Latest / Gospel Talks Podcast / #87 - Why So Many Christians Delay Baptism (And What the Bible Actually Says) | Pastor Brad & George Binoka

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#87 - Why So Many Christians Delay Baptism (And What the Bible Actually Says) | Pastor Brad & George Binoka · Gospel Talks Podcast

• 0:00
  I don't know if you guys, when you've led somebody to Christ or you've even encountered an unbeliever and somebody starts asking you about baptism, whether it's post salvation,
• 0:10
  before salvation, sometimes people actually get the order of things mixed up.
• 0:14
  They don't have a biblical order in their mind and they think they need to get baptized right away.
• 0:18
  This could be a really tricky thing to handle as a discipler, somebody who's seeking to lead others to Christ, introduce them Jesus Christ.
• 0:26
  How do you handle these questions?
• 0:27
  What are the biblical answers?
• 0:29
  We are privileged to have with us as a guest Pastor
• 0:31
  Brad.
• 0:32
  He is a pastor up in Michigan and he is going to tell us all about some of the experiences he's having in his church right now with people who are coming to Christ or people who are
• 0:41
  in that process.
• 0:45
  Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks Podcast.
• 0:47
  where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
• 0:52
  My name is George Binoka and I'm your host.
• 0:55
  With me today is Pastor Brad.
• 0:58
  Pastor Brad, what's up?
• 0:59
  Hey George, good to see you tonight and it's an honor to be on with you.
• 1:03
  Hey, it's always good to have you on.
• 1:05
  You are like super loved by the Gospel Talks audience and uh you definitely get a lot of views on YouTube whenever you come on.
• 1:14
  So we're glad to have you on.
• 1:16
  tell us a little bit about your church.
• 1:18
  I mean, I hear you guys are going through like, I don't know, mini revival.
• 1:22
  I don't know what to call it, a big growth spurt, but all sorts of discipleship opportunities.
• 1:27
  Yeah, it's been a really incredible journey.
• 1:29
  The last couple of years, some special things going on.
• 1:33
  I announced a couple of years ago that I was going to transition out of my senior pastor role in June of 2026, which seemed like a long ways away back when we announced that, but
• 1:45
  that's coming up here.
• 1:46
  Just eight weeks left and one of my assistant pastors is going to become our senior pastor.
• 1:51
  We're very excited about that, but we're also just
• 1:54
  really amazed at what God is doing.
• 1:56
  Over the last couple of years, we've seen, I think, more adult conversions and baptisms than I've seen probably in the previous 13 years.
• 2:08
  And we're not sure if that is a cultural phenomenon that's happening across America, or if God's just pouring out some spiritual blessings and fruit on us.
• 2:19
  But we're super excited to have a part in it.
• 2:21
  And this question about baptism,
• 2:23
  Keeps coming up, so I'm glad we're talking about it tonight.
• 2:25
  Man, that's awesome.
• 2:26
  Would you say it's taken that long to instill a culture of discipleship in your church or like when was a turning point in that kind of thing?
• 2:35
  It has taken a long time for us to, I think, develop a full culture of disciple making.
• 2:43
  Our people, I think, really began embracing this maybe five or six years ago.
• 2:48
  And when I say disciple making, mean, like taking personal responsibility rather than passing off this soul level conversations to the pastors, but to embrace that for
• 2:59
  themselves.
• 3:00
  And so,
• 3:01
  A lot of times the question regarding baptism is coming to us through discipleship relationships where people are either dealing with an unbeliever or they're dealing with a
• 3:13
  new believer, or maybe it's somebody who's been saved for a while, but just never followed the Lord obediently in believers baptism.
• 3:21
  And so this question has been coming up more and more in our church.
• 3:25
  In fact,
• 3:26
  On Mother's Day, in just a couple of days, I'm baptizing four adults, all of them from slightly different situations, of course, but all of them coming to us with a real desire
• 3:39
  and a recent desire to make their faith in Jesus Christ public to not only their family, but to the community and to the church.
• 3:47
  And so the conversations leading up to their preparation for baptism.
• 3:52
  has really opened up some great gospel conversations, not only for our pastors, but also for the people that are working with them in discipleship.
• 3:59
  Wow, that's amazing.
• 4:01
  That's that that is really cool.
• 4:03
  So as this conversation of baptism comes up, tell me, what do you do if somebody comes up to you and as actually asking about baptism before they've answered the question of their
• 4:13
  relationship with God?
