What's up everybody, Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here. I answer your questions podcast at grangersmith dot com, and you could ask me anything you want. That's the format of this podcast. That's a way it's been for a long time. And so I want to tell you that I think about this often before I start a podcast, that I don't have any notes. I'm not prepared with a bunch of like fancy quotes or book recommendations or cross references, and I don't think the podcast should be that way. I think it's better if I hear a question from you about whatever is going on in your life, and I answer it like I would if we were close friends riding side by side in a pickup truck on a back road. I think that way, and I say that to say that you know that that means I'm not always right about things, but it's more so that we all think together. We think through these often. These questions are really difficult life situations, and so we should think of them because I you know, think about all the people that don't ask a question, They just listen, and everyone's got something going on, you know, everyone's got some kind of problem and so for all of those people that don't ask a question, we're learning how to think through them right once again. The email is podcast at grangersmith dot com. First question comes from Kayley and this says this, Hey granger, I have sort of a multi question email for you. My husband and I have two children, ages seven and nine, and our nine year old is autistic. He doesn't speak and struggles with being very hyperactive. He can get very disregulated in unfamiliar environments. We do not attend church due to it being very difficult to have him sitting or basically going into overdrive in an open space where there are lots of things to touch or to look at. He is also in a looper in other words, he could run away and put himself in danger. Having a child with special needs can be very isolating, and while I know God knows my heart, I crave being a part of a community and I think it's a big missing piece of our life as a family. I guess my question is should we try and find a church that can accommodate children in general, but specifically that has a special needs program? But also, what are your thoughts on having special needs programs for children that separate them from their parents during services. I know some churches do not agree with that concept. I appreciate your feedback and opinion. Thank you, Kaylee. All right, Kaylee, Well, thank you for for trusting me. Trusting me in this podcast was something that's probably so you know, the forefront of your mind all the time and so sensitive of a subject. So thank you for trusting me with that. And I think we could kind of approach this from a few different ways. One something that stuck out to me the first time I read it just now was you said having a special needs child could be very isolating. And while I know I know God knows my heart, I crave being a part of a community. I don't necessarily know what you mean by saying God knows my heart, but I've craved been part of a community. You probably mean God knows that I want to be in church even though i'm not, and he has grace that i'm not. I think that's what you mean, and I understand, I understand that. But but what's more interesting about that thought is that you crave to be part of a community, and that is this is a craving that humans have always had. You don't have to be a Christian. To have that craving, you just have to be a human. And that is because we're made in God's image and we were made with a need. We we were you know, we were created with certain desires, right, and one of those desires we are created to have is to seek to crave other people around us. And there are many reasons. I'm not going to ask, I'm not going to act like I know all the reasons, but one of the clear reasons is our gifts that were given to us different from other people. Certain people have certain gifts, other people have other gifts. In the Bible, it talks about members of a body like an eye, how obviously has a different function than a hand, and a hand as a different function than an ear, or a nose or a foot. And it's the same with us. Right. If you look around any community, any city, or town, or neighborhood or even family, everyone has they bring something different to the table. Everyone does. And the Church is supposed to be like that. It's made up the body, which is the Church. The head is Christ. That's the symbolism given in the Bible. The head is Christ and the body is the Church, and the Church is the gathering of people. That's what that word church, that the roots of that word mean, that means gathering. And so if we think of ourselves as the body with different members functioning differently, then we really needed each other to function as a is a functioning body, you know, like if we were missing eyes, we wouldn't be a good body. If we were missing ears, or if we're missing hands, we wouldn't be the church as it's supposed to be, as it's intended to be. And why did I say that, Well, the reason I'm saying that is because we all are given different gifts. Those gifts that God gave us are only activated, are used in the context of the gathering. Like an eye is no good