Let's Connect
The Official Podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you live a life that matters; one that is both on mission and has a purpose to know Jesus and make disciples.
Let's Connect
Episode 28 - Following Christ, Not Religion
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Connect Church explores the critical distinction between following Christ and following church traditions, religious preferences, or popular pastors. We examine how easy it is to become attached to worship styles, Bible translations, or church culture rather than pursuing Jesus Himself.
• Christians often struggle to leave churches that have drifted from biblical teaching due to comfort and familiarity
• The early disciples abandoned everything to follow Jesus, while modern believers often resist minor changes
• Churches risk having their "lampstand removed" when they stop centering on Christ's teachings
• People frequently follow personal preferences rather than biblical truth, staying in churches that have strayed doctrinally
• The wide road of merely believing in Christ versus the narrow road of actually walking with Christ daily
• Technology and modern life make it easier to drift into worldliness while maintaining religious appearance
Join us at Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas at the American Legion on Highway 487. Prayer begins at 10am followed by fellowship, with worship at 10:30am. Children's programs available. Visit our website for more information.
Welcome to Let's Connect Podcast
Speaker 1Welcome to let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you to live a life that matters, one that is both on mission and has a purpose to follow Jesus and make disciples. So let's get started.
Speaker 2All right, welcome in to let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church here in Rockdale, texas. I'm your host, bill Whitmire, and I'm here with our pastor, as always, ken Ansell. Ken, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. How are you doing? It is hot, it's like okay, I've said it's hot several times in the last few weeks, but even you got to admit this is brutal. I mean, are you still sitting in the garage reading?
Speaker 3Half today, yeah.
Speaker 2How. Yeah, it's good man, I love it. Man, that's all right. All right, man, I love it. Man, that's um all right, all right. I, like you know, I'm a little, I'm a little chubby guy, I got a little extra fur on me, so I gotta stay a little. That's funny a little. Um, your deal may be down, so uh, so anyway. Uh, everything's going good. We are in an american legion here in rockdale. It's just north of town on 487.
Speaker 2It's been a great venue so far. I want to thank those guys for letting us utilize that space. It's a little man. Somebody said cramp the other day and that was the wrong word. I think it's not as open as some of the other venues that we've had and so folks are a little closer together. But it feels I kind of like it. It's kind of like old-timey church a little bit, because you're closer to everybody.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's what I hear.
Speaker 2Yeah, and acoustics are good, everything's good.
Following Christ vs Following Church
Speaker 2We got room for Camp Connect. Nurse and I did that last week and then the nursery has their own room. Yeah, that's great. So it's been really good. I want to, like I said, I want to thank the guys at the American Legion for hosting us. That's been really really nice out there. So today, something popped in my head earlier this week and we talked about it a little bit and how to talk about it. And you know, this is something that bothers me. I won't say it bothers me, it's something I think about a lot when I hear people talk about their church or about their religion and what they're looking for in that church or that religion, and so many people. And at Connect Church we have a really good church body, we have a really good church community. We have a really good church body, we have a really good church community and what I like so much about how we go through it is that we reference everything, we move everything towards following Christ, not following Connect Church not following Ken Ansell, not following Bill Whitmire.
Speaker 2It always sits on the number two pew on the left side, not following anybody or anything, not following the church, not following whether you're a Baptist or you're Catholic or you're a Methodist. It's not about that. It's about following Christ and all too often churches and parishioners and folks, they'll follow that church or they'll follow that pastor that they really like or that message that they really like, that we've talked about it before, that easy Christianity, that church of me, not of the type of attitude and it's hard for a lot of people to understand because they'll come to a church where maybe the music doesn't have a fog machine and lights or doesn't have drums and a heavy metal guitar or the pastor's you know too serious or isn't preaching that how to live your best life now type mentality.
Speaker 2And so it kind of goes to that where we can't be dedicated to God if we're at the same time dedicated to our desire on those worldly pleasures. Wow.
