Ideas Have Consequences

How to Disciple Your Church in a Biblical Worldview | Doug Atterbury

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 79

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Episode Summary: In today's distracted and disoriented culture, the local church faces a critical question: are we actively prioritizing the formation of disciples who can think and live biblically in every area of their lives?

Pastor Doug Atterbury from Compass Bible Church joins us to explore how churches can move beyond surface-level success to embrace the deeper call of the Great Commission—transformative worldview discipleship. Drawing from his experience in secular Southern California, Doug shares how believers can resist cultural lies, reclaim purpose, and model holistic lives of meaning in a confused world.

We hope that this episode will shed light on the vital need for pastors, parents, and all Christians to encourage their churches to step into the battlefield of worldviews and ideas with truth that transforms.


Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/


Featured Guest: Doug Atterbury is a Southern California native. He received a Bachelor Degree in Bible and Theology from California Baptist University and M.A. in Theology from Talbot School of Theology. Doug has served in a variety of pastoral positions over the years; the most recent in Anaheim Hills. Doug has been married to his wife, Kelli, since 2009 and has two daughters.


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Doug Atterbury:

I think practically the only way to vie for people's attention is to vie for people's attention. They're going to spend their time scrolling through social media and watching pointless TV shows and engaging in secular ideologies, passively and actively. We should be in the battlefield, which is how the scripture describes it the war front of the battlefield of ideas, for the sake of our people's hearts and minds.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen:

Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm so glad to be with you again today and joined today by team members Dwight Vogt, luke Allen. Hi guys, and, as always, good to be with you, and today we're joined by a really special guest, doug Atterbury, who Luke and I heard recently give a sermon, a message, at our church here in Bend, oregon, eastmont Community Church. Doug is a staff pastor at a very large and influential evangelical church in Southern California, in the Mission Viejo area, called Compass Bible Church. Doug is a native of Southern California, received his bachelor's degree in Bible and theology from Cal Baptist University and his master's in theology from Talbot School of Theology over there at the Biola campus, and over the years Doug has served in a variety of pastoral positions in various churches. He's married to Kelly, has two daughters, allie and Emmy. And Doug, I'm so grateful that you can be with us today. Thanks for taking the time.

Doug Atterbury:

Thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here.

Scott Allen:

Yeah Well, doug, we want to talk to you about biblical worldview. When you shared at Eastmont, you gave just a really great basic message in. What does it mean to think Christianly, you know, and to put on the mind of Christ and to be equipped to understand the basics of a biblical worldview and then live that out right in your family and your vocation and whatnot. It was so in line with what we teach and believe at the DNA.

Scott Allen:

We're just so thrilled to have you with us and especially because you're a pastor at a large church in the United States, we wanted to kind of pick your brain, if you will, and just get your thoughts on biblical worldview, discipleship as it relates to church ministry in the United States in particular. This is an area that we have a huge heart for and see such a need for and need in, I guess.

Scott Allen:

I'd like to start by just asking kind of a very broad question. You clearly understand biblical worldview. If you clearly understand biblical worldview, and how does that focus on biblical worldview, how would that change the way a church understands its just basic mission and purpose? You know how, for example, would it change the way that a church, a local church, measures what success looks like? I often feel like, well, we had George Barna on just a little background to this question.

Scott Allen:

George Barna, you know, does a lot of research into biblical worldview thinking and the American church and you know his research is, you know, pretty gloomy. You know he basically finds that most Christians don't have a biblical worldview, don't understand the basics of a biblical worldview. Many pastors don't have in the United States a biblical worldview and when we talked to him about that recently he said it's just not something that factors into how a church understands its mission. When it comes to success measurements and its mission and purpose, it typically has to do with activities in the church growth of the church, number of people in the pews programs, but not so much.

Scott Allen:

biblical worldview doesn't really factor in terms of discipleship. It just got me thinking, you know, how does this emphasis change the way a church would understand its mission and purpose? So what are your thoughts on that?

Doug Atterbury:

its mission and purpose. So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think the trend does seem to be that most people, most churches, are looking for those superficial metrics of numbers and seats and pews and that kind of thing, and you know how many programs they've got going on. And for us, we try to be very grounded in the Great Commission and we've tried to really parse out the Great Commission in such a way that defines our purpose, our trajectory and our mission. And we take very seriously the part about teaching them to observe all that I commanded them to do.

Doug Atterbury:

That imperative of Jesus there. This idea to us is worldview formation, because they need to be taught to be obedient in the culture and in the time that God has placed them in, and so it becomes actually the core part of the mission of the Great Commission for us to do the work of discipleship training that goes into worldview formation, for us to be able to fulfill that aspect of the Great Commission. So the way we formed it in our church is that we're reaching. That's a goal. We want to make disciples. Of course, we want to see new converts. We want to see people get saved.

Doug Atterbury:

That's a core principle of our church. But we want to make sure that we go further in that and not just teach them biblical doctrine, but teach them biblical doctrine as it relates to where they live, how they operate in their daily lives and in the culture. And so I think it's interwoven in the Great Commission in such a way that it should actually be a core part of our mission as a church all churches to do that.

