Red Light -- Green Light

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Pastor Steve, welcome. Thank you very much, it�s a pleasure to be here.

Steve, probably once every couple of weeks I like to ask you the question, how are you, how is your life, how is your ministry, how are your grandkids, the missus, dog, how about that?

I am doing quite well, thank you very much for asking. You know, I know we don�t see each other very often, so it�s good to touch base. My dog is getting older, but he doesn�t really go up the stairs very often now these days, but he�s hanging in there.

My wife is great, my grandkids are wonderful.

You�ve got like eight of them or something now? 15, but who�s counting?

That�s John MacArthur. Oh, sorry, five, you know, and you know, none immediately on the horizon. All walking with the Lord. Yeah, from four on down, yeah. Well, I don�t know, but I do know January had her Psalm 23 verse 4 down last night, so you know, yeah.

Okay. And they all got their, you know, the two of them got their Awana bucks last night, so I guess they had their scriptures memorized, diviny in January.

Nice. Well, my wife does the madhouse at the Awana night, and the Awana is, for those of you that don�t know, it�s kind of a youth group deal, and for kids, and they memorize verses and then they get money, rewards, you know, bribery, that kind of thing.

And then Kim buys a bunch of stuff, and once a month, I think, or every couple months, they can exchange their Awana dollars for prizes, for candy, for things to buy for their parents, for Christmas gifts, so we teach them capitalism at an early age.

Sweet. Now, Steve, you�ve got the one dog, and then, but you had three, now are you tempted to get a couple more, another one, another litter? Yes. Okay. So, I always think to myself, I�ve got this one dog, she�s wild enough to have basically three dogs in one, I think there�s some demon possession dog Doberman Pinscher movie out there that we could go into, but I better not.

Yeah, I don�t know what I�m thinking about, sir. Steve, in front of me, I have a book called Red Light, Green Light, by John Sionka.

I have an album called Red Light, Blue Light, by Harry Connick Jr.

Did you ever play Red Light, Green Light when you were growing up? Yes, we did. What other games did you play?

Red Rover, Red Rover? Hide and Go Seek, you know, a lot of sports, I�m trying to think of any non-sports games we played. Head Down, Thumbs Up, Seven Up? Yeah, at school.

Yeah, we�d do that. What else did you play at school? We had a game called Travel, and so they�d throw up a flash card, three by five, and you�d stand next to the seat of another�desk of another student.

Whoever said 15 fast enough would go to the next person�s seat. Must have been in the rescue. Uh-huh. I like that. That was my favorite teacher. Why are fifth grade teachers always our favorite teacher?

I don�t know. She was one of my favorites, too. Mine was Dan Sanfilippo.

My name�or mine was Dawn Hager was her name.

Okay. Well, in this book, Steve, it�s a Baker book, and this man is the director of parish-based learning and professor of Christian education at Bethel Seminary. I don�t know if he�s still there or not.

But when I used to go to CBD book sale, remember we�d get up at four o�clock in the morning and go to Peabody? I remember those blessed days. Stop at Dunkin Donuts. Uh-huh. I knew that. I know the Dunkin Donuts.

Anyway, they have books there for sale, and this book was probably about a, oh, $10 list book back in the day. And the subtitle is Discerning the Time for a Change in Ministry. It�s time for a cool change.

Here�s the funny thing. Oh, here, retail price, $11 .99. The resale price that they were selling this for at the CBD Peabody Mass Store warehouse sale was $0 .69. Those were the days. And then there�s a yellow sticker on top for the extra markdown, $0 .25.

Dude.

It�s like if you can carry it out, you can buy it.

Now, Steve, on the back, this is fascinating to me. The average tenure for pastors now in ministry is three to five years, and the decision of when to stay and when to leave can be agonizing. And so why is it that pastors stay for only three to five years?

And let�s not only blame the congregations. What is it in a pastor who, he says, �I�m here three to five years. The congregation is fine, but I got a bolt.

He has no servants left. Yeah, I really thought they should name the book, though, Should I Stay or Should I Go? You know, that seems red light, green light. Yeah, three to five years, well, yeah, maybe they don�t have anything else to say.

I mean, the problem is, you know, if you don�t dig into the text, if you�re really not that willing to, well, let me put it in another way. If you only have certain topics that you want to talk about and you don�t want to talk about anything else, then I could see how you could be done in three to five years.

