Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 15: "It Was Magnificent...an Extraordinary Picture of Unrestrained Praise." Women in Ministry, Special Needs Ministry, Online Education and Pastor Training with Dr. Kristen Ferguson, Vice President at Gateway Seminary.

Transcript

Episode 15: "It Was Magnificent...an Extraordinary Picture of Unrestrained Praise." Women in Ministry, Special Needs Ministry, Online Education and Pastor Training with Dr. Kristen Ferguson, Vice President at Gateway Seminary. · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

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Speaker1: Okay, we got a great interview for you today on the Every Church Flourishing
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Speaker1: Podcast. We are joined by Dr.
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Speaker1: Kristen Ferguson, who is a vice president at Gateway Seminary,
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Speaker1: a specialist in online education.
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Speaker1: But we also have two other friends of the podcast joining us, Dr.
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Speaker1: Kathy and Ms. Lynette. Dr. Kathy, why don't you introduce yourself and then Ms. Lynette.
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Speaker0: Yes, my name is Kathy Smith, and I serve as the Women in Ministry Ambassador
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Speaker0: with the Great Commission Association.
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Speaker0: I also am working some with another association as well, but my primary job
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Speaker0: is with women in ministry and just providing ways to encourage, equip, and engage them.
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Speaker0: Hi, I'm Ms. Lynette Lozano, and I work for the Great Commission Association
0:43
Speaker0: as superintendent of schools.
0:44
Speaker0: We own and operate eight preschools and a K-8 Anthem Christian School in Salinas.
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Speaker1: And so for the next few episodes, we're going to talk about the wonderful topic
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Speaker1: of women in ministry. And Dr.
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Speaker1: Ferguson is a vice president of one of the Southern Baptist seminaries. She is a pastor's wife.
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Speaker1: She has written books on online education and is really an expert in this space
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Speaker1: and it's great privilege to have her.
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Speaker1: So Dr. Ferguson, tell us a little bit about yourself and your work at Gateway. Yeah.
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Speaker0: Yeah, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. And I'm so excited to
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Speaker0: partner with you guys up in the Northern California area.
1:24
Speaker0: So I grew up in Southern California, love California ministry,
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Speaker0: and am so passionate to see churches in the West have just robust biblical teaching
1:36
Speaker0: paired with actual real-life mission work where we actually go and reach the
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Speaker0: nations for Jesus Christ.
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Speaker0: So I'm so privileged. I prayed and prayed and prayed as a young woman that God would somehow use me.
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Speaker0: And I didn't know how, and I didn't know what that would look like.
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Speaker0: And now sometimes I pray, maybe just use me like a little less because it's a little bit busy.
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Speaker0: You guys know what I'm talking about. It's just so cool to see how God just
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Speaker0: uses so many things and so many people to do his wonderful plan and his wonderful
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Speaker0: mission. I do have the great honor of being vice president, one of four.
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Speaker0: We have four vice presidents at Gateway Seminary and at Gateway.
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Speaker0: And so I work in the enrollment and student service offices and I oversee everything to do with students,
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Speaker0: which means I get to learn so many incredible stories and see so many wonderful
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Speaker0: ministries of Gateway students around the world, literally around the world doing things.
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Speaker0: Just incredible missional work. Gateway for 80 plus years now has existed to
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Speaker0: shape leaders to expand God's kingdom around the world.
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Speaker0: We're committed first and foremost to the Word of God as our authority,
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Speaker0: and we want to see the Word of God as the authority in every single church,
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Speaker0: and that will lead to incredible mission and leadership development.
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Speaker1: Fantastic. So I am a fan of the Southern Baptist seminaries,
3:08
Speaker1: and I used to work for almost 10 years at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
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Speaker1: My brother-in-law is the president now of the Birmingham Extension Center of
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Speaker1: Nobbitz, and before that, his dad was the leader of that mission.
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Speaker1: So I come from a long line of Southern Baptist people in seminary,
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Speaker1: and I'm becoming more and more of a fan of Gateway Seminary.
3:33
Speaker1: Next week, we have Dr. Cameron Schweitzer, who's going to be on the podcast.
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Speaker1: Can't wait to interview him. So you did not ask for us to do this,
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Speaker1: but I want to do this. I want us to do this.
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Speaker1: Give us a plug. If you're a student or a pastor or a church leader in the West,
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Speaker1: or doesn't even have to be in the West. If you're considering Gateway Seminary,
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Speaker1: give us a plug. What makes Gateway special?
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Speaker1: Why should a prospective Bible teacher, church leader, pastor,
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Speaker1: evangelist, missionary, why should a scholar, Christian scholar,
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Speaker1: why should they consider coming to Gateway?
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Speaker0: Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Out of all the choices, why Gateway?
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Speaker0: Well, one of the answers is that we're actually not that different from all
4:19
Speaker0: of our other Southern Baptist seminaries.
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Speaker0: We hold the same exact convictions. We believe in the Baptist faith and message.
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Speaker0: We believe in biblical convictions, and we have extremely rigorous scholarship.
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Speaker0: We also have very clear, real-world skill building that we do in our classrooms.
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Speaker0: But what's unique about Gateway really is the West.
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Speaker0: We started in the West, up in the Bay Area, and we have for 80 years served
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Speaker0: the Western United States and beyond now, which is really exciting.
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Speaker0: We have several campuses located across the West, in the Pacific Northwest,
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Speaker0: in Denver, in all kinds of areas.
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Speaker0: And Gateway truly believes that the context of the West is a unique opportunity
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Speaker0: for gospel advancement.
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Speaker0: We believe that it's a laboratory for students who maybe live outside of the
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Speaker0: West to learn how to go on the mission field.
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Speaker0: But it's also a mission field in and of itself.
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Speaker0: You know, I know Kathy here on the podcast today.
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Speaker0: Kathy and I have worked together to even partner to reach some of the unreached
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Speaker0: people groups, even just in California.
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Speaker0: So our context and our commitment to the Word of God is just a wonderful opportunity
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Speaker0: for leaders to grow in depth in their biblical knowledge, which is absolutely core to what we do,
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Speaker0: but also that real-life kind of rubber-meets-the-road practical ministry skill
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Speaker0: in a variety of contexts.
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Speaker0: Our faculty have been pastors, they've been missionaries, they're scholars,
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Speaker0: they're practitioners, and they help students work through those real-life ministry
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Speaker0: issues from a very solid theological and biblical context that makes ministry
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Speaker0: even more effective and the kingdom go out even further than it could before.
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Speaker1: Awesome. So my last question on this topic, and then we'll give it over to Ms.
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Speaker1: Lynette. Adam Groza strikes me as a pretty fascinating guy, and you get to work with him.
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Speaker1: What are you learning from him as president? What kind of leadership lessons
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Speaker1: and what kind of person is he behind the scenes?
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Speaker0: That's a great question. And it's very fun. I actually I've worked with Adam
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Speaker0: because before I became vice president and before he became president,
6:32
Speaker0: he was in this role as vice president.
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Speaker0: So I've worked with him for a long time, but it's not until now since he's been
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Speaker0: president that I've gotten to work more closely with him.
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Speaker0: And before I became vice president, I always felt from my position,
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Speaker0: I always felt like Gateway was a very healthy organization, very low drama.
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Speaker0: Not very many silos, like obviously things that every organization has to work
6:55
Speaker0: out just like everybody does, but very low drama.
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Speaker0: And I always, you know, I always appreciated that.
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Speaker0: But now having the privilege of sitting in the cabinet with the other vice presidents
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Speaker0: and the president, and then even like we're going to do next week,
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Speaker0: sit in trustee meetings with our trustees from all over the country,
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Speaker0: I realize now why it's a healthy.
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Speaker0: Organization is because it's healthy all the way through.
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Speaker0: There's no secret group happening that are conniving or doing something that
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Speaker0: misrepresents the gospel in some way.
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Speaker0: Truly, I've learned from Dr. Groza, the mission is so critically important and
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Speaker0: people are critically important.
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Speaker0: He will take the time out of his very busy schedule, travel schedule,
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Speaker0: to call a student who's lost a loved one.
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Speaker0: Or like this morning, he called a student, one of our doctor of ministry students
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Speaker0: who had a tragedy happen in their life.
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Speaker0: And I went to him at lunch and I said, hey, do you know about this student?
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Speaker0: He said, I already called him.
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Speaker0: That was before I even got to tell him about the student.
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Speaker0: So he's a people person. He cares deeply about the church.
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Speaker0: He's dedicated to the mission, not just advancing Gateway Seminary.
