Jon Harris [00:00:19]:

Pastor Matthew Everhart, thank you so much for joining me on the Will Spencer podcast.

Matthew Everhart [00:00:24]:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time and I'm glad to be here with you today.

Jon Harris [00:00:30]:

Super stoked. I've got your book here, Worshiptainment. This was excellent. I really enjoy this book. I think it's an important book and I could tell that a lot went into it. It was a work of passion and enthusiasm. So I'm looking forward to digging into this with you.

Matthew Everhart [00:00:45]:

Yeah, thank you so much. I was really delighted with some of the response to the book. In some sense, it's a polemical work where I do kind of aggressively, but with love. Some aggression, but a lot of love come after some worship practices that we see in the church today that in my view are, you know, far, far too prevalent and maybe stray a little bit too much from what the Bible teaches about worship. So that's why I wrote the book.

Jon Harris [00:01:11]:

Maybe you can, for the listeners, people who haven't been exposed to your work before, maybe give a little bit of your background what you do. Maybe talk a little bit about your YouTube channel as well.

Matthew Everhart [00:01:20]:

Sure. Well, fundamentally, I am the pastor of Gospel Fellowship pca. So we're a Reformed Bible believing church and we're just north of Pittsburgh. If you're in the area, we'd to have you come worship with us. So that's my day job. I'm the pastor here. We are about to hire an assistant pastor, but for right now it's just me. We have a growing church of about 400 members and relatively small staff for the amount of people we have. We're in a growing area, so that's a wonderful thing to benefit from. And I'm also an adjunct professor at rpts. So that's the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. Interestingly, Will, you might be interested to know this, that it is the oldest conservative seminary in the United States. So there are some that are older, like Yale and Harvard, obviously, but it's the oldest one that has maintained a true confession to biblical Christianity. And that's, that's a pretty neat fact, I think. So. Rpts Edu, if you want to come study with us, that'd be great.

Jon Harris [00:02:18]:

And so it's still holding to that because I know, I mean, I don't know a whole ton about the seminary and Bible college world, but I'm aware just from some of my friends that some, some of them are going in not great directions.

Matthew Everhart [00:02:29]:

Oh, definitely. My goodness. You have to Be really careful if you're thinking about going to Bible college or seminary at all. There's so many that you know were solid and then are kind of squishy now. There are many, many that were solid and now are outright heretical. So for instance, people often confuse us with another seminary called PTS, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and again, just disambiguation where RPTs, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, well, they're not far from each other, but they couldn't be further on the continuum of liberal versus conservativism. So we are still holding to orthodox, Reformed, biblical and Evangelical Christianity. It's a great place to go to school, really is.

Jon Harris [00:03:12]:

Can we, can we talk a little bit about this for a moment just before we get into the book? It must be pretty challenging to, to hold to biblical doctrine in an age of so much pressure to slide to the left or shave off bits of the gospel. It must be really difficult from an institutional level to say no, this is our commitment, this is what we're holding to, maybe even in the face of demands of students and parents.

Matthew Everhart [00:03:36]:

Well, I think here's the general rule, and I didn't make this up myself, but I've heard this said and I think it's true that any institution whatsoever, be it governmental or educational or ecclesiastical, if it doesn't rigorously self identify and conscientiously fight for conservatism, it is naturally going to drift left. So it's kind of like if you have a car and your wheels are not all pumped up to the same degree of pressure, it's going to veer to one side. While institutions as such tend to veer leftward, they tend to move with the culture, and usually that's in a progressivist direction. So the only kinds of churches and institutions that are going to be able to remain faithful for generations are those that are consciously self aware and purposely fighting for that maintenance of confessional standards. So at a seminary like rpts, it is a wonderful fight and we're glad to be in it. But a lot of students also choose us for that very reason, because they don't want some kind of squishy leftist progressivist education. They come to us because they want to be trained in Reformed biblical Christianity. And if you're looking for a place like that, there are unfortunately fewer than there used to be. But there still are many good places to go to school for sure, just as there are many good churches still today too.

Jon Harris [00:05:01]:

Can you talk a little bit about your YouTube channel as well? Because I noticed you've built A sizable following. And I can understand because I've enjoyed many of your videos, which we'll get into some of those today. But yeah, talk a little bit about what was the inspiration behind starting that and how that process has gone and a bit more.

Matthew Everhart [00:05:17]:

Sure. So this happened to me by accident, to be Honest, channel about 12 years ago. And originally, believe it or not, I was just posting a couple of family videos like jumping on the trampoline with my kids. And then I posted a couple of Bibles that I was pretty happy with that I had bought, and I wanted to put some reviews on there. And those kind of took off. And so for the first couple of years, I mostly did book and Bible reviews. And then my conscience was a little bit unsettled about that because it felt like I was promoting products. And so I switched over to kind of a talking head theological channel, which is what I do now. It's my bread and butter. And so I try to usually explain Reformed theology and theological and biblical concepts at a layperson's level. So like today, for instance, I put up a video called what is Calvinism? Where for 40 minutes I just give the background and history of the theological movement that we call Calvinism. So I do a lot of Reformed theology, church history, and then practical stuff, too. And over the years, I've been really pleased just to see how the channel has grown. Occasionally I'll do some controversial topics, but it's really not a channel where I get on and kind of smash other Christians and try to, like, tell them why everybody's terrible and I'm good. Definitely not that I've been trying to really. My lane is basic explanations of Reformed theological concepts with a lot of church history and then practical ministry spliced in there, too. So it's been a real blessing. And, you know, I never. And I don't care if you do, Will, you're free to do this. I never say like and subscribe, but that always felt corny to me. So I just, I just get on there, I talk, I share what I'm thinking about that day. And then I tell my. My viewers that I love them and I'll talk to them later. And that's what I've been doing for years. And the channel's growing and it's been a real blessing, I think.

Jon Harris [00:07:13]:

I watched one of your videos that, where you said that, that you don't do say like, oh, no, it's in the back of. It's in the back of worshiptainment, which we. And I was like, I suddenly felt very convicted, like.

Matthew Everhart [00:07:24]:

You'Re totally free to do that, believe me. I think, I think all of us who have podcasts, everybody has their own approach and their own style, and some have commercials and some don't. And you know, honestly, some people in the Reformed world say that there's podcast, but I don't think so. I think that there's room for thousands more podcasts because what's neat about them is that, you know, we like different personalities and different presenters and some are conversational and some are more like mono speaker style. Like mine are just talking head videos for the most part. But you could get so specific about particular theologians or movements or aspects of church life and theology or contemporary events that I think, I honestly believe that there is room for thousands more podcasts. And if I was going to start a new one, I would, I would pick a niche, I would pick a lane, and I would just stay in that lane and try to be the best, the best podcast on that particular topic.

Jon Harris [00:08:22]:

And that's what I like about your channel is that reliably produces accessible content about the reformed faith that doesn't shoot too high, you know, into. Into deep theological topics. Right. You know, transcendent kind of themes where it's, you know, too academic and it's too low, it doesn't pander. It's just very straightforward presentations of crucial topics and perspectives. Like, I watched your, I started watching your what is Calvinism? Video this morning, but then in that one you referenced the, the what's with all the Calvin hate video. So then I want. I went, I watched that one. Yeah, I went, I went to watch that one first. And, but I actually thought that was great because, you know, from coming from outside the faith, I knew the word Calvinism and. But I knew that the word Calvinism had all this like, spooky anger kind of attached to it somehow, but I couldn't say why. So listening to that video helped me understand some of that. And maybe we can, maybe we can even talk a little bit about that because it's relevant to the book here, because you get into conformed confessional reform standards for worship, which would be quite confrontational to many raised and kind of the worshiptainment world. And that ties directly to. That ties directly to Calvinism. So maybe we can just start there and talk about, like, what is this? What is Calvinism? Why should people not be afraid of it? And then we can see how it plays out in the course of the worship life of a believer, let's say.

Matthew Everhart [00:09:40]:

Yeah, that's A great thing. So you know, Calvinism is really tied to the great revival in history that we call the Reformation. And just to go back, real big picture here, the church went through the medieval period which some call the Dark Ages. And I think that's probably a right label to give it because the church really wandered from the biblical faith for some centuries and it began to accumulate a lot of teaching that's not in the Bible. So for instance the Marian dogmas or discussions on purgatory, it began to kind of add sacraments. You know, you get some of the strong handed teaching of the papacy and indulgences and things like that. So in the 1500s you had this major revival where the Lord called his church back to the Scriptures. And in the revival of the 1500s you had several different leaders, including Martin Luther as a significant one and then Zwingli. But then John Calvin is the leader of what we call the Reformed movement today. And Calvin's influence was great because he consciously stood on the shoulders of those who came before him. So for he's, for instance, he's very credal. He would adhere to the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, he's very Augustinian in his theology. So he does connect with some of the patristics and some of the medieval theologians. But he's an excellent Bible scholar. And so Calvinism as such is really just a return turn to the Bible's basic plain teaching in the New Testament especially. And so sometimes people associate Calvinism with for instance, the doctrines of grace, which would include election and predestination. But Calvinism is really more than just one hallmark doctrine. It's really a whole worldview that sees all of life as subservient to the great glory of God and his majesty and power. So that's what, that's how I would define Calvinism in just a few moments.

Jon Harris [00:11:34]:

Yeah, you can't see it, but I actually have the institutes up on a shelf up to my, up to my right. And I think that's. And you mentioned this and I think it was in the Calvin, the why the Calvin Hate video about just how essential God's sovereignty is, especially today for our own American notions, maybe Western notions of individualism, self sovereignty that sort of grow out of the Enlightenment.

