Pastoral Ordination- Church of the Nazarene #pastor #ordination #nazarence

Welcome to the Truth and Love podcast. We are thankful that you were able to join us tonight or you're watching, listening later. We really appreciate you. Tonight we are continuing our series on pastoral ordination.

We're gonna look at the church of the Nazarene with our new friend James Erickson. Stick with us. Welcome back to the Truth and Love podcast. The comment line is open. Let us know you're watching. Ask a question.

Give us a critique. If we can pray for you, let us know that as well. We are with our new friend James. Hopefully you know me and Dan. This is our friend James Erickson. Before Dan begins our question,.

James, would you introduce yourself please? Sure. I'm a pastor in Roebeling, Louisiana. It's a small rural town. I pastor a church of about 40 to 50 people. I've been here eight years. I have a wife, a foster daughter, and a dog.

I love the Lord and love working and serving Him however I can. I met Rob through TikTok. It's been an interesting kind of thing how TikTok has brought people closer together and meeting new connections.

It's been really cool. It's great to be with.

You guys today. Thank you, brother. I'm sorry. I got thrown off by this comment. I wonder who it's from. I'm going to guess it's my wife. I hope it's my wife. I'm guessing it's your wife as well. If it's not my wife, I'm going to need you to get lost.

We're going to make it my wife. Well, not make that person my wife. We're going to make those comments come from my wife and my wife alone. That's where we're going to go. We're really happy to have you on today.

Just tell us what church denomination you're a part of. Can you give us a brief history of it? It's one that I'm not very familiar with. I know maybe a little bit. I passed by one when I was driving through Concord, North Carolina one time on my way up to Albemarle or something.

It's about the extent of it. Can you just tell us your denomination? Give us a little bit of history. Tell us where you're coming from. A little bit about all that.

Sure. The Church of the Nazarene is the denomination I'm in, and it's been around since 1908. It's a relatively younger denomination. What happened was a lot of it's in the Wesleyan holiness theological tradition.

A lot of holiness churches that were smaller came together around that time and joined together in a little town called Pilot Point, Texas. The founder of the denomination is Phineas Brazee. He was from California.

He was a Methodist minister. He had been a part of a revival, and I think a Seuss Street revival had been out that way as well. He really wanted to minister to the and then talk about this idea of sanctification and holiness.

He started a small denomination, and then a lot of other denominations joined in, and they started the Church of the Nazarene. At one point, it used to be called the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, but a lot of the changes in the name, the connotations of the name Pentecostal, they changed the name just to the Church of the Nazarene.

As I said, like I said, an emphasis on sanctification and holiness, ministry to the needy, missions, those were all kind of historically foundations of the church. We have denominational leaders called general superintendents, so we have six of them, and they are jurisdiction of over like six regions of the world because it's global.

It's not just here. We've got churches all around the world, and they serve until they're 70, or they just decide to retire. They kind of put an age limit on it, so due to after 70, sometimes age things happen, but they're voted on every four years.

We ought to do that with our president. All elected officials. All elected officials. It's probably a good idea. Honestly, some of the general superintendents, they travel all the time, so they're going into countries.

They're always traveling, so they're tired, and after a certain point, they're like, okay, I'm done, and they want to be done. It's a great honor to be at that, but we're broken down into districts, so we have district superintendents.

Some states have more than one district in them. Louisiana is just one district. We have a district superintendent who's a district leader, and then we have the churches who have pastors and that kind of thing, so that's kind of how we set that up there organization-wise.

There's a lot more. We have Nazarene Youth International. We have Nazarene Missions International, and we have Nazarene Discipleship International, so there's three leaders in that as well, so kind of broke those down.

Now a little bit of your personal history. What led you to this particular domination?

I was born into it, to be honest with you. My grandfather started a Nazarene church in a little town called Moundsville, West Virginia, and he was part of that church. He wasn't a pastor. He was just a layperson, but he's one of the founding members, and so I was there when I was two weeks old, and I've been in the church ever since.

Grew up in the church. There were times where we didn't go to church. My dad was not the strongest Christian, but he believed in making sure I was there if he could get me there. My mom did too, and yeah, I just I love the denomination, love the people, love the doctrine, love the people.

Like I said, love everything about it, and just it's a part of who I am. My wife's the same way. She grew up in the denomination too, so when we met, it was like, oh, there you go. It works. The stars aligned.