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Speaker0: He's dedicated to advancing God's kingdom.
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Speaker0: And if That means gateway is completely invisible in the process.
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Speaker0: That's totally fine with us because it's really not about gateway.
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Speaker0: We exist to support the church and support the mission of God.
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Speaker0: And that's just been so refreshing and healthy and makes us all very aligned
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Speaker0: with just worshiping God in that way together.
8:27
Speaker1: That's a great answer. All right, over to you, Ms. Lynette.
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Speaker0: So do you think online distance hybrid education is the future for training
8:34
Speaker0: ministers and church leaders, especially in geographically large areas in the
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Speaker0: West, or do you think traditional education?
8:41
Speaker0: In-class education should still be the gold star, like that's what you're pushing for?
8:47
Speaker0: That's a great question. And you mentioned earlier in your wonderful introduction
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Speaker0: of me that I have actually written on this topic.
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Speaker0: My doctoral thesis was on faculty perceptions of online education.
9:01
Speaker0: And when I first came to Gateway in 2016, my role has been, up until I became
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Speaker0: VP, is to help design online classes and help faculty understand online education.
9:12
Speaker0: So I have always been a major proponent and believer that online education can
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Speaker0: work and it should work because a lot of people believe it can work.
9:21
Speaker0: Okay, yes, we can maybe accomplish the same objectives, but as Christians who
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Speaker0: are relational, especially in theological education where you're training ministry
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Speaker0: leaders, should we even do online education when your job is going to be people, people-oriented?
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Speaker0: And I've always been a very big proponent that online education can do that,
9:40
Speaker0: but you have to plan it to do that.
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Speaker0: It's not going to do that if you just put a zillion videos in front of somebody
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Speaker0: and say, good luck relating to others in your context, but watch all these videos.
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Speaker0: That's not going to do it. So at Gateway, we've been very strategic and very
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Speaker0: intentional about keeping our class sizes actually very small on purpose so
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Speaker0: that the faculty member actually knows the people in the class.
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Speaker0: They know the ministry context and they have a lot of opportunity for real discussion.
10:09
Speaker0: And we've also designed our online program to be very boots on the ground structured.
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Speaker0: I always used to say, I don't want to hear of any online class at Gateway Seminary
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Speaker0: where you can finish the whole thing in your pajamas.
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Speaker0: Not acceptable. Not acceptable at Gateway.
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Speaker0: If you never get out of your slippers, we have a big problem at Gateway.
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Speaker0: You need to be with people. You need to be leading change.
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Speaker0: You need to be sharing the gospel. You need to be active. and that requires
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Speaker0: a lot of planned instruction.
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Speaker0: But I will say that now becoming vice president, I am seeing so many churches.
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Speaker0: They appreciate online education, but they really actually want to learn in
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Speaker0: community, in their own church, which is really exciting because Adam, our president,
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Speaker0: has been really expanding Gateway recently with a lot of new teaching sites
11:03
Speaker0: where it's located, the actual class is located in a church.
11:08
Speaker0: And instead of making everybody come to our campus, we send a professor to you
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Speaker0: and your class, your church is the context of your class.
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Speaker0: So in that way, it's in person and it's church-based, it's contextual because you don't have to move.
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Speaker0: So what I think is that there is actually no one delivery method that is the gold standard.
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Speaker0: People talk about the gold standard. What's the gold standard of theological education?
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Speaker0: I would say that the gold standard of theological education is not a delivery method.
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Speaker0: The gold standard for theological education is education that's rooted in the Word of God.
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Speaker0: It's taught by very caring and competent faculty members, and it's crafted for
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Speaker0: the real-life context that you're
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Speaker0: going to be serving in. That could be online. That could be in person.
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Speaker0: That could be coming to Gateway and on our Ontario campus or in San Leandro.
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Speaker0: But whatever it is, it needs to be centered on the Word. It needs to have really
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Speaker0: competent professors who care, and it needs to have a real-life output context.
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Speaker0: Very nice. I know a couple of years ago when I took an online class,
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Speaker0: I've taken a couple of online classes, one not so good, one great.
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Speaker0: And the great one was very rooted in the word.
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Speaker0: And the classes were more connection. I felt more connected in this class than
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Speaker0: I did in sitting in a classroom with 50 other people.
12:32
Speaker0: It changed my mind about how all of that really worked.
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Speaker0: It really does depend on being rooted in the word and exactly where the class
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Speaker0: is going and your professor who that school is teaching you. Thanks for sharing.
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Speaker1: So I come from the Southeast in Alabama, church on every street corner almost.
12:50
Speaker1: People don't realize how big the West is. And so the strategy you're talking about, Dr.
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Speaker1: Ferguson, where it's kind of a hybrid strategy with, I assume,
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Speaker1: compressed interactive video or something like that, where classes are taking place in church.
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Speaker1: My background with New Orleans was I worked at the Birmingham Extension Center,
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Speaker1: which was at David Platt's Church of Brookhills when he was in Birmingham.
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Speaker1: And every now and then we would see him and he would say hello.
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Speaker1: And he drove a modest car, seemed like a great guy.
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Speaker1: But that was a great setup at that Extension Center.
13:23
Speaker1: They let us use four, five, six classrooms, the church.
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Speaker1: And there was about 100 or so during my time there, about 100 to 150 students.
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Speaker1: And it was definitely part of New Orleans, but Birmingham is like five hours away from New Orleans.
13:37
Speaker1: It was its own community too.
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Speaker1: So you have these pastors in Alabama who couldn't drive to Birmingham,
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Speaker1: but they also wanted education and they wanted in-person community.
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Speaker1: And I really think that kind of system would flourish in the West because we're
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Speaker1: even more spread out like pastors in San Francisco and pastors in Northern California
14:03
Speaker1: would have a really hard time making it down to Southern California.
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Speaker1: Every week, maybe for a week intensive. I love the whole intensive model,
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Speaker1: but I think you guys are really on the right track given the geographic realities
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Speaker1: of church training in the West and the fact that pastors out here have so much
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Speaker1: less opportunity, I guess,
14:25
Speaker1: for training than they do back in the good old South.
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Speaker1: And I think it's just a greatly needed thing. I think it could be a frontier
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Speaker1: for Gateway in the future.
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Speaker0: Well, the gospel need is so dramatic out here, and our pastors and our leaders
14:41
Speaker0: are so vital in the location that they are serving.
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Speaker0: It's hard to send one of your up-and-coming leaders to go live elsewhere to
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Speaker0: do seminary and fear that they may never, ever come back.
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Speaker0: That's okay if they're going on the mission field or they go to the next assignment
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Speaker0: and God has that plan for them.
15:00
Speaker0: But there is that drain, the leadership drain that has really been something
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Speaker0: in the West that's not as much an issue in other parts of the country.
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Speaker0: And you probably are aware that we just launched our new Hawaii campus,
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Speaker0: which everybody wants to go study at, of course.
15:18
Speaker0: But in reality, there's a lot going on in Hawaii that is similar to
15:22
Speaker0: in that a lot of people who serve in Hawaii, once they're ready to do leadership,
15:28
Speaker0: they need to go elsewhere to train. And we really wanted to stop that.
15:32
Speaker0: We want to keep Hawaiians who are native to that area, and they've grown up
15:37
Speaker0: there. They know the culture.
15:38
Speaker0: They're not just there for tourism. They know the people. We don't want them to have to leave.
15:42
Speaker0: And the same is true in the Bay Area, in Southern California,
15:45
Speaker0: in Denver, all of the locations that we serve.
15:48
Speaker0: We want to help the church. We don't want to hurt the church by equipping.
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Speaker1: Amen. Amen. Well, let's shift gears a little bit. I don't know a whole lot about
15:58
Speaker1: being a pastor's wife, but I'm married to one.
16:02
Speaker1: But I suspect Kathy and Dr. Ferguson, you guys know a ton about that.
16:06
Speaker1: So let's talk about that a little bit. Over to you, Kathy.
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Speaker0: Kristen, being a pastor's wife, as you know, can be extremely difficult. How do you,
16:14
Speaker0: navigate that, especially being a mom and working at the seminary and serving
16:19
Speaker0: in your many roles. I know you and I have talked about that a lot.
16:22
Speaker0: The typical pastor wife answer is, oh, I don't know what you're talking about.
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Speaker0: Just so easy. No problem.
16:28
Speaker0: No, I'm just kidding. I do think sometimes it's hard for pastor wives to share
16:33
Speaker0: about the difficulties because it can often come off to people as unloving towards
16:41
Speaker0: the church or maybe even criticism of your husband's ministry or something.
