Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 12: Great Teaching Tips from Preaching Giants, Mental Health Crisis Among Pastors, Rest and Relief in Ecclesiastes and Psalms + Dirty Dew Review!

Transcript

Episode 12: Great Teaching Tips from Preaching Giants, Mental Health Crisis Among Pastors, Rest and Relief in Ecclesiastes and Psalms + Dirty Dew Review! · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

0:14
Speaker1: Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
0:18
Speaker1: soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
0:22
Speaker1: and the broader kingdom of God.
0:24
Speaker1: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole
0:26
Speaker1: and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
0:30
Speaker1: Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
0:34
Speaker1: of making every church flourish.
0:36
Speaker1: And hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 13.
0:40
Speaker1: Uh-oh, Triska Decaphobiacs, beware of the Every Church Flourishing podcast where
0:47
Speaker1: we are not afraid of the number 13 because we have some great things on tap for today.
0:52
Speaker1: I want to shout out and welcome new listeners in Vietnam, Thailand,
0:56
Speaker1: Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Barbados, and Venezuela.
1:00
Speaker1: Thanks for joining us. For our main discussion today, we have Pastor Christopher
1:06
Speaker1: Cole, and he and I are going to talk about the mental and emotional health crisis
1:11
Speaker1: among pastors and church leaders.
1:13
Speaker1: You might be thinking, what mental health crisis?
1:16
Speaker1: Well, less than 10 years ago, 40% of pastors rated their own mental and emotional
1:22
Speaker1: health as excellent, which honestly does strike me as a tiny bit high.
1:27
Speaker1: But recently, that number has plummeted to 15%. That is a massive drop.
1:35
Speaker1: So what in the world can explain that?
1:38
Speaker1: On the episode today, you're going to hear Pastor Christopher say,
1:41
Speaker1: Jesus did not say, come unto me and get busy.
1:45
Speaker1: He said, come unto me and I will give you rest. If we aren't regularly Sabbathing
1:52
Speaker1: our souls, We are missing out on one of the greatest invitations of Christ.
1:57
Speaker1: That is a strong insight.
2:00
Speaker1: And we're going to talk about rest and how you can find rest through reading
2:05
Speaker1: books like Ecclesiastes and Psalms and how those particular books can ease our
2:11
Speaker1: anxiety and our emotional ups and downs.
2:14
Speaker1: We also have a great soda to review, Dirty Mountain Dew, which I realize Dirty
2:20
Speaker1: Mountain sounds kind of gross, but spoiler alert, it tastes pretty great.
2:25
Speaker1: And I jumped in my time machine this week, and I traveled back almost 2,000
2:31
Speaker1: years, all throughout the centuries,
2:33
Speaker1: To interview the best preachers and teachers of God's Word, and almost 2,000
2:38
Speaker1: years of the best preaching and teaching advice for you.
2:42
Speaker1: How you can preach better, how you can teach better.
2:45
Speaker1: We're going to cover three of the best bits of advice from modernity and ancient
2:50
Speaker1: times on this episode, but maybe Monday or Tuesday, depending on how things
2:56
Speaker1: go, my plan is to release 10 episodes.
2:59
Speaker1: Of those tips, as well as some interesting factoids about some of the greatest teachers in history.
3:06
Speaker1: So stay tuned for that. For now, let's dive into the interview today with Pastor
3:11
Speaker1: Christopher Cole of the Great Commission Association of California,
3:16
Speaker1: which is a group of nearly 100 churches from Santa Barbara,
3:20
Speaker1: California, all the way up to San Francisco.
3:23
Speaker1: That is the group that sponsors this podcast, and we are going to be talking
3:28
Speaker1: to Pastor Christopher today about all sorts of great things that will encourage
3:32
Speaker1: you and help you walk in greater spiritual, mental, and emotional health.
3:37
Speaker1: Here we go. So now we are joined by our old friend,
3:41
Speaker1: Pastor Chris Cole, co-host of the show, who shows up all the time,
3:45
Speaker1: and he works with the GCA as the Associate Director of Missions and has a long
3:52
Speaker1: and wonderful history of pastoring in churches and working in various ministries.
3:57
Speaker1: And rather than me telling you about that, how about Pastor Christopher Cole?
4:01
Speaker1: You tell us about yourself and what your role is with the GCA Association.
4:06
Speaker0: I lead what's called our mission advance team.
4:10
Speaker0: So pretty much everything that interfaces or works with our local churches,
4:15
Speaker0: our team heads up that piece of the ministry of the Great Commission Association
4:20
Speaker0: because we have schools, because we have operations that are complex.
4:25
Speaker0: We have leaders for those.
4:26
Speaker0: And so I serve as a senior director, sort of helping us focus on whatever it
4:31
Speaker0: takes to help every church flourish and every community be transformed by the gospel.
4:36
Speaker0: And I come to this role after 35 years as a pastor.
4:42
Speaker0: Various ministry roles and leadership roles within churches and as an international
4:47
Speaker0: mission board missionary.
4:49
Speaker1: Awesome. So you've been a pastor for a long time. You were a missionary like Dr.
4:53
Speaker1: Chris Smith, and now you work kind of helping pastors, pastor in a healthy, stronger way.
4:59
Speaker1: And we're kind of at a crisis point right now, post-COVID among church leadership.
5:05
Speaker1: I understand according to the Barner Group that in 2015, the percentage of pastors
5:11
Speaker1: reporting that they had excellent mental and emotional well-being was about 40%, 39 to 40%.
5:18
Speaker1: But less than 10 years later, it was only 14% of pastors reporting excellent emotional well-being.
5:27
Speaker1: And I'll just be honest with you, I don't think in 2015, if you had asked me,
5:31
Speaker1: is your well-being excellent and emotional well-being excellent?
5:35
Speaker1: I think I would have said no. Excellent is a very strong word.
5:38
Speaker1: But I think the important part of that is the math,
5:41
Speaker1: that there's been a massive drop in people who would rate themselves at the
5:46
Speaker1: highest level among pastors in emotional well-being and mental well-being.
