Episode 259 | Unity Rejuvenation - Bro. Cranston (Part II)

Whole parts of the country can go untouched by a clear gospel witness, and it’s not always because people are closed off. Sometimes it’s because we are. We sit down with Pastor Steve Cranston to talk honestly about church unity, disunity, and why the blank spaces on the map should trouble every believer who cares about outreach, evangelism, and soul winning.

We trace how fractured fellowships and “working with them” conditions can quietly train us to look inward instead of outward. From the sobering example of Utah with no Church of God presence, to the hard truth that disunity can discourage the unsaved, we wrestle with what our public witness communicates. Steve also names a pattern many of us recognize: when conflict rises, we start “digging up dead men’s bones” and using history as a club instead of honoring the past and obeying God in the present.

Then we get practical and personal. What should a young person do when they feel hurt by church issues? How do prayer, Bible study, fasting, and steady discipline keep wounds from turning into bitterness? We talk about discouragement, the slow slide that happens when you stop seeking God, and why healing is still available right now. The finish is a simple charge: don’t drop out of the race, because someone else is running beside you.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people looking for Christian unity and spiritual healing can find it.

Visit us online: https://woundedheartswoundedchurches.com

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Speaker 2 0:02

Hello friends, this is Dr. Jamie Mitchell. I'm the director of church culture and pastoral engagement for the American Pastors Network and one of the hosts for Stand in the Gap radio program with a listing audience of about 6.2 million people. in all my travels, I don't know what the program is forgiveness. It's a great show.

Prince Moon 1:04

But tonight we have a friend of ours. He's been here. He was here last week to thank God for him, Pastor Steve Cranson. And he's a busy guy. Imagine this new ministry, new pastorate, new congregation, new employment, new city, one and new podcast, too. So he got a lot going on. Let's get my hand for new tonight, but it's a good idea. Appreciate you having me out.

Church Details And How To Connect

Prince Moon 1:32

Brother Steve resides in Moorshead, Kentucky. And tell us about your church, where you are, when you all meet, etc., and how we can contact you also, too.

Steven Cranston 1:41

Sure. So we are at 1477 East Main Street, Moorhead, Kentucky. Um, and we meet three times a week, Sunday morning at 1030 and 4 p.m. and then Wednesdays at 6 p.m. If you want to contact us, you can uh go on to our website. That's www.rodburnchurchofgod.com, or you can go on to our Facebook page or our YouTube channel, which is just Rodburn R-O-D-B-U-R-N Church of God.

Prince Moon 2:10

Give me that phone number one more time, please.

Steven Cranston 2:13

503-730-2496.

Prince Moon 2:19

All right, friends. So tonight, if you want to text in, you can 1-8665-383664. Brother Caransa, any more discussion about the chart from last week?

Mapping Fellowships And Blank Spaces

Steven Cranston 2:30

Yeah, so we were just uh gonna very quickly finish uh to see what everything was, and then we're gonna talk about why it's important to understand these things. So, Sister Tanel, do you have uh the charts available to pull up real quick?

Tennille McLeod 2:43

Sure, I do have the chart chart with all the list of congregations up as we speak.

Steven Cranston 2:50

Sure. So looking at this, uh just a quick preface. This is a couple years old, and not every I know for sure not everything is up to date. Um, so if you want to continue on, I think it was slide uh 12.

Tennille McLeod 3:02

Correct.

Speaker 3:03

Let's go down to side another thing with these independent congregations, one thing for us to realize is uh number one, not every congregation fits into a clean box, if that makes sense, or every fellowship. Um, and there are some congregations I have missing from here. Um, so if you just want to continue on to the next one. This fellowship, uh, I would say they'd have a congregation in Mount Tabor, Ohio, Manassas, Virginia, which would be some of their more prominent ones. Uh, but this is another fellowship uh that we can see. We'll we'll go to the next one, if you don't mind. Um this would be a lot of congregations that some people would call one cleansing independent. They may not uh necessarily fit into a tidy box, um, and and they're willing to work with several other people if you want to continue on. And then this is a lot of uh the one cleansing people, they have a camp meeting in God's Acres, Ohio, or in Newark, Ohio at God's Acres. And uh, this is actually where uh where I was raised up um was within this particular fellowship, but you can just kind of get a general idea of uh where they have some congregations. So anyway, we so when it comes to these uh fellowships, if you'll go back uh to the one that uh has all of them listed, sure. One thing that one thing that we can notice if we look at this is there's a lot of blank spaces on here. Uh brother, brother Prince was asking me about that. You know, even uh with how divided we are, we haven't been able to work together and look at all the areas that uh we haven't been able to reach. So just some food for thought there.

Utah And The Cost Of Disunity

Prince Moon 4:48

Most definitely Utah, no church there, huh?