Scott Allen:

That's so good. Yeah, I do think there's confusion. I mean, you go right to the Great Commission when we talk about purpose of church and I often ask people when I'm teaching around the world, hey, what is the Great Commission? And the answer I get back almost uniformly is well, save souls and plant churches. And I said no, no, read it. What is he saying? Well, save souls and plant churches. I'm like no, that's not what he says. What does he say? He says disciple all the nations, right, and you know we are the Disciple Nations Alliance, right. So there's something bigger than just the individual, as much as it is important for the individual to be saved. Bigger than just the individual, as much as it is important for the individual to be saved, jesus is bringing up the concept of nations and then, yeah, like you say, teaching them to obey nations, everything that I've commanded. It strikes me that that's such a basic command of Christ, basic to the church, and still not understood well Again, I do think.

Doug Atterbury:

I think it's.

Scott Allen:

Sorry, go ahead I just think it's hard. Yeah right, it's hard.

Doug Atterbury:

And so it's easy to say you know, we had this. Many people get saved at our last program or our last big event. But discipling takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, and especially for pastors it can be painful, it can be wearisome, and so it's easier to focus on metrics that check the box and make us feel good and where discipleship can be ugly and raw and real, and so that's why it's just not done as much.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, and you bring up another thing I'd like to explore a little bit. You talked about, you know, teaching the core doctrines of the faith. Is there a?

Doug Atterbury:

distinction in your mind between core doctrines and a biblical worldview. I guess it's not an absolute distinction, but I do think that the foundation of all Christian worldview is good biblical theology. It's a good understanding of the text and understanding the theological implications. But I think worldview at least on its downstream effects, as I like to call it, the worldview has downstream effects that once you have a formed theology, that theology needs to now influence everything that you do in your life and so it does speak to politics and it does speak to the things that we see in the news and

Doug Atterbury:

it does speak to those things, it speaks to them downstream. So I think a lot of people like to make a distinction between them saying we don't talk about politics, we like to talk about theology, we like to talk about core truths and we don't like to talk about these downstream effects. And I think that that's a disservice to people, because a fully-orbed as I would call it, biblical worldview encompasses the entirety of the world that we live in the reality that God has given us.

Doug Atterbury:

And so theology is the foundation, biblical theology is the foundation, but ultimately, as those rivers flow from that core, it should reach every single aspect, every single bank in our lives.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I've been thinking personally more about this. When we teach a biblical worldview, our opening session is called the Transforming Story and the word story has always been important to us, that what a worldview is, in a sense is a story of reality. It's the story and it is a story. It tells a story. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and our story encompasses, as many have observed you know, the creation, the fall, the redemption, the consummation, these different kind of chapters. If you will, there's, you know, important—anyways telling it as a story, with the understanding that everyone kind of lives out of a story, whether you're a Christian or not.

Scott Allen:

Jordan Peterson recently has made a big deal out of talking this way and I appreciate it.

Scott Allen:

You know there's a secular story, there's an animistic story, there's a fatalistic story. We all kind of live out of these big stories of reality and I often think, you know, when we're trying to disciple people in a biblical worldview, talking about it as a story, as the true story, is kind of really helpful in a way that you don't necessarily get if you just kind of come at it as doctrines. Let's talk about, you know, these five or 10 or 20 core doctrines of the Christian faith. You know nothing—I mean, of course they go together right. These doctrines are super important, don't misunderstand me. But if they're not talked about in the way—in this kind of story way I sometimes wonder if we're doing a disservice to our teaching on this and also talking about how the fact that, yeah, everyone kind of functions out of a particular story, you know not, you know. So I don't know if you have any thoughts or reactions to that. I just I'm kind of looking forward to just kind of running some of my thoughts by you, doug, while we've got you on here.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, sure, yeah, that's an interesting idea. Yeah, I think I think that you don't need to encapsulate all doctrinal training into that story motif, but I get your idea. I think worldview is easier to understand when it's in the story and I do fully agree with that a place, especially in theological education and even within the church and normal pulpit ministry where it's essential to clarify key central doctrines. But I teach a class on Christian worldview here at the school that we run and in prepping for that class I was reading through Alan Wolter's Albert Wolter's book, I believe is his name, and so it's a reformed work. But and he he breaks down just creation, fall, redemption as a motif that the whole story runs through. And I think I think when you have those kind of overarching story narratives, and understanding something.

Doug Atterbury:

It just helps bring cohesion to a worldview more than anything. So I think you could piece together a coherent and robust worldview by doing doctrinal training and reading texts and putting pieces into places. But there's something about having the cohesion of thinking beginning to end and understanding where we are and how we fit into that timeline of what God's doing that helps people feel connected to it Absolutely so. I do like frameworks to be tools for teaching.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, and I think God kind of made us to love stories. You know that. You know, and this is part of the reason that so much of the Scriptures are told as stories. You know parables and stories. It's a narrative that kind of has a storyline to it. I know, when my kids were young Luke and others, they just, you know, Dad tell us a story, tell us a story. You know I read them. I have no more stories to tell, but I was always struck by how much they loved stories. That's just something God, I think, built into us. You know, and then the fact that the whole, the whole of everything, is this amazing story actually is kind of powerful. It is the story of reality. The biblical worldview is a story. Anyways, I don't want to, yeah.

Doug Atterbury:

Western thinkers are so linear that I— Right, yeah. We seem to have abandoned some aspect of story and when we get back to it it does seem to connect. And we all do it with our children and I'm a kidsman pastor at our church, so I do work with our kids as well.