Stars aligned. That's right.

There you go. It's good to have a little bit of background, because now we're going to start getting into the meat of it. Actually, while we had you on, we're going to start talking about pastoral ordination.

Just in your own words, could you tell us what is pastoral ordination? Like I said, I did a little research.

About this and just kind of more studying on my own, because you know what it is, but you just want to, like you said, put in your own words. It's more of just this authorizing kind of act of of the church recognizes that God has called you to ministry, that they see the gifts, they see the graces in you, they see that there's something that God is doing within you, a work within you, and they want to affirm that.

As Acts says, the laying on of hands. Scripture talks about that. Paul talks about that. You lay on the hands of people who are called to ministry and called to work. If that's the case, then they're sent out and they're ordained and set apart for that work.

For me, that's what ordination is. You've been set apart for that work. We're going to affirm that and send you out into the pastoral ministry, whether that be youth, children, sending out that way. I hope that's a good explanation of it.

Oh, sure, sure. And great place to start from. Yeah. And along those lines, this may be, you know, this may come across as a softball question or a duh type question, but it kind of leads towards, you know, other other questions.

So do you think pastoral ordination is a biblical mandate. That's something that the Bible describes.

That we should do? Yes. Okay. Why or why not? I believe the early church fathers, especially when you think of Paul and those, even the apostles, they were seeing those who were working in ministerial roles and already sending them.

Like I said with Paul, the missionaries, he sent those out, and even specifically the talks, laying on of those hands and commissioning to go and go out to do that. I believe that it's important that they have that affirmation of the church, not just somebody saying, well, I'm a pastor because anybody can call themselves a pastor, or sometimes they can even hit reverend on the name.

It's kind of like when you see people doing weddings and they say they're ordained and like, well, how did you become ordained? And they're like, well, I went online. Yeah. I went on to such and such .com and now I'm an ordained minister.

And I'm like, I'm like, you do not realize the process that it takes to get to that. I had to go through at least, you know, I'm not sure of other processes to an extent, but that you could just go online and print off a certificate.

Like it's, there's more to it than that. It's also $15. Exactly. So should we charge them $14 .99 and shipping and handling? There we go. Sorry. As much as the humor coming through, so it'll come through.

No, it's all good. In a way it's funny, but then it is such a serious matter that it's not funny on the other hand. So right. It's both. It's both. Yeah.

So I'll go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. I was going to, cause anytime I've ever heard that it's, it's one of those things where it's like this cringe worthy moments, the hair stands on the back of your neck and you're just like, ah, like, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not, that's not it. There's more to it than that. So.

So this is a two parter. Are you, are you ordained? I think we already went over that. You are. And so describe what led you at least from, from your end to that decision. Cause obviously from what you've been saying, there was a lot of other people involved, but at least, at least from your end, what went into maybe sensing that call for yourself that.

This is something I need to do? Right. Great question. When I went to the altar that night, year 2000, last Sunday in July, I just felt God speak to me saying, I want you to preach. Okay. Yes, Lord. What does that look like?

I want you to go. And immediately everything kind of just started clicking into place, the pastoral ministry and the college I would go to, Trevecca Nazarene University right there in Nashville, Tennessee.

That wasn't a shameless plug at all. I apologize, but that's where I went. And it was all these things just started lining up and, and my dad was even like, so I don't know how we're going to pay for this.

And then we get a letter in the mail from financial aid saying, you got scholarships, you've got this. I was like, this is it. This is what God wants me to do. And I was, it was strong in that. And so I felt purpose.

I felt mission. And I knew the first thing I needed to do, which we'll get into the process, was work towards ordination. And again, it's a process. It's a good long process. And so I got my call to ministry in 2000.

In 2009, I got ordained. So nine years, it doesn't happen like that all the time. Sometimes it's a little less, but I went through college and then I had to do pastoral ministry for a little bit and then ordination was next.

But yeah, that's, that's why I felt the need. This next question is why I said earlier,.

Kind of the easy question is, is it biblical? Why or why not? That question kind of leads to this one. So, and you somewhat answered it. You were talking about some people who print off their certificate of ordination or take it very lightly.

So biblically, does it, does a man need to be ordained as a, to, to pastor a church or, or can someone pastor.

Church and not be ordained? How do you feel about that? So good question. Because that kind of goes into a little bit of the process of ordination in the church of the Nazarene. We have folks who are pastoring churches that are not ordained yet, but they're working towards ordination.