Matthew Everhart [00:11:59]:

Yeah, definitely. I mean we live in one of the most egocentric cultures that has probably ever existed. For the most part, most Eastern cultures are very group oriented or communal oriented, whereas in the west we tend to be highly individualistic. And here in America it's like individualism on steroids. And so I think that's part of the problem as people perceive it with Calvinism, because Calvinism says that man is not the center of the universe, but that rather God and his son Christ are. Are the center of the universe. And so Calvinism is always going to grind the gears of people who are mostly oriented towards self. Because Calvin's great claim is that God rules over all things and he's absolutely sovereign over every event, every person, every individual, and the whole of history writ large. So to be a Calvinist is one who ascribes to the doctrine that there is a great, mighty and very powerful God who reigns over all things. So, yeah, that's going to be a little weird to a lot of Western minds, for sure.

Jon Harris [00:13:03]:

Super confronting, right? Like, oh, no, this is my little thing and God's over there. He's got his own stuff going on. This is mine. It's like, no, God's sovereign over all of that, including, I think this is probably the most controversial point. Controversial, including over salvation itself. We can. We can talk about that for a moment.

Matthew Everhart [00:13:20]:

Yeah. So that is maybe the hallmark doctrine of Calvinism. But I think we have to realize too, Will, that Calvin's not the only person who talks like this, not by a long shot. In fact, if you were to read, for instance, Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will, he seems even more Calvinistic than Calvin at times. Luther was strongly predestinarian as well as was St. Augustine and most of the Reformers and certainly all of the Puritans. So the idea that God is sovereign over salvation is definitely not original to John Calvin. In fact, we might even say that it's really Pauline because it's the Apostle Paul who articulates these doctrines most clearly. For instance, in Ephesians chapter one, and then certainly Romans Chapter eight and Romans nine, but many other places in the New Testament, in the Old Testament as well, we get this idea. The impression is that God rules all things, and that even includes the salvation of men. If anybody is saved, it's only by God's grace. And it's his grace that comes to us through the gospel in Jesus Christ. So those are all themes that are intrinsic to Calvinism, but again, not exclusive to Calvin. Certainly many, many other theologians have also articulated the same kinds of doctrines of grace as it relates to individual salvation.

Jon Harris [00:14:40]:

So when I was sort of coming into the faith, I would hear people talk about Calvinism with sort of a sense that Calvinists could be maybe harsh, maybe. Maybe a bit. I Don't cruel was sort of the impression that I would get the way that people would talk about Calvinism, but when I discovered that, I didn't find it to be that way at all. Maybe there are people out there that take Calvinistic doctrines and they take it too far and it sort of becomes about them in its own way. I don't know that I fully understand it.

Matthew Everhart [00:15:08]:

Yeah, there's definitely a phenomenon that we call hyper Calvinism, which is where, you know, we lean so far into the idea of God's grace that it's almost as like there's no burden therefore than to evangelize at all. But certainly that's not true because in Romans Paul on one hand he strongly affirms God's predestining grace, but then again in the next chapter he also says that basically we ought to send missionaries. How beautiful are the feet of those who could bring, bring good news. Etc. He even mentions to some effect that he'd willing, he'd be willing to lose his own salvation for the sake of his, his fellow Jews, his fellow ethnic brothers. So yeah, there, and, and certainly there's something called Cage stage Calvinism too as well, where when a person discovers the doctrines of grace, they often kind of lose. I don't know why, I don't know why this is, but it's sad. They kind of lose the tenderness for people and a love for people and they become a little bit rough and maybe jaded, perhaps even resenting some of the things that they'd heard about in their own background in evangelicalism before. And all of a sudden they kind of take on this pompous and very prideful attitude of a know it all, someone who's kind of into know. And then they begin to maybe sneer at other people who haven't learned as much as them. And that's a real temptation. You know, whenever we study anything, it can make us proud. And so we who are Calvinists should be the most humble and meek people on the face of the earth. Because if anything our Calvinism suggests that we're very small and God is very great. But unfortunately a lot of people do go through this kind of cage stage where they're just kind of ruffians online and they're bossing people around and you know, bragging about their knowledge and dropping 50 cent words and things like that. And I think that's, that's lamentable though I confess I've been there before myself.

Jon Harris [00:17:13]:

Oh really? I mean that's, that's. I, I had heard Cage stage being slightly different. That Cage state was like, I have to go tell everybody. And maybe that there's less of a. Maybe that there's less of a bullying aspect and more of like a. Excuse me, I'm a sneeze.

Matthew Everhart [00:17:28]:

Let me talk while you sneeze. So when I hear of Cage Stage Calvinism, the idea. Bless you. Thank you. Bless you, brother. Mostly the connotation, at least from my conversations about it, is that when a person becomes a Calvinist, you should put them in a cage for a few years until they chill out. And then they. They're basically gracious again because again, you learn all these doctrines and you're super hyped up and amped about them. And yeah, you want to. You want to share it, but unfortunately, sometimes people share in a way that's, like, overly assertive to the effect that it's more annoying than anything because they go rounds rebuking and correcting everybody who's not quite there yet. And, hey, there is a sense in which people need to be rebuked and corrected, but it always does have to legitimately and genuinely come off with love, or else it's just more pompous pride. And again, I think that's lamentable.

Jon Harris [00:18:25]:

Well, that sounds like a. That sounds like a. I guess I would say maybe an abuse of God's gift. Like he's given you this insight, this wisdom, the salvation, and then to run around and use as a club to kind of bludgeon other people with. I don't.

Matthew Everhart [00:18:38]:

I don't know.

Jon Harris [00:18:38]:

That's. That's what that's for.

Matthew Everhart [00:18:41]:

Yeah, but. But here's the thing, too, is while Calvinists are known for that online, unfortunately, I think that's a temptation that's ubiquitous and that almost every tradition suffers from the same ailment. So often, like right now, we're seeing what appears to be some kind of movement towards Roman Catholicism again, or perhaps even Eastern Orthodoxy. And then you get into some online altercations with these people and you find out that they've got Cage Stage Orthodoxy or Cage Stage Roman Catholicism. So it's definitely not peculiar to Calvinists in particular. I really don't believe that. I think it's just a human condition, that whatever, we get amped up and we learn some new knowledge, maybe we even go deeper in our faith intellectually than we had been before. It does tend towards pride, which should cause us to confess and be more. More repentant all the more, I would think.

Jon Harris [00:19:33]:

Yeah, that's a real. That's a really Good point. That it can be just a very human phenomenon to learn some, to learn or master some sort of new information and then to have a sort of maybe prideful enthusiasm or a bit of both, to just want to rush out and make it a whole big thing. It's like, well, Mo, maybe just chill and learn to understand a little better before making it your identity.

Matthew Everhart [00:19:53]:

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's. I think that's definitely it. And again, you know, I don't think it's particular to Calvinists or Presbyterians or the Reformed. I think it's something that's, that runs fairly strongly through, through human nature. It's kind of like, you know, if you ever met anybody who struggled with alcohol and maybe they quit alcohol and they get a victory over it or smoking or whatever, then all of a sudden they're like the most hardcore anti. You know, they're the hardcore teetotalers or whatever, or people that go vegan. All of a sudden they have to smash everybody that likes meat or people that go carnivore. Then all of a sudden they have to smash people that like vegetables. It's like no man, just chill, be gracious and be humble. And I think that's probably going to win the day in the long run.

Jon Harris [00:20:38]:

I agree, I agree. So let's, let's keep things moving. Let's, let's connect Calvin to the Westminster Confession of Faith because you draw from that quite heavily in the book and I promise we are going to get to it. Yeah, so you draw from that quite heavily as the foundation that you use to critique modern forms of worshiptainment.

Matthew Everhart [00:20:56]:

Right. So let's make some connections there. So the Westminster Confession of Faith is the standard doctrinal confessional statement for Presbyterians like myself. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a very influential document. It comes out of the Westminster assembly, which was a great meeting in the 1600s. So 1643-47 we think of as the main aspect, actually a little bit longer than that on either end. But the confession of faith is very helpful for Presbyterians because it's a wonderful statement that really keeps us moored to biblical teaching and it orients us theologically over the space of quite a few different headings of systematic theology. So, for instance, God, the Trinity, Christian redemption, man's salvation, the Church, the sacraments, etc. Well, it is a Calvinist document. No doubt. The writers of the Westminster Confession of Faith were influenced highly by John Calvin and his, his writings and so forth. But in the confession there is a section on worship and here is something directly pertinent to the book and to our conversation today, and that is the Westminster Confession teaches what we call the regulative principle of worship. So let me just define that. The regulative principle of worship is the idea that we should do in worship services what God commands us to do in worship services, and only that. So we're really not free to invent forms of worship and hope that they're acceptable to God, but rather we're supposed to look to the Holy Scriptures to see what God has called us to do in worship and do those things. So that's the basic premise of the book as it comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith. And so I'm arguing in the book that much of what passes as worship and evangelicalism today has become far too influenced by the entertainment industry rather than by the word of God. And so in several chapters in the course of the book, I'm calling us back to a biblical faith and a biblical biblical expression of worship. And over several different areas.

Jon Harris [00:23:13]:

Yeah, it was Pastor David Reese who, you may know, he introduced me to the regulative principle of worship. I remember I sat down for coffee with him and he explained to me the difference between the normative principle versus the regulative principle. I think he said the normative principle is, and some people believe this. If it isn't explicitly forbidden in Scripture, it's okay. And so. Yeah, please go ahead.

Matthew Everhart [00:23:36]:

Yeah, yeah, so. So a lot of people hold that. And that would be what is the fundamental guiding principle for some other traditions like Lutheranism or Anglicanism? And in those traditions, obviously they look a little bit more Roman Catholic, perhaps to the uneducated observer. And actually they are a little bit more Roman Catholic in some of their, their vestments and sanctuary might look more like that. And, you know, some of the prayers. And that's because certain of the Reformation traditions had a looser principle of worship in which, just like you said, they assumed that things were permissible as long as they weren't forbidden. So sometimes we call that the normative principle, whereas the regulative principle is actually a little bit more strict than that. It says that we ought to do nothing except that which God expressly and specifically commands us to. To do. Okay. But even still, I have patience for my Lutheran and Anglican brothers. Where I'm really struggling in this book is what I would call the practical principle of worship. Whereas many churches today, they do simply what works, what draws a crowd, what gets attention, what's going to pack people into the stadium style seating. Of the auditorium and get people to come. They're really not concerned much with either the normative or the regulative principle. They're simply concerned with how do we gain an audience and try to sustain it. And that, I think is really the hallmark problem of worshiptainment.

