Episode 120: Mexico, G3, SBC, and the Local Church

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

The Father's Pleasure in the Son and Christ's Kingdom

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.

Well, we've made it to June 2025, as they say that days are long, the years are short. And here we are already, 2025, and we're almost halfway through. You know, June, I think, is the birthday month for good preachers.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon and John MacArthur, I believe, share the same exact, at least day, different year, of course, day of birthday. June 19th is their birthday. And so you have Spurgeon, you have MacArthur.

I think Tom Buck was born in the month of June. John Wesley was born in the month of June, I believe, but I'm not gonna count him among those guys. Ah, Wesley's okay, but, you know, I don't like how he treated Whitefield.

And then, of course, yours truly has a birthday in the month of June, so there you go. Happy June to the World of Ruled Church Podcast listeners. This is a rare recording in the sense that I'm recording, actually, by the time you hear this, it will be yesterday.

So I'm recording the day before this comes out. It's pretty rare for me. Usually I record, and when Eddie and I were recording, we would do it sometimes a couple months in advance just to keep us out there, keep us going.

But I have some things on my heart that are pretty recent and relevant. And so I hope to share some things today about my recent trip to Mexico, about investment in the local church. I even make some comments about para-church ministries, some SBC stuff, kind of a potpourri episode, and somewhere along the way, I'll think of a title to give this.

Psalm 87 and the Glory of the Church

So welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Alan Nelson. I'm the pastor of Providence Baptist Church, one of the pastors. We're a plurality of elder-led congregation, a Reformed Baptist congregation in central Arkansas.

If I sound a little bit fuzzy today, a little bit tongue-tied, it's because at about 9 .30 last night, well, at the time of this recording, so Monday night, I returned from a one-week trip to Mexico, my seventh trip down there over the last few years.

And so it's not a great day to try to put in a lot of work into sermon prep and things like that. So I thought I'd just record the podcast and give some thoughts about our trip. First, let me share a Bible verse.

This is from Psalm 87. I'm not sure if I've shared this sermon on the podcast before or not, but it was a sermon I preached in Mexico on Sunday. Psalm 87, verse three, and I'll just give you just a few brief thoughts.

It says, Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God, Selah. This verse ultimately points us to the beauty and glory of the church. We're not gonna take all the episode to explain why, but Jerusalem stands as a type and a foreshadowing, if you will, of the church.

It is the place where God's people gather. In Hebrews 12, verse 22 teaches that the church has come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to Mount Zion. So the city here is the church. And the point I just wanna make really in verse three is that the church is glorious.

Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. The church is glorious, and the church is worth our effort and our investment. It is costly. I shared in Mexico this last week that I've never been more hurt in my life than when my heart has been broken by those within the church, those who have professed to be believers.

And there's no hurt like church hurt. And yet still, I love the church, and we ought to love the church. I love the church because she is God's institution. I love the church because Christ came to build her, and he died for her, and he rose again for her, and he's sanctifying her.

And the church is what God is doing in the world today. And so I'm very grateful for the church, and you should be too. And it's why we do the podcast, the Rural Church Podcast. So whether you're in a place of great population or small population, where you're at doesn't matter as much as the fact that Christ is worthy of a healthy church where you're at.

Mexico Ministry, Multi-Year Church Investment, and the 1689 Confession

So we went to Mexico, and this kind of gives you a little background. I've done a couple of different, you can look at past episodes. I've done a few different episodes on our trips to Mexico, and this trip was a lot like those other trips.

It was exhausting physically, just a funny thing, but the room that we were staying in, sometimes the fan wasn't 100 working. At least one night it wasn't. But one thing that was working, much to our chagrin every night, was this rooster, like right outside the window.

And you think, well, a rooster doesn't crow till six. Well, if it didn't crow till six, that wouldn't have been so bad. I could have lived with that. But this thing was crowing. Sometimes at midnight, sometimes at two in the morning,.

Three in the morning,.

Pretty consistently at four in the morning. And so that messed up our sleep pretty good. So a pretty physically exhausting trip. You know, food's different, sleep schedule's different, you're busy. But as far as spiritually, such a refreshing trip.

