June 10, 2024 Show with Keith Allen on “The Importance of Building Relationships Between Pastors & Local Churches”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's iron sharpens iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensirenradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of iron sharpens iron radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 10th day of June 2024.

Before I introduce today's guest and topic, I have a big heartfelt shout out to Pete Hegseth of Fox News for including iron sharpens iron radio last Friday in his week of promotion for his new book, The War on Warriors, Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.

Fascinating book, fascinating conversation with Pete Hegseth, and I strongly urge everybody listening to listen to the audio link of that interview on the iron sharpens iron radio website when you get the opportunity, especially if you did not hear it live on Friday, and it's truly an honor that he, of all the programs and podcasts available to him in the United States, I was included in that week of promotion for his book.

So thanks a lot Pete, and we hope you return to the program for another interview. But today I'm excited to have on the program a returning guest. His name is Pastor Keith Allen. He's the senior pastor of Linnbrook Baptist Church in Linnbrook, Long Island, New York, which is in Nassau County, Long Island, New York.

And most of you, if not all of you, who listen regularly to iron sharpens iron radio should recognize that name. In fact, both the name of that pastor and the name of that church, because they advertise every day on iron sharpens iron radio.

And today we are going to be addressing, I believe, a very important theme. The theme is the importance of building relationships between pastors and local churches and the dangers of ecclesiastical isolationism.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron radio, Pastor Keith Allen.

Good to be back here again with you, Chris.

Linnbrook Baptist Church and the Guest’s Ministry

Why don't you tell our listeners something more about Linnbrook Baptist Church?

Linnbrook Baptist Church, well, we're in the heart of Linnbrook. We are a church that has been established for about 115 years. Turned the corner into a new life. I took this post in October. We are a Christ-centered church.

We love our community. We love the Lord, and we love the word of God. And we are just seeking to understand the word, hear the word, and live according to it, to the glory of God. Very diverse congregation, number of families, number of older saints, number of people in the middle.

And the Lord is just doing a wonderful thing here, bringing people together under the word of Jesus Christ.

And I could honestly say to our listeners, without being guilty of flattery or exaggeration or hyperbole, that Pastor Keith Allen is really a truly gifted proclaimer of the gospel and of God's word. And I heartily recommend him and Linnbrook Baptist Church to anyone in that area who does not already have a biblically faithful church home.

So, please, if you live in anywhere in Nassau County or even Queens and Brooklyn, the Bronx, or if you're traveling through the Linnbrook area, perhaps on business or on vacation, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones in that area, make sure you write down the website for this fine congregation, Linnbrookbaptist .org.

Linnbrookbaptist .org, and Linnbrook is spelt L-Y-N-Brookbaptist .org. And some of you may recognize the name Linnbrook because it was the hometown.

Of.

Ray Romano in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. And he and his wife and children and his in-laws lived in the sitcom, that is, in Linnbrook. And so that's probably put them on the map more than anything.

Why Pastors Need Fellowship and Mutual Encouragement

Well, we are discussing something that there are churches out there. I am aware of some of them. I have met some of their pastors who do not believe in the importance of what we're talking about today, the importance of building relationships between pastors and local churches, and that means those churches outside of the pastor's own congregation, and the dangers of ecclesiastical isolationism.

Can you tell us what was the compelling reason, or reasons plural, why this was weighing on your heart enough to want to discuss it today?

Well, first reason, brother, is because I'm just rejoicing in the benefit that I myself have received from fellowship and friendship and regular discourse with other pastors and other brothers and other churches in our area, both near and more far.

There is a pastor's fellowship that gathers at North Shore Baptist Church, where I was raised up and trained and discipled, that still meets, and I still meet with them, just like-minded brothers who want to serve together and encourage one another.

And through that fellowship, there have been so many helpful and fruitful relationships made, counsel received, word shared, churches planted, pulpits filled, and it's not even denominational. It's just brothers who love one another, who are in relationship and want to push the gospel forward together.

So there's a huge benefit there.

Just in that sense. Well, one of the huge benefits to Linbrook Baptist Church was being involved in the very thing that you are promoting today that led to you becoming the pastor.

That's right. That's right. Just one of the many things that the Lord has done through those associations. This is the second thing why it was burning on my mind, because I was preaching through Mark chapter 9.

I just preached this Sunday, where John says to Jesus, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. But Jesus said, don't stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me, for the one who is not against us is for us.

Truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. And what Jesus is countering is the disciples arguing with one another over who's the greatest while they're on the road, and he's telling them whoever would be first should be last of all and servant of all.

