Interviews from Shepherds Conference Darrell Harrison and Alex Strauch

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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All right, today we have something special for you on The Wrap Report.

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We are going to have some interviews that I conducted at the Shepherds Conference. First, we're going to have a very special guest, and that will be

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Daryl Harrison from Just Thinking. After that, stay tuned for someone maybe some of you are very familiar with.

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He is literally the author of Biblical Eldership, and that's Alexander Strzok, a fellow

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Jerseyite, and I loved the conversation with him. Very informative in thinking about church leadership and how churches should be structured.

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Great conversation with both these men from Shepherds Conference. I hope you listen and enjoy, and let me just mention before we get started that if you want to help us share this episode, all right?

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And enjoy today's podcast. Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the Ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, first up is going to be my friend, Daryl Harrison. Now, I should say that Daryl got a nickname, you know, if you listen to Just Thinking Show, he likes to give a nickname to his co -host,

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Omaha, because, well, his co -host is from Omaha. And Phil Johnson, by the way, that's

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Daryl Harrison's boss, gave him a nickname. It's only fitting since he moved out to California by Hollywood, he is now known as Hollywood Harrison.

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So that's who we're going to have up next. As he made his move to California, it was a big move for him, and we're going to talk about that now.

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All right, so we're here with the award -winning podcaster from Just Thinking, Daryl Harris, here in his hometown now in California.

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So how was the move out here? The move was interesting. It was about a six -month timeline from the time initial conversations began between myself and Grace to you about the idea of possibly coming out here and working for them.

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But we've been out here for about six weeks now. We landed physically on January the 12th.

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What are we now, early March, going on two months. And the people out here, we find, are actually extremely nice.

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Some of the stereotypes that we hear about California back east have not proven true for us. The people here are very, very nice.

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We are in the process of getting settled into our home here in Valencia. We are about 90 % through the new members process here at Grace Community Church under the teaching of John MacArthur.

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I'm absolutely loving my role as Dean of Social Media at Grace to you. The people there have been absolutely wonderful.

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Bending over backwards to do whatever they can to make sure my wife and I are comfortable here. So we're really enjoying

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California. We really praise God for leading us out here and giving us the heart to be obedient to him on a move that was of this magnitude.

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So this is your first Shepherds Conference, but you're kind of working it. You're not here to just enjoy it, but so far have you enjoyed it and have you gone over to the book tent?

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I have enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, I was going to give evidence of my enjoying the Shepherds Conference by virtue of the fact that I have visited the book tent.

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I won't mention how much I spent, but I probably have in my bag over to our right here close to 15, 17 books.

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So yeah, so I am here as part of the staff from Grace to you that will be manning the

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Grace to you display here at the Shepherds Conference. We're rotating shifts. So it's just before my shift here, just before 3 o 'clock in the afternoon.

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So my shift starts at 3, ends at 5 .30, so I'm here to help out the team and basically tell anybody what they want to know about John's teaching,

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Grace to you, and get them sort of interactive in what John goes through on a regular basis with recording his messages that folks hear on Grace to you.

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Okay, so now you probably don't know how I got my name Slick. But you just announced that you got books over here and you're going on a shift.

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We'll see if those books are still there when you get off your shift. Well, we'll see. We'll see. That's what I'm thinking.

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You are from New Jersey, so yeah. I can be slick at times. So what's your new role involved as the

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Dean here with Grace to you? Yeah, so under the title of Dean of Social Media, I actually wear several hats.

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Primarily, I oversee all of Grace to you's social media footprint, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, but I work with a great team of content providers, a great team of editors to oversee content that we distribute on behalf of Grace to you, on behalf of John, on those platforms.

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I also do some writing. I anticipate having some opportunities to do some speaking.

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So it's sort of a combination of several responsibilities that I have under that one title of Dean of Social Media.

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So being out here at the Shepherds Conference, tons of people here, you've now been podcasting for a while.

