August 7, 2019 Show with Harold Senkbeil on “The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart”

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

We're listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all

Happy Wednesday on the 7th day of August, 2019. And I'm thrilled to have on the program for the very first time,

Harold L. Senkbile. He is the Executive Director of Doxology, the

Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care, and he's an author with nearly five decades of pastoral experience.

Today we're going to be discussing his new book, The Care of Souls Cultivating a

Pastor's Heart. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Harold L.

Senkbile. What a privilege to be with you, Chris. And am I pronouncing your name correctly?

That's pretty close. That's good for a first -timer, Senkbile, yep. So isn't that exactly what

I said, Senkbile? You did. Oh, okay. That's why I'm amazed. Doesn't go well.

Well, before we go into the theme today of The Care of Souls Cultivating a

Pastor's Heart, tell us about Doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care.

I'd love to, Chris. So don't forget we have one more phrase in the tagline, spiritual care and counsel.

So we're in our 11th year of operation now. We provide seminars for pastors, lay leaders, and pastors' wives.

It's really a full program of a total of 10 days. Pastors throughout, lay leaders for one of the events, and then the wives and the pastors together for another event.

So we provide training and advanced skills for pastoral care, and I'm privileged to work with a wonderfully gifted

Christian counselor, Dr. Beverly Yonke, who handles that side of the coin in terms of Christian psychology, and I've been leading the portion dealing with the spiritual care.

So it's a two -pronged approach, and as I said, it's geared to provide advanced skills to pastors who are already practicing this art and would like to refine their skills.

In the process, we also help the pastors themselves, both spiritually and also emotionally, deal with the everyday pressures of ministry.

Great. Well, if anybody wants to look more deeply into this ministry, go to doxology .us,

doxology .us, d -o -x -o -l -o -g -y dot u -s.

And we have a tradition here on Iron Trumpet and Zion Radio, when we have first -time guests, if you wouldn't mind giving us something of your own salvation story, and I know that these stories differ widely with my guests.

Very often they differ widely because some are raised in Christian homes.

They can't remember ever not being a Christian. They can't remember ever not loving and following Jesus Christ.

Some folks more like myself came to faith in our mid -20s, some of us obviously much later, but there was more of a crisis experience in my life, more of a stark contrast from dark to light, if you will.

But if you could, tell us about your own religious upbringing, if any, and what pivotal and providential occurrences in your life were raised up by God to draw you to Himself, save you, and draw you into the ministry.

Okay, well, that's a rather complex story. I'll try to keep it short and sweet. God's grace is mightily evident in my case, and sending

His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself my sins and the sins of all the world.

And I'm among that first category, Chris, that you talked about, in that I cannot remember a time when

I didn't consciously reflect on my living faith in Jesus.

And I trace that really to His rescue of me in the waters of holy baptism. And I know some Christians have a different view of baptism, but that's my conviction, and at least as I see that actively at work within my upbringing from little on within the

Christian congregation. Actually, I actually talk about that, excuse me, in my book, and I call my parents my first catechists and teachers, and that they literally taught the

Bible to me and also exhibited the living Christian faith as it was demonstrated in their lives, and then lived out, of course, every

Lord's Day in the church. So there's that, and that's getting more and more rare, as we know, to have people who come, cradle

Christians, if you will. But I have to say also, in addition to that, there certainly have been moments in which my faith was heightened and intensified, usually through trial and tribulation.

And that's the way it works, as we see in the Scriptures, that through these moments of deep distress, we're led to cling even more closely to the

Lord who bought us with his blood. As to my vocational decision, if you will, early on some people thought maybe it would be a good idea if this farm boy would go off and be a preacher boy, and I was very reluctant at the time, because to this day

I'm a bit shy and retiring. I couldn't see myself in a pulpit. I couldn't see myself in the spotlight.

But God had other things in mind, and he led me through some experiences I had in youth ministry to practice some skills in leadership.

And then I screwed up my courage to present myself in training for the ministry.

And our church body, we have at that time, still do, a whole system of preparation from college through seminary.

And so I launched that with a bit of fear and trembling, thinking, you know, we'll give it a try year by year.

And here I am, almost 50 years later, still giving it a try by God's grace.

So that's kind of the overview in general, but I counted a privilege like St.

Paul, that someone like me, less than the least of all the saints, could be given this grace to preach to everyone the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Amen. And what specific religious atmosphere or Christian atmosphere were you raised in?

Were you raised in a Missouri Synod Lutheran home or some other branch of the Lutheran Church? Well, you put your finger right on it.

I don't know if you can detect that somewhere when I had to say it, but yes, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, my roots and my present affiliation.

Now, would doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, would that be exclusively

Missouri Synod, or is it more broad than that? Well, it is rooted in the

Missouri Synod, and we also have an affiliation, what's called an RSO status.

Officially, we're a recognized service organization, but we're independently organized and independently funded, and with grants, of course, through our church body and others.

But we are open to anyone, any male pastor who would like to enroll for his own training.

We'd love to have them. Praise God. And once again, that's doxology .us.

I want to read a couple of the commendations for your book, The Care of Souls, Cultivating a

Pastor's Heart, by people whom I have interviewed on this program, also people who have written endorsements, commendations for this radio program,

Iron Trip and Zion, who have obviously also written commendations for your book.

The first is Michael Horton, Dr. Michael Horton, who is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and he is not a

Lutheran. He is a member of the United Reformed Church of North America, and he says about your book,

Anyone who thinks that Luther has nothing to say about sanctification, church life and discipline, and pastors and pastoral ministry, will think differently after reading this book.

More important than the historical correction, all of us can only come away from The Care of Souls with a remarkably different view of what it means to be called to care for the sheep who belong to the ones who care for the shepherd as well.

I hope that this book becomes standard reading now, and in generations to come, especially wherever thoughtful leaders are seeking a practice that truly follows from the

Good News. That's a very powerful endorsement. Also, my friend Dr. Michael A.

G. Haken, who was just my guest a couple of days ago, in fact on Monday he was my guest, he is the

Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He says it's an enormously helpful book, and we have many other commendations for this book as well.

