There are times when canceling church service might feel responsible. It feels like a wise thing to do to pastors. Then ask yourself whether you're protecting people or teaching them that they can do that at church. I'm packing this today. I'm creating today's show.
You're listening to Clear View today, Dr. Abadan Shah, the A show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis, and thank you for joining us for another great episode of the Clear View Today Show right here in North Carolina. It's going to become relevant in just a second.
We're talking about some great, great things for your church and your ministry today. But before we do anything, that will introduce our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. Listening for the very first time, Dr. Shah, Ph.D.
in New Testament, textual criticism, Professor Carolina University author, full-time pastor, and host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome. It's cold. It's cold.
Let's go, man. It's warm in here. It feels good in here. I'm liking the protection we got. It's cold in North Carolina.
It is. Cold outside, warmer. And I already know what's going to happen because people up in New England, up in Boston, up north is completely. It's still the cold. I'm from North Carolina.
This is cold. This is all this is the only climate that I know. I'm sure if I was born in Antarctica or whatever, it would not sound like a warm summary's day. Dr. Shah, you grew up in India.
Yes. It's not. It doesn't get this cold. Of course, I'm up in the Hills, but don't get this cold here. You repeat it.
Now, when I grew up, the highest temperature during winter would be probably 50 to 55 degrees. It's just like a light till near. Yeah, it feels cold to you. Yeah, of course. Of course, it felt very cold.
Not very cold. Maybe it felt cold. Yeah, yeah, cold. And so summers were very hot. I mean, it could be up to 12 degrees.
That's what I'm saying. But winters would be, I would say, 50, 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I think it'll go way north. And other parts in India where they're very mountainous, they're known as hill stations. This is where.
Often the British families would go to escape the heat. And it gets kind of cool. It can drop down to like in the 40s or something at times. But if you go further north, like Kashmir, of course, yeah. I mean, the tallest.
You know, peak of the world, Mount Everest is in India. Yeah, that's a border. You can leave it snow cover, too.
So absolutely. But when you came here, oh, yeah, when you came here for the first time, did you notice like the drop in temperature in winter time? I was like, this is really cool. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Trying to get from class back to the dorm or dorm to the cafeteria. It was like, oh, kind of wanna go, but I have to eat. If I don't eat, you know, I can't survive.
Well, I gotta go to class. I have to. Since your sister started living here, one of my favorite annual pastimes is seeing when fall rolls around and like that little breeze, that little autumn breathe gets in the air, she bundles it up and she looks like she's got a huge park on it and like a little. I don't like this. I don't like this.
We're talking about this outside because right now we're in the middle of a cold front and there's been some snow on the ground. There's been some ice on the ground. And as everybody on the internet knows, when snowfall happens in the wintertime, North Carolina goes into a blind friend, it loses its mind. Peter panic. People go in to raid the supermarkets.
There is no bread. There is no milk. Everybody's eating French toast for next week. They're like milk-covered French toast. And what ends up happening is at the first sign of a little flurry, everything's canceled.
Schools are canceled. More importantly, businesses shut down. Churches get canceled. Yeah. And we thought it would be fun to talk today about our view on that as a church and as a leadership team about why we're very, very, we're not quick to cancel.
You know what I mean? Yeah. We're not. And there's a reason for that because the more you cancel church, it's raining, we gotta cancel it. It's Thunderlike, and we've gotta cancel it.
Snow ice, we gotta cancel it.
Now, ice is one time that I will say, yeah, we need to go and cancel it. And even snow, because unlike up north, we don't have the capability to clean the roads. And so, things like that. I don't want to be sensitive. I don't want to put the lives of our people, especially our staff, in danger.
So, I understand that. But I always wait. I'll wait and I wait and I wait.
Sometimes people are saying, You don't let people know, like, they have common sense. Yeah, yeah. And I promise you, they will crawl on their hands and knees to work. They will roll all the way to Walmart. But when it comes to church, yeah, then I go, Oh, it looks like it might possibly be by swing, I might see a snowflake in the sky.
I'm not gonna- Oh, believe me, believe me, me, because we had we had a live storm this past weekend, and they're saying that there might be another one this one where we are in North Carolina. And you better believe Monday. People already deciding that church on Sunday, this coming up Sunday, six days from now is gonna be canceled. And we're not talking like the average person in church, we're talking like leadership pastors, packages of the church is saying, you know, in the forecast, we're gonna go ahead and just call it off. I like what you said to, Dr.