16:46
Speaker0: And so I think a lot of times pastor wives feel that they can't share or they
16:52
Speaker0: don't know who to share with.
16:53
Speaker0: And in that way, they have to process a lot of things alone,
16:56
Speaker0: which is why I think it's so wonderful to have our associations and our state
17:01
Speaker0: convention and just networks of other pastor wives who can share,
17:05
Speaker0: and your podcast is part of that as well, helping women who serve alongside
17:09
Speaker0: their husbands feel heard and understood.
17:11
Speaker0: I went to a funeral a few weeks ago of a member of our church,
17:17
Speaker0: and a woman was there who was this man's neighbor.
17:20
Speaker0: I never met this woman before, and she came up to me.
17:24
Speaker0: Obviously, my husband did the funeral, and she came up to me,
17:28
Speaker0: and she said, oh, I wanted to meet you because I was, she was an elderly woman.
17:33
Speaker0: She was, she said, I was also a pastor's wife and I just wanted to meet you.
17:37
Speaker0: And I, you know, I, I just looked at her in such like love. And I was just like,
17:42
Speaker0: thank you so much for coming and speaking with me. And I asked her,
17:45
Speaker0: I said, what's one thing you would tell me?
17:47
Speaker0: Like, obviously you've lived your, your ministry life and now you're at the end there.
17:52
Speaker0: And what's one thing you would tell me as advice.
17:56
Speaker0: And she just was so plain and simple. She said, you just have to focus on really loving God.
18:02
Speaker0: And I know that that's like the most basic answer, but the thing about being
18:07
Speaker0: a pastor wife is there's so many horizontal demands, so many potlucks to plan,
18:14
Speaker0: so many ministry needs, so much crisis counseling, so many calendaring of the
18:18
Speaker0: events and juggling all of these things and kids.
18:22
Speaker0: There's so many horizontal demands.
18:24
Speaker0: It's so easy as a pastor wife to gauge our health and our temperature by the horizontal demands.
18:31
Speaker0: Instead of really seeing ourselves as that vertical, like I am first and foremost
18:36
Speaker0: a child of God and my relationship with God is the utmost importance.
18:41
Speaker0: And if I can please him and everyone else is not pleased, then I've done enough.
18:45
Speaker0: But it's so hard when everybody's demanding that of you.
18:48
Speaker0: So if I could say one thing, I would reiterate what that woman told me too.
18:52
Speaker0: It's just really have a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ and don't let
18:56
Speaker0: the horizontal demands diminish your vibrant relationship with Christ.
19:00
Speaker0: That's just the most important thing.
19:01
Speaker0: That's so important. And I think that is, we understand that,
19:05
Speaker0: but it's easy to forget about that in the midst of the criticism or in the loneliness,
19:11
Speaker0: because I know a lot of pastors' wives have expressed just feeling lonely.
19:16
Speaker0: And they are abiding in their relationship with the Lord, but they also desire
19:20
Speaker0: to have relationships that they can see with skin on them.
19:24
Speaker0: And so what would be an encouragement that you could give to pastors' wives
19:29
Speaker0: that maybe feel lonely, like sometimes they find it hard to find deep friends
19:33
Speaker0: in the church, but how could you encourage them to still maintain those relationships?
19:38
Speaker0: Yeah, I would encourage friendships in the church where it's okay and helpful
19:43
Speaker0: and I think sharing concerns that you have as a human being.
19:48
Speaker0: I mean, the church is for you too. It's not just for everybody else.
19:52
Speaker0: There's older women in the church. There's friends in the church that can be found.
19:56
Speaker0: But I've also found that having a good friend or a few good friends outside
20:02
Speaker0: of the church who are also in ministry leadership.
20:05
Speaker0: I have a dear friend, her name's Amber.
20:08
Speaker0: We met in seminary and she's pastor's wife in Lake Havasu, Arizona.
20:13
Speaker0: And she and I, we don't talk all the time.
20:16
Speaker0: Every probably a few months, we text each other and we say, oh, something happened.
20:21
Speaker0: I'm feeling really hard about this or I don't like this direction or I don't know what to do.
20:27
Speaker0: We just pray for me and we'll share scripture with one another.
20:30
Speaker0: We'll pray for each other.
20:31
Speaker0: And it's just nice to have that connection even outside of the church to be
20:35
Speaker0: like, you're not crazy. Ministry's hard.
20:38
Speaker0: But God is still good. And that kind of is a lifeline sometimes as well.
20:42
Speaker0: Yes, those reminders are really important to remember. And it is easy to think
20:47
Speaker0: that we're the only one experiencing those things, but sharing that can definitely help.
20:52
Speaker0: Along that too, how can pastors protect and serve their wives?
20:57
Speaker0: Well, the pastor being the husband. Obviously, I think there's some spiritual
21:01
Speaker0: encouragement that needs to happen for pastor your wives.
21:05
Speaker0: When a pastor comes home, he's not done being a shepherd.
21:10
Speaker0: And that's really hard because it's tiring to be a shepherd.
21:14
Speaker0: I know, I see it. And sometimes you just need a nap.
21:18
Speaker0: That's okay too. But you're not done being a shepherd just because you got home.
21:23
Speaker0: Your wife needs shepherding.
21:25
Speaker0: She's probably processing a million
21:27
Speaker0: things from her interactions at church or at work or with the kids.
21:32
Speaker0: Being aware and available to be her shepherd too is really needed.
21:39
Speaker0: She needs a pastor too, as well as a husband.
21:42
Speaker0: So just being available for that spiritual encouragement, I think is really important.
21:47
Speaker0: Protecting the calendar is really important.
21:51
Speaker0: Oh my goodness, Ken, the calendar does totally get out of hand,
21:55
Speaker0: right? Like the calendar, Woof!
21:57
Speaker0: But there has to be planned family time regularly. The pastor and his family
22:04
Speaker0: need to rest together, not just separate, or not just after the kids are finally
22:09
Speaker0: in bed and then we get to binge watch a show.
22:12
Speaker0: We all need to rest together sometimes.
22:15
Speaker0: So taking those God-ordained rhythms just as he commanded, it is an obedience
22:21
Speaker0: thing, but we have to take those times to rest. And then I really think affirmation.
22:26
Speaker0: I know it's hard because like a pastor can go through challenges at church or
22:33
Speaker0: there could be criticisms at church, but then sometimes that criticism is resolved
22:39
Speaker0: and then there's affirmation that the pastor gets.
22:42
Speaker0: And they get to experience maybe some reconciliation with the member that had the criticism.
22:47
Speaker0: But off to the side over here, who wasn't part of any of those conversations,
22:50
Speaker0: but definitely heard about them all, is the pastor's wife.
22:54
Speaker0: And sometimes it's hard because you're like, I didn't experience the reconciliation
22:58
Speaker0: that you did, and I'm a little mad still.
23:00
Speaker0: And it's nice if the pastor could be aware and kind of close the gap and help
23:05
Speaker0: his wife understand like, okay, let's move towards forgiveness.
23:10
Speaker0: Let's reconcile. Let's have that conversation if it's needed.
23:13
Speaker0: But don't forget about her. She's been affected by those things too.
23:17
Speaker0: And she needs to be part of the closure and the reconciliation side of things as well.
23:23
Speaker0: And I think that goes a long way in preventing bitterness, which I think is
23:28
Speaker0: a pastor's wife maybe number one enemy in ministry is developing resentment and bitterness.
23:34
Speaker0: So I think that helping her see that reconciliation can be genuine and forgiveness
23:40
Speaker0: can be real and we can actually have good relationships after conflict,
23:45
Speaker0: she needs to be part of that sometimes.
23:48
Speaker1: That's a great word. Now, Kathy, I know you have one more question,
23:50
Speaker1: but let me throw in a quick story here.
23:52
Speaker1: I tend to learn by failing better than I learned by succeeding.
23:58
Speaker1: And along these lines, I had a recent failure that maybe hopefully some other
24:04
Speaker1: dumb pastor men can learn from. I was in our house walking from my office to the bedroom.
24:10
Speaker1: My wife, Janet, who is a wonderful pastor's wife, was in the kitchen talking with my daughter.
24:14
Speaker1: As I walked by, I made a joke about Janet, and it was very innocent and not
24:21
Speaker1: meant at all, and I kept walking.
24:24
Speaker1: Later that night, I realized that this had greatly hurt her feelings,
24:30
Speaker1: and we were talking about it.
24:32
Speaker1: It ended up not being about the joke. It ended up being that when I walked by
24:38
Speaker1: in the kitchen, she was struggling with something.