This is a title that immediately when

I read it, The Care of Souls, Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, I'm not a pastor, but when

I, from the outside looking in, when I see what is going on in the broader

Evangelical church across the United States, when I speak to people and hear the criticisms, the critiques, the complaints that they have, this seems to be the primary issue that is lacking in the body of Christ.

We have many great orators in the church.

We have, on both sides of biblical orthodoxy, those that are heretical, that have gained enormous popularity and have drawn huge crowds and followers and so on, who are just such great orators or, dare

I say, performers, that they have become extremely popular. And on the other side, we even have those that are very biblically orthodox, very sound in their, not only hermeneutics, but their homiletics, and they are not into entertainment per se, but the value of their oratory skills and the power that they demonstrate from behind the pulpit has at times, and more times than we care to admit, has been much more of a primary element that the hearer's desire to experience or see or hear than the shepherding aspect of the pastoral office.

And could this be one of the reasons that you saw a need to write this book, that you saw the shepherding aspect lacking in the body of Christ?

Well, I would say, actually, Chris, that is kind of a secondary motivation, although I think you're correct.

There is a sad lack of emphasis on this whole aspect of caring for souls.

But I came to it really through my own personal study, out of necessity, looking at the needs of people and then saying,

I need to learn more about this. And I mentioned my colleague, Dr. Jahnke, earlier.

So I was talking with her because I knew her to be a fine Christian who is also credentialed as a therapist.

I said, how is it that what you do differs from what I do? And she said immediately, well, that's easy.

You deal with the forgiveness of sins. So at the heart and the center, of course, of the gospel and the

Church's ministry is the forgiveness of sins. And so I began to explore this more intensely and discovered there's a whole history, a legacy, if you will, of literally centuries upon centuries, two millennia, actually, of how the

Church has cared for those who are lost, reaching out to them with the gospel, and those who are found, those who have been gathered into Christ's flock with the tools that God provides, namely

His Word and sacraments. And so this longer tradition, history, heritage, if you will, captured my imagination, and I began to apply this in my own ministry, and I've taught it ever since.

I've spent six years teaching in a seminary, and now for 11 years I've been teaching it to fellow pastors.

Now, there has been a critique of mainline denominations that would even include the

Lutherans, even those on the side of biblical orthodoxy.

I'm not referring to Elka or the more liberal or, dare I say, apostate churches that would wear the label

Lutheran. I'm speaking more of conservative Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, and others, and some of the other denominations where they might be a minority in the mainlines, where they're truly remaining faithful to the

Scriptures, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, and so on. But perhaps you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard the complaint that very often, even when you have biblical orthodoxy being taught in many of the mainline churches, that you have a view of the pastors, the elders, the overseers, that discipline is not really their job.

They would rather just preach the Word, teach the Word faithfully, and the wheat is going to grow up with the tares.

You have to leave it up to God to separate it, and there seems to be a lacking from what I have heard in the discipline area.

Would you agree with that assessment, and do you think that needs to be corrected? Well, I think that is a fair criticism.

I don't know that it's a recent phenomenon. I think it actually is probably a constant, continual temptation.

But objectively speaking, if you look at history, and I'm thinking now within our own context, the

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, certainly there was a clearer emphasis on church discipline in previous generations.

Now, is that because of a lessening of adhering to correct doctrine? I don't think so.

But it's a combination of factors in my mind. Certainly our world around us exerts a heavy pressure on all

Christians, even those who are more biblically oriented and with sound doctrinal convictions, so that the idea is you're entitled to your own religious thought and certainly feelings as long as you keep it to yourself.

So there's that mentality, that mindset, if you will, that seeps into our congregations.

So it becomes increasingly difficult for parish pastors, and I speak from my own experience and also from observing others, that when clearly we need to intervene in a

Christian's life because they're engaging in something that's dangerous for them, the first reaction is, back off, none of your business, which you can understand.

The old Adam doesn't take kindly to that sort of thing. But then there's also a fair amount of pressure from other members of the church that they're concerned and we don't want to chase anybody off, that sort of thing.

So what I'm telling you is I believe it certainly deserves more clarity and diligence, but always, of course, in service of the gospel, never in a vindictive way.

Yes, I can say that I personally owe my life to church discipline.

I had myself been put under the discipline of my own pastors and elders when

I had fallen into a very deeply unrepentant alcohol addiction for a number of years, and after having been sober for 18 years, fell away from, or should

I say repented of, after 18 years of having repented of drunkenness,

I backslid and became a drunkard again, and if it wasn't for church discipline and getting me into a

Christian ministry that was dedicated to bringing recovery to addicts of all kinds, a biblically sound ministry,

Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, I don't think I would be sitting here with air in my lungs and a beating heart speaking to you.

I hear you. I try to remember to bring that up as often as I can when

I'm interviewing somebody where the subject would lend me to mention this, because so many people, in fact your average person, might be so terrified of the notion, or not even terrified, they might even just be outraged or indignant or proud, too proud, to undergo church discipline, and they may just run away from it.

They may leave that church and either go to another church, or a church that doesn't practice discipline, or they may just hide somewhere and never enter the doors of a church again.

But I just wanted to let people know that the story doesn't need to end in a horrible fashion when you're under church discipline.

In a real way, it's an act of love. Amen. In fact, Thomas Oden wrote a book some years ago called

Corrective Love on church discipline. Wow. Yeah, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr.

Oden before he went home to be with the Lord. Fascinating. He's one of my great heroes, by the way.

Oh, wow. He had a remarkable testimony of being converted out of real leftist apostasy into biblical orthodoxy, and I had the privilege of interviewing him probably just about a year before he went home to be with the

Lord. In fact, I would credit him with being one of the chief motivators of the whole movement toward a resurgence in the interest of the care of souls because of his extensive research in that area and a kind of resistance of the modernist trends of the 20th century, going back to the more biblical and certainly faithful from the point of view of the ancient church, a view of spiritual care, the position of souls.

All of that, as I explored what he had put together and researched, was very formative in my mind.

Amen. And if anybody listening wants to go on the Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio archive and type in O -D -E -N, you'll get the interview link for my interview with Dr.