Steven Cranston 4:51

No church in Utah. Um, in fact, I was looking it up. I don't even think there's a church of God period in Utah, if I'm if I'm correct. Not even one uh from Anderson or anywhere. I may be wrong on that, but um several states where there's there's just uh no church of God presence.

Prince Moon 5:10

You know, I did a little research on Utah, and there's 220,000 in the capital, which is Salt Lake City. There's a rescue mission there, YMCA there. The medium is about $80,000, so it's not a high-income place, but definitely open for ministry. I'm glad you brought that up, uh, Brother Cranston, about uh unity and outreach. H. M. Riggle did a book on Christian church, the progress of it, and he said this unity affects the heart of the unsaved. Yes, the gospel is unable to convict of sin. And I was shocked by that. And when you brought that up, it brought back to my mind that when when we are not unified, people may not get saved. That is a major and I really shocked me. This guy wrote this back in 1860, and he said, disunity affects soul winning. And that really hit me hard. What are your thoughts on that?

Steven Cranston 6:09

I agree 100%. And when you think about it, if we're not unified, uh we're we're more focused on looking inward than outward. Um, and we're wanting to be within our own little boxes, and uh, I think it hinders the ability to have effective outreach. And so um you have all these areas that maybe somebody has family in, but because they don't fellowship somebody else, they don't even encourage their family to go somewhere else. That's teaching holiness and that's teaching living a life free from sin. And so then you have all those people that could be going somewhere, but instead they're not. Um, and so it it certainly does have a negative effect. And then finally, for somebody that's looking on and they're seeing that we can't even get along with each other, uh that's awfully discouraging um to that person that may be in sin and considering salvation, and and that's the image that they're seeing.

Prince Moon 7:06

Well, that's what Riddle said. Uh disunity affects the hearts of the unsaved.

Steven Cranston 7:12

Yes.

Prince Moon 7:13

And I I read that and I was very shocked at that because it unfortunately it is true.

Steven Cranston 7:21

Yeah.

Prince Moon 7:21

Here we have Utah, and Utah's been there since it's another state, and yet we have no church there. Friends, if you know someone in Utah, let us know. We can reach out, do what we can to reach people for Christ.

Stop Using Dead Men’s Bones

Prince Moon 7:34

Uh brother Cranston, you mentioned in the program earlier we were discussing some things, and you mentioned dead men's bones. What did you mean by that?

Steven Cranston 7:45

Here's the thing.

Prince Moon 7:46

If if you don't mind, if you don't want to skip it, you can. But I was just intrigued by your input there.

Steven Cranston 7:53

Sure. Yeah. Here's the thing.

Prince Moon 7:55

And I agree with it too, what you say. I agree.

Steven Cranston 7:58

Yeah. We uh in the church God, we tend to uh honor the people that have gone before us. I don't think there's anything wrong with being appreciative of some of the ministers and and men and women women of God that have gone before us, but it's almost become this thing where uh if we get to this disunity, we start fighting, we we dig up their bones and we want to beat each other over the head with dead men's bones. And uh what I was telling Brother Prince before we jumped on is I'm not interested in digging up the bones of Brother Wilson or Brother Hampton or Brother Gordon or Brother Barber or whoever you want to say. I'm not interested in digging up their bones and trying to beat someone over the head with it. I want uh for us to focus on what God has placed in front of us, not what was happening 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Um, that's not to say that those things don't have an effect. I understand that. But at the same time, some of these things we have to leave in the past and do our best to get before the Lord and see where he would have us to go.

Prince Moon 9:05

So come back after the break. We'll be right back. And we're back, Pastor Cranston from Kentucky area talking about unity. Brother Cranston, again, I want to

When Infighting Makes Us Easy Prey

Prince Moon 10:26

uh go back to this. I've got a burden for soul winning somewhat. And uh again, when we are not unified, it hampers our soul winning. I wonder why for years why the big revivals aren't happening like in bygone days. And the reason why, when we are disunified, that is a major blow to our soul winning. And I was just shocked to read that by Riggle in his book, Christian Rise and Progress. Any other comments on that?

Steven Cranston 10:54

Yeah, so it reminds me actually of a clip I saw a while back. There, it was maybe shot on the African savannah, and what it was, there were two, I want to say maybe antelopes that had their horns locked together and they were fighting each other and you know, back and forth fighting, and in the distance you could see there was a lion that was running full speed at them, and they were so focused on fighting one another that eventually the lion came and devoured one of them. And uh I think that the devil loves to see us fighting each other rather than working together, being laborers together, to go and to reach out to others that are around us. Um, he's perfectly content with us just being in our own little box. And I'll put it this way it's not comfortable to reach out.

Prince Moon 11:46

No, it's not, no.

