Latest / Better Preaching Podcast / BP2 Season 2 Episode 4 – Ben Cachiaras | Called to Preach
Transcript
- Dr. Frank Weller: Ben Cocheris, welcome to the Better Preaching Podcast. ⁓ Hey. ⁓ Ben Cachiaras: It's to be here. Frank Weller. Dr. Frank Weller: Tell us a little bit about yourself and about Mountain Christian Church. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah. ⁓ well it's great to be with you. ⁓ I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation. ⁓ I I come to you ⁓ from Minnesota right now where I'm on a little bit of a a study break vacation, but I serve at a church in ⁓ in b right outside of Baltimore, Maryland. It's called Mountain Christian Church. It's two hundred and one years old and ⁓ it's got a lot of a lot of great ⁓ history to it. I've been there thirty of those years and ⁓ it's a it's a wonderful, vibrant, growing church with multi campus and lots of diversity and getting ready to put up another campus and we have some community centers and some things that are making quite a dent for the gospel. We're real excited about that. but I I'm married to Carla and we have three kids, three adult kids. One's a pastor, one's a computer tech guy, and one teaches English as second language, so That's a little bit about me. That's us. Dr. Frank Weller: And Minnesota's your happy place, isn't it? Ben Cachiaras: It is. Grew up here. I've got a lot of connections here, a lot of friends and family and ⁓ have been here every summer of my life and ⁓ I'm ⁓ I wish I you wish you could see the lake I'm looking at right now, ⁓ out the window. It's it's great. And ⁓ I'm able to get up here for a little bit every summer usually. Dr. Frank Weller: Yeah, including surprisingly, my brother in law. You guys have some shared history. My brother in law Marty Genong, you guys kinda grew up together there, didn't you? Ben Cachiaras: Well, Marty and Jim, honestly, whom we just lost ⁓ to the to the went over to the other side to be with the Lord. But ⁓ yes, it's a funny ⁓ Howie Ganong, ⁓ whom I was able to visit when I was out your way recently, worked at ⁓ Minnesota Bible College, changed his name to Crossroads College, but he and my dad were colleagues there together. And so their family was dear to us. And son Marty, ⁓ Dr. Frank Weller: Uh-huh. Ben Cachiaras: was ⁓ worked at camp with me and his brother Jim as well and went on some canoe trips together. And then when I went to seminary at a manual, moved in and lo and behold, next door neighbors were Marty and Tina. So we got to spend some time with Marty and Tina ⁓ Gnong, whom you know very well, just devoted missionaries and translators and love their work. So Dr. Frank Weller: Yeah, and now I get to be their next door neighbor. They live right next door to Tracy and me. Hey, I'm I'm excited to talk to you about your call to preaching. Before I do, I just want to pause for a moment and say that the Better Preaching Podcast is powered by Great Lakes Christian College. GLCC is training the next generation of servant leaders for the church and world, and our undergraduate programs and new master's degree in practical theology bring together biblical depth and practical application. Ben Cachiaras: Okay. ⁓ very cool. I didn't know. Dr. Frank Weller: Students get authentic Christianity, excellent academics and affordability at GLCC. And for more details, you can go to glcc.edu. Ben, you experienced a call to preach that I thought sounded kind of unique. Can you tell us about that? Ben Cachiaras: Well, this is that's a it's a great question, a loaded question. And ⁓ like I just got back from Kenya and I've learned when you get back from a trip like that, you have to be ready with the thirty second answer when they say, How was your trip? Or the three minute answer, or the the the thirty minute answer, or the three hour answer, and I've got answers ⁓ like that for your question. I'll try to give you something less than the three hours or the thirty minutes, but maybe a little more than the thirty second. Dr. Frank Weller: Yeah. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah, I I feel like my whole life looking back, y y you know, calling is a funny thing to understand, but there are so many influences in your life along the way that sometimes you can see when you look back in the rearview mirror of faith and you see the people that invested in you and identified gifts that you had and gave you opportunities. And I would say my calling to ministry is a collection of all of that. ⁓ growing up with heroes who were preachers. Going to camp and ⁓ those preachers and youth ministers that showed up there that made that an attractive thing and then gave me opportunities to to do things. I I I I I would say even like I worked at camp with Marty and and we washed dishes. And one day when I was in about seventh grade, they said, All right, Ben, you you be the one to explain to all the kids how to clean their plates. And there was a very particular way we had to do that. You stood up and you Had to clean your plate a certain way and put the things in learning having those kind of opportunities where people let you try to stand up and say something, you never think about it at the time, but looking back, those little deposits give you sort of confidence and help you imagine yourself ⁓ in