Episode 111: The Nelson Family Loves the Church

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

Christ Is King and the Church Is Not a Democracy

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I forgot what I'm supposed to say.

I'm your co-host,. I'm your co-host,.

Katherine Rees-Nelson. I can't do that. I'm terrible at that. Okay, what do I say?

I'm your co-host.

I'm your co-host. I'm your co-host. Hadden Ridley-Nelson. I'm your co-host. I'm your co-host, Hadden Ridley-Nelson.

I did it, I did it.

Welcome.

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. As you heard, now today, I'm co-hosting with, I guess, the other full seven members of the family. Do we count Margie in that? I guess so. We are, it's hard to imagine now by the time this comes out, because it'll surely be spring and sunshiny.

But as we're recording this, it's a Tuesday evening. It's cold, it's snowing, it's sleeting, it's February. Some of us have just recovered from the flu. Some of us are still battling the influenza. And so, we're gonna do a recording of the Ruled Church Podcast, first time ever, right here with the Nelson family.

And I would ask my kids what they think about it, but it doesn't matter, because we're doing it. So, we're gonna start by introducing, you already heard from Hadden, but we'll introduce him again. We'll start by passing the mic around and letting the folks tell you who they are, what order of the kiddos they come in, and then let's say one cool thing, or interesting thing, or maybe unique thing about you.

So, we'll start here with Caleb.

I am Caleb. I am second in the family. I'm 15, and one cool thing is I play guitar.

Oh, that's good, okay.

My name is Hadden, and I'm fifth in the family, and I'm seven years old, and I like drawing. Hi, my name is Piper. I'm fourth in the family. I'm 11 years old, and my favorite thing to do is play softball and basketball.

My name is Brayden.

I'm the eldest.

I'm 17, and one cool thing about me is I like hunting.

My name is Ella. Ella, I am third in line. I am 13 years old, and I enjoy shooting archery.

And how about the lovely queen of the home?

I'm Stephanie. I am the mama of this crazy crew, and I guess the coolest thing about me is that I homeschool and take care of six crazy kiddos.

And one great husband.

And one wonderful husband.

Amen.

Why We Love Providence Baptist Church

All right, what we wanna do today is hopefully be an encouragement, but we just wanna talk about our church, maybe some unique things about our church, why we love our church, and we'll just kinda get the conversation going that way.

So let's start out. Let's ask Ella Grace. Ella, tell us some things about our church, like what's its name, where are we located, what are some things you like about our church?

The name of the church is Providence Baptist Church. It's in Perryville, Arkansas. And I like how we eat lunch every Sunday at our church.

Okay, talk some more about that, Piper. What does she mean that we eat lunch every Sunday? She's a real Baptist, isn't she, to say she likes to eat. What is that?

We, what?

What?

Tell more information.

Tell me more info about eating. We're Baptists, we eat. What is your sister talking about?

We eat at each other's houses and fellowship together.

Do you like that?

Yeah, it's really fun.

What's so fun about it?

We get to fellowship and eat together and see everybody.

What do you mean when you use the word fellowship?

We get together and yeah.

So how would you define the word fellowship, Piper?

It's talking about God with each other and loving each other and stuff.

Yeah, that's a pretty good definition. So yeah, that is one thing we do, unique, we eat. Our church hasn't always been called Providence Baptist Church, has it, Caleb?

No, we were once Second Baptist.

What, you like this name better?

Yes, definitely.

Tell us about what you remember. So when we first came to Perryville, you were, let me think, in 2016, you would have been not yet seven. That's pretty wild. You were six when we first started. What are some of your first memories of our church?

Well, I remember coming in on Sunday mornings and everyone drinking coffee and talking around and then we would have singing and then we would preach. My dad would preach.

Okay, what about you, Ellie? You're raising your hand. What do you got?

I remember my first memories of coming to this church. I used to draw on the hymnals when I was really little and they're still there.

Okay, all right, confession time. All right, what about you, Eldest Son? When we first came here, you would have been not yet nine. So what are some things that you remember? I gotcha, I hadn't done the math, good job.

What are some things you remember about our church in the early days?

Really, I don't know. Honestly, I don't really remember a lot. I just, the most, I really don't really remember until really the COVID year.

What do you remember about that?

Just like, well, that's the time I became a Christian and also just like getting up and not being able to really actually go to church and like see other people and stuff.

Okay, Mama, why don't you talk about, oh, hadn't, okay, you got something to say? Okay, you weren't born yet when we first got here. So tell us some things you love about Providence Baptist Church.

I like that we eat every Sunday night.