And these trips only seem to get better because what we're doing, it's not like we're doing like, okay, one week and we're gonna build a well for this church down in Mexico and next year we'll be at a different place.

No, no, we have built a multi-year investment and relationship and connection with these brothers and with these churches. And I've been involved now, this is my fourth year, and we meet with these brothers every Wednesday on Zoom.

And so we know them, we know their families, we know their churches. They're at various levels. Most of the churches that we were dealing with this last time have adopted the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

They are reforming, they've dealt with hardship. You know, just like here, when you begin to get serious about the church and serious about the health of the church, people sometimes leave, they get mad.

There's one brother who had visited us last year. He'd come to the States and we had a great time of fellowship. Well, I found out that while he was here last year, there was a man in his church sowing discord and division.

And so he comes back and has to deal with that and a blow up and it's just work and it's labor and it's difficult. And yet the thing we're reminded when we get with these brothers is that it's worth it.

That giving our life for healthy churches is worth it because glorious things are spoken of the church. Matthew 16, 18, Christ came to build his church. Ephesians chapter five, Christ gave his life for the church.

She is beautiful and worthy of our investment. So this last week, you say, well, what were you guys doing in Mexico? Well, I think there were about six different churches represented, but we were primarily in the building of two different churches.

And so we spent Wednesday night and Thursday night, four sermons in those two nights, preaching at a church in Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico. And then let's see, Wednesday, Thursday, so Friday, Saturday night, three sermons in those nights, we preached at a church about 25 minutes outside of Cordoba, little village El Pachote outside of Yanga, Veracruz.

And then on Friday morning, actually turned into Friday afternoon because of some providential delays, but Friday afternoon and Saturday morning into afternoon, we did four sessions for the pastors where we did some teaching.

And then the last session was actually like a Q &A. So all in all, a week, and then Sunday, there were, at one church, there were one, two, three sermons, at the other church, there were three, no, two sermons, and like a Sunday school lesson on chapter eight of the Confession.

So let's see, that's one, two, three, four, five sermons and a teaching lesson all happening on Sunday. So a lot of teaching, a lot of preaching, a lot of ministry, all of it about investing in the churches.

If you wanna know more, I mean, just reach out to me. I guess if you wanna know more about the Mexico ministry that we're doing with FIRM, Fellowship of International Reform Missions. And actually, let me throw this plug out there too.

We've talked about trying to help churches in the states as well. A couple things are roadblocks there. Number one, sometimes churches are just kind of, or pastors even sometimes can be prideful and say, well, we don't need any help or we want help from some sort of the professionals.

Or whatever.

And then another roadblock is just people don't know about us, so people don't know about FIRM and they don't know about Pastor Randall Easter and Pastor Jonathan Murdoch and the things that we are doing and just the love that we have for the church.

So if you are interested or if you know a church, like, hey, this place would be interested in you helping. Well, we would love to help and this is not a thing that we do as far as like, well, you pay us and we're gonna come do this.

No, we'll come at our own cost. I mean, if you can help with travel, that's great. If you can't and you want help to have your church healthy, then we're willing to meet with you. So you can reach out.

Probably the best way is quatronelson at gmail .com. That's C-U-A-T-R-O-N-E-L-S-O-N at gmail .com. But anyway, that's not really what I wanna talk about. I wanna kinda segue into a thought that just came to my mind as we think about the investment in churches in Mexico and the physical exhaustion that it is.

The Local Church as God's Plan for Gospel Advance

And we do all this at our own cost. Why do we do these things? Well, we do these things, number one, because we love the church. Number two, we believe what God says about the church, that the vehicle, if you will, God's plan A, if you will, for the advancement of the gospel among the nations is the local church.

So local churches, I believe, is where our investment and our time and our prayer and our focus, all of these things must be in the local church. Now, I'm not against conferences. I've spoken at conferences.