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You've gotten known from your podcast. How many folks have come up to you about your podcast? How encouraging has that been to hear the people who are listening and the feedback they're giving?

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Yeah, it really is encouraging and it's somewhat embarrassing. I think people may be surprised to learn that I'm really pretty much an introvert.

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I don't like being out front. I don't like being the focus of attention. But here at Shepherds Conference, because by God's grace, the podcast, the

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Just Thinking podcast has gotten so much exposure in the little over one year that we've been doing it along with my brother in arms,

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Virgil Walker, who we affectionately refer to as Omaha. But yeah, so the exposure that the podcast has gotten over the year has gotten me some exposure here at the

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Shepherds Conference. I've met some great guys who know me by virtue of the podcast.

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They also know me by my blog, which is of the same title, Just Thinking. And it's been great to meet those folks.

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It's been great to see what God is doing with the podcast and hear the encouragement that these brothers are giving me to continue doing what we're doing.

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That's the biggest takeaway for me, and it's been really uplifting and energizing for me to have their encouragement to continue doing what we're doing with the podcast.

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You know, one of the things that's always amazing as a podcaster, as a blogger, is the fact that you don't know who your audience is.

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You sit behind a microphone, you sit behind a keyboard, and then when you get to an event like this and you have people that walk up to you and say,

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I listen to you, I read your stuff, this is how it's encouraged me, this is what I've learned. And you realize, wait a minute, there actually is an impact it's having.

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How much does that encourage you, and how much more, I mean, I say this because, look, people write reviews on podcasts.

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Well, not everyone does, and yet some podcasters go, oh, write a review because it helps us in iTunes. No, it actually doesn't.

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But how encouraging is it when you get those, either someone coming up to you or someone writing a review, to know that all the work you've been putting in is being received and helping people?

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Yeah, that's a great question, Andrew. I think for me, personally, when you look at how much work we put into each episode, and I know perhaps other

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Christian podcasters do the same, but for us, I'm just thinking for that one hour or that one hour and a half that we are exposed to our listeners every week, we probably put in 12 to 16 hours preparing for that one episode.

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So when we hear that our efforts are beneficial to listeners out there as well who may not have necessarily heard a passage of scripture explained the way we do, because our podcast is expository.

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I don't care what the topic is, we address that topic through an expository scriptural lens and we take our time picking apart that topic against the backdrop of what the objective truth of the

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Word of God says. So for the average podcast listener who may not be used to listening to a podcast that's maybe 60, 90 minutes in length, for folks who listen to us regularly, it's great to hear from them how they appreciate the time and effort that we take to basically unpack the topic, explain terminology, refer to scripture, we read scripture verbatim on the podcast, and to hear folks say to us how much they appreciate how we deliver that content in such a specific, expository, holistic way just really gives us energy and inspiration to keep doing what we're doing every week, because as you know, once you're done with one episode, you're already prepping for the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

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It never stops. So for folks who may be followers and listeners to the Just Thinking Podcast and you're listening to this, thank you so much for your prayers, your support, your encouragement.

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We need it, we appreciate it, and we value it. You should try doing a daily one, then you'll really see.

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So you guys don't just, when you say you unpack it, I think I had a guest host on where we kind of talked about that, and you literally unpack it.

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I think there's some page -turning we always hear on your show. As a matter of fact, yeah, there is some page -turning, and I mean that literally.

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So yeah, so you'll hear me turning my non -Armenian Standard Bible translation every now and then. I try to have most of my scripture references typed up in my notes so that you don't hear pages turning.

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But every now and then, because our podcast is not scripted at all, when we do an episode,

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Virgil has no idea what I'm going to say, I have no idea what he's going to say, but in the course of our discourse with one another, the

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Lord may bring a verse to my mind that's not in my notes, so I always have my Bible ready to turn to that verse, so hopefully that's not too disrupting to most of our listeners, although Andrew here likes his nice and quiet apparently.