Jon Harris [00:25:19]:

And let's start getting into that because I think a lot of people have seen, and certainly with protestia and many other videos online, and I know, you know, certainly being an outspoken Protestant, interacting with Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics and saying, you know, the smoke machine version of Protestantism, like it is actually a problem. And it's, it is ridiculous, as in, it's worthy of ridicule, but it's very, very popular. And you actually lay out some pretty shocking, some pretty shocking things that I was like, I can't believe that this is real, that churches are doing this. And yet we have churches today where they're kicking Bibles like footballs. And it's like, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Everhart [00:25:56]:

And it gets worse. And every time, you know, I see one of these online, I think, I think, man, do I need to add another chapter to worship tainment or just let it stand as is?

Jon Harris [00:26:04]:

Second edition.

Matthew Everhart [00:26:05]:

Yeah, I know I could easily do that. I just saw the other day, you probably saw this too. Some church installed like a full size roller coaster in the front of their auditorium. And the pastor comes rolling in on this thing that looks like, looks like it was bought used out of Disney World or something like that. And I just thought to myself, how juvenile. And I can't imagine what kind of person would be impressed by this and think that somehow this is going to help to usher them into the presence of, of almighty God. And then there was another clip that came up just, just the other day in which a pastor, he's going to try to illustrate the, the story of how Jesus binding the strong man. And so he does this Jiu jitsu demonstration on the stage. Now look, I think Jiu Jiu jitsu is cool. I've studied it myself. I like wrestling, I like martial arts. I'm into UFC and things like, like any other dude. The dude, man. But to try to incorporate that into worship, to me was just beyond banality. It's. It's unhelpful. It's goofy. Here you see this pastor, he's going to show his guillotine choke on some other guy. He's got, he's all mic'd up, you know, and he's trying to talk as his sermon, as he's showing these jujitsu moves and I thought even though there's a veneer of masculinity there because Jiu Jitsu's masculine, yet there's still this fundamental violation of the holiness principle of what worship ought to be. What I really saw in that clip was a pastor who just wanted to show off that he knew some Jiu jitsu. Yep. And he probably got a lot of high fives and. And knuckles, you know, in. In the foyer after service. Oh, that's so cool, Pastor. I didn't know you were a tough guy. But that has unfortunately, very little to do with the gospel. And I'm pretty sure that his illustration was shoehorned into that text. He probably wanted to do the Jiu Jitsu and found a text that would go along with that so he could kind of show that off. But it's very man centered. And I think the point of that was to show that he knew Jiu jitsu rather than to really illustrate the text, which probably could have been done a lot more simply and with greater accuracy, just with an exegesis of the passage.

Jon Harris [00:28:30]:

How sad.

Matthew Everhart [00:28:31]:

Yeah, I think so.

Jon Harris [00:28:33]:

The people there are hungry and thirsty, and they're being the pastor showing off his ability to do Jiu jitsu as a. As a substitute for actually feeding them and nurturing the sheep.

Matthew Everhart [00:28:45]:

Yeah. And again, I like martial arts, but I just don't think there's any place for martial arts in the worship service. Ostensibly during the time where the Bible is supposed to be explained and exposited for the people of God. I just find it a sad and unhelpful substitute. And there's so much of that. And again, we could just pile on illustrations. In the book, I talk about the crucifying of Batman, where there's this particular church that every Easter they do crucifixion plays, where one year it's Toy Story, another it's the Batman series, another it's some other Disney series, the Incredibles or something like that. And I just can't imagine that there's a lot of people who would think that this actually deepens their faith. And I can imagine people saying, oh, that's cool, because I didn't know church could be like that. But then what? The problem is, then what do you do next year? Because every year you have to top what you did the previous year. And that's how it jumps the shark, to borrow a phrase from Hollywood. And it gets to the point of ridiculousness. And my argument in the book is that you just don't go there in the first place. You Just do the ordinary means of grace that God has ordained for the sustenance and edification of his church. And that is really going to be better in the long run.

Jon Harris [00:30:02]:

As a pastor, it must especially grieve you as well, because obviously when, when putting together sermons or a worship service, there is always the temptation to have something be maybe more entertaining in particular way ways. Obviously not going crazy like that, but making the hard decision to know. I'm going to sit down, I'm going to spend another hour hammering out this verse. Paying with your own time and attention and energy to create something that will be engaging rather than simply choosing the easy path for what might tickle the ears. You might say. Must be especially grievous to. To watch these, these violations from that perspective.

Matthew Everhart [00:30:41]:

Yeah. And I think that's why the church got into things like what's called Summer at the movies, which is another thing that I talk about book somewhere at the movies is the idea that rather than having expository preaching series through the summer, that instead the church watches movie clips and then discusses whatever spiritual strains they might be able to, to connect as the church really just takes some time to look at more screens, which to me again is, is almost disgusting. We are so over deluged with screens in our life. Our lives are just filled with screens. You and I are looking at screens right now and so are our viewers. Right. So it's just ubiquitous. The last thing we need to do is do that while we're. We're supposed to be worshiping the Lord in church. And as a substitute for the preaching of the word. I just find it to be totally inexcusable. But the problem again is once you introduce these kinds of entertainment concepts into the church, then you always have to get this one upsmanship where each sermon has to be more exciting than the last one and each series has to be more engaging than the last one. And every summer has to be greater than last summer. And so you find yourself doing more and more ridiculous stunts in order to gain people's attention. And the problem, as has been expressed by others as well as myself, is that what you do to get them there, you have to. Better to keep them there.

Jon Harris [00:32:06]:

Yeah.

Matthew Everhart [00:32:07]:

Because the attitude goes from this is going to be good to this better be good really quickly. And once the congregation is saying this better be good, then you've already, you've already lost them. It's already over for the most part. And so better to give them what they really need in the first place, which is the word of God. Which is the true and living Word. It's this double edged sword. It's the bread of life. It is the light to our path. The Word is entirely sufficient. And I wish that pastors would just trust the Bible in their hands that it's more exciting and more entertaining than anything you're going to say. It's better than any of your clever stories or illustrations and it's more profound than anything that's going to come sideways into the sanctuary through Hollywood or through Broadway or anything else. So pastors just fundamentally need to trust that the Word is good and it's life sustaining.

Jon Harris [00:32:59]:

Do you think, I mean, do you think that they've ever actually believed that themselves? I know that you don't know their hearts and that's not, you know, what I'm asking necessarily to evaluate, but you, you'd think like, you know, I just posted, just before we jumped on, I posted a Twitter thread about the Bible reading plan that I do. 51, 22, 5 Psalms, 1 chapter of Proverbs, 2 chapters of the Old Testament and 2 chapters of the New Testament. I've been doing that for over a year and I've almost done the Bible the entire way through that way. And it's been an incredibly nourishing, enriching, enlightening experience to, to experience the faith that way. And I look at that having, having done that plan again almost through the entire Bible now, and I see what you're saying and that pastors can't or don't or won't. It seems a bit odd to me. It's like, it's almost like they don't actually believe the word of God. Is, is that good?

Matthew Everhart [00:33:51]:

Yeah. I like how you said we don't know their hearts and I think that that is really, really, really true. And we have to be very careful whenever we evaluate these things. I think it's good to evaluate, but we have to be careful. We don't judge. Right. So there's a distinction there. When we evaluate, we are making observations from the outside and we're lacking the data of the. In the internal man. We don't know what that person is thinking and what their motives are. But I'm a man myself and I know my, my own motives, at least to some extent. Although I don't even say I know my own motives perfectly because I can deceive myself. One thing I will tell you is that there is a real temptation that preachers feel to be liked. And I know we should say will, that preachers should be better than that. And we should be more mature than that. But every human being likes to be. Likes it. Liked, sorry, likes to be liked and needs to be needed in some extent. And so when a preacher preaches well and somebody says, hey, good sermon, man, look, we're mortals and we, we like that. And so we are very keen to listening to audience feedback and cues and very subtly want to give them what they want and what they like. And we have to be careful about that because ultimately we cannot be man pleasers. If we do, we're going to go stray, we're going to go astray, we have to be divine, Lord pleasers. And that's the only way to be, to be faithful. So just by way of example, Will, I'll just confess, several years ago, it's been several years now. In my opening for my sermon, I always have just like a, you know, an introduction, something that's going to lead me into the topic of the sermon. Well, for whatever reason, I made a joke about the Cleveland Browns, and I'm from Cleveland, and it, the joke really landed well and people laughed at my joke and gosh, man, I felt so good, they laughed at my Cleveland Browns joke. It was self deprecating humor. And the next week I thought to myself, man, it'd really be great if I could start off with something funny again and make everybody laugh. And so all, you know, so on goes this temptation that we have to say things that people are going to like. But I've really tried to break that habit of anything that tickles the ear. So to the point that I'm even very cautious about what stories and illustrations I use because I don't want my hearer to remember my joke or my story or my anecdote and forget the main point. And I think that as far as preaching goes, if your illustration is more memorable than the point that it's illustrating, it's actually a bad illustration because it's really not helpful. So, you know, part of our theology of preaching is that the word has to be central, which is why as expositors, we keep going back to the text throughout.

Jon Harris [00:37:04]:

We appear to have lost Pastor Matthew. Oh, wait, looks like he's back.

Matthew Everhart [00:37:10]:

Nope. When did you lose me? Okay.

Jon Harris [00:37:13]:

We appear to have lost. And then I think. And then you. And then poof.