Speaker 3Man kind of got my head spinning. Yeah, why are we where we are? Why are we doing what we're doing? Do we continue to keep Christ exalted, christ-centric right To what we're trying to accomplish? Are we going to worship to do that right, to assign worth to God and to worship accurately with our church family, to worship accurately with our church family? Or are we treating any of that like a social club? And if we get upset because we're not having enough potlucks or something you know, does that impact our attendance? Yeah, why is it so hard to live a Christ-centric life and let church and the things of church right? The discipleship, the fellowship, things like that are secondary, maybe, to following Christ. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2Yeah, it does. You know a lot of people. They come into these churches and and we play contemporary music. I guess is is what you'd call it. Some of it's brand new, some of it's you know. A while back, audio adrenaline actually hadn't put anything out in a long time. So, man I dig that I was listening to that earlier today that's why I was talking about that in the worship?
Speaker 2yeah, yeah, we have one. We have at least one of the songs that we sing and there it is. But going back to that, I know that for my own mother that was a tough deal when the old church we went to split the service and they would have two services.
Speaker 2They had one with contemporary music first thing in the morning, and then they had one with contemporary music first thing in the morning, and then they had one with traditional music, and that got to be a logistical difficulty and you really only had about 30 or 40 people in either service. Oh wow, let's put it back together, let's have one service at the normal time. And so they started doing.
Speaker 2The first three songs would be contemporary songs and then they would do the announcements and the old style offering and then the next three songs would be traditional from the hymnal type songs. And that seemed to calm everybody down. And the thing for me was I never got that. I like the old time hym that I like, the old-time hymns. I like contemporary music? I just never. But going back to what I was saying, though, that is, the things that people concern themselves with in a church.
Speaker 2I had somebody the other day that asked me to listen to our podcast and said so, you guys use the ESV over there and I said well, some folks you know, I know that Ken and I do but then some of the other folks use the NIV and some of them use other.
Speaker 2you know they use Holman or whatever they want to use, you know. And he said, yeah, we're strict, king James, and I'm like, I get it and they're like you know, it's just they changed too much in the other deals. And I asked him, I said did you ever think that, of all the new archaeological finds, all the new ancient transcripts that they found in the time that they wrote the King James, until they wrote now? And maybe now the translations might be a little more accurate, but when you put them both together, they essentially, for the most part, most of them, say the same thing but that was his hang-up.
Speaker 2He can't leave his church because they use, yeah, and, and the funny thing, they use the new king james version not the original 1611. Yeah, and so I just you know, to me is like you're just finding a reason to stay where you are, and that's not always the good reason to stay in a church or with a certain religion.
When Churches Drift from Scripture
Speaker 3Yeah, I struggle relating to that argument. It's tough for me to understand that we're going to have a big block party and, uh, we kind of got a menu set. You know, we're going to celebrate our second anniversary and one of the things we're going to do on Saturday is spend some hang time and invite the neighborhood to come and do this block party. And somebody said, uh, somebody had said hey, do you think we need nachos? And they asked me. I said this will sound silly, but hey, somebody suggested we need some nachos and I said you know they wanted me to weigh in on it. I said you know what, if I think less is more, like we've got a menu set and it's good. But I said if we have nachos, I'm going to be. If I show up to the block party and there's nachos, I'm going to be okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, I might even eat some, I might even eat some.
Speaker 3But yeah, so it's tough for me to relate to that. I mean, that's even choirs. I remember I served at a church where they still had chairs up in what would have been the choir loft. They had removed the modesty panel or rail that was gone, but they still had the chairs. And I remember talking to one of the staff members one day it's a pretty good-sized church. I said we just need to let people know that the choir is not coming. I mean there hadn't been a choir in 10 years. The choir is not coming back. And I mean let's make some room. We had a full platform of people playing instruments and backup singers. I mean Casey and the Sunshine Band didn't have anything on the church I'm talking about. And the staff member was like no, no, you can't tell people the choir's not coming back. I go well, why you know. But I mean if people get upset about like they just need hope, their hope ought to be in that Christ is coming back. Right, he is coming back.
Speaker 3But their hope ought to be in that christ is coming back. Right, he is coming back, yeah. But their hope is maybe you know that a choir's coming back, and so you know we did.