I'm speaking at a conference in August. I have attended conferences, many conferences. I've been blessed by messages at conferences. But I just got to thinking about being down there in Mexico and the thought came to me like some of these brothers that we know, some of them we might talk about in the last few years that have fallen, but some of them that are still faithful and you just don't see these brothers speaking in very small settings.

And I get the mentality. So I want to lay that out there. Like I understand that there is a church a strategy, if you will, that if you're going to only be able to speak, say, miss your church, say 10 or 12 times a year.

Well, do you want to do that in Podunk, Arkansas? Do you want to do that in El Pechote, Mexico? Or do you want to do that on the main stage in the bright lights where there are thousands of people who hear you?

Okay, I can kind of understand the strategy. But I also want to just push back if I can, brothers and sisters on what that places our confidence in. What does that place our hope in? So if we say, okay, I can only speak and invest in these big conferences and these big gatherings.

I wonder if we really believe that God is working through the small things. I wonder if we really believe that God is actually working through out of the place, out of the way, nowhere places, little bitty local churches that bear the name of Christ, that are rightly preaching the word of God, rightly observing the ordinances, rightly practicing church discipline, that God is actually at work in those places.

I'm not trying to rail on brothers who only speak at the big conferences, but I am just trying to say, brothers, that the local church matters. And these out of the way places, these insignificant places in the eyes of the world, they matter to God.

And these brothers and sisters who are at these local churches, they are worthy of our investment, not in and of themselves and certainly not just because, oh, well, there are different skin colors, so that makes them worthy or something like that.

Of course, none of that. They're worthy of our investment because they're precious in the sight of God, because they're saints, because they're born again, because they're regenerate, because God is building his churches in these places.

And so I ask you to consider, to remember that the mission of Christ is centered in the local church. Not so much me trying to, the stuff, and I do kinda wanna talk about G3. I'm gonna talk about that.

I'm still kind of, remember, my brain's a little cloudy, and so I wanna work through that. And so this isn't just about G3 or any of the conferences. I've been to G3 before multiple times and been benefited.

SHEPCON, Founders Conference, or earlier on, I think the last one I went to was 2016. I think I went 12, 14, and 16 to T4G. And I was benefited certainly by the book giveaways. I've been to other little conferences, medium-sized conferences maybe.

But the point I'm trying to make is not so much railing against conferences, but just asking if we have put too much investment, too much time, too much focus in conferences. And by the way, not only conferences, but even parachurch networks.

The SBC, Parachurch Networks, and the Limits of Institutional Strategy

If you know me at all, you know that I spent several years there really trying to battle in the Southern Baptist Convention. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I'm grateful for my brothers and sisters who are fighting the fight, if you will, for the SBC.

But I'm just gonna tell you what happened to me. What happened to me really in 2022, and then it's only strengthened the last three years. What's happened to me is I've just grown really to not care about the parachurch networks so much.

I'm not trying to say that the conservative guys who are my friends, like I text these guys, I pray for these guys, I'm grateful for these guys. I'm not trying to say that they're wrong or they're spinning their wheels.

But I'm just saying for me, I have grown weary of those fights. And I'm actually, for me, personally convinced that it's a waste of my time. That more important to the kingdom of God is Grace Baptist Church in El Pechote, Veracruz, Mexico, than turning the tide in the SBC.

Now, I know from a pragmatic standpoint, you would think, yeah, but if that little church thrives or fails, it's not really gonna impact anything else. But if we can overtake the institutions of the SBC, well, that's gonna make a huge difference because we're training all these pastors and all this money is flowing.

And so, I'm just, okay, okay, I understand that looking at that from a pragmatic stance, but I just wonder, brothers, I wonder. Are we looking at that through the lens of Scripture? Have we grown a bit starry-eyed, if you will, at the big budgets and the big buildings and the big networks and the big conventions and the big parachurch ministries where we actually think that we're better served investing in these things, debating about these things, battling these things, writing articles about these things.

We're better served putting our time there than we are in local churches. Now, I say that as one who was sucked into all that and who was a participant in that. And again, I'm not, I repeat, just because I don't want to be taken out of context, I'm not disparaging my brothers and sisters who are fighting these battles, and I'm grateful that they are.