Tom Soden who was in the United Methodist Church for many years and shocked and outraged many of his very liberal friends when he had come to a biblically orthodox view of the scriptures and of doctrine and so on.

Well, let's start off here with a very obvious question to ask since we are talking about a pastor's heart.

What is a pastor? Well, a pastor is not someone who presents himself as some sort of a spiritual guru but one who has been selected by God for that task, and that can come in a number of ways.

Ultimately, the biblical revelation and also the longer experience of the church says that the people of God are involved in that.

So there's a call extended to him to serve in that capacity after a period of training, and, of course, we're always a work in progress in that area.

There's a recognition also by the other clergy, fellow pastors, that this man is eligible, that is, that he has the qualities, the biblical credentials, if you will, that would enable him to serve in that capacity to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.

So a pastor literally means a shepherd, and we see in the

New Testament there are different words for that position, putting elder, bishop, deacon to some extent has some of the functions of the pastor, but ultimately what it means is the man who is responsible for the spiritual welfare of a given body of Christians.

And specifically, how would you describe Christocentric pastoral care?

Well, there's a tendency in our time, I think, because we're such individuals, there's an emphasis on the hyper -individualism.

Everybody's an entity unto himself or herself, so there's a focus on me, myself, and I, and sometimes, unfortunately, this spills over into those who present themselves as pastors, in that there's a very big ego, and they tend to try to draw people to themselves rather than to Jesus.

So it seems to me the New Testament pictures the pastor clearly as one who does not preach himself.

We don't preach ourselves, but we preach ourselves as Christ's servant.

He said, I was determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. In my preface to the book,

I said the real model, if you will, for the ministry is St.

John the Baptist. He must increase, I must decrease, always pointing away from self and toward Jesus.

So Christ is our only hope for this world and for the next, and in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

So he gives to us all the good gifts which are needed for time and for eternity.

Therefore, in my book, repeatedly, I say the pastor really is an errand boy for Jesus.

We want the spotlight off of ourselves and put the spotlight on him at every turn.

Amen. And we're going to our first break right now. If anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

Harold L. Senkbile, Executive Director of Doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel.

He's an author with nearly five decades of pastoral experience, and today we are addressing his new book,

The Care of Souls Cultivating a Pastor's Heart. If you have a question, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. And we do have a question from Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

And Harrison asks, I know that we are to be imitators of Jesus in most ways, and especially pastors are to be imitators of the

Good Shepherd. But are there also ways that pastors should never imitate Jesus, because there are certain things he said and did that he only had the privilege and right to do since he was the

God -man? Okay, Harrison, that's a good question. Obviously, we're not

God. So when I say the pastors are representatives, or as St.

Paul said, pastors are servants of Christ, stewards of God's mysteries, we don't imply that they're a one -for -one stand -in for Jesus.

Rather, they're more like a power of attorney. Our Lord on Easter evening breathed on his disciples and said to them,

Receive the Holy Spirit, whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. So he gives them the authority.

He bequeaths to his church that power to continue his work on earth.

So, to the question more specifically, yes, we do imitate

Jesus, but my suggestion and my contention throughout the book, and I'd urge you to get it and read it, is that we're not just trying to say to ourselves, well, what would

Jesus do in this situation or that situation, and act accordingly. Rather, we want to be a physician of souls, and therefore explore the symptoms of what's going on, and there are many facets to most people's lives.

Listen carefully and prayerfully, seeking the Holy Spirit's direction, and then also seek the

Holy Spirit's direction in speaking God's word faithfully. So we're providing, like a good doctor, the treatment that's necessary for the specific ailment that's before us.

So in that situation, I'm not trying to say, I wonder what Jesus would do in this situation, but rather my internal question is this, what gift does

Jesus want to give this person right now? Although I don't have it, he does. He's authorized me to act on his behalf.

So therefore, what aspect of God's word, law, and gospel does this person need to receive in this instance?

And then where do I go from here? Like a good doctor that's on a course of treatment, what's the next stage?

What do I invite the person to receive in the coming weeks and months? Well, thank you,

Harrison, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. And guess what? You have won, by the generosity of Lexham Press, you've won a free copy of The Care of Souls, Cultivating a

Pastor's Heart. And what we are urging anyone who wins this book to do is if you are not a pastor yourself, after you've finished reading it, or perhaps even without reading it, give it to your pastor, or give it to a pastor who you know and love, so that these books will be made most use of for the category and content they possess,

The Care of Souls, Cultivating a Pastor's Heart. Thank you very much, Harrison. We need your full mailing address in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania to ship that out to you.

This next question from a listener, I think, very closely relates to the question that Harrison asked.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, In the

Lutheran Church, is there much a problem with authoritarianism, as there has been very frequently found in Reformed Baptist and Calvinistic churches?

Well, I can't speak with any authority, pardon the pun, regarding Reformed Baptist and Calvinistic churches.

I should add, however, thank you for quoting Michael Horton. He's been a dear friend for a long, long time.

And back in the day, I used to appear on his White Horse Inn on a fairly frequent basis.

So I was very grateful when he consented to write that very wonderful introduction to my book. So authoritarianism, of course, is a chronic temptation, again, of a sinful nature, and we have to guard against it at all times.

The Apostle warns that we shouldn't be tenderhearted and compassionate.

We are not to preach ourselves, but Christ with ourselves is

Christ's servant. And so we don't throw our weight around to use a popular expression, but rather we speak with both gentleness and authority.

But the authoritarian mindset, to me, communicates someone who's trying to make things happen by his own sheer willpower or charisma.

In my book, I make the distinction between power and authority, and the same biblical word, exousia, lies behind those two

English words. Sometimes pastors and others in the church try to make things happen by political manipulation or by using the force or power of their personality, manipulating people in one way or another.

The attitude cultivated in a pastor's heart, the subtitle of my book, is I want to see myself very much as a channel of what

Christ wants to bring. And the only authority I have is what I've received from him.