Speaker 2We never actually announced the choir's not coming back, but we did move the chairs and you know, people just um change it's the change, change yeah uh, when you you know when when you begin your walk with God, when you receive that grace, when your life is changed, when you're baptized, when you come to the Lord, your life is going to change and so many folks don't want that change, whether it's in their worldly life or in their church or in their religion.
Speaker 2And I've been amazed over the last few years when you have people that are quote-unquote good Christians and they're in a church who has one of those schisms. We've seen it in the Methodist church, we've seen it in Baptist churches, we've seen it in just about every church there is. The Episcopal church, I guess was like the one that just was the first real one that blew up with all of this. Yeah, up with all of this, yeah and and uh, it's all in the name of, of acceptance of worldly items, that that the bible speaks against. And you know you get to that place and you'll see people. They won't change churches, even though they know their church has moved away from.
Speaker 2God, yeah, whoa. And that's where it comes back to that. They're following that religion, they're following that church, they're following that preacher, but they're not following Christ. Yeah, yeah, and I don't know where you go to help. I'll talk to those people and a lot of times they'll get mad at me.
Speaker 3Yeah, they do get mad. It's a comfort level, a complacency. What are we here for? Yeah, we've strayed. We don't naturally drift towards following Jesus because of our flesh. We don't naturally drift towards discipleship. I remember a guy taught a Sunday school class in a church I served at and they used the old Lifeway quarterly curriculum. You got a little study guide. You're supposed to take that thing home and fill in the blanks and do all that good stuff. And he said there were some people that would just leave the book right there where they sit. They wouldn't take it home.
Speaker 1Come back and get it the next week.
Speaker 3Yeah just come back and open it up and they're not challenged, they're not changing, they're not being transformed, sanctified, and you've got to. Really, you know that's concerning. I know it's concerning for this man, as a Sunday school teacher, to go. You know you want to go, what's going on in your life, but teacher to go, you know what's. You want to go, what's going on in your life, but it looks like nothing, right. I mean.
Speaker 3So why do we do those things? The flesh is a very strong and you know friendships, right, we do create relationships within the body. I mean, we say church isn't like family, it is family. And so we create these familial relationships that are very hard to leave, even if you know, like Elvis has left the building, if God has left the building, you know. But we see man, there's seven letters right in Revelation that talk about this kind of same thing in a way, and I imagine it's tough for people to break free from Ephesus or Laodicea and of course I mean that was the church, right. But now we've got a plurality of places you can go.
Speaker 2But even then, when it was just seven, each one of those churches had issues.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the lampstand. Is the lampstand gone, jennifer? I have this debate a lot. We don't agree. When is the lampstand gone? Jennifer, I have this debate a lot, we don't agree. When is the lampstand?
Speaker 1gone.
Speaker 3When has God removed the lampstand of the church?
Speaker 2It's just yeah. No, that's a great point. I hadn't thought of that either. I'm sure that'll get in the discussion bracket tonight at the Whitmire household.
Speaker 3There you go.
Speaker 2But we hear a lot of people say I don't want to give that up, that's so hard for, or that's what a lot of them say it's so hard for me to give that up, so hard for me to. That was such a big part of my life. Yeah Well, fishing was a big part of a lot of the disciples' lives.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Matthew's job as a tax collector in his big, beautiful house and all the riches he had yeah were a huge part of his life yeah and and when you look at the other disciples, you know they all gave everything.
Speaker 2Yeah, they were like, all right, jesus, I'm gonna give this up, but yeah, but how do I replace this? How, you know I really like doing this. How do I replace this? You know I really like doing this, how do I replace this? And then you have somebody like Paul who I mean he's all in for the exact wrong reasons. Yeah, and I mean, basically, jesus just dropkicks him. Yeah, you know, dropkicks him blind, you know.
Speaker 2And after that he gave up everything. Yeah, he went to prison, he was shipwrecked and eventually beheaded for something that, before that happened, he would have been the condemner instead of the condemned. And we have a hard time when we can't listen to heavy metal music yeah, which, by the way, I was never really a heavy metal.