Shaw, where like people have common sense because a lot of times people say we don't have leadership. You have to let people know what's going on. It's like, you really don't. Because if you were to say, hey guys, the roads outside are bad, we're still having church. That doesn't mean they're gonna start coming.
Right, yeah, right.
So, I mean, the policy that we have adapted or adopted over the years is that we're going to make sure the last moment we are having church. But if it comes down to it, yes, we're not going to put the lives of our staff in danger. That's what I'm concerned about more because average person may not come, right? They'll be like, I don't know, I'm staying home. But the staff want to make sure they're safe.
So, other than that, we don't cancel church. That's right. Because I grew up in church back in India, and we were very careful about canceling church. And maybe partly is because I literally lived four feet from the church. That's right, five feet from the church.
So, canceling church was not an option. I don't care what's happening out there. We can walk into the church in two steps. Yeah. Right.
So we're having church. Yeah. It's hard for you to get there. Yeah, and it's funny because a lot of people will do that. They'll be like, but the focus is on you.
You have to decide whether or not I'm coming. And like I said, you've already decided. Yeah, people have already made that decision. You know what's funny? Go ahead.
No, go ahead. You know what's funny is like, have you guys ever had roped into plans like dinner plans with people you really don't want to have dinner with? And you know good well that night of they're going to cancel or you're going to cancel someone's going to cancel you're going to feel that sense of relief. That is how a lot of people feel when you tell them, hey, church cancels this because we don't have services at all. I can stay home.
Why is that? Why do people feel that? Yeah, I mean, it's sad because it's almost a relief that I don't have to go sit there and be around people who're going to talk Jesus stuff, right? And then they'll tell me what not to do. It's just a negative way to see church.
Don't look at it like that. And because we are getting away from those values, the Judaician values, that we now look at church as optional. I was talking to a gentleman today, just a day, and he was talking about the blue laws. Back in the day, the blue laws, you know, regarding Sunday. Sunday was the day of rest.
Sunday was the day shops were closed, no games, nothing happening. And the gentleman even told me that when he was growing up, he's like, dad was not a strict person, but he wouldn't let us change out of our Sunday clothes. Really? Yeah. In a sense, we like to stay in those Sunday clothes because it's a special day.
And he's like, he kept repeating. He's like, my dad was not even a strict person, right? But he felt like this was a special day. The more we're getting away from that, like, why in the world would we want to do that? Why does Sunday have to be given to God?
There's a fundamental problem with that thinking. It's very easy to think. I can do that. Last Sunday when we didn't have service, I was able to write a book review for a journal, a theological journal. They've been asking me to finish this book review.
I was like, oh, I gotta do it. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm gonna use this time to catch up. And I got two pages done.
So understand that you can get caught up on things if you just ignore charge, just don't go to church. You can get things done or hang out or watch a movie or sleep. Yeah. I get it one time, but when that becomes a habit, sooner or later it's gonna impact your value.
Sooner or later, it's gonna impact. The spiritual growth, not only of yourself, but also of your family, your children, your grandchildren, right? And that is not just, yeah, stay in church. That has eternal consequences, right? Eternal consequences, right?
And it's easy to say, it's easy to defensive. We're not going to make it a habit. But, like, even here in our situation, in our team, like our surrounding communities, we're seeing that, like, we have ICE. Yes, most churches did cancel, including us. But then at the first whisper of the head this weekend, we may, we may, we're gonna cancel it, we gotta cancel it again.
So we're not gonna have it. We're not gonna have it. But you said before, Dr. Shaw, what you do and what you prioritize, your kids will do an access. That's right.
And so, if you are kind of wishy-washy about church, if you view, kind of like, oh, you know, making sure that you don't have to choose, we can watch online. I mean, generation, your kids aren't gonna prioritize church in front of us.
So when it's nice outside, well, you have a nice day. Let's get it. That's right. I gotta tell you.