5:51
Speaker1: So I guess I'll just start with there. What do you think explains that?
5:55
Speaker1: Is it more awareness of mental health?
5:57
Speaker1: COVID, is it a variety of factors?
6:00
Speaker0: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think that probably is complex.
6:04
Speaker0: I think there is perhaps a greater willingness to be honest about,
6:09
Speaker0: today. I think younger generations are more open and accepting of the idea of
6:15
Speaker0: the need for regular mental health.
6:18
Speaker0: And I think we've got some episodes coming up to sort of cue into that and engage
6:22
Speaker0: that reality to talk about when pastors need mental health.
6:26
Speaker0: So I think there's some greater honesty. I think there's greater transparency
6:31
Speaker0: than there has been in the past. So I think that's a factor.
6:34
Speaker0: I do think ministry is much more complex than when I started doing it 35 years ago.
6:41
Speaker0: And I think that's the nature of the world that we're in.
6:43
Speaker0: We have far more information flowing at us. We're not just talking to a group
6:48
Speaker0: of people who have six television channels that they get to choose from,
6:53
Speaker0: or even 12, or, you know, if they have the extended cable package, 25.
6:58
Speaker0: We're talking to people that are constantly saturated with content.
7:03
Speaker0: And so pastors are in a competitive space now that they've never been before.
7:08
Speaker0: You don't, your congregants, you know, in the old days,
7:11
Speaker0: I might have one or two congregants that subscribe to a tape ministry of some
7:16
Speaker0: famous preacher, but everybody can download hundreds of podcasts or quality
7:22
Speaker0: content from amazing organizations. Right.
7:25
Speaker0: Pastors are in a competitive environment that they've never been in before.
7:29
Speaker0: People are less engaged in community. So pastors are not getting those life
7:35
Speaker0: building types of relationships happening.
7:38
Speaker0: And I think the stresses on modern family life are just magnified and increasing in significant ways.
7:46
Speaker0: Probably this is the greatest amount of pressure, I think, on the family life since World War II.
7:51
Speaker1: I think you're right.
7:52
Speaker0: And I think that that is the parallel, is that if you would go back to some
7:57
Speaker0: global-level catastrophe like World War II, where there would have been tremendous
8:02
Speaker0: challenges for people in their daily living.
8:05
Speaker0: So pastors are experiencing that. And their other factors are that they are
8:11
Speaker0: facing greater economic stress.
8:13
Speaker0: Than they have before. Pastors in my father's generation could expect to reasonably retire.
8:20
Speaker0: My grandfather and my father both retired with not, they were never going to
8:25
Speaker0: be wealthy, but they had sustainable retirements.
8:28
Speaker0: As soon as the silent generation was done, the baby boomer pastors are having
8:32
Speaker0: a hard time with retirement.
8:34
Speaker0: The income that pastors make proportionate to everyone else is actually lower
8:39
Speaker0: than it's ever been. That adds economic stress.
8:43
Speaker0: So yeah, we could go on and on. I think there's just a huge amount of complexity.
8:47
Speaker0: One other factor I would just say is the amount of temptation that comes at pastors.
8:53
Speaker0: Just speaking frankly, pornography is a huge problem in the pastoral world.
8:58
Speaker0: The amount of pornographic content that comes into just a pastor's Facebook
9:04
Speaker0: feed or into other social media,
9:07
Speaker0: is just one example of the hypersaturations
9:11
Speaker0: of temptation that would have been different 50 years ago.
9:16
Speaker1: 20 years ago.
9:18
Speaker0: 20 years ago. Right. So that adds to, I think, a challenge when it comes to
9:23
Speaker0: mental health. We're oversaturated with temptation.
9:26
Speaker0: We're in a hyper-competitive environment for attention.
9:30
Speaker0: We're in less life-giving relationships than we've had before. And
9:34
Speaker0: We're doing it all with less reward economically and less security.
9:39
Speaker0: There's a whole lot of complexity there. And I think people are being more honest, too.
9:43
Speaker1: I think that, yeah, I think those are. So it's multifactorial.
9:46
Speaker1: And it's funny. Well, funny is not the right word.
9:48
Speaker1: It's intriguing, of course, that you mentioned World War II and how mental health
9:53
Speaker1: crisis and all that is at its lowest levels since then.
9:56
Speaker1: I am not making a prophetic prediction,
10:00
Speaker1: but geopolitically, when we record this,
10:04
Speaker1: We are at the very advent of what is apparently going to be a war between Israel
10:10
Speaker1: and the United States and Iran and possibly the Houthis and Yemen and Hezbollah and other groups.
10:16
Speaker1: And again, not making a prophecy, but I certainly wonder if we are looking at
10:21
Speaker1: the advent of the next severe global conflict, world war.
10:27
Speaker1: I don't know, but it's looking like just the first days of dropping a couple
10:31
Speaker1: of bombs on a regime in Iran is going to stretch into a lot more than a seven-day war, so to speak.
10:38
Speaker1: So in the midst of all of this stimulation and wars and rumors of wars and troubles
10:44
Speaker1: and all of that, Pastor Christopher,
10:47
Speaker1: how can church leaders and pastors
10:50
Speaker1: deal with discouragement in general and discouragement in ministry?
10:56
Speaker0: Hmm.
10:57
Speaker0: Such a big question, right? I mean, huge question, right?
11:01
Speaker0: So anything I'm going to say at this point is going to be inadequate.
11:04
Speaker0: It's almost one of those moments where you say, let us keep silence lest we
11:08
Speaker0: say something or leave something out, say something that's trivial.
11:14
Speaker0: So with that caveat and recognizing our objective here is to encourage every
11:19
Speaker0: pastor and every church to flourish, right?
11:21
Speaker0: With that caveat, I think what I would say is the basics matter.
11:27
Speaker0: So we start with, what's our personal walk with Jesus like, right?
11:32
Speaker0: Are we abiding in Christ?
11:34
Speaker0: Are we resting in his grace? And that is typically through the spiritual disciplines,
11:40
Speaker0: the practice of the spiritual disciplines. I don't just mean having a quiet time. I do mean,
11:46
Speaker0: Adding the realities of, you know, meditation on God's Word.