Personal Preferences vs Spiritual Growth
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean neither. Yeah, how man you know Jesus? Jesus is like no one else and when you meet him and you're and you buy into him, he becomes your. Everything. Paul said everything else was garbage. You know His resume, his doctorate. You know everything that he had was just nothing compared to his relationship with Christ and that's all he wanted was to know Christ. Right, that's what he said. I want to know the power of his resurrection. Paul wanted to experience everything that he could in Christ as a Christian Early. In Acts they get beat up and told to shut up and they leave rejoicing that they got to experience something we just got whooped.
Speaker 3Yeah, some of the life of Jesus was you know. So why do we not relate to that Like rather than my personal preferences at a, at a church service or or whatever? Like, who am I Right?
Speaker 2I've told you this before and and probably said it on here. You know you're exactly right. Who, who am I? And that creeps into every part of your life. You know I, I have, uh, you know I have, I have relatives and I have good friends and they have a lot of really cool things and I'm I'm often tempted and I want some of those things, you know, and then that starts to creep into your mental side to where that becomes something that's taken up part of your time.
Speaker 2And you know, I remember somebody said to me one time man, I can't wait till I get my new RV. And I don't remember who said it to me, but the gist of it was and maybe it was in one of the books we read last year during the summer book club deal, but it was somewhere in there that when you reach that point where that becomes something in your life, I can't wait for that.
Speaker 2That's just become a God in your life, yeah, yeah, it's become an idol in your life. A little G God, an idol in your life, yeah.
Speaker 1An idol in your life a little G God. An idol in your life, yeah.
Speaker 2And we should be thinking that about our Christian life and about our life and our relationship with God. Man, I just you know I can't wait to be able to be in church on Sunday and be ready to go and be able to worship God.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2You know, and instead we all do we, we and we all do it. We have those things we're looking forward to and you know I can't wait for this. And when does that start to overtake things in your life?
Speaker 3Yeah, and you're just. You know we're talking about. Am I? Am I following my personal preferences or am I following Jesus? Am I going where Jesus is going? Right? Blackaby, in experiencing God, in his epic study, coined the phrase we find where God is at work and we join Him there. And we may have to die to personal preferences. Right, we may have to die to our feelings, but the Scripture is just full of these stories of people doing hard things, having to leave. Right, abraham, just go, no roadmap, just go, packing up and leaving. And we, unfortunately, a lot of Christians I just don't even know how to say it without ticking people off I mean, we really like following ourselves and we become our own little G-gods, right? We sure do.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm the God of my life in a way. And that's where we get into that, and that's part of the reason why we stay in churches that aren't Christ-centered, that aren't working on relationships with Christ, that are just in survival mode. That's why we stay with religions, because that's all we've ever known. And okay, yeah, they're allowing gay marriage or this or that or the other things that are not biblical, but you know what? That's where I've been my whole life. That's where I'm going to stay, even though that's not biblical, what?
Speaker 1that's where I've been my whole life. That's where I'm gonna stay, even though.
Speaker 2That's not biblical, that's not scriptural, that's not where you need to be if you have a true relationship with christ yeah, you know, you want to be where god is, where he celebrated accurately through scripture and that was a go ahead.
Speaker 3I'm sorry.
Speaker 2No, I was just saying always yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3I mean, that was the— Scripture says God is searching for people that will worship in spirit and in truth, and if there's issues, then we want to be rid of that and we want to be where others, like-minded people, are worshiping Him accurately like-minded people are worshiping him accurately.
Walking with Christ on the Narrow Road
Speaker 2We talk about things now and my parents are still with me and I hear from them from time to time and they'll say something like well, the world's changed so much since I was your age I don't know that it has. Here's what's changed is the ease with which we see everything now, the ability for the world to transmit within seconds. So you know, right now there's a documentary about the Dallas Cowboys on and people are amazed at what went on with the Cowboys in the 90s and what they got away with from legal standpoints and other things, and they're like I just can't believe they got away.
Speaker 1Well, there were no cell phones there weren't people standing there, video and every single thing that happens so I don't know that times are are any really any more difficult than they used to be?