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No, no, I enjoy the page -turning, it's just the non -elect standard Bible that you use.

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I'm with Virgil on, actually no, I don't know, my version of preference would be the

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Holman Christian Standard, they don't print anymore, and the reason I don't like the Christian Standard is they got rid of all the things I liked with the

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Holman, now I don't know what acronym you'd come up with, the Holman, give me some time,

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I'll come up with one though for sure. That reminds me, you know, my wife, before we moved out here, she worked at Lifeway, who produces the

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Holman, and now does the CSB, so yeah, I think Virgil and I, we have a lot of fun with the translations, he goes with what he calls the elect standard version,

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I go with the non -Armenian standard version, but you can't go wrong with either one. You know what I like is

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I hear other podcasters now referring to them that way, and some are even giving credit. We're trendsetters, man, we set the bar, man.

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The bar. No wait, that's Bar Network, see what I did there? Yeah, good one, good. Shout out to Dwayne Atkinson, by the way.

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Now I think you guys call him the hardest working man in podcasting, so why is that?

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Because Dwayne Atkinson manages a network, literally, of biblical reform podcasts under what we call the

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Bar Network, B -A -R, Biblical and Reform, and matter of fact, he just recently brought on a new podcast under his network umbrella,

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Truth and Fire Podcast, which started this month, and this guy is always doing somebody's podcast, either his own, which is the

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Bar Podcast, or he's working with a podcaster that's under his Bar Network, so he's always doing something.

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This guy is absolutely the hardest working guy in podcast land today. Well, I can say this, he's one of the best guys you'll ever get to know.

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Absolutely, absolutely. Dwayne Atkinson lives in South Carolina with his lovely wife and family.

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This guy's got a heart of gold. He is so on fire for the Lord, he so loves the truth of the gospel, and he's willing to help out anyone who feels called to get into that podcast space.

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He's the one who brought Virgil and I together. I don't know if most of our listeners are aware that Virgil and I, prior to launching the

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Just Thinking podcast, had not even heard of one another. It was Dwayne who brought him and me together, and to this date,

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Virgil and I have never met in person. We hope to meet later this year at the Grace To You Truth Matters conference here in L .A.,

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but Virgil and I have never met in person, but it was Dwayne who brought the two of us together.

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Yeah, I'm going to try to set up so the first time you guys meet at Truth Matters, I'm going to be there,

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I hope. I want video. I want to get video of the two of you meeting for the first time. The whole thing with the bar and with Dwayne, he's got such a great spirit about him.

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He knows the guys, just the chemistry that you and Virgil have, I think that's a lot of what makes the show, especially when you think about the fact that you two don't know what each other's going to say, and yet it's almost as if you guys finish each other's sentences sometimes.

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So it's a lot of him knowing the character of you guys. You guys haven't met, aren't local, and yet knew the chemistry would be just right.

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So what do you got planned for Just Thinking? Any future plans? Well, you know, we plan week to week.

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So the way Just Thinking works, I will usually text Virgil or shoot him an email with a topical idea that I have.

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We'll message each other back and forth, and then we'll agree on a topic, and that's pretty much it.

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For instance, if today is Tuesday, I texted him today, I said, hey, what do you think about doing the next episode on either socialism or reparations, and it's that simple.

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We decided to do socialism. So the episode that we do next week, we'll focus on socialism.

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So once we agree on a topic, Virgil knows to go back and do his homework. I know to do my homework. We come together on Sunday to record the episode, and we're ready to rock.

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I just hope I'm never a subject of the episode, because, boy, when you get done with a subject, there's like nothing left to be said, and I'd be scared.

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Well, I think that's part of, you know, we never go into any episode with the assumptions that we'll be able to exhaustively treat or deal with any topic.

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You know, it's been a couple of months since we did a live episode while I got transitioned out here in California, but for the last couple of weeks, we've got new episodes out there, and we're getting back into the flow of things, but Virgil and I do have a good rapport with one another for sure.

