Simon Beckwith Interview

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 of 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 ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and we have a slogan here at No Compromise Radio. Always biblical, that's our main focus, that's our desire.

Always provocative, always in that order. After all, this is radio, so we want you to turn to 760

AM and then say, that guy is crazy, or those guys are crazy. We should understand a little bit more where they're coming from.

And so whether you love the show or hate the show, we are glad you listen. I like to have guests in my studio, or I like to interview them on the phone as well.

People that I find interesting are helpful as I minister to the saints here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

And today we have, sitting one foot away from me, maybe that's too close, maybe two feet away, is

Simon Beckwith, a deacon at Bethlehem Bible Church. Simon, welcome to the hot seat.

Thanks for having me, Pastor Mike. Now Simon, tell me how old you are, by the way.

I am 26. 26. Simon is a man who probably looks 26, but he acts many times in ministry, 36.

We are going to talk to Simon today about his ministry, about his conversion, what he thinks about evangelicalism, what kind of advice he would give to young people as they date, all kinds of things, so you want to stay tuned today.

Simon, tell me what you used to do here at the church. Pastor Mike, I used to be the high school ministry leader for three years until this past year when

I handed it off to Josh McDonald, who now leads that ministry. So youth ministry. Tell the listeners today, especially for those who are local here and send their kids to youth ministry, what should we not look for in youth ministry?

Pizza and games. So we should never have pizza and games. Give us the philosophy of how people sell youth ministry and tell us what we really do or should do.

I mean, stereotypically, when one thinks of high school ministry or youth ministry, one thinks of crazy games, often messy games, pizza, fun, and it's not that that stuff doesn't have a place in a high school ministry, but that just should not be the primary focus.

I think the stereotypical high school ministry focuses too much. That's the top priority, is relating to high school students, gaining their friendship, and it doesn't go much beyond that.

Well, you know, Simon, tell me if you agree with me. I think you do. Why would a youth ministry have a different philosophy of ministry than the ministry coming from the pulpit?

In other words, shouldn't there be some consistency between women's ministry, youth ministry, and the ministry that the elders have via the pulpit?

Pastor, I don't think there should be any inconsistency between those two ministries. Our high school ministry, which is ninth grade to twelfth grade, they should be treated as adults, not as kids, which is how they're often treated.

Who are the ones who are having that national influence, Do Hard Things? Those—what are their names again?

Some twins. I forget their last name. I can't believe—who wrote the

Stop Dating the Church? Who wrote— Josh the Harris. Yeah, yeah, the Harris. That's right. They really,

I think, have done a good job for evangelicalism. If you're listening today and you've got an eighth grader through about a twelfth grader, you should get that Do Hard Things book because young people don't—we underestimate them.

Why is that? They can do so much for the kingdom and for society, actually. Exactly.

From what I've heard, I guess the whole concept of this adolescence in between a kid and an adult, it's a relatively new concept,

I think, from the fifties, and I think I actually heard that from the Harris twins when Al Mohler interviewed them. And we've just taken that and we've run with it, and now we expect it.

We expect our kids to have this limbo period before they take life seriously, both outside and inside the church.

Rick Holland, one of the pastors at Grace Community Church, I remember hearing him talk at one of the Shepherds Conferences, Simon, and his talk was on—his message was the myth of adolescence, and I appreciated that.

And friends, if you're listening today and you've got a young person, we want you to aim high—or shouldn't it be aim highly?

That doesn't sound right. You should shoot for not just the lowest common denominator.

You should shoot for your child, A, to be born again, and B, to learn and to grow.

When I think of people like Jim Elliott, Simon, I think of men who were sold out for the kingdom and making an impact for the

Lord where they lived at 15, 16, 17 years old. Oh, absolutely.

I remember reading a biography of Hudson Taylor, and to see what he—what the Lord did through him in his teenage years was just simply amazing, and it just leaves you astounded when you look around us today with all the resources, with all the available teaching that we have, that we're not seeing high school students following in these footsteps.