• 4:14
  How do you handle that?
• 4:15
  Because there's a lot of worldviews where you're baptized as an infant, know, Catholicism, that is as an infant.
• 4:21
  What do you what do you kind of do in those circumstances?
• 4:23
  Yeah, and we have a lot of people coming to us from Catholic backgrounds.
• 4:27
  And so that is one of the big questions.
• 4:29
  Like, you know, they'll often say, do I need to be baptized again?
• 4:32
  Totally misunderstanding the purpose and the symbolism of baptism.
• 4:38
  But yeah, I mean, obviously the question as, as disciple makers, the exchange question, how would you describe your relationship with God is just a awesome
• 4:50
  open-ended question.
• 4:51
  mean that question could be asked of anybody, a believer, a longtime believer, a new believer, an unbeliever, a skeptic.
• 4:56
  It's just a great question to get a soul level conversation started.
• 5:00
  But then we also ask, if that question is answered, you know, in a way that makes us think, okay, we're talking to a true follower of Christ, then, you know, do you understand
• 5:10
  what baptism is biblically?
• 5:12
  Do you get it?
• 5:14
  Because you're right, if they're coming from certain
• 5:17
  backgrounds, they might think that this is their moment of salvation or, you know, people still believe that, you know, the dunking of them, their body and water is somehow a
• 5:28
  cleansing of sin, which obviously is not biblical.
• 5:30
  we all want to ask people like, do you understand what baptism is biblically?
• 5:34
  And of course, you know, sometimes this results, the answers to those questions sometimes result in people withdrawing their request.
• 5:41
  Like, that's not what I thought.
• 5:43
  baptism was or I'm not ready, I'm not interested.
• 5:46
  Sometimes it results in people getting baptized, but then many times in our experience, it results in people coming to saving faith in Christ.
• 5:55
  Because now they want to be baptized, they, for some reason, their personal history helps them understand that this is an important part of living a life of faith, but they don't
• 6:07
  really get it.
• 6:08
  And so the question
• 6:10
  then opens up the opportunity, not just for pastors, but I think it's really important for every believer, anybody who considers themselves a disciple maker, which I think that's
• 6:19
  true for all believers, should be able to ask and answer the questions, not only about salvation, but also about baptism.
• 6:26
  Because it might result in a gospel conversation, which we're finding more and more.
• 6:30
  That's really cool.
• 6:32
  mean, I don't think we've had this conversation in this level of detail about baptism on Gospel Talks before, but I think it's super, super important.
• 6:42
  What you just said is that we shouldn't view it as a bad thing that we're telling somebody, hey, actually, there's a step before baptism, but actually, baptism is a picture
• 6:50
  of salvation.
• 6:51
  And so it becomes an illustration, you know, hey, you're buried in the water, like Christ was buried in the earth and
• 6:58
  and you're associating yourself with this gospel message of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
• 7:03
  for, now on the opposite, or I guess on the other end of the spectrum, then you have somebody who does come to Christ, but maybe hadn't thought about baptism or had been
• 7:12
  baptized before, is maybe embarrassed to be baptized again.
• 7:16
  How do you handle the embarrassment conversation, that piece of it, where you have that person who's like, even grew up in a church, grew up in a church,
• 7:23
  maybe grew up in your church and they're like, man, I wasn't genuinely a believer and my baptism, I guess, wasn't really symbolic of a genuine conversion.
• 7:34
  here I need to obey because the Bible says be baptized after your salvation, but I'm really embarrassed about it.
• 7:41
  uh How do you handle that as a pastor?
• 7:43
  Yeah, think helping people realize that that's kind of the point.
• 7:48
  I the point of baptism is to be vulnerable, to be public, to be open.
• 7:54
  It's an open display of faith, which most of us, our natural tendency is that faith is private.
• 8:00
  But baptism is very public.
• 8:02
  mean, it's as public as you can be.
• 8:04
  the one person the entire church is staring at, right?
• 8:07
  And with modern technology, maybe the whole world on Facebook is staring at that one person who's saying, stand with Jesus.
• 8:14
  I'm actually in Christ, to use the Bible phrase, I'm in Christ.
• 8:19
  And this experience just displays that to the entire world.
• 8:23
  So in a sense, it's supposed to be a moment of vulnerability.