24:41
Speaker1: I made a joke. I exited.
24:44
Speaker1: I didn't see her. I didn't see my wife. I didn't look at her and see the hurt.
24:51
Speaker1: I just breezed in and breezed out.
24:54
Speaker1: So I'm trying to learn from those sorts of things. And if you're a dude pastor
24:58
Speaker1: who's listening to this, I think the advice would be see your wife.
25:03
Speaker1: Don't just breeze in and breeze out and do what I did. Go ahead, Kathy.
25:08
Speaker0: That's really great advice. And I think those things help the wives to continue
25:14
Speaker0: to be able to love the church as Jesus loves the church,
25:18
Speaker0: because it is certainly hard when there's hurt from within the congregation
25:23
Speaker0: or things that are said, criticism.
25:26
Speaker0: What are some other ways that you would maybe encourage pastor wives to continue
25:31
Speaker0: to be able to love the church, like Jesus loves the church. Yeah,
25:35
Speaker0: that is such a great perspective.
25:37
Speaker0: It actually is kind of fresh for me, to be honest with you. In our church,
25:41
Speaker0: we recently changed our bylaws.
25:44
Speaker0: And if you have ever been through that process...
25:47
Speaker0: It was two years process for us. And I'm so proud of my husband and his godliness
25:54
Speaker0: through that whole process.
25:56
Speaker0: But just like any change in any church, this is not like a unique thing to our
26:00
Speaker0: church, but like any change, there's going to be moments of like friction and conflict and things.
26:05
Speaker0: And this is a, you know, there's a lot that can happen in that process of change
26:09
Speaker0: where I think for a while, I just sort of like white knuckled it through a little
26:15
Speaker0: bit because I'm like, I don't know how this is going to go.
26:17
Speaker0: Are they going to vote yes? Are they going to vote no?
26:21
Speaker0: And I noticed I sort of white knuckled. OK, and I didn't really know I was kind
26:25
Speaker0: of just grinning and bearing it a little bit.
26:28
Speaker0: Probably should have like released that to the Lord and dealt with it with the
26:32
Speaker0: Lord a little bit more. And I did not.
26:35
Speaker0: But I just kind of like hunkered down for this change.
26:37
Speaker0: And praise the Lord. They voted yes. Our bylaws are changed. Hallelujah.
26:43
Speaker0: My husband's doing a great job leading that. But a couple of months after the
26:47
Speaker0: vote, I realized I was still a little angry.
26:53
Speaker0: Honestly, that's the only word I can. I just had to be really raw here. I was a little angry.
26:58
Speaker0: I was a little angry that it had to be so complicated or there was friction.
27:02
Speaker0: Not that that's unexpected. That's every church. There's friction.
27:05
Speaker0: There's people. Humans are humans. But I was still a little angry.
27:09
Speaker0: And in God's providence, like truly, this is just totally God's providence.
27:13
Speaker0: My husband had allowed one of the students at Gateway to lead our Wednesday
27:16
Speaker0: night ministry, and he chose to go through every image of the church used in the Bible.
27:23
Speaker0: So like church as a family, church as the bride, church as the kingdom.
27:28
Speaker0: And every week for like three months, we're meditating on the beauty of the church. Wow.
27:36
Speaker0: And it has been so healing for me.
27:39
Speaker0: And I have really had to repent of some of the anger that I had and realize
27:44
Speaker0: that that's just people.
27:46
Speaker0: That's God's plan. And that God did use all of those things to make the bylaws
27:52
Speaker0: even better and to make the church even better. And it's just been really healing
27:56
Speaker0: to go through scripture and see the church as God sees.
28:00
Speaker0: Because when I see it through my own eyes, I'm like, you hurt my feelings, you know.
28:04
Speaker0: But when I see it with God's eyes, he's like, I died for the church.
28:08
Speaker0: You know, it's a really different perspective.
28:10
Speaker0: So my number one, my number one recommendation would just be truly to,
28:16
Speaker0: I think, really align your view of the church with God's.
28:21
Speaker0: Look at the bride like God does, that he died to save these people in all of
28:27
Speaker0: their sin and your sin too, and all of the ugliness and all of the conflict that can often happen.
28:33
Speaker0: Like he knew all of that and he still died for us. And so, you know,
28:39
Speaker0: every once in a while there can be conflict that's painful or things that make
28:42
Speaker0: us angry, but it's not the right view. That's not God's view.
28:45
Speaker0: That definitely helps to put things back in perspective for sure and to see it correctly.
28:51
Speaker0: Thank you so much. That's really helpful.
28:53
Speaker1: Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about special needs ministry.
28:56
Speaker1: Dr. Ferguson, I know this is an area of great interest and passion for you.
29:01
Speaker1: At our church, we kind of have this philosophy. I grew up in the South,
29:07
Speaker1: sports metaphors are probably too dominant in my thinking, but I call it everybody plays ball.
29:14
Speaker1: And for us, that means the senior citizens have roles, the young people have roles.
29:20
Speaker1: We have a 21, 22-year-old deacon in training, and we have deacons that are in
29:26
Speaker1: their mid-70s. We try to have everybody in position playing ball.
29:31
Speaker1: We have some special needs people that have real significant roles in the church
29:35
Speaker1: in various places. We recently had one of our most powerful gatherings in church
29:41
Speaker1: of the last year where I didn't know what happened.
29:46
Speaker1: The worship was magnificent and powerful.
29:50
Speaker1: And we had an altar call. This is a Baptist church, right?
29:53
Speaker1: We had an altar call before the message. And I just was like kind of blindsided
29:58
Speaker1: by the whole thing. And afterwards, my wife,
30:00
Speaker1: Told me that during the worship practice, before everything kicked off,
30:05
Speaker1: a young man in our church, his name is Sage, who's special needs and is really mostly nonverbal.
30:12
Speaker1: He was worshiping so hard during practice. And the worship team saw that.
30:18
Speaker1: And I don't know, the dynamic is just, it was like fire.
30:22
Speaker1: And just last night at our church, I'll just be honest with you, I didn't no sage talk.
30:29
Speaker1: I've been around him a lot and maybe I just didn't understand him.
30:32
Speaker1: I always say hello to him, always talk to him. But one of the ladies in their
30:36
Speaker1: Bible study told me that during their prayer time, sage said,
30:41
Speaker1: we need to pray for Pastor Chase and Janet. I was blown away.
30:46
Speaker1: I mean, just what a special, magnificent thing.
30:49
Speaker1: And I think churches that don't see the wonderful giftings and things these
30:56
Speaker1: wonderful people bring to the table are like pastors who don't see their wives.
31:00
Speaker1: It's just a huge blunder. So what do you think, Dr. Ferguson?
31:05
Speaker0: Yeah, oh, I love that story so much. And yeah, I agree.
31:10
Speaker0: My son has a variety of learning disorders and he's verbal and happy.
31:16
Speaker0: He does jujitsu and all sorts of fun things, but it's been hard to learn what
31:23
Speaker0: it's like to be a special needs mom. and do that in ministry and figure out how that all fits.
31:30
Speaker0: And it's funny because before I knew that my son had some of these challenges,
31:36
Speaker0: I went to a conference from WMU chapter down here in Southern California that my friend put on.
31:43
Speaker0: And I don't know why, but I went to the special needs breakout.
31:46
Speaker0: I truly, I had no reason to go. I just went to the special needs breakout.
31:50
Speaker0: And I bawled my eyes out the entire time. And I'm not a crier,
31:54
Speaker0: people. People cry in my office sometimes.
31:56
Speaker0: I just, I don't know. I don't express like that. But I was crying in this because
32:02
Speaker0: it was a special needs mom.
32:04
Speaker0: And she, the entire breakout, it was not like a lecture at Gateway where you
32:09
Speaker0: have like, you know, like references and footnotes.
32:11
Speaker0: She narrated her son's involvement in church and her son's ministry to others
32:20
Speaker0: as a nonverbal autistic boy.
32:23
Speaker0: And it was magnificent. Just like you were talking about, Chase.
32:27
Speaker0: This young man stands in the back of the sanctuary and dances with his entire
32:34
Speaker0: body at every worship song.
32:36
Speaker0: And is just like this extraordinary picture of
32:40
Speaker0: unrestrained praise and she talked about how the church was like you know at
32:45
Speaker0: first they're like is this okay is this okay that he's doing this you know like
32:49
Speaker0: we don't really do this and then they just totally accepted it and they're so
32:53
Speaker0: like they like champion this like he's our praise leader and
32:58
Speaker0: Then like she talked about how he shares the gospel with like pictures and he's
33:02
Speaker0: like showing people pictures of the gospel.