Matthew Everhart [00:37:16]:

And now you're back. I'm back. Well, I was talking about preaching, making a point about just how important it is that preachers sustain a biblical mode of exposity in the text.

Jon Harris [00:37:28]:

Yes. And, and actually I think it was in the first half of worshiptainment. You used a phrase that, that I had heard before, but I understood it in a new way. I think it was from. Maybe it was from Spurgeon. We said, it's a dying man preaching to dying men. Yeah, was that it? Would you please unpack that a little bit? Because I was like, oh, I'd heard that before and it just landed for the first time.

Matthew Everhart [00:37:50]:

Yeah, that might be Bunyan. I'm kind of forgetting myself. I think it might be John Bunyan who said that. But preaching is an appeal to the heart. You know, it's biblical in its foundation and it's centered on the gospel. But the preacher himself is a dying man, meaning that we are mortal, we are finite, we ourselves are going to die one day. And so what we're doing when we're preaching is we're throwing out that lifeline, knowing that others are in the same mortal condition that we are. And so there's an urgency to every single sermon that we ever preach. There's an urgency to appeal to people, to respond to and to believe the gospel. And so we have to think of preaching as not mundane, it's not going through the motions, but rather it is the heralding of a life saving gospel message that actually saves those who believe. So it's a wonderful and beautiful task for us who are preachers to, to do with our lives.

Jon Harris [00:38:49]:

And what a different perspective on it than the worshiptainment model. Right to the, the idea that the pastor up there giving the sermon would be aware of his own sinful nature of, of the fact that he is a dying man and he looks out in front of him and sees dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people who are also dying. That is such a different perspective, foundational perspective to begin that process from than the, okay, well, I have to show up and give him something better than I gave him last year.

Matthew Everhart [00:39:17]:

Let's go.

Jon Harris [00:39:19]:

That's a very. Like how different those two, those two models are.

Matthew Everhart [00:39:23]:

Yeah, very different. Because in worship, one of the things that we forget is that spiritual realities are evidence every Lord's day. Heaven and hell are on the line, so to speak. Now, in one sense they're not because God is sovereign and the Lord has his great plan for all of history and he's going to fulfill his word and his plan for redemption. But on the other hand, yeah, it is possible that on any given Sunday a person might trust Christ and be saved from death into life and be saved from hell into heaven. And that every Sunday we're to herald the blood of Christ's cross, knowing that even in the room that angels and demons are present to fight that spiritual battle for the sake of souls. And the preacher is engaging in that spiritual warfare by staying faithful, faithful to the biblical text and, you know, admonishing men to turn to Christ and be saved. So the whole service itself is far more spiritual, it's far more grave, it's far more powerful than anything that worshiptainment would have to offer. Because at the end of the day, what is the goal of worshiptainment? That, that all people would come away feeling good vibes and maybe be a little encouraged. But no, the Lord's Day service, and especially the preaching of the Word has eternity in every breath. And I think pastors do well to remember that they are the heralds of an eternal gospel that has the power to save eternal souls.

Jon Harris [00:40:52]:

Amen. So, so, so can I push on something a little bit just to play sort of devil's advocate? Okay, yeah. So, so my Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox listeners and friends would say, okay, we're totally down with you with those spiritual realities. Saints, angels, demons, you know, all that is there. And so, and so I think that they would ask, well, when I go into the average Reformed church, I see none of that. I see, you know, very bare walls, like the church that I go to, Reformation Presbyterian Church, Pastor Joel Ellis and Apache Junction. There isn't a cross on the wall. There's two, like olive trees and like a, and like a grayish blue kind of color. And that's it. There's no adornment. There's no sense of this, of this cosmic, transcendent feeling within Reformed churches. So if you're, you're saying all this from within a Reformed tradition where none of that is reflected. So where's the transcendence in your churches?

Matthew Everhart [00:41:46]:

Yeah, you know, I understand that question. I appreciate the kickback because I, I grew up Lutheran and so in the church that I grew up in, learning the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Creed and the great truths of the faith, we had a hundred foot ceilings, we had statues of the saints, we had a huge cross, we had Christ everywhere, stained glass windows, beautiful lights streaming in. And there was a sense in which it felt spiritual. It felt like there was something otherworldly there. And so I, I get that. And as far as the aesthetic goes, there is a desire in our eyes to see things that make us feel spiritual or can draw us into a spiritual mode of thinking. The only kickback that I would say is that we have to remember that much of the spiritual world is invisible, right? So Christ is right now seated at the right hand of the Father, but he is removed from human eyes such that I cannot look up into the skies and see him seated on the clouds. Now there will be a day when he returns, and every man will see the Son of Man, but that day is not today. So too, there are angels and demons that are fighting literally, quite literally, for the souls of men and for the turning of every, every angle of history. But those spiritual realities are invisible to our eyes. If we ever see an angel or a demon, believe me, you'll remember it for the rest of your life. But those instances, even in the Scriptures, are very, very rare. We may think that miracles and the divine happen practically on every other page of our, our Bibles, but we forget that our Bibles cover a vast span of history. So every time the angel of the Lord shows up in the Old Testament, though, those occasions are frequent. And for instance, like the Book of Judges, historically speaking, those things are very, very rare. But that doesn't mean that the world that we live in isn't in fact, a spiritual warfare. It is, there is a spiritual battle. It's just that it's veiled to the eyes of men. And so even as we're preaching the gospel, we're preaching a gospel that must be heard rather than seen with the eyes. And the scripture actually does emphasize hearing the gospel rather than seeing the gospel with the eyes. We're even warned that what we take in with the eyes can be very deceptive. So the lusts of the flesh and the things of this world that we can see often deceive the heart. But it's the hearing of the word of God and the heart's response to it with the help of the Spirit that matters. And he too, the Holy Spirit, is invisible to us. So most of the spiritual realities that are very, very real are also invisible, at least as it stands from our mortal perspective right now in this life.

Jon Harris [00:44:32]:

How can people push back on their own longing? We talked a little bit about how to be a bit restrained in the discovery of Calvinism, Right. And how to chill out on that. How can also people push back on their own longing to want to see things with their eyes instead of just maybe perhaps perceiving them with their mind.

Matthew Everhart [00:44:49]:

Yeah, well, you know, when we talked about chilling out on Calvinism, I don't want to give people the wrong idea that we're taking some sort of a squishy or lukewarm version of Calvinism. I Think you should have a very robust, strong, gospel centered and eternally oriented Calvinism for sure. I'm not telling anybody to, you know, to soften up on their Calvinism. What I do think that we have to do is be careful about our pride. So just one word of clarification there and then as it relates to the self will. Because we are Calvinists, we know our own propensities towards temptation and evil. And so we have to constantly evaluate our own hearts, examine our own minds, test ourselves by the word of God, and even asking the Lord to reveal to us the areas in which we are weak and we need to be corrected. Right. So as a regular part of our confession of sin, not only do we confess the sins that we're already aware of, but we should also do like the psalmist, and ask the Lord to reveal other areas that we should be, that we should be ready to square up with the Lord and to repent of and to confess. And oftentimes that is our temptation and desire to be entertained, to be passive receivers of something that kind of glosses over my mind and my heart rather than an active worshiper and desire discerner of truth. And so reformed people of all people should be discerning as they go through worship, but also with a longing and a desire and a readiness to truly meet God, especially in His Word and in his sacraments. I think those things are good.

Jon Harris [00:46:21]:

I agree. I had to learn all the stuff, sort of like on the job training, you know, coming into. I started out at apology at church wonderful faithful church pastor Jeff Durbin. And then I met Pastor David Reese and he taught me, talked to me about the regulative principle. And over that process I ended up at the church that I'm at now. And reading, reading worshiptainment was very much like discovering the thinking and the logic behind the church that I currently go to, which I had to learn just over the course of being a member for the past year. Like, okay, why does the worship service work this way and look this way? And I've been to other churches, you know, around the country as well, and they do things and there's something doesn't seem right about this, but there's something very nourishing about this reformed traditional liturgy. But it took me a while to put my finger on it. And then ultimately when I understood that, wow, this is truly feeding my soul in a way that I can close my eyes like, and I don't have to look around and see anything, but I'm being, I'm really being sustained through the process of worship. Instead of being entertained or having my. My eyes be stimulated in that way, it's like, no, I'm. I'm there to glorify God in this worship, and that's what we're doing here. And your book really brought all of that into focus. Like, oh, okay. This is why this is not only necessary and good and righteous and true, it's also why the abandonment of that can become such a serious problem.

Matthew Everhart [00:47:39]:

Yeah. Hey, I didn't know about your background. That's pretty cool. Not to switch and interview the interviewer here, but. So you were at Apologia for a while, and then what. What happened next? How did you change churches? Did you move or what happened that you moved from Apologies Apologia to another church?

Jon Harris [00:47:55]:

So I. So I came to more Presbyterian convictions. That was. That was a. That was a part of it. I. And again, I met Pastor David Reese and. And he has a. A smaller church in central Phoenix, and they focused on exclusive psalmody, acapella singing, Westminster Confession Standards, infant baptism. All. All of those things was like, oh, I. I came to sort of see all of that. It's like, okay, this is. This is something that I feel very. That I feel very convicted on. And so I ended up not at Pastor Reese's church, but a friend of mine recommended Reformation, the church that I am currently a member of. And I just went to go check it out one morning. It was quite far away at the time. And. And there was. There was something about that church. I would soon discover many things that felt like, okay, this. This feels like the kind of thing that I've been looking for for a very long time. And that church and its pastor have been an enormous blessing to me since then. So there was nothing. Nothing wrong with Apologia at all. It's a. It's a wonderful, good, faithful church. But, yeah, to sort of move in a more. In a more Presbyterian, Paedo Baptist kind of direction was. Was something that became very important to me.

Matthew Everhart [00:49:01]:

Okay, well, that's cool. That's. That's interesting to know. I did not know that about you. So you guys sing the psalms exclusively, then?