• 8:28
  I don't know about embarrassment, but there is some, I guess some,
• 8:33
  shame associated with the death of Christ.
• 8:36
  I too am dying with Christ.
• 8:38
  He was rejected and I'm okay with putting myself in him and sharing in his sufferings as the apostle Paul would say.
• 8:45
  But I think that the second part of it is helping people understand that baptism really provides a platform from which many believers like finally get traction in their spiritual
• 8:57
  life.
• 8:57
  And that's kind of a two-sided coin as well because
• 9:00
  We see people who finally follow Christ in baptism.
• 9:04
  And now that it's out there, now they can really grow and be public with their faith.
• 9:09
  But it also provides traction for the rest of the church.
• 9:13
  And this is something I think is maybe underappreciated, is what it does to the unbelievers, new believers, and young believers in the church who have not been baptized.
• 9:22
  When they see it, it is like our baptism services are the most exciting time.
• 9:27
  for people in our church because it's the closest many believers get to seeing conversion.
• 9:32
  Like they personally haven't seen somebody put faith in Christ, but they're seeing this public display of it.
• 9:38
  And it's like so special and so encouraging.
• 9:40
  it, you know, not only is it supposed to be a little vulnerable, but secondly, this is a step that will give you some spiritual traction and it will stimulate the same thing in
• 9:50
  other believers, which is an awesome opportunity.
• 9:53
  So, okay, we're working through these archetypes of the type of people that approach you about baptism.
• 9:58
  Okay, so you have the guy who approaches you about baptism before you they're actually a believer and you've explained that then you have the person who they become a believer
• 10:08
  they know it's necessary but for one reason or another they're embarrassed to do it they're embarrassed to follow through with it or they're shy about it and you know all
• 10:15
  that kind of thing it seems intimidating we talked about that just now what about the person that
• 10:21
  comes to Christ is told, hey, baptism is the next step, but they feel like it's totally unnecessary.
• 10:28
  Why is baptism even, I mean, if it's just a symbol, I mean, sometimes, you know, some guys would say sometimes I wear my wedding ring, sometimes I take it off, doesn't change
• 10:39
  anything in reality.
• 10:40
  What's the big deal?
• 10:42
  Yeah.
• 10:42
  Well, it really becomes a point of obedience because this is the New Testament model that everyone who put their faith in Christ was either immediately baptized or challenged with
• 10:56
  the decision to be baptized right away.
• 10:59
  And we just see this model repeated over and over and over.
• 11:03
  And it really is a, it kind of is the idea, you know, Jesus said, if you are ashamed of me,
• 11:10
  then in a sense before the father, I would be ashamed of you.
• 11:13
  But if you embrace the sufferings of the cross and your associations with me, then I embrace my association with you.
• 11:20
  And I think there's a beautiful picture there in the exchange as we take on Jesus' righteousness and he takes on our sin.
• 11:27
  He says, listen, if this is our arrangement, then I expect you to not be ashamed of my gospel, the thing that saved you.
• 11:35
  And so, yeah, for a...
• 11:37
  For an unbeliever, there's probably confusion about baptism.
• 11:41
  For a new believer or a believer who's been saved for a while, it may be just a rebellion.
• 11:47
  And I think just gently working through that, we try to make sure that our discipleship materials include this early on, that there's talk about baptism.
• 11:56
  Have you been baptized?
• 11:57
  And if not, why not?
• 11:58
  And is this a rebellion in your life or is there something else that's in the way of misunderstanding perhaps that's in the way?
• 12:05
  But what we like about it, like what's for us, the baptism gold, if you will, at G-O-L-D, the gold, the real, the nugget in baptism is that it really gives us an opportunity to
• 12:19
  work through the points of the gospel and not just the pastors, but the church.
• 12:24
  to regularly work through the points of the gospel.
• 12:27
  We require people that are being baptized to record a video testimony of themselves.
• 12:32
  And so we ask them to answer these questions.
• 12:36
  Like, do you understand how far you fall short of the perfection of God and that you've earned an eternity in hell because you're a sinner?
• 12:46
  I mean, there's, to borrow from the exchange language, that is the holiness and justice of God.
• 12:51
  Do you understand and agree that you need rescued from this problem?
• 12:56
  And then have you exercised saving faith?
• 12:59
  It's interesting, just last night, I mentioned that we've had some really special and unusual things happening in church.
