Pastoral Ordination- SBC to Reformed

Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast. We are grateful to be back with you again. Tonight is another special episode in our series of pastoral ordination.

We're going to be speaking with special guest Jeremiah Reiner, who is now a Reformed Baptist, once was a

Southern Baptist, and we're gonna speak with him in just a few moments. Stick with us. Thank you again for watching the

Truth in Love podcast. The comment line is open if we can pray for you. If you have any questions or comments, if you're watching, at least say hello.

Let us know that you're watching. We're grateful that you're here. Tonight is another part of our series in pastoral ordination.

Jeremiah, it's good to have you with us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thank y 'all for having me on.

So Jeremiah Reiner, pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Duffield, Virginia. I actually live here in Mount Carmel, Tennessee, so we're pretty much a border town, so right across the way there.

But yeah, like you mentioned, kind of a spiritual mutt, I guess. So way, way back, a long time ago, very kind of independent, fundamental

Baptist. Worked my way into Southern Baptist, and I guess God graciously brought me out of that into more of a

Reformed view of things now. So doing great by trade. I'm bi -vocational, so I'm actually a schoolteacher.

Married my wife, Morgan, and I've got two young kids, Everly and Judah. They're three and seven months, so we are busy here.

And also run the Deeply Rooted podcast for part of our larger Deeply Rooted Conference Network.

Now if I'm not mistaken, you have a Calloway shirt on. I do, yeah. Acid, bad golfer.

So next time I come to Tennessee, we're gonna have to get together. Absolutely. Clubs are always in the car,

I promise. Well, I'm Rob, and this is my co -host Dan. Dan, how you doing?

Good, how you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Let's get this ball rolling. I'm interested to see what

Jeremiah has to tell us tonight about his experience with pastoral ordination. So in your words, kind of define what is pastoral ordination.

Yeah, you know, kind of short and sweet, I would just say it's a public affirming by the church of a man for gospel ministry, particularly shepherding.

I think that's really what the office is. And I think in a broader sense, I think it's really ascending.

I think that's the point of it there. Just send a man out to do the work of the Lord. I'm sorry for the dead air.

No, you're good. Hey, we're live. Yeah, we're live. We didn't discuss this, but I figured we'd do a little rotation,

Dan. Oh, okay. Back and forth. Ping pong. I knew that you liked asking this next question.

I thought you were gonna go on with it. I know. Let's go ahead with it. Okay, that's fine. I'll catch back up in a second.

This is your baby. I know, I know. I appreciate that. So this is really, doesn't have a lot to do with pastoral ordination.

Back when we first started this series, this was something that was going through my mind, because one of the things that I was hearing at that time that, you know how fads happen, these clips from different places pop up and then they'll go away.

So there was this clip popular at the time of two pretty famous, well one of the pastors is kind of famous, but he was having debate up on his stage and he is charismatic.

Not pointing to a certain denomination, but just charismatic in his mannerisms.

And he was debating, I think, it was flat earth.

He was debating flat earth. That's what it was. And so they had different views, of course, because they were debating and they went back and forth.

Well, your view is not biblical. Well, your view is not biblical. And I said to myself, that happens to us all the time.

You know, we'll have a conversation with somebody and say, well, this is biblical and yours is not biblical and vice versa.

And I begin to think about that and I was like, sometimes we say something is biblical and we make that to mean that it's something prescriptive for everybody, when really in the

Scriptures it's only descriptive. And sometimes it is prescriptive.

And so as it applies to pastoral ordination, how do you feel about the idea of pastoral ordination being biblical?

Is it just a descriptive thing, something that they did, something the Bible talks about, or is it a prescriptive thing that you see in Scripture, or is it both?

For me, it's both. I'm actually floored that I got led into a question with a

Greg Locke illustration, but that's not too far from us, by the way, so his name pops up a lot.

Anywho, I'll get back to it. But I like that you sent me that because I really had to sit on that for a while.

And I'm with you and I've actually heard you guys talk about this already, and I think the brother here, Dan, may have leaned on that as well, kind of both.

The reason I say both, and I agree with that, I think 1 Timothy 3, it gives you the qualifications. So in that,

I think those are, I think they're pretty descriptive by nature. But if you go over to Titus 1, particularly verses 10 and 11, there's where I would make the prescriptive argument.

Paul writes this, he said, For there are many who are insubordinate, envy -talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

In other words, this is why you need to be ordained. We are countering error.

Telling Titus there, yeah, here's your qualifications, and they're very important just like you had told Timothy.

Descriptive, that's where I would make that argument. And then the prescriptive is the why. And so here's the exact reason as to why these men need to be specifically ordained of the church to guard against error.

Because he mentions the fact that there are many out there that are absolutely insubordinate.

They're wolves, you know, for another term there. So yeah, I would argue both. I think that's a really good question to ask.

Yeah, and where I ended up with that question really is not the context, because there's another aspect of that question and how we use that statement, is it biblical, which is more applicable to that analogy that I gave because they were looking at the same passages, but one was coming up with one view and saying, well, my view is biblical, and another was coming up with a different view, and he's saying, well, my view is biblical, and so we don't have to tackle that because it's not technically part of this conversation.

But it intrigues me that we get into that and we hold fast to our own views as biblical, and we're unwilling to be teachable.

I mean, there's foundations that we need to be firm on, but then there's places where we need to say, yeah,

I can be teachable here. That was it for that question,

Dan. Got you. I appreciate you letting me have that one. I got that smooth transition. So biblically speaking, does someone need to be ordained in order to pastor a church?

Or in other words, we ask it the backwards way. You can kind of put them both together. Can an unordained man pastor a church?

I won't give you a reason. So answer can and then answer should. Yeah, I'll give you a really good spiritual answer here.

Maybe. I'll go back to that passage.

I really sat on Titus 1 a lot on this. I felt like there was more meat on the bone there for that question.

I think it seems to say that yes, they should.

Can they? Sure. And I say that because I've seen it. I have seen legitimately qualified men pastor local churches that were not technically ordained.

Now, I say that in context of the mission field. This was outside of the United States, so that might be a little caveat to throw in there.

However, that still we're all under the Bible, so there's really no excuse for that. But I would say that they should.

I think you're safeguarding against what I mentioned there a second ago that Paul was telling him, because you are going to be apt to be deceived.