And I'm only authorized to do what he's authorized me to do. And since he loves sinners, my pastor work, be that correction, exhortation, even rebuke, or warning, but certainly also comforting and absolving and cleansing, all of this comes from him as an act of obedient love to the

Lord Jesus, who loves his sheep and loves them through me. Yes, and I have to make sure

I clarify what I mean or what I meant by the last question,

Harrison's question, how it connected to this. I didn't mean to insinuate that Christ himself, if we were to imitate him as a pastor, that we would be doing something wrong.

What I meant by that was that very often when you have an authoritarian problem in a church, the pastor, even if unconsciously, seems to be usurping the role of Christ in that church.

He is taking upon himself privileges and rights that only

God has. He is commanding things of his sheep that are not even biblical at times, and the glory that the pastor sometimes seeks is deserved of only

God alone. So do you follow where I'm coming from? He puts himself on a pedestal as the

Lord and Master. Our Lord Jesus said that among the

Gentiles, the great ones are the ones who exercise power over other people, but not among you.

Whoever wants to be the greatest should be a servant of all, and that's the inner attitude of servanthood and humility that marks a true

Christocentric pastor. Let me also chime in, since I'm a

Reformed Baptist, that it's not only Reformed Baptists that have a problem with authoritarianism, and I think that that is being a very greatly national scale, perhaps global scale, being corrected in many congregations, and that there are much more, there are far more pastors that I have come to know and been in contact with who have a true shepherd's heart, a true under -shepherd's heart, who are not authoritarian in their bent or in their actions.

So I don't want our listeners to think that every Reformed Baptist church on their neighborhood is guilty of authoritarianism, nor should they automatically assume that they're authoritarian just because they're a

Reformed Baptist. Right, and to your listener, I certainly would admit that many of my fellow Lutherans are tempted in that direction.

They're not perfect, and so authoritarianism does occur within the

Lutheran camp as well, but we need to work against that and to promote that Christ -like humility that nevertheless gives confidence so that a pastor can work with a good conscience and confidently.

Amen, and we have a question from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, and Grady is a very faithful listener and a very generous financial supporter of Iron Trepans Iron Radio.

It's always a pleasure to have Grady contribute a good question to the show, and his question is,

Great show, Brother Chris. Brother Harold, would this also include the care for souls that aren't members of a pastor's church but attend occasionally, that they would know the importance of attending and becoming an important part of the body?

Absolutely. I go into great detail on that in the book.

There's an unfortunate tendency, and I think as I've detected, especially in the last 20, maybe even 30 years, to downplay the care of souls because these are desperate times.

Churches are losing its base numerically.

There are very, very few Christian denominations that are growing in our part of the world.

In fact, even in the Northern Hemisphere, pretty much everywhere, the church is on decline.

So there's been a big emphasis on evangelism, and properly so. Certainly we want to always proclaim the gospel to the lost.

But there's an unfortunate wedge that's being driven between the evangelists of the church and the pastors of the church.

As I read the Bible, there's really no distinction between the two. Really the first move, if you will, as a true shepherd of souls is to ensure that the gospel is heard.

And so that someone who does not confess Christ, that's what they need to receive first of all, is the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world unto himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

That happens with personal evangelism, individual contacts, and of course in the clear preaching of the gospel every

Lord's Day. So to the listener, sure the care of souls extends to everyone who happens to come within the church, no matter how frequently they attend.

But I would go so far as to say it also extends outside of the church. So the church's evangelistic activity and the evangelization of the lost world is part and parcel of how we care for souls.

So it's not a separate activity, but it's comprehensive. Jesus said that I have other sheep that are not of this fold,

I must bring them also, and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

So to go out, seek the lost, the one lost sheep, to bring it back.

The shepherd brings that lamb on his shoulders, carries it back, and is great rejoicing in the flock.

That's, I think, what you were describing, Chris, and that disciplinary action that happened with you.

Yes, and thank you very much Arnie in Perry County, and you've also won a free copy of The Care of Souls, Cultivating a

Pastor's Heart. Make sure we have your full mailing address in Perry County, Pennsylvania. And I don't know if I forgot to mention that to Harrison in Mechanicsburg as well, but you are also getting a book.

Oh, and I just made a mistake here. The last question was from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. You are also getting a free book,

Grady. And so please make sure we have your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina. And by the way,

CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, they are the ones shipping out these books.

They are a sponsor of this program. And so we want to thank both Lexham Press and also

CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who are shipping out the books that Lexham Press has donated to us.

That's wonderful. And I have to compliment Lexham, by the way. They're just a wonderful group of individuals there, and they have a real heart for helping the mission of the

Church and providing the very best products for a wide spectrum of Christians.

Amen. Let's see here. We have another question from John in Bangor, Maine.

And John says, Since Jesus was both a leader and a servant, if our undershepherds, who are our pastors and elders, are to imitate

Christ, don't they need to demonstrate both leadership and servanthood? Amen to that.

You know, Jesus says that the shepherd knows his sheep.

He calls them by name, and he goes out ahead of them. So leadership belongs to the office of pastor, that is, shepherd.

And, again, that's an unfortunate wedge that's being driven. And I might add that, and I won't go into it in great detail, other than to say the manuscript

I originally submitted to Lexham was a little bit too long for their ideal product.

And so my editor, Todd Haynes, kindly suggested that we could peel off a couple of chapters, and that has been published simultaneously by Lexham as the very first in a new series they're publishing,

Ministry Guides. And this one is entitled, Church Leadership and Strategy for the Care of Souls.

So that's available if you Google it from various sources.

And in there, my dear friend Lucas Woodford and I discussed this, how leadership is part and parcel of pastoral work, but it should be entered into it the right way.

And let me just quickly summarize that. Unfortunately, there's been a heavy emphasis on developing church leaders according to secular models, paying very little attention to the biblical picture and almost a peripheral of any connection with the church's ministry of the care of souls.

You mean like CEOs of corporations and that kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of been the model of the ideal pastor, be a mover and shaker, or the chief executive officer, make things happen.

And my friend Lucas mentions in that little book how he followed that model and almost burned himself out and almost ruined his family life and his health in the process and then discovered, by God's grace, that the work of the church revolves around the care of souls and it's really the work of being a faithful servant of the

Lord Christ. And so that's the very best way to be a leader, a confident leader, by doing what you've been given to do, by caring for the sheep and lambs of Jesus.

