Does the Church Need a Rebrand? A Conversation with Dr. Eric Mason

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

With The Perrys

Episode: Does the Church Need a Rebrand? A Conversation with Dr. Eric Mason
Date: September 15, 2025
Host(s): Preston Perry and Jackie Hill Perry
Guest: Pastor Dr. Eric Mason

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the current reputation, function, and challenges of the modern church. Dr. Eric Mason, known for his theological insight and pastoral leadership, discusses his forthcoming book, “Rebranding the Church,” addressing why the church’s image and witness are in crisis and how Christians can move toward a more unified, mature, and biblically faithful expression of community, leadership, and identity. The conversation intertwines humor, vulnerability, and honest critique, offering thoughtful recommendations for believers navigating an increasingly fragmented Christian landscape.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Purpose and Meaning of “Rebranding the Church”

[01:42 – 03:05]

• Rebranding is not about redefining the Church. Dr. Mason clarifies that he’s not advocating for a total overhaul or yielding to progressive trends, but rather a return to fundamental, biblical representations of the people of God.
  • “For me, rebranding isn't like redefining... it’s representing the fundamentals of what the church should be doing.”
    (Dr. Eric Mason, 01:51)
• The negative cultural perception of “church” and “Christian” is concerning; people have expectations for Christians higher than any other faith community.
  • “I don't like that our reputation doesn't demand respect… when Christian comes up, it doesn’t.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 03:06)

Reputation & Witness—Pendulum Swings in Church Culture

[04:01 – 06:33]

• The church fluctuates between legalism ("holier than thou") and permissiveness (where "holiness don't mean nothing").
• A call to normalize spiritual maturity and unity over uniformity.
  • “We should normalize maturity... not busy trying to relate or disarm people by rejecting all standards.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 05:04)
• The influence of politics and social media has split the church, making political party a (misguided) marker for faith.
  • “We’re basing a litmus test for somebody... on political party. They said you'll know them by their fruits, not their political party.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 06:23)

Burdens that Led to the Book

[07:27 – 10:56]

• Dr. Mason’s past work (“Woke Church”) anticipated schisms along racial and political lines following tragedies like Trayvon Martin and Philando Castile.
• Reactionary faith and overcorrecting have led many to define themselves against what they dislike rather than toward Christ.
  • “We based our standard on what we didn’t want to be.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 09:23)
  • “If Jesus isn’t the standard, your father, your father is the standard... you’re just trying to reverse what your dad did, but your dad wasn’t the standard.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 10:02)

The “À La Carte” Faith and Essentials vs. Non-Essentials

[13:13 – 17:36]

• Dr. Mason observes Christians picking and choosing which doctrines and church elements to engage with—treating faith like “system settings on a phone.”
  • “I want my friends, but I don’t want Christian community... I want preaching that lifts me up, not that convicts me.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 13:36)
• The danger of elevating non-essentials (e.g., positions on non-salvific theological debates) to markers of salvation or fellowship.
  • “Let’s focus on the closed-handed things... I’m not arguing with you about non-essentials.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 15:54)

Critique and Correction—Gaslighting and Witness

[18:01 – 21:52]

• Not all criticism of the church is valid; sometimes rejection of the church is really rejection of God.
  • “A lot of the criticism is unavoidable... the church is a scapegoat to say 'I don’t want God.'” (Preston Perry, 18:01)
• Christians must discern when they’re actually failing in witness versus being unfairly maligned.
  • “If you’re gonna get persecuted, get persecuted for doing the right thing.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 18:50)
• Challenge to avoid deflecting accountability for sin and reframing “judgment” as loving correction.
  • “I hate when people frame lovingly holding them accountable as being judgmental.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 21:40)

Ecclesiology: What is the Church, Really?

[22:56 – 30:39]

• Church is more than informal gatherings or friendships—it is a spiritual family with structure, discipline, worship, and outreach.
  • “When you were united with Christ, you were also united with his people... that’s the part of the gospel that’s unpreached.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 25:41)
• Debunking “Starbucks ecclesiology”—not every fellowship is “church” in the biblical sense.
  • “That's not church. People use Matthew 18... but that’s not in the context of an official ecclesia.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 28:36)
• Don’t judge the whole church based on bad experiences, just as you wouldn't reject all doctors or restaurants after one poor encounter.

Rebranding Jesus—A Robust Christology

[31:05 – 38:46]

• Many Christians lack clarity on the person and work of Jesus, reducing him to personal preferences or roles (e.g., “my friend,” “way-maker”).
  • “We got to stop asking people questions that center on what they think about it. For instance, what does Jesus mean to you? Who cares?” (Dr. Eric Mason, 31:24)
• Warning against “reductionist” views—Jesus is both Lamb and Lion.
• The urgency for leaders and communities to return to the fundamentals in teaching, discipleship, and personal study.

Leadership & Discipleship—Character over Competency

[39:30 – 43:55]

• Church leadership should prioritize character, not just competency or giftings.
  • “Qualifications for leadership don’t start with competency. It starts with character.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 39:47)
• Many churches lack effective assessments of pastoral candidates’ character, leading to crises and shallow discipleship.
• Healthy leadership pipelines begin with a culture of discipleship:
  • “Leadership comes out of discipleship.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 43:15)

Spiritual Growth, Community, and Messiness

[44:03 – 48:32]

• Character growth is God’s work in us; our role is to seek the means of grace (community, Word, prayer).
  • “Spiritual growth is not your responsibility... your responsibility is going to the outlets that help you grow.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 44:53)
• Real community is inevitably messy—expect friction, offense, and the need for reconciliation, not “Kumbaya.”
  • “We have to set the expectation that you are going to get hurt here somehow... but you do not have the right [to withdraw].” (Dr. Eric Mason, 47:36)
• Need to distinguish between true trauma and normal relational difficulty.

Local Church Commitment vs. Influencer Christianity

[53:18 – 62:12]

• Social media shapes unrealistic standards for local church and leadership. Online influencers are not a substitute for real pastoral care and accountability.
  • “He not your pastor... He not giving an account for your soul.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 54:10)
  • “People need to be impressed with pastoral proximity.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 54:39)
• Dangers of “parasocial” relationships (one-sided online connections) and failing to judge “fruit” through genuine, lived interaction.
  • “If you judge an apple tree from 18 miles away, you're not going to judge it properly.” (Preston Perry, 60:17)

Testimonies of Discipleship and Family

[62:12 – 69:13]

• Preston and Jackie recount the grounding and accountability they received in their small church in Chicago—a model of true spiritual family over flashy programs.
  • “Our platform began to grow, but we were still pressing in and jacking... for me, it was transformational in that way.” (Preston Perry, 64:30)
  • “Legacy was a house church... None of the preachers were good communicators. So you also gotta humble yourself...” (Jackie Hill Perry, 64:30)

Rebranding Expectations of Church

[66:32 – 71:50]

• Encourage seeing church as family, not a spiritual vending machine.
  • “The church is truly a family... When you look at people like family, you don’t really think about yourself only all the time.” (Preston Perry, 67:16)
• Moderate expectations and recognize your own sin contributes to church mess too.
  • “We are also a part of the church that we are condemning or talking about.” (Preston Perry, 71:03)
• Align expectations with God’s metrics, not man’s, for both community and leadership.

Why Do We Need the Church?

[75:33 – 81:30]

• Church is not a human invention but a divine one, rooted in God’s communal nature.
• God intended his people to be a flourishing, united community—extending all the way back to Eden, through Israel, and now the church.
  • “Church is really an extension of God's community... local ecclesias are apostolic outposts of showing off the reality of what life is like when people submit their lives to God and lock together.” (Dr. Eric Mason, 78:01)
• “Plug and play” spirituality (picking and choosing elements from everywhere) is ultimately harmful, like using the wrong charger for a device.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On spiritual growth:
  “No flower grows itself. ... Your responsibility is going to the outlets that help you grow; God adds growth.”
  (Dr. Eric Mason, 44:53)
• On messy community:
  “Community is messy... we have to set the expectation: you are going to get hurt here somehow.”
  (Dr. Eric Mason, 47:36)
• On church critics:
  “If you tell me you love me and you don’t like my wife, I don’t fool with you.”
  (Dr. Eric Mason, 81:28)
• On discipleship and legacy:
  “Sitting down doing heart checks with him... It was true accountability.”
  (Preston Perry, 64:30)
  “Our faith and our platform began to grow, but as it began to grow, we were still pressing in.”
  (Jackie Hill Perry, 66:31)

Calls to Action & Takeaways

• Pursue maturity and unity; normalize spiritual growth as a goal for all believers.
• Focus on closed-handed essentials of the faith; de-emphasize divisive non-essentials.
• Invest in local church relationships; resist the lure of influencer Christianity without proximity and accountability.
• Accept the messiness of community as normal and necessary for sanctification.
• Lead and serve with character, not just gifting.
• Remember: the church is God’s idea, not ours. Love for Christ must include love for his people.