And there will be false teaching that creeps up. And like Rob was talking about, we're under the

Bible. I mean, we've got to come together under that heading. He made that reference to two men disagreeing about the same passage.

How can we not come under the umbrella of Scripture here and agree together? And so yeah, my answer would be they should, but it is possible to do that and not be.

I don't think it's ideal, and I don't think it's best. That would be the way I'd answer that. Sure.

Yeah, I think back to the old Scottish Covenanters. For a while there, they got in such big trouble with the government there that they actually were without ministers for a while.

And so they had lay preachers and all sorts of stuff. They had a couple guys who were getting ready to be ordained. So what did they do?

They went down to the the Dutch guys and said, hey, can you examine our our fellows and then send them back up here to Scotland to just make sure that we're not getting ourselves into something that they shouldn't be getting into.

Kind of a safety check, which I think is great, because if I'm off base and don't know it,

I'd hate to send other people off on the wrong track. And you're going to be answered for that one day.

Exactly. That does bring up different things to think about.

You were talking about history. We had periods of time in history where there was only one church that was legal, and you can only be ordained through that church.

So what did those churches that were kind of underground do? If you were caught preaching, you'd be arrested, much less, you know, being ordained and proclaiming, you know, here's our church and I'm going to ordain minister.

There's a lot of caveats there to think about, and I appreciate your answer. And here's another question to go along with that, and you don't have to answer because I didn't put it in here.

Maybe you can come back to it. But I've seen in my experience in churches, we're talking about pastoral ordination, and I've sat under the preaching of men who

I probably said to myself at that time, how did they make it through the process?

Should they be ordained? Should they even be behind the pulpit preaching? How would an individual address that?

How would a church address that? Maybe that's something that we can add to this conversation, but if you think of something, you can come back to that later.

But to me, I've experienced that in my church attending years, and I've always wondered about that.

What should a church do in that situation? Well, I kind of expect, especially when

I preach in a lot of different churches, just been asked to fill the pulpit, if I'm up there and I'm saying something heretical,

I expect the pastor or one of the elders to stand up and stop me and correct me on the spot.

But no, Dan, that's heresy. You need to get right. And not only for the sake of the church hearing, but for my sake as well.

So yeah, I would expect that from a pastor where I'm visiting to preach.

So I guess I would expect that if I was having someone fill a pulpit that I was supposed to be guarding over and shepherding a flock, that I would stand up right then and maybe give them a second.

Maybe they're trying to prove a point and they skirt close in order to prove a point. They bring it back. I don't know.

But yeah, if they're way off base, just hold on, buddy. I hate to do this.

And then like our podcast name, speak the truth in love. Unless they are just a wolf up there trying to fleece the flock, then you pull out the staff and beat them with it,

I guess. And that would lead to another question as well. If you have a pastor that's not calling out heresy, are they even qualified at that point?

Well, that's one of them. They're supposed to be able to call out, like Brother was reading earlier, call out the error and hold people accountable.

Right. So, Pastor Jeremiah, I guess I'll just answer the next question.

Are you ordained? And what did that process look like for you? Yeah, I am.

Sort of long and drawn out, but yet when it came time, very quick. So like I said, I sort of call myself a spiritual mutt.

I'm a lifer. I do admit that. I've been going to church my entire life. Very fortunate.

Great godly parents. Extended family, but a lot of our upbringing, very independent, fundamental

Baptist, tight background, free will Baptist. And so by the time I sort of had announced my call to ministry and knew that was where God was leading after a lot of prayer and some talking to others.

At that time, I sort of navigated into an SBC circle and had been there for quite a while.

Started preaching quite a bit, like Dan was talking about. Most of my early ministry was a lot of pulpit supply.

I mean, I was kind of the called guy when people needed help. A lot of local churches that pastors, you know, either sick, they didn't have anybody, things like that.

And I was very, very fortunate to get a lot of opportunity very early on.

And I look back on that. I'm very thankful for it. But during that time, still kind of in that SBC vein, although I preached all over.

I mean, I just, you know, I was in a lot of different churches and denominations, but I was called on eventually by a church to consider taking on.

They had two campuses, basically, and sort of plopped in their lap.

This is not something that they had planned for. A church was struggling moderately. And basically, they came under the umbrella of this other church needing help.

And I look back on that. I'm very grateful that the larger church did that. I think they did things the right way to care for them.

And instead of just kind of taking in and bulldozing, they wanted to kind of help them get back on their feet. And they were looking to find a pastor.

And during that time, the idea was, let's get a man in here and also help this church for a few years and hopefully get them back on their feet so they can be autonomous again and obviously still work well together.

But they wanted them to get back to a good place. And I had filled in there probably four or five times.

And conversation started happening about me coming in there and considering that. And of course, we prayed about it for a long time and felt a good lead there to do that.

And it was during that time that, you know, they asked me, are you ordained to do this? And I said, no,

I haven't. I've just got, you know, about eight, nine years of experience here in my belt, but I've never been ordained officially.

So that's when that process started, which I was very grateful for. So they took their time as far as like calling me in to be pastor.

But the actual ordination process was fast. So ironically,

I actually was ordained with two other men. One of the men on staff there was going to be the

Sunday leader of worship at that church. And so, and I rightly believe anybody that's going to do that needs to be,

I mean, I'll say personal opinion, but I feel like I can probably back this up well. But anybody leading worship,

I think should be apt to teach as well. I think that's a very important aspect of it.

And he was. And he had a strong call to ministry in his life, which I'm very grateful for. And the other gentleman was going to be the youth pastor there for them on the staff of the other church.

So basically they decided they're going to do all three together. Now we were called in.

We met with the council of five men at that time. This church where we were at was under a small ministerial association.

So yes, SBC, but you know, if you know anything about the SBC, that a lot of autonomy, like a lot of autonomy within that.

So they were under a smaller regional group as well called the Clinch Valley Baptist Association, which looking back on that, that's a positive thing, mainly for, you know, missional work and things like that, but also working together in the region.

And so when we were called in for our council, basically what it was, was three men on the church staff, the pastor and two associates, all ordained.

And then they called in two other men from area churches who were also in the Clinch Valley Baptist Association. And the good news for all that, all of those men had heard us preach often.