Well, people should read the book called Shadow of the Almighty. It says it's by Elizabeth Elliott, but she really put together

Jim Elliott's diary. And Simon, here's what I like. At the top of every page is his age, and so you see 19.

And he would say things like, why are so many people at the football game screaming their heads off for the

Patriots, but when it comes to the Lord and worshipping Christ Jesus, it's the sound of silence.

And so that book would be very, very helpful. Simon, tell us some things that you would never do in youth ministry.

I think you got a couple interesting things off the internet. Tell us how not to minister to youth.

All right, let me give you an example. I just did, you know, it doesn't take long. You just Google high school ministry or youth ministry, and all the first hits that you'll receive are,

I think they're atrocious to see what people focus on in high school ministry. Let me read one of them for you.

This is a game. I found this on youthpastor .com. There's hundreds of games on there, and I just picked two at random.

This is one that I thought was, it certainly has absolutely no place in the church. But it's no compromise worthy, right?

Oh, it's absolutely worthy. Okay. Okay, I'll try to read this quickly. This is called Stick the Licked Lifesavers on Someone's Face Game.

This is the Christmas version. Here's how it goes. This is an old takeoff of the

Stick and Lick Lifesavers on Someone's Face Game, but with a holiday flair. Get three, four, or five guys.

The less hairy, the better. Have each guy assemble a team of five or six others to build a Christmas wreath on the guy's stomach using licked red and green

Christmas mints, lifesavers, and red gum for the bow. You'll find that once you put those Christmas mints in your mouth, it gets real sticky and it sticks to their bare tummies pretty well.

Long story short, you have these teams. They make Christmas trees on bare -chested men and the high school ministry, and everybody votes on what they ...

La, la, la, la, la, la. All right. Keep going. Enough of that. Keep going. Then they vote, and whoever did the best job wins.

My son is in ninth grade now, Simon, and when I drop him off at school or see some of the people in his grade ...

When I was in ninth grade, it seemed like hardly anyone had begun to be a man, but now these guys have full beards.

They look like they're 35 years old. I just don't want to think too much about such a game.

That's just unbelievable. That's probably ... Here's my problem. I'm stuttering a little bit, but here's my problem.

It probably doesn't dawn on a mom or dad to put their kid in a ministry that does that, because most mom and dads are in churches that do the exact same thing with a bunch of two -bit drama, a bunch of R -rated movie illustrations shown on the video, and so they give their kids what they're getting.

Right. Absolutely. I mean, it comes down to what the parents are expecting the kids to receive at high school ministry. If they expect just a free daycare to drop their kids off and pick them up and nothing more than that, then that's what they're going to get.

It seems like it's a moralism. It's good, wholesome fun. The kids could be out drinking or smoking pot or something like that or watching pornography, but there's nothing redemptive.

These children are not born Christians. They're born sinful, and they are fallen in Adam, and they need gospel preaching.

Now, you wouldn't be against having fun after a good night of some preaching, would you? No, absolutely not.

It's actually part of the normal routine here at PBC with the high school ministry. After teaching and discipleship, we have a time for fun.

It's not like it doesn't have a place in the church. It just shouldn't be the primary focus of the ministry. That whole game, that stick -and -lick thing,

I was thinking about wintergreen Lifesavers, and if you bite them, they make a spark or something. Yeah, we've never played this one at PBC.

Yikes. You know, let's get our faces all painted with peanut butter and then throw cheese balls at them. You know,

I'm all for fun, and I think if people would meet me, I am not anti -fun. Christianity should make us joyous, and we should have fun.

There's a time to weep. There's a time to laugh. But if you promote your ministry as, this is the place where you have fun, the world is going to offer fun, probably in a better format.

And what do we have, Simon, that the world doesn't have? We have the Word of God, and we have a biblical ministry here for the high school students.

Absolutely. We want to teach them about sin, redemption, Christ, living a life to please

Christ Jesus, and if no one shows up, then no one shows up. Right. And it really comes down to the church's philosophy of a high school ministry.

If their goal in the high school ministry is, as you pointed out, to get kids off the street, not smoking pot, not breaking the law, but to get them in a safe environment to play silly games, then that can be accomplished.

