Helpful Hints For Ministry

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 Avendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Avendroth. And probably after a six-week, it seems like a six-month hiatus, Steve Cooley is back. Welcome. Bienvenidos. Steve, I noticed that even today on the No Compromise Facebook, Twitter account, they�ve got a whole sermon on there from John 7 that you preached.

Maniac Jesus or something? Maniac Messiah or? Yeah. It was a question mark or something? You weren�t saying he was, but that was a title.

Yeah, and those were the accusations leveled against him in John chapter 7.

It�s amazing to think that they say to Jesus, �You have a demon. I mean, how many times do they say that?

�You�ve got a demon. Well, when they can�t explain, you know, that there�s no earthly explanation for what he�s saying. So, they just, you know, they jump to the worst possible conclusion.

Well, sometimes I ask you how your grandkids are doing. I think you�re up to five now, six, seven, eight? Five point something. Yeah. And do your grandkids ever ask you about the Bible or they�ve got some verse that they�ve memorized or singing songs, you know?

Well, sure.

The singing songs, yeah. Chorus�s favorite song right now is 10 ,000 Reasons. In fact, I don�t know, but I hope we have a video of kind of January leading chorus and singing yesterday. So, yeah.

It�s fun. That�s nice. I was looking at the desk here in the studio and we�ve got the message Bible. Why don�t we have a message version of the New Grace hymnal or something like that? It would probably sell a lot.

It would be horrible. Do churches even have hymnals anymore? When did that start going out?

Well, I think with the ubiquity, see, I just wanted to get that word in there, the ubiquity of the overhead projector, you know, and so, you know, now you don�t need hymnals, right? Those are just extra things, extra clutter in the aisle.

So now you can just project the words up on the wall or the screen or whatever.

See, that�s a sad day in the life of a church when the overhead projector ministry people no longer have a job. Very sad. Let�s have a moment of silence for that. Yeah, when I got to the church here, Bethlehem Bible Church in 1997, we had an overhead for some of the songs.

And the interesting thing was, Steve, I would sit up there, that was kind of like my seat by the front. I don�t sit in the front because I�m worthy of the best seat. I sit in the front so it doesn�t take me so long to get up to the pulpit to preach.

Simple. Just pragmatics. And one time, the guy who�s supposed to move the words slowly down and scroll the words as we would sing them, he was gone, so I had to do double duty that day. I was pretty tired.

How do you know you have no budget? Remember those overhead projectors, Steve, that you could actually write on them in like a seminary class or a college class, any Sunday school class, and then you would roll them.

And you would roll the new transparency over so you didn�t have just sheets like an eight and a half by 11. You would roll the thing to get a new deal. No, you must be older than me. I�m not, but I might be wiser.

So on No Compromise Radio, if you�d like to write us, you can info at nocompromiseradio .com. Steve, I have in front of me, because you don�t have any idea what we�re talking about today, something from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Just yesterday, I got an email that said, �Campus is starting late because of snow and ice. Like, why am I on this list? An adjunct professor kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. I was thankful for that. So someone wrote, and that someone�s name is Scott Slayton, S-L-A-Y-T-O-N.

Scott! You know Scott. Didn�t you disciple him? No, no, I don�t. I don�t know him at all. Five years, excuse me, five things to focus on in your first year in ministry. So before you read what he said, what would be some maybe pitfalls of what pastors might do the first six months when they get to a new church that maybe we can kind of help them not do?

Well, I mean, let�s see, what would be some things that they would instantly want to change? I don�t know. Things that might really kind of offend, you know, the people there and, you know, just telling them that they�ve been doing things wrong, either directly or indirectly, you know?

So let, like, you know, like, go into the library your first day and just start throwing all the books out, you know?

This is trash, garbage. Now, I have to say, Steve, there are many people here at the church who have served in the library ministry over the years, and we�ve been around for quite some time now, so things have changed.