They were all familiar with us personally. They knew us personally. So as far as the qualifications, the character traits,

I would argue they knew us very well and had for years. That was not something that happened immediately.

I'd known all those men for a long time. So when we got in there, there were a few questions, theologically, nothing really deep.

And I didn't really feel like it was very pressing, simple thing. Well, what is the gospel? Your view of the

Bible, things like that. And then a lot of encouragement. They actually went around the room and it was,

I actually appreciated that very encouraging advice, but not to tear down and demean anybody.

You know, it wasn't doom and gloom, like, hey guys, you're about to get into a really difficult thing. Good luck. It wasn't like that.

It was very uplifting. Amen. It's a high calling. There's a great responsibility, but you serve a great

God and he is most certainly going to shoulder the load here and you're to be faithful to the word and to feed his flock.

It was very encouraging talk. And then it came time, you know, for the actual ordination service, which was a few days later.

And the way they did it, they actually called in one individual per guy to sort of testify on our behalf of almost like a character witness.

And what's interesting is we did not pick these people. This was picked by the pastor, men that he thought could come in and give good testimony of us.

So he'd actually selected a very good friend of mine, another minister. And I appreciate that.

And he got up there and was very kind and gave basically an outline as to why I met the qualifications.

Each other guy got individuals to do that as well. They had some worship songs. There was a time of prayer.

And then the pastor preached kind of a charge message, not only to us, but the congregation. You know, yes, to these men, you have a great responsibility before the

Lord, but also the people have a responsibility to respect this office and to encourage these men and pray for these men.

And then once that was done, we were all called forward and basically kind of a vote was presented.

And of course, everybody was on board. And in the SBC, at least that church, it was kind of phrased as, you know, we as this council and the deacon body.

So the deacons were kind of brought in on that as well to sort of confirm us, which I thought was very unique.

But again, that was their process. And then at the end of that, they called for all the elders and ministers and the deacons to come forward.

And we all bowed down and they laid hands on and prayed over us. And that was kind of the service there.

We were given a nice SBC ordination paper. They were all signed there.

And I was actually looking at that today, looking over just to make sure I got all those guys' names right. All of them still faithful.

And by God's grace, the other two men there that night still faithfully serving well.

So we're, you know, praise God for that. But that was kind of my ordination in the

SBC. Now, like you mentioned, I've kind of changed my tune on some theological things as far as my understanding of Scripture.

But thankful for how that went. I appreciate the process. A little quick.

I understand that. But, you know, you also have to kind of factor in the fact that I had known these men for a long time.

So I do throw that in there. I don't think today going quick is ever the right path.

But in having known me for so long, I'm not going to say that was an out, but it wasn't like they had a lot of questions about my life or those other two men.

I think that's a very positive thing. You have men that are part of the process of ordaining you, and they've been able to watch and see your life over time.

I think that's a very positive thing. I had preached in those other two gentlemen's churches often. They had allowed me to do that.

I had had a healthy relationship with them, and as had the other two men. So again,

A, we weren't necessarily novices. We had been on the, as far as the preaching circuit, so to speak.

We'd been going a while. And also, they got to know us publicly.

I'm still bi -vocational during that time. I've lived a very public life. So they knew my wife.

They knew my family. They knew a lot about me personally up to that point. It's interesting that you bring up the pastors and deacons, because that may cause me to reflect on my early years in the

Southern Baptist Church. And that was a thing back then. I'm not sure how it is today, but it was back then that if you're ordained, you're ordained.

It doesn't matter if you're a pastor or a deacon. And when it comes time to lay hands on somebody, if you've been ordained in either office, you come on up and lay hands on this person.

I remember that. And as far as I know, still very common,

I actually participated in one, probably about a year after that. We were asked to help with another gentleman that was a good friend of all of ours, and he called the ministry.

And this one's a little bit larger. There were actually about 10 or 12 of us in there in the council room that day. All ministers ordained in the

SVC at that time, and very similar service order as well. It was only him that night, called another

I would call him a character witness, but that's sort of the way it felt. And then at the end, we all gathered around and laid hands and prayed, but the deacons were also asked to come forward.

So a lot of times it's phrased like the elders of the church, and for some reason the deacons were always invited.

And that I get what they're saying, because if you know a lot about SVC churches, and really a lot of independent

Baptist churches and things like that, deacons a lot of times function as elders. I don't know if y 'all are familiar with that a lot, but I see that often, that deacons tend to really fill two roles in one.

Now that's another topic for another day, but that does seem to be the norm in a lot of these churches.

Now I'll ask one more follow -up question to that before Dan asks his question. Are you in a reform, have you left the

SVC, and are you pastoring a reform Baptist church, or is your church still SVC?

No, so we're not SVC. We would be an independent reform church. We planted there almost three years ago, and coming from different networks.

So we're not within a network or conference, so there's a lot of autonomy there, but we would identify ourselves as a reformed

Baptist church. We hold 1689, and I'll probably put that out there for people to understand.

People will describe reformed Baptist as a whole bunch of different things. Confessional reformed

Baptist means something different than just a Calvinist with a

Baptist name. That's helpful. So in the church you're at now, say you had another elder or someone that you were going to ordain, what would that process look like?

Would it be substantially different, or how would y 'all go about ordaining someone in the reformed

Baptist church that you're in now? And a follow -up question, maybe we could back up a second. When you switched over and you said you planted this one?

Right. Were you ordained again, or did that ordination transfer, or was it recognized, or how did all of that work as you came in?

Because I know it'd probably be a little weird with the church plant situation being a little bit different than going into somewhere that's already established.

Right. I would say if I went into somewhere that was established, I probably would have been, quote, reordained.

That would have been the right thing, and if a church asked me that, I would have had no objection to that whatsoever. Vet your credentials, basically.

Exactly. Yeah, I would have had no problem with that, because I would have absolutely hitched my wagon to their belief system and their covenants and things of that nature.

And again, no questions asked. I actually would have thought that would have been the right thing, but because we planted and all of our, you know, literature and polity and everything was brand new, we did not.

We did not reordain and get reordained by anybody after that. I guess our credentials transferring, if you want to think of it that way.

But in all of our, you know, our covenants, confessions, statements of faith, all that kind of stuff, we were the ones that did all of that in that process.

