nature. It's not my nature.

Pretty easygoing.

I would have had a very difficult time to sit in that room.

Right.

Especially in a smaller setting like that. If it had been 2500, I wouldn't done a thing. But if it was 100 pastors in there, I would have had a difficult time.

You'd have raised your hand.

Yeah, I would have had a tough time just doing nothing. I don't know what I would have done, but I know too much. I've experienced too much. And whenever somebody has experienced something, your argument, doctrine, theology can never outweigh it. Your experience never bows a knee to another person's teaching.

No.

Ever.

It's like if somebody's standing up saying, healing's not for today, but you know, you just got healed.

But I know, but I know I went and the tumor's gone.

Yeah.

You know, I don't care what doctrine, I don't care what book you write. I have experienced healing. And the man who built his house upon the sand, you know, heard the word and didn't do it. The man who built his house upon the rock, he heard the word and he did it what's the difference? When you execute word, you've experienced it. When you've experienced something, you can't be moved.

Right.

And so I wanted to respond to those two things and I want to respond. This is what's used over and over. Now, this happened to some of the guys in my network who were younger and would ask me to come preach. And I told you it started bothering me because they would pick me up preaching you, they know what I am because I mentored a lot of them. But they in their church were saying, the pastor, if you would don't, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, don't speak in tongues.

And if you would tonight, don't prophesy tonight. And if you would tonight. And I would keep my mouth shut to be respectful for what they had built. But it started becoming a more common occurrence with my younger guys who was coming up. And here's the word I heard over and over. Weird. We don't want our church to be weird. We don't want our church to be. It's almost like somebody somewhere said it and everybody heard it because they all used the same thing. And I've heard other people in clips and stuff. Don't weird people out in your church. Don't make church weird.

Well, the reason and do you agree with me that that kind of started maybe 15 years ago was a response to us? Well, I think that too, but I think it's because the church planting movement, the church planting schools really said our mission now is to be a church planting facility to help people plant churches. And your goal should be only to get people saved.

That's a whole nother podcast.

But that was the goal was to get people saved. So why do all this other stuff when we just should be getting people saved?

The goal of Jesus and the original intent of God was not to get people saved. If that's the case, just have church on Easter and shut the rest of it down. He said, make disciples.

That's right.

Go into all nations and make disciples. Disciples and getting saved are a Grand Canyon apart. And you are right. Churches have stopped being discipling centers and now they're soul winning sinners. Soul winning was made to take place by the marketplace.

Yeah.

Outside of church. You are my witnesses. So all of Jesus, soul winning, all of Jesus, forgiveness of sins, all of his miracles took place not in a synagogue, took place in the market, in the marketplace and in the street. So that is where. That's why I said go into the world, not try to get the world.

Into the church, into the church.

He said, go, go, go, go. So the intent of God was that the salvation experience would come through the testimony and the witness of people. When you speak into their needs, their hurts and their deficiencies bring them to the house of God, that's a different thing. Those are where God's protocols are established. That is where God's house is. But we are living stones being built to become a holy habitation. Ephesians 2. Where God can dwell by his spirit. God assembles people in the body to where they are, a place where he can come and make habitation. So the whole thing is about discipling people to be spirit filled, to be spirit led, to walk in the spirit. And when we get together, we become a collective habitation of the spirit. When I make everything in my church about soul winning, then I have forever basically committed my people to ankle deep waters. Yeah, I understand.

You don't teach them how to overcome in this life.

And they say they're doing it in life groups. They're not doing it in life groups. Life groups are not a training center. Life groups are where they're building community. I've been to the biggest and baddest I've asked them, some of them right to their face, what do you do it like? They build community, they make connections, they get people a friend. And it is not a discipling and training center because the administration of trying to disciple through a cell group is ominous.

Oh yeah.

And so now what we have is a generation where we're doing every type of gimmicky thing in the world to get somebody saved. And the intent was to raise up. It was the intent of God. Hebrews 2 in verse 10, to raise sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect. Is there such a thing as imperfect salvation? No, but what he means is everything that Jesus did on the cross has not been maximized until we function in the glory. The glory is the presence, the manifested presence and the weight and the authority of God. Whatever Adam called it, that's what it was. Why? Because he was crowned with glory and honor.

So can that happen?

Absolutely.

Listen, can that happen without weird things happening at church?

