Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 11: Grappling with Grief and Helping The Grieving, Friendships in the Church Part 2, and Fruity Pebbles Soda?! With Dr. Michael Stewart, Pastor Grant Combs, and Dr. Chris Smith.

Transcript

Episode 11: Grappling with Grief and Helping The Grieving, Friendships in the Church Part 2, and Fruity Pebbles Soda?! With Dr. Michael Stewart, Pastor Grant Combs, and Dr. Chris Smith. · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

0:14
Speaker0: Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
0:18
Speaker0: soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
0:22
Speaker0: and the broader kingdom of God.
0:24
Speaker0: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole
0:26
Speaker0: and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
0:30
Speaker0: Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
0:34
Speaker0: of making every church flourish.
0:36
Speaker0: And hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 11 of the Every Church
0:41
Speaker0: Flourishing Podcast. I am your host, Chase Thompson, pastor of Valley Baptist
0:45
Speaker0: Church in Salinas, California.
0:47
Speaker0: The Every Church Flourishing podcast is put out by the Great Commission Association
0:53
Speaker0: of Churches, which is in California, led by Dr. Michael Stewart.
0:58
Speaker0: And he is here today, the head of the GCA, as well as my co-host on this episode.
1:03
Speaker0: And we are finishing up our interview with Dr.
1:07
Speaker0: Chris Smith, who is a former missionary
1:09
Speaker0: and a current leader of the Great Commission Training Institution,
1:13
Speaker0: an online ministry training school, and Pastor Grant Combs out of lovely Lighthouse
1:19
Speaker0: Baptist Church in Seaside, California.
1:22
Speaker0: And on the episode today in our main interview, we're talking about relationships
1:26
Speaker0: in the church. How did that work?
1:28
Speaker0: How do they work from the perspective of being a pastor, being a deacon,
1:32
Speaker0: being a church leader? How can
1:35
Speaker0: pastors and church leaders cultivate deep friendships inside the church?
1:40
Speaker0: How can pastors protect their families well inside the church?
1:44
Speaker0: The advantage of having great deacons and relationships with deacons,
1:49
Speaker0: and how can introverts in the church manage the issue of overpeopling?
1:56
Speaker0: And we're also going to talk about kind of the issue that church leaders might
2:00
Speaker0: have in finding people that are...
2:03
Speaker0: I guess you would say worthy of confiding in.
2:06
Speaker0: Now, you can check out our website, which is everychurchflourishing.com.
2:11
Speaker0: But I also want to point you to the Great Commission Association website, which is gcasbc.net.
2:19
Speaker0: That's gcasbc.net. It is a brand new designed website. It looks great.
2:26
Speaker0: And if you are a pastor or church leader in the California area and you're looking
2:31
Speaker0: for a team to join with, we want to hear from you.
2:35
Speaker0: So go to our website and contact us at gcasbc.net.
2:41
Speaker0: After the main interviews, we are going to review a pretty remarkable soda.
2:48
Speaker0: The Liquid Death Serial Criminal Fruity Pebbles flavor.
2:53
Speaker0: That's going to be pretty interesting. And we're also going to talk about the issue of grief,
2:58
Speaker0: how to help people who are going through the grieving process,
3:03
Speaker0: and how not to help people going through the grieving process.
3:09
Speaker0: We're going to look at some things that might be harmful.
3:12
Speaker0: Last week, we had part one of our interview with Dr. Chris Smith,
3:17
Speaker0: Pastor Grant Combs, and Dr. Michael Stewart.
3:19
Speaker0: This week, we're picking up right in the middle of part two of that interview.
3:24
Speaker0: So let's dive right into the middle of that interview, and afterwards,
3:29
Speaker0: we're going to drink a soda together and go deep on the issue of grief.
3:34
Speaker0: Well, Dr. Chris Smith, you have maybe the broadest ministry experience of all
3:40
Speaker0: of us, working as a teacher of pastors,
3:43
Speaker0: working as a missionary, and you add in your wife, Kathy, who has been involved
3:48
Speaker0: in so many facets of women's ministry.
3:50
Speaker0: You guys are going to have a ton of wisdom, I think, on this question.
3:54
Speaker0: So what do you think, Dr. Chris?
3:56
Speaker0: Is it appropriate for pastors and high-level church leaders to be friends with the congregation?
4:04
Speaker0: Do you have cautions there? What's your take?
4:07
Speaker1: Yeah, I would say many things that Grant and Dr.
4:11
Speaker1: Mike have said, I think very wise counsel, very practical.
4:16
Speaker1: One thing I would add, I think, is 1 Thessalonians 2, where Paul is talking
4:22
Speaker1: about his relationship with the church.
4:26
Speaker1: And this is something that we adopted very early in our ministry,
4:31
Speaker1: Kathy and I, on the mission field in Spain and other places.
4:35
Speaker1: And where it says in verse eight, it was talking about how Paul cares for the
4:40
Speaker1: church and he says, we loved you so much.
4:43
Speaker1: We were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well.
4:48
Speaker1: That, you know, on the mission field, that's what you have to do, right?
4:52
Speaker1: We were in an unreached people group, Pioneer Field, and you have to share your
4:57
Speaker1: life, fully share your life and show the love of God.
5:00
Speaker1: And I would say that's the same within the church context that in this passage,
5:06
Speaker1: Paul describes this relationship as a nursing other cares for her children,
5:12
Speaker1: or also like young children,
5:14
Speaker1: or a spiritual father.
5:16
Speaker1: So it's all of those things, and there is a friendship there.
5:21
Speaker1: But like everyone has said, as Grant and Dr. Mike have said,
5:25
Speaker1: there are levels of friendship. You have to be wise. You have to be careful. You have to be careful.