It was pretty lengthy. It was over a year, so it wasn't anything fast. And we were counseled by a lot of good faithful men.

We did a lot of research, talking, counseling, meeting, praying with a lot of different men, faithful churches, to make sure that we knew what we were saying, we wanted to communicate it well.

So that was kind of the process there. So no, we, there's no reordination. Yeah. Okay. And what would the process look like if you had a guy coming up in your church and he would, you say, this guy should be a candidate for ordination.

What would the process look like getting him ordained? Well, good news on that, we actually have sort of that going on in a way right now.

So we're a small church. I mean, we, you know, maybe 40 people or so, something like that. God's been very kind.

One of the men that was originally a deacon that we had started with ordaining there, he felt a call to ministry after quite a while being in the church.

So a little less than a year ago, I believe, get the timeline right there. Had a lot of conversations with him and the other elder that we have there.

And his name is Jordan Hughes. So shout out to him if he's listening. But so Jordan and I talked to this gentleman and I thought he checked every box as far as character.

We've known him a long time, simply just wrestling through the fact that, is this really what the

Lord wants? And let's pray about that. You know, let's talk this over a little bit more and see where we're going here.

Make sure he understands, you know, that role and what comes with that. And felt very confident in where he was heading.

And so he has started the ball on that. He's actually been ministering quite a bit for us. He started out doing some

Sunday school classes. And then there's been a lot of churches that have called on us, mainly because of our background in us, them knowing that we did a lot of pulpit supply for the years.

So we still get a lot of phone calls occasionally from people that don't know that we're, you know, established now.

And so we're very fortunate to be able to send him out to help and get him some experience there.

He is enrolled in seminary, which is great for him. And so we're helping in that process.

He's going to covenant there in Kentucky. And so one of the parts that I really enjoy about that is it's very hands on with the local church.

And so they really expect a lot out of the elders and pastors there. So we're working through that. Now, I say that because when this all started,

I immediately called a good friend of mine. He was also SBC ordained, and I knew that he had been on the road a little bit longer, and he had kind of come to, you know, reform

Baptist type convictions as well. And I called him. I said, Hey, listen, never done a reform

Baptist ordination. I need some help here. You know, what are you guys doing?

And I just want to pick your brain about that. And he gave me some very sound advice that I'd never thought about.

And I appreciate it. And he said, you know, I've been passionate here for quite a while. He said, I've only did one, and the only time

I ever do it is when we're sending someone out. And I said, What do you mean by that? And he said,

Well, he goes, we will grow these men up and mentor them and train them and give them all the opportunity in the world and help them.

But when it comes time for ordination, he's like, it's sending time. He goes, because it's time to pastor now.

And he said, Now that may mean sending you to a new office in our church, like associate pastor.

It may be sending you out to the mission field. It may be sending you out to a different church, or it may be sending you out to plant a church.

But their role would be to actually ordain these men to send them somewhere.

We thought long and hard about that. And I actually like that. I like the idea that it's now this is your role.

You are ready to take on this greater responsibility. And so that's how we've approached it.

And we thought about that long and hard. And so when it comes time for this gentleman, that we feel like he may need to go to fill a role somewhere or maybe possibly become an elder at our church.

You know, right now, he's simply a deacon that is filling the role of ministry in a lot of places.

And so for us, it would look very similar. We would kind of walk him through that process.

And for me personally, I think our process would be obviously we're going to watch him preach.

We're going to hear him teach soundly. We're going to observe his life clearly. You know, we want to make sure he's meeting all the qualifications.

And also on top of that, we're going to make sure that we're also training him in other aspects.

This is, I guess, probably one of the, not a gripe, but one of the things I look back on, I wished

I'd had more time in funeral services, hospital visitations, counseling sessions, deacons meetings, elders meetings, financial meetings.

I know that may bore some people, but let's just be honest. That's a lot of pastoring. Often they need to be spiritually minded.

And that would be the process. We would really walk him thoroughly through, hey, this is what we do.

He's getting good training on the things that, you know, we can help out with, you know, sermon preparation, things along those lines, you know, his

Greek and Hebrew, his Old Testament, New Testament. I'm confident that's being done well. And if there's ever any questions, we would help him out.

But it's the practical everyday thing, right? You know, let's go to a hospital visit together.

Let me give you some advice on how this is going to work. You need to be able to do this because you're going to do it often. You know, maybe church discipline, you know,

God forbid that would ever happen. It hasn't so far. And, you know, thank the Lord for that. But if it did, not a bad opportunity to kind of, you know, peel the veil back and say, hey, this is what we're doing and this is why here.

So that would be the process. And then eventually, when it came time, you know, for like an ordination service, this is where it would be unique because we're not in network.

So I do think it would be me and the other elder. And I believe confidently we would call on some other men that were like minded to be able to sit down and make sure that, you know, this gentleman is prepared theologically and then meets the qualifications and then pray for him heavily and encouraging.

That was one of the things I mentioned earlier in my ordination that I look back on that I would gladly do for another man is highly encourage him.

You all know this it's a hard position. The book tells us this is not for many.

You know, this is not for many. Like there are very few that should apply for this. And so, you know, when service time comes, certainly we want to charge him, charge the congregation, you know, as we talked about before, and then heavily praying over him and for him.

And so that would kind of be the route, you know, that we would take. But I really want to put the emphasis on, I really, really like the concept of the sending.

I really like that idea that it's time for you to go to a new level now, whatever that may be, whether it's associate pastor, elder, what have you, it's time to go somewhere else now, away from just, hey,

I'm filling in, I'm learning, you know, now we're officially getting there. Yeah, let me, let me say it in a different way and see if we're if I'm understanding you correctly.

Yeah, I think I am. I think I'm, I'm right on board with you. So you wouldn't necessarily be ordaining him to a nebulous blanket pastoral ministry.

Now you're ordained and you have the opportunity to go somewhere. You're actually ordaining him to a role like you're going, you're going to serve the role as associate pastor here or church planner there, or maybe a head teaching pastor over here.

And so your ordination is toward that role. So it's something specific pointed and here's your charge to go and execute that role instead of some, some just blanket thing like, here you go, figure it out.