So he's pressing this message of humble cooperation among his disciples. And as I was thinking about how do we apply this in the modern day, this is one of the ways that we do that. Everybody who rightly holds to the gospel and is a born-again Christian, there is some sense in which we ought to humbly cooperate with one another for the sake of the gospel and find ways to do that.

And so, fellowship and regular discourse between pastors and church leaders who are gospel-focused and Jesus-centered is a thing that Jesus commends, right? It's a thing that Jesus desires, and so we ought to pursue it for the glory of his name and for the furthering of his cause.

Now,.

What in your counsel to pastors listening, they may be even new pastors that were recently called and appointed and installed to a local congregation or they might even even have been a pastor at a particular congregation for decades, but they have come to realize that they have failed miserably in this area.

So tell us your words of counsel, first of all, how to initially get the ball rolling. What would you recommend they do as far as becoming more acquainted with the men of God that may be pastoring in the reasonably close area and so on?

I would say just reach out. You know, the first step is just an attempt at contact, something that I've seen many good church planters and revitalizers do when these brothers have gone into new areas.

One of their first efforts is to go and see what other churches are there and to try to make contact either through email or by phone and say, I am coming into the neighborhood. I'm looking to do some gospel work.

I see that you're a church and I would love to talk to you. Glean some knowledge and wisdom that you have of the neighborhood. Get to understand what your ministry in life is like, and perhaps there's an opportunity for partnership and mutual encouragement or just a nice cup of coffee and getting to know somebody for a minute.

And.

There is a balancing act that all Christians have to be involved in when you are seeking to have fellowship with those in the body of Christ that are outside of your own congregation. On the one hand, you don't want to completely ignore those folks who are either pastoring or members of churches.

That.

You would find to be unfaithful to the scriptures and so on. Perhaps if it's a real extreme situation where they're literally heretics outside of the faith, you have to look at them as a mission field.

But at the same time, there are people within the body of Christ that have differences with us. They may be even very important differences. But at the same time, those differences don't necessarily have to prevent friendships and areas of fellowship.

When I got saved in the 1980s, I happened to be a Reformed Baptist, as you know. Confessional Reformed Baptists have always been a member of a confessional Reformed Baptist church from the point of my rebirth.

I was raised Roman Catholic, of course, and came to believe that that was a false church and still believe that. But as a Reformed Baptist, especially in the 80s and perhaps a good portion of the 1990s,.

You would.

Very rarely, if ever at all, see interaction between Reformed Baptists and not only run-of-the-mill Evangelical Arminian pastors, but especially not Charismatic or Pentecostal pastors. And I got through the providence of God.

I began meeting and growing.

In.

My friendship with some of these brethren in those kinds of churches. I discovered a couple of them, that even though they were Pentecostal pastors, were full-blown five-point Calvinists in agreement with the most essential things that I believe, yet recognizing that they had differences over issues with me.

And it even reached the point— and I'm not bragging here—but just looking back at my history, my friendships with these men led to other Reformed Baptists pastors of other churches, and even my own church, the pastors of my own church, who began inviting these men to speak from their pulpit.

It was a history-making event. So don't we have to be careful on both ends? That's why I said it's a balancing act. Of course, you don't want to invite people into your pulpit that have such huge differences from you that you are endangering the flock spiritually.

But at the same time, we have to recognize that we can learn even from men of God that have differences with us, sometimes even on areas that are serious. I don't take lightly the differences that we have with Charismatics and Pentecostals on the sign gifts and so on.

But at the same time, I have learned immensely from people in those congregations.

That's right. I think that's part of what the Lord even intends by, in His sovereignty, allowing these differences to persist among us, to exist among us, is that we ought to learn how to love one another despite our differences, because that's an inviolable command that if you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, you must love your brethren.

And it doesn't say only love the ones who think just like you or who line up with you completely doctrinally. So it's something that we must do and everything that we must do is for our good and to glean.

And because we think about things from different angles and through different lenses in these differences, we have different churches and pastors have different strengths that we can contribute to one another because of the sides that we're coming from.

So I think it's incumbent upon us to walk those lines, being cautious, but seeking for the glory of the Lord Jesus to get the most that we can out of our relationships with our brothers and our sisters.

And the sad commentary is that even some of the pastors within our own circles of theological fellowship don't really have a great interest in spending much time with men in other pastoral positions at other churches, even if they're in lockstep agreement theologically.

They just they have formed as the subtitle of our discussion is today the dangers of ecclesiastical isolationism. There are there are brethren that I know that act as if their church is the center of the universe and they completely ignore anything that's going on.

They don't want to attend conferences or special events that other churches are having, let alone promote them to their own flock. And of course, there's always that fear of people that pastors may have of losing members of their flock to another church.