But I just wonder if some of this might not be a little misplaced and that we've got to recenter our efforts and our focus on what God is doing in the local church, even if they're little out-of-the-way churches in Arkansas or Argentina or Michigan or Mexico or Peru or Pakistan or whatever the case may be.

I'm just trying to give a plug here for the investment that needs to be happening in local churches. I think about, I guess, a little bit of a segue here. I think about G3. I want to be careful because I have brothers, certainly brothers within the G3 network of churches and brothers who I respect who are on the board of G3 who are friends, who I love.

And so I want to be careful with my comments here just in, again, I don't want to be taken out of context, but I wonder sometimes about para-church organizations and ministries if we begin to think that they are necessary.

So in the easy example, I don't mind picking on this one at all, is the North American Mission Board. It's an unnecessary, certainly the ERLC. I hope if nothing else happens in Dallas this year with the Southern Baptist Convention that they'll disband the ERLC.

It's not necessary, but I would even argue the North American Mission Board is unnecessary. I'll even go so far to say the International Mission Board, the IMB, is unnecessary. Now, I get it that, particularly when you take the IMB, there are things that the IMB does that are helpful, getting people into countries and those things like that, but there's a difference between helpful and necessary.

And I'm not saying that we can't build para-church ministries. For example, I'm talking about FIRM, the Fellowship of International Reform Mission. It's three churches, but still, in a sense, you would say, well, that's kind of like a para-church ministry.

So I get it. It's not that we're completely against, or that I'm completely against para-church ministries, but I wonder if they are elevating the place. Now, I know theologically we'd say no, no, no, no, but I wonder if practically, and if in our hearts and our minds, that the para-church ministries are elevating a place of supremacy.

They're like, we have to have these things. So I go back to G3. This is my council, and I don't know if anybody would even listen to this from G3. This is my council. First of all, absolutely commend them.

Commend them for canceling the conference this year. That was the right call, and that was the right thing to do. That was a tough decision, I'm sure, but in another sense, it was not a tough decision, 100 the right thing to do.

But I also wonder if a ministry like G3 ought not to say, hey, guys, at the very least, ought not to say, hey, guys, we're pulling back for three months, for six months. You're not gonna get an email from us.

You're not gonna get a social media post from us. You're not going to remember that G3 even exists for the next three to six months because we're gonna spend our time praying, doing soul-searching, considering what actions, or if there are any actions that we've participated in that have resulted in some of the things that have come out, Steve Lawson's falling, the sort of marketing thing that came out about G3 where you could buy a $900 ticket and get to eat with the guys or whatever, and then, of course, the revelation of Josh Bice's failure.

We just need some time as a ministry to think through these things, to pray through these things, to do some soul-searching, and actually to consider whether or not G3 even needs to continue to exist.

Because I would say the same thing about G3 that I would say about the SBC or the PCA. That Christ did not come to build parachurch ministries. It is good for churches to network. It is good for churches to work together.

But when these things take on a life of themselves, and then when they kind of get beyond our reach, they kind of, whether directly or indirectly, become involved in scandal or situations like the Josh Bice situation happened, we have to be willing to hold these things very, very loosely and be willing to let them go, and to remember that what God is doing in the world today is centered in and through the local church, local churches.

Christ is building His church, and the church is the kingdom. We've done several episodes on that. Some of our most popular episodes on this podcast have come talking about these things. But I just wonder if we get so focused, and look, I'm pointing the finger at myself, too, that we can all get kind of starstruck.

We can all get kind of celebrity-focused, and so we wanna listen to this guy or that guy, and we wanna go to these things, and I've been to the conferences, and we can forget that God so often, so often is working through little out-of-the-way places that we maybe don't even know about, and what God is doing in places, for example, like Mexico, is beautiful, and it's glorious, and we ought to give it some weight.