Right, bingo. Clearly the man can preach and teach. So he's a preacher, he is a teacher, but like I said, now you need a defined role now, you know what

I mean? So it could be pastor of such and such church. You know, it, it could be now you're leading this mission group, you know, what have you, like you're the new, you know, elder of Calvary Bible church where we would be at.

Like it could be that position specifically. So again, I just like the concept of ascending these men, you know, and I really think that's very biblical in nature.

So I've got a brother local to me who is watching. Thank you, Phillip, for watching.

And he's wanting to ask a question. Maybe you can address that question and maybe you will have to answer it kind of in a broad brush because you're, you're specifically speaking of your particular church.

Right. But he's asking about a non -denominational church. So maybe you could broad brush it and what it should look like for an independent autonomous church, things that should be common in all those churches.

Yeah. So obviously qualifications, right up front. So qualifications and you know, we mentioned that in Titus and Timothy there and then have to teach and preach certainly.

And for those guys, again, it's going to roll back on the autonomy thing. How long of a process do you want that to be?

And then the other question I would ask is who's, who's monitoring this? Are you elder led?

Is this more congregational kind of deacon led? Like some churches, are you, are you loosely affiliated in a network?

If so, I would probably call on some of these other men to help once it comes time for that.

So that would be the way I would do it. As far as the service structure, the one that I mentioned, I find it to be very common in a lot of places.

I don't think a lot of people deviate too much off of that structure. You know, kind of the preying on the charge and the things of that nature and the sending ideas.

So, but yeah, as far as non -denominational, you know, it's very autonomous, but just the big part is meeting qualifications, have to teach and preach and making sure this person is legitimately called by the

Lord to do this. And not just seeking some kind of self gain out of it.

Because like I said, we literally read it right there. There are men who are insubordinate and they are wanting to grab a hold of something and you have to guard against that.

So that would be my big advice. Just make sure that when you are ordaining a man, that it's the real deal.

And you've, you've checked every box and you've, you know, quote unquote crossed every T and dotted every

I to make sure to the best of your knowledge that you're sending this man out for real gospel ministry.

So you kind of answered our next question. The next question kind of addresses the, are you in an association of Reformed Baptist churches?

And did you utilize that association in this ordination process that you were talking about? But you said you're, you're not in a network, you're not in an association.

So maybe the question can be asked in this way. Is that something, is there a

Reformed Baptist association network that, um, in your area, would you be open to that?

What, what does that thought process look like for you? Yes. So, you know, like you said, we are technically independent or autonomous, whatever word you want to use there.

However, there, there are some larger ones. Like the one that always comes to mind is probably the Reformed Baptist network.

I'm familiar with that one. I know they've got some ties to individuals like a Foddy Bauckham or somebody like that.

Uh, they are larger, but I did do a lot of research on that when you sent me that question, because I was interested in their process as well.

I wondered if they had any kind of formal in writing. Uh, turns out they don't, this is more of an association based on, um, kind of missional or benevolence type ministries.

Uh, they do hold us in confessions and they do have some requirements for membership for them, but I've combed through that heavily.

And, uh, it is simply, it's, um, it's a Reformed version of the

SBC. That's the way to look at it. In the structure of it, that, that they want to be very missionally minded and like -minded working together.

There's no requirement as far as fees, but they do ask that you are continually giving to the general fund and that's basically what they operate through.

But to my knowledge, I do not know of a specific Reformed Baptist network that has specific ordination, um, polity in it.

I would be very open to that. I would, I would love to know if there are those out there. We would have no problem with that.

I'll, I'll kind of give you, you know, a little insider baseball, so to speak, talk here when we planted, we did look around to see if there were people to network with.

Um, it is not that we did not find faithful churches. There are plenty in our area and I praise God for that.

Um, however, some of the things that you hit your wagon to is more than just ordination polity.

Right. And we had to be very careful there. And there were some areas that we were just simply not comfortable with associating with.

And, you know, again, we are not against those people. We're not competing with those people. It's just simply, you know, for what we were very convicted about, we, we, we felt it was safe to maybe from a distance, you know, keep it that way.

But I'm, I'm with you. I'm not opposed whatsoever. If we found out that there was a great network out there,

I would love to meet them, hear about them. So if they're listening, please, by all means, email, you know,

I'm always looking for like -minded people like you guys. You know, we mentioned that before we came on, I'm not out here running from anybody.

You know, I'm absolutely for God's people with God's people anywhere and everywhere. So I don't know where you skipped to Robert.

Just as a side note there, going back to the question you had mentioned. Yeah. Um, and this,

I mean, this is probably a cheap plug, but I didn't mean it to be, but, um, you know, we had mentioned before we got on the air, we were part of the

Deeply Rooted Conference and this coming November at our conference, it's going to be on the Holy Spirit.

One of the gentlemen that's speaking at that is Tim Challies and Tim Challies in Ontario, Canada is part of a reformed

Baptist church. It's called Grace Fellowship Church, and they've planted there years ago. Um, Tim wrote a blog years ago, and I remembered it.

I looked it up again today after you had sent that, and it was specifically on church ordination in their church.

And he was very clear. They like, it must be a Baptist thing, very autonomous in the way they did it.

But I specifically wrote down what they did, which I thought was a little unique compared to others. So this may be something for our audience.

Maybe they've seen this before. Um, but basically what they do following a pretty lengthy mentorship, which is very common, you know, probably at least a year or more of these men being under good counsel and eldership there at their churches.

There's going to be a council of questions and then encouragement from the council as well. And then once it comes time for the service, they have a list of six, seven, eight vows that they asked the minister to take all based on scripture, which

I thought was excellent. At the end of every vow, there was a passage as to why. And at the end, that gentleman would say simply,

I do. And then the pastor actually goes to the congregation and asks them to take a vow as well and ask them these questions, five, six, seven of them.

And all of them have scripture behind them as well. And then the congregation simply affirms we do.

After that, there'll be a formal acceptance. That's basically the vote pretty much. And then the elders gather together, no deacons.

I noticed that this time. So all the elders come up, they ask for the gentleman to bow at the platform there, the altar or however you want to phrase that.

And then the laying on of hands and they specifically quoted, I'm glad they did that. First Timothy 5, 22, they tied scripture to every bit of this.