11:53
Speaker0: Amen. Reflections on God's Word.
11:56
Speaker0: Thorough prayer that's about our relationship with God. Deliberate consecration.
12:02
Speaker0: Reviewing our lives regularly through the Word of God.
12:06
Speaker0: You know, praying through, for example, the Beatitudes and asking the Holy Spirit to check us.
12:11
Speaker0: And that intimacy, that intimacy of abiding with Christ and crying out for him,
12:17
Speaker0: I think is the cornerstone to dealing with the hyper temptations,
12:23
Speaker0: the stresses and everything else.
12:24
Speaker0: We need to come into the manifest revealed presence of the living God and there
12:31
Speaker0: encounter him afresh and anew ourselves on a regular basis.
12:37
Speaker0: And that means we need to do the serious work of blocking out in our calendars
12:42
Speaker0: and in our daily life and then in rhythms.
12:45
Speaker0: Andy Addis has some great stuff on this. Dr. Andy Addis with the North American
12:49
Speaker0: Mission Board pastor in Kansas, you know, has some great material on the rhythms of rest.
12:54
Speaker0: And I don't have it down exactly, but, you know, he points out you should have a daily quiet time.
12:59
Speaker0: Then you should have three to four hours a week where you have like every week
13:04
Speaker0: a quiet meditation time that's just you and God.
13:07
Speaker0: And then every month you should deliberately take off time from some aspect
13:12
Speaker0: of ministry and consecrate that time unto the Lord,
13:16
Speaker0: maybe spending half the day in intimacy with God and half the day with your
13:21
Speaker0: wife or with your kids, doing something like that.
13:24
Speaker0: And then having an annual sabbatical week, rest week, those kinds of rhythms of rest.
13:32
Speaker0: Focus you on your abiding with Christ. It's not just resting to get entertained or veg on the couch.
13:39
Speaker0: It's resting in the presence of God, crying out to him, being honest about our
13:43
Speaker0: neediness and our dependence on him.
13:47
Speaker0: You know, John 15 is such a good place for us to meditate and reflect on that
13:52
Speaker0: we would sit before the living God and understand that if he abides in us and
13:57
Speaker0: we abide in Him, then our lives bear much fruit.
14:00
Speaker0: And we would not try to overwork ourselves with the commitments that we make
14:05
Speaker0: and say, hey, I'm too busy for my quiet time.
14:07
Speaker0: And I'm very guilty of that, Pastor Chase. I don't know if you are.
14:11
Speaker0: There's so many days I wake up and I'm on the go, I'm on the run,
14:15
Speaker0: and I prioritize all kinds of other things.
14:18
Speaker0: Hey, let me check the news. Let me pay this bill.
14:21
Speaker0: Let me get this thing done. Let me check my email or do this or that before
14:25
Speaker0: I spend time with God, or it's easy to come to the end of the day and not spend
14:30
Speaker0: time reflecting upon the day.
14:32
Speaker0: So for the past couple of years, you know, just different tools.
14:36
Speaker0: One of the tools I've been using is I use a tool called Lectio 365.
14:40
Speaker0: It's an app from the 24-7 prayer movement.
14:44
Speaker0: And they have morning, noon, and evening prayer. Still haven't gotten the noon one down very well.
14:49
Speaker0: I can't figure out quite how to interrupt my day on a regular basis there.
14:52
Speaker0: But I'm pretty good about not only using my regular Bible reading and prayer
14:56
Speaker0: time, but using that as an outside reflection and challenge in the morning and
15:00
Speaker0: then in the evening to walk through a prayer of confession,
15:05
Speaker0: a prayer of reflection, a prayer of rest before God.
15:09
Speaker0: So I think you gotta start there. You gotta start in your relationship with
15:12
Speaker0: God. And then I think, secondly, you have to be committed to enjoy life.
15:16
Speaker0: Ecclesiastes 9 has this amazing, there's so many, I love Ecclesiastes, by the way.
15:23
Speaker0: It's like my hidden secret about the Bible.
15:25
Speaker0: It's one of my favorite books. I read it through at least when my regular Bible readings come through.
15:30
Speaker0: But in the month of May, which is my birthday month, I will read it through repeatedly.
15:36
Speaker0: So at least every week during the month of May, I will read Ecclesiastes over and over again.
15:41
Speaker0: So usually at least three to five times during the month of May.
15:44
Speaker0: But Ecclesiastes 9 says this, that we're to enjoy life.
15:48
Speaker0: Just stop right there. What happens when we are not okay with our desires?
15:53
Speaker0: Part of being emotionally healthy
15:55
Speaker0: is being committed to enjoying the life that God has set out for us.
15:58
Speaker0: It goes on to say, enjoy life with the wife that you love.
16:02
Speaker0: So what's our intimate relationship with our spouses like?
16:06
Speaker0: Are we actually in a healthy relationship? It's hard to have a healthy relationship
16:10
Speaker0: with your spouse if you're overcommitted to work, if you're overcommitted to
16:15
Speaker0: other priorities, hobbies.
16:17
Speaker0: So I think you got to start with your God and then move into your relationship
16:23
Speaker0: with your wife. What does that look like?
16:25
Speaker0: Ecclesiastes goes on to say.
16:28
Speaker0: And it talks about whatever your hand is given to do, do it with all your might.
16:33
Speaker0: And the point isn't for us to overwork, because if you read the context of the
16:38
Speaker0: passage, he's like, he's constantly arguing against overwork.
16:42
Speaker0: But he's saying, hey, when you work, work hard. Or the New Testament version
16:46
Speaker0: is, you know, work heartily as unto the Lord, but be willing to lay it down at the end of the day.
16:51
Speaker0: You know, when you're quitting time comes, quit and be okay with that.
16:56
Speaker0: Recognize that you have limits.
16:59
Speaker0: And that passage in Ecclesiastes 9 goes on to say that Solomon saw that under
17:05
Speaker0: the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
17:09
Speaker0: nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with
17:15
Speaker0: knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.
17:17
Speaker0: Which is just humbling, right? It's just so humbling.