So they have a district minister's license. So they're still commissioned in a way to do that. But as far as pastoring a church, not under those conditions, if they're not working towards that process and that ordination, I don't think that's a wise thing.

I would say that, again, we get the thing out of a box of Cracker Jack, but you know, like I'm all of a sudden, I'm ordained. And I mean, you have people who have gone through years of schooling, seminary, course of studies to, to prepare for ministry and for someone just to go print it off and say, well, look, I'm a pastor now.

Well, yeah, but there's a lot more experience that needs to go into that. Like there's a lot of life things that you've got to learn before you can get to that point, at least in my opinion. But if you're working towards it and you have some people mentoring you and backing you up on that and affirming you that this is what your call is, and they're working you towards that ordination, it's a different thing.

I wonder if some, Paul knew some of these guys were going to be missionaries. He knew these guys were the ones and he was discipling them and mentoring them. And he's like, okay, now it's time to go. And you're called and I'm ordaining you into that ministry.

So.

All right. So I've got a, I've got a three-part question for you that you kind of have to answer all three of them at the same time. I'm going to say it twice, once forward and once backwards. And I think that'll help to figure out what exactly we're wanting in that.

And I just want you to go for 15, 20 minutes, however long, five minutes, however long you want to, because this is, this is the, the, the real meat of the discussion here. This is what we're trying to bring out of all of these, these podcasts.

All right. So number one, it's not really a question. It's a, it's a command, I guess. Describe the ordination process in the church of the Nazarene. That's one. Two, is it the same in all church of the Nazarene churches?

And three, how does your church polity affect the ordination process? So I'll say that backwards. Give our listeners a chance to catch on to what we're saying. How does the church of the Nazarene church polity affect the ordination process?

Is it the same in all the church of the Nazarene churches? And describe what that looks like as you go through the process.

Okay. So it's, it's mainly the same across the denomination, generalized. If you go into our manual, they'll talk to, we have a church of the Nazarene manual. It's about that thick, and it gets revised every four years.

They'll add to or change some wording, some language, but it's mainly same across the denominational lines. What happens when you first go to your pastor and talk to them about feeling a call to ministry, you'll interview with your local church board and apply basically for a local minister's license.

That means you can serve in local church. One of the things with local minister's license, you can't do weddings, and you can't serve communion with that. It's just kind of a standard thing, but you can preach.

You can teach Sunday school classes, and you can even choose if you want to get ordained as an elder or deacon at that point. Like you got a little time to figure that out, but you can hold, you hold that for a year.

After a year, then you can apply for a district minister's license. To do that, you go before the district's board of ministry. Sometimes they call them credentialing boards or studies boards, but our district calls it board of ministry.

That's one little change. Different districts call them different things, but it's basically the same thing. You'll go in front of them and interview, and they'll talk about your testimony, why you feel called to the ministry, what your call to ministry was about, a little bit about their life, a little background spiritually, where they're at spiritual level as far as their faith, and then go from there, and then we vote.

After they leave, we vote to approve that and grant them that district minister's license. From the time you get that minister's license, you have 10 years to get ordained within that 10-year space. Now, if you had a district minister's license and you decided to take a break, then the time stops, and then you come back to it, and the time starts again.

Then while you're doing that 10 years, you go through a course of study. You can either go to a Christian university, go through that. Nazarene universities already are kind of set up for ordination process, or you can go through a course of study.

The districts, every district usually offers one. Some of the pastors or professors, if they have a master's degree or doctorate, will teach those courses on the district. I know my wife's uncle, he does that.

Then, of course, the college or university needs to be accredited to go through that. If you meet that, then you finished all your studies. Some people who do the course of study, that actually takes longer, because some people are working full-time, and they're taking one to two classes a semester.

That's one requirement, is you have to take at least one class every year. We have a lot of Hispanic pastors on our district who are going through the ordination process. They're so busy. They're workaholics sometimes.

They will work, but they will only take about one to two classes just so they can keep up with their studies. What are some of those classes? Preaching classes, biblical theology, ethics. I've never took those courses, study classes.

Systematic theology, those types of theological classes, Old Testament, New Testament. Again, preaching, learning biblical exegesis, and all the fun stuff.

Kind of like a seminary-level education, only it's done through the denomination. Correct. I like that, especially with the way the education system is.