You know, where it says there, do not be hasty in the laying on of hands. And they're not. I appreciate the fact that when he was mentioning that they have taken their time with these men and they're very cautious.

But by the time they get there, they're confident. And I like that aspect of it. So there's one example.

I was really impressed by that. And I thought, man, there's a lot to learn there. I thought that was pretty neat on the tying in of all those scriptures to that process.

Yeah. That sounds fascinating. Maybe you can send that article. We can post that article.

We can view it ourselves. Yeah. Short and sweet, but he specifically wrote down every vow that they took.

I thought that was very neat that they did that. Yeah. Still don't know where you jumped to.

I'll pick one. We'll start from that. Yeah. Pick one. All right. The process of ordination that y 'all are running through now, what are some strengths that you see?

What are some weaknesses that you'd like to maybe see tightened up? Yeah.

Strength -wise, character watch. I mean, I think it's very clear in the scripture. Notice how much time

Paul spends talking about a man's character. You don't learn that today. You don't learn that in a week.

Frankly, you don't learn in a few months. I think that is a lengthy process that needs to be done. Most churches do that pretty well.

I would argue that can be a strong weakness though. If you are not taking your time on that to really examine a man's character,

I would think that would be a great weakness. Fortunately, in the times that I've been involved in it, that was lengthy.

Of the times we were sitting and watching a man's character, I think that's one strength. Particularly, as I noticed there,

Chalice and their church clearly taking time on these guys. I would say

I have seen that done poorly, particularly in certain SBC churches and some others.

I know a lot of independent churches can be a little hasty on those things. I do think that goes against what

I just read out of 1 Timothy 5 .22. You need not in haste here. You need to be very careful about that.

That would be one example. Frankly, you could go either direction on autonomy.

I could see that being good and bad. Autonomy in the sense that you're just not constantly getting in this red tape and just having to jump through 10 ,000 hoops.

There's good to that, but also understand that it's good to have accountability too.

I could see the autonomy thing going either direction. If I had to say it for the

SBC, I would argue they could probably be a little tighter on the whole ordination idea and probably locking it down to a little bit more accountability there.

But that is just simply not in the Baptist faith and message. You're just not going to see that anywhere. You're not going to see that in independent

Baptist churches either. It takes more of a stronger denominational tie to that.

Dan, I don't know, do you all have more of a structured church by church by church? This is the way it's going to be when you do an ordination?

Very, very structured. I thought so. It's a two to three year process.

Would you say that's a strength though, that that's good that we all are under the same umbrella as far as the way they do that?

Yeah. Every single one that's ordained, well, I say almost every single one that's ordained in our denomination goes through the exact same process, has to take the same exams before presbytery, has to walk with them.

They're considered a student under care. If I get a call from a pastor in our presbytery,

I need to talk to them and just be frank with them. I'd say that's a strength.

It can get frustrating, especially if you've been studying for pastoral ministry for years and just became presbyterian two years ago.

Then you have to start the process all over again for the third time. It gets frustrating, but they're doing it for a good reason.

They're wanting to make sure that they're not going to put their stamp of approval where it shouldn't be. I think it's a strong thing.

Yeah, I agree. There's a couple more strengths that would stand out to the SPC, and I'll talk about some of the reformers too.

One of them that I do look back on, and I'm not saying this is a shot towards reform, Baptist churches or anything, because some do it excellently, but there is a very high expectation on preaching and teaching ability in the

SPC that I think some of the reform crowd could learn from.

We were meeting at the last conference. I mentioned that earlier. We had a gentleman come down there,

Mike Avendroff, and he jokingly told me that when he first went to seminary, he actually went to the master's seminary there in California, and then specifically went to an

SPC seminary, and this is his quote, so he could learn to preach better, which

I thought was interesting. The reason he said it was because some of the better gifted communicators come out of there, and they had a higher standard for being able to communicate well.

I thought that was very interesting. I thought about that a lot, and I thought, you know, that's actually true in my own experience, that they have a high expectation that you are apt to teach and preach, as it says.

You are not just some guy with a lot of knowledge. We've all met guys like that, and that's great, and we ought to seek out the word, but you need to be able to communicate that well to people.

As a school teacher, I'll be very frank, just because you got a degree on the wall does not mean you can communicate information to people well, and I have sadly met, and this again,

I don't want to come off condescending here, but I have met many a man that had a seminary education and were very poor at communicating the word of God to people.

It was difficult to listen to. It was difficult to understand, at times confusing, very unenthusiastic, almost to the point you would almost ask, is this man even believe that, or is this just something he likes to read?

So, there's one strength that I would say the SBC churches do push hard is a good ability to communicate.

Now, on the reform side of things, I would say the fact that they're much slower in their process, and that goes with what

Dan just said, I think that is a good thing all day. I'm really not going to kick against that, and I actually appreciate what he said there, how lengthy theirs is.

I'm not opposed to that at all. Again, like I mentioned, you can't learn a person's character quickly, and two, to that, we all get better at preaching and teaching over time.

In other words, you're giving these men the opportunity to exercise that gift better. I think that's important.

I mean, God help if I was judged on the first time I ever preached. I mean, I was close to, goodness gracious.

I stood up there in a green shirt with a green tie. I mean, I was like Kermit the Frog. It was awful, like the first time

I ever preached. Probably didn't last 15 minutes, and looking back on it, probably just full of terrible theology, but thank

God people gave me time to do that. There's another thing about going slow that at least you give men the opportunity to grow.

You can watch that too. Yes, absolutely. That is observable behavior, and that also tells you this, that man's in the book.

To me, that's vital, like that here's a man growing in grace and knowledge, and he is able to communicate that better.

Another thing about the Reformed community that I think is a big positive, it's elder -led often.

I think, and again, I'm not trying to bash a lot of congregational deacon -led churches, because there's plenty of elder -led congregational churches too, but the elder -led model to me,

I believe that's biblical. I believe that's the way to be about it, and I think those are the people that need to be over the entire thing.

Then I mentioned this before, but the idea of sending people to a specific thing,

I think is a positive, if you look at it in the grand scheme of things. Now, as far as the weakness, in the

SBC, there's probably a lot less experience required. A lot of those guys don't necessarily have to have as much time under elder mentorship and things like that.