I�ve got nothing else to teach you guys. I think you should hire somebody else, you know?

Well, and then, you know, you preach through Ephesians in three to five years, and then you go to the next church, you just preach Ephesians. Do it again. Steve, do you think the consumeristic, market-driven influences from the world have affected churches to the degree that many pastors, okay, if I only do this, that, and the other, my church will grow.

It�ll be a mega church. I�ll be influential. The good motives are we can, you know, support a lot of missionaries and affect the neighborhood with the gospel. But then they get there, and then they realize just a bunch of grandmas and grandpas and teenagers and some double-income, no-kids people, and the church never balloons into some mega church.

And guess what? People are in there, and they�re sleeping while I�m preaching, and you know what? People come up to the door, and they don�t say nice things, or worse yet, they go out the back door. They just avoid me altogether, and my feelings are hurt.

Steve, on bad days, I wouldn�t think this way, but on good days, I think this way, and I�m far from perfect in this area. But on good days, I think, you know, I�m here to serve these people, and of course, I want to live a life of integrity before them, but I need to serve them the Word of God every week, week in and week out.

And although they might not know a particular sermon, can you name me one of Mike�s sermons? They might not know that, but the lifetime of preaching the Bible verse by verse has, by the Spirit�s determined will, affected their lives, and they think differently.

They�re different people.

Pete. Well, they should be. You know, if they�re hearing the Word of God week in and week out, they ought to be changed people. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, just to backtrack for a second, I think, you know, the three to five year thing, how long do TV series last?

You know, if they last three years, they think that�s a pretty good run. Five years is a very long run. If you last eight to ten years, that�s unbelievable. So I just think people get tired, and they want something new.

That�s just, that�s, when you talk about consumerism, that�s what people do. And they�re just like, you know what? We�re tired of this guy. We�re tired of Mike. We�re tired of Steve. You know, can we move on?

Can we find some? I want something new.

Pete Steve, the older Mike, the less mature Mike, would probably say the majority of the problems exist within the congregation. They don�t want Bible teaching. They don�t want this. They don�t want that.

So they run the pastors out. And certainly there are still some churches that run pastors out. But these days, as I�m getting older, I think of, you know what? I think it�s the pastor�s fault. The pastors need to be more patient.

The pastors need to be more involved. The pastors need to just keep preaching, and if they don�t get any kind of accolades or kudos or numbers or any of that stuff, they just need to keep preaching behind the scenes.

Pete Well, I mean, that�s exactly right, but it�s not very, well, I mean, when we look at the high rate of burnout and all these other things that are happening with pastors these days, it�s pretty obvious that people, both the congregation and the pastor have different expectations.

They have different ways of looking at the position, and those things very rarely mesh. I think that�s, you know, really part of the problem. We hear about churches all the time, they�re looking for a pastor, and you listen to what they describe that they want in the pastor, and then, you know, if we have somebody that we send to the church or whatever, and we get a report back, we�re like, �Well, wait a minute.

What they say they�re looking for and what is actually going on in the church are so different that if they hire the person that they�re actually talking about, it�s going to be a disaster. That guy�s going to last three weeks

Pete Steve, that�s why they really deep down believe in cloning, because they want the MacArthur�s of the world cloned and the Alistair Beggs cloned, Steve. Pete But they don�t!

They say they do, but they don�t, because if they met those guys and they talked to those guys, MacArthur would get run out of most New England churches that say they love MacArthur, like, in days, you know?

Pete Steve, what do churches do when they have no pastor and they�re trying to get one, and in the meantime, they�re listening to the Begg sermons online, MacArthur sermons, Lloyd-Jones, S. Lewis Johnson, Sinclair Ferguson, Dick Lucas, whoever you like.

And then the pool of candidates are a bunch of 35-year-old new seminary grads, recently graduated, and they can�t. Pete They�re 35 or 25. Well, could be either. And then they can�t hardly preach a lick, they don�t have life experiences, you know, they haven�t buried kids or parents or anything like that, or probably, you know, their grandparents are still alive.

And how should a church think about that when they�re trying to get a pastor and they can afford $35 ,000 a year, but they�re, and you know, and half a parsonage shed to live in, but they want the guy to have 20 years experience, have four books published and be on the international speaking scene.