So, you mentioned online, because that is a thing that a lot of people are doing. Like, we want to make sure we do online services so that when time like this happens, when we started doing online, and even up till today, our online views during service were pretty low. And it really discouraged me. I remember talking about it with you, and you told me, you should watch one day when we don't have service when we do it online, how the views go up. And it made me realize that our views are so low because people prioritize coming here.
People prioritize me. You look at this past week, whereas we normally would have had 20 30 online views. We have about 400. It was insane.
So I guess that what I'm saying is, sometimes you end up looking at that online view, like oh, we're not well, but it could be that you're not delivered. It could also be that people prioritize what you're doing here, and it's an example of church downright. You know, it makes me sad. To hear people who are so quick to view not having service as a relief, because I wonder how quickly we forgotten just a few years ago when we weren't able to waiting for service with the pandemic, right? Not having services and then having Christians policing each other and saying, Oh, you're putting us in danger.
That's right. Why are there no masks in there? You know, I mean, stuff like that. And I'm like, oh, it sads me. And it since it also irritates me because I'm like, dude, did you forget?
Did you forget we had to fight to believe in that? Did you forget when we had to fight to have some semblance of normalcy meeting together? And we did, we fought for it. And we were able to get back and get it back to building new normal services.
So now when I hear people talk about not having service as a side relief, it frustrates me. We talked a little bit to congregate, but what would you say to pastors? Because maybe there's pastors who are like, you know what? On paper, I completely agree with you. But my congregation, man, if I just say, hey, we're going to wait, they're going to give me trouble.
They're going to complain. They're going to send me texts. They're going to write me letters. What do you say to pastors who are struggling with that? Read history.
Take the time to read the history of what God did during some of these kind of storms. And the one that most easily comes to my mind is a conversion of Charles Spurgeon. You know, two years ago when I was in England with Nicole, one of the places that I really wanted to visit was Charles Spurgeon's church, Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, and then go by his graveside, which was further south. And I was able to do both. I did the church service and then went off to see his graveyard gravesite.
It was very powerful to just say this. Theorialized the man. But how did he get saved?
Now, for those of you who may not know, who those who are watching listening, Charles Spurgeon was born on June the 19th, 1834, 1834, to John and Eliza Spurgeon in a place called Kelvin, or Kelvion, which is sort of northeast. North northeast of London. And his parents did not have much money. They were financially challenged. And so Spurgeon often was sent off to live with his grandfather, James, who was a pastor of a congregational church.
in Stanbourn.
So this is where he spent most of his time. He's mom dad didn't have much money, right? Grandfather being a pastor opened the door for Spurgeon to read some of the books in his library. And his grandfather, the congregationalist, had a lot of Puritan writings, the writings of Richard Baxter, the Reform pastor, John Bunyan, the Baptist Puritan. And so he read a lot of these writings, so his heart was sort of moved towards the things of God.
But he wasn't saved. Oh, so long story short, he spends time with his grandfather, but then he goes back home and since then his family had moved from Calvedon to uh Colchester.
Okay. And so this again Colchester would be kinda again north northeast of uh I was at northeast of London, kinda on the east close to the east coast of southern London.
So he's in Colchester, and this is In January, January the 6th, 1850. It's a cold winter morning. I mean, cold, cold, cold. I believe there was even snow on the ground. Pressure face cold.
Yes, it's very cold. And Spurgeon decided to go to church on Sunday morning. But churches were closed, you know, and so some of the churches were closed. And so he begins to go to find a church. Kind of a snowstorm sort of blew in suddenly, and Spurgeon was forced to kind of go down a side street.
He was headed to one church. To a chapel where he liked to go, but he was kind of forced to go down and find refuge in a primitive Methodist chapel. Primitive Methodists. Who are primitive Methodists?
Well, I don't know who Primitive Baptists are, they're people who. They They don't have musical instruments. They don't have all the stuff. I'm not sure if the printed methods are sort of the same. Maybe.
Maybe they could be. They have a very. Their polity is very much non-hierarchical.
So everybody's equal in this. We make this decision together. They don't interact with other churches, like cooperate too much. They'll work together, but they're not going to be association. No, definitely not an Intrigue Bethetta.
I think Integrated Methodists may be very close to that. Anyway, so he ends up in Imperial Methodist chapel, just a handful of people there. Other chaplains are closed. The printed Methodist chapel is open. He said he went in there and the Methodists were singing so loudly That gave him a headache.