33:04
Speaker0: And she really set me up. I don't even remember her name, honestly,
33:08
Speaker0: but she set me up to become a special needs mom, I think, in a big way to realize,
33:13
Speaker0: like you said, Chase, that every single image bearer has a very critical and
33:19
Speaker0: important role to display the glory of God in this world.
33:23
Speaker0: And do I wish that it was a little easier sometimes? like, yeah,
33:28
Speaker0: I do wish it was easier, but all kids have different challenges.
33:33
Speaker0: All kids have different things that we have to learn how to help them through as parents.
33:37
Speaker0: But I think as far as ministry is concerned, I love that everybody plays ball.
33:42
Speaker0: I love that. That's absolutely true.
33:44
Speaker0: I think inclusion is really important, but also just awareness.
33:49
Speaker0: Inclusion doesn't mean like everybody's treated exactly the same way because
33:52
Speaker0: there are significant needs.
33:55
Speaker0: Like I want my son to really understand the Bible story.
33:59
Speaker0: And it's going to take like 20 times more work for me and the teacher to help
34:04
Speaker0: my son understand some of the nuances of that Bible story than the other kids.
34:08
Speaker0: You know, you think of like public school terminology, like there does need
34:11
Speaker0: to be some accommodation where it's like, I'm going to go the extra mile,
34:16
Speaker0: which is what we're about as Christians.
34:18
Speaker0: Like we'll go to the ends of the earth to share the gospel. Well,
34:21
Speaker0: with our special needs kids and our special needs adults in our church, like.
34:25
Speaker0: Let's go the extra mile and try numerous ways and a variety of ways to make
34:31
Speaker0: sure they're really understanding God's love and God's plan and His care for them.
34:36
Speaker0: So it does take a lot of work, but it's totally worth it.
34:39
Speaker0: And as far as serving special needs families, I reiterate what that woman taught
34:44
Speaker0: me at that conference is special needs families are so easy to...
34:49
Speaker0: To love. They seem really scary to love because you don't know all the technical
34:53
Speaker0: terms of all the diagnoses and what might be involved with that.
34:57
Speaker0: You don't need to know all that. They already know that stuff.
35:00
Speaker0: You don't need to be the expert on the diagnoses.
35:03
Speaker0: Nobody's expecting the ministry leader to be an expert at dyslexia or nonverbal communication.
35:09
Speaker0: That's okay if you're not an expert. But what the special needs families need
35:13
Speaker0: is love and rest and affirmation and encouragement and they need to be seen
35:20
Speaker0: and they need to be said like, hey,
35:22
Speaker0: you are doing a really good job helping your child see Jesus.
35:27
Speaker0: I know this is extra hard, but you're doing a good job.
35:30
Speaker0: So that would be my encouragement to pastors and ministry leaders is just love
35:35
Speaker0: those special needs families.
35:37
Speaker0: Make sure they know they're doing a good job and go the extra mile to help their
35:42
Speaker0: loved one whoever has the special needs to know the gospel yeah amen amen,
35:49
Speaker0: Okay, so I'm going to take a step back.
35:51
Speaker1: And we're going to talk about women in ministry in California and the West.
35:56
Speaker1: And Kathy's got some questions, and Ms.
36:05
Speaker0: Finish out the podcast. But for now, you ladies take it away.
36:09
Speaker0: So Kristen, do you think that the church in California and the West in general
36:14
Speaker0: is properly and so effectively mobilizing women in ministry roles?
36:20
Speaker0: I guess there's never a moment in time that all people have been used to their
36:25
Speaker0: maximum extent to do ministry.
36:28
Speaker0: Like the scripture said, like Jesus said, like the harvest is plentiful and
36:33
Speaker0: the workers are few. So I guess in keeping with that, I would probably say a
36:39
Speaker0: little bit, but there's more.
36:41
Speaker0: Or yes, but more.
36:44
Speaker0: I don't think that women are not being used.
36:47
Speaker0: I think I see in every church I've ever participated in, I see a numerous amount
36:54
Speaker0: of women doing very critical gospel work in every church.
36:59
Speaker0: I can think of my church, numerous women who, if they were not doing the service
37:05
Speaker0: part that they are doing, our church would be much less effective at reaching
37:11
Speaker0: our community for Christ.
37:12
Speaker0: So I think that women are absolutely being used in our churches.
37:18
Speaker0: But is there more to do?
37:21
Speaker0: Like, yes, there's so much more to do.
37:24
Speaker0: And there's so many ways to use the skills and giftings and talents and networks
37:30
Speaker0: even and special access that only women get. I think about my friend Carola
37:37
Speaker0: Manriquez, who also works here at Gateway.
37:39
Speaker0: She goes to our church. She's involved in the after hours ministry.
37:43
Speaker0: Are you guys familiar with that? It's through NAMM.
37:46
Speaker0: Yeah. And so they go kind of like in the middle of the night down into L.A.
37:51
Speaker0: And attempt to share the gospel and minister to women who are in sex trafficking.
37:56
Speaker0: And there's so much that only women really can do.
38:04
Speaker0: There are men involved in that ministry, and they serve a very particular kind
38:08
Speaker0: of role in that ministry.
38:10
Speaker0: But, you know, these are special moments that we need to deploy a lot more women
38:15
Speaker0: to get a lot more work done. I agree.
38:17
Speaker0: And being a woman in ministry, because my husband is not a pastor,
38:21
Speaker0: I can relate to a lot of what pastors' wives go through, the loneliness and
38:26
Speaker0: not being able to have anybody to talk to.
38:29
Speaker0: Just being in the church and really involved, I think that it's getting better,
38:34
Speaker0: but I think purposely involved.
38:36
Speaker0: Putting into women and letting them know it's okay, because a lot of them feel
38:41
Speaker0: restrained, and they step back because they don't feel it's their place.
38:45
Speaker0: So giving them the permissions, but that needs to come from the leadership and
38:49
Speaker0: the deacons and the pastor to allow those things to happen.
38:53
Speaker0: And I think it's happening slowly.
38:56
Speaker0: It's not happening as fast as it could be, which would actually enhance the
39:01
Speaker0: church and the ministries, because I see women are the ones that are stepping up.
39:07
Speaker0: A lot of the men, some men do, but more women, they're like,
39:12
Speaker0: come on, put me out there. Let's do this.
39:15
Speaker0: Let's do this. Yeah. And I think that one of the things that I know is very
39:20
Speaker0: typical in churches is a lot of kind of stage time, pulpit time,
39:27
Speaker0: Bible teacher time dedicated to,
39:30
Speaker0: really explaining and understanding those Bible passages that we all love and
39:35
Speaker0: submit ourselves to about the different ways that men and women both serve in
39:41
Speaker0: different contexts and different roles.
39:43
Speaker0: But sometimes I think we lack a little creativity and opportunity that we lay
39:51
Speaker0: before women because we are so concerned with getting those passages just right,
39:56
Speaker0: which don't get me wrong, that's very important.
39:58
Speaker0: We have to understand those passages so we know what God intends for the way that we serve.
40:04
Speaker0: But in that same conversation and in that same moment,
40:08
Speaker0: opening up all of our eyes to the variety of ways that God needs and wants women
40:15
Speaker0: to involve themselves in the kingdom work is, I think, very exciting.
40:21
Speaker0: We want those passages to be taught with like, we want to get up right now and go do it.
40:26
Speaker0: You know, we want some energy and urgency for the gospel ministry.
40:30
Speaker0: Even though there are different roles, there's so much work to be done that
40:33
Speaker0: is very critical and very important.
40:35
Speaker0: I think along those lines, sometimes it's easy to get caught in certain things that women.
40:43
Speaker0: Don't necessarily do in our complementarian view.
40:47
Speaker0: And we forget, like you're saying, to be creative and encourage ways to show
40:53
Speaker0: women where they can serve.
40:55
Speaker0: And I know that I've seen several statistics lately that there's a lot of women
41:00
Speaker0: that are leaving the church, especially younger women. And I read into some
41:04
Speaker0: of why those reasonings were, why people think that, and they're still trying to figure out a lot of it.
41:09
Speaker0: But some of it is because women, the way that we approach women's ministry and
41:15
Speaker0: then women hasn't really changed in some churches in a really long time.
41:20
Speaker0: And so it's focused that they some one statistics that even in 50 years,
41:24
Speaker0: it hasn't changed that much.