Well, we don't necessarily eat every Sunday night. What are you talking about?

Wednesday night, I mean.

Oh, so as you can tell, we are an eating church. So we have a lot of meals together and our kids, I guess, really like that. All right, Ms. Stephanie, it's your turn.

Something that comes to my mind are

Why don't you tell them about your origin in this church?

Okay, okay, so I was actually on the property the day that what's now Providence Baptist Church was built. I was there. I remember seeing the men everywhere. I remember seeing sawdust, a really weird memory.

My husband says I have a really weird brain and I remember weird things sometimes, but they had one of those old Coke containers. Like you would get, you'd go in the store and you would get a canned Coke out of, but it was Surge.

And I remember being told that I could only have one and being the rebellious little child I was, I think I had like 10 Surges that day. I just kept going back and drinking this sugar fueled drink and I kept getting in trouble for running in and out of the construction site.

So our church was actually built by, it was a church plant out of, was it Bigelow? Bigelow Baptist, I think.

They didn't build it, it's church.

No, but it was a plant. It was considered a plant. It wasn't really.

It's technically a split.

It's technically a split, but in our minutes, it says that it was a plant.

Bigelow Baptist nomenclature.

Yes, so church in a day, something through the SPC came and put the walls, got it in the dry, literally in one day. So it's pretty cool that I was there. My grandmother and my grandfather and my father were founding members.

So I actually attended this church every other Sunday and on Wednesdays and then throughout the summer kind of on and off. So I spent my years growing up, going to Bible schools there until I became a teenager and kind of started making my own decisions as far as what church I wanted to go to.

How Providence Baptist Changed Over Time

Okay, so tell us about the changes from the church when you were growing up and then talk about when we first got here in 2016 and then talk about the church today in 2025.

I'm gonna kind of go with my eldest and say I don't really remember a whole lot as far as when I was a kid. What I do remember is that I was the only kid my age. There wasn't really any other kids my age.

So I actually got to attend Sunday school with all of the older teenagers. So I was in the youth class. I did at one time have a wonderful Sunday school teacher. Her name was Miss Janie, who was a really good influence in my life for several years.

And she was actually a church member until she passed away in 2020. So I have a lot of fond memories there. We actually, before the church was built, we met in our fairgrounds. So I have great memories with my grandparents and my dad.

A very traditional SBC church. We sang out of the hymns, we did specials, all the things that you would think of when you think of a traditional Southern Baptist church. So our services now look a little bit different.

We do not, we view the church a little bit differently than we did back then. I feel like our view of the church has grown. We read a lot more scripture. We sing a lot more Christ-centered songs. We definitely prize the worship of the Lord and the glory of God.

I feel like a lot higher than we did in the past.

All right, are you talking about like from when we first got here or like you're talking about growing up?

Yes, both.

So any changes, but I would figure there'd be changes from the time you were growing up to the, when we first got here, I'd figure there'd been some changes.

I would, again, I would have to go back to what my eldest said. I really didn't pay attention. I was not a Christian when I was a young child. So I really can't tell you a whole lot as far as how the pastors were.

I do know, I will add this, they, how many pastors did we have, did they have?

I think since 1996, that's when the church started, 1996. I think I'm the 10th. So from 96 to 2016, there were nine and then I was the 10th.

So I never really got close to any of the pastors or never really knew any of them. Well. I didn't have much of a relationship with them. So there's not a ton of like very, very solid memories of that time as a child at Second Baptist.

What about you guys? Do you remember some of the ways that our church has changed? Does anything stick out to you? Okay, Haddon, raising this hand, what you got?

One thing about it, our music is different.

Do you like it better? Yes. Who leads our music?

Mr. Gunner and Mr. Alex.

What do you like about our music?

That it's got music.

Okay, what's your favorite song?

Glorious Sixth Church.

Okay, next question, that's all right. Next question. I'm gonna let each, I'm gonna talk for a little bit. I'm gonna let each of the kiddos give your answer. So think about it and I'll see who wants to start.

But that is, why do you think that children your age should love the church? Why should children your age love the church? Dad's not looking for a expert answer here. Just give your thought. You wanna start with you, Brayden?

I would say, first of all, because the Lord commands it. I think we should, I think like, well, I mean, like, I don't know.

That's a good answer. The Lord commands it.

It's in the Bible.

Yeah, okay. You should love the church because the Lord commands you. Okay, Ella?

Yeah, what Brayden said. Because the Lord commands it. Also, we're gathering with fellow Christians who will help us in our walk with Christ outside the church.

Amen, that's good. All right, Piper?

So we can grow up to be godly people.

Okay, thank you. Caleb?

I think it is very important for kids our age, my age, my brother's age, to be in church and love church because there's a lot of stuff in life that we will experience and it will be much better if we have a Christian point of view to it.

All right, good. Ridley, you got anything you want to add to that?

Maybe.

Because to learn about God.

You can tell none of us, we haven't gone over these or did any kind of planning for this, so his sister, you can't see it. She just whispered into his ear, so. Do you have something you want to say, Margie?

This is Margie. She's head-butting the microphone. She's 16 months. You will hear her.

What Makes Providence Baptist Church Distinctive

Okay, all right, I appreciate that. All right, what would you say, besides meals, can we get off meals, what would you say is unique about Providence Baptist Church compared to other churches maybe around or that you know about?

Haddon, we'll start with you.

That it's a godly church.

Oh, okay, well, I appreciate that. Let's elaborate some. Caleb?

We have multiple elders and we take our church role very seriously. All right, talk about that.

Who's your elders?

Well, my dad is one and then Pastor Jacob is our other.

What do you mean by we take our roles seriously?

Well, first, we guard the Lord's Supper. We do closed communion, where we only let Christians take the Lord's Supper and we take very serious baptism. We only baptize believers.

Yeah.

Okay, I'm just gonna clarify real quick. We actually do closed communion, so closed communion is just for your own local church, but we do allow others who are not part of our church, so long as we've talked to them beforehand and understand that they're not under church discipline and they've followed the Lord in believer's baptism, and so anyway.

All right, who's next?

Piper?

We have a bunch of kids at our church.

We do have a bunch of kids at our church. It's kinda noisy sometimes, isn't it? Okay, Ella?

We share the gospel and go door to door, sharing the gospel and preaching at our local grocery store and passing out tracts.

Yeah, that's good. That's called evangelism, isn't it? It's good that we do that. Did you already go or you got something else? Okay, go ahead.

I like that we carol every Christmas.

That's right, we do carol every Christmas, that's fun, and we do that to encourage members and also use it evangelistically. All right, Brayden, what you got? What's something that you see unique about our church?

One thing I would say is that we subscribe to the 1689 and that I know of, I don't think there's any other in our association that does subscribe to the 1689.

Yeah, that's unique, that's good. So here's a big test for dad. What is the 1689?

I don't know.

Haddon says, I don't know. Ella, you wanna talk about it?

It's our confession of faith. It says what we believe as a church.

Okay, yeah, very good. No one mentioned catechism, we do that too, don't we? This is a big, very important question. Who is your favorite pastor?

Whoa.

Okay, yeah, I hope you said that. All right, mom, back over to you. I'm gonna give you the same question that I gave the, first of all, who's your favorite pastor? No, I'll give you the same question I gave the kids.

What do you see as unique about our church and what is it that you love about our church?

I really feel like the evangelism aspect is really big in our area. I think the fact that we, as a church, that our elders are in the community actively sharing the gospel. They are standing on the street corner.

They are walking in the grocery store, passing out tracts, not only our elders, but several of the members in our church join them. So I feel like evangelism is probably the largest thing that's unique about our church.

I also think just our, talking about fellowship, not about food, but as far as just the way we view one another, I would say our church family is very close. We share a lot of germs. If someone is sick, most families in the church are going to get it.

But we're in each other's lives. And other churches I've been a part of, it's just not the same. We are very involved with one another. We see each other more than just at church. We know each other's kids.

We keep each other's kids. We enjoy, all the ladies enjoy getting together outside of church, the guys as well. Also, I would say, we're not all alike. You couldn't come to our church and be like, well, they're all the same type of personality.

That's why they get along so well. No, we have people in our church that love football. And then we have others that are bored out of their minds when football is discussed. So we have multiple different personalities, yet we are a very tight knit group.

I consider our church family as close as our actual family. So I'm just very thankful for them. And I don't necessarily see that in our area. And I've been in several of the churches in our area. So I feel like I'm coming at that with some knowledge as far as that is not going on.

Growing Up With a Pastor for a Father

So now let's get real for a second. What do you guys think about growing up with your dad being a pastor? Who wants to start talking about it? Who wants to start out with that? Hadden, you want to? Would you like that your dad's a pastor?

Is it hard? Is it different? What do you think about that?

I think it's easy. And it's, I should become a Christian. And I like my dad being a pastor.

Okay, Piper.

I feel like that. I like that my dad's a pastor. Cause like when I go to other people's houses, some of my friends' houses, we don't like pray or stuff like that. So I like my dad being a pastor.

Caleb.

I am glad my dad is a pastor. I think sometimes it can be hard when you're going around seeing kids our age doing stuff they're not supposed to. And you're like one of the only kids not doing it. And I think it's great that my dad is a pastor cause I've grown up in a very healthy church and I've learned about Christ my entire life.

I appreciate that. I appreciate their memories. We're going to pass to others. But I do want to clarify, you didn't necessarily grow up in a healthy church, but where God has us now is very, very far and in a good way, healthier.

And so I'm encouraged by that. And I'm grateful that the Lord shielded you guys from some things that you didn't have to see. And even though y 'all have experienced some pain and some heartache in church life, I know that's difficult.

Ella, were you going to say something about your dad being a pastor?

I like it, but sometimes he uses us in analogies and embarrasses us in front of the whole church.

Should pastors do that?

No. What? Yes.

What do you say, Piper?

Yes.

Okay, very good. Who do you think the cutest boy is at church, Piper?

You.

Okay, Brayden, you've been with us the longest, man. 17, you're going to turn 18 in a few months. What do you think about growing up with your dad as a pastor? What do you think, good, bad? What have been the pros?

What have been the cons? What do you want to say?

Well, I guess I really wouldn't know what it would be like to not have my dad as a pastor because that's who my dad is. It is a pastor. So I guess I wouldn't be here probably without where God put me.

So I guess that's, I guess it's good.

Adam's got something else.

I think it would be hard if we didn't have dad as a pastor.

How come?

Because I don't think we would grow up in a very good church.

You guys realize that you could be Christian dads without being a pastor, right? Mr. Alex and Mr. Gunner, they have kids and they're not pastors. Okay, mom, what about you? And when we got into this almost 20 years ago, there was no even inclination in either of our hearts, I think, for me to be a pastor.

I was a youth pastor and that's kind of where we thought. So now you've got suckered into this deal. What do you think? What would you say about your husband being a pastor and would you give any encouragement or advice to other pastor wives out there?

It's a very loaded question. I would say there have been times where I guess you could say it's been easy. There's been comfortable times. Those are always short. So I would say that there have been some rough times.

I would say when we first got married, I married a football coach. I didn't know what I was getting into. So I think the hardest thing is maybe the loneliness that you feel as a pastor in a small church, especially even in our hometown, but before we were in our hometown, just trying to get to know people and kind of being known as the pastor's family, the pastor's wife, there's always some certain expectations, whether they're spoken or not spoken as far as who the pastor's wife should be.

Should she lead the children's ministry? Should she play the piano? Should she be involved in every ministry of the church? And I think I've seen different expectations at different churches that we've been at.

And that's not always easy. It's not always easy to fit in to maybe this mold that this specific group of people have in their minds of you. I think the hardest thing for me is criticism of my husband.

And it's kind of funny that we're having this discussion because we kind of just went through a little bit of this tonight even. My personality is very mama bear. Is that the right way to describe it?

I tend to sometimes sinfully get a little bit defensive of my husband and of course my children. So I think the hardest thing for me is being able to see things from a godly perspective as far as when people are criticizing my husband or saying things that just aren't true.

It's actually amazing to me how much church folk will say to a pastor's wife.

This recent thing you're not talking about is nothing with our church.

No, no, no, not at all. Nothing to our church. Our church is wonderful. I'm so thankful for them. And I'm so thankful for where we are.

We have had pain.

We have had pain that's been very hard. But I will say right now is I am in a really good spot as a pastor's wife. My church supports me and my family and those expectations that we've had in the past are not there.

So I would say any advice, I feel like I'm talking too much. Any advice I would have is to keep yourself in the word, keep your relationship with God first as a pastor's wife because of the heaviness of the ministry that you can be faced with.

And then from there, support your husband because they're the ones that are bearing the main burden of everyone else, of the souls of the flock.

Reformed Baptist Identity, Sacrifice, and Church Commitment

Yeah, very good. That's encouraging. Okay, let me ask you kids this question. What do you think it means that we're a reformed Baptist church?

We believe the gospel and the true word of God. That we gather as a church every Sunday and Wednesday.

We believe what the Bible actually says.

Elaborate.

So we believe that Christ is only coming back once, that he's not gonna rapture us. It's not like a rapture. We're not gonna be sucked up into heaven. He's gonna come back for... We believe in the elect that before the world was ever made, Christ had his believers.

That he didn't just know we were believers. He made us the believers.

Also known as Calvinist. Yeah, people don't like that word. But same thing as what Caleb said. We believe that in the elect and people don't like that either.