Pete Yeah, and be able to preach better than MacArthur or Alistair. Begg, you know, I mean, that�s essentially what they want, and you know, why not for $35 ,000 a year? Because it�s a ministry. You�re not supposed to make any money in, you know.

Pete Steve, Paul writes in 2 Timothy, a passage that everybody�s familiar with, and not only does the Word of God save, Paul said, because Timothy knew that, that he was saved from these sacred writings from when he was a youth, making you wise for salvation.

He says, �All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, and for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

How unbelievable, how unbelievably awesome is it that God can so prepare a fallible man, but give him the infallible Word, and then as he weakly preaches it, both with an A and an E, right, weakly and weakly, the Spirit of God ministers and can, people can get saved, people can have their lives transformed through simply preaching the Bible.

So, if you�ve got a Bible teaching pastor out there, we want you to be content with your pastor. Oh, can he learn? Can he grow? Can you pray for him? Would you wish he�d do these other things? But I hope you�re thankful that God would give you a Bible teaching pastor and that you�d be content with that.

Pete. Well, and you know, here�s what I would say too, you know, if you�re in the process of hiring one, I would say a couple things. One is, get to know him to the extent that you know what he�s really like.

I would say hire a guy with a little bit of personality. Why? Because if he has no personality in person, he�s not going to have any in the pulpit either, which could be a problem. But the second thing is just a guy who likes to study, you know?

I mean, if he doesn�t like to study, then you�re not going to get much out of your either. So, week in and week out, you might get downloaded sermons from, you know, wherever he�s, get sermon .com. When you see the budget requests come in, you know what, they just raised the price on sermon .com.

I need more money. That�s the wrong guy.

You didn�t hire wisely. Pete Steve, probably by May, my budget for academic books and publications and softwares is already spent because, you know, pastor .com and Rick Warren site, I already used it all up.

Yeah. I mean, the download costs are just so high. I wouldn�t even know what to do. If you gave me 50 Rick Warren messages and you said, �Preach these in the next year I�d go, �Can I just throw these away and start from scratch

You know, I�ll take some of the text and just start over, you know?

Steve, this was a funny story. Probably, oh, I don�t know, well, 17 years ago, at least maybe 18 or 19 years ago, the Purpose Driven Church was introduced by Rick Warren, and then he followed it up with Purpose Driven Life.

And so, when I got here, everybody was reading the Purpose Driven Church, and they were reading Experiencing God, and they were listening to Focus on the Family, and the list goes on. Just a typical church, an evangelical church here in New England land.

And so, then when the Purpose Driven Life came out, I was critiquing it, saying, you know, there�s no resurrection here. He gives a false canard of saying it�s not about you at the very beginning, but the whole thing is about you.

I mean, it was just an awful, awful book. I think we gave out instead, to do something on the positive side, we gave out Truth War or something by MacArthur. I don�t know. What�s it? Truth War wasn�t out yet.

What was the book that was out? The Gospel According to the Apostles or something. I don�t know, but I wasn�t here 17 years ago.

Well, so we gave out some book, some MacArthur book. And Steve, how could you talk about Rick Warren stuff? How could you say something about Rick Warren? I mean, it was from the rooftops.

Did I say rooftops? You said rooftops, and I was like, what is it?

I can hear myself say the wrong words. You�ve got Old Testament. Either that or stake on your mind. Ruth Chris. Oh, if I could have a Ruth Chris stake right now. Ruth Chris stake. And, you know, you just order it for like 55 bucks.

And then, you know, if you want some collard greens, it costs you another 5, 10, 20.

Boy, that�s a good stake, isn�t it? The only time I�ve been there is when somebody else is paying. Wait a minute. I think I did go there one time on my own. But, you know, other than that.

Steve, since today is Stream of Consciousness, we�ll get back to this Bible thing in a second. My favorite all-time experience at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Okay? It�s the best when you don�t have to pay.

So, in this particular case, I didn�t pay. And so, Pat Abendroth and I, my brother and I, are down in Florida. We�re Samford or wherever it�s, the Ligonier deal. And Sinclair Ferguson was our teacher.