Scott Allen:

Yeah. Thank you, I have a question related, I think Jump in Dwight yeah, yeah, doug.

Dwight Vogt:

so when you start your worldview, class, how? Do you begin, what assumptions do you think people bring to you that you have to either immediately address? I mean, are they thinking it's at the all? What do you say? How do?

Doug Atterbury:

you start. So my primary audience for my worldview class is a gap year program that we've put together at church, so it is high school seniors and freshmen in college and we get everything from the church kid who's from our church with a great theology to someone who is just starting off. And so my starting place in worldview is trying to get them to understand what I'm even talking about in worldview and really trying to get them to understand what I'm even talking about in worldview and really trying to get them to understand what a worldview is Just the concept of worldview.

Doug Atterbury:

And I see light bulbs clicking on, clicking on, clicking on, and my favorite definition is actually from James Sire and it's kind of his second definition. He has one in his primary book and then he has another one that he's further teased out. But talking about the idea that a worldview is something that is something that's not just housed in the heart or housed in the head, it's also housed in the heart, something that can be known or unknown, conscious or subconscious, that it could be consistent or inconsistently held, and then showing them examples of that, I think, is where I like to start to say every single person in the room has the worldview.

Doug Atterbury:

Whether you realize it or not, you have it, and so the question now becomes is it biblical and is it in alignment with Christ or is it not? Now becomes is it biblical and is it in alignment with Christ or is it not? That is the place that I think is helpful for them to say I have a worldview and my worldview might be ill-informed, it might be incorrect in some areas, and I need it to be correct and biblical. And I have it, whether I realize it or not, because I think some people just think I don't have a worldview, it's just this. Or they think that their Christian upbringing has fully formed a Christian worldview, when it really hasn't. So just worldview as concept to me is where I start out the gate.

Doug Atterbury:

And then I just try to ground my students in a Christian worldview in terms of those three or four overarching kind of story narratives of creation, fall, redemption.

Doug Atterbury:

And then I go one step further and add restoration to that. But I think that they just need some. They're doing this at the same time that they're doing theology, so they're getting Christian doctrine taught to them at the same time. So my goal is to just make sure that they have heard what it is, and then I spend the rest of my class pretty much telling them all the ways that this can go wrong, to prove to them that they don't have as well of a formed Christian worldview as they think they do, by showing them some of the errors in their thinking when it comes to sanctity for human life and how they think of humans and how they think of goodness in humans and sinfulness in humans. I just want to show them you think you know this, but have you really thought it through? And that's my key thing I want everybody to think it through. Think through the implications of the Christian worldview.

Scott Allen:

Think it through, think through the implications of the Christian worldview. Luke, I want to bring you in as well, if you're ready with some of the questions that you've got here.

Luke Allen:

Oh man, I'm just enjoying listening. I'm just lost in thought right now. I think that's a really interesting way of teaching it, though Doug is starting out with worldview and explaining that concept. No-transcript worldview answer when you're giving them a quiz.

Luke Allen:

You know kind of like sure catechism. You know here's the bible answer to this bible question. It's when you bring it outside of that into more of a lane that feels secular to us, like how, how does this apply to a, you know, discussion you're having in your work as a construction worker and is there a biblical worldview way to talk about? You know this said disagreement, and that's where I get people kind of like oh hmm, there's a biblical worldview application for that, like it goes beyond Bible-type topics, it goes to everything you know.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I think, luke, I'm getting ready to head down to Bolivia this week and I'm going to be teaching at a conference for Christian educators down there, and the thing that they want me to address is exactly what you're talking about there, and the thing that they want me to address is exactly what you're talking about the Christian educators down there. They—and here I think too very often, you know, they bring in biblical worldview as a kind of a standalone class as a part of their curriculum. But if you ask them, how does a biblical worldview shape a particular set of principles that undergird all the other subjects math, literature, history, science, everything you get blank stares at that point. Those are separate categories, right. There's kind of the Bible stuff and then there's all the secular stuff, if you will. So, yeah, doug, what are your thoughts on that?

Doug Atterbury:

Doug, what are your thoughts on that?

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, I just don't think we press on people's worldview enough, like we tend to be satisfied with the typical Sunday school answer and the catechism style thing, and I am guilty of this too with my own children. When they give me the right answer, I'm like that's good, that's the right answer. But I think in every person's spiritual formation and every person's discipleship journey and their maturity process, they have to be able to answer the question of why that's the case. And so it becomes very necessary and I think that's part of my tactic is to say, okay, here's the answer. But if you can't tell me why you don't have an understanding of the Christian worldview, you have the answer. You have the Christian worldview in a nice little package that's never gone through any real pushing.

Doug Atterbury:

When you go into the marketplace or you go to your construction worker friend and you try to talk to them, that's where a lot of people tend to have their first real experience of wow, I don't really know this as well as I thought I did, or I didn't realize that there was so much to this, and it usually draws them back into it, and so part of what I think that the church should be doing is should be creating environments where they have some freedom to press a little bit and say, well, why is that true the case?