I love, even the other day, walking up into the library and seeing the books. They�re all orderly, they�re all put in proper, you know, number system. I don�t think it�s Dewey Decimal because we probably think he was probably secular.

But they�re good. But they�re good books. You know, there might be one or two strays or something that Steve forgot to check, but normally they�re good. But when I got here, Steve, you can just imagine.

It was Hal Lindsey.

You know, that was a good book. Steve Lankford Oh, we�re supposed to get rid of Hal Lindsey. Pete Slauson Yeah, that�s good.

So you know, I said, �We�re going to start a library. And that was the way I�d get rid of the old books. And then people said, �Well, we have books to donate to the library. And those were the real doozies, you know?

And we had probably 19 �Strong-Willed Child� by Dobson or something, you know, these faux Christian books.

Pete Slauson Yeah, the Bible for Idiots, stuff like that. Pete Slauson Yeah.

Yeah. Those, I didn�t know how to put that in alphabetical order, though. Was that under B or under I? So what Scott says on this five things to focus on your first year of ministry, I thought it was smart, as it said, number one, spend time getting to know people.

It says one of the most important jobs in your first year will be to spend time or many hours listening to people, sit on front porches, go to community events, welcome people into your home.

Getting to Know People Before Making Changes

Pete Slauson. I think that�s a pretty good, well, I especially like the other one, the last one, welcome people into your home. I think, you know, one of the problems is, you know, wanting to make change without knowing the people, then it just seems like, who�s this guy?

You know, Mr. Know-it-all, he just lands here and starts telling us what to do and, you know, he�s going to change everything, so I think it�s better that they get to know you. And plus, you know, some of what you know is just going to come out during the conversation and they�re going to go, �Oh, this guy might actually know what he�s doing, you know, and might actually know what he�s talking about.

And he seems to know more about the Bible than I do.

Pete Slauson Steve, I hate to admit it, but I think as I look back at my life, I say to myself, I got caught up in that. I�ve been to seminary, I�ve been at one of the, you know, most wonderful churches in the world, I know what�s going on, I�m, you know, a chip off the old MacArthur block and here�s how we do things.

Pete Slauson Did you really? Steve Lankford Well, maybe for a while.

Pete Slauson Like, first day, we�re getting rid of this NIV, NAS for us.

Steve Lankford. You know, what would be funny is to come up with a list of things that we wish we could change, but we were, you know, smart enough by the grace of God not to change. Pete Slauson. That would be good.

Steve Lankford. Number two, do not try to change things. What a segue. It says here, �If you come in and begin to push change from day one, particularly in older churches, many people will begin to resent you.

In your first year, look for evidences of grace in the church instead of focusing it on everything you think needs to change. That would be wise.

Pete Slauson Yeah, I think there�s a lot of truth to that. I would say, you know, that the once a month female preacher, that might have to go.

Steve Lankford. One of the things I did have to change within the first year here at the church, we had a soup kitchen ministry. Our church participated in the soup kitchen ministry. And I was asking questions because I thought, you know what, that�s a valuable thing and helping people downtown.

So when do you give out tracts? When do you evangelize? Is there a message from the local pastor there or the chaplain? Tell me about the Bible teaching and the outreach. You know, there�s good news. We have not only food for you, but here�s soul food, if you will.

Here�s the gospel of Christ Jesus. Oh, we�re not allowed to preach the gospel. I said, I thought it was a joke at first. No, there�s no sharing, you can�t hand out a tract and nothing like that. I said, well, then we need to stop it because it needs to be gospel-oriented if the church here is going to commend, condone, congratulate.

And I took a lot of heat for stamping that out because I was mean.

Pete Barber Well, can�t you have a ministry without the Bible? Steve Lankford You can. It�s called Peace Corps. Pete Barber Well, you know, talking about changes, though, what if you walked in your first elders meeting and you said, well, good morning, ladies?

That might be a problem. Steve Lankford Here�s a true story of an elders meeting.

