What does Tribe teach about church confession?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on church confession grew out of what Brian observed across the Turn the Cat Around series: that individual acts of repentance, made openly before the body, have a ripple effect far beyond the person who steps forward. Colleen shared that a public act of repentance she made near the beginning of the series had broken something open in the congregation, and that more than twenty people had given their lives to the Lord in the time since. Brian did not frame this as a program or a technique. He treated it as evidence that honesty before God and before the church body carries a weight that private conviction alone does not.
The biblical anchor Brian brought to this was 2 Timothy 4:1-5, where Paul warns a young pastor that a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but will seek out teachers who tell them what they want to hear. Brian pointed out that the Greek word for time in that passage is kairos rather than kronos, meaning a season appointed by God rather than ordinary clock time. In that frame, the congregation's willingness to confess, repent, and share testimony was not incidental. It was the church being sober-minded and present for the moment God had placed them in.
The cost of that kind of honesty runs through everything Brian said in this final message. He returned again and again to a word he said the Holy Spirit had placed on his heart for the series: "The leadership of Jesus will be less complicated but more costly." Confession, in that light, is not a spiritual exercise that makes life easier. It is an act of surrender that cuts against pride and self-protection, the way Kat described pushing past pride to share her testimony, and the way Clay described stepping away from alcohol after feeling convicted. The invitation underneath all of it comes from Ezekiel, which Brian also brought into the room: "I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live."
Taught from 2 Timothy 4:1-5 · Ezekiel 18:31 · Ezekiel 18:23
“I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live.”
From TTCA Week 9 Wrap Up
The passage taught · 2 Timothy 4:1-5
1 I command you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom:
2 preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all patience and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts;
4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn away to fables.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 1, 2023 TTCA Week 9 Wrap Up Brian Hunter wraps up the "Turn the Cat Around" series, exploring what it costs to follow Jesus faithfully as culture drifts further from biblical truth.