And Spurgeon, yeah. He's 1834, this is 1850.
So, what he's about, maybe what, 16 years old? Probably. Very young.
So, he's there. He wants to go to church because his grandfather's influence on him. He wants to get in church on Sunday morning, but ends up in his Methodist chapel. And then a lay deacon, uneducated lay deacon, stands up because a regular preacher was unable to come because of the snowstorm. And he preaches from Isaiah 45 and verse 22.
Isaiah 45, verse 22 says, Look unto me and be saved, all you ends of the earth. And He said, This man, he didn't know how to preach.
So he kept repeating the same statement louder and with more drama and with more intensity each time. Like it will mean more each time that I say it again, louder and stronger. Keep doing that. Once more with feeling. And amazing how the Holy Spirit works.
He used a snowstorm Sunday. Where Spurgeon had to go to this building, the Spanish Methodist Chapel, which was probably the only one open with a bunch of fanatics. And there he hears this message. He said, He's like, all of a sudden, my eyes were open. He says, I had been waiting to do 50 things, but when I heard that word look, This is a charming word, it seemed to be.
Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. And when that, there, and then the cloud was gone. He goes on to say that darkness had rolled away. And that moment I saw the sun, and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to him.
Now, suppose that pastor had said, hey, it's snowing outside. That's why we're closing our church. But the pastor couldn't make it. Oh, yeah. The regular preacher couldn't make it.
The late preacher got up there and he just kept on saying the same thing with the newfound passion every time. This is people in the church fighting to have church. And Spurgeon got saved that cold, wintry snowstorm Sunday morning in Colchester, North of England. Wow. Wow.
What does Spurgeon do? I mean, think about the millions and millions of people who have been impacted by Spurgeon's ministry. That's right. I mean, I grew up in India and my dad had books last person. Think about how many people have read his messages.
Hundreds of thousands, thousands of people. That was even millions of people. And how many people have been saved? Our own church's ministry has been impacted by Spirit. Yeah, that's right.
I remember years ago. One Sunday morning, and there was no snowstorm or anything like that. Uh, but I was teaching Sunday school. You know, I'd go to Sunday school class, and nobody showed up.
However, and so this happened in this building, this is the old old building, the first building we were in. And so, I'm up in the classroom and I decided to open up Spurgeon's message. I think I had a book or something, Spurgeon's messages, and it was a message from John. If I be lifted up, what's the passage? John 33, 12.
12, 32, 12, 33. John doesn't have 32, it had to be some form of that. If the numbers were right, this is not right.
So, I read Spurgeon's message on John 12:32. If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to myself. And as I read that message, I mean, it's in, you know, Spurgeon. Preached. And then there was always a stenographer who would take notes.
And then they would get the notes transcribed. And the Spurgeon would then go and look through those notes and add things, delete things, make things better. And then that message would go out.
So he didn't write first. He actually spoke at first.
Somebody wrote it down shorthand and then transcribed them. And the Spurgeon would make the necessary changes and then send them out. That's incredible. And so, anyways, listening, I mean, reading that message. Is what really got me because I was so discouraged.
Like, nobody's there. We're here waiting, and people are not even coming. And that message reminded me: what I need to do, which is lift up Christ, and He will draw people's. Don't lift yourself up, don't try to lift the church, don't try to lift the community, don't try to lift whatever. Lift up Jesus Christ, and He has that magnetic power to draw people.
And that has become a foundation for our churches growing in our street. That's right. Now, why do I share that? This person hadn't gotten saved on that stormy, wintry morning. On the Sunday of January the 5th, 1830.
I'm sorry, January 6th, 1850. We will be sitting here today. That's right. That's right. That's a good reminder for us as we're looking at, you know, you're looking at a forecast, you're looking at what you people are saying, you're looking at what the churches around you are doing.
Fight to have church. Fight to have priority. And we're not saying, you know, be reckless. We're not saying put yourself or other people at risk. We're saying church ought to be, it ought to be priority.
It should be canceling, or at least movements online should be the last option. That's true. It's a cultural mindset thing. And it's really shaped the way that even I view how I work here clearly. Like canceling rehearsal.