Yeah, and it becomes a numbers game with some.

But.

Tell us about some of the benefits in more detail that you believe are or should I say. May, by God's blessing, be the outcome and the fruit of these kinds of relationships to be developed with other pastors and churches in the community.

I think one of the most significant ones is being able to talk to someone who understands your position and experience. You know, often when you read about pastoring, you read the pastoring books, you read the pastoring surveys.

One of the common refrains is that pastors are lonely. And it is. It's an easy place to get isolated when you're given time to prayer and the ministry of the word. And you're visiting and you're serving the congregation.

It can feel like you don't have the time to have a friendship or have a coffee or go to this conference or do all these things. For me, I was raised in a sense with a silver spoon in my mouth in the church, where the place that I landed, North Shore Baptist Church, as a young believer, the pastor there, Ed Moore, already had this culture going on.

And so from the beginning, I was just watching youth camps get set up with different pastors from different churches and all these young kids being brought together to be instructed in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.

I watched other pastors come in and share the pulpit with us and bring their people and us getting to meet other believers from other churches, knowing that you're not the only ones, but there are others out there who are pursuing the same things.

It's just immensely encouraging. And so when you think about it from a pastoral point of view, to talk to someone else who knows the difficulties and the struggles and the trials and the joys of your position, there's just something immensely refreshing and helpful.

And then they can help give you counsel and advice and suggestions that get you out of your own little cubbyhole in your head of how you think and what you see. And comprehending with all the brethren, Paul prays for the church to know the love of Christ.

It takes many to get this full-orbed view of how incredible Jesus Christ is. And with anything lesser than that, still there is a benefit of having others to give their input and their viewpoint that help you to get a better, a fuller-orbed view of, in this particular case, ministry and ministry matters.

Yes, and we're going to go to our first commercial break. And if you have a question of your own for Pastor Keith Allen on our subject, send in your email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least, your city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And there may be those kinds of questions that arise since we do have a pastor on the show.

And we would invite you to request to be anonymous if indeed it would be the most wise thing to do not to call or bring attention to your identity publicly regarding what you are going to ask. But it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

And don't go away. We'll be right back with Keith Allen, pastor of Lynbrook Baptist Church, right after these messages.

I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lynbrook Baptist Church, a Christ-centered, Gospel-driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family. At Lynbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern to all who bear God's image. If you live near Lynbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship.

For details, visit lynbrookbaptist .org. That's l-y-n-brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lynbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. The Lord bless you in the knowledge of himself.

I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur. I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I highly recommend this show. But today I want to tell you about one of its advertisers, Rare Document Traders.

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It's RoyalDiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church in Nassau County, Long Island, New York. And our theme today, I think, is a very important one.

I believe all of my themes are important, but this one is uniquely important, the importance of building relationships between pastors and local churches and the dangers of ecclesiastical isolationism.

One of the things that makes this important to me is the appreciation I have for when I got saved and I was a new Christian especially, the great benefit that I had sitting at the feet of a pastor, Mike Gaydosh, who was the man that plunged me beneath the waters of baptism in my mid -20s in the 1980s.

He was not a man who was overly jealous of his pulpit, as some men that I have met are. And we had three, sometimes four, conferences in a year and faithful men of God in our own community even they would have pulpit exchanges, and they would invite other men into the pulpit.

And I think that, and maybe you think I'm overreaching here, but I think that you are doing a great disservice to members of a church when you are only giving them the privilege of one man of God opening up the scriptures to them.

And there are places like that. Don't you think it's important that the congregation gets to hear the pages of Scripture articulated and exegeted by different men? Because there are men of God who may have strengths.

In.

The the Word of God and their understanding of it, where those may be your weaker areas and so on. I mean, not everybody is an expert on every page of the Bible, but you follow where I'm going there? Oh,.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, we we all have our given strengths and our given perspective, and it's very healthy to allow others to speak in. If you think of it from a parental point of view, yes, my children are primarily learning from me.

But if I don't allow them or even encourage them to talk to other godly adults and learn from them, then their worldview and their understanding of life and Scripture is going to be very limited. And so certainly it would be helpful not to limit your congregation's hearing of the Word to your own voice.

They are your flock. And I mean, that even starts with just plurality of elders. I mean, that's a significant and important thing, where even within one local church, God desires that the healthy model would be having a number of men who are able to teach and who will preach and teach.

And you just multiply that blessing when you have elders and pastors and godly men who are able to come in from other like-minded local bodies and share the Word. Again, it's... we get to all see that we are not alone and that the Lord has His people in the city, in the nation, wherever, who are holding fast to the Word and who can handle it rightly.