That's a whole other conversation. I'll be honest with you. Sometimes on the district, I think one of the strengths of that is you get a more one-on-one relationship, more mentorship that way. Like I said, my wife's uncle does it, and he teaches with the district he was on.

He said, man, it's so rewarding, because you're getting that one-on-one with people who are going through that. I'll go back to a little bit about our board of ministry and how that looks. Actually, that's in a couple of weeks for our district.

When they've experienced three to four years of work experience as either a pastor or a youth pastor, associate pastor, children's pastor, then they can go before the board of ministry for an interview.

Them and their spouse will come in, and we examine them, basically. We ask them again some of the same questions we ask at their district license. We ask them about their thoughts on evangelism, their thoughts on denominational things.

How many times do you share the gospel? It was interesting. One time we had this Hispanic family come in, and they were like, do you share the gospel? Oh, yeah. When I get off work, me and my family, we go to Walmart at 11 o 'clock at night, and they're sharing the gospel to people.

They're praying with people. They're preaching, and I'm like, man, y 'all put me to shame. I gotta be at Walmart at 11 o 'clock at night, but they're just willing to do that. But then we'll vote on that for approval, and then ordination takes place at our district assembly once a year.

The district assembly is delegates from each church that have been elected by their local church to come, and then they'll vote on things there. We vote on the district superintendent things, but we'll also vote on the ordination candidates.

That's usually accepted because the board of ministry has already recommended that we It's more of a formal thing there. It's a formality. Yeah, it's a formal thing, and then they're ordained by the jurisdictional general superintendent.

Well, that's a big service. He comes, and he preaches the service, and then he ordains each candidate for that, whether they're going into elder track or deacon track. Now, one of the things about the board of ministry, we have what we call a ministry assessment weekend.

That's where we interview the candidates. We also have other candidates who are in the process of going for ordination. They've already got their district license, but we hold workshops for them, and the denomination recommends these different workshops on, again, personal finances, church finances, on how to handle church budgeting.

Some people come in, don't know how to do a budget, personal or church budget. Then we offer on ethics, let's see, some other things. We'll have local university pastors or teachers come and talk about certain theological courses, holiness, sanctification, salvation, I think baptism, just so they have a good grasp of what we mean.

When we talk about doing the sacraments, this is what we're talking about. Of course, this is why you need to take this seriously. Again, personal finances, that's why we need to take this seriously, and not just, especially church finances.

But yeah, we kind of make it a workshop weekend, and then we do the interviews for the district license, first-time district license, and also the ordination, but we have them in little groups. We call them cohorts, and so each group has two pastors with them that will kind of just be evaluating them and also talking to them about their strengths and their weaknesses, some things to be cautioned, like those ones who are workaholics, like how much time are you spending with your family?

Are you actually taking the time to spend time with family, or are you putting this first? Because God didn't just call you to minister to the church. He called you to minister to your family, and you got to be ministering to them, too.

So we just put some things, and every year we put an action plan. Make sure you get your courses done. Make sure you're getting prepared for ordination, because that's going to come up here in a couple years.

Do this with your family. Go on a vacation. You haven't had a vacation in five years. That's what you told us. Take a vacation. You know, like, do this. So we're just trying to encourage them and mentor them into that path.

So when they get to ordination, it's a special moment now for them. So, well, I think I've covered it.

All right, so I've got a follow-up question. I do, too. I've got two. Go ahead, Rob. Go ahead, Rob. Well, you had two follow-up questions that I pulled out of what you were telling us. The first one is, and you showed us your coffee mug and the college that you attended, but you said something interesting.

You said Christian University. Would the Church of Nazarene accept someone going to a different college, a different Christian college?

Yes. Yes. I think they just have to turn in their transcripts to the district secretary and then show it to them, and I think it would all work out. Yeah. I don't think that would be an issue.

Okay. And the second follow-up question that I was thinking of when you were telling us these things, you talk about how the ordination for the deacon, ordination for the pastor elder happens at the same time.

So does the deacon have to go through the same theological training track that someone going through the pastoral ordination goes through? Yes. Really?

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Wow. It's a definitely interesting thing. Yeah. It kind of sets apart. That's kind of one of the little differences. It does.