Jon Harris [00:49:07]:

Psalms and hymns out of the Trinity Salter Hymnal.

Matthew Everhart [00:49:09]:

Yes. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, great. Great. Yeah, we do. We do psalms and hymns as well. So I teach at rpts, and they are exclusive psalmody, which means that they only do the psalms and they do not do hymns at all. And in fact, they don't even use instruments. It's all a capella worship. So that Represents the tradition of the rpcna, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, and of course, the seminary RPTs. But nevertheless, they. They still have me on the faculty as adjunct, even though I'm.

Jon Harris [00:49:45]:

What the. Okay, this is weird.

Matthew Everhart [00:49:48]:

What happened?

Jon Harris [00:49:49]:

That was weird.

Matthew Everhart [00:49:49]:

No, I think. I don't know if the WI fi is blinking out or what's going on.

Jon Harris [00:49:52]:

There, but my WI fi is good. Anyway, we're back.

Matthew Everhart [00:49:54]:

Okay. Yeah.

Jon Harris [00:49:55]:

Yeah. Are we still here, everybody? Let me check YouTube. Yeah, no, looks good to me.

Matthew Everhart [00:50:01]:

Okay, well, hey, if you're out there listening to us. I'm sorry, it might be the WI fi just blinking out for a second, and it looks like it disconnects, and then it comes right back.

Jon Harris [00:50:08]:

Weird. Anyway, please continue.

Matthew Everhart [00:50:10]:

Anyway, I was. I was interviewing you, but you. You can. You can please proceed if you want to.

Jon Harris [00:50:15]:

Oh, yeah, no, I think these questions are really important. It was. It was at David Reese's church where they do exclusive Acapella psalmody.

Matthew Everhart [00:50:22]:

Okay.

Jon Harris [00:50:23]:

And I think at first I. I found that to be. I found it to be odd. Apologia has a. Has a. Has a band. No lights, no smoke machines, but they. They have a band, drums, and very, you know, very restrained guitars. It's a. It's. It's. It's a wonderful band, actually. And. But I. So that was the church. First church that I had ever been a member of.

Matthew Everhart [00:50:41]:

Okay.

Jon Harris [00:50:42]:

And so. And so I got used to. I got used to that style. And Pastor Reese was very passionate about Acapella exclusive psalmody. And so I went to attend his church. And at first I was like, this is very strange. But then I discovered that I actually quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed being able to hear myself sing. I enjoyed the. The more traditional hymns and psalms that were somewhat easier to learn. And I really started to enjoy that. I started discovering that singing, not just the song, not just the content of the psalms, but the. The music of them as well. And being able to really lean into singing was something that, quite unexpectedly for me became very, very important. And so we. We do the psalms and the hymns at the church time. Currently a member of. With just a piano and occasionally a violin accompaniment. But it's. It's something that. Learning to sing has been very important for me.

Matthew Everhart [00:51:34]:

Yeah, me too. I really appreciate singing the psalms. And, you know, my spiritual journey has been various over the years. As I mentioned, I grew up Lutheran, and then I went to an evangelical church for a long time that would have probably what I would call worshiptainments. Though I didn't recognize it as such at the time. And then as I came more into Presbyterianism, I began to have a great affinity for some of the great hymns of the faith. It's been within the last 10 years or so that I've really, really leaned into psalm singing, which I do think is one of the premier ways to worship the Lord, because the psalms are biblical and when we sing the Psalms, we're just singing God's word back to him. And I wish more evangelicals would do that. When I debated, I debated a mega church pastor on another podcast some time back about worshiptainment and I tried to push him on this point and I said, why don't you sing the Psalms? And he had to really think about it. And honestly his answer was kind of like, well, they just don't really work musically. And I thought, well, you know, they have for 2000 years more than that. And I wish people would rediscover psalm singing because I think it's a truly beautiful way to worship the Lord. Taking the psalms of the Old Testament, putting them to music, and then singing them practically verbatim, slightly paraphrased, to get the meter to work. You do have, you do have to kind of adjust the meter a bit, which is essentially the width, like the counts, the beats to put it to music. But it's absolutely beautiful when you do it. And of course, the rps, the strict rpcna, Covenanters, they're not going to use instruments at all. We do at Gospel Fellowship. Again, so we're more of what I would call inclusive psalmody rather than exclusive psalmody. But either way, it is a beautiful way to worship the Lord by singing the psalms. And I do like to recommend a book. The one you mentioned is great. We use Psalms for worship by Crown and Covenant Publications, and it is an awesome psalter to sing out of.

Jon Harris [00:53:38]:

You know, I haven't, I haven't really talked about this, but early on in my conversion, Bethel music played a. Played a big role of that. Not because I was super into the music, there were just a couple key songs that were really formative for me. First, when I was introduced to the Christians that I met. I don't know if you know how much you know about my story, but I was introduced to Christianity by an underground ministry at the Burning man festival.

Matthew Everhart [00:54:00]:

Oh, wow.

Jon Harris [00:54:01]:

Yeah, that's a whole other conversation we can, we can get into. But, you know, I went to join them later that year, this was 2015. I went to join them later that year for Christmas and they just had Kind of Bethel music on in the background. And so me coming from outside the faith, I was like, what is this Christian music with a bass line like. Right. And so it was interesting to me because it kind of point. It kind of pointed to a richer experience of Christianity than I had been exposed to just from in the secular world. And then later, there was a song by Bethel early on in my faith that came along at a particular moment and. And gave me some encouragement that I needed. This was very early on, but now as I've been singing more psalms and hymns, I go back and I listen to those old songs. I'm like, oh, wow, the theology of those Bethel songs is pretty bad. So. But it was what I needed at the time.

Matthew Everhart [00:54:48]:

Yeah. Unfortunately, as much as I do like sort of the tune and the beats and the hit to some of those songs, Bethel Hillsong and Elevation are probably three groups that I would probably, you know, urge people to avoid in favor of the. The more standard hymns like in the Trinity Hymnal. That's the one we use in the PCA as well as the Psalms for Worship volume that I mentioned by Crown and Covenant. And then the one that you mentioned, the Trinity Salter Hymnal, is also an excellent one. So those would be three resources that I. I do recommend. And in those, you can play practically anything in them and they're going to be solid and biblical. But you, unfortunately, you. You're right. While the. While the. The bass thumps and the beat hits for some of those Bethel Hillsong Elevation songs, unfortunately, all three of those movements have been tied to, you know, spurious teaching at one point or another, and probably best to avoid. It would be my. Would be my take.

Jon Harris [00:55:45]:

Yeah, it's not the sort of thing that you can go and necessarily just enjoy if you know better. Like, I didn't know better. It was what, you know, it was what needed to happen at the time. But definitely growing and maturing in the faith has been a far more rewarding experience, particularly because the songs, the psalms and hymns, are participatory on my behalf. I could actually sing them as opposed to listening to someone sing them at me in notes that I can't hit.

Matthew Everhart [00:56:12]:

Oh, thank you so much for saying it that way. I think that's exactly right. Will. Worship is supposed to be participative for the people of God. And the people of God are not supposed to be passive above observers as though they are being worshiptained, but rather they're supposed to be those whose hearts are actively engaged in the worship service itself. So whether it's confession, whether it's singing, whether it's reading the word, whether it's studying the word, whether it's listening to the sermon or participating in the sacraments. The worshiper is to be an active participant in every stage. Even the benediction at the end where the pastor lifts his hands and says, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The worshipers to be actively receiving that benediction, even that in a sense is not passive, but is to be done actively with a heart eager and ready to hear from the Lord and to receive his, his blessing. And I think that's part of the big problem with worshiptainment is that it treats the audience as an audience rather than as an active and main participant in the worship service itself. So you said that brilliantly and I couldn't have done it better myself. That was great, Will. Hey, when were you converted, by the way? How long have you been a Christian?

Jon Harris [00:57:23]:

It was Labor Day weekend, 2020. So coming up on five years, you.

Matthew Everhart [00:57:27]:

Just a baby, man. You're a pup.

Jon Harris [00:57:29]:

People say that.

Matthew Everhart [00:57:30]:

Yeah, yeah.

Jon Harris [00:57:32]:

But the thing is, you know, in, in God's providence, I got to speed run all of essentially modern evangelicalism straight to, you know, covenantal, Calvinistic, confessional, reform faith.

Matthew Everhart [00:57:44]:

Yeah.

Jon Harris [00:57:45]:

So I speak, yeah, I'm very blessed. I speak to Joshua Haymes from Reformation Red Pill is a good example.

Matthew Everhart [00:57:51]:

Yeah.

Jon Harris [00:57:52]:

Having a conversation with him about the journey. So many, so many men within the faith, believers within the faith have had to go on in their own maturation and then sort of seeing that like, oh yeah, within, within a matter of years. You know, I've got the Westminster Confession of Faith like over my shoulder because I never had a phase because I got, I got baptized in 2020 when all the churches were closed. Yeah, so, so I didn't really have a phase to go through to mature out of this. I mean, I, obviously I have my own maturation, but like to come out of like, oh, I was raised in modern non denominational evangelicalism, big box, mega church. And then to kind of grow out of that. That's a very common story. I, I, and got again in God's providence. Got to skip all of that and arrive where I am today, which I feel very blessed by.

Matthew Everhart [00:58:34]:

Yeah, that's great. You know, all of our testimonies are different. And one thing that I love about being a Christian is that on one hand we all have exactly the same testimony. And the testimony is that we were sinners, we were helpless, we were hopeless, we were dead in sin. And then Christ by His gospel made us alive by grace through faith. And we have now entered into this new resurrection life, which is the salvation that we experience in the power of the Spirit. So in that sense, every single Christian has exactly the same testimony. But on the other hand, every testimony is totally different. We met the Lord out of different circumstances with different kinds of sins and different kinds of temptations and different backgrounds. And we're saved into different struggles and out of different trials and temptations. And I love hearing people's Christian testimonies because it is the gospel is the power of salvation, first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. You know, in my class at rpts, I teach evangelism there. And last night in class I make my students do their testimony, which is one way to share the gospel. Not the only way, but it's one way to share the gospel. And so we got to hear everyone's five minute testimony last night. I make them do it briefly, compact and focused on Christ. And it's just really powerful to hear the way that God saves sinners. And I'm just so thankful for that.

