Ryan Burge

By the way, a female pastor of a non-denominational church is a big deal because that's not what evangelicals do.

But he had this whole plan, and then it came out that he got involved in some sexual harassment stuff, and the whole thing fell apart.

Both new pastors resigned.

Most of the elder board resigned because they were accused of covering up Bill Hyvel's sexual improprieties, and the church has declined 30 or 40 percent in attendance.

That is the weakness of this whole model, by the way.

Denominations will continue to endure because they have structure in place to sort of carry you over the chasms of uncertainty and problems.

Non-denominationals have no structure.

It's all based on who the pastor is.

And I think a lot of them, you know, I hate to say it, Derek, but you and I are both, you know, pretty popular on Substack.

It's almost a Substackification of American religion.

right?

You start your own thing.

You go outside the media ecosystem.

You don't need all the structures and all the things.

People pay for you.

They don't pay for all the reporters to report.

They pay for you to report and analyze and have opinions.

That's almost exactly what these non-denominational churches are doing.

You're not here for the Methodism or Lutheranism.

You're here for my flavor of American Christianity and the way I preach it and the way we minister to these people.