17:21
Speaker0: We're not the ultimate masters of our fate. No, we're not.
17:24
Speaker0: We should work heartily as unto the Lord, but we rest and lay it all down at the hands of Jesus.
17:29
Speaker0: So I think starting with your walk with Christ, moving into your relationship
17:33
Speaker0: with your spouse, your children, and making sure that you have healthy community.
17:38
Speaker0: And then when you're doing work, be willing to leave the work done or undone
17:43
Speaker0: at the end of the day, be okay with what God's given you.
17:46
Speaker0: So there's probably a ton more to say there, but that's a concise thing I think
17:52
Speaker0: I would just sort of say, hey, reflect on that, maybe.
17:55
Speaker1: Hey, that's wise counsel there. I'm going to throw out three answers of my own.
17:58
Speaker1: This will not solve all your problems or solve all the problems of the world
18:03
Speaker1: or whatever, but I do think they will be healthy spiritual medicines in a time
18:08
Speaker1: that requires that kind of thing.
18:10
Speaker1: So number one, you mentioned Ecclesiastes. I'm going to mention the Psalms.
18:14
Speaker1: The Psalms have been very deep and rich sources for me the past few years of
18:20
Speaker1: mental and emotional healthy things to do.
18:24
Speaker1: Battlers of anxiety, all sorts of things. I find that I feel very seen and heard
18:30
Speaker1: when I read the Psalms and I see, hey, you know what?
18:33
Speaker1: People have been struggling with the same thing I'm struggling with before God for thousands of years.
18:40
Speaker1: And so I would say that, and I would say avoid poison. There is so much social
18:45
Speaker1: media, internet-based news poison out there that I know when I read it,
18:52
Speaker1: It's the weird part of our psychology.
18:54
Speaker1: And I'm thinking about a current conflict online that I read about last week
18:59
Speaker1: where a person I know to be very faithful posted something and just got absolutely
19:03
Speaker1: roasted by a bunch of other people that call themselves Christians.
19:07
Speaker1: Reading through something like that, on the one hand, is poison.
19:11
Speaker1: On the other hand, it's something our soul, our flesh craves,
19:15
Speaker1: that controversy, that anger feeling, that righteous sense of justice.
19:20
Speaker1: And I don't know that we're, I know, in fact, let me rephrase that.
19:24
Speaker1: I know that we are not created by our creator to be involved in dozens of conflicts
19:31
Speaker1: and arguments and disputations all around the world.
19:35
Speaker1: And to the degree that we constantly step into every argument we see,
19:41
Speaker1: even when we're on the right side, it can be poisonous to our soul.
19:44
Speaker1: Because I think sometimes we just get out of our sphere of influence.
19:48
Speaker1: And then finally, I would just say it's important to lean into healthy,
19:53
Speaker1: life-giving relationships.
19:55
Speaker1: If you're a church leader, if you're a pastor, there will be relationships in
20:00
Speaker1: your life that are draining.
20:02
Speaker1: There's no antidote for that. That's part of the role. It's part of the job.
20:07
Speaker1: And if you avoid that, you avoid ministry. At the same time,
20:11
Speaker1: if that's all the relationships you have, you're going to be just sucked dry
20:16
Speaker1: All the time. So find, cultivate, search out and lean into relationships that
20:24
Speaker1: are healthy, that exhort you and encourage you and build you up and not pamper your flesh.
20:29
Speaker1: I'm not talking about that, but that are life giving to you because we need
20:34
Speaker1: life and we need to share life. So that's my counsel.
20:38
Speaker1: Because we're all going through just the stuff right now. Let me ask you one
20:43
Speaker1: other question, Pastor Christopher, and I guess we can close out on this one.
20:46
Speaker1: It's a complication that I have dealt with for a long time in pastoral ministry.
20:51
Speaker1: We that are pastors and church leaders are generally paid for our work,
20:57
Speaker1: whether it be full-time or part-time, and we deal with leaders who are not paid.
21:04
Speaker1: And there's a difference there. I don't mean a qualitative difference or a difference
21:08
Speaker1: of spiritual level or anything like that.
21:11
Speaker1: I mean, there's a difference in somebody's paid for a job and somebody's not paid for a job.
21:16
Speaker1: And I think sometimes pastors are not as aware of that as they could be,
21:21
Speaker1: and they can act like slave drivers a little bit.
21:24
Speaker1: But at the same time, maybe they can be overly lax and not urge people in the
21:29
Speaker1: body of Christ onward enough. I want to have the right balance of that.
21:33
Speaker1: So here's my question for you. How do we exhort non-paid leaders to be consistent
21:39
Speaker1: and faithful in their commitment to the body of Christ while not guilt tripping
21:45
Speaker1: them or burning them out or being overbearing?
21:50
Speaker1: I know we're not going to solve that problem either, but what's some wisdom you have on that?
21:55
Speaker0: Well, I think you just by naming it, Chase, you've already begun to address
22:01
Speaker0: it, right? The truth is we don't name that dynamic very often.
22:05
Speaker0: We as a pastor, we've spent, you know,
22:07
Speaker0: I don't know, let's say 15 hours, you know, prepping a sermon and doing this and that.
22:13
Speaker0: And, you know, before long, our weeks are full.
22:16
Speaker0: And then we have a volunteer leader in the church, and they seem to be struggling
22:20
Speaker0: to do an hour meeting aside from showing up at church, right?
22:25
Speaker1: Yeah.
22:25
Speaker0: So I understand, and I've lived with that real tension. And I think I've shifted
22:30
Speaker0: a lot. when I was a younger pastor, I absolutely overdrove my church.
22:37
Speaker0: And I hurt people, truthfully, when I did that.
22:41
Speaker0: I hurt their walks with God because I was more concerned about their commitment
22:45
Speaker0: to the church than their relationship with Christ.
22:48
Speaker1: That's a danger.
22:49
Speaker0: And I was more concerned about their commitment to our programs than I was to their families.
22:53
Speaker0: So I think part of that is maybe us having a commitment and a scope and a scale
22:59
Speaker0: of church life that is realistic to the contemporary age.