41:25
Speaker0: So we're still thinking of women as being the primary volunteers in a lot of ways in the church.
41:31
Speaker0: But women are really busy these days, more so than they were.
41:35
Speaker0: Well, not necessarily more so, but in a different way than they were 50 years ago.
41:39
Speaker0: And so how the church approaches that has to start to look a little bit different.
41:44
Speaker0: And I think that's challenging, but I know, Kristen, you and I have talked about
41:49
Speaker0: missional complementarianism and how that works.
41:52
Speaker0: And I saw you had written something about it's God's order fuels the mission
41:58
Speaker0: or something like that is what you said.
42:00
Speaker0: And I think that's so important to focus on the mission and how we move forward in that.
42:06
Speaker0: So I don't know if you can share some more insight into that in ways that that
42:10
Speaker0: the, that churches can really help to encourage women to be on mission and to use those gifts.
42:17
Speaker0: So they're not going elsewhere and finding another place to serve,
42:21
Speaker0: but they can also find that in the local church.
42:23
Speaker0: Yeah, absolutely. Missional complementarianism is just a term that my husband
42:29
Speaker0: and I use when we shepherd other couples and we talk about this topic.
42:34
Speaker0: And it's the best way we have found to describe the way we think that the Bible
42:39
Speaker0: talks about complementarianism.
42:41
Speaker0: We're very committed that a pastor should be a man, a pastor elder should be
42:47
Speaker0: a man, and women come alongside and have critical roles to play in kingdom expansion.
42:53
Speaker0: And so missional complementarian really helps us take our eyes to not just focus
42:58
Speaker0: on the role part of it, not just like, well, you do these things and I do these things.
43:04
Speaker0: I think it's helping us understand like, what are we all do?
43:08
Speaker0: What are we as the body of Christ?
43:10
Speaker0: Even non-pastoral men have a part in this whole missional opportunity to share
43:17
Speaker0: the gospel and take the gospel to the kingdom.
43:20
Speaker0: And if you focus on the kingdom of God and see, okay, we each have a part to
43:25
Speaker0: play, whether it's gifting, role, whatever it is, we all have a part to play.
43:30
Speaker0: It helps really drive that you are to be utilized.
43:36
Speaker0: You have a part to play. It's not just you stand over there while the rest of us do the thing.
43:43
Speaker0: It's we are all doing this thing together, but we all have different parts to play in it.
43:48
Speaker0: Just like 1 Corinthians 12 teaches us about spiritual gifting and the members of the body.
43:53
Speaker0: That's literally what we're talking about when it comes to men and women as
43:57
Speaker0: well, that we all have a role to play, even if women are not playing that leadership pastoral role.
44:03
Speaker0: I think that's really important. And part of that,
44:08
Speaker0: I think it involves helping women to know how to make disciples and sometimes
44:13
Speaker0: like being intentional to do that is sometimes maybe we assume that people know
44:19
Speaker0: more than they do. At least I've, I've come to find that, that.
44:22
Speaker0: People know they're supposed to make disciples, but sometimes they're not really
44:25
Speaker0: sure what that looks like.
44:26
Speaker0: So how could the church also help women in that way? Women need the Word of
44:31
Speaker0: God, and they need it in a serious way.
44:34
Speaker0: Like, we want our women to be faithful to interpret the Word of God accurately.
44:39
Speaker0: If it's important for our pastors to interpret the Word of God accurately,
44:44
Speaker0: it's important for the people who are volunteering in the kids' ministry And
44:48
Speaker0: the people who are also doing discipleship or counseling or sharing the gospel,
44:53
Speaker0: every person at our church, we want them to know the Bible and we want them
44:58
Speaker0: to interpret it faithfully so that they can take the gospel faithfully to the nations.
45:03
Speaker0: So I think one of the most important things is don't give any group,
45:08
Speaker0: including women, don't give them the light stuff.
45:13
Speaker0: We all need meat. We all need the word of God.
45:18
Speaker0: And we all need to grow in it seriously. It's a skill-building opportunity to
45:24
Speaker0: develop your hermeneutic, to develop your understanding of the Old and New Testament.
45:28
Speaker0: And to be able to understand the nuances of various genres in Scripture and
45:34
Speaker0: how to get the main point out of a passage and how to interpret that faithfully
45:39
Speaker0: and apply it faithfully. Women need to know that stuff.
45:42
Speaker0: And so don't skimp on that stuff. Give them the meat and let them do what it
45:48
Speaker0: says to do, and they'll find ways to serve God faithfully in that. That's a great word.
45:53
Speaker1: But before we shift to AI, do you ladies have any more questions or you want
45:58
Speaker1: to go further up, further in on this conversation? I love the idea that you're
46:02
Speaker1: talking about, which is missional complementarianism.
46:05
Speaker1: Anything else that we need to say about all that?
46:08
Speaker0: Well, I think there's a lot more that could be said that probably not fit in this time frame.
46:13
Speaker1: Okay. Well, I think especially...
46:16
Speaker1: Again, people in other parts of the country don't know how populous the West is.
46:22
Speaker1: The church that is not engaging every member in ministry and understanding the
46:28
Speaker1: spiritual gifts and the missional call of every member and understanding that
46:33
Speaker1: the people who followed Jesus around,
46:36
Speaker1: yes, there were 12 dudes.
46:38
Speaker1: But there were also this group of women that were essentially always there taking
46:43
Speaker1: care of their needs, managing things, doing all of this incredible ministry.
46:47
Speaker1: When we don't understand that dynamic, buddy, we are missing out on touchdowns
46:53
Speaker1: we should be scoring and fruit of the kingdom we should be making.
46:57
Speaker0: Kathy, one of the things that you and I had talked about on that same note,
47:01
Speaker0: Chase, that you just reminded me of is really examining what leadership is in scripture.
47:08
Speaker0: As far as I'm aware, in scripture, leadership is not just the leader goes and does stuff.
47:13
Speaker0: Leadership is a deep connection with the people around, and a faithful leader
47:19
Speaker0: will take account of all of the resources, all of the skills under their care.
47:26
Speaker0: And deploy them strategically for the gospel. So it's not a very good leader
47:31
Speaker0: who's like, I have this huge asset here with all these skills and resources,
47:36
Speaker0: but you don't do anything. You just stay over there because I'm the leader.
47:40
Speaker0: And I think sometimes it's like the leader is insecure that this follower is
47:44
Speaker0: going to outshine or something, but that's actually a good,
47:48
Speaker0: that actually looks good on the leader for the leader to deploy somebody who
47:53
Speaker0: has skill and who has ability.
47:56
Speaker0: That's a good leader to say like, I don't really care about how I look in this,
48:00
Speaker0: but I care about the mission.
48:01
Speaker0: Even if other people are doing lots of good things and I'm championing them
48:06
Speaker0: and I fall into the background like a Barnabas, you know, and I deploy other
48:10
Speaker0: people to do it. That's good leadership.
48:13
Speaker0: And I think often women are sometimes to the side or it's a bubble on the side
48:19
Speaker0: and we're part of the meat.
48:20
Speaker0: We're part of the core. We're part of the church and we want to be deployed.
48:24
Speaker0: We want to go and we want to share and we want to risk it all.
48:27
Speaker0: We want women in our churches to go across the world and die for the sake of the gospel.
48:34
Speaker0: Like we don't want to just do the light stuff. We want to serve God with everything
48:38
Speaker0: we have, even if it costs us everything.
48:40
Speaker0: And I think looking at women in our churches like that will help our pastors
48:44
Speaker0: deploy them effectively.
48:46
Speaker1: Yeah.
48:46
Speaker0: Well, it also helps them not to be marginalized because they think when there
48:50
Speaker0: are just kind of set off in a corner, which is true for the special needs population.
48:55
Speaker0: I was a director of special needs before.
48:58
Speaker0: And the same thing can happen with them anytime any group of people,
49:02
Speaker0: not just a gender, but a group of people is marginalized.
49:05
Speaker0: They're not really being deployed in the way that the Lord wanted.
49:09
Speaker0: And if we look at Jesus' life, He didn't marginalize any group.
49:13
Speaker0: He didn't even marginalize women. He engaged them. He engaged sick people.
49:17
Speaker0: He engaged poor people. He engaged rich people.
49:20
Speaker0: He engaged all the groups of people. And I think that's a great reminder. Thank you.
49:27
Speaker1: Yeah, it's not without reason that our missionary giving heroes in the Baptist
49:32
Speaker1: church are Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.