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:51] - Why “Rebranding” and core issues
• [05:04] - The call to spiritual maturity
• [06:23] - The problem with politicized Christianity
• [10:02] - Dangers of reactionary faith
• [13:36] - "À la carte" Christianity and essentials
• [18:01] - Christian witness and cultural criticism
• [25:41] - Union with Christ and union with the Church
• [28:36] - Biblical definition of the church
• [31:24] - The need for sound Christology
• [39:47] - Character as the foundation for leadership
• [44:53] - Spiritual growth & the means of grace
• [54:10] - Proximity of pastoral leadership vs. influencer culture
• [64:30] - Legacy Church testimonies
• [67:16] - Seeing church as family
• [75:33] - Why the church is essential according to Scripture
• [81:28] - “If you don’t like my wife, I don’t fool with you.”—Christ and the church analogy

---

Final Thoughts

This conversation is a vital listen for anyone who’s felt disillusioned or confused about church in the 21st century. Dr. Mason and the Perrys offer not just critique but practical wisdom—calling every Christian to re-examine their expectations, return to the basics, embrace thick community, and pursue real maturity together. The ultimate “rebrand” is not about optics, but about faithfulness.

Transcript

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Foreign.

[Preston Perry]

What's good with y'?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

All?

[Preston Perry]

How y' all feel?

[Jackie Perry]

Fine.

[Preston Perry]

How you doing, babe?

[Jackie Perry]

I'm all right.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You.

[Preston Perry]

You sure you all right?

[Jackie Perry]

I'm positive.

[Preston Perry]

Okay. We got a special guest in the House, Pastor Dr. Eric Mason. No strangers to. With the Perry's podcast.

[Jackie Perry]

You. You've been on there more than anybody at this point.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Oh, no. Only been on here once, right?

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah, yeah, it's the third. Fourth.

[Preston Perry]

No, it's fourth.

[Jackie Perry]

Fifth. Sixth time.

[Preston Perry]

No, it's not. It's not.

[Jackie Perry]

When you count before we. When you count when we did you on the computer, when you count the Seven Day Adventist conversation, when you count the last conversation about, it is four times. When you count this conversation, it's about four or five times.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

What does that mean then?

[Preston Perry]

We love you.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Oh, man.

[Jackie Perry]

Man, you got wisdom.

[Preston Perry]

You do got a lot of wisdom, man.

[Jackie Perry]

That means. I think there's a benefit to being able to have a conversation with somebody where you can have different conversations with same person.

[Preston Perry]

It is.

[Jackie Perry]

That says a lot about that person.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yes.

[Jackie Perry]

Depth.

[Preston Perry]

You do got a founder wisdom. You're a very wise guy.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Y' all are good interviewers, though, y'. All.

[Jackie Perry]

Oh, yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Y' all be symphonic with it, you know.

[Jackie Perry]

Symphonic, man.

[Preston Perry]

That's another thing you do. Yeah, he said symphonic.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Hey, man, he went to seminary, you know, I said, folk, we gotta. We gotta show him with your money now.

[Preston Perry]

So, man, not only. Not only do you have a mountain of wisdom, it was probably one of the reasons why you've written so many great books and you have a new book called Rebranding the Church. Show, show, show the book.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I'm trying to show that. A dummy copy, y'. All. It's all over. It's not going to look like this. This they send you before it goes to print. It's supposed to go to print this month, so.

[Preston Perry]

I want to jump right into it. Why that phrase? Rebranding the church? That's an interesting phrase when you think about rebranding the church.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Why.

[Preston Perry]

Why that phrase?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, so the. The subtitle is basically representing the image of the people of God in the world. For me, rebranding isn't like redefining. It's not like a progressive ideology of ecclesiology or the church. Right. It's more so representing. But I like rebranding because everybody else, I'm a brand. That's brand that. And I feel like it was a fairly relevant communication to this generation. And so I wanted to really represent the fundamentals of what the church should be doing. In particular, Areas, because there's a lot that needs to be rebranded. But I picked, like, 10 areas that I think were massively needed. And so that's why the first, you know, chapter. The first job is basically, what do you think of when you hear the word church? You know, because I. And so my point is, I don't like. Like, I watch, like, different podcasts. Like, I don't watch whole podcasts. I watch more so snippets. And like, I. I. Don't y' all ever notice, like, when the name church or pastor or Christian comes up? Just. It's not.

[Preston Perry]

It ain't received well.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

It's not what y' all saying. It's not giving. Right.

[Preston Perry]

It ain't giving it all.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. And so it's kind of like, I'm like. Like, I don't like that. I don't like that our reputation doesn't demand respect. I don't. I don't like that when Christian comes up. It doesn't. Because I believe the reason why. It's a lot of reasons. But I believe people have expectations of Christians that they don't have of any other fai. Right. And. Which I think is a good thing. But. And. And so the call isn't.

[Preston Perry]

Jackie killed the flower.

[Jackie Perry]

Now it's right there.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Hold on. Hold that thought.

[Jackie Perry]

Past the mace. It's right. It's like resurrecting. It's resurrected.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

He's resurrecting. Y' all gotta keep that in there.

[Jackie Perry]

There we go.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That was. She did to Mr. Miyagi.

[Jackie Perry]

No, he was coming alive. He was all right.

[Preston Perry]

I'm surprised you hit him.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That is great. Being a hindrance, that was great.

[Jackie Perry]

Bruce Lee, she was like, okay, don't demand respect. Stuff like that.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. So I think that representation matters. I just do. I don't. And what I'm talking about is not perfection. I really want to be clear on that. Like, we were talking about last night. I think that. I think that we've gone from holier than thou to holiness don't mean nothing. You understand? I feel like we. I was listening to a couple of Christian podcasts, and I just been like, why do y' all berate the church so much? And why do you exalt not being perfect as a standard? And so it's kind of like, man, what. What. What do we. What are we? I'm not trying to. This is not a. This is not a. I'm not trying to create a PR campaign for the church. That's. I don't want it to come off like that. But I do think that we have to be a lot more responsible with our witness. So really fundamentally, that's what the book is about. The book. I, I like exp. I have the. Jesus has. I expect every believer, if, you know, Jesus should at some point become a mature one. Like it. We should normalize maturity.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You know, and I don't think maturity is really normal. It's kind of frustrating for me because I feel like we're so busy trying to relate to letting. Disarming people from your judgmental. You're hypocritical. You're holding the vow and we've gone. We swung the pendulum to the other.

[Preston Perry]

Side of the extreme. Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And so I think that's even in everything because I talk about the pulpit, you know, preaching and teaching. I talk about purpose, talk about membership, talk about rebranding Jesus, a lot of things. And, And I think that those were some systemic areas. I just believe that were needed for this particular time. And now that Christian ideologies are more visual nowadays because of social media, we, we have to, we have to make clear some things. I think that we, we have several lanes. You have the, you have the politicized Christianity. Right. Where you have, you know, the, the, the, the, the conservative Christians on this end basically believe being Republican is to be Christian. You have the other side that says if you vote for Trump, you, You don't care about the oppressed. You understand? So these vast extremes is basically your politics is a revelation of who you are theologically and ethically to other Christians. Right. Which is crazy to me. We're basing a litmus test for somebody. They said you'll know them by their fruits, not their political party.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You know, and so you have that. And then you have the whole. The, the culture of just the false teaching culture that's just pervasive. The, the over. The over commitment to relevance at the expense of truth and character and not having your. You're bad. Speaking ill of. You know, and so I, I just feel like there needs to be some, some, Some energy given to simplicity from a simple standpoint. What in the heck are we supposed to be? What are we supposed to be? Like? We're not talking about uniformity. That's not what we're talking about. Because we're all a different shape, sizes, gifts and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about unity. My goal is to help the church to have a unified vision. Are fundamentally. No matter if you're charismatic or reform. You know what I'm saying, or you're Presbyterian or Episcopalian, like there's a uniformity to what fruit bearing looks like.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

You know how like as authors, but also as, I think, leaders, you come across things that burden you where there are some things that burden you and you pray.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

There are some things that burden you and you address. Yeah, I guess what happened? What did you see? Or what was that moment where you start to feel burdened to address this.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. So my book that I wrote in 2018. I can't believe it's been seven years. I still want to say two years ago.

[Jackie Perry]

I'm sorry.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

So I wrote Woke Church. When I wrote that book. Well, before I wrote that book, I knew that there was a, A, a great schism going to happen between white and black Christians. I knew it soon as Trayvon got killed, I knew it was going to be a schism. And you know Philando Castile, then the brother that got shot with a 12 gauge in his through his liver in South Carolina.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Or was it Georgia? Was it Georgia? Well, Georgia. Georgia, Georgia. And I began to like the reason. One of the reasons why you got off Twitter was just the skill. They like. I, I saw the nastiness of people who didn't understand Romans 12. Empathy. Right. And so, but then that schism took people to vast extremes. So we've seen over the years people that different ones of us have had relationships with that in a reaction to white evangelicalism, they abandoned the faith altogether. I mean, we know that white evangelicals didn't do it, but fundamentally it was a, a quasi linchpin for them.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Then we see people who have become super. I hate to use liberal, but decentralizing the Bible because of the over Bibleization of certain things that was, that lacked empathy and ethics.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And then you see, you know, this whole group of people where they just became hyper political. Then you saw people wanting to get back into their black identity. And so it, I saw, I started seeing this fragmentation. And so I saw, I think I saw as many others did, a lot of overcorrecting and those over corrections didn't, didn't. In other words, we based our standard on what we didn't want to be. So it's like this. I tell, I tell men all the time. Like when I tell men, I said, you have to, you know, when a guy tells me, I want to be a better father than my father ever was, I said that you can't do that.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And they said, what you mean? I said, because if you Say that Jesus isn't the standard or the father, God the father, your father is the standard. So basically you're just trying to reverse what your dad did when what your dad did or didn't do wasn't the standard.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And so when you make. You always going to swing the pill on them real far because you're trying to stay away from something that traumatized you.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You know what I'm saying?