23:05
Speaker0: And I realize that that could be very different in different circumstances, right?
23:10
Speaker0: But we have to give a tremendous amount of grace to people to live out faithfully in their context.
23:17
Speaker0: What does it look like to be a faithful believer?
23:19
Speaker0: And I think that for us in the church, we need to set our programming such that
23:26
Speaker0: our focus is on building healthy disciples, right?
23:29
Speaker0: And so healthy discipleship starts with equipping them to have that intimate
23:33
Speaker0: relationship with Christ and equipping them to have that relationship with their
23:37
Speaker0: spouse and their children.
23:39
Speaker0: So if we're equipping them for that and then we don't give them time to do it,
23:43
Speaker0: that's problematic if we've got so many other programs and events and activities.
23:48
Speaker0: And I think especially in churches that are diminishing, demands can grow very
23:52
Speaker0: high on people. So some people are going to have higher capacity.
23:56
Speaker0: Maybe they're retired and they have a great deal of time and they're still physically
24:02
Speaker0: strong enough and they want to contribute more.
24:04
Speaker0: And I think that would fit with the strong bearing the burdens of the weak.
24:10
Speaker0: They have more time, more energy, and perhaps God expects more from them in
24:15
Speaker0: their time commitment to the body of Christ during that season.
24:19
Speaker0: We see an indicator of that, by the way, when Paul's talking to Timothy about
24:23
Speaker0: the widows, the ministry of the widows.
24:26
Speaker0: And he says, hey, there's widows that are busybodies, is the word that he uses.
24:31
Speaker0: They're not spending their time fruitfully. And then he says,
24:34
Speaker0: but there are other widows that are ministering to the hurting and the poor,
24:38
Speaker0: and they're taking care of others, and they're spending their days in prayers.
24:42
Speaker0: The church should honor them, he says. And so I think there are people that
24:46
Speaker0: we should perhaps honor better.
24:49
Speaker0: Love well, better, and know that they're going to have greater capacity.
24:52
Speaker0: The young mom with five kids who is struggling to even get her kids to put on
25:00
Speaker0: clothes to be in church on Sunday morning.
25:03
Speaker1: Yes.
25:03
Speaker0: To guilt trip her into saying, why aren't you doing more ministry during the
25:08
Speaker0: week? I think that's spiritual malpractice. Yeah.
25:11
Speaker0: And I think we got to be giving them ways to say, okay, how can we help you show up here, get fed?
25:17
Speaker0: And then also, how can we help you to minister to those five children?
25:21
Speaker0: How can you insert the word of God into their lives and be less concerned about
25:26
Speaker0: whether or not she's taking a rotation in some particular ministry there?
25:30
Speaker0: So we do have that danger of overworking others.
25:33
Speaker0: And again, here's the truth. If we're not healthy in our own time boundaries
25:38
Speaker0: and our own awareness of what is it like to be healthy in our use of time,
25:43
Speaker0: We're likely to overdrive other people.
25:46
Speaker0: I'm a very high operator personality.
25:50
Speaker0: Those people who know me well, you know, overwork is always going to be my temptation.
25:55
Speaker0: At one point in my life in ministry, this really happened. I was completing
26:00
Speaker0: my master's degree, pastoring a church full time and working 48 hours a week
26:06
Speaker0: on the ambulance rigs and was having children. Wow.
26:10
Speaker0: And I could say that that was a huge amount.
26:14
Speaker0: And there were, hey, I got during that season, I had a 4.0 seminary at that point.
26:20
Speaker0: I was thriving and my marriage was dying.
26:23
Speaker0: Yeah. And I almost lost my marriage.
26:25
Speaker1: You can't be great at everything.
26:26
Speaker0: So accepting the realities that we are human, God has not made us to work at
26:34
Speaker0: that level for an extended period of time.
26:37
Speaker0: Anybody could do it for a short season if there's a particular financial crisis
26:41
Speaker0: or you're a doctor going through residency training or something like that,
26:46
Speaker0: right? There are seasons.
26:47
Speaker0: But you have to be cognizant. We are not built like that. We are not God,
26:52
Speaker0: and we're not intended to replace God in our knowledge or in our work.
26:56
Speaker0: God is the one who does not sleep, and that's why we can rest. Good word.
27:01
Speaker0: So I think if we give that mentality to ourselves, then we're likely to give grace to other people.
27:06
Speaker0: And it does require, I think, also the church to recognize that we live in a
27:11
Speaker0: different season. We're not in a rural environment in most contexts where the
27:16
Speaker0: pace of life was very slow.
27:17
Speaker0: This is not in East Alabama, right?
27:20
Speaker1: No, it's not.
27:21
Speaker0: There was no significant activity except the barn dance on Friday night once a month or something.
27:27
Speaker0: You could expect people to come to church. There wasn't a lot else to do.
27:30
Speaker0: Now we have dual spouses working in the vast majority of our marriages.
27:36
Speaker0: The kids have much higher intensity in things like homework and programming.
27:42
Speaker0: And I'm not saying we shouldn't invite people into greater activities that have
27:47
Speaker0: spiritual depth and meaningfulness. I just came back from a church in Texas.
27:52
Speaker0: We saw 200 plus people on a random Tuesday night in February in a prayer service.
27:57
Speaker0: And that included families and young adult men and retired couples.
28:03
Speaker0: And praise God for that. And there was something meaningful that they were willing
28:07
Speaker0: to engage in and go and do on a Tuesday night.
28:10
Speaker0: But, you know, the pastor made it very clear to us. He's like,
28:13
Speaker0: we don't, you know, we don't guilt people into this.
28:15
Speaker0: We don't shame them into this. They didn't even require all their staff to attend
28:20
Speaker0: this major event of the church.
28:23
Speaker0: Now, most of them did on most of the Tuesday nights of the year because they wanted to.
28:28
Speaker0: So I think that's the other key I would just say is if you create things that
28:32
Speaker0: are deeply meaningful spiritual experiences, people will be drawn to those things,
28:38
Speaker0: and there will be less so to programmatic things.