And you're going to do that to get as many kids as you possibly can, regardless of whether or not they're believers. But if you're,

I mean, it comes down to a matter of good, better, best. If you want to use your church's resources for the glory of God in the best way possible, and teach these kids the

Word of God, preach the gospel to them, disciple them, encourage them and challenge them in their spiritual walk, then yeah, you may not get as many kids because those who don't take spiritual matters seriously at all probably won't last very long.

But for those who are yearning and desiring to grow in their spiritual walk with the Lord, these kids will come and they'll be fed and they'll come back again.

Absolutely. If you're listening today in the Worcester area and you'd like to have your kids plugged into a

Bible teaching youth ministry, we'd love to have them on Thursday nights here at the church in West Boylston from 7 o 'clock to 9 o 'clock.

And basically, what's the format, Simon, that we have here at Cornerstone Youth Ministry? So the way it works is there's a time for teaching, probably about 10 minutes in the beginning.

We just let people come in to settle themselves. There's a time of teaching. Last year was through the book of James.

This year is through the book of Philippians. Verse by verse, just teaching what the Bible says. And then we break up into groups for the high schoolers with leaders for each group.

And there's a time for discipleship, accountability week to week to make sure the kids are applying the text to their lives.

And then there's a time for games afterwards. One of the things I love about the high school ministry last year and this year,

Simon, is that there's this discipleship element where there'll be one leader, a couple of young people, and it would be men with men and ladies with ladies.

And I teach my kids the Bible, but I could teach my kids the Bible day in and day out.

But somebody else comes along and says something that I have said for 15 years to my kids.

And I probably said it better, and I probably said it in Hebrew too. But they never got it. And then sitting down with a young adult, that is to say, some of the youth ministry leadership that is in their early 20s, late 20s, and then they teach the kids and talk about things that go on in life.

I love that part of the youth ministry here. Right. And I appreciate you bringing that up because, I mean, the

Bible is clear. The primary responsibility for raising children lies with the parents, specifically the father.

So our high school ministry at this church or any church should not be to usurp that authority from the parents or that responsibility, but to come alongside the parents and aid them in this process that they're responsible for.

The danger is that parents would use this as an exit for their responsibility, as a crutch, if you will, to just hand them off and let somebody else take care of it.

But that's not why this ministry exists. It exists to come alongside the parents and help them to disciple their students.

Because, like you said, a different face coming from a different voice, even repeating the same thing that you've said might have a different impact on these kids.

My son, Luke, the other day, Simon, said to me, I think you'll be encouraged by this. Yes, I was listening to one of the leaders and they were talking about work and working for the glory of God, and I sent

Luke out to do different projects around the house and leaves and rake and mow, and he gets a certain amount of money for that.

And then he said to me, the whole time I was doing the job of mowing, I kept thinking about that ministry leader's concept of how do we work for the glory of God.

I thought, that is worth it. And so, if you're looking for a youth ministry, Cornerstone Ministry, you can go on the website bbcchurch .org

and get that information as well. If you've just tuned in, we're talking to Simon Beckwith. He's a deacon at Bethlehem Bible Church, has a variety of ministries here.

We've been talking about youth ministry and how the preaching of the pulpit should drive the youth ministry as well.

There should be a consistency in the philosophy of ministry. Along those lines,

Simon, tell us your journey, if you will. That kind of sounds good and emergent, doesn't it? Your authentic journey.

Describe the kind of church you came to, and then describe how you worked through all that, and I think the listeners would be interested to find out.

What do you do if you go to a church that majors maybe on the minors, or minors on the majors, and doesn't have expository preaching as the central figure, centerpiece, if you will?

And then what do you do? How do you work through that? Amen. Yeah, the Lord has been incredibly gracious to myself and my wife.

I was raised in a nominal Catholic home. We did what we had to do. We did the minimum, went most

Sundays. And then it was shortly after I graduated high school.

