The Problem with “Big Church Religion” and How To Fix It

The Problem with “Big Church Religion” and How To Fix It
How do you feel about “Big Church Religion?” Are you done with church? Have you experienced people abusing their power in the church? How do we fix the problem? Our Pilgrim forefathers understood the source of their self-governing power. They understood the source was our loving Creator Who made them. In order to get church right, they knew they had to first revive their faith personally and then revive their families.

With a country divided, the Republican risk and morality being redefined, it’s time to gather around the camp fire, get back to basics, and spark the revival that this country so desperately needs.
This is the American Camp Fire revival with Cook Cameron.
I wanted to bring up a topic tonight that is all about, big church religion?
How do you feel about big church religion?
Uh, maybe some of you are, uh, are are are just sort of done with going to church because you see people there who have abused their power in the church or people who maybe use their church and their religion as a pretext to make themselves feel like they’re better than other people.
Well, some people think that religion and and and rightly so has been used to cause wars and to really hurt people.
Well, I wanna talk with you about big church religion tonight and how to fix the problem of it.
In fact, we’ve been talking about self governing followers of Jesus, and we’ve been talking about pilgrims, everyday people like male men and uh, obscure preachers who had been censored and dismissed people who were unknown orphan farmers who get used by god to turn the world upside down and lay out the model for liberty for the rest of the world.
And they discovered the problem with big church religion and how to fix it.
And so that’s what we’re gonna take a look at here in the American Covenant.
This is a book about the history of our forefathers and the promises that they made to stay in sacred relationship with god, trust trusting in him for his blessings and for his protection and that he would cause our nation to prosper.
That’s what we wanna get back to. It’s called revival. Here’s where we start.
Our Pilgrim forefathers, the early believers, who came to this nation, to this to this land, the pilgrims, they understood the source of their self governing power.
It wasn’t just the freedom to do whatever they wanted, and and to act like they were the god of their worlds.
No. No. No. No. They understood that the source to self govern was was the loving creator who made them who had given them a conscience, he had written his law on their hearts and they wanted to honor god and love their neighbor.
That was the source of their self governing power.
They understood that if they were ever going to get church right First, they had to revive their faith personally, individually.
They had to revive their families next.
And if they revived their faith and they revived their family, then the family of faith would be revived.
Right? Because church, the family of faith is made up of individuals and families.
So if if we revive our faith, and we revive our family.
And our family is on mission to love god and to love our community then our churches will naturally be right.
They won’t be corrupt because they’re right down at the cellular level of the individual.
That’s what they understood. And they studied the Bible to realize what went wrong with their national church in England.
They studied the early believers in the new testament, and what they found was that these were believers who had been set on fire in their hearts and in their homes.
And then they they voluntarily gathered together with other like minded believers.
These were spontaneous associations with others who loved what they loved.
Who knew the the they had made the discovery of the life changing power of believing in Jesus.
And so they came together, not because they had to, not because the the king told them to or the bishop told them they had to, but because they wanted to.
It wasn’t a head to thing. It was a want to thing. Listen to this, uh, this quote.
Um, and so in every place, I’m sorry. Um, here we go.
I I lost my place. Here it is.
Individuals and families drawn toward each other by their common trust in Jesus the Christ became a community united, not by external bonds, not because the government told them this is your religion, and this is what have to believe, or if you don’t go here, you’re gonna be punished, or if you go to a different church, you’re gonna be thrown in prison.
No, they came together by the vital force, life giving force of distinctive ideas and principles.
They had a specific set of things that they believed and principles that they loved, namely that church was not about you have to go where you’re gonna be punished.
It was there was a loving god in heaven who made us and has designed to set us free both internally and externally.
And if we live for him, we will result in it will result in our blessing.
Not just for us, but for all people.
That’s what they believed, and they wanted to be around other people who believed the same things.
That was their idea of church.
And they also realized that all of the early churches in the Bible were essentially democratic organ organizations, meaning that they were self governing people.
Others didn’t govern them. They governed themselves because they loved god.
They wanted to do what god’s word said, and they elected their own leaders within the church and gave them limited powers to govern the business of the church.
They didn’t give them powers to govern their own personal business.
It wasn’t like get in my family business tell me what to do and govern me there. No. No. No.
They govern themselves under the word of god. They feared the lord.
They loved the lord, but they govern themselves knowing that the church needed some leadership so they elect men of character whose job was to take care of the business of the church.
But here’s what then ended up happening.
They gradually began to give away power to their church leaders.
They began to more and more grant emergency powers to the church leaders because of government persecution that was coming down on these early Christians.
And so in in the name of safety, in the name of keeping them safe because of these emergency difficulties coming down on them, they gave more and more of their power to the church leaders and the church leaders began to become more and more powerful and ultimately began to dictate what life would be like to the members of the church.
The people gave away their power, and they gave away their liberty. Does this sound familiar?
We talk about corrupt, organized religion, and we see people in powerful places in the church they’re using that power to abuse people or to benefit themselves at the expense of others and to harm others as as they pursue their own agendas.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
That’s not the way the early believers uh, wanted it to be, but they succumbed to fear.
And in the name of safety began to give away emergency powers to church leaders, And then those church leaders, either because they didn’t have the best interest of the people at heart or because they were cowers and they they succumbed to the threatenings of the government.
They didn’t have spines of steel.
And for one reason or another, they caved in to the corrupt government power and made a backroom deal in order to stay safe themselves or to gain power themselves, they allowed themselves the church leaders to be controlled by the government leaders, the ones with the guns.
And then the government ends up controlling the church leaders who then sell out the people within the church to do their bidding, which is ultimately for the benefit of the government.
And therein lies the story of why so many people hate corrupt big church religion.
We don’t trust it. Plenty of examples in history where it’s gone bad.
And so the believers understood what they needed to do to fix it.
And you and I can take a lesson from them.
They understood that their trust must never be in powerful men or women because that power can corrupt them so easily.
Their trust needs to be in the lord.
The loving creator who made us, and the power must remain in the hands of the family of faith people who love god and love their neighbors, individuals, moms, and dads who love their children, husbands and wives, everyday people who love their country.
If the power stays in the hands of the people, and we govern ourselves from our heart.
And then we selectively elect leaders within our churches To guide us according to the life giving principles in god’s word, that results in liberty.
But we are never to give them so much power that they dictate to us based on their own free wheeling ideas or their backroom deals with the government or other people who give them money or power or position or prestige because those policies and principles end up enslaving you and me leaving us in bondage.
So here’s the recipe for us tonight. Oh god.
Revive our faith individually. Set my heart on fire with a love for you and for my wife and my kids, and for my neighbors and everyone in my family of faith, revive my family.
And through our families, we will form the family of faith which will have integrity.
And god keep us humble to lead in sincerity and truth and never bring dishonor to your great name.
And never harm our brothers and sisters.
And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Great to be with you again tonight.
For the American Camp Fire revival, God bless you guys.
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