28:41
Speaker1: That's great. That's great. Well, hey, this has been a good,
28:44
Speaker1: deep, rich conversation.
28:45
Speaker1: I will tack on just one thing to what you are saying, and that is pastors and
28:50
Speaker1: church leaders, we have to remember that we are not seeking to tap people into the
28:59
Speaker1: the church so much as to tap them into the source of life.
29:04
Speaker1: John 5, 40, Jesus says, you're not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
29:10
Speaker1: First and foremost, if you're a pastor or a church leader, your calling,
29:15
Speaker1: your privilege, your role, your job is to connect people with Christ.
29:20
Speaker1: And of course, some of that happens through the body of Christ,
29:23
Speaker1: but I would say it happens a lot less through the programs of the church than what we think.
29:29
Speaker1: It happens more in the life of the church, the worship of the church,
29:33
Speaker1: the word embracing of the church, the prayer of the church.
29:37
Speaker1: And we really have to be able to differentiate between those things or we're
29:41
Speaker1: going to burn ourselves out, as you say, Pastor Chris, and we're going to burn
29:44
Speaker1: a lot of other people out as well.
29:46
Speaker1: And the stakes are high because we don't want to confuse people with dedication
29:51
Speaker1: to a plan, a ministry, a building, and a program structure versus dedication to Jesus the Lord.
29:59
Speaker1: Well, Pastor Christopher, do you have any parting shots for us as we close out?
30:03
Speaker0: Yeah, I just think on that, I would just tag onto this, you know,
30:07
Speaker0: the idea that Jesus did not say, come unto me and get busy.
30:12
Speaker0: He said, come unto me, all ye who are weary.
30:16
Speaker0: And heavily laden. And he says, and I will give you rest.
30:20
Speaker0: The invitation of Jesus is not to enter into greater and greater work,
30:25
Speaker0: although he is the Lord of the harvest and he just graces us with meaningful
30:30
Speaker0: ministry and wonderful fellowship and so many good things we can do in ministry.
30:35
Speaker0: But if we're not coming to him as the rest giver and we're not Sabbathing in
30:40
Speaker0: our souls, then we're missing out on one of the great invitations of Christ.
30:45
Speaker1: Amen. Lord, help us to Sabbath. Okay, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with
30:51
Speaker1: Pastor Christopher of the Great Commission Association.
30:54
Speaker1: I particularly liked the part of the discussion where we got into something
30:58
Speaker1: that church leaders don't talk about a whole lot.
31:00
Speaker1: How can pastors lead, encourage, and exhort church members without overdriving
31:07
Speaker1: them or being a slave driver, but also adequately exhorting them to fruitfulness.
31:14
Speaker1: That's a question as a pastor I struggle with all the time.
31:17
Speaker1: Unfortunately, Pastor Christopher had to bounce, which honestly is his loss
31:22
Speaker1: because we have got a great soda to review today before we get into our discussion
31:28
Speaker1: of some very helpful preaching and teaching tips from ancients and moderns.
31:35
Speaker1: Our soda today is Dirty Mountain Dew.
31:39
Speaker1: It's a cream I am drinking the zero sugar version.
31:44
Speaker1: It's a blend of traditional Mountain Dew citrus with a prominently green
31:49
Speaker1: creamy edition, or even some people call it like a lemon chiffon kind of flavor.
31:54
Speaker1: That sounds great to me. I hope it's as good as it sounds.
31:58
Speaker1: Now, a little bit of Mountain Dew trivia for you. Its original formula was invented
32:03
Speaker1: in the 1940s, like before World War II was over,
32:07
Speaker1: by the Tennessee brothers Barney and Allie Hartman, and it was first marketed
32:12
Speaker1: in Virginia, oddly enough.
32:14
Speaker1: And the name Mountain Dew comes from an old slang for moonshine,
32:19
Speaker1: although it does not have any alcohol in it.
32:22
Speaker1: A standard 12 ounce can of Mountain Dew does, however, have 54 milligrams of caffeine.
32:30
Speaker1: Now, that's not as much as coffee. Usually 12 ounces of coffee has around 90
32:35
Speaker1: to 100, a little bit more of Starbucks coffee, milligrams of caffeine.
32:40
Speaker1: But Coke Classic or Coke Zero, only 34 milligrams per can.
32:45
Speaker1: So quite a bit more for Mountain Dew.
32:49
Speaker1: And I will tell you this, and this is something I'm kind of excited about,
32:52
Speaker1: but it's the most I've ever spent on a soda in my life.
32:55
Speaker1: So maybe I hope my wife doesn't listen to this too soon.
32:58
Speaker1: There was a flavor I discovered this week in my research of Mountain Dew called
33:03
Speaker1: Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew. It launched as a very limited edition.
33:10
Speaker1: It had chili spice in it, and it was only sold through the Dew store.
33:15
Speaker1: And I think it stopped selling either in late 2022 or 2023.
33:18
Speaker1: I just bought a 2022 can, one can of soda for $9.
33:25
Speaker1: Now that does include shipping, but it's going to be here in a week or so.
33:30
Speaker1: So stay tuned for a review of a soda you're probably not going to be able to
33:35
Speaker1: get. but I'm at least going to tell you about it.
33:37
Speaker1: Let's drink this thing. Here we go. Oh, by the way, the can looks good.
33:40
Speaker1: It's got a little bit of a blend of Mountain Dew colors with orange and cream.
33:46
Speaker1: So it's very much in that neutral color palette that's so popular right now.
33:52
Speaker1: All right. What does it smell like? Oh, yeah.
33:54
Speaker1: It actually has a creamy lemon smell to it. I'm impressed.
34:00
Speaker1: But the big question is, how does it taste? Here we go.
34:04
Speaker1: Oh, oh, great. I will tell you, this is not my first time to try Dirty Mountain
34:11
Speaker1: Dew because I got this a few days ago.
34:14
Speaker1: But I had a cold and I tried it while I had a cold and I thought the flavor
34:19
Speaker1: was kind of flat and not great, but I'm over the cold now.
34:23
Speaker1: And my second time to try it is far superior to the first time.