[Preston Perry]

And then you end up missing out on so many other things.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

Because you're trying so hard not to be that.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And the elements in there that probably was good.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

It took me years to see that's good. To the good things that my dad had done for me. That's good because I over demonize him for the things that he did wrong. I felt traumatized by. But then I was like, hold on. He told me how to move like this. Move like this. And then I sort of see. Because when you, because when you can't have a healthy grid and know what's good and what's bad, that's that, that's if you, if you don't have a healthy grit, you're not mature.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. What I essentially hear you saying is that a lot of us have a reactionary faith.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

Like we respond to what we see instead of looking at Christ as the standard and it's the model absolute. But that's really good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that.

[Jackie Perry]

Last year I had the chance to speak at Liberty University's convocation. Liberty University's convocation is one of the world's biggest gatherings of Christian students. And I thought it was a really good example of their mission to train champions for Christ. One thing I love about Liberty and its mission is what I experienced during the convocation. That they were gathered together under the preaching of sound teaching, under the preaching of God's word, under the worship of God in song. All there to learn how to love God, love his church, love his people. All of that is cool with me. Liberty cares about helping students grow in their academic and spiritual lives through a world class Bible based education. Liberty University offers over 700 degree options online or on campus so you can grow in your calling and step into your purpose. Liberty University online programs offer over 600 degrees and most classes are 100% online. With eight week terms and almost no set login times, you can study when it works for you. Scholarships and discounts help make it more affordable too. And for younger kids, check out Liberty University Online Academy. It's a fully accredited K12 Christian online school that's flexible and self paced with certified teachers with lots of clubs and trips and ways to stay connected. You can check out their Lynchburg, Virginia campus in person through a one day event like Tour Lu or Experience Lu or go deeper with college for a weekend, a three day visit where you'll attend classes, eat in the award winning dining hall and join student activities. Fall 2025 college for weekend dates are November 6th to 8th.

[Preston Perry]

So if you're ready to move forward with your education, visit Liberty. Edu Perry. As a listener with the Perrys, Liberty will waive your application fee. So free money. Again, that's Liberty Edu Perry. Peace. We gotta do that twice again?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

No.

[Preston Perry]

Oh.

[Jackie Perry]

So is that what burdens you to write this book?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That burdened me because I felt like we're all over the place. I just feel like, I feel like everybody's like, if you take, let's just take megachurch viral pastor, preacher teacher platforms online, they become representative of everybody. Like they don't know, oh, that's a modalist. And this is a trinitarianism. A trinitarian. They just say that's Christian. So the. So I don't think non Christians don't have the same. They don't have. They don't know that we're not monolithic. All they see is Christian. And whatever bad we do, they just lump it all in together, right? And so, so we said, why do y' all serve a white man's religion? He's like, what are you talking about? I'm in the black church. You know, we're not in that. Why you got a white Jesus on your church? Well, I said, when have you been in my church? And there's a white Jesus on the wall. We don't even have any color of Jesus on the wall. So. But it's this lumping in together preachers, y' all Christians. And so when that began to happen, I said, and then, then this was the thing though, Jackie, is I began to just see a lot of confusion, lack of discernment and just lack of clarity among believers. Because we live in a Alakat culture. We live in a culture where people say, I want this, I don't want that, I want a little bit of this, I want a lot of that. So when it comes to church, when it comes to my faith, I just, I'm gonna just pull out my spiritual phone and just go into system settings and I'm gonna, I'm gonna say what I want and don't want in My Christian life. I want my friends, but I don't want Christian community. You know what I'm saying? I, I, you know, I want preaching that lifts me up, not preaching that convicts me. You know, I want preaching that doesn't tell me how to dress, how to eat, how to drink, how to whatever, just love me. I want or I want preaching that just talks about the wrath of God. You know, I was in the reform era, man. I didn't need a wrath of God enough. I'm like, what? You know, it's so gloomy at times. Right. And I'm not dogging the reform cast, but I'm saying, you know, and I was like, what's the core tenets that no matter what hermeneutical framework and doctrinal tradition that you come from, that's more so open handed versus closed headed. So I wanted to say what is God's closed handed things that we all should be moving. How should we be moving in a closed handed way? Like I'm not arguing with you about can women be pastors. I'm not arguing with you about the feeling of the spirit and the gifts in my church. I'm gonna teach a certain way, but I don't have time for non essentials to be something I'm waving a flag about.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And so I'm saying let's focus on, not that there are important non essentials, but we can't make non essentials core to how we relate to one another.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And so because then you begin to say you're not saved because you don't believe like this particular thing.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Or you're a misogynist because you don't allow women to this. Or yeah. It's like what? Stop, stop, stop, stop. You know, and so I think that's what the problem is. So what's core to us? What's core to how we should be a member? What's core to how we should represent Christ on, on our influencer platforms? What, what, what's core to how we should view gospel community? How should we view generosity? So because there's a bunch of people out there that you know that, that are money hungry, that are doing thousand dollar lines. What, what that begins to do is it begins to corrode your view of giving as not an act of worship to God. The Bible says honor the Lord with the first of your wealth. Yeah. And so if you don't understand that, then you'll relate to the church like it's an investment like among black People like you hear on these different podcasts, what is the. What is the church doing for the black community? We're investing our money in the black church, and we're not getting anything back. And I'm like, I understand what you mean by that, but that is not a biblical understanding of giving. And so what you begin to do is you begin to choose a faith based on what they do for the community. And so then it's like that. Like somebody could not preach the gospel and do a bunch of great things in the neighborhood and everybody bust hell wide open.

[Preston Perry]

Wow, that's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You understand what I'm saying?

[Jackie Perry]

You got a question?

[Preston Perry]

I got a quick question because you said a lot of good stuff, and I have so many questions in my mind because what I hear this book being. I hear this book being a lot of in house, you know, correction. And for the sake of unity, but also a lot of the things that we do in house, as far as being unified, is a witness of the world. Right. The Bible says the way the world would know us is by the love that we have, one for another. Right?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. And.

[Preston Perry]

But when you. When I think about how the world kind of perceives the church at times, you talked about the criticism. You know, you know, Christianity is a white man religion. When I do it, I used to do a lot of evangelism. And one of the things that I realized when I talked to people in the world was a lot of the criticism is kind of unavoidable because people hate God. Like, let's just be honest.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

It's not necessarily the church. The church is a scapegoat to say, I don't want God. And so it's easy to attack God's people at times and to say, I just don't want God. And so I think my question is, how can we help Christians discern what is which when our witnesses. When our witness is failing. Opposed to, you know, like. No, the church is just. You're being gaslight on this platform.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, that's good. Now that's. That's a very excellent question. First Peter 4. He says, Listen, if you're gonna get persecuted, my g. Get. Get persecuted for doing the right thing and being countercultural.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You know, like, don't. Don't get. Don't, like, play into carnality. And that's why you're being persecuted, you know, And I think that we're persecuted today not because of a commitment to righteousness. We're persecuted because we refuse to be a. A unified Witness.

[Preston Perry]

How does one play into carnality in. In spaces like that?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, I think.

[Preston Perry]

Come on, talk about it.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

How do I do this? Okay, so I'm listening to a podcast and the person has an addiction that's in the podcast. I'll just say that. And as the interviewer is interviewing the person as a Christian personality and say, if I came on here because I'm writing a book because I had a porn addiction, or I just got a porn addiction, I'm working through it as a pastor. Right. And y' all question me like, so how did the church treat you? You not like it? Almost. The question is almost a, a, it's primed with deflection. Yeah, it's like primed with a lack of accountability. It's like, it's not. So in other words, it wasn't, man, how are you getting help? How's the Lord ministering to you through it? How have you owned that? And who's in your circle? Not that the whole time. And then the person just starts going off. Yeah, the church. And all they do is just. I can't. And I'm. And I can't stand how the church does. And it's. I'm sitting on there like, like, this is not, this is not good. And now there is a time to challenge the church when it is not gracious to the repentant. Galatians 2, 1. Yeah, I mean, 6, 1, 61 and 2. Right. Restore someone with gentleness. Right. Because you may fall into the same thing. I'm. I'm down with that, but what I'm not down with is you acting like it's the church's fault that you're not restored because you refuse to repent. And you. I hate when people frame people lovingly, holding them accountable as being judgmental. Like asking me a hard question about my sin is, well, we all, you know, we all got issues. And it's like, see, that right there is not rebranding. That is saying, you know, I know we all have issues. I have my issue and I can't. I'm not judging anybody in this area. But what I want to do is I do want to say what I did was sin and I don't condone it. And there were some times in the church where I felt thrown away, but then there were other people in the church where I felt some restorative relationships.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

So that's a different way of talking about it in a balanced way versus just playing with the low hanging fruit of the church being Judgmental. I think it's corny.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

I took a class probably two years ago on ecclesiology, and it was a requirement, and I wasn't looking forward to it.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Wow.