• 13:05
  Just last night, two guys walk into church we've never met before.
• 13:08
  They work in the area.
• 13:10
  One guy sort of on a, I don't know, on a whim challenged his buddy, hey, you wanna go to church tonight?
• 13:15
  On a Wednesday night, mean, In a small Baptist church.
• 13:18
  how these two guys walk in and it becomes obvious that at least one of them is not a believer.
• 13:25
  And he says to me, here's the question he asked her, this is a great question, right?
• 13:29
  This doesn't have anything to with baptism, but if I can go down a rabbit hole for just a second, he says, Brad, you mentioned saved.
• 13:36
  So what are some other words for that?
• 13:37
  I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
• 13:39
  And I said, well, know, saved is in opposition to unsaved.
• 13:43
  saved as the idea of being a Christian or being rescued from your sinful condition or being a follower of Jesus, you might call it that.
• 13:51
  And here's what he said, I thought this was great.
• 13:53
  In my mind, it went immediately to the triangle of saving faith that we use from the exchange presentation of the gospel.
• 14:01
  He said, so you got a saved guy and you got an unsaved guy.
• 14:05
  Like what pushes somebody over the hump?
• 14:07
  That's what he said.
• 14:09
  what makes somebody all of a sudden they're saved when they were unsaved?
• 14:12
  And literally as I'm listening to him, I'm thinking, is this guy testing me or is he like really asking this question because he is leading me right to the discussion about saving
• 14:22
  faith.
• 14:22
  But this guy was, he's an unbeliever, I think, and he really didn't know the answer to that question.
• 14:28
  And so I said, dude, do you understand what you've done?
• 14:31
  Like you violated the holiness of God and you're on your way to hell.
• 14:34
  Are you willing to trust Jesus alone?
• 14:37
  What we have found is that the discussions leading up to baptism have forced us to ask these questions of people, and many times they're not saved, but they're ready.
• 14:49
  Like they're wanting to follow Jesus.
• 14:51
  They just don't know what it looks like.
• 14:53
  They suspect baptism has something to do with it.
• 14:57
  And it's opening up gospel conversations where I guess here's what we're finding, going back to what we think is baptism gold.
• 15:04
  When people ask, can I be baptized?
• 15:05
  And they're clearly not saved.
• 15:07
  They are ready to put their faith in Christ.
• 15:10
  They just need a clear explanation.
• 15:12
  And we are just finding a lot of joy right now for some reason at our church of taking people in that condition and saying, no, but we can get you ready.
• 15:21
  Here's what you need to know.
• 15:22
  And here's what saving faith in Christ looks like.
• 15:25
  Hmm.
• 15:25
  Why do you think it takes people much longer to get baptized?
• 15:29
  There seems, there's two areas where it feels like the more we go along the historical timeline, especially in the United States, it takes longer and longer for people to join a
• 15:39
  church membership and get baptized, which kind of go hand in hand for a lot of churches.
• 15:44
  Why do you think the hesitation, you think is it the hesitancy of disciplers in different churches to bring it up?
• 15:51
  Do you think it's people's hesitancy to get in the baptismal and have that public vulnerable moment?
• 15:58
  Do you think the culture's changed in some way?
• 16:00
  Why are people so hesitant to commit to the faith?
• 16:03
  Yeah, I would say that there's two things that immediately come to mind in our context.
• 16:09
  And this might be different in other churches, but right now what we're seeing, and probably because a lot of people are coming out of Catholicism to saving faith in Christ.
• 16:19
  So one of them is a fear of offending their family.
• 16:24
  That's a big deal for a lot of our people that have delayed baptism.
• 16:28
  It's because they're afraid that their family will be offended by it.
• 16:32
  that they were baptized into Catholicism as infants and this is just what the family does and now you're rejecting this and you think you're better than the rest of us or whatever.
• 16:43
  So that is a hindrance for people.
• 16:46
  But honestly, I think the thing that delays people the most in our context is that they cannot clearly articulate the gospel.
• 16:56
  So what we do, just to kind of go back, I don't know if this is...
• 16:59
  the right model, this is just what we have found works for us.
• 17:02
  And that is that we require people to write their testimony, highlighting what it means to put faith in Christ.
• 17:09
  So tell us a little bit about your story, but mostly we're interested in what Jesus has done to change your life.
• 17:15
  And that is large, that's the same story with different words in every true believer's life.