Steven Cranston 11:48

And I and I told uh recently I told our congregation, I said we're gonna need to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Prince Moon 11:57

Amen. Amen. No, it's not comfortable, not at all. That's true, not at all. Uh Cranson, I've heard this idea of reaching out to every bloodwashed one.

Fellowship With Every Bloodwashed One

Prince Moon 12:09

I've heard it 50 years. What does that mean, reaching out to every bloodwashed one? What's your idea on that?

Steven Cranston 12:15

Well, I think it's simple how the Bible puts it, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another. And it takes us being willing to somebody put it this way, they said there are two bears in the church, there's bear and forebear, and we have to be willing to have some patience with each other and and not have this mindset that I'm superior and you're inferior, or anything along those lines. We have to be willing to practice what we preach. Another thing that we sing is we reach our hand in fellowship to every bloodwashed one. So are we gonna take that song out of the hymnal or are we actually gonna start practicing it?

Prince Moon 12:55

Brother Chris, I'm gonna put you on the same spot. Do we do that as a group? Do we do that?

Steven Cranston 13:01

I don't believe we do. I don't I don't believe we do because it to me it almost feels like from a younger person looking on, right? Uh there are strings that are always attached. Well, uh one phrase that I hear is well, we're working with them. We're working with them, but it's said almost in a way of uh conditionally until they come to where we're at.

Prince Moon 13:23

So it hurts, it really does. It really it really has a it really has a uh effect, and of course, fellowship means to have a connection there, yes, where you're close and working together, brother Cranson. To a young person, maybe they've been caught up in these things the past 10, 15, 20 years. Any advice to

Advice For Young People Who Feel Hurt

Prince Moon 13:47

them? You're a young guy, you know people that have left the church for different reasons. Any advice, any advice to them?

Steven Cranston 13:52

Well, there's a couple of temptations. One temptation is to to uh just throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. You've been hurt, and so you decide I'm walking away from this entirely. And the other temptation is to take a radical approach. And you know, there are two ditches on each side of the road. There's a ditch on each side, I guess I should say. And if we're not careful, we can make emotional decisions without really consulting the Lord. And so I really do think that it takes getting down in prayer, asking God, Lord, please help me not to succumb to bitterness. Um, and I believe there are a lot of people that have honest hearts, a lot of young people that have honest hearts that are grieved by what they see. And I just want to spread the message, there is hope.

Prince Moon 14:39

Amen.

Steven Cranston 14:40

There's hope.

Prince Moon 14:41

Amen. Amen. Also, along with that, maybe a young person has left the church over these things. Any advice to them?

Steven Cranston 14:52

I would say so. I'll I'll say it this way. When I have first gotten saved, I ended up backsliding because I got hurt in a particular situation. And I went out and and I tried to start going somewhere where I felt like I was loved, even though I knew that truth was not being preached. And so another temptation is just to try to go where we feel good. Um, but sometimes I believe that the Lord would have us to step up collectively and say, it's on us, it's not on the past anymore, it's on us to make the changes.

Prince Moon 15:27

Brother Crenson, I appreciate you what you just said. A lot of our uh viewers have been wounded. We talk about that wounded hearts. Okay, when you were wounded, what shape spiritually were you in?

Steven Cranston 15:42

Uh

Prayer, Discouragement, Bitterness, And Healing

Steven Cranston 15:43

I was uh I was a new convert. And I was I was doing my best to grow and everything, but when you get wounded, it discourages you. And when you reach the place of discouragement, you reach the place where you get out of your Bible study, you get out of prayer, all these different things, and then before you know it, you've succumbed to those spiritual wounds.

Prince Moon 16:07

Wow. So your advice is when you get hurt, stay in.

Steven Cranston 16:11

Yes, stay in prayer. That's that's the best thing you can do is pray, meditate, fast, read the word of God.

Prince Moon 16:19

But the crime said many people when they get hurt, they slack up on those things, they slack up on their prayer, they slack up on their on their Bible study, and the devil likes that, doesn't he?

Steven Cranston 16:29

Yes, yeah. Uh somebody once said that discouragement is the devil's most popular tool that he uses. And once we become discouraged, we just lose all motivation, we lose all desire to do any of these things, and and that's where we start to suffer. We we used to sing a children's song growing up. It said, read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow. Neglect your Bible, forget to pray, and you shrink.

Tennille McLeod 16:52

That's true.

Steven Cranston 16:54

So I know these, I know these are elementary concepts, reading, praying, fasting, all meditation. These are these are elementary concepts, but they're foundational. And without a solid foundation, you you fall.

Prince Moon 17:08

They are. I mean, but again, I want to go back to that. So when we get hurt, we have a tendency to slack up on our reading, on our praying. It's almost like uh an automatic response to pressure. When we get hurt, we slack up, and the devil can really come in and do a job, doesn't he?