There�s about 10 students. And I said to Pat, let�s ask him early in the week. Can we take you to lunch? You know, and how can we get him alone to just sit and listen to Sinclair? We said, we�d like to take you to Ruth Chris Steakhouse.

Pat said, I�ll pay. I said, yes. Sitting down, the three of us, Sinclair Ferguson, Pat Abendroth, paid. Now, that�s a memory. Pete Slauson. Very nice. Pete Slauson Uh-huh. So, back here to Pete Slauson Did you get a selfie?

Pete Slauson. No, I did not. I did not. But back, I don�t know how I got under the Rick Warren deal. But you know, if you do these things, your church will grow, and then all of a sudden it doesn�t. I think of pastors behind the scenes, teaching the Bible, faithfully proclaiming things.

Don�t you love Steve Lawson�s comments that you can be parachuted behind enemy lines with the Bible and the Holy Spirit, and you can change an entire city, state, country, world?

Steve Lawson It�s true, but I�d rather have my laptop with all my Logos software with all the commentaries and everything else. Yeah, that�d be sweet.

Pete Slauson Steve, in the old days, I worried a lot about losing all my messages that I had stored on, you know, Word document and software and stuff. And I don�t, there�s so many backups now. I don�t really worry that much.

Steve Lawson Well, you forget about EMPs.

Pete Slauson What would that be? Steve Lawson Electronic, electromagnetic pulse devices. Pete Slauson Well, maybe they�ll shoot them at me. Steve Lawson No, no, no. It�s like, are we going far afield?

It�s something, it�s like a nuclear weapon that it sends out a pulse that wipes out all electronic equipment.

Pete Slauson So, how would I prevent against, prevent that.

From happening? Steve Lawson. You really can�t, except for having hard copies of everything.

Pete Slauson. Is that like a neutron bomb? It kills all the people, but my books just remain.

Steve Lawson It doesn�t necessarily kill people unless you�re within close proximity to the actual explosion. But the idea is to knock out infrastructure. And what�s interesting, well, it�s not really that interesting, but there are ways of hardening our infrastructure, but our government hasn�t done it yet.

Pete Slauson Hmm, okay. Steve Lawson Only the military is protected against these EMPs. Pete Slauson Wow. All right. Steve Lawson All right. Pete Slauson In the military, I used to be an EMP.

Steve Lawson I was the EMP. Stop that. Pete Slauson That�s true. So, when it comes to a local pastor, he�s just behind the scenes and preaching. Does he get the seven-year itch kind of thing? You know, maybe there�s another group of people that will be more thankful for my ministry and I can kind of move on.

Steve Lawson Maybe there�s another area that�s warmer. Pete Slauson Yeah, something like that.

Steve Lawson. The grass is greener, sure.

Pete Slauson. I honestly think, and this is not in any weird charismatic continuations kind of way, I said to my family the other day, God wants us in New England. Now, I don�t know how long that is for, but it�s been for 17 years.

It has been the eternal will of God to have me in New England. Not that I�m God�s gift to New England, but I just know this is where I�m supposed to be. Steve Lawson. And you know why?

Because you�re here. Pete Slauson. And have been here. Steve Lawson. I mean, that�s always a good indicator. You want to know if you�re in God�s will, yes, you are.

Pete Slauson Steve, if you were on the search committee of a smaller church in New England, in the South, someplace else, and you�ve got a bunch of resumes coming across your desk, so you need to hire a new pastor and consider the pastor, what would be some green lights and what would be some red lights, some red flags that would make you immediately toss that thing into the trash can or hit right click delete?

And what would be some things that would make you say, �Oh, you know what, I�m interested in further listening to this man.

Well, I mean, there are some things that I don�t want to say these be automatic delete, but I would look at the seminary. The seminary would tell me a lot. I mean, there would be some serious red flags if someone said, for example, that they went to Fuller Seminary.

Now, here would be an immediate delete. My name is Linda so-and-so, you know, or Susie so-and-so, you know.

If your name was Lorraine Bettner and you knew that you had a, you know, maybe a man named Lynn, that was a popular name for men a generation ago, L-Y-N-N, and you said, you know, �My name is Lynn or my name is Lorraine, or your name is Michael.

I would indicate somewhere in there that I am a man.

Yeah, wouldn�t you use a masculine pronoun someplace?