[Jackie Perry]

I was more excited to do the systematics on Christology, on, you know what I'm saying, anthropology, stuff like that. And I'm like, I don't really want to spend all this time talking about the church, you know what I'm saying? But before any class I take, I pray and ask the Lord to help me to, you know, see him and stuff like that. So I know don't get puffed up with knowledge. Anyway, the class was really transformative one because we were in a weird space at the church that we were in at the time where we were trying to just figure out our place and all the things. And I think sitting under someone for seven hours, for five days, walk through just doctrine of the church, I was like, oh, this is crazy. And it showed me how much we all are lacking just basic fundamental understanding of ecclesiology.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Jackie Perry]

I don't even think we know that word.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Jackie Perry]

So when you say rebranding the church, I think we need to define church. What does that mean?

[Preston Perry]

Through the years, I've discipled so many men who've struggled with porn. They struggled with porn in secret and shame. They felt like it was something that they can talk about with their communities, their pastors, and so they just struggled in silence. And this accountability that they now have has helped their marriages, has helped their Christian lives in leaps and bounds. And that's the reason why I think tools like Covenant Eyes is such a great tool for Christians to have because it helps us all be accountable to one another.

[Jackie Perry]

When it comes to digital integrity, which I. I like that phrasing, it isn't merely just about avoiding stuff online. It's about guarding our hearts from things that keep us from honoring God and all the things. Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 23 reminds us to guard our hearts from. Out of it flows everything. Pornography, social media. We all know that not only the flesh, but the enemy uses it. It to corrupt us, to distract us, to get us to do things that the Lord told us not to do. And that's why we love Covenant Eyes. It's not just software. It is accountability, which is God. God can use as a means of grace to keep us on our P's and Q's. Covenant Eyes filters out harmful content, tracks your activity, and sends reports to a friend or trusted mentor. You do not have to struggle alone. If you are fighting temptation, if you are battling porn addiction, or if you just want to protect your family, Covenant Eyes helps you to keep your digital life aligned with your faith. We've seen how tools like this can transform lives, turning intentions into real actions. It's about creating spaces for the Holy Spirit to work.

[Preston Perry]

I'll never forget, years ago, a friend of mine sent me this app that holds him accountable. And the first thing that I thought was this. This app is genius. Because a lot of times we have to be honest. When we have extreme sins, sometimes we have to go to extreme measures to avoid that sin. And you know, having somebody in your business might be a little much, but we got to do what we got to do to be holy. And so that's the reason why I think Covenant Eyes is such a great tool to help us to be accountable to one another.

[Jackie Perry]

So if you're ready to step up your digital integrity game, head over to CovenantEyes.com Parries today for a free 30 day trial of their accountability software. CovenantEyes.com Perrys that is P E R R Y S Perry's for 30 days free.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. So one of the things that's so important that I just keep telling my church over, the church I passed over and over and over again, I said we have to rebrand what happened at Salvation because I think the only thing we talk about is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But he also rebranded you having a personal relationship with God's people. Like we, we don't. That's the part of the gospel.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's unpreached.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Preston Perry]

Reconciliation to one another. Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's the part. Because you can't be a Christian and be out. Awful. That's not even, that's not even Christian. Like it's not Christian to not be with Christians. You know, it's just not, you know, and so now I'm not talking about all your life is just, you know, you know, around Christians all the time. But I think when we talk about ecclesiology, the first thing step for ecclesiology is the doctrine of union with Christ. Like if you don't understand union with Christ, you don't understand that when you were united with Christ, you were also united with his people.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And that's where ecclesiology begins. It begins at the cross.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Ecclesiology does not begin on an altar call or a covenant or a sheet of paper. It begins when you are baptized into Christ's salvation. And if we don't understand, that's where it starts. Then how do we, how do we. You know, my father in the ministry talks about in this book. It first was called what a Way to Live. Now it's called Kingdom Agenda. And he talks about sectors of government that God has given us. We have self government, we have family government, community government, you know, we got city government, all those different types of things. But he also says we have church government and each level of government has responsibilities. And you're an officer on all of those levels of government. And so as a believer, you know, we're an officer in the church. Whether we have an elder or deacon or not. There's a role that we play that's a part of our hupa tasso, our submission. The word hupa tasso in the New Testament is a military term. When we talk about submission means falling in line with your God ordained role where he assigned you in the kingdom. That's all submission means. Wow. And so when we look at stuff like that and we recognize man being a part of the church is that thing. But then we talk about, okay, what makes a church a church? Well, what makes a church a church is if a church is planted. All churches are church plant, right? If it's a viable outpost of God, a lampstand appears in heaven based on Revelation. Chapter two means this light, long as this is lit, this church is a legit spot for Christ's reign, has to have leaders, has worship, outreach, administration, fellowship, outreach, mission. Those things that church discipline, right? Communion, baptism, evangelism, those are the things that make a church a church. And those things should be edification and all of the things.

[Jackie Perry]

I'mma interrupt you real quick because would you then be saying that when people say no, like when I'm at Starbucks with my friends, we are the church. So this is church. You're saying that's not church.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's not church. Because like people use Matthew 18 which says a two or three are gathered in my name, so I am in the midst. That's not in the context of an official ecclesia. It's. That's, that's in the context of personal offenses. It's talking about when, when it says in 6, 16, so whatever you bound on earth will be bound to have. Whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. That has to do with official church things like baptism. When a person is baptized, they're loosed. When a person is communion, that's a form of when you excommunicate somebody from the church, the hedge of protection, Heaven has already done it. That's why Paul says, although absent in the body, yet present, I have already delivered once over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh. First Corinthians 5. But when you go over to that passage where it's talking about personal offenses, if your brother offends, you, go to them. If they don't repent, take another personal to. If they don't repent, take it to the church. And if they don't respond to the church, then you release them. That, that's loosing someone. Right. And so. And so. And so in other words, that's what that passage is about. But in other words, we, we are so driven by humanistic individualism that we, we just don't. And I understand that there are unhealthy churches out there. There have been bad experiences out there, but there. I don't give up on something because of a bad experience. Yeah, like I don't give up on doctors because I don't. Like, I, I had to get my blood taken a few months ago and the person did terrible. They went fishing and it was terrible.

[Jackie Perry]

I hate that when they moved a little needle and then after they went.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Fishing then they say, oh, your vein collapsed. We got to go again. That fool went right here. I don't know if you ever got shot. You ever got one in your hand?

[Preston Perry]

I got one in my disc.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Oh, it's, it's terrible. It's like Chinese water torture.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah, I was dehydrated one time. They couldn't find a vein. They had to stick.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, man. Yeah man, it's terrible. And so, so.

[Preston Perry]

But you didn't give up on all doctors because you give up on all.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Doctors because of that. If you had a bad experience at McDonald's, do you say all McDonald's are bad? Church is the only thing people just give up on easily.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah, I used to tell people that all the time. You know, it was a clip one of my, I said, man, it's fake people all in the club. You can be in dancing with them. But it's like as soon as you experience fake people in the church, you want to just be done with the church. But you know, you're gonna deal with people in every aspect, in every, you know, aspect of life. You know what I mean?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

In your book you talk about how we all need to be very clear about who Jesus is. I mean, that would seem like a no brainer because it's like I would think to be a Christian is to know Christ. Right, but why do you think that That's a necessary thing to even say if it seems so obvious.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Because, I mean, you ask the average. We, we got to stop asking people questions that center on what they think about it. For instance, what does Jesus mean to you? Who cares?

[Jackie Perry]

In my heart, Absolutely. He's my, my savior, my friend.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Right. And I understand what they mean by that.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But before you can say who, what he means to you, you got to say who he is. You gotta. Who is he? I mean, like, like, like I was talking, I was talking. I had to preach in my father ministry church Sunday. I was telling a story about I'm ministering to this Muslim and we went out for breakfast a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and.

[Jackie Perry]

Bacon.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Huh?

[Jackie Perry]

You have some bacon?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I made sure I didn't have any pork. I told him, he was laughing. He got turkey sauces.

[Jackie Perry]

Good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But, and, and so you're stupid. And she's right, though. If meat offends my brother, I'll never eat meat again.