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We're on break, and I know you're going to have to get to work, and there's a lot of people as I'm walking around that are eyeing you and going, no, I think

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I know that guy, and they will probably want to talk to you. So I'm going to let you get to work. I appreciate you coming on to our podcast in this way.

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You've been on before, but we're going to have to get you back. It's been a while. I'm going to try to get Virgil back. He's great to work with, but we appreciate just thinking in all that you're doing.

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Any closing comments you want to say? I just want to say thanks, Slick. Appreciate the opportunity. All right. All right, so that was

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Darrell Harrison, and before we get to Alexander Strzok, let me let you know some things you can do to help us out.

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Now, I want to give to you another interview that I had. This was with Alexander Strzok.

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This was really a privilege for me, someone I looked up to, read many of his books, really loved the way he wrote on many subjects, hospitality, deacons, elders, a lot of different things he does.

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Also talking about biting and devouring, but he is a good author and someone who

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I really enjoyed my time with. Check this out from Alexander Strzok.

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Alright, so we're here in the book shack here of Grace Community Church and a little kind of nook here of books other than the book tent.

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I ran into one of the legends of biblical eldership, literally wrote the book on biblical eldership,

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Alexander Strzok. So Alex, I'm going to ask if you could just introduce yourself to folks, talk about the ministry you've had, and I want to ask you specifically something about some of the books you've written.

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So just if you could introduce yourself. Well, I'm Alex Strzok. I've been at Littleton Bible Chapel 50 years ago this

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February, came in 1969. And basically 10 years ago, through a number of years of preparing, we handed the leadership of the church over to what

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I call our third generation of elders. And all our second generation are still in the church serving and we're helping them.

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So I spend time traveling and writing and working in the church still. Now, you literally wrote the book on biblical eldership.

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Why do you think a biblical view of eldership was so important? Well, first you have to go back to the doctrine of sin.

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And we don't really believe how sinful and broken we are. But Jeremiah said, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

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Now get this, who can know it? We don't even know ourselves. We need shared mutual leadership to protect us from our pride, our greed.

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And we see so many terrible failures and that's because there isn't genuine peer accountability.

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And then when you understand true Christian brotherhood, you realize

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Jesus in Matthew 23 said, don't take titles, don't be like the Pharisees. They love titles.

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They love chief seats, love all these things. We're a brotherhood. And so eldership fits the church model of family and brotherhood.

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So I think it fits the model of the church. And I think it protects us from our own nature, which I think we totally underestimate.

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You know, one of the things that I think had the biggest impact on me in your book, Biblical Eldership, was when you talked about servant leadership.

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When you talked, which really was very similar to what John MacArthur spoke the first opening here about, we're nothing.

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We're here to serve others. Why do you think it is so important for pastors to know that they're servants?

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Well, we have the example of a man who wasn't a servant. Deuteronomy 3, John 9 and 10,

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Deuteronomy loved the first place. And he put out of the church and he would disagree with him. He even argued with the great apostle

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John, that beloved man. There is a tendency here for men to want to control things, be the boss.

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But Jesus reversed the pyramid. He said, if you really want to be great in my kingdom, then you serve all, even the most lowly.

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In other words, he's saying, my form of leadership is other oriented, not self oriented.

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And look around the world, wherever you look today, it's so many countries, so many leaders robbing the people, enriching themselves, killing people that don't agree with them.

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It's all over the world. Just look in the news. And you even see it in the church. Servant leadership is the model of Jesus Christ.

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And it's really against our nature. And so that's why it's so hard to understand. You know, that actually reminds me of a different book.

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One that I was actually blessed you had sent to me a couple of years ago is the book Bite and Devour. That is,

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I think, one that everyone needs to read, especially if they're going to be on social media.

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You know, why is it that we see such a problem in the church where people are biting and devouring one another?