by itself, and an eye that sees benefits the body, but to itself it's nothing. A hand is nothing by itself unless it's benefiting the body. You see what I mean. And so these gifts spiritual gifts, you can call them physical gifts. The different attributes, the characteristics that God has gifted us with are seen and used in the context of the body. For instance, most of my life have been a singer. Now as a singer, the gift that God gave me to sing. Now, whether whether I'm good or not, that's irrelevant. The gift that God gave me to sing means nothing by myself. If I'm isolated and it's stuck in a room my whole life, then I don't get to share my gift. My singing only influences me so much before it's meant to influence, encourage, lift up others. And it's the same with every gift. So that's why you crave to be part of the community, because not only do you crave without being able to say it, using your gifts in the church, but you also crave the other people's gifts given to you. So you are like a hand saying I just wish I had an eye and a nose, and an ear, and the the ear and the and the nose and the and the eye, say I wish we had a hand. And it all comes together when the church, the gathering, does what it does, and that is gather. So think about that. Let's start with the conversation with that idea that yes, you crave being a part of community. Then that's not just a unique something, that something that's unique to you. That's because you're made in the image of God and you're you crave to gather with the body. Okay, So so then let's put that on top of let's use that lens and think about your autot son. Is his son? Yes, son. I'm trying to say this as easy as I can. But the problem, the problem that you're dealing with really okay, let me just say it plainly. The problem you're dealing with is you haven't found a healthy church yet. Because because a healthy church, and once again, don't think of it as a building. Don't think of church when I say that as a denominational building with bricks and mortar. When I use that word, think of it every time as the body, the gathering of people. You haven't you haven't been part of a healthy body of the gathering of people yet, because you could make these kind of decisions with them, and they would come together with your autistic son and help you. And I don't think right, I know, I know they don't have to be qualified in special needs children, and I think they would move the direction if you were part of that body, They would move the inento the direction of learning how to better serve you and your autistic son in your family. But right off the bat, you wouldn't say I should go find a church that has a special needs program. Instead, you would say, I'm going to go find a church that preaches the Gospel clearly and applies it for the body of people. Because if a church is doing that, they're preaching a clear gospel, I'm unashamed, boldly, with humility and love. When they're doing that, then that fulfills all the requirements you're going to need for your son. You see what I mean, Because if you go to a church the opposite, if you go to a church that has a very good doctorate driven special needs program, but they're not preaching the Gospel, then they're actually killing you and your son. And I've said it before on this podcasts. It's like a little drop of cyanide poisoning that you're putting into your drink every time you go to a church that's not feeding you the Word of God through the preaching. I mean, that's that is the number one thing in a church. Everything else is secondary, and that is preaching the Word of God. And I'm not talking about preaching the needs of man or families or marriages. I'm talking about preaching what the word says and applying it to you in your life. If you're not getting that, then you're not growing in your knowledge of God. If you're not, If you're not growing in your knowledge of God, then then you're growing in something else, and that's usually fear, anxiety, hopelessness. Those things of the world start growing in you. So all that to say, you say, should we try to find the church that ad that can accommodate special needs children? Basically you're saying I say no, you find a healthy church that preaches the gospel, that loves you, that loves your family, that loves your son, and welcomes you in like the body's supposed to. And they will say, Kaylee, we're going to love your son. We're going to find ways that we could we could serve you and your family. Well, now there's one last little question here that you asked, and that is what are your thoughts on having a special needs program that separates the children from the parents during the services. I think that gets worked out with the healthy church. So I'm not going to stand on either side of the fence saying children absolutely should be in the services. I think they're welcome to be in the services. I think I think having children in the services is a very beautiful thing. Having babies crying in a service is actually a beautiful thing because it's a it's a sign that the soil is fertile in the church, you know, and and it's growing and it's healthy. That's that's a great fruit of a healthy church is there's babies, you know. And so I'm not going to say that children