[Jackie Perry]

Correct.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Right. So I'm talking to him. I said, what is like your hang up with Yeshua? And he said, I just don't believe he's God. I believe he's the Madi, which means Messiah. Issa. I believe Issa, you know, did miracles. I believe he's born of a virgin. I just do not believe that he's God. God. And I was like, cool. Why you don't believe he's God? Because the Quran says this. I said, well, you know, the Quran tells you to listen to, to the gospels and the Torah, the, the INEL and the Torah. The NGO is the, the Gospel. And I said, do we have the ngo? Yes, we do have the Inel, because the, the, the manuscripts were available at that time that we use now for transmission when Muhammad was writing the Quran or reciting the Quran or got quote, unquote, revelation of the Quran. So I'm walking through all of that. So I get to it and I say, and it tells you if correct. The Quran tells Muslims to correct their understanding of theology based on the Torah. And the Gospels literally says that in there. And, and so I take him over and I walk him through like a couple of passages and he's like, like, I never knew this. I never saw this. And, and so it moved him, the pendulum along a bit in our conversation about Jesus. I think that we are, we just. Jesus is only like, particularly those of us who come from an oppressed past, because of those who we tend to see him as a way out of no way, you know, which is nothing Wrong with that. We tend to see him more from a rescue standpoint. You understand what I'm saying? And then on the other side, you know, he's a redeemer from shame of personal sin. It's very personal. Yeah, but black people, we're more. We're more communal in our understanding of Jesus versus individualistic. Yeah, Which. That's the. Which that's changing now. And so when we talk about rebranding Jesus, we're talking about, I love, you know, Shobaraka song, maybe both. He breaks it down, like, so beautiful in there when he talks. You know, he just walks through. You know, we maybe. Are there really two Christ, or is it one? And he's really complicated. I love that line because it's like he. Like, people try. You know, one thing I talk about in the chapter is we have a reductionist view of Christ. So we tend to say. So. So Umar wants the revolutionary. Right. You understand what I'm saying? You know Umar and, you know, Farrakhan, and everybody likes the one turning over tables in the temple. Right, Right. You know, but then other people, you know, certain streams of Christianity just wants the one who forgave the woman, you know, dealt with the one with. Caught in adultery. And so. But he's all. He's lying and lamb. And so I. I believe that really rebranding Jesus is having a more healthy Christology. And I. I just think that. And this goes into a lot of what I believe needs to happen. I believe we are in a famine of the fundamentals.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I just think that. I think that, like, I've been. I'm a cook. I'm not a chef, because I love to cook. So every now and then I'll learn tricks. So the other day, I was like, I wanted to blacken some fish, and I put oil in the pan, in the nonstick pan. But this. This chef said one of the sciences of cooking is in a nonstick pan. If you want to blacken it. Right. You don't put oil in it. You just put it directly in it after you season it. And so it was like little things. You know, we was talking about, you know, smoking, you know, smoking meat. Smoking meat. And so let me know why I.

[Preston Perry]

Ruined my ribs on fourth of July. Why?

[Jackie Perry]

It tastes like ham.

[Preston Perry]

You didn't have to say that. Continue.

[Jackie Perry]

It just tastes. Hamish.

[Preston Perry]

No, I'm saying you didn't have to say that, though. Edit that out. Continue.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. And so it's like a ring. Art in science to cooking. And that's the same way it is with the faith. When you learn. When you learn certain things about Christ and his nature or the nature of what God is, like, that's good. When somebody says something, you kind of just go on your Rolodex of who he is, and you're like, nah, yeah, I don't know if he's into that.

[Preston Perry]

That's why I love Christianity, because it is central to one man's life.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

All of these things. Like, if you take away all of these, you know, particular, you know, people or whatever from these different religions, you still have a certain foundation built on a certain sacred teaching. You take away Jesus, away from Christianity, you no longer have anything.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

So what's funny about that? Right? So people will say stuff like, where did Christians get out confronting other Christians? Right? And you're like, jesus didn't do that.

[Preston Perry]

He did.

[Jackie Perry]

Somebody said that? Yes. Oh, and I'm like, what? I'm like, half of his ministry.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

He came out.

[Jackie Perry]

I think we'd be making up stuff.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

What do you think?

[Jackie Perry]

I think people just make up things.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I just be like, that's what I'm saying. Like, people think of Jesus. Got this hippie that walked around and just kind of, oh, look at you. Come here, baby. Healing to you. Oh, it's giving brokenness. Let me heal you again. It's like, it's not like this. God is walking around. That's a masculine man who's filled with the fullness of God, who's fully compassionate. He was wise, wise, patient. He spends an entire chapter woeing the pharisees in Matthew 23. You know what I'm saying? You know, let the dead go. Bury the dead. You know, they don't know. They don't. They only know that they don't know the Nicodemus, you know, his engagement, like, it's so expansive. If we would just. If we would just say. Say I'm going to read the Gospels for the next six months, and all I want to do is do observations on Jesus's character and what he was like in the incarnation.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Can you imagine just how did Jesus deal with this person? Did he speak softly here? He did this. And I think if you just begin to just get in the scriptures about who Jesus is, then you'll begin to have a lot of. You have a more balanced understanding of Christ and of the faith. Wow me.

[Jackie Perry]

What. What came to my mind while you were talking was Ezra and how in chapter 7, verse 10, verse 10, it said, for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel, because this must be cyclical or common, where God has to raise up, up men and women who will just get to doing the thing, like studying the stuff and teaching it to the people. But which begs the question of, I guess when it comes to leadership in the church, I don't necessarily want to be critical, but I do think we should speak to even rebranding of church leadership.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Jackie Perry]

Because to me, it would mean that even the lack of discipleship in the church emphasizes a lack of teaching in the church, a lack of structure, like instruction in the church, like teaching, like, to me, as a leader, leader, if you don't care about the fundamentals, you're not going to teach the fundamentals.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Jackie Perry]

So I guess just speak to that.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Let me tell you where it all starts, period. Rebranding leadership in the church starts with standards and appointment, bottom line. I'll give you an example. It's an old church. I won't name the church. They asked me to consult them. Whole historic black church. They asked me to consult them on getting their next pastor. And so my first question before I opened up my, My presentation, I said, after I prayed, I said, give me a history of your pastors. And then after that, I said, what do you look for in a pastor when you're. Because there was a search committee, right? And they said, we look for strong leadership and strong preaching. Said, cool. Anything else? That's pretty much the, the, the key things we look for. So I said, let's pray. And we pray, definitely pray. And then I opened up First Timothy, chapter three, and I just began to walk with it, walk through it. And I said, notice that qualifications for leadership doesn't start with competency. It starts with character. He must be MIAs, Gynecos, Andros, the husband of one wife, his reputation in the community, managing his household. Well, that's what it starts with. I said, how many of you have done not degree checks, competency checks? Have you done character checks? Do you interview his wife? Do you have a therapist that does a session with them to do a quick assessment of the state of their marriage? We've never even thought of that. Have you asked him? Is he addicted to porn? Has he ever. Have you asked? I'm not trying to be, but I said, you need to know. Like, a lot of times, y' all find out later what y' all getting. And so for me, a lot of times, a lot of, I mean, I'm telling you, I know that there are very Few character evaluations, like, will you disciple? Even in your process, even in some search committee processes, don't know where they are theologically, like a lot of things, and they don't have theological standards. And so it's just a lot. And so when we talk about rebranding leaders, you know, one of the things my team always asked me, you know, pastor, we need more leaders. I said, well, make disciples. Said leadership comes out of discipleship. And so you'll know who needs to be a leader when you disciple the people. And so I think that starting, I think leadership rebranding starts with us getting back to an intrinsic discipleship culture as primary in the church. Because in, you know, and I hate to use white church, black church, you know, charismatic versus conservative kind of things, but there are certain things that are valued in all those traditions that don't necessarily give play to disciples being made. Like in a hyper charismatic arena, discipleship is laying on the hands. You get up and God just. It's like the Matrix. He put the thing in the back of your head. I know kung fu now.

[Jackie Perry]

I know jiu jitsu, or school of prophecy.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like that. Whereas on the conservative side, if they know the doctrine.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

They're mature.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Wow. You understand what I'm saying? And so we have to, we have to have a better outlook on this because it really starts with a disciple making culture. And as that disciple making culture goes, good. When someone says, I'm called to ministry, I feel a call to leadership. Then you put them in a leadership process. They're already discipled. But it's so many pastors that are knee in need of discipleship because they, their, their competency compensated for their character.

[Jackie Perry]

I want to ask one more.

[Preston Perry]

Okay.

[Jackie Perry]

Not one more thing, but this thing. Okay, go, go. And then I'm. I'm gonna stop talking.

[Preston Perry]

It's okay.

[Jackie Perry]

Because we are leaders. We're not in a leadership position in the church where we have been.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

And I know we have a lot of people listening to us who might be gifted with leadership, called into leadership, and they have character, but they're being pruned. And they know the Lord is trying to mature their character to a certain degree. Like, I guess, what is your encouragement? Because it's like character is something that has to be cultivated.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Jackie Perry]

And so even when we say that's a requirement, how do you develop character?

[Preston Perry]

Good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. So one of the things that I think it's very important is character development. Growth is not your responsibility.

[Jackie Perry]

Say what?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Spiritual growth is not your responsibility. No flower grows itself. That's why every illustration of spiritual growth usually in the Bible is agricultural.