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Well, I can answer that real easy. After Adam and Eve sinned, what was the first sin? Cain killed

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Abel. We've been killing each other ever since. The history of the human race is a history of warfare and division.

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We're warriors. We're fighters. And the most natural thing that happens when you put a group of people together is they fight.

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They disagree. And they don't know how to disagree properly in the Christ -like way. So in this book

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Bite and Devour, which by the way is a biblical quote from Galatians 5, I show that every church in the

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New Testament had conflict. And it's in those conflicts that the apostle gives us the greatest advice, and the greatest of all is

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Philippians 2. Have this mind, among all yourselves, which was in Christ, humility and servanthood.

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And so the thing that I've noticed, there's a lot of folks who want to try to make names for themselves.

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John spoke about that in his first message, people that want to be celebrity pastors. Do you think it's more of a tendency for people like that to bite and devour than someone who wants to be a servant?

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Of course. Pride is the mother of all division. Even Proverbs says that. Yes, pride and self -seeking.

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Again we come back to Philippians chapter 2 where the apostle says, do nothing, do nothing out of pride and selfish ambition.

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And instead, consider others more important than yourself.

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That's just totally contrary to nature, you know, to human nature, to sin nature. Yeah. You had a, your book on deacons actually,

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I remember when I was, when I first read this, this was a long time ago, when

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I was actually, we were in a church plant. We were establishing, trying to establish biblical elders and deacons, and it really struck me how different, in the limited time

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I was in church, I don't know if you know, I came from a Jewish background, so I really didn't have a church upbringing, but the church that I was in, it was the deacons did everything and you had one pastor.

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And the deacons really served more from, after reading your book, more as elders. Your book really changed the mindset that I had as ministers of mercy.

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Could you get into explaining the view you have of what the role of a deacon is? Yes. This would be a long time to explain the

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Greek word diakonos, but let me just make it simple. The best way to translate that is assistant.

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So I take deacons to be the official authorized assistants to the elders.

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Their main job is to relieve the elders, to teach and lead as modeled in Acts 6.

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The apostles were handling the money, they were handling the widows, and finally it was overwhelming and it was distracting them, and they said, all right, we're going to appoint seven men.

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They're going to handle the money. They're going to handle the widows. We will devote ourselves, verse four, to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

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So the deacon's job is to relieve the elders so they can focus on the teaching of the word and leading.

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And the deacons, as their assistants, will handle things like the money, the widows, the visiting. They will assist them.

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And isn't it interesting, deacons have almost every qualification like the elders except teaching. And whenever we see deacons, they're always with the overseers.

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So a long story short, you can read the book, Paul's Vision for the Deacons, Assisting the

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Elders with the Care of God's Church. That's it in a summary fashion without proving it. But I have plenty of proof in the book.

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And that actually, being that I was a deacon at the age of 23, 24, it was all new.

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And so that had really helped to set kind of my understanding of what my role was as a deacon.

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And then as I got into being a pastor and looking at biblical eldership, I took a church, a

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Chinese church that had the typical Baptist type model. I was the pastor.

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We had four deacons. Two of them were acting more like elders. They were caring for people, shepherding people, doing the teaching.

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And two had no desire to teach. Their desire was to serve behind the scenes and just do the daily stuff.

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And I remember going through your book and really teaching. We had all the leadership. And then

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I preached through really some of the principles you teach in your book to try to educate people with what it is we're going to try to do, because it was new.

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It was a new concept for them. One of the things I did notice with that that was hard for them to comprehend is they would call me pastor, and the other two men they would call elder.

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They'd always make this distinction between the pastor who is paid and elder who is not paid.

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Is there any difference that you see in Scripture between pastor and elder? Absolutely not.

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It's just the way people talk. And it demeans the eldership. They're all elders.

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Now why we call the full -time person a pastor and the eldership, all I can say is it's a tradition, it's a habit.