5:29
Speaker1: And you have to be intentional about cultivating those friendships that are
5:36
Speaker1: outside of your church, that would be kind of your peers.
5:39
Speaker1: And like on the mission field, that would be other missionaries that we worked with.
5:45
Speaker1: Or in this context, sometimes it's with pastors that aren't Southern Baptist pastors.
5:50
Speaker1: It's with someone who's not in our immediate circle, but that are very like-minded
5:55
Speaker1: in that way. And so I think that that's helpful.
5:58
Speaker0: You know, the only other thing I'd throw in is you have to guard your heart.
6:02
Speaker0: You really have to guard your family.
6:04
Speaker0: That's one of the most dangerous things is when you're going through something,
6:08
Speaker0: it's probably has something to do with your kids or your wife.
6:12
Speaker0: And to expose them to the congregation is just downright wrong.
6:18
Speaker0: Like that's how to have a short, miserable ministry life.
6:21
Speaker0: And so, you know, I would even say to continue to build in to friendship with
6:28
Speaker0: mentors that were there when you were young that you can go to for that kind
6:32
Speaker0: of stuff is just so important because,
6:35
Speaker0: I mean, we have to take care of our heart.
6:37
Speaker0: But making sure that your kids have the freedom to be kids, your wife has the
6:41
Speaker0: freedom to be yourself, and that your congregation, your elder board isn't just
6:45
Speaker0: hearing you gripe about them is, I think, very important.
6:49
Speaker1: Yeah, I just, I totally agree, especially about the mentors.
6:53
Speaker1: So I just had, since last week, I had lunch with, he used to be my youth minister.
6:59
Speaker1: So he, we got to know each other when we were 14 years old. When I was 14, he wasn't 14.
7:05
Speaker1: That would be a very interesting youth minister. If he was 14 and I was 14,
7:09
Speaker1: that'd be a fun youth group, I guess. But, you know, I was 14 years old and
7:12
Speaker1: we've known each other for many years.
7:14
Speaker1: And so it has developed into, yes, he's definitely a mentor, but it's a friendship.
7:21
Speaker1: It goes both ways now because we're in different seasons of our life.
7:24
Speaker1: And it is, you know, you leave those times just with your soul spiritually refreshed
7:31
Speaker1: because you have someone to talk to that knows you,
7:36
Speaker1: I mean, for years and years and years, and he's still stuck around.
7:40
Speaker1: He's known me since I was a teenager, and he's still stuck around.
7:42
Speaker1: He still talks to me. So that's a good sign, right?
7:45
Speaker0: I praise God for that, those kind of mentors and leaders.
7:49
Speaker0: Well, let me give my take real quick, and then I'll ask you guys one more question
7:52
Speaker0: in closing along these lines. I was, like I said, raised sort of with that idea,
7:57
Speaker0: be careful about being friends in the congregation.
7:59
Speaker0: And I basically ignored that advice, but tried to walk in the kind of wisdom
8:06
Speaker0: that Dr. Stewart was exhorting.
8:09
Speaker0: I have found some of the deepest friendships of my life in the congregation
8:15
Speaker0: of churches I've pastored. Obviously,
8:17
Speaker0: all the cautions you guys said are incredibly, incredibly important.
8:21
Speaker0: Even just this past week, though, I had a situation, an external situation outside
8:26
Speaker0: of the church that was relatively frustrating to me. And I wanted to get some wisdom.
8:30
Speaker0: And so I texted our head deacon.
8:32
Speaker0: His name's Gary. Shout out Gary. He's older than me and got a lot of experience.
8:37
Speaker0: And we talked on the phone.
8:39
Speaker0: And just having that kind of a relationship with a guy like that in your church, it's.
8:45
Speaker0: It was invaluable wisdom from him. And I would say if you're a pastor,
8:50
Speaker0: look for those kind of people who you really can trust that will not,
8:54
Speaker0: you know, knife you in the back.
8:55
Speaker0: That's good advice for any friendship.
8:58
Speaker0: But find some people who will hold your secrets with integrity or whatever, not secrets.
9:05
Speaker0: Just hold your conversations with integrity.
9:08
Speaker0: We ordained, well, not ordained. We introduced some new deacons to the church
9:11
Speaker0: Sunday and my wife took a picture of them. We have nine now.
9:15
Speaker0: And she sent the picture to me after church, after I woke up from my nap.
9:19
Speaker0: And I always take a nap on Sundays. And just seeing those guys just filled my heart with.
9:26
Speaker0: Incredible joy because there's such a wide variety from age early to 70s,
9:34
Speaker0: all sorts of backgrounds and
9:36
Speaker0: just delightful guys that love Jesus and are spotty like the rest of us.
9:40
Speaker0: I know that's not every pastor's experience with deacons, but I am grateful
9:45
Speaker0: for the team that we have.
9:46
Speaker0: So one last kind of question, and I think this is an issue that may prevent
9:51
Speaker0: pastors from having deep friendships outside of the church. I think it's the Barna study.
9:57
Speaker0: Yeah, it's Barna, George Barna study that says only one in three pastors.
10:02
Speaker0: So, you know, one third of pastors have someone outside their church they can
10:07
Speaker0: confide in with deep issues.
10:09
Speaker0: And if that person is like, well, I can't be friends with people in the church
10:13
Speaker0: and I don't have friends outside of the church, obviously they're headed for a huge shipwreck.
10:17
Speaker0: And my take on one of the dynamics there, And I think Dr. Stewart and Pastor
10:22
Speaker0: Grant and probably Dr. Chris too, you guys can identify with this.
10:25
Speaker0: When I go to church on Sunday morning or I go to for a, you know,
10:30
Speaker0: Wednesday night or any kind of get together, basically a hundred,
10:34
Speaker0: it feels like maybe 110% of the time I'm talking and interacting with people.