[Jackie Perry]

My legalistic heart disagrees.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Now listen, now listen, listen. Keyword legalistic heart is your responsibility is going to the outlets that help you grow, grow God. The Bible said God adds growth. That's not just for soteriology, that's for sanctification. So God like, cuz somebody can read, read, read, read, read and never grow spiritually, you know, so God like you got to understand that he who began a good work, he's. He's working, He's. He works all things. He has, he gives you trials, you understand, he, he lets money get thin, you understand, he lets relationships break. You know, his, his, his whole, you know, you know, the whole passive. And God's passive will in your life is a huge way he, you know, sanctifies you. And, and, and, and then it's getting in the word, getting in prayer community. I'd say also one of the things that lost this, a whole nother podcast, the lost spiritual discipline is enjoyment. We would need less counseling if we applied the the And I'm not saying don't go to counseling, but enjoyment is a spiritual discipline. I was telling me, Preston was talking about, I said, Preston, what was one of the first things God said? And he said freely you may eat. I said, that is a declaration of enjoyment. I said, then you go over to the idea of abundant life in John 10:10. That's about enjoyment. You know, it says in, you know, first Timothy, chapter four, all foods have been given to be enjoyed by those who believe and know the truth. First Corinthians, 1 Timothy, chapter 6. Enjoyment or those who are rich according to this world, be generous, but enjoy it like enjoyment, like God saying, and it was good, was him enjoying creation. And he gives us an invitation into enjoyment. And so I think that when you're able to, because listen, enjoyment helps you be more thankful. Enjoyment helps you not to be entitled. Enjoyment lets you know you didn't create nothing. You know, it's just so many things. So you got enjoyment. You got all of these different pieces of these disciplines and those things where community grows you. God sovereignly putting you around the people you need to be in relationship with and, and all of the friction and messiness. Listen, let me just say this community is messy. It is. Let me say that again. Being in relationship with human beings that are in a sanctification process is messy. Have you ever seen a fish processing factory, A movie processing factory?

[Preston Perry]

It is A mess.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

To get to the good stuff. I'm just. Until believe it. You have to go. We have to set the expectation that you are going to get hurt here somehow. Somebody's going to hurt you. Somebody's going to offend you. But you do not have the right. That's why we have the Ministry of reconciliation. You don't have the right. But now there's some people that, because they refuse to repent, you got to. You got to remove them so that until they come to repentance. But I'm talking about in a. In a normal situation, like. Like there is going to be friction if there are human beings present. If you are expecting Kumbaya, that's another thing. We need to rebrand. We gotta rebrand. We gotta rebrand our relationship to trauma. We gotta rebrand our rel. Like, we gotta. Because I'm sick of people calling everything trauma. I'm like, no, that's life. That's a relationship with humans. That's relationship with humans.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You know what I'm saying?

[Jackie Perry]

Like, when you get married, you're like the dad that's like, be quiet. Like, what are you talking about?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Even in marriage. Even in marriage. Like, if you looking for that person to make you happy, you're in trouble.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah, trouble, trouble.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You're in trouble. Like when people say, like, I got a guilty pleasure. I watch Country Wayne skits.

[Jackie Perry]

I thought he was going to say he watched that. What's that show? The love something.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Something loving. Hip hop or something.

[Jackie Perry]

Love Holly. Yeah, I got scared.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I don't know what that is.

[Jackie Perry]

Good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But. So I don't watch all. I don't watch all the instruments. But. But this guy on there, Anthony, he's got a baby mama and so he's married. Whatever. So he's like, when I come over here, I need you to be my piece. That language is scary to me. Yeah, I know. A prince. Now, come on now. I want peaceful relationships, but I can't expect people to be my peace. And if you come into relationships in the church, you got to rebrand. They ain't your peace. They're called to be peacemakers.

[Preston Perry]

Wow, that's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That there's a. That's totally different. And if you. But. But then you got to see yourself as a culture creator, as a Christian too, and not put everything on everybody else to be Christian. If you're a Christian, your responsibility is to be a cultural creator yourself. That means you got to love people. That means you got to share the gospel. That means you got to restore the broken. That means you got to hold people accountable. You can't come to church, and at some point you got to help Christ be form to somebody else. Like, I'm sick of like this whole consumeristic me, me, me, me, me, me. What I get. I like the preaching, I like the worship. I like the children's ministry industry. I'm like, okay, what about you liking to be something for somebody else? Employ your gifts and serving one another. And so I think that rebranding our relationship with the church. One of my favorite verses on that is. Is Acts 2, 42, which says, and they devoted themselves to the apostle teacher. When people hear that, they think more. So they were sitting and listening and understanding it. Devotion is application of what they heard, you know. And so I think, you know, because always, I always say this. Information without transformation leads to constipation. It just without application. Information with application leads to transformation. And it's so important for us to want to do something about things. When I talk about rebranding, I'm talking about. I'm walking in an expectation that every Christian is wanting to be serious about God, wanting to press towards the goal of the market. A high call of God in Christ Jesus. Not that I've gotten there yet, but I strain. The Greek word is. And so I, I would just love to see a litany of people that we normalize. We're walking towards holiness. We're not perfect, but we're not playing the I'm not perfect card. Even though we're not perfect, but we're utilizing it as a way to lock arms with one another so that when we fall, we experience grace, we experience challenge, we experience accountability, but we also experience encouragement. Like, if we could just rebrand us. Locking arms. And I was talking. I don't know who I was talking to. I said, I said one. One of the things that we don't realize when God. When the Bible calls God the Lord of hosts, who do most people think it's talking about? When he called the Lord of hosts means the Lord of armies, who's in his army. That usually in those passages in our.

[Jackie Perry]

Mind, I, I think because I know what it means. I. I don't know what people think it means.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah, I. I don't.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

It's the angels and stuff, right?

[Jackie Perry]

And demons.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, angels. The Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies. There are multiple armies. We're his earthly army. We are a part of being under. We are part of his host. We'll eventually become heavenly hosts when we're with Him. Which is but one of your. One of you. We're. We're. We're. We're with three W's. It's so important for believers. We're witnesses, we're worshipers, and we're warriors.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

We're witnesses in that we talk about Jesus, we're worshipers. We show Jesus. We are warriors. We fight for Jesus.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Period.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You understand? And so if we don't understand our identity. Your identity is entrepreneurialism. Your identity isn't getting a husband or wife. That's not your identity.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah, that's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Those are just assignments to placate your identity through.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Preston Perry]

I had a question. I hope I can. Yeah. Remember how I wanted to phrase it, But I'm sorry. No, that's not your fault. But I wanted to go back to rebranding leadership.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Preston Perry]

You know, because realistically, all the things that you said, I. I think that's how the Bible wants us to. To look at leadership or whatever. But realistically, the way leadership is looked at nowadays is different because of the age of social media.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

You're right.

[Preston Perry]

Right. The way we look at leaders a lot of times is shaped by our favorite pastor influencer and stuff like that. And I think it can be a lot of pros and a lot of cons to looking at the global church through the lens of social media. But how does one gauge if they're looking too much at spiritual influences online and getting their framework of how leadership should be, the voices that they should listen to? And how do we encourage? Because I think the way we do, what you do is to encourage people to be in a local church body. And I think God, like, when we see the scriptures, God kind of encourages us. Like, Paul was not encouraging Timothy to worry about the church in Philippi. He was telling him to worry about Ephesus. And so now with the age of social media, it's such a big global, you know, phenomenon. You know what I mean? And church influences are. And church pastors are criticized for online. So how do we encourage people to, like, listen to their local leadership and build their local communities first before listening to outside voices?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. One of the things that I think is. And I'm gonna keep harping on this, I just think that believers. There are a lot of good pastors out there, great pastors out there. I believe that believers need to learn how to be discerning, because when you're discerning, you're impressed with the right stuff. Like at the end of the day, like, you know, I like me, hear me some hooping and I ride the loan. I like all that, you know, and you know, the closing. Look at her, she about to go to church. And I like that. And I like, you know, you got the spectrum, you got the Tim Keller mind all the way to, you know, the, the Jasper Williams teaching hoopology on this end, you know, in the sense of the skill level of communication and when you're, and it's nothing wrong with either one of those. When God highlights a, a person that I believe, like a Philip or somebody that God gives them a platform beyond their church. One of the things I think people should be careful of is judging their pastor off of the image of somebody online and then say, hey, we're in script. Cuz that dude got, he got a pastor that church. He just this stuff just showing online. He got to deal with whatever issues in that church. He not your pastor. Yeah, he not your pastor. He not giving an account. Account for your soul. He not. He not. That's why the Bible says shepherd the flock among you. 1 Timothy 5 First Peter 5:1:2. Yeah, and then it says you'll give an account, they'll give an account for your soul. And it's, it's funny. It even, it teaches proximity. Hebrews 13, it says, Listen, listen, submit to your leaders and help them to do it without being just tired of you. That's my translation, you understand? And so, and so in coming and bringing you, bringing your question home, I think that people need to be impressed with pastoral proximity. That's good. I just think that, I think that that's. I don't like when I feel like, because I know I have a little, a little platform. I don't like when I feel like somebody's more impressed with me through a podcast or through. Then they are their own local pastor who's doing their premarital counseling, who's shepherding them through hard times. And I said, you know, that's a thing that I really believe we need to be rebrand. And I think a lot of mature Christians, I've heard Christians say, I'm not really into the whole da da da thing. I like a simple church that has simple community, simple outreach, age available elders who just shepherd the flock. Yeah, there's no, there's no frills about it because as a pastor, I can tell you right now I, I'm sick of doing things to keep believers attention. Yeah, not non Christians. Like in church, they say you have to have children's ministry like this, in order for people to come to your church, you have to have. And I was like as. And I remember I was sitting in a room with my staff once, one staff meeting. And I was like, I'm sick of playing to baby pampas off people who don't want to pick up a God dang cross. This is the most non cross picking up people. I'm just like. I'm like, for me, I'm like, we have to demand. We. We can't create everything in the environment to be perfect for somebody, to want to be committed to coming.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