• 17:20
  But we require them to write that.
• 17:22
  And then here's where we have just found
• 17:24
  the rubber meets the road, I actually have them bring it into my office or email it to me.
• 17:28
  And then I meet with them and I tell them, listen, I do not want to put words in your mouth.
• 17:32
  I certainly don't want you to say something you don't believe.
• 17:35
  But can I just push back on a couple of things that you said gently?
• 17:39
  And this probably happens 90 % of the time.
• 17:41
  Sometimes they're testifies crystal clear, but can I just push back gently on some things you said and just see kind of where you're at with this?
• 17:48
  So I ask a couple of open-ended questions and often, this happens often.
• 17:52
  I come away from that conversation saying, I don't think this person is saved yet.
• 17:57
  I think they've heard the gospel a lot.
• 18:01
  They kind of know some Christianese.
• 18:03
  They're kind of parroting what they've heard me preaching.
• 18:06
  But if it was just me and a friend at a coffee shop, I would say, I don't think they're true believers yet.
• 18:12
  But we can work through this.
• 18:14
  And I always invite them, hey, can I, I'm just going to, I'm going to put some...
• 18:18
  like notations in your testimony and here's what I want you to do.
• 18:21
  I want you to go home, pray about these things, think about these things and ask, is this me?
• 18:26
  And then come back and have a follow-up conversation.
• 18:28
  And literally, like one of the women I'm baptizing on this coming Sunday, this conversation has been going on for two years, two years she's been delaying.
• 18:37
  And I probably have talked to her a dozen times over those two years and she just said, hey, you ready to?
• 18:43
  have a follow-up conversation about the gospel.
• 18:45
  I'm still working through some things, she might say.
• 18:47
  And she's a faithful attender, a weekly attender in our church.
• 18:50
  But she was having trouble articulating it.
• 18:52
  And so myself and her discipleship partner have been coaching her and helping her and working through it.
• 18:58
  So when was she saved?
• 18:59
  Two years ago, last week, I don't know.
• 19:02
  But now, now she has a very clear articulation of the gospel and we're confident that she's a follower of Jesus and she's ready.
• 19:09
  to take this public step of faith.
• 19:11
  And if somebody asks her, hey, what's it mean to be a Christian?
• 19:13
  Now, she can clearly say, this is what God's done in my life.
• 19:17
  Well, sounds like you wouldn't ever have the scenario I'm about to describe, but what you just said, the practice of having them give you the testimony ahead of time and record it
• 19:28
  or write it out or whatever and screen it.
• 19:31
  have you ever had an instance where somebody maybe during a baptism or you know, whatever, all of a sudden something changed or you felt like, oh, wait, they said that in a
• 19:42
  different way than I thought they were gonna say that.
• 19:44
  And you were like, you know, do you ever have a scenario like that where you had to kind of punt and be like, make a decision on the fly?
• 19:51
  Maybe slightly like that.
• 19:52
  So I put a couple of safety nets in place.
• 19:55
  So one is I have an assistant pastor who's our media guy who records the video and he won't let it slide.
• 20:01
  So he stops people and says, hey, can you reword that a little differently?
• 20:06
  Or I think this is what you meant to say.
• 20:08
  Is that right?
• 20:08
  you say that a little more clearly and really helping them articulate the gospel?
• 20:13
  Because there are, I think there are a lot of true believers who just
• 20:17
  don't know how to say it and they just maybe need a little coaching or encouragement to do that.
• 20:21
  Also, I preview all of the videos so that, and I always add a point of clarity during the baptism, during the live baptism.
• 20:29
  So they don't say anything during the live baptism, but I do.
• 20:32
  And I'll often say about their testimony, that was beautiful.
• 20:36
  Man, that was awesome.
• 20:37
  I'm so glad to hear of your faith in Christ.
• 20:40
  One of the things I loved about your testimony was blank.
• 20:43
  And then I'll say, and here's a little another thought about that.
• 20:46
  And I'll clarify that for our people and for their, I always think of the family members.
• 20:52
  know, the family members, here's a tidbit for non-pastoral disciple makers.
• 20:58
  The family members of people that are being baptized who are guests on that Sunday are ripe for the gospel because their family member just publicly declared their faith in
• 21:10
  Jesus.
• 21:10
  They just heard it reiterated one, two, four times in a row.
• 21:15
  They're ripe for it.
• 21:16
  So a gentle and gracious invitation to Jesus is perfectly appropriate for family guests on Baptism Sundays.
• 21:25
  What's interesting about this is this is a big deal in terms of if you let somebody go through with baptism just to let them go through baptism and they are saying things that
• 21:37
  don't line up with the gospel as we know it in the New Testament.
• 21:41
  you're actually kind of putting them in a conundrum down the line.
• 21:44
  it's, there's probably somebody listening that thinks we almost don't want them to get baptized and that's not really the point.
• 21:52
  I think the point is we want them to get baptized at the right time.
• 21:55
  As you've had these conversations with people in your church,
• 21:59
  because there's gonna be people thinking pastor Brad and this is pastor George and they're pastors so of course they have these conversations.
• 22:06
  How do lay people have these conversations in the church?
• 22:11
  How do they explain it to their friend?
• 22:13
  Is it important?
• 22:13
  Is it their ministry or should they just defer to their pastor?
• 22:17
  How do you kind of handle that kind of thing?
• 22:19
  Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
• 22:20
  That's probably the most important question for this conversation because we're not, like most of us aren't pastors.
• 22:29
  Most of us are disciple makers.
• 22:30
  I guess it could be a little confusing because from my perspective, I have the privileges of pastoring.
• 22:36
  I get, like people come and have these conversations with me kind of spontaneously.
• 22:40
  But I view it as a personal responsibility, not as a pastoral responsibility.
• 22:46
  And I want our church members to feel that same way.
• 22:48
  Like every disciple of Jesus should be happy to have this kind of conversation with a seeker.
• 22:55
  I'll give you just a quick example.
• 22:58
  My own daughter, just a sweet uh testimony of faith in Jesus herself, growing, faithful, serving, longtime church member kind of Christian, but a young woman started a
• 23:09
  discipleship relationship just
• 23:12
  Last night at our Wednesday night Bible study, she started with a new attender who is probably unsaved.
• 23:17
  And she said to me afterwards, she said, Dad, we're having conversations that I hear, I hear you talk about these things all the time as my pastor.
• 23:26
  I hear my parents talk about these things all the time in their discipleship context.
• 23:32
  I think about these things all the time.
• 23:34
  I don't remember actually articulating
• 23:38
  these things very much in my short life.
• 23:40
  Like I don't remember doing this and this is growing my faith.
• 23:44
  And you know, she was an hour into it.
• 23:46
  Like she just had her first meeting.
• 23:48
  But I think the point is every believer should be like practicing not just gospel conversations, but gospel ramification conversations.
• 23:59
  Like what does my faith in Jesus mean next?
• 24:03
  What places baptism have?
• 24:05
  Church membership.
• 24:06
  How does this affect my marriage, my parenting, my job, my stewardship?
• 24:10
  Like, what does my faith in Jesus mean to my life?
• 24:14
  And as believers, we know it means everything.
• 24:17
  It affects every part of life.
• 24:19
  But an unbeliever might not understand that.
• 24:21
  And so they need somebody to walk them through it.
• 24:24
  And we think that is not only more possible,
• 24:28
  If everybody in the church is doing it, right, we just have, we have three pastors, we can't touch everybody.
• 24:33
  It's not only more possible, but it's actually more effective.
• 24:36
  Because when somebody hears a pastor say, hey, do this, do that, whatever, it's like, it becomes very formulaic.
• 24:42
  Like, if I do these things, I'm okay with God.
• 24:44
  But if they're sitting across a coffee table with a friend and a friend says, hey man, have you considered baptism?
• 24:50
  Do you understand what it means?
• 24:52
  It just means so much more to that person if a peer,
• 24:56
  I think in the long run, it authentically means more coming from a peer than it does a pastor.
• 25:01
  And so we just cheer our people on.
• 25:03
  Like you should be having these conversations as often as you can.
• 25:07
  Talk about your faith, talk about their faith and what it means to life.
• 25:11
  So, mean, man, I hope everybody listening realizes how important this is.
• 25:15
  This is so critical.
• 25:17
  I believe that baptism is a step of obedience that God really blesses in a new believer's life.
• 25:23
  I remember I came to Christ, got baptized pretty quickly.
• 25:27
  And I don't know if...
• 25:30
  This is necessarily, you see this in the Bible itself, but reading my devotions and prayer in my prayer life got a lot better after baptism.