10:39
Speaker0: Like from the moment I set foot on the property to usually the last one out.
10:44
Speaker0: And I think you can come out of that, even if you're delighted with the people
10:48
Speaker0: you're talking to, you can come out of that a little over-peopled,
10:52
Speaker0: which might mean the first couple of days of the week, you're like, hey,
10:56
Speaker0: I just, you know, I need to sit in a dark closet and not talk to anybody.
11:00
Speaker0: So given that dynamic, what are some practical ways you guys have found that.
11:05
Speaker0: We've already hinted around at some of them, but as we go out,
11:09
Speaker0: what are some practical ways you guys have found for pastors who might struggle
11:13
Speaker0: a little bit with overpeopling, oversaturation, time schedules?
11:17
Speaker0: How do we make good, deep friends that we can really confide in?
11:21
Speaker1: Well, I think you're probably speaking as an introvert because the extrovert,
11:26
Speaker1: he's just, he's dancing on clouds as he leads church because he had all the,
11:31
Speaker1: he had more conversations in a short period of time.
11:35
Speaker1: So I'm really normally jazzed when I leave church, and I'm normally thinking
11:40
Speaker1: about, who didn't I say hello to?
11:42
Speaker0: I think about that, too, yeah.
11:45
Speaker1: And who wasn't there? And so I'm pretty jazzed about that, which is also a trap
11:51
Speaker1: because in the sense of, for me, I try to get quiet.
11:56
Speaker1: Sheila and I always have lunch together, might have it with other people.
11:59
Speaker1: But I like to try to get quiet in the afternoon and just thank God for the work
12:05
Speaker1: he's doing inside the congregation I was with that day and make sure I have
12:09
Speaker1: that kind of conversation with him.
12:11
Speaker1: But the overpeopling, it just depends on how God's wired you.
12:15
Speaker1: And you've got to do people.
12:18
Speaker1: You've got to do people. We once had a pastor who came and told me he really
12:21
Speaker1: needed to confess something to me.
12:23
Speaker1: I said, what is it? He said, I don't like kids.
12:26
Speaker1: Yeah. I don't like kids. I said, and have the parents noticed?
12:31
Speaker1: That is kind of a requirement. I don't know if anybody told you,
12:35
Speaker1: but there is a story about Jesus and kids.
12:38
Speaker1: I thought to myself, I've never encountered this before. You don't like kids.
12:44
Speaker1: And this is going to be a challenge for you to, you know, be excited about your
12:47
Speaker1: children's ministry really growing.
12:49
Speaker1: So I just think, you know, you understand who God has made you.
12:54
Speaker1: But, you know, you're just going to have to, you know, work that out for yourself
12:58
Speaker1: about even an extrovert, he will do too much people.
13:02
Speaker1: And that's what he'll be drawn to all. He won't do the alone time that he needs to do with God.
13:08
Speaker1: And so I think they're both, you know, they're both healthy tensions in that.
13:11
Speaker1: But take the day off. Don't answer your phone.
13:15
Speaker1: Don't read 900 emails on your day off. You know, set your timer,
13:19
Speaker1: set your settings that, hey, I'm unavailable right now.
13:22
Speaker1: Now, nobody does that, but that's what we should do to say that we can be recharged
13:27
Speaker1: and we're going to focus on our family. And I got those tools are all there.
13:31
Speaker1: And I am, you know, I'm guilty of, you know, physician heal thyself.
13:35
Speaker1: But if I really want that, if I really want to make sure I'm balanced and careful,
13:40
Speaker1: I take a Sabbath and it's a real Sabbath.
13:43
Speaker1: And maybe that's a good word for somebody listening today.
13:46
Speaker1: Good word for me when I'm feeling kind of frazzled.
13:49
Speaker0: Absolutely. We're actually going to talk in the next couple episodes,
13:52
Speaker0: we're going to talk about how to rest like that. That's good.
13:54
Speaker0: So what do you guys think, Pastor Grant, Dr. Gris?
13:57
Speaker1: Yeah, I think that one way you can be over-peopled is we're constantly dealing
14:02
Speaker1: with difficult people or divisive
14:04
Speaker1: people or, you know, people that just kind of consume your energy.
14:08
Speaker1: So even though that you're, you know, you might be around different people, you're okay with that.
14:15
Speaker1: Your personality is okay with that. It's the nature of the relationship that
14:20
Speaker1: makes it more difficult. Because people know, okay, that's the pastor.
14:25
Speaker1: He's got it all together. He's, you know, he's the one that knows everything
14:29
Speaker1: and he knows the scripture and he knows.
14:31
Speaker1: And so that puts you, you know, putting you on that pedestal and seeing you
14:36
Speaker1: as an authority on everything.
14:39
Speaker1: And that can be challenging because the fact is we're people,
14:45
Speaker1: you know, we have difficult days and we have struggles.
14:49
Speaker1: And a lot of times we just don't have that avenue like others have to talk about
14:55
Speaker1: the problems that we have to deal with in our family.
14:59
Speaker1: Grant mentioned earlier, you know, to protect your family.
15:02
Speaker1: And it's not just us, but our whole family is affected by this calling that
15:08
Speaker1: God has placed on our lives.
15:09
Speaker1: So we, again, I just go back to we just have to be intentional about it because we get so busy.
15:16
Speaker1: And there's always so much to do, and we just have to make it a priority in
15:21
Speaker1: our lives because the best gift
15:23
Speaker1: that we can give to our churches and our family is a healthy me, right?
15:29
Speaker1: And so if I'm not in a good place, if I'm not serving and ministering from the
15:35
Speaker1: overflow of what God is doing in my life, and that includes the community of
15:40
Speaker1: others and the love that I have for others, then it's not going to be real.