Jon Harris [01:00:03]:

Yeah, I enjoy the aspect of my testimony, I enjoy sharing it as well that of all places to meet Christians, it was at the Burning man festival.

Matthew Everhart [01:00:12]:

That is amazing. That is so cool. That is so cool. And what a testimony for believers to be out there in the unbelieving world sharing the gospel. Sharing. You might get rejected a thousand times, but there, there's a Will Spencer out there that whose heart the Lord has made ready to hear the gospel and go find that man and share, share the gospel with him. That was really cool.

Jon Harris [01:00:32]:

Yeah, it's, it's, it's the most unexpected. Especially you know, they ran the ministry underground for 15 years actually. So you know, I, I to, I, I've spoken them, they're still my friends. They live up in Coeur d'alene. So I've seen them often and in 15 years of, of ministry that they know of that they got one person and that would be, that would be me.

Matthew Everhart [01:00:52]:

Hey, right.

Jon Harris [01:00:54]:

And you know, I, I think as the, as the story was, it, it's the, it's the, it's the demonic, the Garrison demoniac. Where Christ is, He's at one side of the Sea of Galilee, sails over to the other side, saves the Garrison Demoniac and pieces out and comes back to the first side. He travels all that way for one guy. And I think that's right. I saw a lot of that reflected in my story.

Matthew Everhart [01:01:17]:

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a Lot of stories like that, like the, the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4, where the Scripture says, now he had to go through Samaria. Well, actually there's another way, you know, but he had to go because the Lord had an ordained meeting with this particular individual. And that's how God saves souls. And I'm thankful for it. I think it's amazing. And I'm so thankful to be a Christian. I'm so thankful for the gospel. I'm so thankful for Christ.

Jon Harris [01:01:44]:

And you do such wonderful work proclaiming the gospel and proclaiming the reformed faith on YouTube as well, to sort of land all of that out there in the world.

Matthew Everhart [01:01:53]:

Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Jon Harris [01:01:55]:

Yeah. Well, the book is Worshiptainment. Again, this is a very enjoyable read. And just real quick, what I enjoyed about it is that you continued raising the stakes throughout the book. Book you start out the first early chapters, you know, from, from until the conclusion. At the end, it becomes very clear how important this question is. How, how central this question is for our lives as believers. And so when I finished reading the book, I'm like, yeah, people need to read this to understand just what's at stake in the lives of believers and people who walk into church on Sunday.

Matthew Everhart [01:02:25]:

Yeah. Thank you so much, Will. I really appreciate, appreciate the conversation. And I did want to just add that in the book. I am not saying, please don't hear me saying that every church should be exactly like Gospel Fellowship, that you should, you should make a, you know, a screen grab of our bulletin and do exactly what we do. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that every church, whether you're Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Baptist, non denominational, Presbyterian, whatever it is, look at what you do in worship and ask, why do you do that thing? Is it biblical? Does God command that to be so? And if you find that there are elements of your service that are not scriptural and really are there just to be aesthetic or for man pleasing purposes or to entertain the audience, for goodness sake, just cut those things out and do the things that really have the power to change lives, which is especially the word, the sacraments and prayer, and just trust the Lord that his word is indeed powerful and mighty to save. And you'll be surprised at what the Lord does.

Jon Harris [01:03:29]:

And that's, that's, that's for pastors or that's for church attendees.

Matthew Everhart [01:03:33]:

Well, obviously pastors are going to more have more say over what happens in their churches and their worship services, but it's good also for members and regular attendees. To think about those things because like you said, you know, you had to hop around once or twice to find the church that had the worship that, that you felt was the best expression of biblical Christianity. I don't tell people to rush out and just change churches willy nilly. I don't think that's a good idea. For the most part, you should be committed to your church, but especially for young people who are thinking about raising children, raising their families, maybe moving to a new area. Man, pick a church that has really God honoring reverence and biblical worship and you'll probably be far more satisfied in the long run than if you pick the church that's big and flashy and has, you know, some big billboard event coming up.

Jon Harris [01:04:25]:

Yeah. And just to clarify, like, it wasn't. It wasn't. I didn't leave apology out just because of the worship. That, that wasn't it. It was sure, sure was coming to understand again, the more Presbyterian confessional view of things and being very, being very convicted over that, understanding this, all this feels very biblical in a way that I feel very called toward. Okay, wonderful.

Matthew Everhart [01:04:43]:

Right, right. I didn't mean to take that the wrong way. I was just perfect. I was just suggesting that, you know, as people think about what church they want to be in covenant with, it's important to make sure that you're fundamentally squared away on the things that are the most important. And probably that's not going to be, you know, how quaint the sanctuary is or what color the carpet is or how old the pastor is. You know, it's going to be more the things of like, what are we doing in worship, what are we preaching? What is our fundamental approach to word and sacrament ministry? And how is the Lord moving in real people's lives? Or is he at all? Yeah, those would be the questions that I'd be looking for.

Jon Harris [01:05:25]:

Can you just offer some closing recommendations for how individual believers can go about that process? Maybe differences they can make in their own church or, or where to find churches that more align with, with where they're at theologically and spiritually?

Matthew Everhart [01:05:39]:

Well, in the book, you know, there's the five or six areas that I suggest people apply the regulative principle to. So preaching is one, music is another, the liturgy of the service is yet another. And even the kinds of people that they want to follow as leaders in the church is yet another one as well. So there's several different applications of the regulative principle of worship. All of them are important. Probably if I was a regular pew sitter myself, I happened to be a preacher, but if I was a regular pew sitter, I would really be looking for expository preaching of the Word as kind of a basic starting point for me. I could be pretty patient with a lot of different things about the church size or location or whether the pews are wooden or carpeted or, you know, soft or padded. I like there's a lot that I don't care about, but I'd be really looking for a church that has a very strong intention to preach the word of God with all of its conviction and authority. And if that is true, then I could put up with a lot of different accoutrements, either this way or that way. But I want a word centered church. And for me, that's an absolutely uncompromising starting point that I, I would definitely have to have. So look for that if you're a, if you're a regular member or attender or looking for a new church.

Jon Harris [01:06:56]:

And I think that's as you break down the different aspects of worship that, that church attendees should be sensitive to, particularly, particularly around preaching. The expository preaching. That chapter was excellent. And particularly the last chapter, sort of about. Which is about the person, the personality or the Persona of the, of the pastor. The dark, dark octagon, I think.

Matthew Everhart [01:07:17]:

Yeah, yeah. Eight attributes or so of leaders that tend towards narcissism. And of course, you know, in some sense we are who we follow, right? Because we want to be followers of Christ and we want Christ to be formed in us. We want to be more and more conformed to the image of Christ and our sanctification. But there's another sense in which whoever we're willing to follow, we become like that person. And so obviously you want to be following elders and pastors that have strong biblical character, real desire for holiness, and are men of integrity. You want to be in a church where the pastor is the kind of person who's loving and approachable, legitimately cares about you as an individual, listens to you and is there for you when you, when you need him, but also the kind of. You want to be, the kind of member that could be there for him if he should ever need you. And so there's a real mutuality to our covenant expressions of the faith. But certainly our leaders are. It's important. You gotta, you gotta pick people in your life that are truly worthy of emulation. They're not going to be perfect, but they should be mature. And I would definitely be looking for that if I was a regular member or attender.

Jon Harris [01:08:28]:

As well, actually, do you have time for just a couple more questions in this regard? Oh, great. Oh, fantastic. Okay. Because you mentioned in the last chapter, which I think is worth the price of admission for the book. The rest of it is excellent as well, but it was definitely worth the price of admission to read the last chapter. You talk about the rise of the pastor influencer, and that's, that's definitely something that I've noticed that has a bunch of different manifestations to it. So I just, to begin that sort of conversation, is that something. So, so you're. You're a pastor, you're a seminary professor, you're a husband, you're a father, you are a. You are a YouTube star of a very. Of a particular size. How. How do you manage that? And I think perhaps not asking people to, like, share and subscribe and, you know, not, you know, and not doing reviews of products as your only. As your only source of content, but is that something that you've had to negotiate yourself? Like, okay, suddenly I. Speaking to thousands of people, and yet I. I have this role as a pastor, as a shepherd as well. How have you navigated that in yourself?

Matthew Everhart [01:09:29]:

If.

Jon Harris [01:09:30]:

I mean, if that's an okay. If you don't mind me asking.

Matthew Everhart [01:09:32]:

No, it's a fantastic question, and trust me, I'm an open book on these things. It scares the crap out of me, Will, because in some sense, I suppose you could say that I am an influencer, and I've thought a lot about this term. What does it mean to influence? Well, on one hand, we think of influencers in our society as being very superficial, very bought and sold by the commercial world, very shallow in terms of their any kind of conviction. So I do not want to be that kind of an influencer. On the other hand, influence is certainly a good thing as long as we're headed in the right direction. And to that extent, I do want to influence people. I want to influence people to believe right theology, to hold good doctrine, and to help serve solid churches. So to that extent, yes, I guess I could say that I'm an influencer. But I'm going to be completely honest and say that it does terrify me. I never asked to be anything like a celebrity, and I do not want to be a celebrity. I despise that. And I have to battle with myself in terms of my own pride. Will, we're all so proud. And Jonathan Edwards, who I love and study, often rails against pride as the absolute downfall of revival. Pride is the revival killer, in Edwards's view. And if you read his works on revival, he continues to smash on human pride all the time because he knows how damning it is. Is d a m n damning. It's a, It's a terrible thing to have pride. And unfortunately, success breeds pride. You know, there's a verse in Second Chronicles, I think it's 25 or 26, where it says, uzziah was strong until he was proud. And that begins his, his downfall. And I'm very aware of my own propensity towards pride. And I have to confess it. All the time. I have to confess it. And anybody who's out there, would you please pray for me? Because I, I do not want to fall. And I'm so aware of how many men have had platforms before that have fallen, and it scares the crap out of me. And I, I don't want that for my life. I want to hear the well done, good and faithful servant at the end of my life. And, you know, James warns us that we should be careful to teach because we know that those who teach will be held to a stricter judgment. And even my critics online are to some extent, the unpaid guardians of my soul, because whenever they critique me, I have to ask myself, are they right? And I want to guard myself against any kind of hypocrisy or pride that could ultimately ruin me. So, yeah, it's a scary thing. I'm glad you asked.