Amen. Well, we are going to our midway break right now. Our midway break, just to remind you, is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, they require of us an elongated break in the middle of the show because they, according to FCC regulations, have to localize

Zion Sharp and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, and therefore they have to air their own public service announcements and commercials. So while we air our globally heard commercials, they're going to be airing their own local

Lake City, Florida commercials and public service announcements. So please use this time wisely. Write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them because the more you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they will remain our advertisers, which means the more likely we will remain on the air because we depend upon the advertising dollars of our sponsors to exist.

So please write down the information provided by our advertisers and respond to those ads as much as you can.

And also write down questions for Harold L. Sankbile about doxology, the

Lutheran, I'm sorry, about his book, The Care of Souls, Cultivating a Pastor's Heart.

And, of course, you can ask questions about doxology, too, at the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel.

Feel free to ask questions about that or anything under the umbrella of pastoral care, the office of the pastor, et cetera.

That is what primarily we are discussing today. So please send in your questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Harold Sankbile and our topic today,

The Care of Souls, Cultivating a Pastor's Heart. We hope that you join us soon.

Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

That's wrbc .us. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshipped and how

He shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

.com That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com

Or call them at 908 -996 -7654 That's 908 -996 -7654

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered,

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That's Solid -Ground -Books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled

Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. And currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more and in approximately 10 different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the

Law Journal. If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state,

I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

Or email me for Dan's contact information at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the

Pastor's Study, and I am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on Iron Sharpens Iron.

If you live on Long Island or if you're visiting the metropolitan New York area, I invite you to join us for worship at The Haven on Sundays at 4 .30

p .m. We meet at the Ascension Lutheran Church facility, 33 Bayshore Road in Deer Park, New York.

At The Haven, you'll find God -saturated singing, gospel -rich ministry, and great commission opportunities.

Learn more about us at thehavenli .com, and join us this Sunday at 4 .30

p .m., 33 Bayshore Road, Deer Park, New York. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at the

Toronto Baptist Seminary, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jeff Downs of Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Mark Rimaldi of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merritt, New York, and the

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Augustine, Florida, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Clint Leiter of Highway M Chapel, Sedalia, Missouri, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best. Iron.

Criticizing. Iron. I think that's what it's called. This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of GracedU, inviting everybody to come to the

G3 conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country. And it is.

It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place.

So tons of stuff going on. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear

Chris Arnzen's laugh. And that's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join

Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers, and me,

G3conference .com, G3conference .com. And now there's even more exciting news.

John MacArthur himself is now also on the lineup at the G3 conference, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, 2020.

Go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com. See you there. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

Since 1987, the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the

Church, and to Christ. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com.

That's CVBBS .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

And don't forget, you can also call CVBBS .com at their toll -free number, 800 -656 -0231.

800 -656 -0231. Call that number only Monday through Friday between 10 a .m.

and 4 .30 p .m. Eastern Time because that is the only time that that phone line is manned.

That's Monday through Friday, 10 a .m. through 4 .30

p .m. Eastern Time. And that number again is 800 -656 -0231.

800 -656 -0231. And CVBBS is also still offering some excellent books for free along with your purchases.

The book that they are offering with a minimum purchase of $50 is

A Pastor in New York, The Life and Time of Spencer Cohn. And that is my favorite of all biographies written by my friend

John Thornberry, who is a brilliant church historian. And this is about a pastor in New York that tragically hardly anybody knows about today.

He was a 19th century particular Baptist pastor in Manhattan. Today we would call that a

Reformed Baptist pastor. And his life is so remarkable that I believe it should be made into a major motion picture.

And if you purchase the book, you'll find out exactly why. It is a page -turner. I could not put it down. This man's life was remarkable.

He was a schoolteacher, an attorney, a theater actor, a stage actor in the 19th century.

He was a war hero in the War of 1812. And as I said, a pastor in Manhattan.

That's A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn by John Thornberry. Published by Evangelical Press.

A beautiful hardback and it's yours with a minimum purchase of $50. All you have to do is if you go to CVBBS .com,

you include A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn into your cart.

Then you add $50 worth of merchandise on top of that. Then you add the coupon code

IRONSHARPENSIREN. All capitals, all one word. IRONSHARPENSIREN. And the cost of A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn will be subtracted from your total when you add that coupon code.

If you want to make your life easier, well, tomorrow between 10 a .m. and 4 .30 p .m. just call 800 -656 -0231.

800 -656 -0231 and ask for A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn by John Thornberry, published by Evangelical Press when you purchase $50 or more worth of merchandise.

And we have some special events that we want to let you know about before we return to Harold Sankmile.

The first is coming up next month in September. And that is a

Protestant versus Catholic debate at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, pastored by my friend

Bruce Bennett. And he is actually the Evangelical Protestant in the debate. He is debating

Roman Catholic apologist Matthew Luke Broderick on the theme, Is the

Office of Pope Biblical? Is the Office of Pope Biblical? That's Saturday, September 7th, 6 .30

p .m. at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. If you want more details, call 631 -806 -0614 631 -806 -0614 or go to wotchurch .com

wotchurch .com and that stands for Word of Truth Church wotchurch .com

Then, coming up a little later in the year, in fact at the end of the year, I am going to be packing up my bags and heading back to my old stomping grounds in New York City to the

Foundations Conference. This has become one of my favorite of all conferences. It's being held

Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan. And what better time of year to be in Manhattan than during the

Christmas season. So I'm really looking forward to this. And keep in mind that this is a very small venue.

It can seat only less than 200 people. So if you want to register, I'd register soon. But this is only made available to men in ministry leadership.

So just keep that in mind. Because of the small venue, they are limiting the attendees to men in ministry leadership.

The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, founder of One Passion Ministries, Paul Washer, another one of the greatest preachers alive today, my friend

Rev. Jeff Thomas, who is a brilliant author and remarkable preacher and teacher,

Rev. Armin Tomasian, I keep reminding you, I think he's going to be a household name amongst Reformed Christians over the next decade.