15:44
Speaker1: And it's not going to be a place where we can truly see God work in a miraculous
15:52
Speaker1: way that we have that genuine community that's around us.
15:59
Speaker0: Excellent quotable. That's going to be in the show notes. Good job,
16:01
Speaker0: Dr. Chris. And that leaves you with the last word for us, Pastor Grant. What do you got?
16:06
Speaker1: Yeah, I would just add two things.
16:07
Speaker0: I think, first of all, you got to be purposeful with your schedule.
16:11
Speaker0: If you have a wide open calendar and you're just sitting here wondering who's
16:16
Speaker0: going to fill it, it will get filled and that will be exhausting.
16:20
Speaker0: So to have some ideas about who is it that I should be connecting with,
16:26
Speaker0: who is it that I'm pouring into right now?
16:28
Speaker0: I can't be pouring into 100 people, but I can be pouring into 10 or 15 over the course of a month.
16:34
Speaker0: So who is it that I'm discipling? Who is it that I'm connecting with?
16:37
Speaker0: Who is it that really needs me that I'm going to make time for?
16:41
Speaker0: And then, of course, you have to be interruptible and approachable.
16:44
Speaker0: And when somebody has a crisis or there's, look, Jesus loves difficult people, too.
16:50
Speaker0: You need to treat them like Jesus was there.
16:53
Speaker0: So there has to be that. But I think you have to be purposeful with your calendar.
16:57
Speaker1: And then the
16:58
Speaker0: Other thing that I think is a skill that takes years and years to grow.
17:02
Speaker0: You can say this and it's easy to understand, but it takes a long time.
17:05
Speaker0: But I think it's just really important to decide who has your ear and who doesn't. So a.
17:13
Speaker1: Lot of people
17:14
Speaker0: Are going to say stuff.
17:15
Speaker0: And not everybody's, all of the information is not equal.
17:19
Speaker1: And so I
17:20
Speaker0: Have some people in my church that go, hey, just so you know,
17:23
Speaker0: you're a lousy pastor and I can't believe you can even tie your shoes.
17:27
Speaker0: And you go, well, thank you very much. I'll see you at the potluck,
17:30
Speaker0: you know, and you just, you just have to let that go.
17:32
Speaker0: Like, you're just going to have to say, Jesus, they might be right.
17:36
Speaker1: I might, but you've called a dummy like
17:39
Speaker0: Me and here we go. But then there's other people who go, hey,
17:43
Speaker0: you know, Grant, you really missed it right here. Or we saw the way you responded
17:47
Speaker0: to somebody or Grant, we've noticed this in your life.
17:51
Speaker0: And you go, oh, no, these are people that I need to listen to when they have something for me.
17:57
Speaker0: So learning to discern that not every interaction, like you,
18:02
Speaker0: even as a relative introvert, not every interaction wears me out.
18:06
Speaker0: I'm here to love this person, but they don't have my heart.
18:10
Speaker0: But then there's other people that really have my heart and I need to pay attention.
18:15
Speaker0: And so learning that.
18:17
Speaker1: Skill and then,
18:19
Speaker0: You know, being wise with your calendar, I think are helpful.
18:23
Speaker0: Well, that's a great place to end. Guys, I think this has been a conversation
18:27
Speaker0: that went about 25 minutes more than I expected.
18:30
Speaker0: And I think every minute was valuable. You got a mixture of really deep spiritual
18:36
Speaker0: encouragement and probably some exhortation as well if you're a pastor or a church leader.
18:41
Speaker0: But you also probably, to use kind of a more modern phrase,
18:45
Speaker0: you probably felt seen if you're a pastor or church leader because I think all
18:50
Speaker0: of these guys really gave us some of the benefits of their decades of experience
18:56
Speaker0: in various roles in the church.
18:58
Speaker0: So I hope that conversation was helpful and encouraging for you and opened up
19:03
Speaker0: your thinking on the whole issue of relationships.
19:05
Speaker0: Now we've got another deep topic to dive into, but between the two deep topics,
19:11
Speaker0: we're going to be really shallow and really sweet right now.
19:15
Speaker0: The soda I've got to review today is fascinating.
19:20
Speaker0: I love cereal and I love soda.
19:24
Speaker0: And this is a drink that claims to combine both of those loves.
19:31
Speaker0: And it's called Liquid Death Cereal Criminal Fruity Pebbles Flavor.
19:37
Speaker0: And I'm really looking forward to trying this. Upcoming episodes of the show,
19:41
Speaker0: we've got a couple of submissions from listeners that have been scent in,
19:45
Speaker0: Iron Brew, the soda made in Scotland from Girders, and Cheerwine,
19:51
Speaker0: which is a soda from the south,
19:53
Speaker0: both of which I'm really looking forward to tasting and reviewing,
19:56
Speaker0: but we're not going to do those tonight because as I record this,
20:01
Speaker0: it's pretty late and they both have caffeine in it.
20:04
Speaker0: So before I get to the review, let's do a little quick.
20:08
Speaker0: Fruity Pebbles trivia, one of my favorite cereals.
20:11
Speaker0: Unlike Froot Loops, which all taste the same despite having different colors,
20:17
Speaker0: the individual flakes in Fruity Pebbles actually do have distinct flavor notes.
20:22
Speaker0: The yellow, green, and oranges are kind of citrusy. The reds,
20:26
Speaker0: blues, and purple are more berry flavored.
20:30
Speaker0: Fruity Pebbles is a cereal that is older than me, and I'm a pretty old dude.
20:35
Speaker0: They were first introduced on the West Coast in 1969, and they were called pebbles at the time,
20:42
Speaker0: but they were very popular, and that led to a national distribution under the
20:47
Speaker0: name Fruity Pebbles, and in 1970,
20:51
Speaker0: shortly after that, Cocoa Pebbles was introduced.