Doug Atterbury:

And, you know, push back on them and see if we can get them to give you an answer. I think that's what's required of us in this generation is to be able to, you know, defend those who contradict and to, you know, take captive every thought that's raised up against the knowledge of God. Those are active verbs that push us to working hard and we should want our people to be able to have that skill set to say, yeah, I know that's not true, because now let me give you the reason and the rationale, scripturally based, but let me explain it to you, and it takes a lot of time to do that, but I think that's becoming clear that we need it and we need it desperately.

Luke Allen:

How, just, really practically, how can churches do this? Because sometimes I think, well, we should just have like a Sunday where we're talking to a biblical worldview for health healthcare workers and a biblical worldview for mothers in the home and a biblical worldview for the construction worker guy. Like, is that how we do it? Like how do we get really practical and reaching people and helping them figure out this application of the world be applying to everything well, this is where my this is my opinions here at this point.

Doug Atterbury:

I so I think that churches could probably just do more, and I just mean that generally, pastors can fill their time pretty well with whatever they have on their plate. So if you're preaching two sermons on a Sunday, most pastors can fill that whole week up with study. If you really wanted to, you add another program in there that gets filled up even faster, and so what ends up happening is you get the weekend Sunday sermon and you're trying to go through books of the Bible and you want to be faithful to the text, and so you feel locked into whatever the content of the scripture is. And so my solution is if this is a need for the church and we are concerned for our people to have, and that they need a Christian worldview to be formed, then we've got to be bold enough practically to suggest or offer ourselves, if we're a lay person within the church, to provide a few week course on the basics of Christian worldview or implement a program, like you guys have, and add things to the schedule.

Doug Atterbury:

And I think we're afraid to add things to the schedule because we're afraid of people's time and pastors are busy, and so they're like I don't think I have time to do that and I think practically the only way to vie for people's attention is to vie for people's attention. They're going to spend their time scrolling through social media and watching pointless TV shows and engaging in secular ideologies, passively and actively. Passively and actively, we should be in the battlefield, which is how the scripture describes it the war front of the battlefield of ideas for the sake of our people's hearts and minds. And that's going to require us to put together classes and programs and ministries, and it's going to make us tired and it's going to add to our schedule, but there's a select group of people that God has equipped to do this and it is our responsibility to do it. And so, practically speaking, I just say whatever it is you think you need to have for your culture and your context, we need to put this together.

Doug Atterbury:

Put something together. Just put a class on the docket and sign up to teach it. And even if you have no idea what you're doing, just put it on the docket and sign up to teach it. And even if you have no idea what you're doing, just put it on the docket and figure out. You know more than most of the lay people in your church if you're listening to the podcast. So figure out some way to equip your church in this regard. It's the most practical thing. Just do something. Just do something.

Scott Allen:

Doug, you know, in California, Oregon is similar in terms of its kind of what I would call the dominant cultural worldview, pretty hostile to Christianity. And yet you know, we all are absorbing that in, you know, just constantly through. You know these worldviews tend to be caught right More than they're taught right. You just absorb them from the time that you're an infant. So a lot of worldview teaching is kind of helping people to see the worldview that the culture has kind of given them in various ways and sort that out vis-a-vis the biblical worldview. That's part of what it means to take every thought captive.

Scott Allen:

Um, you know, our, our, um, one of our founders, darrell Miller, has a saying that he loves to say. He says if the church isn't discipling the nation, the nation is discipling the church. You know it's going to always kind of go one way or another. Uh, somebody, some dominant worldview is going to be discipling. You know somebody, um, what are some of the ways? What are, what are challenges? You see right now, particularly in the culture there in Southern California that you're wrestling with, that Christians are absorbing some of the cultural lies that you really want to address with a biblical worldview. And how do we actually get beyond, just to follow up to that would be, you know, even beyond just the individual and into the culture itself, so that we're starting to see some change and shift in a culture that's, you know, that's really corrosive to flourishing, you know, and the kind of blessing that God desires. Yeah, go ahead.

Doug Atterbury:

So here in Southern California, I mean, there's a few things that are dominant, but the me first mentality is probably the most dominant mentality and we see it on, I think, the larger scale right now, with even, like these, no kings, protests this ideology that no one and nothing is above me, no one has authority nothing is above me, no one has authority and it's really just, ultimately, rejection of authority, anything that subjugates me from and puts my personal autonomy below anything else is wrong.

Doug Atterbury:

That is a problem for any Christian and should be a problem for any Christian. And to be able to say unabashedly, unashamedly, from pulpits that there is a sovereign king of the universe who has all power and dominion and authority and who is going to have every knee bow and every tongue confess and this is the reality, whether you want it to be or not to say that regularly and frequently from the pulpits, or to even tell people you can pretend your whole life that you are in charge, but at the end of the day you know that's not true and the scripture testifies to the fact that that's not true. There's many circumstances in everybody's life that we've had that prove that reality, and fighting against that reality only makes life more difficult. In Southern California, that's one of the things that we just deal with. It's just you fight and you fight and you fight, thinking that you're in charge, you can control it, you're going to make it work and you're not.

Doug Atterbury:

And that one is very prevalent. It is hard to address, apart from the gospel Um I. I don't know how to break down those walls, apart from a transformation of the gospel, um, but we, we, we see that one that just and maybe this is more me but um, it's most of the time in our baptism tanks, in our um, when people are sharing their testimonies, this, this misunderstanding of human goodness, um, people thinking that they are good and um, really misidentifying the totality of the effects of sin and its individual personal components. People think they're good In this area we're in a more affluent area of Southern Orange County and they like to compare themselves to people who are lesser than them in terms of whatever that would be and that gives them some sort of personal justification.

Doug Atterbury:

And so trying to convince people that sin, compared to a holy God, is a separating and damning offense is the core thing that we're trying to get people to wrap their minds around, and those are biblical worldview issues. They're theological issues, but they're biblical worldview issues Because, apart from those things, nothing else can fall into place If we can't get this right, if we just walk around thinking we're fine, there's no need for anything. And those are the ones that I identify the most, and they're the ones that we are constantly hitting on, especially that topic of sin, being unafraid to tell a culture who doesn't like to be told that they have anything wrong with them, that there's something perpetually wrong with you. It makes us not very attractive in some people's eyes, and yet we feel like that's what we're very clearly called to do.

Luke Allen:

I like how you're getting really to the practical, hands-on effects of the worldview around you. Just, I think sometimes we can look at the Western culture and be like, oh, the dominant worldview is postmodernism, you know, or it's neo-Marxism or whatever, and those are hard to wrap your head around, you know. But selfishness, you know like there's a lot of selfishness in my community that one's a little bit more, that one hits home a little bit harder for people like oh yeah, I definitely fall under that.

Doug Atterbury:

And not to minimize those other ones. I mean we've addressed those. We've done full on lectures on CRT in our men's group. I mean we've addressed those. We've done full-on lectures on CRT in our men's group. I mean we address hot topic books on. I mean we've covered Marxism, I've covered deconstructionism with a group of parents of teenagers. I mean we cover the other things too. But I just think as a pastor, as I engage in the community of our church, it's the thing that's taking people captive, more than CRT and more than maybe woke ideology.

Doug Atterbury:

From my perspective is the foundations of that and the foundations of that ultimately are the same things they've always been Pride, selfishness, self-centeredness, rejection of God, as it says in Romans 1,. They refuse to acknowledge him, and so they're given over to the futility of their minds. And so everything is a downstream effect of these higher biblical principles.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, yeah, it's just practical to kind of to bring that down to. You know, bring that down for people because I guess postmodernism is one of the dominant worldviews behind our society today, but hardly any person in the pew is going to say, oh, I'm a postmodernist, but what they, what they've been affected by, is kind of the value proposition of postmodernism, which is you are a sovereign, autonomous self. No one can tell you what to do. Your truth is the most important truth in the world, which is you are a sovereign, autonomous self. No one can tell you what to do.

Luke Allen:

Your truth is the most important truth in the world and that makes people have this kind of puts themselves up on a pedestal like, oh wow, I am very important here and that of course is going to raise a lot of selfishness in our culture and that's going to leak into the church in a more subtle way than just— and just the pushing back against authority, as you were saying.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, no People I don't think can describe you know these broad categories of worldviews. Most people can't very well or they can only do it. You know generally much less kind of where they came from, who were the thought leaders behind them and what did they believe.

Scott Allen:

But, they've been influenced by them. They've been impacted by them in very practical ways, like you're describing, doug, this kind of, you know, this autonomous self Don't tell me what to do. I'm. I'm this kind of buckling against any authority. Well, it comes directly out of postmodernism, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And the same with the other one that you mentioned too, which is this idea that I'm good, right, and that's very much this idea that what's wrong with the world, the evil in the world, the injustice, it's not coming from me, you know, it's that other group over there, those black people, white people the Jews, you know, hutus Tutsis.

Scott Allen:

I mean, it's always somebody else right, not me, you know, but you know. So people may not be able to articulate that that's a core doctrine of Marxism, let's say, but they've absorbed the idea anyways, you know, and it's very different than the biblical idea. No, the core problem in the world isn't so much out there, it's kind of inside of you actually.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, and that's one of the misconceptions I think that pastors in the pulpit have about addressing these topics from the pulpit. It's the word selfishness and the word pride and the rejection of authority are very clearly articulated in scripture. This is not hard to understand. So to give a practical example from the pulpit of how this oppresso-oppress motif has affected our thinking on this topic of authority is not just relevant, it's necessary.

Scott Allen:

It's really necessary. I totally agree.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, so the illustrations and the examples that we are giving now, it'd be good for pastors to make those connections between them that, yes, we have other influences within our society that are kind of pushing us now and pushing our people to think about this in a way that really wasn't around in the first century for sure, and it's not been around really for most of the history of the church that we now need to address.

Dwight Vogt:

In terms of your church outreach, it seems like working with postmodern culture. The message of sin isn't very attractive, and yet your church is growing. So you must be doing something different. But I think the temptation is to come up with another angle, whether it's belonging or you know people do admit that, yes, they're autonomous, but they feel isolated and disconnected, and so I'll join the church to belong.

Scott Allen:

And how does?

Dwight Vogt:

that work for you. People come for wrong motives to the baptismal thing.

Doug Atterbury:

Not wrong, but different. Yeah, I, I, um. We try to be as biblical of a church as we can. We're a bible church. We we try to take the scripture very seriously and so when, when the scripture speaks to the instrumentality of the word in terms of salvation and the book of james, we take that seriously. When Paul says, I didn't do it with underhanded ways but with an open statement of the truth, we take that very seriously.

Doug Atterbury:

We really are strong believers of teaching the Word of God and God utilizing the scriptures preached and exposited clearly to be a means of salvation for people, in the sense that God uses the preaching of the word and, through the power of the spirit, regenerates them. And our, our goal is to be extremely clear of what the scripture says. And, uh, I think our approach has always been let's just do that. That's my senior pastor's approach. That's what he's been doing for 30 years. He's been successful in it. Let's just do that. And it's actually an incredibly strange church growth tactic that I suggest everybody listening to this try, because, as every other church tries to find some new fangled way of attracting people to their church, they'll all get sick and tired of it and as they eventually go down the road of the culture. If your church is faithful to the scripture, your church will grow, because people want truth in this world, and I think that appealing to people's desire to know what's true and real has always been the method. It's just different now.

Doug Atterbury:

Getting people in the doors is maybe more difficult than it used to be, and we need to adjust our model. But we employ our people to go and build relationships with others and to invite them to things and to explain things to them, and we don't necessarily try to attract them. By a lot of other means though we do outreach events and fun things it's ultimately to get them to sit down and hear the preaching of the Word of God, and we think that that will have its full effect.

Scott Allen:

Doug. It seems to me that a lot still. There's a strain of thinking that's really deep in the American church in particular and I don't, by the way, see this so much in churches in Africa, asia, Latin America, where we travel and teach but a strain here in this church that says something along these lines. I'm going to way oversimplify this, but when we're talking about biblical worldview or biblical worldview training and engaging in the culture at the level of worldview, you know, it kind of pushes back against it and it says something like what we're really all about as a church is to try to yes, this world, this culture is fallen, right, it's broken, it's fallen, it's worldly, it's destined for destruction. We need to save people out of it and get them into the church. That's where Jesus has authority, that's where the Bible really applies in the church and then ultimately to heaven.

Scott Allen:

And any kind of thought about equipping people with biblical truths so that they can go out, let's say, into their role as an educator or city government or whatever it may be law, you know, even just in the home, as a parent, equipping them with biblical worldviews so that they can bring about a change or a shift in that area from whatever the dominant worldview happens to be, which is usually very destructive as it is in our time, to another worldview. That's a distraction, it's kind of a waste of time. You know it's ultimately not important. You know, because you know it's kind of the sinking ship idea it's. You know how do you I assume you hear that as well you know what are your thoughts on that or how do you challenge that? Because what I see it doing is it kind of takes the biblical worldview thinking off the table.

Scott Allen:

For most people it's like it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm saved. I'm growing maybe at this level of some kind of personal piety. Matter what matters is that I'm saved. I'm growing maybe at this level of some kind of personal piety. But me thinking like a Christian in my everyday life and living that out in a way that maybe even brings change in that area, that's too much or that's not even helpful. Do you agree with my kind of characterization here?

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, no, I understand, and my gut response is to go to the parable of the talents and just reference that and say we need to be careful not to take that position of the one that has been entrusted as a steward and say, well, it's rough out there, or it's hard, or it might not work, or I might not do as good of a job, or it might be difficult for me, and so let's bury my stewardship. It is in the story, of course you have some that produces more than the other, produces more than the other, and we may be in a time where, in a post-Christian society where we don't see the fruit bearing that we used to see, we're maybe not 50 fold or a hundred fold, but maybe we're five fold, and in the parable of the talents it's that well done, good and faithful steward. I mean you did a good job with what I entrusted to you and so.

Doug Atterbury:

I think we need to encourage people that just because things are hard in society, just because the workplace environment might not be as fruitful as it used to be, the conversations around the water cooler are not as receptive. What God is looking for is faithfulness, and his stewards to not be ashamed of the gospel Amen, yeah, so well said, doug, and just to do it.

Scott Allen:

And if it bears fruit, it bears fruit, and I do think you know, don't?

Doug Atterbury:

you think?

Scott Allen:

we're living at a time where, you know, the, the, the, the deeply anti-Christian, very corrosive worldview of the society around us is really driving people into despair, of the society around us is really driving people into despair and people are really receptive. There's a kind of a receptivity now to truth. Now, I think, in a way that we haven't seen, just because I think you know, you just take the sexual revolution. It's just destroyed lives, you know, out there, and people are just so lost and broken. I mean, you know we could go into detail on that just one area, but people are looking for something different now and I do feel like there is. Maybe we're seeing the beginnings of some kind of a revival or change. What are your thoughts on that? Do you see that where you're at?

Doug Atterbury:

particularly purpose in people, but I also see at the same time a rise of distraction.

Doug Atterbury:

And so my biggest concern, especially in Southern Orange County, is there's unlimited things to do, people to see, places to go and now, with social media, things to scroll and entertain ourselves with nonstop and, with the rise of AI, unlimited ways to entertain ourselves and ask our questions and get things done. But I think ultimately all of it is pushing and leading people into a sense of despair because they're losing purpose and even the traditional things that we know don't fully satisfy but are intended to have some level of satiation in our lives, as God made us things like family, as families get pulled more and more apart and they spend more and more time on their devices and then they are struggling to even connect anymore with their family members.

Doug Atterbury:

It's just driving a deeper and deeper sense of like what am I even doing here? What is the point to all this? And I think it's creating an opportunity that I think will actually be greater in the future, because I think AI is going to play a major role in driving people to purposelessness that the church needs to have the answer, that the church needs to have the answer, because we do have the answer, not as a fabrication, but as the truth to say.

Doug Atterbury:

We have the solution to your problem.

Doug Atterbury:

We can tell you what the purpose of life is. We could tell you how to be satisfied. We could tell you why the things that should satisfy you in this life don't fully satisfy you, and I think that is comforting to people to hear. Even when I tell people as a pastor yes, I'm not fully satisfied in this life, I'm not satisfied by the things that are around me in the biblical worldview that pushes me to think about the kingdom and to say there is a fulfillment of the destruction of this body of sin that I need to look for and long for with anticipation, and so even explaining that to people like oh, you feel this way too. Yes, of course I feel this way.

Doug Atterbury:

I feel gross after I scroll through social media too long and think why did I just waste my time looking at mindless things? There's something better to be doing. And I feel that pull and that dichotomy. And I think other people are feeling it too and we just need to tell them yeah, it's because you need Christ, you need to be grounded in him and find your satisfaction in him and ultimately be found in him. That's I think we're going to have a window of opportunity for the church in the near future. Here that's going to be necessary for us to jump into, to shout from the rooftops. We have the solution, we have the answer, We've always had it and. But now the need is going to shift. I think again the pendulum is going to swing back.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, I hope so.

Doug Atterbury:

I hope so too.

Luke Allen:

I'm sensing that. But one thing that I think is going to be a huge drawback to that is just we love our comfort as Americans. I know this is definitely true for myself as Americans, I know this is definitely true for myself. Francis Schaeffer, as one of his kind of last warnings, was like one of the things that's going to mess up the American church in the future is our desire for personal peace, that desire for comfort, Personal peace and prosperity.

Scott Allen:

He said yeah.

Luke Allen:

Prosperity? Yeah, and it's. I want to proclaim the truth. I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to, oh, but I have to do that in my workplace, where I might get fired. I have to do that around the water cooler and I might lose some friends. I have to be a good steward. Then I don't know if I want to do that, because that's messing my personal life up Like that. To me seems like it's still going to be a huge drawback, because I feel that myself so strongly Like, ugh, I'm all about proclaiming the truth until, oh, now it's affecting my bank account. Oh, that's uncomfortable. That messes with my personal peace.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, yeah, and that's the cost of discipleship. That should be there from the beginning. But I feel it too. I'm the same way.

Scott Allen:

I do agree with you, doug, I do think we're facing potentially a really exciting window of opportunity and I do think it's going to happen. As people kind of hit the bottom of the barrel. They're so broken, their relationships are broken, their relationship to themselves, with others, they're just alienated, feeling this sense of purposelessness. You know, they're going to be hungry to see it, to see, oh, there's a different way of living. You know and I love this about how Christianity changes the world. Historically it's been this way.

Scott Allen:

Let me show you a better way. We don't cram down right here. You have to believe this. No, I'm going to show you a better way. You know this is a better way to be and to live, because it's true. But we have to be ready to kind of live that way, to understand it, to put it into practice and live it. Yes, christ is at the center of it. It goes beyond just, you know, believe in Christ. Living out all the implications of a biblical worldview in very practical ways, I think, sets us up to be kind of a bright light in a dark place, and I think that's going to be an exciting thing. But I agree with you, luke, too, about the challenges, right. But, dwight, you were going to say something, I think.

Dwight Vogt:

Oh, you guys are just making me think, especially Doug, you and your class on worldview. I'm thinking, yeah, that that's very interesting what you were saying, because it is a growing phenomena that we almost seem to have to work less to succeed more, and, and so people have more free time and more opportunity and more distractions, and then the outcome is less fulfillment. And I'm thinking, well, that's going to be a challenge, and yet the solution is to love your neighbor, do good to one another, solve problems, fix things, wake up in the morning and say what good can I do for the world today? How can I leave it better than I found it? And how am I going to do that? And when do I start? And just get at it.

Dwight Vogt:

And I mean, it used to be. You had to do that to survive, you know people didn't wake up in the morning and go should I do anything today? No, I have to do something or I won't eat tonight. And much of the world is still in that situation. But in the West we're really getting to a point where I can make it without working you know.

Dwight Vogt:

So anyway, good luck.

Luke Allen:

It's a good challenge for your worldview class. Well, I mean just practically say you gave us a nice optimistic view of the future a few minutes ago, doug.

Doug Atterbury:

Say that, oh, I'm pretty dark. Actually, if you get down to the depths of it, it's not going to. I said there's an opportunity, I'm going to stick with the optimism.

Dwight Vogt:

Okay, all right, all right yeah.

Luke Allen:

Let's say that opportunity does arise, though, in the next few years. How can pastors, how can churches specifically start taking steps to prepare themselves for that opportunity? Now, I know that's a broad question, but what's the message that people need to be hearing inside the church to prepare themselves for, possibly kind of an awakening to the truth in a way, because of the fallenness and the decay around us Now, maybe people perking up their ears? What's the message that we can have prepared for those years?

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very simple message, but it has to do with God's design for us. As Dwight said, we're not designed to consume and fulfill our pleasures. We are designed for relationship with God and with others, and people will simply feel better and have their spirits lifted and feel a sense of purpose and be more satisfied if they can recognize the simplicity of the first two commandments, that if we truly do stop rejecting God and love him and if we do love others as ourselves, there is an inherent level of satisfaction though it's broken still because of sin that there is something here. And I do think that the other thing is to. I'm a big advocate, I'm a family pastor, I work with kids, I work with parents, I work with a lot of families. I do a lot of marriage counseling.

Doug Atterbury:

I just think that probably one of the most strategic ways that we as a church can speak to our dark world is if our families and our churches love each other, support each other, wanna churches love each other, support each other, want to be with each other, maintain relational unity with each other, and it's going to be a light in the midst of darkness that I just think is going to shine so bright and I've seen that here in these walls, where people come in and they are they honestly are confused.

Doug Atterbury:

I think when they start to meet families and they see families with friends of other families and everybody knows each other's names and everybody's holding each other's kids and treating them like their own family, and people are wanting to go have lunch with each other and and go on vacation with groups of people and they look at us like, why are you all so okay with each other? Don't you get mad? And we're like, yeah, we get mad at each other. I think that, light of like, let's get our families stable. Let's teach our kids to be obedient to parents. Let's teach our parents how to be an authority over their kids. It's a big thing.

Doug Atterbury:

I constantly am dealing with and let's let our families actually enjoy themselves and let's stop this downward fall of destruction relationships due to divorce in the churches. Let's beat the trend. Let's beat the trend and then let's do family things as a church, where we actually bring families to the community and they see the difference between what we're doing and what they're feeling. I think that we're going to need simple tactics like that. Simple, just light in the darkness. Where's the darkness? What's it look like? I mean, one of my favorite things, just to rant here. I love, I absolutely I relish it every time I see it.

Doug Atterbury:

I teach a group of parents of teenagers every single Wednesday night while our youth groups are going on. So I take all the parents into a room and I teach to them While the youth groups are going on. We've got our junior hires in our high schools and we've got we've got hundreds and hundreds of them, and I love going outside after I'm done preaching and seeing all the teenagers in circles talking to each other, throwing footballs, running around and playing without their phones. It's like in this world I don't. It's so simple, but it's like that's light in the midst of darkness. It's like they're just, they are in relationship with one another and it's beautiful and they like each other and they're engaged with each other.

Doug Atterbury:

And I think people see that and they're like, oh, that's different. I mean, I haven't seen a kid not look up from their phone in months or years, you know. And here's a whole group of them just hanging out with each other because they understand the value of relationships and fellowship. It's little. I think it's more little things like that than a big program or some class or some broad approach. It's like let's just have the church be the church the way God intended it to be and preach the Word as God intended us to preach the Word, and we'll probably do an okay job in that environment that I described earlier, where we might have some opportunity due to purposelessness.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, wow.

Scott Allen:

I love that Well, Doug, thanks for your time. I think we probably should wrap up, but I really appreciate the practical kind of ideas and suggestions, even the one that you just put on the table now, really focusing in when we teach about biblical worldview and its application. Let's start in that most basic social unit of all our own families and how would it look to put these principles and practices into practice in a way that's different from what we see in the culture around us? Because the difference is really stark right now and it's really attractive, just like you said, and I also love the idea of the Institute, the one-year gap year that you guys are doing. I think that's a really practical idea, Doug. If people wanted to learn more, if pastors maybe that are listening to us wanted to learn more about what you're doing and maybe how they could learn from you, Is there a way that they could get in touch with you? What's the best way that people could connect and learn from you and what you're doing?

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, our institute is called Compass Bible Institute, our website is compassbibleinstituteorg, and all the socials are connected there as well. We have gap year classes, we have graduate level classes and a residency program for pastoral training and we also have just regular undergraduate classes that transfer to a bunch of great schools, great theological schools across the country. We offer them cheap and accessible online as well as here on campus. So if anybody listening wants to be a part of our program, we'd love to have you apply and come out here and visit us if you want and see what we're all about. But check us out on our website. That's the best way.

Scott Allen:

Well, I want to really encourage our listeners, especially if you're in a church ministry, to take advantage of Doug and what they're doing. I just think we have to become much better. Well, first of all, we have to say this is our mission, right? Our mission is to equip people to live out their faith in a full biblical worldview kind of a way. It's not just to put the programs and the people in the pews, but this is what it—and it's going to be hard, as Doug said, it's going to require new ways of doing things, but this is our job, you know.

Scott Allen:

And so here's a church and a pastor that's got some really practical ideas, and I just want to encourage people to take advantage of this as an opportunity to learn. It seems like something that churches could do across the country actually is to offer these kind of classes. I really like that idea, you know, of churches doing a lot more with education, even kind of higher education. I think that's going to be a really critical piece in the future. So, luke Dwight, any final thoughts or questions from you?

Dwight Vogt:

Nice meeting you, Doug.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, nice meeting you too, yeah.

Scott Allen:

Doug, we really appreciate you and appreciate your ministry and what the church is doing down there. It's exciting to hear. So thanks for your time.

Doug Atterbury:

Yeah, great. Yeah, thank you for your guys' time Really appreciate it.

Scott Allen:

That's great. Well, thanks as well to all of you who are listening to this podcast. We really appreciate your interest and your being a part of the Disciple Nations Alliance through the podcast. Thank you, you.

People on this episode

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Scott Allen

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Darrow Miller

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Dwight Vogt

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Shawn Carson

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Tim Williams

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Luke Allen

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