We used to have meetings here. Here�s something not to do. We used to have elders meetings at eight in the morning on Sundays, and then they would whack me and then I had to go preach. You know, now if I get whacked.

Pete Barber. What�s wrong with that? Steve Lankford. Now, if I get whacked or something weird happens on a Sunday morning before preaching, you know, you can still do it. But in those days, man, that was awful.

And I remember we had prayer then after the meeting, and one of the elders, he saw a tick crawling on the ground, and I was really getting after him that he would actually open his eyes during prayer so that he would see the tick that was crawling over to his leg.

But I had seen it when I had opened my eyes a few minutes earlier in prayer, so we were all just as ungodly. And that was the extent of my elders prayer meetings.

It�s the tick ministry. Pete Barber Boy, I�m sure sorry I wasn�t here for those days.

Steve Lankford It says here with this �Five Things to Focus On Your First Year� �Major on the basic message of the gospel. Preach through a gospel and emphasize the person and work of Jesus. I think that�s excellent advice for not only pastors, but let�s say you�re going to teach a home Bible study, or let�s say you�re going to teach a Sunday school where you�d like to do some exposition.

Let�s say you�re a dad and mom and you want to do some family Bible time. That�s a good place to start with the gospels, and I know you�re in John now. Why are gospel, I mean, of course, it�s all the Bible and Luke 24 is in the Bible.

It tells us everything, talks about the Lord, you know, and drives toward that. Why is it good to talk about gospel, the gospels in ministry?

Pete Barber. Well, I think first of all, we want people to get to know Jesus, right? They can�t get saved without knowing Jesus Christ, and it�s encouraging the believers to. But secondly, you know, like even preaching through the Gospel of John, it�s just amazing to me how much doctrine is in the Gospel of John, and so I try to avoid, you know, some typical jargon, some typical terms that we use, you know, in connection with various theological truths, and I just let the text speak for itself.

And it�s pretty amazing how often Jesus talks about his deity, how often he talks about the sovereignty of God, how often he talks about the inability of man to save himself, you know, or to understand apart from God, and you know, all these kind of things just kind of build the case for what we would call Calvinism, for the sovereignty of God and salvation.

And it really is, it�s fun to study and to read him, and it�s just, it�s, I think it�s great.

Pete Barber. We probably, as pastors and Bible teachers, could use Barthianism against the people. In other words, some people think, well, these are Jesus� words, they�re somehow more important than Paul�s words when both are just as important as inspired, and when you�re teaching Jesus� words, I just think it, you know, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down if I can bring in those other pagan witch movies for illustration.

I mean, it really is pretty easy because if people want to get mad at you, then what they really have to ask themselves is, well, wait a minute, that�s what Jesus said. Do I want to get I�m a Christian, I mean, it�s, you know, because the, Paul can tend to be a little polemic at times, you know.

So when Jesus gets polemic, because he does, you know, it just doesn�t seem, it seems fine because we all just go, well, if Jesus said it, it�s true, right? You know, so.

Pete Barber Steve knows this story, but when I got to the church in �97, I decided to do a five-week series on the attributes of God, just kind of a quick intro. Here�s who this God is. I don�t know why I picked five, it should have been 500.

But then I went to James, so my philosophy for James was I had taught through James, so I had some of the work done, and I know I needed to preach Sunday night as well, but I wanted to drive people either to the Lord, exposing their non-saving faith, or out the door kind of thing.

And it kind of worked, but it kind of backfired too, so now my advice is always the same as this young fellow, or maybe he�s an old fellow. Just preach through a gospel. Make it simple. Then when you get to John 6, they�re already involved in the person and work of Christ, and they�re seeing his life, and then you go, well, Jesus said it, what am I going to do?

Yeah, I won�t mention the man�s name, but I know, you know, a pastor who preached through 1 John, and you know, as he was going through, he kept losing more and more people, and there was more and more angst, you know, and I�m like, well, that�s a pretty tough place to start, right?