It just doesn't. That's not even the gospel, you understand. So I'm in Africa. These folk, you know, and it's not even in the bush we talking about in the. They hung. They about to bite my entire arm off. You know, they're wanting. And I said, man, we are so entitled. And so one of the things that I see. But I do see what I do see see on. On. On the upswing as I see some people. That's why I've been using this term remnant. Well, I've been seeing just a remnant of just Christians that are like, I need more. Like, like, I feel like even in my congregation. I'm just saying people are just so hungry now. They're babes. They're trying to work through their discernment. But they're like, pastor, I need more. And I believe that's a work of the Lord, that there's a. There's like, even with people that follow you guys, platform form, if they grow spiritually enough through their local church and engaging you guys and in their own engagement in their own spiritual life, they'll know the difference at some point between you all and some mess. And that. And the goal is. The goal is for people to get to the point where they know better.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Like when we talk about rebranding the church, we talk about knowing better. So when we talk about rebranding church leadership, and that's like a whole big conversation. And I think the brand of leadership should be more. Shouldn't. Social media, even though it's saturated with preaching, is not saturated with leadership. So leadership is only something you can be impacted by proximity. And so I just believe that people need to, like we've divined in other podcasts what a healthy church is, what a solid church looks like. You find that church and lock in. And I'm not saying church has to be boring, but I just don't like that we got to do too much to keep People's attention.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah, I think that's a great answer. And one of the reasons why I asked that is because I do think that the age of social media is discipling a generation to not be able to look at fruit properly. And we're going back into our local communities and we're judging our local communities based on these 30 second snapshots we're seeing on social media. And it's just not fair. Like when the Bible tells us, you know, we don't know good tree by the fruit it produce. If you judge an apple tree from 18 miles away, you're not going to judge it properly. And proximity is very, you know, very important. I've even had young dudes, not even in the sense of leadership in the church, with leadership in their home. I start disciping them, start walking with them, and the first thing they want to do is criticize their wife. Because the relationship they think I got with my wife, I want my wife to be like, Jackie, it's like, you don't know Jackie.

[Jackie Perry]

You don't.

[Preston Perry]

It's like you. It's like, no, I have a he.

[Jackie Perry]

Is grace for me.

[Preston Perry]

I have a great wife. You know what I mean? But at the same time it's like, stop looking at my life on social media. Engage and thinking. Like, stop having these parasocial relationships when you're online.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Word alert, Word alert, alert.

[Preston Perry]

When you're online and engaging your church based on what you see. Cause you know what I mean? I just think it's dangerous. And I think that we really have to start developing discipling. I think that we need to develop social media etiquette. Like we need to teach young believers how to properly engage with social media. Don't come in here trying to make the church be what you've kind of formulated in your mind because you scrolling all night looking at your favorite influences. No, like honor the church community, your local church community for what it is.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Let me ask y' all this. So I've talked with y' all over the years about Yalls relationship with Legacy Church. Right. And how would you all say. And this is on a very positive note, by the way.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

I feel like the stuff I see in y' all is deeply shaped by.

[Preston Perry]

Deeply.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

The discipleship, the community, the teaching, and the need to be a real freaking Christian.

[Preston Perry]

Yes.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Like what? From, from, from this conversation. Like what, what did. From a. From this perspective, what, what did that experience at Legacy Church give you all that made you the type of disciples you are and the way you Think through Christianity in the church based on it being y' all were in obscurity. And even when y' all got notoriety, they ain't care nothing about that. No, so what. What. Talk to me about that, because I think that's an important framework for our conversation.

[Preston Perry]

For. For me. I'll start. For me to be pastored under Brian Dye, a man who started this huge conference but never wanted any glory. You know, I've always saw him, you know, run away from, like, attention in that way. So I was discipled under that. But also too, you know, when we. Our platform started to grow in Chicago, started with spoken word poetry. I mean, we was doing 44 city tours in the fall, doing poetry. And Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we was on the road, and then we flew back home, you know, every week and every Monday, I was sitting down doing heart checks with him. So it was. It was true accountability. I know you on a roll with your wife, but are you loving your wife? I know you're doing ministry with your wife, but are you serving your wife? Are y' all dating? You know, are you loving community? Are you checking in with the guys back home that you discipling? Do they feel abandoned? You know what I'm saying? Are you dealing with pride? You know, where's your heart at? What you reading in the scriptures? And so, one, I think it was good for me because I saw how easy it can be for a public minister to start depending on the people outside that don't know them to confirm their Christianity. It's like they can't confirm where you are in the Lord just because people say amen to you. It's like people in your local community. And so for me, the local church in that aspect was just really. And then we grew up with them. And so our faith and our platform began to grow. But as it began to grow, we were still pressing and jacking, you know, and so for me, it was transformational in that way.

[Jackie Perry]

I think Legacy taught me a lot. One, I think similar to what Preston is saying, I wasn't just a member of a church. I was also being pastored by our pastor. And a lot of that was because I went to Legacy. But I also worked at GRIP Outreach for Youth, and Brian was my boss. And Monday we would have to have these one on one meetings where he would track my progress throughout the week related to my different tasks. But he would turn that into a how's your heart? How are you in Preston? Da da da da da. And it's like when you got to meet with your pastor every week. It kind of already trains you to live and be. And expect a certain kind of accountability and. And stuff like that. On top of that, Legacy was a house church, so we didn't have a ton of resources, therefore, we didn't have a ton of expectations. It's just we're in a living room with 15 people. We. We come, we gonna make breakfast, we gonna eat together. Ain't no child care. All our kids just running around. You got people from the neighborhood that's coming in, they can't even read, so you got to actually teach them to read before you can even teach them how to read scripture, stuff like that. So I think that lowered this understanding. None of these. These people know. A lot of the preachers and teachers, they knew scripture, but they weren't good communicators. So you also got to humble yourself when it comes to listening every Sunday to somebody that's walking through that text but born as a mug, you know what I'm saying? So. And I remember coming to church on Sundays and dealing with depression or dealing with this, but again, because it's so small, you can't hide. Jackie was wrong. You cool, you straight. Like, everybody is catching everybody's needs. And so it was an actual community. So I think being taken out of that and placed in Atlanta and doing this podcast, every. All of that is always coming from the accountability, the community, the humility, like, all of it. And so I think without Legacy, truly, we would be different people.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Preston Perry]

For sure.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

For sure. How do y' all, like. I feel like I'm interviewing y' all now, but how would you all encourage the average believer to rebrand their expectations?

[Preston Perry]

Oh, when it comes to the church.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

When it comes to the church, yes. Because I think what y' all just said lacked the frills, but it had the. It made disciples.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

It kept the. I mean, the main thing got done.

[Jackie Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Without a lot of stuff.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Like, what would you alls, particularly in a sensory generation of people who have a lot of attention. Expectations. What. What would you all's encouragement to them be in rebranding the expectations of the church?

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. I think one thing that Legacy Church showed me is the church is truly a family. And how much I did not look at the church as a family. And I think when you look at today's Christian, especially with social media, we go. We engage with the Christian community as a way. What can this things. What can this pastor give me? How can this influence support to me? How can this shirt serve me and we don't look at, at the body of Christ like a family. And when you look at people like family, you don't really all, you don't think about yourself only all the time.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

You think about fellowship, you think about communion, you think about laughs, you think about crying, you think about all of these things together. That makes you a family. And I do think that people, especially this generation, really have to look at the church like a safe haven, like a family, you know, and I think also too, I know we, you know, kind of beat a dead horse when it came to discipleship, but true discipleship, like you, you have to be built, like, built up in your faith, not with just theology, but character.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

Like, like, like you have to develop good character if you are going to be a faithful witness in the world. You just can't know, like, cause with so many podcasts, with so many different influences, I mean, Instagram and TikTok is just filled with just clip after clip after clip after clip after clip. And you just loading all of this spiritual information. But if your character is not building, you're going to go out in the world thinking that you're a mature Christian.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

When you really ain't. And so that's what another thing that, you know, our first church did, like, everybody had disciples over them. Everybody. And, but also we was holistically being discipled as a church with proper theology. We had to do hermeneutics courses every week, you know, and so like, I think just being a family and also character building is key.

[Jackie Perry]

There's so much to say. I was sitting here trying to synthesize it in my head, I think. Because your question was about entitlement, right?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, basically. How would you encourage people to rebrand the expectations of the church?

[Jackie Perry]

One, I just, I think our greatest expectation is the Lord wants me to look like his son.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Jackie Perry]

And his son was a servant. And so I think we move about the world and we move about the church not like servants. Servants, but like kings. And I think that's a part of the problem. I also think that the higher your expectations are, especially when they're undue, I think undue expectations increase the amount of disappointment.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Absolutely.

[Preston Perry]

Wow.