I'm thinking about Zechariah 4 .10. God says, this is ESV, for whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. So the idea is they're rebuilding, and you probably know the story, but the idea there in Zechariah 4 is they're rebuilding the temple under Zerubbabel, and when they lay the foundation, there are some people who rejoice, and there's some people who are weeping, and I think it's translated, it's a little bit difficult in the Hebrew, but I think it's translated in the King James about not despising the day of small things, and so the idea is that we often despise small things.

We have this kind of pragmatic efficiency approach about the very American mindset probably, this very pragmatic efficiency approach to church planning and church ministry that we always just think big, big, big, big, big, and if it's bigger, it is necessarily better and more efficient and more productive for the kingdom, but I just wonder if that mindset goes directly against the idea of small things in Scripture.

God uses small things because small things bring him glory. When a successful parachurch ministry can draw in thousands of people, that's not necessarily all that amazing, right? Like, okay, so what? But when a little church in, say, Mexico or Perryville or wherever you might be located, a little rural church somewhere, when that place is proclaiming the gospel and you see a sinner saved, there's something that seems to be even more magnifying to the work of Christ.

Now, again, let me be clear. I'm not despising big things. I'm about to preach this coming Lord's Day in Acts 2, and so we'll work through that, and whoa, isn't that an amazing thing? That's a big thing, a big event in Pentecost and 3 ,000 souls saved, and amen, we're grateful.

We're not despising big things either, but I just think that sometimes we're so kind of prone and drawn to the big things and the big networks and the big ministries that we forget that God is at work in the small places too, maybe even especially in small places.

There's nothing more holy with the fact that you're small, just because you're small, and I'll be honest too. Sometimes we're small because we've done the wrong thing, so it's not just by virtue of you being small that you're holy, but remember that God is at work in these small, out-of-the-way places, and we don't need to be so enamored with something simply because it's big, because the opposite's true.

So you're not holy just because you're small. You're certainly not holy just because you're big and your network's big. That doesn't mean that you're right either. So these are all just some things that are on my heart as we come back from Mexico and think about what God's doing down there and think about things going on right now.

You know, G3 topic, I think, I don't know when SBC is. I guess it'd be next week, right? So that's happening, but when we think about these things, we can't forget the verse that we started the episode with, Psalm 87 .3.

Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God, that what God is doing in the world today centers in and through local churches. Christ is building his kingdom, and so we can build networks, we can build partnerships, we can build conventions, we can build parachurch ministries.

I would say that none of those things in and of themselves are wrong. The problem is when they come to replace the primacy of the local church in our minds and hearts. So I hope that that makes sense, and I hope that, well, no one of note, I'm sure, listens to this podcast.

I'm grateful for those. We have picked up in our listeners, so some of you guys are new, and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for you listening. I don't know how you found out about the podcast, whether it's social media or a friend shared it, so I'm grateful for the new listeners.

The point I'm trying to make is not that those things are wrong, the big networks and all that, but that we cannot forget the primacy of the local church. And so, again, not that a big-name guy would be listening to this, but some of you need to listen, because it's not just with the big-name guys.

There are people listening to this, I'm sure, because I've been guilty of it too, where you think where you want to get to in your ministry is you want to be the guy invited to these conferences. You want to be the guy that stands on the stage.

You want to be the guy that other people are listening to. Let me just encourage you with something, brother. I'm gonna speak to the pastors here. You're standing behind the sacred desk of God. You're standing behind the pulpit.

You're opening your Bible. You're preaching his word. That is your ministry. There is not a higher calling in this world today than to be an elder in a local church, whether that's in a small, out-of-the-way place, whether people know your name or they don't, whether it's in a big place, whether you're working three jobs just to make ends meet in order to pastor, whether you have a nice, comfy salary and a parsonage.

The point I'm making is there is no higher calling than to pastor the people of God in local churches, and you must consider this calling as great and as weighty and as the most influential calling in the world today.

I know we think about politics. I know we think about voting. I know we think about governments. I know we think about nations, but there's nothing more important happening in the world today than faithful pastors who are just plowing, plowing, plowing, praying, preaching, faithfully visiting and loving their people.