shouldn't be in the service. They're a distraction. But at the same time, if you have a special needs son that just actually physically just can't sit there, then then we don't want to push that too far, and we want to say, yeah, then he needs to he needs to have his needs met and he needs to be growing in the church in another way. And so if he needs to leave the service with with a group or with someone that could teach him in another way, and I say, okay, I don't have a problem with that, as long as the church is a family. And sometimes that just means it can't be too big. Because if a church is way too big, and if a church has a special needs program, they're probably too big. You could say that too. That's an all that's a red flag. If a church is too big to be able to accommodate personally, then I think I think that's also a problem. We can probably talk about this for an hour, but I think I've given you enough of my opinion on this. Next question comes from Christine. It says, hey, grandeur Christine here, I'm twenty years old and I'm a believer. I have a friend who's twenty one and she's been married for a year and a half now, and they're really struggling. She's a Christian, but since they've been married, her husband doesn't want anything to do with God and basically just uses her for her body. He's winning an open relationship and she's not open to that. She's almost to the end of her rope and doesn't know what to do. I know that she has guy best friends that she messages with I ask and she also asks them for advice, and she asked me for advice as well. I'm not married, but I'm probably not the best person to ask for advice. So what advice do you have and what would you tell her or encourage her with? And what should I tell her? Thank you for answering PS. She tells me ninety seven percent of the details about her marriage, and she doesn't have a whole lot of friends, and he has quite a few drinking buddies. I think I got the situation. Christine. Thanks for thanks for opening up with this and bringing your friend, and know that this is going to be difficult for both of y'all, especially her. So the last few years of doing this podcast, I worry and you guys could you guys could let me know by commenting. But which is in fact might be a good point to make right now. If you want to comment on something I'm saying, or double down on something I'm saying, go to the YouTube version of this and you could be listening anywhere, but go to the go to YouTube on you can just google or YouTube Granger Smith podcast and go to this episode and then go comment below your thoughts. You could do that on any episode and I'll check those out, and that way we could have also have a dialogue that way. But there is a theme that that it's been like a thread just kind of threading its way through these last few years, and that is this the lack of a good, healthy local church is so commonly the root of many problems. I said it on the last that was part of the last answer. It's part of this answer. I don't have it read the next question yet, but it's probably part of the next question as well. I hope, and really my hope for this this podcast is that And I understand that not everyone's a Christian that listens, and I completely get that, and this isn't a Christian only podcast, but I do hope that people they start to hear me repeating things and it starts to sink in, like like roots getting deeper and deeper into the soil. Really, that's that's part of the hope for this. And so when you say talking about your friend, you say she's a Christian, and then you go into this big exposition of why she's having huge problems. My mind, I always wonder where's the pastor like, where where's her church? Where are her sisters, who's taking her to lunch, who's taking her to Bible study and walking through these things with her, Who's counseling her, Who's who's encouraging her, Who's who's crying with her, Who's saying coming over to my house, honey, come to my house and sleep on our couch as long as you want. While he's your husband's off doing this, who's doing that? Because that's once again, just like the last question, that's how a good church should be, functioning like a family gathering of the body of believers. Okay, so that's right off the bat. Let's go there. We're gonna I'm gonna say a couple of things. He wants an open relationship. That's adultery. That's grounds for divorce in the Bible. An open relationship is adultery. I don't I don't know, there's there's not a that might be like a nice way an open relationship might be like a nice way of saying he wants to cheat on you, you know, which is weird to me. He says, hey, babe, I want to cheat on you. Is that cool? And she's like, no, I'm not open to that. That. See, when you change the word, it just gets way more intense and you kind of reveal. It's kind of like flipping the lights on in an old motel room and all the cockroaches start running everywhere. You don't see the cockroaches in the dark, and you flip on the light and you see them running everywhere. That's what happens when you change that word. Open relationship to adultery. She's not open to that. I wonder why, of course she's not open to that. And then you say she's at the end of a rope and doesn't know what to do. Yeah, I could, of course. She's twenty one years old. She has a husband that just doesn't want anything to do with God, wants to use her for her body. She's not really down for that. And now he's asking to cheat on her. If she's cool with that, and she's not part of the part of the problem, if it's not a problem yet, is the sentence she said you said she has a bunch of best friends that are got is that she messages and gets advice from. Not cool. That's that's not gonna that's not gonna fix anything. That's not gonna help anything. It can only make it worse. Seeking counsel from best friends that are guys. When you're married and you're talking about your husband and you're trying to get advice from them, and your husband's asking you to cheat on you, and meanwhile you're messaging these guys saying what should I do? That's going to lead to something worse, and you don't want to do that. I think I think you understand what I'm talking about here. That's nothing good can come out of it, can come out of that. And so so what do you do she is I would counsel her to first be in a local church, to seek the counsel from the sisters there and the pastor's plural, because the same problem is created if you're in a church and you're seeking private counsel from one pastor. That should never happen. A woman would never seek counsel alone with a pastor, much less of a guy friend. But that includes pastors. So hey, make let's let's make that aware as well. She's having problem with with her marriage, she's not gonna it's not going to fix anything by going to a local church and sitting privately with a pastor that's a male. That's not gonna work. So plural, you know, a plurality of elders, she's gonna sit with them two or more. Uh, and with women, she's gonna sit with women, and she's gonna she's been going to coffee with these, with these ladies. And probably I don't I don't know, that's my advice. Well, you could end it there, but probably what would happen if she does that is they're going to take her out for coffee and they're gonna be like, hey, you need to you need to be separated, because if he's asking for an open relationship, he's probably already cheating on you. We need to separate you and you guys need to have some biblical counseling together, some marriage counseling, and I would imagine you kick the can a little bit further. That's going to open up bigger problems. But you don't know what those problems are until you separate and you find a local church, you seek wise counsel in the church. That's probably that's the end of my advice. Then it's probably going to lead to separating, and then after separating, then you're gonna be going to counseling together probably and then that's probably going to turn on more lights with more cockroaches running everywhere. But this is where this is where it starts. So you can't take the last step. You got to take the first step. So it's a tough situation. But if she's claiming to be a Christian, she has to be involved with this local church. She has to There is no advice that comes in front of that one, because through the low Church will also be seeking God herself. She'll be she'll be seeking the Lord through his word in the Bible. Her spiritual disciplines will increase. We could start with that and tell her to do that stuff. But if she's outside of the body, you remember what I said in that last question, then she's just an eye without an ear. She's an ear without a hand, a hand without a nose. She can't do it. She's not made to be alone, and she can't do this alone. The Bible would say you can't do it alone, just like the first question when she said, I don't know what it is by a crave to be part of the community. That's part of the reason is when when trouble happens, when suffering and affliction in the world brings troubling, troubling things to you, the community is is how you're fortified. Right, that's the foundation that you You want to be in this community to stand on the foundation of faith of the community believers, and you're fortified to move forward in the suffering. Hey, if you want to get a hold of me, go to cameo dot com. Slash Grangersmith at is cameeo dot com slash granger Smith. And what that allows you to do is I can make you a video message according to whatever you want me to say. It could be happy birthday, happy anniversary, a word of encouragement, even at prayer request. And I love these. They come straight to my phone. I pull out my phone, I pull out my selfie camera and I begin to send you a message according to what you want me to say. This is great, especially with the holidays coming. To get someone a gift that you just don't know what to give them, well, get them a video message from me at cameo dot com slash Grangersmith. Okay, if you have a question for me, email podcast at grangersmith dot com. There is no limit to what you could ask about it subject could be anything. We'll find out what this next one is. It comes from Jake and it says, Hey, Grainger, thank you for the podcast. I've been listening for a while now. I've picked up on some things you've mentioned about fame, the music industry, and pride, and I've been mulling over what to say for some time now. And I heard the episode called I Left Music because it was a sin which prompted my response below. I'm a local artist. In order to get anywhere with my music, I've got to promote myself. It's always felt weird, and your words have convicted me to have to make a decision. Now I've sought wisdom from my pastor and another local pastor that I look up to. My challenge to your thoughts slash stance is this, how then, is anyone to put up music for God and other people, for other people to be able to enjoy, listen, and worship belong with it. It facilitates worship by creating new songs about or to God. So someone has to do it right. How can the music get to people without being promoted and the artist becoming famous. I know that God always uses as people, though they are not one hundred percent correct one hundred percent correct. So in this situation where yes, there is pride at the root of it, and people people that you could could idolize you for the sake of bringing music to people for the worship of God, we push forward anyway, trying our hardest not to allow pride and idolatry, and knowing that we will probably fail, but rely on God for his mercy and grace because of the ultimate goal in this to praise him with music. Okay, Jake, I appreciate your brother so much and thank you for thinking through this. And I truly it's encouraging to be challenged, because I certainly need to be challenged, and all the thoughts that I throw out on this podcast need to need to be thought through. And no one should take what I say on this podcast and create a manuscript and then publish it. You know, because I said before at the earlier earlier in the break said that I don't have notes. These are just thoughts. And so sometimes you could say that I might have a thought that just comes out that I should probably think through, and if I had the chance to think through it again, maybe I would say it differently. And for a lot of episodes, I don't have a guest, like today, have an empty chair sitting next to me. I don't have Marshall or Parker or Chat or aunt Man or Bernie sitting with me. And it's good to have those guys because sometimes they'll be able to push back in real time. But today it's just me. It's me and you, Jake, and I'm going to take your challenge, and I'm going to dig into it. So here's your thought. You're a local artist. You've been convicted because you're thinking, man, i've heard Granger say that he left music because he was trying to promote himself, and now I'm feeling that feel a little funny about that. So you've sought counsel from your pastor great? Great, that's you know, that was the first place I would usually go. And so you've done that. Excellent. I'm so glad you're wrestling through that with him. But then you're thinking, Okay, well, there's the the flip side of the coin, Granger. If I don't promote myself, then no one's going to hear my music. And if I put up music for God, if I write music or perform music for God and no one hears it, then what's the purpose? And if everyone did this, then no one would hear music from God's that's the argument. And then here's the back half of your argument. God always uses flawed people for his good. He uses people for his good, and all people are flawed, and so therefore he uses broken, sinful note correct in your terms people to glorify himself. Yeah, and so everything we just said, I would say, yes, okay, I got it, I understand. Here's the other thing. We'll start here. We'll start with the God uses flawed people. We'll start there. You're absolutely right, God uses flawed people for good for his glory, but that is never an excuse for us to continue in the flawed way. We never continue in sin and pride. Pride is what we're talking about here. We would never move forward knowingly sinning pridefully and then say I'm doing this because I'm not perfect and God will use my imperfection for his glory. The Bible would never speak in those kind of terms or advocate that, And we also don't see an example of that being what we're supposed to do as believers. Instead, we're called to constantly eradicate our sin. Jesus speaks so seriously about sin that he says, if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out right. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. You know, he doesn't speak lightly about it. Jesus is not saying if your hand causes you to stumble, it's okay, because God uses all things for good and for his glory nobody's perfect. The Bible doesn't speak in that way. Now, we know that no one's perfect, and we know that God uses all things for good for his glory, and we know that he uses flawed, bad things for good. We know that, but that doesn't take away the fact that the Bible also says be perfect for your heavenly Father, it's perfect. Another way to say this is pursue holiness. Seek holiness at all costs. Not because the seeking saves you, not because the holiness that you create saves you. That's not what we're talking about. But a faithful saved Christian always seeks holiness as a result of the saving faith that was gifted to them by the Lord. And what we don't do as saved Christians is continue in sin. Notice I didn't say that we don't sin, but we do, but we don't continue in it because we always try. We try to eradicate it, seeking holiness, pursuing holiness because that is our sanctification and that is Listen to this. That is God's will for your life to be holy. Now, to say God's will for your life is somewhat complex, but certainly part of it is for you to be holy. That is his will for you. It is not to sin so that he could use your music to get to a lot of people. His will for you is to be holy. And if music is causing you to be prideful and prideful pridefulness is a sin, then cut it off, like Jesus would say about your eye. Gouge it out. Okay, So let me continue building the argument to say that no one can enjoy music unless it comes from a famous person. Ah, you know it's weird, right, You know that's not true because famous musicians is a is a recent thing. I mean, for the most part, only in the last one hundred years. You can go back to you could talk about Beethoven and Mozart. But to talk about in terms of what you're saying, an artist promoting, being promoted, promoting himself, and then becoming famous, that's like almost just shive a one hundred years old in the history of humanity. So to say that music needs to come from a famous person, and the famous person needs to promote themselves otherwise the music doesn't get heard that we can make a thousand arguments of why that's just not true. So many of the old hymn writers wrote thousands of hymns, and they never had the intention of being that their name being connected to it and them needing to promote themselves so that the hymn was heard and used for God's praise. That's never been the case. That's this is a brand new mentality, and even since the rise of social media has that idea really solidified. So let's read it. Let's read again with all these things in mind. Let's read these things. How then, is anyone to put up music for God? You say, so that other people can enjoy it and listen to it and worship along with it. And then you say it facilitates worship by creating new songs about God. Someone has to do it. And how can the music get out there without being promoted? I think of a lot of ways. I think I can think of a lot of ways of how a song about God could could be used by God for his people to worship him without the person who created it being famous or promoting themselves. However, I don't think that's your argument. I think you're kind of looking for it technicality in the argument that you're pushing back on me with your challenge. I don't think that's what you want to do. And so I would say, brother, search your heart on this. And this has come from one artist to the next. Jake, I would say, search your heart and figure out this. Took me years to test myself figure out where the motivation is coming from to promote yourself to be famous. Is the motivation to be famous coming on solely so that God may be glorified, or is it coming maybe maybe in a large part by you desiring to be famous or desiring to be successful in music. That's something to really wrestle with, something to really think through, and I think your answer will be surprising. I mean, I would go so far as to fast over this. I would go so far as to to to seek some kind of wilderness. We see this these kind of spiritual disciplines with Jesus himself seeking a quiet place, seeking the desert or the woods. Fasting in this I'm saying. I'm actually saying that because next week, as I record this next week, I'm going to be five days in the absolute barren desert, fasting for some things that I'm I'm working through, things that I need to be doing. So maybe that's something you can think about. I would I would make sure your spiritual disciplines are locked in in your your personal Bible reading time, your your personal prayer life, your Bible memory, scripture memory that your metadating on scripture consistency, sitting under a local church. Remember that was one of my arguments against being a famous singer, is you're sacrificing your Sunday mornings because typically you're out on a Saturday night traveling somewhere. So don't make yourself out to be a hero. I'm all finished with that idea. If you are struggling with the thought, if you're challenged, convicted by the thought that self promotion is not taking up your cross, denying yourself taking up your cross and following Jesus, or making more of him and less of you, if you find that that doesn't reconcile, and you're convicted with your current lifestyle, I will say, first of all, that's very much sound like the Holy Spirit convicting you in that. And then I would say, don't make yourself a hero, because you don't want to self appoint yourself as a martyr of sin and pride so that all these other people could listen to your songs and worship God. Don't be that guy. Don't be the guy. Yeah, I think all the end right there. I think only in there, Jake, will you keep in touch brother? Will you email back to so that I could hear. I'd love to hear your journey and how you're continuing to wrestle through this. And I would love to be a sounding board once again. Not that I'm right, but I would love to just hear how your journey continues. Next question comes from one of my favorite people that writes in, and that's the person that's named Anonymous. This person writes in all the time. It says, hey, there, I've been enjoying your podcast in your YouTube channel. I hope that Amber continues her podcast. They are truly seeing the spiritual growth you both have had since the beginning is amazing. I have a question. And by the way, I don't know this person. They said Anonymous, that was a joke I said earlier. I'll continue. I have a question. I'm wondering if someone could help me out. I'm from a small village in British Columbia, Canada, a small Mennonite village. We have three different churches in our community, Old Colony, which is a parenthesis very religious and said in their ways Mennonite Church more of any Evangelical with some Mennonite traditions. And In Grace Bible Church, which just opened up a few years ago. My husband and I grew up in the OC, which I'm assuming this old colony, but we have not attended church in the past ten years. I really like the teachings of In Grace Church, but they do one thing that was strongly taught against as we were growing up. If you were only baptized by pouring, they believe you should be immersed to join the church. The OC we grew up in does baptism. I would like to hear your points of view. I would love to hear what your Men and Nite friend has to share. Breaking free of the OC religion has been a journey. Thank you all right, Anonymous, Thank you for the email. I appreciate you so much. You're speaking my mind night friend. You're talking about Marv, and Marv is a He's more than a friend, he's a dear brother. I love that man and his family, and in fact I got to spend a little bit of time with him and his son Ross and my son Lincoln in North Carolina. We we took a little trip there, kind of a missionary trip really for humanitarian reasons after the hurricane. He's from South Carolina. We kind of met and and then just had a just a great time. I love Marv. I love his family, love his wife Brooke. So you need to know something about Marv. And he is a Mennonite pastor, but he is also a saved by grace, reborn believe in Christian and that comes before Mennonite or for my case, Baptist. So believing in Jesus, trusting him as your Lord and Savior, trusting the work that he did on the cross, dying on the cross, becoming a substitute for the punishment we deserve for our rebellion against God, and trusting that Jesus died on the cross for sins, saying that all who believe in him repent from their sins, will be saved and then live a surrendered life sanctified as a result of that saving of grace. That's what it means to be a Christian walking in repentance and faith because of the grace that we've been saved by. That's what it means. And so we'll put that ahead of Mennonite's Baptists, whatever evangelical version of the Mennonite Church that you're seeing or whatever. In grace Bible churches, I'm not really sure what they are. I'm assuming it's more of a typical Bible church that that I would know, but I'm not totally familiar with BC Canada. So we have to put that stuff first. Baptism is important. You know, a lot of people will view that as the the first good work as a result of the saving grace. So baptism doesn't save you, but it's a it's the first public display of God's transformation in us after we're saved. Baptism now, you know, if we study church history baptism, that that sacrament of baptism has been has been carried out in different ways, sprinkling, pouring, full immersion, and it's been handled as far as babies, children, and adults. Now, the Baptist tradition, for anyone that doesn't know, it's called believers baptism, and it's really just a straightforward idea. It's there's there's nothing super deep about it. I think even a non believer could understand what this means, and it means we baptize as a as a Baptist community, we baptize after a person confesses a belief in Jesus, after they have a have a reason too to identify or to enunciate, pronounce, tell about the transformation that they've had in Christ. It's an understanding. And basically, I'm just going back and defining again the same thing I said earlier about being a Christian knowing what Jesus did, knowing that we are sinners, and then there's nothing we could do to save ourselves from our own sin that's been inherited from our ancestors, the original sin that we have inherited, and it is killing us, and it will kill us, and we will end up in eternal judgment if we continue on without a savior to pull us out of it. So that and acknowledgment means, hey, I'm a Christian. You know, I guess this is a long way of saying I'm a Christian and I trust Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins. And when someone could say that and understand it at whatever age that might be, typically you most likely you would see that is something that a teenager at the earliest age could start saying, I understand now what Jesus did on a cross. I understand what it means to walk in faith, trusting Him for my forgiveness, not in myself. Typically, the earliest age you see that as teenage age, even though we know that people could be faithfully baptized at eight, nine, ten, eleven years old, but typically this is something an adult understands. It's an adult concept to be able to profess that faith, or as the Bible says, confess, So that is called that's the believer's baptism that Baptists have traditionally believed since the seventeenth century eighteenth century, right that that also it needs to be said that there's the tradition of pouring or baby sprinkling is also has a long history. And what we're talking about here, without me getting too fear into the weeds with this, I'm trying to make this as simple of a conversation as I can. What we're really talking about here is membership into that church. And so it is a bit of a formality, but I think it's a I think it's an intelligent formality. I think it makes sense that if you want to be in the church, you should be a Christian, and if you're a Christian, you should be baptized. And the tradition would say, as Baptist that you should be baptized after you're converted. You know that that's just it's kind of a simple thought, but I think it creates a little bit of a of a doorway into membership, and it's it shows a bit of a commitment and a step. It shows a public step in faith to say, you know what, I'm not ashamed that I believe that Jesus has died from my sins and I trust him with all the forgiveness that that I don't deserve. I believe in that with every fiber of my being. And I want to show that through baptism. And if you come up against a technicality where you love a church and you go, you know, I was sprinkled as a baby, but I love this church and I believe not just not just because I'm coerced into this idea, but I actually see that that practically makes sense that you know, baptism would come after I'm converted, and so I'm gonna get immersed. I think that's a that would be a way to show the church and anyone else that's watching that you know you don't you don't really care about looking silly or feeling dumb or being embarrassed. You're ready to tell people about what Jesus has done for you, and you're gonna do that in front of people, telling your testimony and getting into the water. So I'm trying my best to navigate a very difficult, honestly, a very difficult situation because I have a lot of respect for my dear Presbyterian brothers and sisters and so many in the men in Nite Church, and I believe there are people in the Baptist Church that are not converted. And I believe there are people in the men Nite Church that are not converted, and Presbyterian they're not converted. But I think there are people, hopefully mostly people that actually are converted. And I think this type of baptism of believers baptism helps fense that off a little bit. It helps distinguish the difference because so you don't have a church with with a bunch of members that are actually not believers. Yeah, I think even if you're if you're not a Christian, you could see how that could be problematic. You have a body, a membership, and they're not believers. That creates all kinds of problems, like endless problems. We could go for an hour talking about the problems that that could create. And that that's also different than saying just attending the church. Attending the church is open to everybody. Please, the doors are open. Everyone is welcome indiscriminately. You could come to the church and join in on the feasting of the Word that's being preached. But when it comes to baptism and the Holy and and and the and the Lord's Upper and the church membership, when it comes to those things, you gotta gotta be a Christian, you know. I mean, I don't think that's too much to ask, and I think anyone can understand it. So here's my point. I don't know anything about this North Grace Bible Church, so I can't speak, and I can't say, yeah, that sounds like a good deal. You should go, because you might be in the old colony. I don't know anything about. Besides, you said set in their ways, but I don't. I don't have a reference to which of these three churches is better. I don't know, and so I can't speak about how baptism would be the one thing that separates you, because it's not. I wouldn't go there. I would back up further and go a step before that and say, which one of these three is preaching the word of God? Which one of these three is teaching from the pulpit the Bible? Not an opinion, but they're they're they're going, they're working through text, and they're saying today the message today is John. Please turn with me to John chapter three, verses one through six, and we're gonna work. I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna read these and then we're going to talk about what this author meant by this and how it can apply to our lives today. And that would be the teaching we need to hear and we want to hear. And if if one of these three is doing that and the other two aren't, go to that one and we could deal with this baptism. And that's a lot for a Baptist to say that, but we could deal with that later. But first, I want you to be fed and nourished in your town, as you say, a small town in British Columbia. I want you to be nourished by the word of God, and I want that to happen before you're arguing or trying to deal with Should you be immersed or sprinkled or poured? Does that makes sense? Difficult situation with you, anonymous, but I think we shouldn't know for complicated. I hope that makes sense. I hope all these questions make sense. And I love that you guys email me tough things, so message me podcast at grangersmith dot com. See y'all next Monday, Gig, thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. Yigi