I will say this, just in personal note, a little too heavy on the

SBC seminary dependency. I think they get a little too tight on the, hey, you have to have went here.

I know plenty of churches that actually require an SBC seminary degree, not just any, but SBC.

I don't necessarily know if that's the best way to go about it. Again, they have autonomy, so who am

I here to sit there and fire away? But I would look at that as probably a weakness, because you limit yourself to good men,

I think. Then as far as the reform weaknesses, I'm really going to go back to that.

I wish they would put more emphasis on the preaching and teaching ability. I think that is something that needs to be addressed a little bit.

I'm not telling you that there are bad ministers out there that are so trained, but they're terrible preachers and preachers.

That's not what I'm saying, but it could be better. Again, knowledge is great and it's essential, but you have to be able to communicate it.

That is so vital. I have sat under people that could walk circles around me theologically, and I just simply could not learn under them.

But I just, and I'll be frank with you, that ought to alarm you that they may not be qualified.

That may not get talked about in a lot of circles, but I wonder sometimes if a lot of this is, hey, he just really likes theology.

Well, that's good, but can you pastor? One of the qualifications of pastor is to preach and teach the

Bible well. And sometimes I wonder, have we sent men who have high character, but almost zero ability to communicate the truth to people?

So that would be the strengths and weaknesses side of things. That one

SBC pastor that you were talking about that has the paper on the wall, but can't communicate very well and can't understand him.

When I asked that question earlier about should he have even went through the process, that's the guy that I was thinking about.

Not so much that he had theological errors, but that communication aspect of his being able to communicate

God's word and do it well, and you're just lost and you're surprised that he even made it through the process.

That was the person I was thinking of when I asked that question. And you made me, as you were talking, you made me reflect on all the different dynamics that are in the

SBC, because I've been in the SBC all my life, and I've observed all these different dynamics.

You have some churches that want men to have their masters or their doctorate, and to me,

I can't make a blanket statement because many are pure hearted, good motives, but it just seems like, from my experience, what

I've seen is that the emphasis on nickels and noses.

We want our church to have the guy that has the masters or the doctorate. We want our children's pastor and our youth pastor, they've got to have the master or the doctorate so that we can retain or get more people in here and have money and we can have money coming in.

But I come from a rural setting, and so I come from an area of churches that can't afford full -time pastors with masters and doctorates, so that claim to fame or their claim to fame, what their goal is, what they work towards, seems to be like the associational newsletter, because when you receive the associational newsletter, you see all the different achievements of the different churches, and so it's not only did we fall into easy believism so that we can get as many members in here that we can, and easy believism during BBS, that we can have big numbers in the associational newsletter, but I think it has fallen into the pastoral ordination side of things.

It's made our ordination process too quick. We get them in the pulpit too early, too young, and just so that we can say, look at what we're doing.

We've got people, we're ordaining people, we're getting people in the pulpit, people in the ministry, and it's just about those numbers and kind of to look good, and I think it's a weakness that we have in the

SBC, but yeah, I think you're right in pointing those things out, and so our last question before we...

Hold on, Robert. One of the things that we've done in our presbytery, some of the churches that are closer by us, and I think two other churches, we gather together about once a month, and we have one guy stand up and preach, and then the rest of the guys who are all preachers themselves will critique him.

We're all pretty well... There's not too many theological things that we've got to go over, but there is, maybe we'll go over the exegesis of the text, how they structured the sermon, how it went, how you can communicate better, and we do that on a monthly basis.

That way we know, even maybe you heard something, oh, well, I make that same mistake all the time, so now

I can put... So we've been workshopping together as a group of churches, so it may be helpful for some folks.

Maybe you're a decent preacher, or you're just getting into it. If y 'all and some folks, two or three churches that are local that you trust the guys, get together and sharpen each other up, it can be beneficial as part of the part of the training process, and some of the guys who are preaching are already pastoring in our denomination, so they're going through, and they're trying to improve their skills as well.

So yeah, that's something that can be done, even if you don't even have to be a presbyterian to do that.

You just grab the solid Methodist, and the Anglican down the street, get together and help each other out.

That's really cool, Robert. I love that idea. Yeah, that's excellent. We have started similar, not identical, because you guys are meeting monthly.

That's excellent, but in the Deeply Rooted Confidence Group, we did start basically what's called

Deeply Rooted Preaching, and every other month or so, we have gotten together and invited all the ministers that wanted to come out.

This is totally open to anybody that preaches and pastors, and we sort of workshop some stuff.

We had a gentleman basically work through about three sessions on sermon preparation, and at the end of it was actually like, here's a passage, and I want to show you how this could look if done the right way or the wrong way, and then this one coming up we've got is going to be preaching

Christ out of the Old Testament, how you need to make sure that you have Christ -centered teaching and preaching throughout the

Bible. As I heard one guy say recently, you need to get your Old Testament passages saved when you go back there and preach

Jesus. That's an example, but I love the idea that you guys are getting together that often.

I think that's excellent. Somebody's in a pulpit, and you're critiquing, but in a good way, and everybody knows you've got best interest at heart, because that'll alleviate a lot of worry when you walk in there, man.

I think that's an excellent way to go about it. Everybody is trying to, you know that the criticism you get is because they want you to be better for your sake, for the congregation, and for their own.

I don't want to listen to bad sermons. I want to give you all some pointers. Yeah, that's a great way to go about it.

And that does help bring along other people who are aspiring to be an outdoor pastor.

Absolutely. So I'll give you three points here,

Jeremiah. The next question is, what is your advice to men, young men, or older men that desire to become a pastor?

Speak to those individuals. Second, let us know where we can find the podcast, where we can find the conference, and tell us a little bit about that.

And then as you wrap that up, would you share the gospel with us? And then Dan, will you close with some prayer for that?

Roger. Yeah, I'd love to. As far as the advice, A, be sure of your calling.

Please do that. And get honest feedback from seasoned, reliable men. Make sure that it's, you know, as we've heard some people say before, inward and outward.

You know, certainly an inward calling, but make sure that you are known by other people, that you do meet these qualifications. And this is exactly really where God would want you.

Second, you need to get in the book. I cannot emphasize this enough. I wish I could go back and tell my 21 -year -old self this.

It is fine to read other books about the Bible. That is good. It's good to have commentaries.