34:28
Speaker1: This is why you don't review a soda when you have a cold. We'll try another sip.
34:32
Speaker1: Hmm. Yeah. See that first time I couldn't really taste the cream.
34:36
Speaker1: And I know that sounds weird.
34:38
Speaker1: Maybe you're thinking, why would I want a creamy flavor in my soda?
34:42
Speaker1: Maybe you don't, But this is good. This is a really great...
34:46
Speaker1: Twist or variation on Mountain Dew.
34:50
Speaker1: And Coke Zero is probably my first love now in the soda realm.
34:55
Speaker1: And there's one Coke Zero in particular that blows every other one away,
34:59
Speaker1: but I'm not going to review it yet.
35:00
Speaker1: But Mountain Dew was my first girlfriend, so to speak.
35:05
Speaker1: Mountain Dew is the drink that was my favorite up until middle age, really.
35:10
Speaker1: And I still love Mountain Dew. Coke Zero just barely surpassed it a few years
35:15
Speaker1: ago. But this Mountain Dew is really, really solid.
35:18
Speaker1: Got a good citrus flavor, blended with creamy lemon.
35:23
Speaker1: I don't know exactly what lemon chiffon tastes like, so I can't really rate
35:27
Speaker1: it based on lemon chiffon.
35:29
Speaker1: But I can say this is good. This is drinkable. It's delicious.
35:32
Speaker1: It doesn't have an aftertaste or anything like that. It's a borderline five Spurgeon soda.
35:37
Speaker1: I'm going to come in just short. I'm going to give it four and three quarters
35:43
Speaker1: Spurgeons out of five. It's excellent.
35:45
Speaker1: You should try it. I got mine from Walmart, so it's not too hard to find.
35:50
Speaker1: All right, I hope you don't mind. I'm probably going to be sipping on this dirty
35:53
Speaker1: dew for the rest of the podcast, but we're going to transition now to talking
35:58
Speaker1: about 2,000 years of the best preaching advice, how you can preach better.
36:02
Speaker1: And I know not everybody who listens to this podcast is a pastor or a preacher. In fact,
36:08
Speaker1: The majority of people I personally know who listen are not pastors,
36:12
Speaker1: but they are church leaders of various kinds.
36:14
Speaker1: This next segment is semi-targeted towards pastors and preachers to a degree,
36:20
Speaker1: but I also think its contents and the quotes we're going to be talking about
36:23
Speaker1: are helpful and edifying and powerful for anybody in the church,
36:28
Speaker1: especially if you teach at any level,
36:31
Speaker1: even like teaching your kids.
36:33
Speaker1: So at least give it a chance. I think this will be helpful for,
36:37
Speaker1: like I said, every Christian, but Sunday school teachers, deacons,
36:40
Speaker1: small group teachers, moms and dads, people who teach in a Christian school, etc.
36:46
Speaker1: Everybody who is helping to disciple somebody can learn from what we're going to talk about today.
36:52
Speaker1: So we're going to kind of have a mini seminary on the podcast,
36:55
Speaker1: but not in the boring way.
36:57
Speaker1: And the good news is I'm not going to be your professor, but I've gotten into
37:00
Speaker1: my handy dandy time machine,
37:02
Speaker1: and traveled back over the past nearly 2,000 years, met with some of the greatest
37:06
Speaker1: and wisest people in church history, and I got some direct quotes from them
37:11
Speaker1: about preaching and teaching God's Word.
37:13
Speaker1: And I think you'll be surprised that Christians have been thinking about preaching
37:17
Speaker1: and teaching for, honestly, nearly 2,000 years since the time of Jesus.
37:21
Speaker1: And you'll probably be pleasantly surprised to realize how fresh and relevant
37:26
Speaker1: advice that is hundreds of years old or even almost 2,000 years old still is to this day.
37:33
Speaker1: Instead of going strictly chronological from old school to new school,
37:38
Speaker1: we're going to alternate back and forth between ancient and modern preaching advice.
37:44
Speaker1: But we're going to go back way, way back in the day.
37:48
Speaker1: Now, these aren't in any sort of order of ranking, but I did try to put some
37:53
Speaker1: of the really good ones at the beginning.
37:55
Speaker1: And in terms of like sources and things like that, that is really boring on a podcast.
38:01
Speaker1: So I'm not going to read where these sources come from, but I have them carefully listed on our website.
38:08
Speaker1: So just come to everychurchflourishing.com if you want to read these quotes
38:14
Speaker1: again and find out where I got them from. All of them are sourced,
38:18
Speaker1: and I tried to be very careful about that.
38:21
Speaker1: So number one, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from Augustine of Hippo,
38:27
Speaker1: who lived from 354 to 430 AD.
38:30
Speaker1: He was an African writer, theologian, philosopher, and bishop who wrote The
38:35
Speaker1: City of God and Confessions.
38:37
Speaker1: Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine lived a highly educated but
38:42
Speaker1: notoriously hedonistic lifestyle.
38:46
Speaker1: He took on a concubine at a young age. He lived with her for over a decade,
38:50
Speaker1: had a son born out of wedlock.
38:52
Speaker1: And when he was a teenager, he stole pears from vendors and threw them at pigs.
38:57
Speaker1: He was in a cult for nine years. And later on in his life, he hated and vigorously
39:03
Speaker1: worked against slave traders.
39:05
Speaker1: In his book, De Doctrina Christiana, or On Christian Doctrine or On Christian
39:11
Speaker1: Teaching, depending on how you want to translate it, is a series of four different
39:16
Speaker1: tomes written by Augustine that are all about how to interpret,
39:20
Speaker1: preach, and teach the Word of God.
39:22
Speaker1: And here is his advice for preachers and teachers.
39:25
Speaker1: The preacher should be in no doubt that any ability he has, and however much he has,
39:32
Speaker1: derives more from his devotion to prayer than his dedication to oratory,
39:39
Speaker1: in other words, speaking well.
39:41
Speaker1: And so, by praying for himself and those he is about to address,
39:46
Speaker1: He must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words.