That's a mortal sin, by the way, to not go on a Sunday to get the Eucharist. I know. I felt it when I left the next

Sunday. Oh, yeah. I get the evil eye. So in high school, in 11th grade, the

Lord brought my future wife into my life, Tiffany, and she had been—I mean, her parents had been divorced like mine.

She would go to a Catholic church on one weekend, and alternating weekends, she would go to a Pastor Dave's church.

At the time, it was a Bible -teaching church that he had in his home. And she was not a Christian at the time, but she had convictions of a

Christian. She knew what was right, and she knew what was wrong. And she disagreed with a lot of what

I chose to do with my life. I was raised with the philosophy that anything in moderation is okay, and there was no limits on what anything was.

And that's the life that I lived. So we clashed heads frequently as I lived the life of a typical senior in high school.

But over that year, I got to know her. I got to know her friends. I got to know her friends' parents, all coming from Christian backgrounds.

And after we had finally broken up because we couldn't agree, it struck me one day—I think it was driving in my car, and I realized, you know, nobody's forcing

Tiffany and her friends to give up what I choose to do. So, therefore, they must be getting something better in return.

It was a pretty simple, selfish concept of their testimony, but it provoked me to meet with a high school pastor that she had known from out in Wellesley, I think it was.

So we met in a Starbucks, and he simply just laid out the gospel, nothing that I hadn't heard before in bits and pieces in the

Catholic Church. But the thing was that he strung them all together, and I finally understood the gospel in a way that, actually, in retrospect,

I had never heard completely or thoroughly or even accurately in the Catholic Church growing up.

But when he said it, the only way I can describe it is that I had been living in a cloud, and I could not see two feet beyond my face.

And as he explained the gospel, everything just clicked. Everything made sense. And I prayed the sinner's prayer at the time, and that did not save me, obviously, but I had been saved in retrospect, seeing what my life had done since then.

So since then, I go off to college, and I get tied up in—it was kind of funny, actually.

I got involved with the Christian ministry there on campus, and the first week, they were doing this church hop each week.

You could try out different churches in the area. Oh, is that what they call it, too, the church hop? Yeah, that's what I call it. So the first week, of all places, where do we go but BBC?

What year was that? This was 2002. Wow. Okay. So fall of 2002.

I was here. Yeah, you were here. And so we go to this church one week, and the next week, we go to a different church in the area that was much more,

I guess you could say, seeker -sensitive. It had much more relevant music.

I'm going to choose my words careful here. Okay. They have spiritual dance there. It's just much more appealing to either a nonbeliever or a very immature young believer.

And I think you and most of your listeners know what kind of church I'm describing. So from then on,

I went to that church. I didn't have the right priorities. I didn't have a spiritual leader in my life to help me to weed through what a good church was and what a good church was not.

So I went to that church, and the Lord used that in my life. He brought in some spiritual friends and leaders over the following couple of years, one of which he would be up here in the summer, and then in the winters and during the school year, he was going to a

Sovereign Grace Church down in Pennsylvania. So he was getting good, solid, theologically accurate teaching, and then he would come up and he would unload on me during the summer.

And just driving in the nail—this is my friend Chris Freeman—just driving in the nail that theology is important, theology is important, theology is important.

And of course, you know, he was the only person that was saying that to me, and I didn't take it for what it was worth at the time, but eventually he did succeed, and the

Lord was gracious to me and gave me the right understanding of the importance of theology. So from then on, you know, long story short,

I ended up coming here to BBC, and what the Lord has done in my life and in my wife's life in the past few years has simply been amazing.

Well, now you have a brand -new little daughter. We do. Tell us about her. Avery Gray. She is 14 months, coming up soon, and we have another one on the way.

That is so exciting. You know, you reminded me, Simon, when you were giving your testimony, S. Lewis Johnson says everyone is born a

Pelagian. That is to say, when you're born, you think you can be good enough and do good works and deeds and things to earn yourself a way into heaven.

Then when you get saved, you're a semi -Pelagian. You think your faith contributed to your salvation.

You allowed God to save you. You prayed the prayer to unleash the grace of God in heaven.