Well, let's go on to that. So I don't take too much time. I have no idea how much time can that happen. I hadn't been on them. I hadn't got a clock in front of me. So just let me keep talking. I don't know that I have a certain time. I want to end this anyway. Stay with me. Okay? God takes the foolish Things of the world to Confound the wise. Second Corinthians 1. Excuse me. Then it says, the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men. Okay. Hope I can give you great music and authentic, passionate worshipers who love Jesus and still never experience his presence because his presence has protocols. A priest touched the ark of the Covenant trying to keep it from falling off a cart.

Fell down dead. Yeah.

There is nothing wrong with our great music and our big gatherings and worshipers. There's nothing wrong. I'm not critiquing that.

Good intentions.

But people have got to understand in the presence of the Lord is the fullness of joy and at his right hand, pleasures forevermore. And that only the anointing destroys yokes and lifts burdens. And you can have music production and worship and have anointing and not have the presence of God. And if the people have never tasted the presence of God, then what they have will do.

They don't know the difference.

I don't think it's a generation that don't want the Holy Spirit. I think it's their handlers. I think the preachers won't let it get to them because whenever they invite me, they know what Ron Carpenter's about. And whenever they invite me, they already. They got don't, don't, don't. So. And I'm almost like, well, why did you invite me?

Because they don't want. They're afraid that it will become what we're talking about, weird church.

Because they don't know how to steward moves of God. Stewarding a move of God is a lot different than Tuesday. Getting in a planning service on Planning center and putting your three songs together, your 17 minutes and your click trap track for your five campuses. That's not stewarding a move of God. A move of God is when people have experiences to which they will never be the same. Hope I'll try to do this without get it without crying. Bible school didn't change me. Theology classes and Greek classes didn't change me. Going to somebody's conference rarely changed me. It was a thousand upon a thousand experiences with God that made me who I am. It was times where I got out of his presence and I knew I would never be the same. It was when Moses left and the glory of the Lord shone on his face.

And I'm sure seeing a burning bush, it was weird. You can't explain it, but you're different because of it.

Let me go see this strange sight. Yes, what is it? A bush that will not be Consumed.

Yes, it's strange.

When the presence of God by the power of the Spirit failed, Jesus said, I'm about to go back to heaven. Go tarry in Jerusalem till the gift that I promised you comes. They got in the upper room in one accord. And when the presence of God like a mighty rushing wind came and the Holy Spirit manifested in their midst, the onlookers, the people we don't want to be weird to. Yeah. The onlookers looked at that and the only point of reference they had with what they were seeing was drunkenness.

Yeah.

I promise you there ain't nobody looking in none of our churches thinking we drunk. There's not anybody looking in any of our conferences. We have the prettiest, most polished put together production, presentation conferences and gatherings I have ever seen in my life. My generation would pack out buildings and pack out arenas and watch God rip the place apart.

But I think both is important to God because building the temple, he, I mean, he gave exact specifications, exact dimensions, exact ways you're supposed to lay the wood, what kind of wood, and then the glory would come. So I think he wants us to be excellent in everything we do, but be willing at the same hardiness to say, God, come take, come breathe. Come take over God, come sweep in and just flood this place.

So I believe there's both say help. I can't control that part.

Yeah, right. And we're not supposed to.

I can't control that. But that's the whole premise that I'm getting at. Yes. When Jesus walked in Mary and Martha's house, Martha. There were two parts of Jesus.

I love how you say Martha, Martha. What's that?

Country Martha sweep. Let me take some liberties with this. She's sweeping, she's dusting, she's stirring the soup. What is she doing? I want to make sure the man Jesus is comfortable.

All the natural things.

Okay. Because Jesus is 100% man. Mary sits at his feet in a posture of worship because Jesus is also 100% God. And Jesus makes this statement that I used to not understand until I thought about the portions. Jesus told Martha that Mary has chosen the greater portion. There was my humanity when I walked in to minister to. There's my deity than when I walked in to minister to. And Mary has chosen to minister to my deity. Here's what I'm getting at. We have now a generation of churches that know how to host man.

Yeah.

But we have no idea how to host God.

So good.

So we've got to do a million things from being the Latte Church to everything else we do to keep people's interest because we don't know how to host God and God is the greater portion. He says, phooey on your other stuff. If you miss this, I want you to be able to host both. And Redemption has always tried to be a hybrid. I hold things to a high bar. I hold things to a high standard. I want everybody to have a great experience. I want everything to be done right. I want the building in tip top shape. I have standards that are excellent, and I hope that that is pleasing to the Lord. But when that service starts, the greatest thing that could happen is for God to come through and open heaven and rip the roof off that place. And those people have an encounter that a thousand messages can't do and a thousand altar calls can't do. Because God, the power of it. Yes, we've been in them. That's what I was. And I was casting vision for our west coast people who never experienced that. I said, you got to understand. Me and Hope have been in services where the whole building was full of drug dealers at a kingpin's funeral in our church, and we started the first song of praise and worship and the whole building started puking. I could see their faces. They're like, what?