We believe in the sovereignty of God, that God is in control of everything.

I'll clarify, Caleb. We do believe in a rapture, but not like the secret seven year tribulation. No, but everything was good. I was encouraged. Everybody say, oh, did you say anything, Piper? Oh, okay.

Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, we're a reformed Baptist church. We're kinda asking these questions, popcorn style off the top of my head. We just want to encourage families that life... I don't think our kids even understand.

Stephanie, maybe you can weigh in if you want. I don't even think our kids understand how hard church life is because they just do it. It's not like, man, are we gonna do this or that? It's never like, okay, Sunday we've got this event or we got church, which are we gonna choose?

It's always church. So in that case, in that sense, I think we make it easy on the kids. It's like, we're giving our lives to the church. Well, I also know it's been hard. I know one time, we're not gonna go into all these details, so no one, let me preface it.

But I know one time Piper walked in on Stephanie and I who were crying in the kitchen and over a situation that happened in church. And she asked, I don't know if you remember this. You remember this, Piper?

Okay, what'd you ask?

Why are you fighting? Are y 'all getting a divorce?

Yeah, so she asked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She asked and it was really hard. Of course, it was nothing. Steph and I weren't fighting. We were broken over something that had happened in the church and something that we didn't know the future.

And by God's grace, this was 30 years ago, just about. And the Lord has really brought about reformation and restoration and healing. And so praise God for all of that. But I think our kids have seen the pain, but also they have seen the joy.

And also, and this is tough about raising kids. And that is, they haven't seen an alternative. Like, this is just what it is. We're committed. Wednesday night, what are we doing? We're going to church.

Sunday morning, what are we doing? We're going to church. Sunday night, what are we doing? We're going to church. Hadn't you got something?

Unless we are sick.

Oh yeah, unless we are sick, Hadn says, because we just did that Sunday. It was like one of the first times ever I can remember that all of us were at home and we live streamed. Anything you would add to that, Steph, about that?

Yes, I would say that it hasn't always been easy, even though it's a given. Our kids know this is what we're doing. This is who we are. They never have to ask. We have had a couple of situations, just specifically with things like sports, where it hasn't always been easy.

Our kids have kind of had to come to the conclusion that I'm not always going to get to do everything my friends do. I am actually having to sacrifice something that I want to do for the local church and see that it's more important.

So we've had two separate children that have experienced, I don't know that you would say pain, but maybe so, just the disappointment of having to sacrifice for the church. So maybe they could expand on their feelings now about that.

Piper?

I think that Dad, I think that I'm glad that we came home when we did, when on Saturday when I had a big game. It was the championship. And it was like 12 o 'clock, so we had to go home. And I think that that was the right choice because we don't work on or play.

I mean, not like play, but like play sports on Sunday.

And we've grown in this. We've matured in this. One time with Brayden's group, we stayed out really late on a Saturday night. That's right. And yeah, that was poor judgment. We just kind of got caught up in that.

And so, but yeah, we've just made some commitments. And I guess what we kind of wrap up here, I just want to encourage families and hopefully pastors and whoever's listening to this that you can actually have a family committed to the church.

I know, I get it. Some of you got kids, you're already grown and they're out of the house. And I know that when our kids step out into the quote unquote real world, out from under their parents' authority, that they're going to have to make their own decisions and their own commitments.

But we hope that we've instilled in them the beauty and even the joy of the sacrifice for having a healthy church. One of the mantras we have in our home and in our church and just even about our lives is that Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

And he's worthy of that. And we hope, your mom and I, hope that we've instilled that into you kiddos and that it has been something that you'll carry with you. Now, three of our kids, I don't know how much you really heard or picked up on, three of our kids profess faith in Christ.

The oldest three have repented and come to Christ and they've been baptized and are members of the church. And if you want, you can pray for the younger three. We appreciate that, Piper and Hadden and Margie.

And we pray that the Lord would draw them to himself soon and they'd profess faith and repentance and we'd baptize them and they would join the church. Man, I think that has been an encouraging time, discussion.

Anything that you can think of as we've discussed tonight, anything that you would wanna add or encourage anyone else with or anything you wanna say about our church or about the Lord Jesus or the Bible or anything like that before we wrap it up.

Oh, Ms. Stephanie.

Yeah, I think I would just add that it's worth it. The hard work, the pain that we have experienced, even the not, I'm not saying this right, but the weaknesses that maybe our church does have, it's all worth it.

It's worth the hard work. It's worth, it's just worth it. Having a healthy church, being in one another's life, it's not always easy, but it's worth it.