Steven Cranston 17:27

Yes, yeah, that's that's where bitterness comes in. And when somebody is bitter, I think we've all met people that have been bitter, unfortunately. A lot of us have come to a bitter place ourselves, and when when bitterness starts to work, it chokes everything else out.

Prince Moon 17:42

True.

Steven Cranston 17:43

So so you all live in the south, you've seen kudzu. If any of our listeners are from the south, kudzu will just overwhelm a forest and just smother everything, and that's how bitterness is.

Prince Moon 17:54

Wow, and it affects the whole body too. Yes, it can affect the whole the whole church. So, again, for the one I want to go back to that because was what he said was very poignant. So when hurt comes, people they slack up on those essentials, yes, and you can't get healed lacking prayer or Bible study. In fact, that hurt will expand, it may become metastasized into a real serious disease. Any thoughts on that, Brother Cranston?

Steven Cranston 18:22

Yeah, I I agree, I agree a hundred percent. Um, when it when it comes to, like I said, the foundational things, we can try to build up all these ornate little things and get caught up in well, this doctrine or or my feelings about that, or whatever else, but then we're lacking the foundation. And it's like if you've been in an old building, when a foundation begins to sink, it starts to mess up everything else and cracks appear everywhere else, then it's not too long. When there is a crack in the armor or a chink in the armor, that's when the enemy comes in. You give him an inch, he'll take a mile.

Prince Moon 18:58

That is the thought, the foundation friends. That's that's paramount here. What he's saying tonight, because when people get hurt, again, in my counseling the past 40 years, I've seen a lot of hurt people, and they have a tendency to just give up on those things, and that is the worst thing you can do. If you're hurting tonight, don't run from God, run to God. Brother Canson, should should they stop going to church if they get hurt? Should they just give up going to church?

Steven Cranston 19:26

I don't think so. Um, I think you really need to pray before you make any moves. The devil, a lot of times, wants us to rush into a decision. But I do want to say something in reference to the young people. I'm 28 years old, so I I consider myself to be a young person for sure. And uh a lot of these young people, they get discouraged uh because of what they've inherited, but it it really is time for people to step up and say, hey, listen, I'm gonna do what's right because it's right. And with with the with the young people, we gotta realize the decisions that we make don't just affect ourselves, they affect God's church and they affect all those that are coming in behind us. Because if if we have a family and we've allowed hurt and bitterness to take root within our lives, then our whole family behind us inherits that hurt.

Prince Moon 20:20

So can a person get healing even tonight, brother Steve? Even tonight, right now?

Steven Cranston 20:26

Yes, a person can get healing. Absolutely. Um, I believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And not only did he touch people's bodies, but he also touched their souls and healed them of some of the very same things that we're dealing with in today's age. And so I do believe that there's healing that's available.

Prince Moon 20:47

So, friends, tonight, if you're wounded by whatever church issues, home issues, the test don't even hurt it. There's healing tonight. We are here for you. Happy to happy to say that you can get help tonight. Yes, you can take time to pray. He said, but don't give up on prayer. There's a song that says that because when you're hurting, as a signal to pray, to seek the Lord, because God, there's help in the Lord for you, and all of us tonight. Brother Steve, any last-minute comments before we go?

Steven Cranston 21:19

Yeah, uh, I guess if I had to finish with any com comments, I would say even in the midst of all the trials that we're going through as individuals and as a church, don't ever give up. Because the second that you give up, you have already guaranteed that you've lost the battle.

Tennille McLeod 21:38

Wow.

Prince Moon 21:40

And someone else may give up also when they say you give up.

Speaker 21:43

Well, you so I'm a runner and I run marathons, and

Keep Running And Don’t Give Up

Speaker 21:47

one of the most discouraging things is if you're riding running side by side with somebody and then they drop out or they drop back, and then you're all alone, and you're thinking I have to continue on all alone, and that's discouraging.

Prince Moon 21:59

Now, how does that feel? You and I are running, let's say you and I are running the the the 26th mile, and we're side by side, we're pacing one another, then I begin to catch my ankle or catch my leg, and I go back a couple of feet. How do you feel about that?

Steven Cranston 22:15

It's a total loss of morale, total loss of morale, and it it hinders you, you know. People when it comes to something like running, a lot of it is not physical, it's mental. And when it comes to something that's spiritual, the battle, oftentimes we we want to look at the battlefield as wherever else the battlefield is in between our ears. Fighting against the enemy.

Prince Moon 22:37

It's true. I think the Bible says that. What's it say? Casting down, let me think. Casting down imagination. Keep running, Saints of God. Keep running. Brother Cranston, thanks tonight for being here. Our listeners contact us to our engineer. Thank you so much. Glad you're here tonight. We'll see you next week. Have a good week, Lord bless you.