Pastoral Ordination- SBC to Reformed

Introduction to Pastoral Ordination and the Guest’s Background

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 going to speak with him in just a few moments.

Stick with us.

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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 you 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 school teacher. 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 Callaway shirt on.

I do, yeah. Acid, bad golfer.

So, next time I come to Tennessee, we're going to 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 are you doing?

Good. How are 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.

Whether Pastoral Ordination Is Biblical and Why It Matters

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.

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, OK.

Back and forth. Ping pong.

I knew that you liked asking this next question. I thought you were going to go on with it.

I know.

Let's go ahead with it.

OK, 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 a 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 the, 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 so, 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, 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 really short answer.

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 are 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 Dutch guys and said, hey, can you examine 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. Off on the wrong track. And you're going to answer 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 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'll give you a little something. 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. 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 and then bring it back.

I don't know.

But yeah, if they're way off base, just hold on, buddy. I hate to do this. But and then like our podcast name, Speak the Truth and Love, you don't want to know 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.

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

Right.

Jeremiah Reiner’s Ordination in the SBC

So, Pastor Jeremiah, I guess I 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 spiritual mud. But, you know, I'm a lifer, you know, I do admit that like I've been going to church my entire life.

Very fortunate, you know, great godly parents. Extended family, but a lot of our upbringing, very independent, fundamental Baptist type 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 had 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 conversations 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 they asked me, are you ordained to do this? And I said, no, I haven't. I've just got about eight, nine years of experience here under 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 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 a 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, there's 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, it'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. 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.

You know, we had been on the as far as the preaching circuit, so to speak. We've been going a while. And also, you know, they got to know us publicly. You know, I'm still bi-vocational during that time.

I've lived a very public life, you know, so they knew my wife. They knew my family. They knew a lot about me personally up to that point.

Ordination in a Reformed Baptist Church and the Role of Sending

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 the 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 SBC at that time and very similar service order as well.

It was only him that night called another almost, 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 in that. I get what they're saying, because if you know a lot about SBC church and really a lot of independent Baptist churches and things like that, deacons a lot of times function as elders.

If you are familiar with that a lot, but I see that often that deacons tend to really fill two roles in one. Now, it'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 SBC and are you pastoring a reformed Baptist church or is your church still SBC?

No, so we're not SBC. We would be an independent reformed 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 other 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, I guess, a Calvinist with a Baptist name.

Yeah.

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 to follow up, maybe we could back up a second. When you switched over and you said you planted this one?

Right.

How did, 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, be 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.

Certainly.

That would have been the right thing. And if a church asked me that, I would have had no objection to that whatsoever.

That you're presentable 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 literature and policy and everything was brand new, we did not. We did not reordain and get reordained by anybody after that. Simply, I guess our credentials transferring if you want to think of it that way.

But in all of 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, there's no reordination.

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, 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 and ordained 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 year. 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. 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've 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. 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. 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, 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 we can help out with. Sermon preparation, things along those lines, 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? 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. Maybe church discipline. God forbid that would ever happen. It hasn't so far, and thank the Lord for that. But if it did, not a bad opportunity to kind of 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 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. But 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.