But then when you learn and grow, if God has so sovereignly intended someone to come alongside of you, you learn and grow and realize,

I had nothing to do with my salvation. I did not initiate it. I did not do it. It was something that was done to me, and so as you learn and grow, you become a

Calvinist. Simon's laughing because I say Calvinism all the time on the radio, but I never, well,

I shouldn't say never, but I rarely, maybe twice in 13 years have I said

Calvinism from the pulpit at Bethlehem Bible Church. I know the listeners are shocked, but that is a true statement.

Simon, we have four minutes to go. Here's a question that I'd like to ask you as we're talking to Simon Beckwith, who's a faithful deacon, server at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Simon, you are around a lot of young people, both in ministry and you're a young person yourself. What kind of advice would you give to those in their teens and 20s regarding dating?

Would you have general dating advice for somebody who has probably done the wrong things and then now

God has been generous and gracious to, and now you're married and you have a wife and, I guess that's the same thing, have a baby and another one on the way?

Give us some general advice. Well, from my own experience and, you know, dealing with others in my life, my opinion, and I think it's a biblical opinion, obviously, otherwise

I wouldn't say it, is that there is no place for dating unless it ultimately is focused on marriage.

So basically there's no dating, but there is courtship. There's freedom in your life, freedom to serve in the church, freedom to serve others and being single, and there's freedom to do the same when you're married.

But when you're stuck in this state in between, it's just this muddy, murky area where you're not free either way.

You're kind of in bondage. What about those who would say, well, I really just need to get to know this person for a while.

I don't know if I'm ready for marriage, but we just want to go have some fun. And so there's nothing wrong with fun.

Let's go have some fun. And if it ends in marriage, fine. If it doesn't end in marriage, that's fine too. What if a 21 -year -old says that to you?

Well, it just reminds me of an illustration I've heard you use from the pulpit before about driving on a hairy overpass way up high on the mountain.

You know, this one lane road, are you going to drive on the inside towards the mountain or are you going to drive on the outside with one tire half off the cliff?

Of course you're going to drive on the inside. So why would you act any differently concerning your sin, concerning the

Lord? I mean, would you put yourself in a situation where you can slip and fall into temptation, into physical relations with somebody, into growing a relationship that's not right and unbiblical?

Or why not get to know this person in a different context? Maybe you bring along other people with you, maybe you do it at your home under the supervision of your parents, and just be overly cautious, especially when dealing with people of the opposite sex.

Absolutely. I don't think you should spend your time dating someone, courting someone, getting together with someone, unless it is moving towards, or possibly could get moving towards marriage.

Don't you think it's right to say, they could be marriage material, but I need to know a little bit more, and so let's set it up in a way with my parents or the church so I don't get myself emotionally involved or physically involved.

And then when it doesn't seem like it's going to work towards marriage, and there's been purity, you can both still attend the same church.

Right. Yeah. Amen. How many times is there a disaster and then somebody's got to leave? We are all for dating.

Actually, I could go farther, Simon, since it's no compromise. I'm all for sex in marriage, but we just don't want you to sully yourself and rob your future spouse by doing things that you ought not to do.

Your life, if it's run by, I want to have fun, you need to grow up anyway. Your immature and your desire for fun is going to cost you because that immature thinking is going to get you involved with someone that you ought not to.

So how about your life should be for the glory of God and ministry, and if you're that kind of person,

I think there's going to be a godly spouse who's going to notice it and come right alongside. Yeah. Amen. Well, we are talking to Simon Beckwith at No Compromise Radio Ministry today.

Has the time gone by fast? It's gone by incredibly fast. Simon, 24 minutes gone so quickly. I was so nervous.

I know. I have questions about your short -term missions trips to Mozambique and other places.

I have questions about how do you serve the church behind the scenes, especially at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Everybody wants to be up and preach and teach, but we need faithful people behind the scenes. And I guess

I'll wrap it up this way. Thank you for your ministry behind the scenes at Bethlehem Bible Church, a desire to learn and grow, an acknowledgement that God can use people who are still in process, though justified.

Praise God. Simon, thank you. We'll see you on Sunday. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.