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Something that's just as bad is calling the ordained elders and the unordained elders or the lay elders and the professional elders, all that is traditional terminology that actually demeans the elders.

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There's not a team B elders. They're all A -team elders, or they should be off the eldership.

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So no, it's just one of these traditions we have. It's good you question it, by the way. So in our church,

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I do not call myself the pastor. I do not call myself senior pastor, definitely. I call myself

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Alex, brother, because I take Matthew 23 to mean what it says. Don't be using these titles.

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Don't be like these Pharisees. They love chief seats. They love special clothes.

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They love people that come up and say, oh, Reverend so -and -so, Dr. so -and -so. Christ is the center of it all.

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So I call myself Alex. I call myself brother. I say I'm one of the pastors of the church. That's how

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I do it. I think that's more scriptural. Yeah, because one of the things I've noticed is that some people think like if you're full -time, somehow you have more authority than someone who's not.

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And one of the things you talk in your book, Biblical Eldership, is this idea of that there's equality amongst all the pastors, pastors, elders, bishops, whichever term to use.

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And then you speak about, you know, one among equals. Could you explain what that is? Well, we have this in the apostles.

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We have a perfect model, 12 apostles. 11 weren't Peter's assistants or associates or less.

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They were all equally 12 apostles, all called to preach, all called to heal, represent

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Christ. But among those 12, there's no question that Peter stands out as the speaker, the lead speaker, the real leader among leaders.

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So you call it leaders among leaders, but then you have 1 Timothy 5, 17 and 18. The elders who lead well, especially those elders who labor because of giftedness in Word and Doctrine, it's because of their giftedness that they receive some compensation.

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They can give themselves fully to this. And what those elders need who give themselves fully and receive some compensation from the church, they need peers.

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They need real equals. They need people that look them in the face and say, you're not going to do that. That's what every man needs.

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We don't want it. I mean, we talk about accountability. We don't really want accountability. It's a great word. It sounds good.

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I'm accountable to people that are 5 ,000 miles away. You know, come on. Even the people next to you don't know what's going on, really.

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If you want to hide something, you're going to hide it. So that's it. 10 years ago, you said that you made changes in your leadership.

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Why do you think that that was so important? Oh, I've seen so many disasters. Pastors wait until the last minute and decide they're going to leave, and they leave the church in turmoil for the next years finding a pastor.

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Or they get so old, they're dysfunctional and causing problems. I did not want to do that.

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It's a bad model. So we took a number of years, at least five, to bring on the new elders, train them personally.

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Everyone that came on was personally trained by us second -generation elders. And we're very happy with the work they're doing.

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And we're all still in the church. People said, oh, you need to leave the church. I'm not leaving the church. My church, my family, my grandchildren, my children, my best friends are there.

31:12

I would die. The church is my family. It's my household of God. This is the professionalism, you know.

31:19

This is true. A guy told me in our city, when he stepped down from the pastor to retire, they said, you've got to leave the city.

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They didn't even want him in the city. I said, you tell them, mind their own business. How did you do that transition?

31:35

What did that look like? Oh, that would be too long to answer. But basically, identifying the men, spending a lot of time with them, lunches, taking them on visits, making sure they've read the right books, they can answer our theological questions, and having them in the elders' meeting for a number of years with us, acting just like elders.

31:54

Yeah, that's a shortened version. You did it over time. It wasn't like just, okay, here comes the new pastor, he's replacing the old pastor.

32:03

That's a disaster. And in fact, I have talked to a number of pastors that have said to me, I wish

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I had trained and got on board the people that were going to take my place instead of leaving and leaving the elders for the next years to find someone and the church spins out of control and they get someone that after a year or two they don't like.

32:23

It's a disaster. I would never leave a church unless, I mean, there's always exceptions, I trained and developed, so I've always had an issue with the way we go about finding pastors, getting guys who come out of seminary, the church doesn't know them, they come out for a week, they do an interview, they're hired.