For what? Yeah, they're like, for what?

Because two kingdoms clashed. Not having a kingdom clash. Every Usher we had was running around with trash cans because hundreds of people are throwing up because demons are being confronted in the presence of God and hope. That was not that big of a deal for us. It was nothing. For back here, four people are getting saved and there's been no altar call. And over here we see a man that this woman's been praying for for 18 years is hugging his wife. He walked in drunk. Now he's sober. We got a guy coming the middle of the aisle throwing drug paraphernalia. So, Pastor, what did you preach? I hadn't preached.

Yeah.

I hadn't given an altar call. The presence of God.

But we prayed and begged for the presence of God to show up. That's all we wanted.

That was what we valued. And so I get now to the west coast of my new assignment. And these particular experiences have not been common to them. So I'm having to cast vision and wait for God to bring the pieces in place. Now that the pieces are in place and I'm feeling zero resistance, you know, on the east coast, you kind of have to push through religion. West coast don't have no religion. They don't. They don't have nothing to unlearn.

Yeah.

So when you start talking to them about these moves up, they just embrace it and they say, let's go. So the first Sunday I talked about this, they stayed in there an hour after I got tired.

Yeah.

And kept chasing God. And now miracles and signs and wonders are breaking out, and the church is multiplying on an unprecedented level. And they say, if you're animated, your church won't grow.

It's crazy.

I'm in the Bay Area of California where everybody has given up on, and I'm seeing God not build a church. I'm seeing God do a move in.

His way, however he wants to do it. Come on, let's go.

Let me get back to this. What we do that concerns me is we go straight into the room, shut off all the lights, make the room pitch black so that our stage looks good. I know why we do it. I've been doing TV for years. I understand all the dynamics. And we go straight to worship. I got with our record label and said, I want to write some praise songs. And one of the people in the room said, you'll be a unicorn. I said, nobody writes those no more. I said, I know. That's why I formed a record label. Because we have skipped a whole protocol. The reason we don't praise is because praise is the foolishness.

It is.

Praise is where David had to disrobe, had to pull off his crown. He had to pull off his royal garments. And the Bible says he had to become undignified. And praise demands the crucifixion of pride and flesh so that worship can be true. You can't praise and be proud. It's impossible. Because it's too foolish.

Right.

Screaming, clapping, jumping, jumping, running, spinning. The loud cymbals, the stringed instruments, the shouting unto God with the voice of triumph. I mean, clapping your hands like that's animated. Yeah, that's what that. You know. So what do we do? That is where things kind of can kind of get off the rails. So let's remove it.

That's where the crazies come.

That's where the crazies come. That's where somebody might come in with a tambourine and somebody come in with a flag.

Yeah.

And we don't want weird. So let's. Let's praise and worship our way. So we are like Uzzah who got killed. If we were not in the dispensation of grace, we'd have dead bodies everywhere on Sunday morning.

Goodness gracious.

Because we all trying to Touch a cart and we hadn't gone through the protocol. Jesus, you can't carry that cart unless it was holding the pole, the pole open through the overlaid rings. It had to be on the shoulders of the priest and the priest had to have blood on their nose, on their ear, on their fingers and on their toes, my Lord. And if you touch it any other way, you die. You do not worship your way and get God's presence. You can worship, you can be passionate, you can love Jesus in tears. I'm not doubting the authenticity of your worship, but I'm talking about if you want the results of the presence of God, you will go through his protocol and I will enter gates with thanksgiving and I will enter his courts with praise. What do they think David's referring to? And what was David always called up about these courts? Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. If I took you to Buckingham palace, if you googled it, you could go to Buckingham palace, the kings, the royal family, and never see the Queen.

Right?

Because it is separated by courts, because the courts is the King's atmosphere and it's the environment he controls. So they will train you in the etiquette. And the courts are progressive and advance. So you are trained how to get from one court to the next court by obeying the etiquette. O wee my God. Once you've advanced through the courts, you get to be in the presence of the King. And when you get into presence of the king, make your prayers, enter the throne room of God boldly and make your prayers and petitions be made known to God. You can ask whatever you will, you have favor. Once you get in there, if you've gone through the etiquette and valued the king's way, then you get the King's hand so good. And we just shattered a million protocols and ignored them because we don't want to be weird. Well, so if I'm not weird, I'm like everybody else. I hope I can't affect it.

If I am it, it's just another social club.