20:54
Speaker0: So Fruity Pebbles came first, then Cocoa Pebbles.
20:57
Speaker0: Originally, they were going to be called Flint Chips and Rubble Stones,
21:02
Speaker0: and unfortunately, Unfortunately.
21:05
Speaker0: Or fortunately, if you're a doctor or a nutritionist, Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa
21:09
Speaker0: Pebbles were reformulated in the early 2010s to reduce the amount of sugar.
21:16
Speaker0: When I was growing up, Fruity Pebbles had 12 grams of sugar per three-quarter cup serving.
21:24
Speaker0: Now it's only nine grams, and I can taste the difference.
21:28
Speaker0: It's not quite as good. In the 1980s, the wrestler Hulk Hogan sued Post because
21:36
Speaker0: of a commercial that featured Fred and Barney Flintstone wrestling a character called Hulk Boulder.
21:43
Speaker0: So, let's give this thing a taste and see how it is. It's got a great can.
21:50
Speaker0: It's bright, colorful red with a gold top. It looks expensive.
21:56
Speaker0: Oh my, it has a good smell. Look, if you've ever had Fruity Pebbles before,
22:01
Speaker0: I don't know of any other fruit flavor that tastes like Fruity Pebbles.
22:07
Speaker0: And look, as far as I'm concerned, 50-something-year-old dude,
22:10
Speaker0: I love the taste of Fruity Pebbles.
22:13
Speaker0: It's so good, and if this soda's half as good, I'll be impressed. Here we go.
22:20
Speaker0: Wow. And I don't know how they did it, but they somehow captured that unique
22:27
Speaker0: taste of Fruity Pebbles.
22:29
Speaker0: This is good. It only has 10 calories.
22:34
Speaker0: Scratch that. It only has 15 calories.
22:38
Speaker0: And it doesn't seem to have any of those artificial sweeteners that are kind of dangerous.
22:44
Speaker0: It's got a great taste. The only problem is the aftertaste is a little slightly
22:50
Speaker0: off, not quite as good as a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. One more sip.
22:55
Speaker0: But man, I really taste the Fruity Pebbles, which is incredible for a soda.
23:00
Speaker0: I'm going to give this four and a quarter Spurgeons out of five.
23:05
Speaker0: Again, the only thing that keeps it from going higher is that slightly weird
23:10
Speaker0: aftertaste. The first flavor you get is like a five Spurgeon's soda and you
23:16
Speaker0: think you are about to be in heaven.
23:20
Speaker0: And then the aftertaste kicks in and you realize you're in soda purgatory.
23:25
Speaker0: But still, it's not a bad purgatory to be in.
23:28
Speaker0: Four and a quarter Spurgeon's out of five.
23:31
Speaker0: Now we're going to grind those gears and shift hard going from a silly soda
23:36
Speaker0: review to a very, very deep topic. We're going to talk about grief.
23:42
Speaker0: We have, my wife and I have some very dear friends that are right now going
23:45
Speaker0: through the valley of death.
23:47
Speaker0: Not the shadow, the valley of death with their precious daughter.
23:52
Speaker0: It's unimaginably hard, and if you're a pastor or a church leader,
23:57
Speaker0: one of the hardest, most important, but also hardest parts of being a pastor
24:02
Speaker0: is helping people who are going through grief.
24:05
Speaker0: And it's hard because grief hurts, and we have a natural inborn tendency,
24:10
Speaker0: almost every human I've ever met, to want to avoid it.
24:14
Speaker0: Now, I understand not all grief is rooted in death or the danger of death.
24:19
Speaker0: Some griefs are related to divorce and depression and all sorts of things like that.
24:26
Speaker0: But many griefs are rooted in death. And I'm going to focus in a little bit on that today.
24:32
Speaker0: And the problem with death-related grief is it brings us in close contact with
24:39
Speaker0: the literal last enemy, which is death.
24:42
Speaker0: Now, most people might naturally think that God will deal with Satan as potentially
24:48
Speaker0: the worst enemy of the people of God last in some climactic way.
24:52
Speaker0: And indeed, Revelation 20 in the Bible does indicate that God will throw the
24:57
Speaker0: devil into the lake of fire, but he is not the last enemy to go.
25:02
Speaker0: Both Revelation chapter 20 and 1 Corinthians 15, 26 teach that the last enemy
25:09
Speaker0: to be abolished is death.
25:12
Speaker0: And grief brings us close to death. And buddy, that is one scary enemy.
25:18
Speaker0: But pastoring and counseling people in grief isn't just hard because of that dynamic.
25:24
Speaker0: It's also hard because it's difficult to know what to say to somebody who is
25:30
Speaker0: being crushed under the heavy burden of grief.
25:32
Speaker0: And there's a dual dynamic working here.
25:35
Speaker0: First, it's easy and common to say trite, awful, and unhelpful things to people who are grieving.
25:43
Speaker0: And second, people who are grieving tend to remember those trite,
25:48
Speaker0: awful, and unhelpful things that are said to them when they are at their lowest,
25:53
Speaker0: and they remember those things clearly and painfully.
25:58
Speaker0: Many, many formally flourishing friendships have been weakened and even ended
26:04
Speaker0: because people say the wrong thing to their grieving friends and their grieving
26:10
Speaker0: friends at that lowest point of vulnerability find it difficult to forgive and impossible to forget.
26:18
Speaker0: As a pastor, I hear about this dynamic all the time. Our church,
26:23
Speaker0: which is not a huge church, has an.
26:27
Speaker0: An outsized number of parents who have lost precious children.
26:31
Speaker0: And these people are salt of the earth, pillars of the church.
26:36
Speaker0: They are not complainers by any stretch. They're some of our best servers and leaders.