[Jackie Perry]

And so I think, I'm not saying lower your expectations, but moderate them. Have a sober minded view of people, have a sober minded view of leadership. I think the Lord has allowed us to always be in close proximity to all of our leaders. So we just understand their humanity, their capacity. And so we just put these unnecessary expectations. And I just think Read the Scriptures, I think really read through Acts, and not just reading through Acts, looking at the miracles, but looking at the community. Reading through First Corinthians or particularly Second Corinthians, I'm really, like, convicted and challenged by how Paul continues to push through his suffering to love other people, but how he is often comforted through other people. Read through Ephesians and the pure spiritual aspect of being united with each other and the warfare that, like, the warfare ain't purely just that you open in the door because you wore some waist beads. The warfare is coming against the unity that Christ died for. And so I just think, get in the Scriptures, humble yourself, look like Jesus, and I think it'll change the way we show up.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. And I'll say one more thing, too. I think that we also have to have a proper view of our own self sin and a realistic expectation of how much our sin affects the church. Because a lot of times you have people on two sides of the extreme. You have people who are hurt by the church and complain about the church, but then you have people who are super critical. And I think it's because they don't have a real, real realistic expectation about their own sin. And the truth is, you know, we heard the church nine times for the church heard us once. And so we are also a part of the church that we are condemning or talking about.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah.

[Preston Perry]

And. And if we, if we have a proper view of our own mess, allows us to show up graciously in the church. And I think it just helps the health of the church holistically when we.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's real.

[Preston Perry]

Can assess our own hearts and our own sin.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's real good. Because I wonder how do we disciple people or develop a culture in the church where in everything we do, we keep score like God does. Like, I wonder how. How do you, like, are you thinking how God scores that? Are you thinking, like, how you would score that? Because a natural promotion in man's eyes could be a spiritual demotion in God's eyes.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And so, you know, so how do you. What are your metrics? What's your metrics for community? Right. What's. What are expectations? What expectations should other Christians who are in proximity with one another have for one another? What are your metrics for preaching? Like what? In teaching what. Like what. What is. How does God keep score preaching? He said, Paul says, well, the goal of our instruction is love on pure heart and sincere faith and a clear conscience. You know, I was. I consider myself to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified. You know I. I did. I didn't shrink back from presenting to you the whole counsel of God.

[Jackie Perry]

It's the way my editors gonna need a whole bibliography of scriptures to put up on the screen for you but go ahead.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. Because it's like. And so all of those areas. What is even. Even. Even more. More default need place. How does God keep score in a man and a woman courting. How does God keep score for you as a single. In the single with. Without any spouse insight. What's. What's God's metrics for you?

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

And are you. Are you building your metrics on other people's expectations or God's? Like the more, the more you align your expectations with God's expectations, you don't really. You'll begin for stuff that not phase you the same way. Particularly when it's. When it. When you're abiding in him and it begins to become a part of the matrix of you. I remember it's a young lady that is like a gift. I don't want to cry talking about it. She's just a gift to us. She's like 43, beautiful young lady. She serves our family. I just don't understand why she's not married for all kinds of reasons. And I ended up asking, I said, how were you? How are you doing with your. Because I said, I'm pretty sure you want to be married, don't you? She said, yeah. I said, you know, you strike me you're the most committed to biblical singlehood, man or woman, I've ever seen. Wow. And I said. And she laughed. She said, well, Pastor, she said it wasn't always like that. And she said, but it's taking me time. She said, I still want to get married. But she feels in. I just love the way she feels in to family. She's everybody's auntie, you know, she. She has her own nieces and nephews. But. But then my kids, she teaches my kids and then she'll just go on a trip like to Puerto Rico or somewhere. And I love the way she with. With people, with her friends and stuff. Stuff. But. But what I like about love about her is she's not waiting on life as a believer. She's branded herself as. I'm single, I'm here, I want to be married, but I'm locked into God and I'm keeping score like him. What does he want me to do? He wants me to maximize my faith. I'm going to help Families, I'm going to teach children. I'm going to do this. And man, she's killing. And it's. And, and it's like, it's convicting for me because I'm like, am I God? Am I locked into you in every area of my life like she is?

[Preston Perry]

Yeah.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Like, because the way she locked in, it's convicting.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. Storing her time.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Well. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Jackie Perry]

I want to say this. And then we could probably start to wrap a little bit. I feel like it needs to be said, why do we need the church?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

That's such a good question. Question.

[Jackie Perry]

Cuz, cuz you, you have people listening. It's like, I hear you. That's cool and all, but I really feel like if I got the Bible, I got my prayer closet, I got my William Augusto, I got my podcast, I got these YouTubes. I'm straight and people are unsafe. People like, I don't need leaders. I don't need small groups. I don't need none of that.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah. I, I believe that the concept of church did not speak. Start in Matthew 16:18. If you understand biblical theology, Genesis, the people of God. It started with, first off, community started in the Godhead. That's number one part. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. Although they are different persons, they're united in essence and they've been keeping each other company forever. God not only is love, he loved himself by loving the other person, persons that were with him. So he was experiencing community. The fact that Jesus was slain before the foundation of Earth mean they talked, they decided stuff together. So when he said, let us make man in our likeness and our image, that was a deep statement. Said, I want us to make them with them not feeling self sufficient, efficient, without other people. And. And now I'm going to. And so I made Adam, but then I had to make Eve. And then I. He called them to make global community.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

When he said, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth, subdue it. The word subdue means make. Every person has the responsibility to promote the flourishing of other. Other people. That's what subdue means. It doesn't just mean tear down trees and stuff and build cities. It means how can you, how can your assignment help other people to flourish?

[Preston Perry]

Good.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Then you go to how God started drafting communities. So you had a Cain and Abel, then you go, you know, to Noah, then you go to Abraham. Then you. Eventually God says, this is my plan. This is my Plan that, that I'm going to create a community from your loins that's going to bless everybody.

[Preston Perry]

Wow.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

But there's going to be a seed that redeems this whole thing. And so Israel was supposed to be an example of a community of communities. Exodus 19:6. They supposed to be a kingdom of priests. And so, and so. And God put everything in there. Offense. How do you deal with offenses in community? How do you take care of the poor? Leviticus 19. How do you deal with judging cases? This is all community stuff. Even though we talk about civic law and all of that. Then you come to the church. The church is really, really an extension of God's community. And it's not replacement theology. The Israel was to be the church, but now we have Jew and Gentile in the same community. And now it's God's way of showing how he wanted it to be. And so local ecclesias are apostolic outposts of showing off the reality of what life is like when people submit their lives to God and lock together, lock up together. And so it's basically the manufacturer's intention. So if somebody say, well, I can create church on my own. I can, you know, I can, I can just have my podcast. I can have the few preachers I listen to, I listen to this church on this Sunday. I have the few people from different places that I. But that's not how God designed things. So I'll give you an example. I'm done. So I needed a plug real bad for my iPhone. I GUESS it was 12 at the time, or 11. And so I went into like Burlington Co Factory or Ross and you know, they got all of those little stuff.

[Jackie Perry]

At the front with the.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

So, so I Cocoa nibs. So, so I ended up getting one of them joints, right? They purple and purple and got flowers on them. So I, I, I plug it into my car. My car. And then I plug it into my phone and it said, unauthorized item plugged into your device. I had never seen that before. And so it would, So I, I was like, I just need, I need to. It's. Did it, did the thing say if it say don't. And the green thing come on, boom. And the little, the little lightning. I'm good, long as it's working. So I unlocked it. Boom. But it would get hot all the time. It would get real hot. And, and, and I would be like, man, well, I don't know why this gets so hot. And then my phone just started breaking down. And then I found out that although that fit and it worked. In some ways, it actually was damaging my phone because it wasn't authorized by the manual manufacturing. And a lot of times we don't realize that we're creating plug and play spiritualities that we don't realize. It may work in some areas, but you don't realize it's not giving you all the juice you need to be all you need to be for God. And so I think that when we talk about church, it's God's thing. Like. Like when I like Hebrew Israelites. He's not building camps. He's not. He's not building. He's building his church. The only thing, Gehenna, the gates of hell can come against is the church. And whether you like it or not, he died for her. He loves her and he's crazy about her. He don't play about her, and he's going to marry her and spend eternity with her. So at the end of the day, to not like church is to not like Jesus. Because if you tell me you love me and you don't like my wife, I don't fool with you. That's all.

[Preston Perry]

That's good.

[Jackie Perry]

Well, rebranding the church, when we'll have. When that come out.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

September 30th.

[Jackie Perry]

September 30th. Don't know when this is dropping. It'd be before or after. But check the link in the bio.

[Preston Perry]

No. And also two men. Pastor Eric Mason has amazing remnant merch. You can check it out on his website.

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Yeah, Pass em.

[Preston Perry]

Yeah. Past emas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's your. What's your Instagram website and all this stuff?

[Pastor Dr. Eric Mason]

Pass the em on everything Instagram. Do Instagram and it'll lead you everywhere else. Pass the em website, lead you everywhere. All right, man.

[Preston Perry]

Love you, bro.

[Jackie Perry]

All right, y'. All. Thank you. With the Perrys is produced by the Perrys with support from Amanda reed and Channing McBride. Video recording and audio production by Matt Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley, edited by the team at Tread Lively. Artwork by Hobb and music by Swoop. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.