Jon Harris [01:12:33]:

Yeah, I, I, and I appreciate, I appreciate the honesty of the answer. It's a very, it is a very real thing. Like, certainly I, you know, I didn't intend to seek out having a platform. I wanted to talk about this sort of global rebirth of masculinity. And soon I found that people like the things that I had to say as well. It's like, oh, my goodness, like, okay, what do I, what do I do with this thing? And it should be a source of. It should be a source of fear. You know, there should be a component of being a reluctant warrior. I think many men lose sight of that. All of our great heroes, hero stories feature the reluctant warrior. William Wallace did not want to go to war. He wasn't setting out to start a war against England. It was something he was reluctantly called into because of what happened for his bride. And all of our hero stories are like that.

Matthew Everhart [01:13:18]:

Yeah.

Jon Harris [01:13:19]:

So I think in the, in the, in, in the war, I guess you might say, of Christ's dominion online, there's got to be a degree of, like, hey, this isn't necessarily, you know, something that I had set for Myself, but I fight reluctantly because it's a sacrificial effort to do it. It's very easy to lose sight of ourselves, to lose sight of ourselves in the wrong way if we don't see things that way.

Matthew Everhart [01:13:40]:

Yes, and I love your imagery of war because there would be. There would be something truly wrong with a man who is standing lined up with swords and axes, ready to rush into battle and to slaughter the enemy with in the heat of blood. But men do it, and it's not because they love war, but it's because they are compelled by duty and principle to fight. And there's a. There's a better beauty and a greater truth that they are defending, which causes them to have the courage to run into battle. But nobody should like battle for the sake of battle, because war is hell and hell is terrible. And certainly there's a sense in which those of us who are trying to combat for truth, either in the pulpit or perhaps online or any other forum, our desire is not to conquer for the sake of conquering or to kill for the sake of sake of killing. Our desire is to defend principle. And that principle is the word of God. And so if it's true that God has raised us up for such a time as this, as it says in the Book of Esther, then I suppose that's true. And I'm thankful for whatever gift giftedness the Lord has given me, be it great or small. But I do want to serve the Lord with my whole heart all of my days, and I'm not going to stop doing that until my time runs up.

Jon Harris [01:15:05]:

And we talked about God's sovereignty as well. God is also sovereign over the algorithm. You know, God is. God is here. There are screens. This is mediated. It's ephemeral. It's electrons traveling through wires or photons traveling through fiber optics, I suppose, or. Or, you know, radio photons through the air. But God's here, too. And I think a lot of people, I think they forget that. It seems very easy to forget that.

Matthew Everhart [01:15:29]:

Well, I know I'm a real person, and I assume that the people on the other side of the screen are. Are real people, too. And so I know that things hurt in real life. And that's why I try to be very cautious in my speech, because I know that people are actual, real human beings are on the other side of that Twitter feed or that YouTube page, and they're listening carefully to what you're saying. And I don't want to do or say things that are going to cause other people to sin or to jeopardize their own souls. And I certainly do not want to mislead or teach falsely or be a slanderer or anything else. I do feel a great responsibility for what I say, and I recognize that as the platform grows, so also grows that responsibility alongside it.

Jon Harris [01:16:18]:

You must feel it very acutely in the, in one of your videos you said, you know, come back, back, and this one in a couple weeks when I have 5, 000 views and 200 comments. And I was like, 200 YouTube comments? Is. That can be a. That's a rough day.

Matthew Everhart [01:16:32]:

Well, I don't read the comments and, and some. Sometimes people. Sometimes people. I think I remember that video because I was talking about something controversial and like, you know, just watch what happens with this one. But I try not to read the comments too much. And there are people who will reach out and say very nice these things, and I'm always thankful for that. You know, it's really cool when people, especially around the world where church access is restricted or maybe there's not a good reformed church. Very thankful when people get saved or connect with me in those ways. But the comments and the criticism are so much and so heavy and so forceful that most of the time I spend my better time just with my own church members and my own family and just caring for people that are tangible to me rather than trying to respond to or to refute all of the comments in the comment section. I just don't have time to do that. Maybe in another life I would have time to do that, but in the, in this life, I have a lot of people in my church that, you know, I'm responsible for them.

Jon Harris [01:17:36]:

Ain't nobody got time for that. Yeah, just real quick, what are you. What are some of your own favorite videos that you've done? I know there's all you can always filter by pop Popular, but what are some of the ones that. That you really like that are like that. That was. That was. I enjoyed that.

Matthew Everhart [01:17:50]:

Well, you know, the, the whole YouTube format is fun for me because I'm a thinker. I'm constantly thinking about ideas and normally, you know, I study a topic and then I make a video on it for my own edification. So I benefit from my own stuff probably more than anyone else does because I just enjoy making content. I like challenging myself to see how. How clearly I can speak to a certain topic and how I can try to say something in a clear and helpful way. So I like the challenge of that. I like all the videos that I Make. But just to answer your question, I did a. And I'm sort of building a series on the Covenanters, which are these radical Scottish Presbyterians in the 1600s who were just really cool. A lot of them were martyred. Those videos are not getting a lot of views, but I think it's very interesting. And I'll continue to make Covenanter view videos, even if people don't really watch it, just because I greatly benefit from it. But I also like all my Edwards stuff. You know, I love Jonathan Edwards and I am building a catalog of Edwards videos slowly but surely. I don't do them every week, but every once in a while or so I try to add to my Edwards catalog. And I want to have ultimately the best warehouse of Edwards related teaching lectures that's available online anywhere in the world. That would be a goal for me to have the most just excellent, well done videos on Jonathan Edwards that you can find anywhere. I think that'd be a pretty cool thing to do.

Jon Harris [01:19:24]:

Perfect. Because I have the Religious Affections on my shelf. And so I read. So one of my projects this year is to read J.C. ryle's Holiness, which I did. I loved that book. And then Jonathan Edwards, the Religious Affections, particularly both of these for the edification they provide, but also because you have a sort of a rise of young men who. Young reformed men who are conducting themselves a certain way online, seeming to claim that there's no standard for their behavior. I'm like, well, I think you're probably wrong about that. Decide to read Holiness, which is a remarkable book. And then I want to read the Religious Affections next. If you could make some recommendations for that, because, wow, I tried digging into that book. I'm like, okay, I'm going to need a lot more focus to get. To get into it. I think that I realized, okay, so.

Matthew Everhart [01:20:09]:

You started it and you found it to be hard.

Jon Harris [01:20:11]:

Yeah, I think part of it was also that I bought a used copy and there were like highlights and underlined in it. So I need to get a fresh, clean copy.

Matthew Everhart [01:20:18]:

Yeah, sometimes that's true. Well, I have on my YouTube page on the about section, there's a Jonathan Edwards reading program where I recommend a certain order of things that you can read from Edwards. And the nice thing about it is it starts with the shortest pieces first. So you gain a little bit of ground and get some success reading Jonathan Edwards. And then you work towards reading actually Religious Affections is the. Is the goal as the final read. So you start off, I think, with like, his resolutions which you could read in a real quick sit down. And then there's a couple of sermons of his that are just like, quintessentially Edwardsian that every, every Edwards scholar should read at some point. So I recommend. And then you work towards a little bit of a larger treatise called Distinguishing Works. I'm sorry, Distinguishing Marks of the Work of the Spirit, which is maybe 40, 50 pages. And then ultimately, you're going to try to work your way up to one of Edwards's master treatises. So sometimes you just have to get used to the way a guy talks in order to really understand him. And I've been reading Edwards now for about 20 years, and I really just feel like I know him very well. Almost. Almost personally. Obviously I don't, but I've read so many of his personal writings and his major treatises and his letters and biographies of Edwards that it's neat to have a theologian that you've kind of mastered over time so that you can. You almost find yourself a kindred spirit to that person. And to some extent, if. If I do have a dead mentor, it's definitely Jonathan Edwards.

Jon Harris [01:21:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. I've definitely been looking forward to getting into stuff I didn't know that you had. I think I might have seen that reading plan in the about section just today. Like, I'll have to file that away.

Matthew Everhart [01:21:58]:

Yeah, you can just kind of check it off. And the nice thing about Edwards is that everything is free online on Edwards Yale. Edu. So if you like to read on a Kindle reader or a laptop, not everybody does, but if you do, you can copy and paste them into a document, send it to your or Kindle, and read it on your device, which I like to do. Or you can buy, you know, certain print or paperback editions, but the Yale editions are very, very expensive, Unfortunately. They're like 100 bucks a pop, so they're cost prohibitive for a lot of people. So what I tend to do, honestly, is make my own copies of Edwards from the Yale site, and then I send them to my Kindle reader, and then I can highlight and note things there. And very often I'll also make an outline of what I've read, too. It's much slower to do it that way, but then I really understand what he's saying. If I'm outlining kind of his main points. And then, you know, the logic behind the work tends to reveal itself as you're like, okay, I see where he's going with this. And that's some advice that I got from a Good friend of mine who's an excellent scholar, he outlines everything he reads. And I said, john, it's got to be so slow. And he's like, yeah, it's very slow. But if you want to understand a work, outlining it is going to bring so much more clarity than if you just read it straight through. And that's also true with the Bible, by the way. When you study the Bible, making outlines of books like Romans or Ephesians or Deuteronomy is going to really help you to understand how that book works as a structure. Structure. And it really pays dividends. Though it's probably five times slower to read that way.