He is a young pastor with gifts and abilities far beyond his youth. Rev. Richard Colwell Jr.

and Andrew Quigley are also on the lineup. I have not yet heard them preach, but since sermonaudio .com

selected them for this conference, they are surely going to be remarkable.

So if you want more information about this conference, if you want to attend, register at thefoundationsconference .com.

Thefoundationsconference .com. Then coming up in January, I am packing up my bags again, and I'm heading to Atlanta, Georgia.

More specifically, College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta. And I'm going to the

G3 Conference once again. That stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

And the G3 Conference this January, Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th, is on the theme

Worship Matters. And the lineup is always as enormous as it is remarkable, as far as the wonderful speakers who are on the lineup at this conference.

They include Kosti Hinn, who's actually going to be my guest again on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Kosti Hinn is going to be,

I guess, the 26th of August, he's going to be my guest again. He is, believe it or not, the nephew of notorious heretic

Benny Hinn. And Kosti doesn't mind me saying that because he spends much of his time outside of his own pulpit warning people about the deceptive, dangerous, deadly, and damning doctrines of the

Word of Faith movement, including his own uncle's teachings. And he admits readily, in fact warns readily, that his own uncle is a charlatan.

He is not only a deceived heretic, he is also a knowingly conscious deceiver.

So, if you want to hear Kosti Hinn, you should come to this conference because he is truly a remarkable young man.

He's also a Reformed Baptist pastor and a cessationist today. So, he's on the lineup.

Daryl Bernard Harrison, who is a new member of John MacArthur's Grace to You ministry team.

Let's see, we have David Miller, who is a really wonderful old school preacher and teacher.

I love hearing him preach. Derek Thomas, who is surely not a stranger to most of my listeners who are theologically

Reformed. What a wonderful preacher and teacher and author he is. My friend for many years, going back to 1995,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. Dr. Joel Beeky, the president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Once again, we have Stephen J. Lawson and Paul Washer on the roster at this conference. Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry,

Grace to You. Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

R .C. Sproul and Ligetier Ministries. Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio.

Tom Askell, the executive director of Founders Ministry, the Calvinistic ministry within the

Southern Baptist Convention. Voti Baucom, one of the most remarkable preachers alive today. And recently added to the lineup is

Dr. John MacArthur, which makes this whole event even more worthwhile, if that was possible.

I have never been in the same room when Dr. MacArthur has preached before, so I am really excited about this, even more than I was when

I knew that the lineup was remarkable already and I was excited to be there.

But this has even gotten me more excited to be there. And what an honor it will be to hear

Dr. MacArthur preach live in person at the Georgia International Convention Center.

If you want to register for this event, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. You'll have all the information that you need.

I strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth if you have a business, a parachurch ministry or something else that you want to promote to the body of Christ, because they are expecting, as they always do, they have drawn over 5 ,000 people, typically every year, to this conference.

And I really strongly believe with the addition of John MacArthur, they're going to have over 6 ,000 people.

So if you want to register for an exhibitor's booth, I would do so quickly before they run out of room. So you can register to attend and also for an exhibitor's booth at g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love Iron Sherp and Zion Radio, you don't want this program to disappear from the airwaves, you love the guests and topics which are very often not heard anywhere else, please go to ironsherpandzionradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly that way with a debit or credit card.

And if you want to mail in a check via the old -fashioned way, snail mail, an address will appear on the screen where you can mail a check to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

Please never siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church in order to give to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio. And never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

Those two things are commands of God. Providing for my show is not a command of God, but if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money lying around, gaining interest or extra money for recreational purposes and coffee and ice cream, well, please take some of that money and give to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio if indeed you love the show.

It's ironsherpandzionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. If you want to advertise with us, we sure you could use your advertising dollars and as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, we would love to help you promote whatever that is through your advertising because we truly need your advertising dollars.

Send your email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. If you are not a member of a local

Bible -believing church and you're not prayerfully looking for one, you're living in rebellion against God, you need to rectify that.

Please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put in the subject line, I need a church or something similar.

I have helped many people in my audience find biblically faithful churches near them or even where they're going on vacation or for their family, friends, and loved ones in different parts of the world.

I can help you too, God willing, so please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com. I have lists of biblically faithful churches globally and I will try my best to help you find the church where you need a church.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to our guest today, who is

Harold L. Senkbile, the Executive Director of Doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel and also author of the book,

The Care of Souls, Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, which is our topic today. chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com Let's see here.

Brother Senkbile, we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

Do you think that the Word of God does not have a high enough place in the average worship service today?

Well, I have a sampling of probably 10 to go by, so I can't say the average is going to...

I can't be a judge of that. Clearly, the Word of God is the sole tool that our

Lord has given us from which to do ministry. And if you look at the history of the church over the generations, there's always a continual temptation to veer off of the

Word of God or to reinterpret it in a way that is more conducive, supposedly, to the whims of people and so to morph the message to accommodate the trends of the time or to use kind of a buzzword these days to contextualize the message in a way that's more appealing to supposedly the clients, the customers that we're trying to sell the gospel to.

You read the Bible, you see that that's a totally foreign concept, and so we're always urged to preach the

Word and be insistent in season, not of season, to convince and rebuke and to, above all, proclaim

Christ and Him crucified. So probably the average church is continually tempted in that direction, and so I have no idea, if you take a survey, of what's preached on an average

Sunday morning, how faithful it is to the Scriptures. I can tell you from my own decades of preaching that it's always a consistent necessity to bring myself back to the written text and to say nothing more and nothing less than God has given me to say.

Now, what you just said, I think, is very important, because of the fact that there seems to be a trend, and has been a trend for quite a long time, for pastors to dominate their sermons with personal anecdotes and stories, and sometimes the way that they apply the

Word of God to whatever it is that they are speaking about is really Scripture -twisting, eisegesis, misapplying text to the stories that they're telling.

Isn't this something that we have to be very leery of, where on the one hand the pastor does want to relate to the average person sitting in the pew, or hearing them on the radio, or wherever they may be listening to them, but on the other hand, the

Word of God must be central, and everything that the person is saying in regard to a personal story has to be driven home to the

Scriptures, doesn't it? Exactly. I mentioned earlier that I was called to teach at the seminary for a given time, length of time, and when

I first arrived there, a friend asked me, are you going to teach homiletics to students, the art of preaching, by telling them how to preach skyscraper sermons?