32:44

I was in the church where I was at as pastor, preaching pastor, if you want to call it that.

32:51

I never liked the idea of senior pastor or anything like that, but the thing was

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I was there for two years prior to them selecting me as their shepherd.

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And so there was no, let's sit down and have a Q &A, it was so informal, the deacon, the head deacon just announced, hey, we're having a board meeting, a business meeting for the church.

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By the way, in two weeks we're going to be voting Andrew as pastor. And so during that meeting, I obviously took my family, we went to go get dinner or lunch and we came back and it was so kind of just a non -issue that I had to ask a couple deacons, so what was the vote?

33:33

Like, am I the pastor or not? Because it was just, it was natural, they knew my character, it wasn't like they had to try to figure me out, but the big struggle

33:40

I see with the way we do things is people come into a church, nobody knows, anybody, I say this, anybody can fake it for a week.

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I saw this with a pastor, his kids were completely out of control, but he kept them in line for one week.

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You saw it toward the end of the week and I had said, I really, if I was ever in a public meeting again, I wanted to make that week as stressful as possible, see how they react almost because you don't get to see what their character is when you're trying to let them be just little glimpses and let them relax and not to see.

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But when you're living amongst someone, you get to see that. When you're there for two years, as I was, everyone knew my character.

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And so, unanimous vote, not a problem, it was like just another day. Do you see any problems with the way we go about most churches selecting pastors?

34:31

How much time do you have? As much time as you want. No, no. It's a very dysfunctional method and we hear the big success stories, but you don't hear of all the failure stories, all the dark side of all this.

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Sometimes luckily it works out, but that's why they don't last two to five years. After two years, they go, oh, we don't like this.

35:03

I'm not against going outside the church to find somebody. If you don't have a teacher or don't have someone gifted now where the elder should get someone to teach, it's so much better if you can raise them up.

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Or if you do have to get them from outside, you tell them for the first two years, you're under us and we'll work together to see how you act.

35:24

So no, it's not a very good, well, the whole nomination thing bypasses the qualifications.

35:31

You just go, oh no, let's see how many people, oh, let's give him a chance. One guy said to me, the things

35:37

I've heard is bizarre. Everyone should get a chance to be an elder in the church. Everyone should get a chance to be a deacon in the church.

35:44

Come on. Well, that'd be fine if everyone's qualified for the position like 1

35:49

Timothy says in Titus. So have you been able to get a chance, you've been here at Shepherds, but I have, every time

35:57

I see you, you're either talking with someone, you've been back here behind your book table. Have you gotten a chance to get in and listen to any of the messages?

36:03

Yes. I've heard several of the messages, yes, I've heard about four. I usually go over to the

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TV area and watch it over there, it's a little more peaceful. But yes,

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I'm here to talk to people, I'm here to meet with people, show our books, listen to people.

36:22

There's not very many nice stories. Of course, people have good stories, they don't come and tell you, they don't come and say, oh, our church is doing so great.

36:28

They usually come crying. Do you have any of the messages you've heard so far that really stand out to you?

36:34

Oh yes, Mark Dever's one, particularly the last 15 minutes where he told how he does church, his prayer, the book

36:43

Giving Out. I was very good, very good, I told him it was good. Very practical, something you can walk home with.

36:50

I don't want to have a message, someone tell me what I already know. I don't want someone to tell me I need to pray more, and I already know that,

36:57

I'm already guilty, everyone else is guilty. Tell me, how am I going to do this in a fast -moving, super busy world?

37:03

Give me some ideas, give me some practical things I can go home tomorrow and prove my prayer life.

37:09

Yes, I thought that book Give Out was a great idea, that was good. Actually, it's interesting, there's a pastor out here from Ohio, another brother, told me he does that.

37:17

He gives out books the way Mark had explained. I thought that's good because that's a lost art nowadays, is reading and studying, especially

37:26

God's Word. How many Shepherds Conferences have you been to? This is only two.