49:35
Speaker1: And not a couple of guys, because we have these great examples of ladies who
49:40
Speaker1: are incredibly fruitful and braver than 99.99% of men out there on the mission
49:46
Speaker1: field, mobilizing and doing the work of the kingdom.
49:49
Speaker1: And maybe we don't honor them enough. Okay, let's shift gears again and talk
49:54
Speaker1: a little bit about artificial intelligence in the church.
49:57
Speaker1: And I want to get from you, Dr. Ferguson, your best tips on how to use AI for
50:02
Speaker1: writing my sermon. yeah i'm just kidding yeah
50:07
Speaker0: That's a horrible thing yeah you know it's so easy you know it really cuts your time down.
50:11
Speaker1: It can man i barely have
50:13
Speaker1: to do anything these days with gemini and no i'm just kidding but one thing
50:18
Speaker1: i've noticed and i bet you guys have too there is a very vocal group of people
50:23
Speaker1: online and even in person who are almost like revolutionaries against ai they
50:31
Speaker1: think it's wicked and evil,
50:32
Speaker1: but I just saw a survey that Barna and Glue put out that I found really, really interesting.
50:39
Speaker1: And it basically showed that pastors and Christians in general have a slightly
50:47
Speaker1: more positive view of AI in terms of saying AI is making the world a better
50:54
Speaker1: place than the general population.
50:56
Speaker1: Now, at the same time, they're more likely to agree with the statement that
51:03
Speaker1: AI is a threat than the general population.
51:06
Speaker1: So I don't know how you can out of one side of your mouth say it's making the
51:09
Speaker1: world a better place and the other side you say it's a big threat.
51:12
Speaker1: But look, so many people are using AI right now.
51:15
Speaker1: I think in 10 years it is going to
51:17
Speaker1: be as ubiquitous and commonplace as the internet is, maybe even more so.
51:22
Speaker1: Dr. Ferguson, what are your thoughts on AI? How are you encountering it in the seminary?
51:27
Speaker1: Is it vexing your life that students are writing all their papers with AI?
51:32
Speaker1: What are your views here?
51:33
Speaker0: Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I love this topic, actually.
51:37
Speaker0: About a year and a half ago, I did my academic convocation. You know,
51:42
Speaker0: every semester, one of the faculty members gives a paper.
51:45
Speaker0: I saw that. Yeah. And so my academic convocation was on educating humans in the age of AI.
51:51
Speaker0: So I have lots of opinions and thoughts about this. And I am a huge AI user.
51:56
Speaker0: So full confession, I do use AI. But I promise you, I did not use AI to formulate
52:02
Speaker0: anything that I said today.
52:06
Speaker0: So, you know what's really interesting is because I studied a lot of online
52:10
Speaker0: education, I see so many patterns that are very similar as far as like this
52:15
Speaker0: reaction to a new technology.
52:17
Speaker0: So like when online education became more and more popular, there are these
52:22
Speaker0: two camps of like, it's the worst thing ever, it's going to ruin everything.
52:26
Speaker0: Or it's like the best thing ever, and it's going to be our savior of all things.
52:30
Speaker0: It's like always these two like polar opposites.
52:34
Speaker0: And I've always felt that neither are looking at it in quite the right way.
52:40
Speaker0: And that's very common in AI literature, even secular discussions about AI.
52:46
Speaker0: It's either going to be Armageddon or utopia, you know, either one,
52:50
Speaker0: maybe a little both somehow, I don't know.
52:51
Speaker0: But it's either going to be the end of humans as we know it,
52:55
Speaker0: or humans are going to basically enter into heaven.
52:58
Speaker0: Now because we're never going to have to do anything ever again.
53:01
Speaker0: And so I think what's important is that we actually take a little more time
53:07
Speaker0: and don't opt for one of those easy camps.
53:11
Speaker0: I truly think it's just going to take more work. In order to land at a truly
53:15
Speaker0: biblical perspective of AI, it's not going to be enough to just say no completely
53:20
Speaker0: to it or yes completely to it. That's the easy route either way.
53:24
Speaker0: I think if you decide no to AI
53:26
Speaker0: and you're just like, it's going to be Armageddon, let's try to stop it.
53:30
Speaker0: I just think you're in a fruitless endeavor. Like, I agree with you, Chase.
53:35
Speaker0: This is absolutely becoming inescapable and it's becoming integrated in all
53:41
Speaker0: of the tools that we've typically already adopted, that the whole, you know,
53:45
Speaker0: United States has already adopted and it's becoming integrated in all of these
53:49
Speaker0: things, in our phones and things like that.
53:50
Speaker0: So it's going to be, unless we're going to take the route of like a more Amish
53:55
Speaker0: kind of withdrawal, it's going to be very part of our culture.
54:00
Speaker0: So we have to do the hard work ethically to determine how we're going to engage,
54:05
Speaker0: if we should engage, why we should engage or why not.
54:08
Speaker0: And so I think what becomes very important in this conversation is our image
54:13
Speaker0: bearing nature and our role as the image of God.
54:18
Speaker0: And what are the things in this world that are only for humans?
54:24
Speaker0: What are those things that are only for humans?
54:26
Speaker0: A good example of this, like kind of analogy, is like I could not deploy my
54:32
Speaker0: AI robot to go on a date with my husband.
54:35
Speaker0: That doesn't work. It requires my personhood.
54:39
Speaker0: I, as a human person, need to engage with my husband as a human person.
54:45
Speaker0: Those are moments that are not replaceable by AI.
54:49
Speaker0: And the same is true with our relationship with God. I think it's one of the
54:53
Speaker0: biggest threats to Christianity in the age of AI is that it is so easy to get answers.
55:00
Speaker0: And we want a bullet point, easy to read. It takes us two seconds to get through it.
55:07
Speaker0: When reading the Word of God takes some effort.
55:10
Speaker0: It takes some discipline. It takes interpretation. it
55:14
Speaker0: takes understanding the biblical context it's harder than
55:17
Speaker0: going to ai and being like what should i do what should i do in this situation
55:20
Speaker0: yeah and i think it's going to be so tempting for us as christians to constantly
55:24
Speaker0: go to ai instead of going to god in prayer or instead of going to the word of
55:30
Speaker0: god and so there's going to be have to be this conscious understanding that
55:33
Speaker0: i as a human being as image bearer of God,
55:36
Speaker0: I'm created to know God through his word.
55:41
Speaker0: And I am created to commune with the living, real, most high God through prayer
55:48
Speaker0: and through doing his will in this world.
55:51
Speaker0: And I cannot do that.
55:54
Speaker0: In AI. Like AI is not the replacement for a real active living relationship
55:59
Speaker0: with the real living God.
56:01
Speaker0: AI is not the living God. And I almost think there's this analogy with like
56:04
Speaker0: idols, where like idolatry in the Old Testament, they, you know,
56:09
Speaker0: we hear in Isaiah where it says they don't speak and they don't hear. AI actually talks.
56:14
Speaker0: So it's really tempting to replace God.
56:18
Speaker0: And we don't say it that way. We wouldn't be like, oh, I worship AI.
56:22
Speaker0: No one is saying that they're worshiping AI.
56:25
Speaker0: But in an effect, in reality, functionally, we could be going to AI and depending
56:30
Speaker0: on AI for so much of what we do day to day that we're replacing our dependence of God.
56:35
Speaker0: So we need to think as Christians about our image-bearing nature,
56:40
Speaker0: our unique role and dignity and responsibility in this world to know God and
56:46
Speaker0: to make him known and then put AI in its right place.
56:50
Speaker0: But I do think AI can serve some of that.
56:53
Speaker0: Like, for instance, I think AI is so helpful to understand other worldviews
56:58
Speaker0: and like asking it questions about like, okay, what would someone from this
57:03
Speaker0: culture think about in this way?
57:05
Speaker0: And like, there's just so many helpful things like strategizing and ideas and
57:12
Speaker0: things that can come from development with AI, but it can never replace our
57:16
Speaker0: intimate connection with God and His work. So hopefully that's a snapshot.
57:21
Speaker1: That's a great perspective. I will add that to this, that if somebody is not
57:26
Speaker1: afraid of using Google to do research, they shouldn't be afraid of using AI.
57:32
Speaker1: AI is different than Google, and it can be profoundly effective at certain searches
57:39
Speaker1: if you use it at the right way.
57:41
Speaker1: And Dr. Ferguson has warned us against the dangers of leaning on AI for spiritual
57:47
Speaker1: guidance from God and for intimacy with God.
57:50
Speaker1: And I think that's a huge one. I'll add to that, on the other hand,
57:54
Speaker1: on the other side of the equation,
57:55
Speaker1: in AI, we've talked for years about the Turing test and the ability of an artificial
58:00
Speaker1: intelligence to fool a majority of humans that they are talking to a human.