It's good to read about people in church history. Nothing replaces the Bible. Nothing. Saturate your mind with the scriptures.

That's a key I would want to tell younger and older ministers. Another aspect of that, that is, and I know this is so cliche, but again,

I'm telling my younger self this. You need to learn to pray often about everything.

Nobody ever outgrows the Holy Spirit. Ever. I don't care if you're a hundred, you'll still be as dependent as you were on the first day you were saved.

It is vital that you cultivate prayer in your life. And then here's another, and we've mentioned this a lot tonight.

I'm glad that I really enjoyed this. Keep working on your gift. And I love what

Dan was saying there about the fact that these guys sharpen one another on a regular basis. That is really vital to being a good minister.

You know, nobody ever arrives, right? I will never arrive as a minister.

You'll never arrive, so to speak, as a minister. And God's not asking that of you. He's asking us to be faithful.

And we can be faithful and we can continue to get better in our faithfulness.

And I would encourage men to do that. And here's the last thing I'll say. And I wrote this down because I had really pinned this out in my head when you sent that.

And something that I think more men should work on. You need to know who you are and you need to accept who

God has crafted you as. And then in knowing that, you need to be that for the glory of God.

We are not Charles Spurgeon. We are not Jonathan Edwards. I am not John MacArthur.

I'm not Martin North Jones. And God never created me to be that, nor will he ever.

He has created Jeremiah Reiner for his glory. He has created Dan and Rob for his glory.

Be that. Be faithful in that. Accept that God did not make a mistake in you.

He is cultivating Christ's likeness in you for the people that are in front of you. Preach to them.

Don't preach to the audience that you'd like to be there, you know, and don't preach to a group of people that aren't there.

Right. This is not, you know, the 16 and 1700s. You know,

I'm sorry. We're not sitting in that crown. I'm also not preaching to people in California and Florida and Europe and Australia.

And I'm preaching to people in southwest Virginia. That's that's my group of people that I love dearly.

And God has called me to flog or excuse me, to shepherd that flog. Where you are, preach to those people, please.

That would be my advice, you know, to younger and older ministers alike. Now, as far as the Deeply Rooted, you can find

Deeply Rooted podcast on YouTube. You can find us on Apple podcast. We try to put out at least a couple of months, you know,

Lord willing, hopefully we can do that. You can also find everything on our website has now been neatly kind of compacted under the

Deeply Rooted Conference banner. So you can go to Deeply Rooted Conference dot org.

That's exactly where you can find us. We'll have all of our blog posts on there. You'll find all of our archived episodes that will lead you right to our

YouTube channel. So you can watch every single one of them on there. We do audio only, so you'll be able to listen to every single one on there.

We also have our upcoming ministry schedule. So everything Deeply Rooted is listed on there. So we've got a couple of events coming up.

So pay attention to those that might be near your area. And you can also look at our leadership team there and find out a little bit more about each one of those guys and where they pastor and who they are and a little bit about what the

Deeply Rooted Conference is. I would encourage you to find us on social media. You can find

Deeply Rooted Conference on Facebook, Instagram, X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it.

It's on all of there. Justin would kill me if I didn't say this. He's probably watching right now, but they are 501c3.

So if you feel led to donate and help out with that, we lovingly appreciate that.

It's totally nonprofit. Nobody's taking a dime. We're just simply raising funds to do the ministry and our conference coming up this

November in Kingsport, Tennessee. Again, we're looking forward to that. It's going to be on the Holy Spirit.

We're going to look at that doctrine and the third person, the Trinity, specifically in all aspects of it.

And we're very fortunate to be bringing in Lord willing, Justin Peters and Tim Challies.

They'll kind of be the keynote speakers there. And a lot of the other gentlemen who are part of a Deeply Rooted Conference will kind of be filling in the holes there as far as breakout sessions and other things.

So if you haven't already, check us out again, it's deeplyrootedconference .org.

You'll find all things there. And if you really want everything Deeply Rooted, go find Justin Bice on all of his social media.

That's B -I -S -E. He'll be glad that I just gave him tens of thousands of followers. So yeah, find him.

He's our director, does an excellent job. So if you need anything Deeply Rooted Conference, he's the guy to go to.

So now my favorite part, gospel time. I love that y 'all asked that at the end of it. I might rob that on a

Deeply Rooted Podcast. I'll have to give y 'all a shout out for doing that. God has created this world and then he created it perfectly, a mankind sin.

And because of that, we are in debt to our Holy Father and we cannot pay that. You and I are shaken in iniquity and we need a savior.

And God sent his son to be that very one. He lived a perfect life. He fulfilled the law to the letter.

He laid down his life on Calvary. Three days later, after he was buried in a borrowed tomb, he resurrected bodily and he ascended at the right hand of the

Father. It is not my works. You are not saved simply because you do things.

Going to church, saying certain things, abstaining from certain things is not salvation.

The Bible says that salvation is of the Lord. You are saved by grace through faith.

This is what Jesus has asked of people for salvation, to repent and put your trust in him. That's it.

And I'm glad to say that God has graciously granted me that and countless other people.

So if you're listening to this and you do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that's it.

You need to repent and trust in Jesus Christ and his finished work, not in yourself, but in the perfect work of the

Savior. And God has promised for those people eternal reward in heaven. And so that is the gospel, as clear as I can put it in a few short seconds.

All right. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness and your grace. We thank you for our brother who was able to come and talk with us today about ordination.

Pray that you would bless him, his ministry, all the things that he's doing. Pray that you would go before us as we go to preach and minister, that you would use us as your servants.

Pray for our country. I know that we need it. And pray mostly for your grace and your glory to be shown to the world in Christ.

Let me pray. Amen. Thank you everybody for watching. Thank you,

Jeremiah. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate both of you very much. And again, thank you for watching the

Truth and Love podcast, the special ordination series that we're doing. Remember our conference coming up at the end of April, which is going to be in Tennessee.

I hope we can see Jeremiah there. It's going to be on the Holy Spirit as well. God is doing something very cool this year.

Two conferences on the Holy Spirit, one in April, one in November.

Both in Tennessee. In Tennessee, both in Tennessee. Deeplyrootedconference .org,

laborsconference .com. Go check out both of them. We would love to see you at both conferences.

With that being said, remember as always, Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ.