Hello I'm John Eldridge and welcome to the Ransomed Heart audio podcast.

For more information on Ransomed Heart Ministries, our resources and events, please visit

us online at W.W. Ransomed Heart.

dot com.

The other day I was speaking at a conference here in Colorado and the particular topic I was talking about was hearing the voice of God.

And the larger context was simply intimacy with God, friendship with God, that there is a conversational,

intimate loving relationship of friendship that's meant to be really normal.

It's the whole goal of Christianity is coming home to God living with God. I no longer call you servants

Jesus says I call you my friends and then what I was struck by through my conversations with people afterwards was how odd that message sounded to them, how different, how new, and as I was driving home I just began to get more and more upset more and more

mad really agitated at what has happened to the church that these core things that were

meant to be normal available available, true, real with God aren't.

You know, and I just began thinking about,

I want to talk about a handful of things that we see, we observe, are really killing the church.

Because I don't want it to happen. This isn't finger pointing or blaming. It's let's dismantle

this stuff so that we can get back to what we were created and ransomed, redeemed to experience.

And Craig, I mean, just coming back from a trip where you were engaging with several pastors and what was your experience?

You know, John, as you're talking, a little story comes to mind when we first moved in our home here.

We were having some cable problems with our internet, television, and such.

So we called the cable provider, and they sent a guy out to work on our cable box,

which is in our front side yard. He drives up and I'm thinking all right cable

guys here, go out and talk to him. Well he pulls up and there's a couple of big bucks just laying in the shade of our side yard.

Deer? Yeah, deer.

...