• 25:38
  Now, baptism's not mystical, it's not, there's no magic in it, in the water, it's just H2O, that's all it is.
• 25:46
  ah It is a symbol, but God does bless the step of obedience, I believe, because it's a step of faith.
• 25:52
  know, it's, like you said, you're making yourself vulnerable and,
• 25:55
  boy, it's the ultimate evangelism opportunity because your family comes and I've seen that as a pastor, what you're seeing, which is all sorts of people who aren't typically in
• 26:05
  church are coming just to see you get baptized.
• 26:07
  And so I think it's a really, really important deal for us to grab ahold of as disciplers, whether you're pastor or not, we're all supposed to be disciplers.
• 26:15
  So any last words?
• 26:17
  I do wanna ask you, so you're about to transition end of June, you've been...
• 26:23
  doing all this stuff, preparing the church.
• 26:25
  What's next for you?
• 26:26
  You run in for Congress, Senate, President.
• 26:30
  No, none of those things.
• 26:32
  We're a little bit, our future's a little bit up in the air.
• 26:35
  So we're very excited.
• 26:37
  There's just so many good things that we are so grateful for.
• 26:40
  God is blessing our family, our ministry, our new pastor.
• 26:45
  We love him and he's gonna do a really great job leading the church here in Wixom.
• 26:50
  And we're excited to be a part of the work here.
• 26:53
  He's asked us to stay on for a while in a part-time role doing some other responsibilities that I think we will enjoy and he will be glad that he doesn't have to worry about those
• 27:04
  things.
• 27:05
  So we're excited to support his ministry.
• 27:07
  My wife is dealing with illness.
• 27:09
  She was recently re-diagnosed with cancer.
• 27:12
  And so we're praying about what that might mean to our future ministry, but the Lord's already given us just by His grace.
• 27:19
  some really fun ministry opportunities outside of Wixom.
• 27:24
  So we're just taking those on as he provides and trying to stay busy doing good things.
• 27:30
  But we have eight weeks left, trying to finish my role, my race here as senior pastor, going full steam so I can hand the football off to Johnny on June the 29th.
• 27:42
  We're very excited about that.
• 27:43
  But the next few years, we're not sure.
• 27:45
  We're gonna stay in ministry and I need to keep working for, I don't know, 10 or 15 more years.
• 27:50
  So we're gonna stay busy, but it's gonna look a little different, but we're excited about what God's doing.
• 27:55
  Thank you for asking.
• 27:56
  Yeah, well, thank you for coming on Pastor Brad.
• 27:59
  You're a pretty rare breed of pastor.
• 28:01
  Not a lot of guys have the character and the love for the church to do what you're doing.
• 28:07
  And we'll be praying for you and your wife as you battle it out and pray that God provides and shows you the next step.
• 28:16
  For those of you listening, if there's somebody I could recommend,
• 28:21
  Just as much as I recommend Jeff or any of the other trainers, it is Pastor Brad to come to your church and train your church.
• 28:27
  mean, this, is one of the most gifted teachers I know.
• 28:30
  He really reminds me of my basketball coach growing up.
• 28:34
  And so he's got that heart of a coach, which is kind of a rare thing to find in a pastor.
• 28:38
  A lot of pastors are good preachers, but not good teachers.
• 28:41
  And that's not true of Pastor Brad.
• 28:42
  He's both.
• 28:43
  And so uh if you're looking for an exchange seminar,
• 28:46
  and uh would like to jump on with him, you can just email him at brad at exchangemessage.org.
• 28:52
  You can email me, george at exchangemessage.org and I'll pass you on to him and I'll put those in the description below so you could reach out.
• 28:59
  Also, we would just want to say thank you to those who donate and make what the exchange does and Gospel Talks possible.
• 29:07
  It's funded by your donations.
• 29:09
  Something as simple as $10 a month reoccurring donation goes a long way towards our ministry.
• 29:15
  ah We try to price our books as cheaply as we can and still pay for all the overhead of the books.
• 29:21
  So it's not really where we pay for the cost of the ministry.
• 29:25
  It's donors like all of you guys listening that really make this possible.
• 29:29
  So a huge shout out and thank you to all of you.
• 29:32
  We love you guys and thank you for listening.
• 29:34
  Share this podcast if it's been helpful.
• 29:36
  Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already.
• 29:39
  We'll see you guys next week.