Jon Harris [01:23:40]:

So as you're going, you're just sort of taking notes about the main point and then supporting points and. Oh, interesting.

Matthew Everhart [01:23:45]:

Yes, yes, yes. You will find that your reading comprehension goes through the roof if you do that. You're going to read less books in a year. But that's person variable anyway. So let's say you normally read 20 books a year. Year. Just. Just for the sake of argument, you might only read seven that year, but the seven that you read are going to be much better comprehended and will probably be better in the long run than if you'd sped through 20 books. So that's just a different way to do it.

Jon Harris [01:24:18]:

Do you also have a link to like 100 best books? Did I see something like that?

Matthew Everhart [01:24:23]:

Yes, I do. I have a series of videos called 100 Best Books. I think I did them in 25 book segments. So 100 to 75, 75 to 50, 50 to 25 and so forth. But then I also have an Excel sheet that's linked on my YouTube about page where you can go see my recommended top 100 books. And again, it's going to be very subjective to myself, but I did try to include most of the great books of Christian history in that. So you might find some. Some prompt for good books to read in that list.

Jon Harris [01:24:54]:

And then is there. Do you have an instruction video on the outlining method as well? Because this is.

Matthew Everhart [01:24:59]:

No, no, I haven't really done that, but maybe that's a video that I could do. I think that outlining is a phenomenal way to understand a concept. And in fact, I tend to think in outlines quite a bit now. For instance, when I'm building a sermon, I think of an outline, I think of a skeleton, I think of a structure, and then I try to put flesh on that structure. And I think it's easier to follow a sermon if I'm listening to it that has a discernible outline than one that's more just a flow of thoughts, right? Have you ever listened to a sermon where you, you just, you just don't know where this guy's going and you're not even sure he knows, you know what I mean? Well, that's a different experience from listening to a sermon where it's obviously very structured and the preacher has a really coherent trajectory. He's going to a destination, and you're coming with him. Well, the latter sermon is much easier to understand than the former. And the reason is obvious because it has a formal structure to it. So my brain. I don't know about yours, Will, but my brain tends to like structure. And so when I'm writing, thinking, or preaching, I tend to think, how could I outline this? That it would make more sense to convey that material to the audience.

Jon Harris [01:26:22]:

And you, you develop that. That's just kind of the way that you, you think about things. And that makes a lot of sense to sort of understand, again, to bring it back to the expository preaching point from worshiptainment, is that, you know, when you're working through the, the Bible verse by verse, you know, book by book, the ability to communicate and understand and communicate what the verse is actually saying, what the book is actually about, is essential, because otherwise, why are you doing it? Right? You're not just going to get up there and ramble for 45 minutes. You want to make sure that if we're going to do this, that we're going to really do it and make sure the audience, the congruence, the people listening really understand what's going on in this, in this particular text. Text.

Matthew Everhart [01:27:01]:

That's right. And the Puritans were the best at this. So every Puritan sermon, for the most part, is, is pretty much the same. And if you read any of Jonathan Edwards's sermons, they're all going to work on the same construct. Edwards starts every sermon with what he calls the text. And the text is usually only about 6 to 7% of the sermon. And that's where Edwards gives you the background of that particular literary unit. What book does it come from? What's the plot? Who are the characters? What's happening here? So that's a short piece for Edwards. Then Edwards will move into his doctrine section, which is much larger. It's, it's at least a third of the sermon. And Edwards will then extrapolate from that text, and he'll tell you things about God, humanity, Christ, salvation, eternity, whatever. And then the last section of An Edwardsian sermon is the application where Edwards will then take that doctrine and he'll apply it in five or six different ways to the heart of the hearer. Now, I don't do that exactly the same way in my sermons, for the most part, but the structure is predictable, and the human brain likes predictability when it comes to new content. And that's why Puritan sermons follow that basic rubric, because their hearers were trained to listen for text, doctrine, application. And even the applications are somewhat predictable. Usually there's one of examination, there's one of exhortation, there's one of rebuke, there's one of comfort, and there's one of. I forget what the last one is, admonishment or something like that. But that kind of form, though it does seem somewhat predictable, it allows the hearer to understand the sermon and have a place to then place the concepts that he's or she has just learned in the sermon. So I think that's helpful.

Jon Harris [01:28:57]:

Yeah, that's. That's very interesting because I can think back to my pastor's sermons and see that they pick up on different themes. There's different structures to them, I guess. I guess I'd never. I tend to be more just. I accept what's being taught without. Without. I haven't given yet much thought to the process behind the creation of the teaching itself.

Matthew Everhart [01:29:18]:

Yeah. And there's probably a lot of pastors that haven't thought about that much either, to be honest.

Jon Harris [01:29:22]:

Right.

Matthew Everhart [01:29:22]:

I think there. There's a lot of pastors out there that just get up and start talking. Now, that's never been me. I'm. I'm me. You know, I'm. I'm mad. Ever hard. I'm not going to be some other guy, but I could never do that. I could never just stand up and just wing it. That grates against every. Every fiber of my being. I'm not a wing. I don't. I don't wing anything. I like to think through things and try to present material in a way that's, you know, packaged well for the sake of comprehension. Because I think Paul and like for 1st Corinthians 14 really stresses comprehension of the mind for the depth of spiritual truth. Comprehensibility is. Is important. We ought to understand what we believe. And so I'm constantly thinking about, how can I say this so that it's understandable to the average person? And often I'll even think about my own mom. My mom does not go to my church. She lives in Ohio. And I'M in Pennsylvania. She comes sometimes, but I often think, would my mom understand this? And if she wouldn't, then I should try a better way to make it explainable because she's definitely not a systematic theologian. But if my mom could understand it, then I know I've conveyed that truth adequately, I think. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm even thinking about particular people in my church, picturing faces as I'm writing my sermon. Would so and so get this? Would. How would so and so receive this? I have to be preaching to my people. These are the people that the Lord has given me to care for. Therefore does the under shepherd of their souls. You know, so I have to be thinking about, is this approachable to them? I'm not preaching to other pastors. I'm not preaching to scholars. I'm not preaching to the guild. I'm preaching to the members and visitors of Gospel Fellowship. And so I need to be making sure that they are my priority as I'm delivering and preparing my sermons.

Jon Harris [01:31:24]:

That's. And what a, what a sharp contrast to worshiptainment where, where you, you are thinking about how can I take these very complicated concepts or, or at least in, at least sometimes an obscure language and make it simple enough, you know, for say, a three year old to understand it? You know, or if you, if you haven't, if, if you haven't made it simple enough for someone like that to get it, you don't understand it well enough. But that requires such effort, that requires such effort to grind on that and sort of, you know, mill the concepts down to something that is so essential and clear and, and that process is a, is a burden on. I don't. It's a righteous burden, but it's a burden on you, the pastor versus like, okay, you know what we're going to do here? Hear me out. I'm. We're going to build a roller coaster and I'm going to go on the roller coaster around the stage to illustrate the ups and downs of the journey with Christ. Get after it, guys. I'll see. I got to hit the links, right?

Matthew Everhart [01:32:17]:

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Worshiptainment, again, there's so many flaws to it as a, as a construct, but it fundamentally treats people as consumers. And so rather than thinking of the hearers as like people that are sojourners on the path of Christ, like sanctification, worshiptainment treats the audience as consumers. And in a commercialistic enterprise, your ultimate question is, how do we sell more widgets? How do we get more Clients? How do we get more sales and more people?

Jon Harris [01:32:51]:

People?

Matthew Everhart [01:32:52]:

And I do think that unfortunately, worship attainment has the cart before the horse as it relates to its purpose. It's thinking about numbers, marketability, and packaging rather than human souls that are striving towards holiness and desire to be likened with Christ.

Jon Harris [01:33:15]:

A dying man preaching to dying men.

Matthew Everhart [01:33:17]:

Yeah, exactly.

Jon Harris [01:33:19]:

Well, Pastor Matt, this has been a fantastic conversation. I'm so grateful for your time. I'm so grateful for your channel and for the happy accident that led you to become the content creator that you are. You said earlier, like a Dudley dude. And I. I really, I genuinely appreciate that because it makes reform content seem like it doesn't belong in the. In the ivory tower. It's something that everyday believers, which is what the Puritans would have said, but something that everyday believers can enjoy and benefit from. And you really embody that in your channel and your content. I'm grateful for it.

Matthew Everhart [01:33:50]:

Well, thank you and all those compliments back to you, my friend. I appreciate you as well. I'm sorry about our technological blips. People who have been watching live know that we had a couple of spots where the WI fi biffed out on us for whatever reason. And you and I know what the viewer doesn't know, that we had technical problems before we started recording, too. But thankfully, we were able to get this conversation filmed. And I hope it's a benefit to anybody who listens to us today. Thank you so much for having me on, brother. Really appreciate you. And may God bless your ministry as well.

Jon Harris [01:34:21]:

Amen. Amen. Thank you. And. And is there any place that you'd like to send people to find out more about you and what you do?

Matthew Everhart [01:34:27]:

I mean, the best thing would be if you happen to live north of Pittsburgh, please come meet us at Gospel Fellowship pca. Come worship with us on the Lord's Day. Even if you just want to visit, I'd love to greet you in the next arthex and say hello, hug a neck, high five handshake, whatever you want from me. I'm a real person and I'd love to meet you in real life. If you want to go to seminary, please consider rpts. Rpts. Edu. I truly believe in my heart it's one of the best places to go get a reformed biblical conservative education. Believe that with all my heart. Other than that, I'll see you online. And thanks again for watching.

Jon Harris [01:35:03]:

Thanks so much, Pastor Matt.

Matthew Everhart [01:35:05]:

Yes, sir.