26:42
Speaker0: But I've heard from some of them and others also who have been told silly,
26:47
Speaker0: painful, unhelpful, and untrue things when they were suffering.
26:52
Speaker0: And people remember those conversations all too well.
26:57
Speaker0: So in that spirit, as somebody who has stuck their foot in their mouth often
27:02
Speaker0: enough to remember what it tastes like, let's talk about some actually helpful
27:07
Speaker0: ways to minister to your grieving friends, co-workers, and church members.
27:12
Speaker0: These aren't quick tips and there's not 10 easy ways to fix your grieving friends
27:19
Speaker0: because quickness and efficiency are two things that will not aid your grieving friend at all.
27:27
Speaker0: Listen and understand, if your goal is to swoop in, say a few helpful words
27:33
Speaker0: that makes everything better and then swoop out, maybe you'd better do your
27:37
Speaker0: swooping somewhere else because that mindset will only lead to harm.
27:42
Speaker0: So here's some helps to help people who are grieving.
27:47
Speaker0: Number one, understand that grief, especially the grief that comes from the
27:52
Speaker0: loss of a spouse, a child, a mom, a dad, or a sibling, is overwhelming.
27:58
Speaker0: Potent, powerful, and potentially persistent throughout the remainder of life. And treat grief as...
28:07
Speaker0: In that kind of serious way. Don't expect it to blow over after a few days, weeks, or even years.
28:14
Speaker0: And don't expect to be able to make it better with your words,
28:18
Speaker0: with your phrases, with your sermons, or even with your Bible verses.
28:22
Speaker0: The promise of Jesus to wipe every tear from every eye comes to fruition at his second coming.
28:29
Speaker0: So some, honestly, many of us will be potentially weeping until that day.
28:35
Speaker0: A reformed Christian Reddit user named Paul Flower encapsulated the potency
28:41
Speaker0: of this grief in a post I read three years ago and kind of stuck with me.
28:46
Speaker0: He wrote about the experience of his wife in her mid-30s dying from cancer.
28:51
Speaker0: And this is what he said. And look, it's gut-wrenching, but we have to understand
28:56
Speaker0: this kind of thing to understand grief and how to help people with grief.
29:02
Speaker0: Paul says, When she finally breathed her last, I thought I would have some amount of relief.
29:07
Speaker0: Not so much from the four-year-long struggle, but relief that she was no longer suffering.
29:13
Speaker0: Instead, I still feel completely overwhelmed with grief and loss.
29:19
Speaker0: Life broken is the term I have for it, as opposed to heartbroken.
29:24
Speaker0: We were one flesh, and I don't take that primarily to refer to sex,
29:29
Speaker0: But to becoming a unified one, I think we were.
29:33
Speaker0: We did almost everything together, or tried. It became more difficult as her health declined.
29:40
Speaker0: We planned everything together. Together we built and planned our hobby farm,
29:45
Speaker0: gardens, flower beds, barn, animals, and pastures.
29:49
Speaker0: She decorated the house, arranged the furniture, made sure my jeans fit to her liking.
29:55
Speaker0: Two became one, and now half of that one is gone.
30:00
Speaker0: It isn't just a parting of friends. The one flesh has died.
30:04
Speaker0: My earthly life was fully intertwined with hers, and it died with her.
30:10
Speaker0: And it's overwhelming, the constant reminders of her non-presence,
30:15
Speaker0: the flood of memories, regrets, guilt, worries she suffered and wasn't completely
30:20
Speaker0: unconscious in her final hours,
30:22
Speaker0: guilt that I didn't hold her hand and talk to her continually in her final hours,
30:28
Speaker0: the constant desire to just talk to her and tell her what our daughters did today.
30:35
Speaker0: If we were friends to see somebody lose both their legs below the hips in some
30:42
Speaker0: sort of tragic railway accident, it would be illogical and insane to expect
30:48
Speaker0: them to be running again in a few months, right?
30:50
Speaker0: But sometimes we treat these kinds of profound grief like the one Paul is going through like that.
30:59
Speaker0: We think, hey, you're going to get better pretty soon, man.
31:03
Speaker0: Get over this. The non-sufferers, for any number of reasons,
31:08
Speaker0: they want their grieving friends to be back to normal quickly.
31:13
Speaker0: But grief does not work that way.
31:17
Speaker0: Charles Spurgeon is one of my heroes. He's one of Christ's mightiest preachers.
31:22
Speaker0: He carried lifelong grief from an incident that happened when he was a young
31:26
Speaker0: guy in ministry. And if Spurgeon wasn't able to overcome that kind of grief,
31:31
Speaker0: then I don't expect many of the rest of us are going to be able either.
31:36
Speaker0: That doesn't mean there isn't hope. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't comfort
31:40
Speaker0: the afflicted and sit with the suffering.
31:42
Speaker0: But it usually means that you will not be able to make them better with some
31:49
Speaker0: flowers, some chocolate, a Hallmark card, and a few cheer up texts.
31:54
Speaker0: And you know what? That's okay. They don't need you to band-aid their gaping wound.
32:01
Speaker0: They need you to be present during their grief.
32:05
Speaker0: Okay, a second way of being helpful for people who are going through grieving.
32:12
Speaker0: Run. Don't walk. Run away from platitudes.
32:18
Speaker0: A platitude is a silly thing we repeat to try to make people who are suffering feel better.
32:24
Speaker0: It's like a trite phrase.
32:27
Speaker0: God needed a new angel in heaven.
32:29
Speaker0: God won't give you more than you can bear. She's in a better place or he's in
32:34
Speaker0: a better place or God knows what he's doing.
32:37
Speaker0: A lot of these things are true, but they're trite.
32:42
Speaker0: Platitudes are overused, trite remarks delivered like they're profound or impressive
32:49
Speaker0: or novel, but they really actually lack thoughtfulness or emotional impact.