And by that she meant one story after another. I've never heard that phrase before.

And so this is kind of a technique that's used in some quarters. The unfortunate thing is usually these stories, those kinds of stories, have very little, if anything, to do with the

Scriptures, but rather they're told in order to create a certain atmosphere or mood amongst the hearers.

Now, at the same time, I think it is true, and I speak now as one who's been preaching for almost five decades, that the hearers hear in a different way over the generations.

And it's true that we do need to preach in a more narrative way these days, and there we have plenty of examples.

Our Lord's preaching is filled with narratives called parables. There's the biblical narrative itself, and each text has its own nuance.

So a good friend of mine says, you know, we need to preach in living color.

We need to reach people these days. We need to have the affective, the visceral aspect of each text clearly portrayed.

And sometimes the best way to do that is, frankly, through narratives and sometimes personal stories.

But we don't ever want to preach ourselves. We always want to preach Christ. In my book,

I have lots of vignettes of incidents of my ministry and also examples from my own childhood.

But hopefully they're in the background. They elucidate. They're a window, not a door, not a wall.

So they don't draw attraction to themselves, but rather serve to enhance the thrust of preaching

Christ and doing His work among His people. Great. We have

Mary in Cork, Ireland, who says, Good afternoon, Mr. Sankbile and Chris.

I was in two different authoritarian churches for many years in the past, and the pastor and elders promoted shepherding.

They twisted the scriptures for their own benefit and spiritually abused all the congregation.

This was one of their favorite verses. It is the centurion servant speaking in Matthew 8, verse 9.

For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one go, and he goes, and that one come, and he comes.

I say to you, my servant, do this, and he does it. He said the church was an army and we had to obey our leader because if we did not obey him, we were disobeying

God, and none of us wanted to disobey God. They used the scripture,

Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls.

Because we were young Christians with not much knowledge of scripture, we looked to these leaders and believed what they said.

They arranged marriages, knew what was in our bank accounts, controlled our friendships.

I could go on, but it is not edifying. Needless to say, the fruit was rotten in both places and lives, and marriages were seriously destroyed.

Some never trusted God after it. They were building on a false foundation that came crashing down.

I am one of the survivors that God in his mercy rescued and restored, which took a very, very long time to recover from.

I am indebted to God for placing me in a church where there is godly leadership and sound biblical teaching.

I look forward to reading your book, and I will pass it on when I am finished reading it. It is Mary in Cork, Ireland.

It is not a question, but it is more of a personal testimony. Can you respond to her personal testimony?

Exactly. God be praised, Mary, that he has brought you out of that kind of control environment.

That is not a church that you describe. That is a sect. That is a cult. Nowhere in the scriptures do we ever see that kind of thrust being made.

Of course, the pastors who used those texts abused them rather than used them.

As I point out in my book, the authority is always one that is received for the benefit of the recipient.

The pastor serves not as a dictator or a lord over his people, but rather as a servant of Christ and a steward or a manager of the mysteries of God for the benefit of blood -bought souls, not for their control.

It is not a manipulative kind of thing that you are describing. I am so sorry that you and others had to endure that.

I think it is probably a commentary on the state of affairs in our culture today because it is becoming so unraveled that young people, and it sounds as though Mary was young when this happened to her, are attracted to a structured environment because the world, the culture, is so chaotic that it seems like it is safe and a good, healthy place to be where you know exactly what you are to do and how you are to live.

Theologically, that is legalism. That is certainly manipulative and destructive to souls rather than helping and curing souls.

I am very happy that you have managed to escape Mary. If you are able to get a hold of my book and read it,

I invite you to correspond with me because my goal is to portray exactly the opposite kind of authority within this particular book and to urge pastors to become servants, not lords and masters and dictators.

Amen. Well, thank you, Mary, and because we know that you have an American relative here in the

United States, we are going to have that individual ship your book out to you in Cork, Ireland.

So, thank you very much for your participation in the program. Now, that leads me to a question.

I don't know if you would get identical answers from every pastor who has asked this question, but let me preface what

I'm going to ask with this statement. There are many conservative,

Bible -believing churches. Perhaps these churches are a minority today.

You know, most of the churches, it seems, across the American landscape are more guilty of being absent of church discipline and that kind of thing.

But the churches that might be more guilty of having a proclivity towards authoritarianism, which would be fundamentalist churches, perhaps, and even some of our

Reformed churches. It seems that these churches, while on the one side of their mouths, are preaching the truths of male headship in the home, that the man is to be over his wife, that the wife should be submissive to the husband, and that the father should be ultimately the head of the home, and that men are to be in the head of the church, and so on.

But it seems that on the other side of their mouths, or their actions, perhaps, they very frequently emasculate these very same men by wanting to intrude upon the personal lives of the families and make decisions for those men and rob those men of their authority.

Am I making sense here? It seems that they contradict, sometimes, the very things that they teach about male headship in the home.

Well, I can hear what you're saying, Chris, and certainly if that's the case, if that's their style or their goal, to micromanage all the men in their churches to that extent, that's exactly what they're doing.

They are emasculating the male who has been placed as a sentry, if you will, to keep vigil within his household, to guard and to keep his bride and his children safe spiritually and certainly physically as well.

But when they are undercutting his authority in that household, that's exactly what they're doing.

Rather, I think you want to see, you know, you see what the apostle says as he addresses

Christians in an environment, by the way, very much like ours, very decadent, very pagan, and we're coming,

I'm convinced, not into a period of greater secularization but a period of greater paganism, rampant everywhere around us.

So we look at the New Testament now suddenly with new eyes and see, you know, this is how the church lived its most vital times and grew most vigorously as it held forth the word of life to a dying world and a dying culture.

So what did they do for marriage and sexuality? They taught the vocation of what it means to be a man and a woman, what it means to be a husband and wife, mutually, in a relationship of mutual submission with the man being given the responsibility and the authority, but always for the loving benefit of his wife, not in order to make her his slave somehow or to abuse her mentally or verbally or certainly physically or sexually, but to use his body, his mentality, his energy for the safety and security of his whole household, starting with his bride.