Speaker 2it's just that there's more people on the planet and there's more ease of media production of everything. Look at this podcast. This isn't possible. 30 years ago we're yeah, we're begging, you know krxt 30 years ago for for 20 minutes of air time once a week, and now we can produce our own podcast and put it out. And so when we see that it has made it easier as you said before we went on the air to shift from a grace and faith-filled lifestyle psychology however you want to say it over to one that is actually worldly to sit there on your phone for an hour and death scroll through stuff that you probably shouldn't be watching anyway.
Speaker 2You know, or you know, we're going to watch, gonna watch whatever show you got.
Speaker 1You know, when you and I were growing up, we had three channels yeah pbs was off the air in the evening anyway, right and now we spend probably.
Speaker 2If you watch a lot of tv, you probably spend as much, if not more, time trying to figure out what you're gonna watch, then you do actually watch. I give up yeah, yeah I mean, there's times when I'm just like man, there's nothing, turn it off. You know, I said that the other night and our youngest daughter was home and she's like you want to watch some TV. I'm like, ah, there's nothing on there.
Speaker 2And she looks at me and she's like you got like every want to watch anything on there. You know, yeah, yeah and so. But when we look at our lives, we look at where we are, and it's so easy to shift away from that faith and from your faith, from that grace, from our love of God and our relationship with God, and it's so easy to fall off into this worldly deal. You sent me a picture a while back and it was the wide road and the narrow road and it said these people, the wide road, and it said you know, these people believe in Christ. And then these people walk with Christ.
Speaker 2And then somebody animated it and I sent it back to you either today or yesterday, I don't know. But, man, I think about that simple image so much now, and I see things that are going on in our society and in the Christian world in air quotes you can't see me, but in the Christian world, and how many people follow that. And then this little subset of people that are actually walking down that narrow road and actually walking with Christ and not just
Speaker 2walking around as a Christian, but actually walking with Christ. And so, as you go about your daily life and you're thinking about this stuff, think about where you are. Are you following a person? Are you following a religion? Are you following a church or a singular pastor, or the cool kids? That's where the cool kids go to church, that's where I'm going to go. I remember I had a friend. His whole family was Methodist but he came to our church growing up and I asked him one time I said why do you come to our church?
Speaker 2Because, because all the cool kids are here.
Speaker 3Yeah. I said what's the cool church in Cameron? He said there's not one. That's what he told me. He said it was in Rockdale. It wasn't our church.
Speaker 2But I mean, that's just. You know, we get worried about that worldly stuff. We're looking for that worldly stuff and we move that worldly stuff into our Christian life, and that's where our Christian life should be, not our worldly life. Amen.
Speaker 3So we're there, you're up, brother.
Speaker 2I am Okay. Yeah, I'm on it.
Speaker 2Dear Lord, we thank you for all that you do for us and we just praise daily lives to look at the things that we are doing in our daily lives and how we're allowing you to work through us, because, god, we can't do it. It's not up to us, we're not going to be the ones that make it happen. You make it happen. We have to be that instrument you use, not us being an instrument for you, but allowing you to work through us as your instrument. And so, father, I just pray that you would help folks to open their ears, open their hearts and allow you to come into their lives and fill them with your Holy Spirit, and just let them allow you to work through them. Father, I thank you for all that you do in our lives and I ask you to watch out for us all and to keep us all safe, according to your plan. Father, thank you for all that you do, for it's in Christ's name. We pray Amen. All right, and that is episode 28. Up to 28 now.
Speaker 2Episode 28. Hey, if you're in town, you're in Rockdale on Sunday, come by. It's American Legion, it's the Carlisle Post American Legion. It's out on 487. We kick off with a 10 o'clock prayer, Then we go into donuts, coffee and fellowship and then we start the worship service at 1030. Kids are welcome. We have a nursery and we have Camp Connect, which is our children's church. So come join us. We'd love to see you. If not, we'll be right back here next week. Every week, If you have any questions, comments, you want to give us something to talk about? There is a link on the website and anywhere you're getting this podcast Till next week, God bless.