37:32

Two? Yes. I might have to find out where this TV room is, because over in the seminary,

37:38

I hide out in the library. Yeah, the TV's all over. I hide out in the tent, that's the thing

37:45

I like. I'm from Jersey, you know that, so we get this nice weather out here. I want to be outside, so they have the tent set up, and the

37:52

TV, I just sit out on a nice couch. Why should I be stumped in a pew right next to someone on top of me?

37:58

I can stretch out, I can put my laptop up, it's very comfortable. That's right, it's packed in there, and I do the same thing.

38:06

I have my laptop, so I can do two things at once. I really appreciate the ministry

38:13

God has had in your life. The writing you've done has had a major impact on me. I know that we've talked earlier that I got the privilege of speaking once on the phone, and this is the first time we've gotten to meet, and you've been a real blessing.

38:29

Even in the little bits we've been able to talk, you've really been a blessing, even more than your writing has been, and so I just want to encourage you with that, but I want to give you a chance to say anything, anything you want to say to the audience about any of your books or anything you've got going on.

38:45

Well, just be faithful, and spend more time in your Bible. The great problem today is hyper -busyness, people moving too quickly.

38:53

I hear this over and over, I have no time. If you have no time for God, that's idolatry.

38:59

Turn the TV off. Turn some of these instruments and technology, control them.

39:07

The Bible is a big book, we're a master of that book, and that means we're going to have to give some concentrated time to meditative reading, but we're not even geared that way anymore.

39:17

It's just, you know, read it for 15 minutes and be done. How about at night, instead of watching TV, just actually meditate through Colossians?

39:25

Let the Word of God richly sink into you, the Lord says. It's the second time this week that I heard someone say that with the busyness, we're so busy that that actually is idolatry, so that's a really good point.

39:39

I really appreciate you coming on and spending a couple minutes with us. You have had such a profound influence on my life through your writings.

39:48

And don't forget, we're Jersey boys. That's right. You grew up in the great state of New Jersey that no one wants to admit.

39:56

I love New Jersey, Wildwood, New Jersey, Cape May, then we go over to New York City.

40:02

My children grew up having vacations in New Jersey, and there are people in our church that say, what are you guys, crazy?

40:08

Going to New Jersey for a vacation? You have no money or something? Let's not let them know about Wildwood.

40:14

We don't need any more New Yorkers coming down. Well, my parents, of course, had a home there and a car, and so we'd have free vacations.

40:22

We're going to pass that up. To a pastor, free vacations are a good thing. With four children, it was great.

40:29

Was worth the drive. Yeah, well, I thank you for coming on, brother. You've been a real blessing to me.

40:34

Praise the Lord. Thank the Lord. Well, I hope that you enjoyed those interviews, and I do hope that you will be praying for both

40:45

Justin Peters and myself, as we're going to be heading over to the Philippines in just a few weeks.

40:50

We're going to be addressing some issues on our discernment conference. We're going to be doing a discernment conference both in Manila and in Cebu, Philippines.

41:01

So please be praying for us. Now, I will mention to you, both Justin and I have committed to the churches over there in the

41:08

Philippines that we will pay our way over there. They've guaranteed that they will take care of the expenses once we get there, but guess what?

41:17

It costs quite a bit. It's actually almost $5 ,000 for the two of us to get over there.

41:23

And so you could help us out if you choose to donate to either strivingforattorney .org

41:30

slash donate, or go to justinpeters .org and help to donate so that we would be able to cover the costs for this event.

41:39

It is tragic what is going on over there in the Philippines with the NAR and Word of Faith, and you can have a part to help in preventing false teaching from being spread.

41:52

So think about what you might be able to do. We appreciate anything you can do. And we will look forward to next episode.

42:00

We'll have a couple of more interviews from Shepard's Conference. I will have Chris Honholz from Voice of Reason Radio and my friend

42:10

Tom Buck. And so look forward to that. See you next week.

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This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org