39:50
Speaker1: As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting lips,
39:56
Speaker1: he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has drunk
40:01
Speaker1: in and pour out what has filled him.
40:04
Speaker1: That is solid advice from somebody writing in the 300s AD.
40:10
Speaker1: Well, let's jam back into the time machine and go forward to the present time
40:16
Speaker1: and get some modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from Tabithi Anyabwili.
40:21
Speaker1: And I probably did not say his Swahili last name right, but he is a Christian
40:26
Speaker1: pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C.
40:29
Speaker1: And before that, he pastored in the Bahamas.
40:32
Speaker1: And honestly, I think I would have
40:34
Speaker1: stayed in the Bahamas, but apparently Tabithi does not like the beach.
40:38
Speaker1: How can you not like the beach, especially the beach in Bahamas?
40:41
Speaker1: Oh, well, he is a convert from Islam. He was with the Gospel Coalition for a long time.
40:46
Speaker1: He's written many books and articles, and this is what he says about preaching.
40:50
Speaker1: First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority.
40:54
Speaker1: He's really not a Christian preacher at all. He can't truly be trusted.
40:59
Speaker1: Even some men with Bibles can't be trusted.
41:03
Speaker1: Surely the one who leaves it off altogether is better ignored than followed.
41:08
Speaker1: Closed Bibles should result in closed mouths.
41:12
Speaker1: The preacher should not go beyond what is written.
41:15
Speaker1: Let us be careful of the temptation to insert our own opinions and rules under
41:21
Speaker1: the guise of application or exposition.
41:23
Speaker1: Let us be wary of the subtle coercion of God's people with a thus saith the
41:28
Speaker1: Lord when the Lord has not said.
41:31
Speaker1: Let us be watchful of our logical deductions and theological conclusions when
41:37
Speaker1: they're really just our preferences born of our convenience and wisdom.
41:42
Speaker1: Let us declare the whole counsel of God, which is to proclaim all he says in
41:47
Speaker1: a text and nothing he leaves out.
41:50
Speaker1: Solid wisdom from Pastor Tibidi.
41:53
Speaker1: Next, we're going to go back to the 300s again, and this time we're going to
41:58
Speaker1: get some ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Chrysostom.
42:02
Speaker1: He was a church father who served as the Archbishop of Constantinople.
42:08
Speaker1: He is known for his incredible abilities as a preacher and a public speaker.
42:13
Speaker1: In fact, he was nicknamed Golden Mouth or Golden Tongue way before James Bond was ever thought of.
42:20
Speaker1: His last name, Chrysostomos in the Greek, wasn't really his last name.
42:25
Speaker1: It was his nickname. It's just what everybody calls him now.
42:29
Speaker1: And again, it means Golden Mouth or Golden Tongue. He was such a good preacher that in 397,
42:36
Speaker1: the Roman emperor Arcadius decided he wanted John to be the new archbishop of
42:42
Speaker1: Constantinople, knowing the people of Antioch would revolt if they found out.
42:48
Speaker1: An imperial official invited John to a meeting outside the city walls, And once he was outside,
42:55
Speaker1: He was swiftly thrown into a carriage and secretly whisked away under military
43:01
Speaker1: guard to the Capitol to be consecrated as the archbishop against his will. That is an insane story.
43:09
Speaker1: Can you imagine the president doing that to somebody?
43:12
Speaker1: It's wild. Well, on preaching, this is what our guide John Chrysostom says.
43:16
Speaker1: There are many preachers who make long sermons. If they are well applauded,
43:21
Speaker1: they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom.
43:25
Speaker1: If they bring their sermon to an end in silence, their despondency is worse,
43:30
Speaker1: I may almost say, than hell.
43:33
Speaker1: It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch the heart,
43:38
Speaker1: but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and the structure
43:43
Speaker1: of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute players.
43:48
Speaker1: And we preachers humor your fancies instead of trying to crush them, yes?
43:55
Speaker1: John Chrysostom said that in the 300s, and he's saying people like fancy,
44:01
Speaker1: nice sermons that sound good, and preachers want to be applauded,
44:06
Speaker1: and they're bummed out at the end of their sermon if there is no applause.
44:10
Speaker1: Just as Paul warned Timothy, though, that people would have itching ears in the church,
44:16
Speaker1: so did John Chrysostom say the same thing was happening in the 300s,
44:20
Speaker1: and He is here exhorting preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle
44:26
Speaker1: ears, but powerful spiritual sermons that come from the word and throne of God.
44:32
Speaker1: He also says, the goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect.
44:39
Speaker1: Sermons are meant to be instruments of spiritual surgery designed to awaken
44:45
Speaker1: dead souls, correct error and conform the hearer to the image of Christ.
44:51
Speaker1: The preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate the gospel,
44:58
Speaker1: serving ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.
45:03
Speaker1: I'm going to read that last sentence again because it's so strong.
45:07
Speaker1: Keep in mind, Bro said this in the 300s.
45:12
Speaker1: John Chrysostom says, the preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate
45:18
Speaker1: the gospel, serving ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.
45:25
Speaker1: Brothers and sisters, may we not be guilty of serving ice cream.
45:31
Speaker1: To sick people who need medicine. May we not domesticate the gospel and water it down and weaken it.
45:39
Speaker1: May we share the whole counsel of God, empowered by the whole spirit of God, to please God himself.
45:47
Speaker1: Well, that's all for today. As I said, I've got seven more of these tidbits on preaching.
45:54
Speaker1: I'm going to put them all together and release them as its own separate podcast
45:58
Speaker1: in the Every Church Flourishing feed this week.
46:01
Speaker1: So if you're interested in that, you can download that whole episode.
46:04
Speaker1: You can find it in writing on our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
46:10
Speaker1: As we go out, please allow me to encourage you to tell somebody about the show
46:14
Speaker1: and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
46:17
Speaker1: That does help us to reach other people.
46:19
Speaker1: Share it with your pastor friends and your church leader friends,
46:22
Speaker1: because I think we have something here that is helpful for leaders.
46:26
Speaker1: So thank you for listening. Good day to you and Godspeed.