front of people saying something and c learning how to construct a thought clearly and and then people give you opportunities. And so my calling is a collection of all of that. ⁓ but but the the thing that kind of brought it to a head. And maybe this is what you're referring to, is my grandfather was a remarkable, remarkable person. He he was a a preacher, he was a Greek immigrant who came to Christ down at Johnson Bible College, way back. It's a whole story with Ashley Johnson and it's a story for another podcast probably, but ⁓ came to Christ and became a preacher there back in the early 1900s. And then in nineteen nineteen, he went up to Minnesota Bible College and was a staple there. From nineteen nineteen till he died in nineteen eighty-three. So that's a long run, you know. And yeah, all those years though, he was a preacher. And ⁓ in addition to being the dean of students and, you know, a number of other things, but he had a way about him of ⁓ just his passion for the Lord was so deep, and his love of the scriptures and his belief in in that we needed we needed, you know, the best cream of the crop to give themselves to ministry. And so Dr. Frank Weller: Wow, I guess so. Ben Cachiaras: ⁓ here I was, ⁓ kind of not really thinking very seriously about my calling, so to speak. I don't know how much you think about that when you're a junior in high school, high school and senior. ⁓ I grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, which is the home of the Mail Clinic. And the Mail Clinic ⁓ is a world-class place, and a a lot of my friends were doctors' kids. And I was decent at school, and you know, I had a lot of people saying, Well, you maybe that's a path that I could take. It's a noble profession, and yada yada. So I was kind of leaning that direction a little bit in my mind. Maybe I'll go into medicine and was thinking about that. And and then I went to camp, ⁓ this little ⁓ Christian camp. It's a beautiful place that my grandfather and others helped start way back in the day, up here on this same lake. And it's where I'd given my life to Christ, in a little dusty chapel, ⁓ right by the highway at Pine Haven Christian Assembly. And ⁓ gave my life to Christ there, walked down that aisle and committed my life there and was baptized in that lake. And then some years later, when I was in high school, there was a weekend camp of high school students and ⁓ and college kids, and I was one of those people, and my 80, 90-some year old grandfather was preaching. So you can picture that scene: hot chapel, ⁓ you know, folding chairs, bunch of kids, and they were riveted. To this old man out of their respect for him, but also his passion, his preaching. And he preached a good sermon, and at the end he made an invitation for people to give their life to Christ. And I, as I recall, I think a couple did. But then before he left off, he said, no, wait a second. I want to make another invitation. And I want to make a call for somebody here who wants to give the best energy of your life to serving the local church. You want to be a preacher and you know it. And he said, I want you to come up here and I want you to stand and declare that. So it was bold, it was clear, and it was sort of ⁓ we were all thinking, you know, let's let's go. It's time to get a break and go to canteen or something. And and but it was it was a profound moment where all of a sudden ⁓ everything that I I kind of already knew surfaced. He gave it, he gave it a reason. Yeah, I already kind of knew that that's w what I was built to do and what I wanted to do and was called to do, but I I I think sometimes in life you have to kind of like, well, I could do that. You have to flirt with it a little bit. And once you get satisfied, I could do that. Then you can really start thinking, what am I, what am I really meant to do? What am I called to do? And he said something else at the end of that call. He said, ⁓ now he said, I'm I want to invite you to come forward if if you want to give your life to dedicating yourself to to giving the best energy of your life to the work of the local church and to preach the gospel. And he says, now just a second, he says, if you think to yourself, Yeah, I could probably do that. He says, I'm not talking to you. He says, I'm talking to the one who knows you can't do anything else and have peace with God. And I just melted because it was it. Now I look back as an old man I realize now he probably was talking to me. He was what you we've heard those expressions like, ⁓ it was like he was talking to me. Now I realize he probably was talking to me. He knew I was there. And ⁓ so you know, a few years after I had given my life to Christ in that little chapel at that camp, here I was. Dr. Frank Weller: That's a Ben Cachiaras: Crying my eyes out walking down there, standing by my grandfather, and he made up a confession on the spot, something like ⁓ repeat after me kind of thing. I, Ben Kateris, give my life to serving Jesus Christ. And I renounce the devil in all of his ways, and I'm ready to give my life to the most noble task for the greatest work in the world, the preaching ministry of the church of Jesus Christ. You know, so none of us came from churches any bigger than, you know, nothing, but In his mind, the church grew and the calling grew and the responsibility grew. And I've always remembered that. And I I it makes me want to grab every seventh grader and eighth grader and tenth grader and look him in the eye and say, You need to think about this because it's not too early, you know, kids are thinking about it. And people had planted those seeds, even though I flirted with this doctor thing. And that would have that's a noble calling for someone. It just wasn't mine. So that's how that's that was the day. And there's been no turning back. ⁓ from there on, I was like, I'm not going to med school. I'm going to Minnesota Bible college, our local college, very much parallel in in everything it stood for that you guys are doing is you're cranking out ⁓ so many beautiful opportunities for people to get an education for for the preaching ministry, especially is where my heart is. And ⁓ yeah, that's what I did. I signed up for it and it changed my trajectory because that decision to go to Bible college opened up relationships, friendships, opportunities. And it just unfolded from there. So yeah. So I I I applaud and appreciate what you're doing, especially 'cause my alma mater has has run its life cycle and ⁓ you know, was no longer able to be sustained. So those few stellar colleges in our tribe that are standing are the ones that we really need to support. And I appreciate what you're doing because there's other young leaders like myself that need to have that same call. Dr. Frank Weller: Well, and I appreciate your support, Ben. And I'll say this. I grew up in a small independent Christian church as well. And I recalled very vividly hearing our preacher say, Hey, the best and the brightest of this generation need to go to Bible college and need to enter the ministry, which is the highest calling any of us can pursue. And I get the sense that maybe over the years we've lost that a little bit. I I get the sense that. In a lot of our churches, we are saying, ⁓ you're you're soup you you're you're really bright, you're really talented. Well then go become an engineer, go pursue STEM or go go to medical school. I think we need to get back to that challenging the the very best among our young people to consider ministry as a calling. I I'd love to see more of that in the churches that we serve. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah, couldn't agree more with you. And and I think I think there was a helpful correction where it's like maybe for a while we we too narrowly envisioned what ministry could look like. And so we broadened that. You know, it's like, well, you could be you could do a number of roles in the church or you could be, you know, ⁓ you can you can be a a a Christian school teacher, a cr you know, and and it was important to broaden that perspective so everyone knew no matter what I am doing. vocation you know, you know, you know, occupationally, my vocation is a is a is to serve. But I think you're right. We've we we need to unapologetically get back to where you we are intentionally going after the brightest and the best and saying we need you to we need you because the church is that important and ⁓ it's a it is a noble calling. I like to use the phrase it's the greatest work in the world. And ⁓ it it absolutely is most important work. Yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and so you did you you were at Minnesota Bible College and then ⁓ Bethel Seminary, which I didn't realize you were at Bethel for a time. My my D Min is from Bethel Seminary. And ⁓ so so both of us, I mean, we've we've spent our time in a college library. You have we both have extensive higher education. So here's my question: In what ways did your formal education prepare you to preach? And then maybe what about Ben Cachiaras: Okay. Dr. Frank Weller: ⁓ what surprised you about preaching that maybe you didn't expect after studying it so extensively? Ben Cachiaras: Well, that's another big one, something I'm very passionate to talk about. ⁓ and it's very hard to sort of isolate exactly. It's like saying, In what ways did your family shape you? You know, because I I can't imagine my life really without the opportunities that higher education's given me. And and I know it's not for everybody, but I I I I I 'cause I suppose there's a ⁓ somebody that that it's not they're not cut out for it or something, but from I just say if you have the capacity, you just absolutely have to do everything you can to prepare your mind and your heart for the complex world we live in and to do everything you can to understand the world that that God has created and that culture has filled. And ⁓ so we need to understand something about history, something about ⁓ the world and and the way the way things work, history. not just biblical studies, as important as that is. But understanding something about human psychology, understanding something about you know, how how th the world works. And and that's what education does, is it helps you not know stuff. It helps you know how to think. And we're at an era right now where so how has it helped me? I I think what I'm so grateful for is ⁓ it it's helped me, I think, be able to try to imagine not just like how to imitate. The guy down the street that's doing something that's working at a pragmatic level. Like when the when the culture itself is shifting and everything's changing and we're in a we're in a period like that right now, we have to be able to ask the bigger questions, like, wait, what is worship? Not just like, how does the church down the street do it? Or what what's what song set do they use? Or, you know, do they use a fog machine or not? You know, it's like we have to be able to stop and think, like, ⁓ How before you can apply it to a culture, you have to understand what worship is or or what what ⁓ what discipleship looks like. And so that doesn't happen by accident. You have to be able to step back and appreciate some of the different eras of history. And and so church history becomes very, very important. And I think it's helped me avoid some of the captivity to the moment that I think a lot of ⁓ us get caught up in. If all you have is the latest seminar and ⁓ you know, ⁓ just just the latest ⁓ sort of take on pragmatics and practical ministry, as important as that is, but don't have a broader sense of some of the big grand themes. What is Christ what is the Christian faith? What is the church? And then you can freshly create it for this moment, because you understand the culture and you understand the gospel rather than thinking that some of the methods and strategies are the gospel. And when we're at our best, we've got innovators who really get the gospel and they apply it in a fresh way to our time. I don't know how to do that without you don't do it without an education. You gotta be all otherwise you're just mimicking, you know, ⁓ some method. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: I agree, and Yeah, that's right. And I think I think that's the difference between training and educating. I mean, training teaches you how, and we all need to learn how to do things. But one of the things I've observed is that ⁓ undergraduate in particular focuses a lot on training, but but when you go beyond that level, you you get past how and you get to the why. And here's why we're doing that. And and I think that Ben Cachiaras: Right. Hundred percent. Dr. Frank Weller: That's often overlooked. Well, hey, I want to go a bit deeper, but first I want to just stop and say another word from our sponsors at GLCC. Listen, are you ready to answer God's call with greater confidence and a deeper biblical understanding? Our new Master of Arts in Practical Ministry is, or rather, practical theology, is designed for today's church leaders. It's rooted in Scripture and blends biblical depth with practical training to prepare you for real-world ministry challenges. It's affordable, flexible, and online. Christ-centered study that will equip you to lead with wisdom, preach with clarity, and serve with courage. More details are at glcc.edu. So, Ben, you mentioned you're on ⁓ your your summer study break. ⁓ so I obviously you're not you're not in Maryland preaching, but what what what's something you preached recently that just really has you fired up that you're excited about? You're like, man, this this just really landed and ⁓ share with us something that's got you fired up that you've preached recently. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah. ⁓ well ⁓ we preached ⁓ a series at the beginning of the year on Leviticus, which which you know, just just the sound of it is sort of intriguing. You know, it's it's notoriously that book that everyone stops at when they read through the Bible in a year. It's like Genesis, okay. Exodus, interesting, and except for a few long sections there. And then Leviticus is like, what the heck? So it's it's notoriously where people stop. So ⁓ but but there's so much beauty and power in it. So we took, I think, about six weeks, you know. So we're not reading every verse. There's a lot of repetition in it. But so it wasn't an expository verse by verse. I wouldn't preach that book that way. I don't I think that'd be a un unnecessary, unwise idea. You have to be able to have a little theology to it. But it was so fun. It was so powerful because it's got you cannot understand half the New Testament until you understand everything that's going on in Leviticus and the the call of of God's people in the Old Testament. So and we did a lot with some some physical things on stage. you know, we talked one week we talked about some of the feasts. And so we focused on the feast of of of booths and tents. And we built a big ⁓ sukkot on stage, the Hebrew word for these tents and how they would spend the week in there and ⁓ and call their own people to living lives of gratitude. And and we ended it with an old favorite, an old ⁓ it's sort of one of those ⁓ well worn pathways in preaching. in the minds of some, but we we had a live goat that we brought on stage on Easter Sunday and and talked about Acts 16, the Day of Atonement, and how Jesus Christ is our is our is our atoning sacrifice, and ⁓ how they would lay the hands on the goat and and the goat has left the building and live left with the sins of the people. And ⁓ the book of Hebrews and other places in the New Testament draws those lines really clearly and says Jesus through what he's done, his death, his resurrection, has taken away the sins of the world. And ⁓ you know, those visual things. Leviticus is a very powerful visual book, but it's also kind of confusing because of the holiness codes. So anytime we can take something that seems ⁓ complex and simplify it and clarify it and help apply it, ⁓ of course is extremely powerful. We ran small groups along with it and so they got to do the deeper dive and it probably was something that got as much reaction or b ⁓ excited by and as anything we've done in a while. So I I that's the first thing that pops my mind when you when you say what have we done lately? Dr. Frank Weller: I was with you at Michigan Christian Convention back in April. It's now been renamed Midwest Christian Conference because it's it's just growing and more folks ⁓ from Indiana, Ohio and other places are are coming. And when you preached you brought ⁓ I think ⁓ an inflatable dude, I think is the official term. It's one of those one of those one of those punching bags that you knock down and it keeps bouncing back up and Ben Cachiaras: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: ⁓ I thought that was such a great visual. But it sounds like bringing some visual concrete example with you to the stage is something that you you do kind of regularly. Tell us about that. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah. Well, I've just been inspired by other good preachers and watching, you know, you go back to Jesus himself. He was always, you know, holding up a child or pointing to a bird or something. And and I think that I think we're a visual people. I think we have to acknowledge that in a age of of screens and technology, we're probably more visual than we've ever been. And and so just the talking head up front, I still I still want to kind of cling to the ability to wordsmith things in an evocative way. And use the power of creating, you know, ⁓ something in the mind, just through the power of illustration and words, ⁓ using beautiful phrases and and turns of words. I I totally get some important, but ⁓ I I I it is true, Frank. I I think I probably bring something visual to the to the pulpit with me. Probably more times than not, almost almost all the time. you know, and I'll I'll just explain one and it and I think it kind of makes the case for itself. We were doing a series on the Bible. I'm very excited about this series as well. We just like all the data says that there's more Bible sales and more interest in the Bible than there's been in a long time, and a lot of people reading it. And yet probably illiteracy of scripture is probably as high as ever as well. So we're like, well, let's we spent several weeks talking about what is the Bible, what's the story of the Bible, can we trust the Bible? ⁓ what's the message of the Bible? How do we interpret the Bible? ⁓ you know, a number of things like that. And But on the week when we wanted to ask the question, like, is this book really reliable? Like, does it tell us the truth about life? Is it is it something that you can look to to help really understand, are you gonna be better off if you trust it? So ⁓ I ⁓ my assistant came up with this ⁓ lie detector, you know, these polygraph machines, brought it out on stage, this big ⁓ contraption with lights beeping and probes and an armband and a head and a sticker, and we got a ⁓ Luke Erickson's ⁓ our executive pastor got him out there, asked him a bunch of questions, had some fun with it, and it, you know, big thing would light up, true, false, and it was pretty clear that that this machine really told the truth, you know, it was really reliable. And I said, but you know, after we had some fun with it, I just said, so what what if we took it and hooked it up to this book? You know, just pa you know, just right there. It's so so visual. It's like so we did. We we we we took the sticker stuck it right on there, put the armband around it, hooked it up to the machine and said, Let's just see if the Bi So then i it was a ⁓ a way of getting at you can just you can say, today I want to talk to you about ⁓ the reliability of the New Testament. ⁓ or or ⁓ all of a sudden as opposed, you know, using the illustration, everyone was leaning in. I think we all know that. And I I I just have been so inspired by watching others do the same that I I think I had underestimated the power of something physical in front of us. So we We did the we we did a series on the Holy Spirit this year. And somewhere I had heard or gotten the idea in my head that we're talking about wind. We're talking about the breath of God, the Holy, the very spirit of God. And you know those those you see them at like a car sales place or whatever, those big crazy creatures that you turn, you know, they're they're they're like dancing around when they have the wind. So I I turned it off and I just held it up there. I said, This can you imagine trying to live your life like this? Like this guy's just wilting, you know, there's nothing to him. He's like, Dr. Frank Weller: ⁓ yeah. Yep. Ben Cachiaras: He can't serve, he can't forgive, he can't love his enemies, he can't he can't persevere, he has nothing there's nothing here, there's nothing to this person. And imagine a Christian trying to live their life like this without this, and then we turned it on, of course, then he's like dancing and and he's all of a sudden 20 feet tall. And it's like a silly, kind of almost borderline corny illustration, but I guarantee you that we're we're thinking differently, like, what's my life like? Do I have the spirit in me? That's ⁓ that's filling my lungs and my life and my my my lips. So I ⁓ yeah, I'm I'm I think that in the visual age we live in, taking that extra time and and Frank, you can't do this without starting earlier in the process. You can't come up with it on Friday and expect to, you know, to have the gr the killer illustration. But sometimes it takes a little construction or a little work. So we gotta work upstream a little bit, but it's worth it. Jesus did it. ⁓ You know, all the great preaching we've heard has done it. So yeah, I'm all for it. Dr. Frank Weller: Yeah, and there's research that shows, particularly with men, that when you use something concrete like that, it really sticks. You bring up that ⁓ the the big ⁓ wavy car lot guy. I have one of my coworkers here rigged up one of those in his garden along with a spotlight and a motion detector because the deer kept getting into his garden. And so now Ben Cachiaras: Yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: When a deer shows up in his garden, this bright light comes on and the and the big wavy car sales beg he's he's saving all of his his sweet corn this summer with one of those. Ben Cachiaras: That's brilliant. I like that. I've got a duck problem here. I may have to consider that option. Pooping on my grass. Yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: Hey, we're close to we're close to wrapping up, if you could believe it, but I just wanted to ask you one more question. What's one piece of preaching advice you'd offer to your younger self? Ben Cachiaras: Wow. Maybe it would be ⁓ can I tell you a story to get there? I was my first preaching ministry. Dave Roberts, who ⁓ was previously at Trader's Point and had gone down to be like the Dean of Students at Milligan. He was the chairman of our elders, and I preached a sermon I was pretty proud of at Grandview Christian Church when I was the minister there. Standing at the door, shaking hands, everybody told me what a great job I did. Dave came by, shook my hand, and said, Thank you for your work on that. And then he paused, he looked me in the eye. And he said, Where was Jesus today? And I realized there was no Jesus in my sermon. And I I would have I wanted to argue because of, you know, I could make a case that there was a Christ message in my sermon. But I've since then tried to to say every sermon, I mean, ⁓ that's what the gospel is. It's about Jesus. And whatever you're preaching on, it oughta eventually make a beeline to Jesus. And I think I would say that to my younger self. I'd Don't ever apologize for preaching the gospel. And and yes, if if if it's like Kind of odd because you preached a sermon on marriage, but you got around to the gospel. Don't apologize for that. if you preached a sermon on Leviticus, it ought to end in Jesus. It ought to be about Jesus. so I think I would say that, and I I I did learn that lesson then, and I I think I've tried to follow that since then. And maybe right along with that, the Jesus peace would be preach to make more and better disciples. I would say always remember the baptized and the unbaptized in every sermon you preach. I think we're the pendulum swings and I watch the younger generation. Some of them we got all passionate about we're gonna preach to the preach to the lost and we're gonna preach to the lost and we're gonna have a seeker of service and all that stuff and it's great. ⁓ but but we kind of forgot that Sunday morning can also be not just charygma but diddiche, you know. It can teach as well as preach. And then we swing the pendulum more word to discipleship. We use the word discipleship to mean we're gonna go deep, deep, deep, and we forget that all the New Testament churches had The baptized and the unbaptized present. I would tell my early self: don't ever let someone tell you you got to do half of the Great Commission in your preaching. Preach to the baptized, preach to the unbaptized at the same time. And while you're trying to make disciples, make sure you are one. ⁓ preach to yourself first. And then preach to yourself first. Let your preaching come out of the overflow. I think I snuck three in there. ⁓ you asked for one. I think I got three, but make a beeline to Jesus and don't forget. Dr. Frank Weller: ⁓ that's good. Yeah, that's great. I love it. Ben Cachiaras: Yeah, d d yeah, preach to both both halves of the Great Commission. The the the baptizing and teaching part. Yeah. Dr. Frank Weller: If you can get all three of those to r if you can get all three of those to rhyme or to start with the same letter, now you've got a s you got a sermon there, so Ben Cachiaras: All we need is an illustration. Dr. Frank Weller: Well, listen, I want to say thanks to you, Ben. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. We're gonna have you back again sometime. Just I want to go deeper about how you how you prepare and deliver sermons. I know there's a lot of really good stuff there for our listeners, but our time is up and I want to thank our sponsor, Great Lakes Christian College. I want to thank you, our BP2 community, for listening to and supporting the Better Preaching Podcast. Join us next time for another insightful conversation because better preaching makes a bigger impact.