Are you a Christian or not?

Part 12, you know? So, it�s like some Al Martin sermon series that never ends. The demons are still trembling. All right, number three, work hard at effectiveness in preaching and teaching. So, this is good for the pastor, but I want to make some application for anybody that teaches the Bible.

Preaching the Gospels and Centering on Christ

Work hard at preaching and teaching. Why is that important, Steve?

Well, I think it�s a biblical command, first of all. And I mean, it�s supposed to be hard work, and what does that mean? Well, to me, it means not just understanding what the text says, because I think any first year Bible college student could probably tell you what the text says, but figuring out how it preaches, you know, how to effectively communicate it.

That�s where the hard work really comes in.

So, and as we mature in our Bible teaching, it�s fascinating to just kind of almost reflect upon it and how I do things myself. And early on, of course, we have to have exegesis and we have to work hermeneutically hard at finding authorial intent.

But I think we then want to bring every finding that we have noticed into the sermon. And we�re talking about objective genitives and subjective genitives. And, you know, there�s a time that you might even need to say those words, but every single week and you�ve got some immature Christian and they�re sitting there thinking, you know, I don�t even know how to, you know, communicate with my wife, for instance.

And so, then you begin to think, all right, how do I craft this message? How do I plate it? Steve, I don�t know if you ever watch MasterChef, but I can appreciate good plating when you have something on the plate that looks wonderful.

I think it�s just a disguise because they don�t want to give you as much food. Steve. You think? Pete. And then you say to yourself, well, now I don�t even really think, all right, let�s do the exegesis.

Then how do we craft this? Then what do we do for application-oriented kind of questions? And then, you know, 20 years into it, I don�t even ask the questions. You just do it by habit.

Yeah, and I really do, I think I�ve moved away from kind of I have to have, you know, three points, four points, you know, and I have to do this and I have to do that. Because sometimes the text just doesn�t lend itself to that and you have to go with what the text is rather than what your preconceived notion of what a sermon should be is.

I think, Steve, for me, the only thing in my sermon preparation that is, I push back from the desk or the table and say, now, I must not forget this. This is kind of a nuts and bolts operational mechanical thing that I still do.

I say to myself, somehow or another, I need to talk about who Jesus is. I don�t want to jam him into a verse where he�s not there, a dog returns to his own vomit. I mean, how does that preach Christ? Well, it preaches sin and then we talk about the need for Christ.

But how do I talk about Jesus in a way that�s not fundamentalistic where they would just talk about Jesus every week because they give the altar call? And so maybe some redemptive historical preachers today, well, how do we talk about Jesus?

They just, you know, every single week they talk about him the same way. But I want to make sure I talk about our Lord, and I believe Paul was correct, obviously, when he said, I�ve determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even the crucified one.

And I want to talk about the Lord because I think knowing my nature and my background and my bent and my training, I could preach pretty good moralistic sermon and make people feel pretty bad without showing them any of the good news.

So, law gospel stuff.

So, if you have the Abrahamic covenant, then you basically want to get to the Great Commission from there.

Pete I think you probably could. I think you could finally, you know, you could expand it out. Steve's laughing and he knows what I mean by this. But you, you know, how do we turn this away from redemptive historical preaching?

I want to talk about the Lord. And even if you say, this is how I tell my students, they can always talk about Jesus. This reminds me of who Jesus is and why I need him and why I�m glad that he saved me.

I was reading Psalm 32 yesterday, and you are blessed, Christian, if you do not have sins imputed to your account. And I don�t think Psalm 32 is like Psalm 2 or Psalm 110 Messianic in that regard, but it sure talks about, as we go forward in progressive revelation, Jesus is the one who had sins imputed to his account.

And that's why we're blessed because he loves people like us. All right, we're still talking about this blog here about what not to do or what to do in your first year of ministry. Number four, pray for God's help and be patient.