I can't affect. I can't change you if I'm just like you. Right. So what is. What is my concert different and Beyonce's concert different? My what? Good music, people worshiping.

Right.

Production, dark room, lit stage. If God's not there, better is. David said, I can see a thousand doctors, but if I can get in your presence one time, I can go to a thousand therapists. But if I can get in your presence one time.

It makes me think of the old Pentecostal Church I was brought up in, nothing special about it. Singing was horrible, musicians were horrible. But I have, I mean the altar.

Services, they would get foolish too before God.

People getting saved, healed. And it affects you, it does, it changes you.

And once you've been in that, this other stuff, Hope me and you and I love them, I love them all. I've got no problem with anybody sitting question their salvation cares nothing God has. The kingdom has keys. The keys give you access. You cannot access it without the keys. So to me we've got a generation that don't know because they've never tasted. I never want an orange if I've never tasted an orange. But if you ever say, Ron, taste this like the ones in California on orange trees and I put it in my mouth, there's a longing and then.

Nothing else can compare.

Nothing else will do. So we've got a generation that don't know what they want because they've never tasted. A move of God is not clean. We spent more time in our planning meeting yesterday planning on how to accommodate this move of God that's happening than anything else because it's not pretty and it's not 50 minutes and it's not cut and dry. It's a move and that's what we want and that's what I'm after and I want a generation who I'm not sure and they saying Generation Z is going to change that. Now they're saying Generation Z is looking at all the production and they are not impressed. And they're coming full circle back to there's something that we're missing and I want it and we're going for it. We're going for it and I'm not Gen Z and I'm going for it and that's who I am. You know, if you want to invite me, you need to know this. You need to know. You know, I really, I'm older now so I guess I'm just more direct. Don't invite me and then tell me I can't do everything that Ron Carpenter does, I can't do it, then I'm not your guy. But you want to move, you want to shake things up, you want to light a fire, I'm your guy. If you just want it pretty and polished, I'm probably not him. I'm probably not him. You want to put him on a 20 minute timer, I'm probably not him. And so I had. That bothered me that that's what those pastors hope they're sitting There saying, tell me how to plant a church.

Yeah.

And that's what they were told.

God's house. Tell me how to start God's house.

I wasn't there. I don't know the names of the people. But when Dwayne came. Pastor Dwayne excuse came back to me. I just like, oh, man. Because students become like their teachers, and God help us.

Well, redemption's going for it.

In the generation we live in, have we ever needed a move of God? And see, that's another podcast. We're building churches bigger and better than we ever have. But the culture of our nation is deteriorating at a faster rate than ever, which tells me we are it. We're not different from it, because we can't change it.

Not affected it at all.

In fact, I heard the leader of one of these church planting movements in 2019, right before COVID got up and said, all right, guys, I got to talk to you. We're getting way too secular. And I was like, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Because you can't serve God and mammon. And if I get you saved, but you don't have to change anything, what are you getting saved from? So this is who we are. This is what we're about, and I enjoy it. I feel better now. I feel like I got to vent.

So come on to redemption. Come to weird church. We want to be weird as it gets. If that's what the Holy Spirit wants.

If it takes my foolishness for God to descend upon a place and inhabit the praise of his people. Here again, it says God inhabits praise. If you cut the praise totally out and praise it. And pretty praise is not pretty. Isn't it?

I love how you did the hitch thing. Just stay right here.

Yep. And I've been telling. I've been telling our people, I want them to start in the front and start in the aisles. Don't stand behind your chair and be pretty now, you know, if that's, you know, well, I've gone too far. The money's too good, and the building's too full. Okay. Then you have to get up every day and look at yourself and say, have I led these people where God wanted me to lead them? And you will give an account for that. And sometimes you need to understand. And this will make half the guys turn it off right here. Sometimes the depth of the experience does weed out some of the crowd. The broader the experience. When Jesus, you know, wasn't asking anything from anybody, he filled up the hillsides.

Yeah.

But then he spun on them one day and said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my heart, drink my blood, he said. From the day forward, they followed him. Not There is a place where you got to do what I preached a while back called the second yes. The first yes is when you say yes to everything he wants to give you salvation. The second yes is when you give him everything he wants.

This has been great. This has been great.

Make me stop.

I did.

Shut me down.

Shut you down. Your Mountain Dew's gone.

Am I being ugly?

No.

Did I say it in the right spirit? Yes.

It's been amazing. Thank you guys for being here. Share it. Like it. Subscribe. I love these times together. I love these talks. So until next time, it's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real, raw, relevant.

Love you guys.