Let's see. We have Teresa in Hewlett, New York.

Hewlett!

How close is Hewlett to Linnbrook? I've lived in Long Island most of my life, and I can't remember how close that is.

Yeah, it's very close. It's just south of us. We do have some members from Hewlett. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah.

All right. Well, Teresa says, What do you think are some of the signs that would make you aware that your church is not participating in the exact thing that you are discussing today?

Hmm.

Signs...

Well, I guess one obvious one would be if the pastor of your church is the only person that ever opens up the Word of God from the pulpit.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a pretty distinct one.

And of course, if you never hear that pastor mentioning other men of God with whom he has fellowships and friendships...

That's right. You know, getting stuck on certain non-essential hobby horses when that just becomes what you hear from the pulpit week after week. One thing that the church that I was at in Louisville when I was in seminary, they modeled very well, is praying for other churches.

Yes. Just praying for others who are ministering in their same city, same general area, and just going before the Lord and asking for their success. So I think the things that you would notice or not notice when your church leaders are not doing this is where there's not a discussion of a world outside of believers who are not in your church, who are doing good work, whom we should rejoice in and pray for.

If that never comes out of the lips of the leadership, I think that might be a clue. That that kind of life and thinking is not going on. If there's never invitations to good, solid conferences or good fellowships with other like-minded bodies, that might be something that's either just not on the radar of your leadership, or it could be something that they are intentionally avoiding.

Both of which are bad. The latter would be worse. But sometimes I think it's just easy to get pigeonholed in your own area of service and and almost not even recognize what you're missing in not going out and.

Partaking in the fellowship of other brethren outside your church. And I'm assuming that you would believe that if someone is getting that feeling, I mean and we judge too many things on feeling and not thinking, but somebody's getting at that idea that their church and their leaders are not involved in any or not enough cooperation with other churches, they have to go first and foremost directly to their leaders, their pastor and elders, privately to address their concerns.

And that goes with anything, right?

That's right. You know, if you think that you're seeing something unhealthy in your church, the first and most humble thing is just to ask the question of your leadership. This is what I think I'm seeing.

Maybe you could help me see more clearly what I think I'm seeing. Maybe you can explain to me, or maybe there's things that you're doing that I don't know of. Like, I just had this thing on my heart that I think cooperation with other brethren and other churches is really important.

Is that something that you do? Is that something that you're seeking? Is that something that you find important? And let them tell you where they stand so that you have a better sense of what's going on rather than sort of formulating a picture in your mind and then just running with it when you don't have all the necessary information.

Well, thank you, Teresa and Hewlett. And please, if especially if you do not have a biblically faithful church home of your own, pay a visit to Lindbergh Baptist Church since it's so close. Lindberghbaptist .org.

We have an anonymous listener who says the Apostle Paul was instructing Timothy to be watchful over the flock for heresies and so on. Don't you think that sometimes pastors go way overboard to the point where they are overly protective of the flock and it seems to be more motivated by the jealousy of losing one of those people to another congregation?

Don't we need to be open to the idea that people might be happier and more suited being members of another congregation if they feel so compelled to leave, even if it's not over a very serious doctrinal issue?

Yeah, and again, I've seen that modeled very well before my eyes with this network of pastors and even just knowing local pastors in the area that maybe aren't locked aren't lockstep with us, but we know that they're preaching the gospel.

If members want to go there, either because it's closer to their home or because it more closely aligns with their own stance, you know, a lot let God's people go where God is leading them. I think it's a very dangerous thing to be so jealous over your church size and number that you would prevent saints from freely moving around if it's not you know detrimental, extremely detrimental to their health.

And then that multiplies to sending your best, you know, North Shores said, Keith, go with blessing to Pastor Lindbrook Baptist Church, you know, that's Levittown Baptist Church says to Henry Drew, our new music director, Henry, go to Lindbrook Baptist Church and serve those saints there and be a blessing.

Amen. We have Burl in Lake Grove, Long Island, New York, and Burl says, isn't one of the important reasons why pastors should have fellowship and friendships with pastors of other churches because of the fact that they should be made aware if there are problematic people in those flocks that may seek refuge by being undisciplined and leaving one congregation to go to another where he can try to fit in anonymously and act as if those problems that he had in his former church never existed.

Yeah, Burl, that that's right on point there. I've seen that play out a number of times, and when you when you have a good network of pastors, you can kind of call around and say, hey, this person showed up.

They said they'd have been at your church, you know, tell me a little bit about what went on there. You can you can definitely get that kind of helpful information or warnings even. Hey, so-and-so said to me that they're gonna come check out your church.