32:56
Speaker0: And platitudes should be no more part of your caretaking kit than a rusty,
33:01
Speaker0: double-bladed battle axe because both of those things are pretty much equally
33:06
Speaker0: harmful when they're used on grief-stricken people.
33:09
Speaker0: In almost every case, platitudes hurt more than they help.
33:14
Speaker0: They're like a hammer blow for a headache instead of ibuprofen or a cup of hydrocolloic
33:19
Speaker0: acid for heartburn instead of Rolaids.
33:22
Speaker0: They don't make people feel better, and very often they make them angry.
33:29
Speaker0: Death is a horrible thing to face, especially in a young child,
33:34
Speaker0: and our words are not going to make that better. A simple Bible verse is not
33:39
Speaker0: going to make that better.
33:41
Speaker0: Dr. Heather So is a counselor and psychologist who lost her four-year-old daughter,
33:46
Speaker0: Emily, in 2022 to terminal brain cancer.
33:51
Speaker0: She's written a book called The Suffering of a Child that basically documents
33:57
Speaker0: her family's journey through that terrible thing. And it has some great advice.
34:02
Speaker0: And look, it's a hard book to read. And that's some great advice for people
34:06
Speaker0: trying to help those in grief. And what she says is,
34:10
Speaker0: A comforting presence with few words is such a valuable gift when you are mourning.
34:17
Speaker0: The friends and family who don't feel the need to say much to me,
34:22
Speaker0: who can just sit with me as I cry or hold my hand for even a few seconds.
34:28
Speaker0: The people who hurt with us.
34:31
Speaker0: These simple moments mean the most to me when our spirits are quiet and present with each other.
34:39
Speaker0: There's no whitewashing of the pain. It's just allowed to be,
34:43
Speaker0: and it is enveloped in their love. That's beautiful.
34:48
Speaker0: And that's what people need. They don't need us to solve their problem.
34:53
Speaker0: They need us to sit in their problem with them and to bear their burden to,
34:59
Speaker0: as the Bible says, weep with those who weep.
35:03
Speaker0: C.S. Lewis is another giant of the faith, and he watched his wife, Joy, die from cancer.
35:08
Speaker0: And afterwards wrote a book called A Grief Observed. And in it,
35:12
Speaker0: he said this, and it's going to sound weird coming from a strong Christian like Lewis.
35:17
Speaker0: He said, talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly.
35:21
Speaker0: Talk to me about the duty of religion, Christianity, and I'll listen submissively.
35:27
Speaker0: But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion,
35:33
Speaker0: or I will suspect that you don't understand.
35:38
Speaker0: Of course, I quite agree, says Lewis, that the Christian religion is,
35:42
Speaker0: in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort.
35:46
Speaker0: But it doesn't begin in comfort. It begins in dismay.
35:49
Speaker0: If you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end.
35:53
Speaker0: If you look for comfort, you'll not get either comfort or truth,
35:59
Speaker0: only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair.
36:05
Speaker0: In other words, Lewis is explaining that Christian truth,
36:10
Speaker0: as potent and powerful as it is, as wonderful as our hope in the resurrection
36:16
Speaker0: is, does not yet fully assuage the pain of loss.
36:22
Speaker0: When faced with the loss of his friend Lazarus and his friend's emotional response
36:27
Speaker0: to that loss, Mary and Martha's sadness, Jesus, who knew he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead?
36:35
Speaker0: Still wept because grief is potent to human beings.
36:41
Speaker0: A third bit of counsel to help people who are grieving.
36:47
Speaker0: Don't try to suppress somebody's grief or their tears or their sobbing or their
36:54
Speaker0: weeping or their suffering or whatever expression of grief they have.
37:00
Speaker0: Like we just said, Jesus wept. Paul wept. Many mighty men and women of God in the Bible wept.
37:07
Speaker0: Psalm 56.8 tells us that God keeps track of our tears in a good way.
37:13
Speaker0: David says, you yourself have recorded my wanderings, put my tears in your bottle.
37:19
Speaker0: Are they not in your records?
37:23
Speaker0: And Job, when faced with incredible grief and suffering, said,
37:30
Speaker0: In Job 1, verse 20, it says, he rose and tore his robe and shaved his head and
37:35
Speaker0: fell on the ground and worshiped.
37:37
Speaker0: And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return.
37:44
Speaker0: The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
37:50
Speaker0: John Piper commenting on Job's response to losing his children says,
37:56
Speaker0: the sobs of grief and pain we see in Job are not the sign of unbelief.
38:03
Speaker0: Job knows nothing of a flippant, insensitive, superficial, praise God anyhow response to suffering.
38:13
Speaker0: The magnificence of his worship is because it was in grief, not because it replaced grief.
38:21
Speaker0: So let your tears flow freely when your calamity comes, and let the rest of
38:26
Speaker0: us weep with those who weep.
38:28
Speaker0: Grief and tears are not the signs of weak faith, but normal and healthy responses
38:35
Speaker0: to the brokenness of this world.
38:39
Speaker0: It is absolutely true, as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4.13,
38:43
Speaker0: a Christian grieves differently.
38:46
Speaker0: He says, we don't want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who
38:49
Speaker0: are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope.
38:53
Speaker0: But that doesn't mean we don't grieve.
38:57
Speaker0: Christians grieve. The maturest of Christians grieve. We just grieve with hope.
39:03
Speaker0: And I'll add three more tips to that. pretty much word for word from a guy you
39:09
Speaker0: might be familiar with named Tim Challies.
39:11
Speaker0: Tim is a reformed writer at Challies.com, a guy I greatly respect.
39:16
Speaker0: He's also an elder in his church.
39:19
Speaker0: He lost his precious son, Nick, in 2020.