That's where it's at, brothers. That's where it's at, and I encourage you to keep going. Over the years, I'll be careful because I'll probably forget some names, but over the years, there have been many brothers I've seen care about out-of-the-way places.

Dr. White has come here. Dr. Tom Askell, Mike Stone. Of course, my friends who I partner with, Rhonda Leister and Jonathan Murdock, and these brothers who have just given up time and energy to focus in out-of-the-way places.

Again, I'm sure I'm missing. My brain's cloudy, and so I'm sure I hate to offend any brother that's come here. Gabe Hughes, that's one, who's come here and been with. My friend Jeff Johnson has been here.

Dr. Tom Nettles has jumped on Zoom meetings with us to invest in these churches in Mexico. Dr. Sam Waldron has done the same, and I could just name, name, after name, after name. Jacob Rayom, that's another brother from Trinity Bible Chapel in Canada.

Came all the way from Canada, didn't know me really, but came and spoke at a small association conference we put on, and then preached in our church, and just willing to come down here and be with us.

Brothers like that, I'm sure, I know I'm forgetting more, but just brothers willing to invest in the local church and invest in pastors and invest in the ministry of the church. That's where it's at. I'm just trying to argue that investment in local churches is really where you should put your focus on.

And if you're doing missions, I would encourage you to invest long-term with local churches. I know that it's attractive to go visit this or that church and do medical missions, and then next year you go to this place, and next year you go to that place.

And frankly, let's just be honest, it kind of turns into a bit of vacation for people in your church. And it's like, yeah, we did missions, and that's what it's about. But it's not actually a true investment in local churches.

And some of these local churches in other places are taking advantage of Americans doing missions that way, and others are simply hurt by Americans doing missions that way. So consider how you could partner and invest long-term into specific local churches.

You say, yeah, but we give to the cooperative program, and that just goes to all of these things. Well, I don't even get into that because it's been shown time and time again the corruption of the cooperative program.

You should not be a church giving to the cooperative program. But even beyond that, God has called and entrusted local churches to invest in local churches, to know other local churches. Read, have you ever just considered Paul's letters?

And at the end of Paul's letters, he just spouts off all these names. You know what's amazing about that? Is that Paul knew these churches, and these churches knew Paul, and they knew one another. And even the distance between them, and it's quite phenomenal to think about how in the first century these churches were able to be connected as much as they were.

When today, sometimes there's churches not connected to any churches. So I'm just rambling there, but the encouragement is to be invested in missions, and the mission is the church. The vehicle of the mission is a church, and the focal point of the mission is a church.

And you think a proof to that is the book of Acts. When they go and preach the gospel, you say, no, no, the mission is about preaching the gospel. Well, Jesus didn't just say preach the gospel, that's true, but to what?

To make disciples. And in the book of Acts, when the gospel's being proclaimed and disciples, what's happening? Churches are cropping up, you understand? That's what I mean when I say the mission is the church.

So consider how to invest in local churches. I hope you'll take this episode with the realization that I'm tired, and brain's foggy, and hopefully I hadn't said anything that has been confusing to you.

The point that I'm trying to make is I've been so spiritually encouraged and refreshed by my time with the brothers in Mexico. And I want you to, I mean, you could partner with us if you wanted to, you could reach out to me, but it's not just about that.

I want you to find your place. Find the area that God would have you invest, the local church, and know that your labors and your efforts in your own local church, even as people leave, and even as people get mad, even as people in the town may call you a bad name because you're trying to be healthy and be serious about the Bible, I'm just saying your labors are worth it because it's honoring to God.

And Christ is worthy. Christ is worthy of healthy churches. So don't give up and keep pressing on. I hope this episode is helpful. You think through those things. If I can answer questions or you have thoughts for me, let me know.

But that's where I'm at. So I'm recording this on what I would make today, June 3rd, right? So, and you'll hear this on June 4th.

So pretty fresh.

Thanks for listening this week on the Rural Church Podcast, and hopefully catch you next week. God bless.

The Church as God's Masterpiece and the Call to Respond

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?