I would totally do that. Either that or, you know, when I send out my resume, you know, it would be L. Roberts, you know, so everybody would know, okay, this is a guy, you know.

Steve, my first name is Michael, M-I-C-H-E-L. My mother was watching some show and there was a French producer named Michelle so-and-so, and she liked that spelling. And so, I�ve been stuck with Michelle for the rest of my life.

You know, I�m sorry we don�t know how to pronounce names, fifth grade class, Michelle Abendroth, but I�d say no, it�s Michael. So, I�ve gone by Mike for a long time. But I�m thinking I�m missing the strategy, my strategy for egalitarians.

I could sell my books more often to feminists and egalitarians and others if I just put Michelle Abendroth and it�d be a new book on preaching. That�s good thinking. It�s pretty sharp. Why am I not doing that?

I don�t know. Maybe you should talk to your publicist. What�s he thinking? What�s he thinking? Okay, so what would be some green lights if you were on a resume? I mean, this is first pass, we really haven�t listened to sermons yet or anything like that.

First pass green lights for resumes for pastors.

Green lights. I�d just be, I really don�t know. I mean, it would be, I think it�s just one of those things where I�d know it when I knew it. You know, I guess I would want to, and this is something that would probably come out in interviews, you know, who they really admire in terms of preaching and teaching, you know.

So, a resume, well, I would want to see that they�ve been active in ministry. You know, if all I saw were all the academic accolades, you know, and no kind of taught fundamentals of the faith or, you know, did a short-term mission here or did, you know, all these kind of things, because you want to see that it�s fine to have all the academic prowess, but you want to know that they actually want to minister to people.

So, Steve, I know you�d agree with me on this one. I would like to see on a resume, if I were hiring a pastor and I was on a search committee of a smaller church, I would like to see the pastor that said, �At such and such a ministry that I�m at now, or I was at, preached through Ephesians verse by verse for 62 weeks.

Right? I would say things like, �First Corinthians, 70 weeks, Esther, 14 weeks.

Pete. So, we�re talking about an experienced pastor. See, I thought we were just talking about somebody at a seminary.

No, no, but even if someone said, �I�m in seminary, home Bible study, we went through James over 25 weeks. That kind of stuff I think would really impress me or make me want to dig further because they�re telling me they are Bible students, they believe in exposition.

Pete Right. And they�re willing to go verse by verse, and we say this often, but the real trick about verse by verse preaching is then you don�t get to ride hobby horses, you don�t get to pick the next topic, you just have to take whatever�s coming, and sometimes that�s not easy.

Pete. So, in summary, red lights for a senior pastor, someone named Linda Linder.

Pete Well, that would be one, you know, I�d want to know their education, you know, why they, if they went to some unusual school.

Pete. What if they had the word �missional

Pete That would be a red, that would be at least a yellow light. A relevant. Pete That would be a total red light. Pete Contemporary. Pete Red. Pete Falstaff beer. Pete That would be amber.

Pete Expository preaching. Pete That�s a green light. Pete Trained at an evangelical seminary.

Pete Yeah, that would be, you know, although there aren�t, there are fewer and fewer of those, and, you know, some of the seminaries you just kind of go, okay, that used to be a great seminary, but now it might be a long shot.

Pete Steve, when I was putting my resume together 18 years ago, I listed the books that I read in the last year, because at the time I was a voracious reader, and I also wanted them to know what I was reading, because if I ask a young man out of seminary, �What have you read in the last year

I know a lot about him. What are his options, choices, preferences?

Pete Yeah, I mean, if he�s reading the latest Rick Warren tome, can I call it a tome?

Pete. Because I would put a little asterisk by that. This is why I�m reading it.

Pete. Yeah, critical. Yeah, I remember, you know, The Case for Christ, well, why would you read that? Well, it was for a critical book review, so.

Pete. Is Strobel at Rick Warren�s church now? Or is he off someplace else? Pete. I don�t know. He was. I don�t know where he is now. Pete. All right. Mike Ebenroth here with Steve Cooley. We�re thankful to be pastors here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

We have a great congregation. They love us, and they love Bible preaching. I�m thankful for that.

Pete. Well, it is a great blessing and privilege to be here in New England preaching the Lord Jesus Christ.