So we look at that New Testament now with refreshing eyes and say, we've got something that will serve us very well as we explore what it means to be a baptized

Christian, a faithful exhibitor of the Holy Spirit who dwells within our bodies as we are shrines, if you will, of God himself living a winsome, positive, healthy life in a world that is really falling apart all around us.

So I strayed a little bit from the thrust of your question, but I think that definitely is destructive when a pastor micromanages the men in his household because of his supposed headship.

He's really destroying their headship. Amen. And if you could,

I want you to basically let our listeners know how best a pastor can balance his time.

Of course, I don't think there's any ABCD easy answer to this, but a pastor has to be a faithful, if he is married, of course, has to be a faithful husband and father to his own wife and children and has to manage his own household well.

And yet, unlike other men in the congregation, other than perhaps deacons and the fellow elders that are alongside the pastor, they have to be very often ready at any given moment to spring up out of bed and race to a home perhaps because there's a near violent argument going on or whoever, who knows what it might be.

It might be even to race to the bedside of an injured or dying congregant. It could be many different things.

But how does the pastor, without destroying his own role as husband and father, be a shepherd or under -shepherd to everybody in his congregation?

Yes. Well, that's an excellent question. You put your finger on a very, very important issue, one which, by the way, occupies a great deal of the focus of our attention in doxology and in our classic program of providing advanced skills.

Addressing the church in your own house is your first vocation, if you will, before you're also a shepherd of God's flock.

And it's not as though you have to give up one for the sake of the other, but I can tell you it is quite a balancing act and one that takes conscious attention because before you know it, you can be shortchanging your own family.

And I often say for far too many women who are married to pastors, the church becomes the other woman in their marriage subjectively, and that's unfortunate.

Yeah, that's an interesting way to phrase it because there is a very famous pastor,

TV personality and author whose wife divorced him, and the very thing that she said when asked why did you leave your husband, she said he was having an affair, not sexually, his other woman was the church.

And I don't know enough about their relationship to know if that was a legitimate charge, but it was exactly the way she phrased it.

It's a temptation because you see, a pastor's work is quite literally never done. You can work and work and work and work and never come to the end of your duties, so to speak.

But that's why the whole thrust of my book is Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, means to realize that you can't really make it happen.

You can invest more time and energy, you can throw yourself into longer days and longer weeks and never really make it happen.

You can only be a channel or an agent of Christ Jesus and his gifts.

And he doesn't expect you to do more than you're able, and in fact he's calling you to first of all pay attention to that wonderful woman who's given her consent to you in marriage and is your helper, fit for you.

So I frequently credit my wife Jane throughout the book with that specific role of being a

God -given support. So that is a continual challenge and it is a balancing act to be sure, but it begins with an inner attitude,

I think. I realize that my energy, my time is limited, and my

Lord has given me these beautiful people, this wife and these children to tend and care for as well, and it wouldn't be right for me to shortchange them because I somehow think of myself as having a higher calling.

My first calling is with them, and then I can do these other things confidently. Don't you think that this is proof that a church needs to have leadership that is beyond one single head, that there needs to be an active elder and deacon board who are helping the pastor to be focused on his main duties and be involved in the personal attention that a flock needs, especially if it's a large flock?

Oh, precisely. And sometimes you need more than one full -time called pastor in a very large church, but even in the smaller churches, you're right.

These godly men who are laity but have an elder role within the congregation are so important, and they're worth their weight in gold just to have your back, to be a sounding board, the scripture text that forms the name of your program, to be the iron that sharpens iron, to hone you, to help you, to keep you on track, and also to care for you.

So to have your back on many things that don't belong to the narrow focus, the specific focus of the called pastor, that's so very important.

And without it, it would be hard to be hard -pressed to get the work done. And I've been blessed by so many godly people, both men and women, who have been supportive to me, but particularly those men who have been elders in our church.

We do have a lay office of elder, which is really crucial, and I was going to mention to you,

Chris, one of the highest compliments I've had, and I've had a lot of them. They haven't been perfect, certainly.

They had my share of criticism, and sometimes rightly so. But one of the best compliments

I ever received from one of my members was this. Pastor, the best thing you've done for us is to love your wife.

Amen. It shows. Wow, yeah, that's powerful, and it's a very crucial thing.

When we come back, I'm going to have you answer a question. I'm going to ask the question now, and I'll have you answer it when we come back from our final break.

This is from Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. And Bebe asks,

How personal should we be with our pastors into the intricate details of our marital lives?

Are there things that are off -bounds to tell a pastor about? And you can answer that when we return.

And if anybody else wants to join us, please do it now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

is the email address. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Harold Sankbile after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back. And Brother Sankbile, if you could answer our question from BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Is there anything off -base, out of limits, off -limits for someone to share with their pastor?

Okay, Chris. How much time do I have on this one? You have two minutes. Okay. So, the short answer to that is if you went to a medical doctor with some particular problem, you wouldn't hold back with truth.

The same thing would be true with a spiritual physician who is both qualified, competent, and confidential.

Of course, I think the only limitations would be if there's something that would damage another person, we would be very careful to talk about that.

Or if it's unnecessary. Yeah, right. Otherwise, if it's a genuine burden upon your own heart, we want to be able to speak the truth and to find healing for that particular aspect of what's going on with us and to find that healing in God.

That's the pastor's role, to speak God's Word, to provide his healing, his care. Well, thank you,

B .B., and I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the information that they need to contact you.

Once again, Doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, their website is doxology .us,

doxology .us. And do you have any other... Go to the Contact Us on that website, and you'll find my email address there.

Great. And if you want to find out more about Lexham Press, who publishes the book The Care of Souls, go to lexhampress .com,

lexhampress .com. You can also go to cvbbs .com to order that book because they are a sponsor of the show, cvbbs .com.

I want to thank you, for being on our show today. I look forward to many return visits from you,

Brother St. Paul. I enjoy that very much. Thank you, too, for the time. It's been a pleasure and a joy.

And I want everybody to always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.