It makes sense. What was Stephen doing when he wasn't serving tables? He was preaching to get himself stoned. There you go. Makes sense. All right. So my follow-up question is, say for instance, say five years from now, I've finished up the ordination process in my denomination, but I've become convinced of the doctrinal distinctives of your denomination and wish to switch.

Is the process any different for someone who was ordained in a different denomination, but then would like to come over.

And join up with y 'all now? So that's a great question. And if you're ordained in another denomination, and you decide that you want to come over to the Church of the Nazarene and be ordained, whatever district you live on, you go to your pastor and say that you're thinking about doing this and wanting to switch over to the Church of the Nazarene, if it's a Nazarene pastor, and they can talk to the district superintendent.

And you would come in and be interviewed by that same board of ministry. And all we'd have to do is approve basically a recognition of your credentials. And you could be recognized now as an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene.

We had a guy a couple of years ago that he was, I don't think I've ever heard of this. He was Evangelical Catholic. Never heard of it, but maybe you have. But he saw he's like the same thing. He saw that, huh, I really like this denomination.

And he had a professor in college who was of the Church of the Nazarene. He goes, I really do think that you would lean more towards that denomination. Well, where he was working in New Orleans was at a bank.

And one of the churches down there, banks there, and he saw this thing. And he's like, oh, it's the Church of the Nazarene. Where is it? And so he started attending. And he's like, well, I'm ordained in this denomination.

Would you let me in here? And they're like, well, we can talk to him about, sure enough. And he came in before us. We interviewed him, and we were like, we don't see any issue with you being recognized as an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene as well.

So it's basically almost like a transferring of that ordination over to us.

Sure. Do you contact the previous denomination to see if he's left in good standing or poor.

Standing or anything like that? Yes. That makes sense. So one of the things we do here, too, in the denomination is background checks. Sure. We do background checks. We also go through NAZ safe training.

It's ministry safe training with a lot of abuse things going on. That's almost basically a requirement now. It's just a denomination-wide thing to do. So it's just become commonplace for us to do that.

Background checks are definitely important that we do those.

Cool. Those are all my follow-ups. Well, the next question is, in your experience, in your time there, what would you consider the strengths of this process in your denomination? And have you noticed any weaknesses where we could maybe shore up this area in our denomination?

Yeah. So I'll start with the weaknesses thing first. I think there's at times, I know when I was going through the process, it was very much all about the interview. It was not about the mentorship. It was all about that interview.

So it's changed now. So I think that's a big strength. But there's some districts who are very much that interview kind of, and it puts a lot of pressure on the person because they're afraid they're going to say something wrong, and that's going to be it.

I think there's a lot of undue stress in that, but I think it's starting to change little by little in a lot of places. One weakness I would say is we don't just want to ordain people to ordain people.

We want to make sure that who we're ordaining is someone who's preaching the gospel. They're not just saying they're going to win people for Jesus. They're actually out there trying to win people for Jesus.

They're actually making those connections and serving in their communities. They're not just there for the title of pastor or the title of reverend. I remember my dad buying me business cards for the first time.

I was only a local licensed minister, and I was a freshman in college, and my dad's like, you need these business cards because it's got reverend on it. I was like, no, Dad. No, you don't get it. I don't want that.

That's not the recognition that I'm seeking. I'm just wanting to do what God wants me to do and be obedient to that. I've always been taught from a mentor from church when I was growing up, be humble and obedient.

I think we had had this conversation at one of our board of ministry things a couple of years ago of, are we just going to ordain this person because we think they should do it because they've gone through this process?

Well, if they need to wait another year, they should wait another year. One of the questions we actually ask the candidates, our district superintendent asks it. It's the best person to ask it. If we decide that you need to hold off for another year, how do you feel about that?

They're like, well, I guess I trust your judgment. I trust what you have to say because you guys are the leaders here, so okay. I think that's probably a weakness in some places where they just ordain them because, well, we've got connections with them.

They're so-and-so's son. That's kind of got to be shored up a little bit. Strength, though, I think the process is necessary. I think that having that theological background, having the education, having the surety that this is what I want to do.

If they're halfway through the process and they're realizing, wait a minute, maybe God didn't call me to this. Well then, now's a good time to find out. Not after you're ordained 20 years later down the road.

This is a good time to figure out, is God calling you into this? We've actually had people come to our board of ministry things because we encourage it. If they feel a call to ministry, even if they're not licensed, just to come and see, is this what God's really calling you to?

If it is, well, let's get you an action plan of how we can get you on that path. I think there's some real big strengths there. Maybe you've heard some as I've been talking. Again, I think there's just that accountability part of it that's a really strong thing that is needed in a lot of denominations, at least in our denomination.

I think that's part of the strengths and weaknesses.

One of the things that I hear from you is that you take it serious, and that's a big deal. Yeah. To me, that's a huge deal. I can appreciate that.

I've got several pastoral friends who, on this district at least, that they take it serious, too. Usually, there's a few people who ask the questions. The other ones are just listeners. For me, if I'm there to question you, and I'm there to examine you and figure out if this is it, if I'm going to put my yes vote to it, there's some things I'm going to ask.

I've got some friends, too. I've got one friend. He pastors in Baton Rouge, and he's the vice chairman of the Louisiana Family Forum. He asks those tough questions. That's what we need. We need that question asked.

I didn't even think of that question, but I'm glad you asked it. We'll say that afterwards. We're like, glad you asked that question, because we're trying to be as serious as possible. When candidates come in, the ordination candidates, we stand up and let them sit down, and we sit down.

There's a level of respect there that, hey, this is someone who's taking this serious, too. We're going to show some respect that you've made it this far in the process, and your time's coming. If this goes well, this interview goes well, your time's coming.

Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who is seeking pastoral ordination, whether they be young, or maybe they're a little bit older? If they're at the beginning, looking at the road ahead and saying, maybe this is me, maybe this isn't, what advice would you have for them as they get started on the process?

Then maybe for somebody who says, yes, I am going to go down this road, what advice would you give to that one as they.

Start that journey? Definitely walk that journey humbly and obediently, and then find that pastoral mentor, whether it's their own pastor. What I love about the Church of the and we have it every four years.

COVID messed that up a little bit, so it was six years this time, but you see people from all walks of life, and you run into people that you know, or you met through college or other districts who were very influential in your life.

It wasn't just my local pastor. It was other pastors I would run into, and I remember some of the advice that they gave me. I have a friend of mine, when I was in high school and I got my call to ministry, I was at a teen talent thing that Nazarenes do.

One of those things is biblical exposition, aka preaching. He heard me preach, and he's like, hey, I want you to come preach to my youth. I'm like, really? I got my first gig. I got my first opportunity to speak at another church.

This is what you've been working for, and you don't let them down. You don't want to do those things, but those kind of pastor mentors who were like, I want to give you the opportunity to experience what it's like to preach.

You know, you'll probably fail, and your sermon will probably be five minutes to ten minutes, but you're trying, and your heart is with the intention that you want to preach the gospel. You want to share Jesus with people and his death and resurrection with people, so find those people who can partner with you, can coach you, can pray with you, who you can be an accountability partner with, and just say, look, I need discipled.

Those missionaries Paul sent out, they needed to be discipled, and we need to be discipled, and so find that person who can help you continue to grow in that call and nurture that call that you have within you so that you can find that.

I had a great church family who just, when they announced to the church that I had to call to ministry, I had these little old ladies come to me. We already knew that. We already knew. I was like, why didn't you tell me?

They said, because that's for God to tell you, and I'm like, that's true. That's true, but they nurtured that. They still nurtured that,.

So that's what I would say. Sure. Now, in the Church of the Nazarene, do y 'all do a single pastor model, or do y 'all do a plurality of elders in one church? What's the local church government kind of like, just as we try to put together in our brains, know what all that looks like?

That really depends on the size of the church, honestly. We list all the elders in our district manual. We have a district journal that we have every year from district assembly. It has a list of all the elders from the district.

Some churches have associates. Some have children's or youth pastors. My church, I'm the only elder here, and so it depends on the size of the church. Some are retired pastors who attend the church there.

Yeah, it really just depends on that. I'm the only pastor here. If we ever hired somebody to be a youth pastor, then they would be the other, maybe, elder if they're ordained here at the church, so that's kind of how it, structure-wise.

Okay. We have a church board, but they're not—the church board is made of people from the church who get elected each year. My church board's the same, so they keep getting elected, but they're great people.

We have committees in the Presbyterian Church. I don't think. Have changed in decades.

Well, let me tell you, it's like that in a lot of churches, that it's the same people. Because when you try to get someone new, they're just intimidated by the whole process. They're intimidated by, oh, I don't want to do that.