It used to be, when I first started, it was like any inconvenience. Oh, man, I got something going on on Thursday night or whatever. Yeah, people, then people got asked about it and will just cancel it. And that's one thing that I had to learn is that that's your last resort. Canceling anything we do at church's last resort.
And you know, it's funny, people rise to that occasion. Yeah, people will rise to the standard you set. And you know, Dr. Sha, you mentioned that our church is growth and our churches ministry. There in 2020, when churches were shut down, there were so, so, so many churches that were like, hey guys, we know what it's going to be.
We don't know what it's going to look like. We're just going to be closed for the foreseeable future. And clearly, you took a very clear stance and communicated it to the community at large. Absolutely not. We're open.
As long as we're allowed to be open, legally, we were open. People came here in droves because they were seeking that truth, that image of Christ that you were looking up. One of my mentors told me this when this whole pandemic began back in 2020 because I called him up and I said, I don't know what to do because I've never been here before. And he said, no one has. This is a very unique situation and it's impacting not just America, it's impacting the entire world.
That's right. So that's what I do. You have to ask yourself this question. What do you want people to say about you? when this crisis is over.
Because that should drive what you do before during this crisis. And I was like, well, I want people to know that I followed Jesus Christ. I want people to know that I'm going to stand firm on the word of God. I want people to know that I'm not afraid of the world, the anti-Christian, devilish world. I want people to know that Christians can be bold, especially in America.
My goodness, if in America you're going to be afraid of being Christian, where are you going to be bold? That's right. In the Middle East, in India, in China? In Nigeria, where are you gonna be bold? In Russia?
No, you have to be bold here. That's right. And so when he told me that, I was like, okay. I got it. I'm going to stand firm.
And then, of course, we wrote the book 30 Days of Florida Crisis, and that got this amazing thing. Thanks for that. But, anyways, the whole point was that we decided to take a stand. that we're going to Put Christ first, and of course, church as well. And we're not going to fear.
That's right. That's right. And I think God blessed that decision. Because there are people who, and I don't know when we're just talking about our church right now, but this is our experience and our prayers that God said about your church and the people who said that about your church. There are people who know that, hey, and it has gotten less and less and less of the years, but hey, it might come storm and clearly we'll put things out, but we're not canceling churches, especially not at the beginning of the week.
Yeah, it's our last, last resort. And I think God has truly blessed that. Yeah. Dr. Jean, in the time that we have left, what encouragement would you give to churches, both church leadership and church members, about making service a priority?
Just ask yourself the same question that one of my mentors asked me: What do you want people to say about you once that crisis is over? What do you want them to say about you? Because that should direct what you want to do. That's right. That's right.
If you want them to say that you're a Christ follower, then be one. If you want them to say that you stand firm on the convictions of the Bible, then be one. If you want them to say that you are a Bible-believing, courageous, soul-winning Christian, then do that. If they want you to believe to say that you are home to shepherd of the flock, especially when the thunderstorms have come, you're not going to abandon them, then do that.
So, let them guide you. What do you want people to say about you once this problem is solved? Once this storm is over, once that pandemic is over, what do you want them to say about you? Amen. I can't believe that I should.
That's right. Guys, make sure you join us next time. Same time, same place, we're going to die in Turkey with the great talk here on the Three Today show. Thanks, Madam Darshan Sharpshore, for making today's episode possible. And today is your first time listening to us.
Which one I like to know about you? That's right. Have you been doing us again next time? Don't forget to find this podcast anywhere podcasting is found at the podcast 55free.com TV and plus truth network plus plus weekend. Can only access these episodes, but share them with your friends and family.com forward slash game.
That's right. Clearly, today's show is coming to Nashville, Tennessee, in RB26, February the 17th, Drupal 20th. We're going to be there with the Truth Network. We're going to be there pray.com.
So make sure you come out, say hello, meet Dr. Shaw Shake San A. We can take a lunch. I can guarantee that I'll come canceling our free field against that.
So we're going to be seeing you guys there also. Apologetics conference is happening here March 28th at Cleveland Church. It's a big conference. People flying in from all over the country and even out of the country.
So we want you to make sure you get your tickets today. You can find that link in the description and you can hold up today. T-O-A-Y. Get 20% off at your best. That's right.
Love you guys. See you next time. Yes.