Why is that important? Pete. Well, I can just imagine, you know, I mean, coming out of seminary, I think we all have a mindset that, you know, church is going to be a certain way. And so, when you find out things are going on at the church where you just go, well, that's not right.

How can that be? You know, probably your tendency is going to be like, all right, okay. You know, I've had it up to here and, you know, it's time for things to change around here. Pastor, you've been here three weeks.

Pete. For you, Steve, there would literally be a new sheriff in town. Pete. There, yes, literally. I like it when he says farming takes time, crops don't grow overnight, and neither do disciples or churches.

The results that come from preaching, praying, counseling, and discipling take time. Maybe what makes news are these churches that within three years, they've got 1 ,500 people or whatever. But when I was reading 2 Timothy 2 the other day, and I was thinking about Lance Roberts, our missionary in the Czech Republic, you know, athletes, disciplers, soldiers, and then Paul talks about farmers, hardworking farmers.

And Steve, isn't it so true? You know, you plant the seed and you might not ever see any fruit and it might take a long time. And if you sit there and stare at it all day long, I think there's something about, you know, watched crops never boil or something like that, isn't there?

Eh, mangled metaphors for 600.

Pete. Did you see the Jeopardy! the other day where all three people missed it? They all bet everything, they all missed it. None of them won. They had to get three new people. The catch was something like the dumbest Jeopardy! of all time.

Pete Well, it would only be dumb depending on what the categories are. I'm like, I just know that if I ever went on that show, opera would be one of the categories. You know, it's just guaranteed.

Pete. When we play some games around the house with church families and some topic comes up like that, I think I'm so smoked. I mean, I think I know pop culture from 1980s, but now I don't. And then classical stuff like opera or whatever, no way.

Pete. How about the 1780s? Probably less. All right, and we're getting close to the end here. So, the final thing that you should be cautious of or wary of, things that you can do on the flip side. Now, this is fascinating.

Work on your physical fitness. No one ever took me aside and talked to me about the physical toll the ministry can take on a pastor. Stress-filled and sedentary vocation. Everyone that you visit basically offers you food.

So, put all those things together and you've got a cauldron of calories. Pete. Enlargement. Pete I got here, Steve, and the secretary, she said, Judy said, well, you know, here's how I'd like to help in any way, this, that, or the other.

And then I wanted to give excuses when I would go to the gym. You know, I've got to go work out. I got here early. I'm going to work late. This is why I'm going to go to the gym or go to the pool and swim.

She's like, just go. You need to go work out and clear your mind and go work out. And I'm thinking, that was good advice. And then now I see pastors at the Shepherd's Conference. And do you think most of the pastors there are underweight or overweight?

Pete. Scrummy. Pete You know, I can't really see how big or how small they are because I'm trying to get to the Krispy Kreme donuts. So, I'm elbowing my way through. Pete. I'm knocking people out of the way.

Get it. Pete. My point is not, you know, what's your waist size? My point is, I think I'm like a sword and I'd like to be sharp for the Lord. And I know if I work out a little bit, I can work longer and harder hours than most people.

Pete. All I know is when you turn sideways, you disappear. Pete. Well, actually, I study the Bible at the gym. I mean, sometimes I'll preach to people at the gym. Sometimes I'll read, but I love to study my sermons at the gym.

Pete Isn't it loud in there?

Pete I will always wear my headphones. Pete So, you just preach with your headphones on?

Well, I turn those, I pause. I actually, I'm not going to ask the church, but I'm tempted to, to say, you know, I think you should give me a free gym membership because I preach the gospel more at the gym than probably any other place.

So, it's ministry. All right, well, this has been No Compromise Radio. You know, Steve, there's lots of things that we should do and shouldn't do, but some wise advice here from our friend at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Steve. Yeah, I think it's very good. Mr. Slayton. Pete. That's right. Does he know Clayton?

What if his name was Clayton Slayton? Steve I think that's mangled names. Pete. Metaphor.