58:06
Speaker1: And I think we're past that. And I think most researchers would agree.
58:10
Speaker1: We've passed that. The AI can pass as humans.
58:13
Speaker1: And in addition to the danger you're warning us about,
58:17
Speaker1: I would add to it, and this, I think is a significant fear as well,
58:21
Speaker1: is that people will rely on AI for deep spiritual conversations that they should
58:27
Speaker1: be having in the body of Christ, that it will become a replacement for intimacy in the church,
58:34
Speaker1: maybe even intimacy between a husband and a wife.
58:36
Speaker1: But AI doesn't disagree with you as much.
58:40
Speaker1: It doesn't challenge you as much. It doesn't confront you as much.
58:43
Speaker1: It doesn't know your deepest sins and desires and heart.
58:47
Speaker1: It knows a lot about you, but it can't know you as well as somebody else in
58:51
Speaker1: the body of Christ. It will not be iron sharpening iron, so to speak.
58:56
Speaker0: And even if you tell it, tell me all my weaknesses and criticisms and,
59:00
Speaker0: you know, tell me all these things.
59:01
Speaker0: Like you can you can make AI accommodate the weaknesses that you think are in
59:07
Speaker0: AI, like remove all of your praises and just give it to me straight.
59:11
Speaker0: Like you can craft AI to do that for you, which is kind of like,
59:14
Speaker0: OK, maybe if we just design it right.
59:16
Speaker0: But I think that the core is even if you can design AI to to effectively do
59:22
Speaker0: a lot of those things at the at the end of the day, AI is not real. It is not a real being.
59:28
Speaker0: We have a real living God who actually works in this world, who really exists,
59:35
Speaker0: who wants to know us, who is available to us and who's died to save us.
59:40
Speaker0: Like we have a God who is able to do far more than AI could ever do.
59:46
Speaker0: Like God can make a way for things to happen that AI could never do.
59:50
Speaker0: And I think it's going to be so tempting to try to think that AI can solve all
59:54
Speaker0: the problems when we have a real and living God who is actively at work through
59:58
Speaker0: our problems to do more than just solve problems. He's bringing about his kingdom in this world. Yeah.
1:00:04
Speaker1: Fantastic.
1:00:06
Speaker0: AI can't love either. It can't have feelings or emotions.
1:00:10
Speaker0: And we know that's true, but we sometimes do this thing.
1:00:14
Speaker0: My family kind of play around and ask questions to our AI just to be funny.
1:00:19
Speaker0: And so I asked her if she loved me and she said, I'm incapable of,
1:00:25
Speaker0: of, I haven't figured out human emotions yet.
1:00:27
Speaker0: And I think that's so really important though. It's, that was funny.
1:00:31
Speaker0: But it's also like a real reminder that emotions are meant for humans and God
1:00:37
Speaker0: to experience together. It's not something that can be replaced artificially. So true. So true.
1:00:42
Speaker1: Absolutely, Kathy. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation.
1:00:45
Speaker1: I have one more quick question before we close out.
1:00:49
Speaker1: Dr. Ferguson, I'm going to ask this of everybody. The question is going to be, what are you reading?
1:00:53
Speaker1: And Dr. Ferguson, I know you read smart people books like Jason Thacker's The
1:00:58
Speaker1: Age of AI and like Heart Deep Teaching and Ms.
1:01:02
Speaker1: Ortlund's Help, I'm Married to the Pastor. I know you read smart people books,
1:01:05
Speaker1: and maybe your answer is going to be a smart person book.
1:01:07
Speaker1: But if that's the book you read for fun, a smart person book, that's great.
1:01:11
Speaker1: But I'm going to ask, what are the books you're reading right now or listening
1:01:15
Speaker1: to? Because I count that.
1:01:17
Speaker1: What are the books right now you guys are listening to?
1:01:20
Speaker1: Fun might be too whimsical.
1:01:23
Speaker1: I read for fun, and I read for the good reasons too but what are you guys reading
1:01:28
Speaker1: for fun these days that enriches your soul that blesses you that is maybe a step above streaming so
1:01:35
Speaker0: Like are you talking about magic treehouse with my kids because that's active every night.
1:01:39
Speaker1: Those aren't bad books i enjoy some of those books with the kids some of them
1:01:45
Speaker1: are tedious and terrible but magic treehouse is pretty good we
1:01:48
Speaker0: Got some i got some variety for you chase it is not just smart people books
1:01:52
Speaker0: i don't even know we've got time for a lot of smart people books, but I'm looking around.
1:01:57
Speaker0: I've got some VBS materials over here that I've been reading very intently.
1:02:03
Speaker0: Magic Treehouse for sure at home. But I also have our biblical counseling.
1:02:08
Speaker0: Oh, it's backwards on the screen. But our biblical counseling professor recommended this one.
1:02:11
Speaker0: To me, it's called The Gospel for Disordered Lives by Robert Jones,
1:02:16
Speaker0: Kristen Kellen, and Rob Green.
1:02:18
Speaker0: And I'm really enjoying that as well. I really appreciate so much personal growth
1:02:24
Speaker0: from biblical counseling and just their dependence on the Word of God.
1:02:27
Speaker0: So I really enjoy reading biblical counseling books, but I'm enjoying that one a lot as well.
1:02:31
Speaker0: Fantastic. Ladies? I, too, am reading some curriculum books to revamp our stuff
1:02:38
Speaker0: through ACSI. And we're in the middle of doing a survey for our K-8 school.
1:02:44
Speaker0: So looking for stuff for that.
1:02:46
Speaker0: But also looking forward to a conference that I'm going to attend in Dallas,
1:02:51
Speaker0: the Outcomes Conference, in a couple weeks. So they always have some great books
1:02:55
Speaker0: for personal growth. I'm ready for some personal growth books.
1:02:59
Speaker0: All right. I'm actually rereading this book with a friend, but it's Instruments
1:03:03
Speaker0: in the Redeemer's Hand by Paul David Shredder.
1:03:06
Speaker0: And it's a great biblical counseling resource as well, but it's just been just a great reminder to,
1:03:11
Speaker0: in mentoring relationships, but in my own personal relationships.
1:03:16
Speaker0: Also, I think it just how I love others, my family, my church,
1:03:21
Speaker0: everything, and seeing things through a different lens has been really great.
1:03:25
Speaker0: And I'm also going through the See For Yourself.
1:03:28
Speaker0: It's a new kind of Bible study that came out by Kelly Needham.
1:03:34
Speaker0: Well, her husband wrote one too for men, but this one's for women.
1:03:36
Speaker0: And I'm reading it not as a Bible study, but as a way to help others to learn how to study the Bible.
1:03:45
Speaker0: And so that's, I mean, that's fun for me.
1:03:47
Speaker0: It's not as fun as maybe as Magic Treehouse, but it is really exciting.
1:03:53
Speaker0: But just as important, Kathy, just as important. It is very important.
1:03:56
Speaker0: It is very important. And it's not like a work for me. Like I just find those
1:04:01
Speaker0: kinds of things very interesting.
1:04:03
Speaker1: Awesome. Well, you guys are probably a lot more mature than me.
1:04:06
Speaker1: I feel pressured to say I'm reading a lot of the early church fathers right now, and that is true.
1:04:11
Speaker1: But what I really like to read is mystery books, and I plow through them.
1:04:15
Speaker1: And right now I'm reading the Mysterious Benedict Society series, which is for kids.
1:04:20
Speaker1: And I'm not a kid, but I enjoy it. And I'm also reading the Grantchester series by James Bruncey,
1:04:26
Speaker1: which is about a Church of England pastor called Sidney Chambers,
1:04:30
Speaker1: who is a detective, which is probably my fantasy to be a pastor and detective
1:04:36
Speaker1: on the side. It's a really interesting book.
1:04:39
Speaker1: Sidney Chambers is a good bit more liberal than I am, even though he believes
1:04:43
Speaker1: in the resurrection of Jesus.
1:04:44
Speaker1: But he constantly struggles with putting his wife and his child in the right
1:04:51
Speaker1: place of priorities in his life and ministry while he's working and solving
1:04:56
Speaker1: all these mysterious detective mystery kind of things and murders.
1:05:00
Speaker1: It's high-level writing, I think. I appreciate the struggle with prioritizing for a pastor.
1:05:05
Speaker1: I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, and this has been a very edifying conversation.
1:05:10
Speaker1: Thank you so much for your time.