39:23
Speaker0: Kid who was in great health, just about to get married, going into the ministry.
39:28
Speaker0: He just dropped dead suddenly, and it's such a tragedy.
39:34
Speaker0: And afterwards, Or just Chalice wrote a book about it that walked through the
39:39
Speaker0: grieving process. And he's written several posts since then,
39:42
Speaker0: some of which are very helpful for those of us whose role it is to comfort those who are suffering.
39:48
Speaker0: And he gives a lot of tips, and I'm just going to give you three of them here.
39:52
Speaker0: He says, tell those who are grieving that I am praying for you.
39:56
Speaker0: This is the one thing every person can do. And one thing that is simplest to
40:00
Speaker0: say, when a family has experienced a deep loss, you You can intercede for them
40:06
Speaker0: and then, as a means of encouragement, simply let them know that you've been doing so.
40:11
Speaker0: You may even let them know how you've been praying for them,
40:15
Speaker0: perhaps what scriptures you've been praying on their behalf.
40:19
Speaker0: One word from the word is worth a thousand from anywhere else.
40:23
Speaker0: Number two, he says, tell those who are grieving that I will never grow tired of your grief.
40:32
Speaker0: Deep loss is very nearly all-consuming. For weeks and months and years,
40:38
Speaker0: it can completely dominate a life.
40:41
Speaker0: The one who is experiencing the grief will soon begin to fear becoming an annoyance to others.
40:48
Speaker0: To fear, they will wonder why he or she isn't yet over it.
40:53
Speaker0: It is a tremendous blessing then to have one or two trusted friends offer this assurance.
40:59
Speaker0: I will never grow tired of your grief. This makes those friends a safe harbor
41:05
Speaker0: for expressing sorrow, whether weeks, months, or even years later.
41:11
Speaker0: It blesses the sufferer to know they will always have someone who will listen
41:16
Speaker0: patiently as they pour out their broken hearts.
41:19
Speaker0: And I can barely read this right now because I know we have dear friends who
41:24
Speaker0: are going through this right now.
41:26
Speaker0: They are on the cusp of losing their precious daughter. And that is not something
41:31
Speaker0: that is going to feel better in a few weeks or a few months or a few years.
41:35
Speaker0: They will need friends who will sit with them in their grief 27 years from now
41:41
Speaker0: when it still stings and we're waiting for Jesus to come back and wipe every tear from our eye.
41:49
Speaker0: And that's how grief is. It's permissive.
41:53
Speaker0: It's pervasive. It's permanent with one caveat that Jesus is one day going to
42:01
Speaker0: put it away forever. And praise God for that.
42:05
Speaker0: Number three tip from Tim Challies. Tell those who are grieving that you remember
42:11
Speaker0: and cherish their loved one.
42:13
Speaker0: It's so helpful to say one of my favorite memories about your son or daughter
42:20
Speaker0: or wife or husband or sister or brother is, and then tell a story.
42:24
Speaker0: A fear of all parents and people who've lost a child and those close to them
42:29
Speaker0: is that their person will be forgotten, which would in turn make them feel like
42:35
Speaker0: their child or their person's life didn't matter.
42:38
Speaker0: For this reason, sharing favorite memories is often a means of encouragement.
42:43
Speaker0: Most parents long to know those stories and to laugh and cry as they hear them.
42:50
Speaker0: So I hope just those few tips will equip you and help you to be a loving friend, a loving pastor,
43:01
Speaker0: a loving co-sufferer with people who are going through grief.
43:06
Speaker0: Because we are all going to go through grief before everything is said and done.
43:11
Speaker0: And we are all going to be in that position where we are waiting for Jesus to
43:16
Speaker0: return, crying out maranatha every night because our hearts are broken and our eyes are leaking.
43:24
Speaker0: And we all need to help each other through that.
43:28
Speaker0: I want to close out today with a great and hopeful passage from Jesus.
43:34
Speaker0: And this will not extinguish your grief, I don't think. If it does, fantastic.
43:42
Speaker0: It's not likely to. One day it will.
43:46
Speaker0: The fact of Easter and the resurrection is not so much that it extinguishes
43:52
Speaker0: our grief permanently, that won't happen until Jesus comes back,
43:56
Speaker0: but it accompanies our grief.
43:59
Speaker0: It puts it in perspective.
44:01
Speaker0: It often shrinks it, and it gives us hope.
44:07
Speaker0: And here's a great and hopeful passage that you can carry alongside your grief.
44:12
Speaker0: John 14, 18, Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans.
44:19
Speaker0: I am coming to you. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.
44:26
Speaker0: Because I live, you will live too.
44:28
Speaker0: On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.
44:34
Speaker0: The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me,
44:38
Speaker0: and the one who loves me will be loved my Father.
44:41
Speaker0: I will also love him and will reveal myself to him.
44:47
Speaker0: So friends, even today, we have this promise that we will not be left as orphans.
44:52
Speaker0: And we have this promise that if we walk in the ways of Jesus.
44:55
Speaker0: Obeying him, he will reveal himself to us.
44:59
Speaker0: And I hope that's equipped to you to walk with your grief and hope and to help
45:04
Speaker0: other people walk with their grief and hope.
45:07
Speaker0: We got some more great interviews coming up for you next week with Pastor Grant Combs, then Dr.
45:13
Speaker0: Chris Smith, and Pastor Chris Cole.
45:16
Speaker0: I can't wait for them, and I hope you are enjoying the podcast.
45:20
Speaker0: If you do, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell some folks about the show.
45:26
Speaker0: In the meantime, check out our website at everychurchflourishing.com.
45:31
Speaker0: That's everychurchflourishing.com. Thanks for listening.
45:35
Speaker0: Good day to you, and Godspeed.