June 22, 2023 Show with Eric Ellis on “Pastoral Training at the Local Church Level”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 22nd day of June 2023.

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I am absolutely thrilled to have a first -time guest today who is someone that I'm also thrilled

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I got to know a little bit by God's providence. I want to thank the folks at Redemption Hills Church there in Colorado for recommending my guest today to me when

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I was on a church search for one of the sons of my friend

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Susan, who led me to Christ in the 1980s. One of her six children, Nick, was providentially traveling down to the

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Boulder, Colorado area for work, and I immediately knew that I had to find a good, solid church where Nick could fellowship while there.

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And in God's good providence, Nick met

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Pastor Eric Ellis, my guest today, who, as I just mentioned, was a recommendation to me by Pastor Bruce over at Redemption Hills Church in Littleton, Colorado.

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And the church where my guest is the pastor, South Boulder Bible Church, is closer to where Nick is, and I am just so thrilled that this seems to be a match made in heaven, meaning

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Nick and the South Boulder Bible Church in Colorado, and Nick has given nothing but praise reports about how much he loves

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Pastor Eric and the church family at South Boulder Bible Church.

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So I'm absolutely thrilled that God's providence brought this all about.

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I also want to thank Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, my dear friend going back to the early 1990s, who recommended this church to me also.

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So I am nothing but thrilled today to introduce to you

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Pastor Eric Ellis, as I've already mentioned. He is pastor of South Boulder Bible Church in Colorado and a board member of XL Ministries, and today we're going to be addressing pastoral training at the local church level.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Eric Ellis.

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Hi, Chris. Thanks. It's great to be here. I will greatly affirm your words about Nick.

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It's been wonderful to have him around. Just neat to see the Lord working in his life.

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So thanking God for the providence of meeting you through him and looking forward to a long -term friendship and association with you and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Yeah, James, I don't know if he's listening or not, but he's a great friend as well. I've met him. I've been reading his material for many, many years and then had the joy of meeting him and becoming a good friend with him through the ministry of bicycling, as it were.

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Yeah, and so he's up here in Colorado pretty consistently, and so we get to bike together quite a bit.

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And then, of course, he'll come and speak at the church, and he's a good friend. So, yeah, I'm honored to be here,

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Chris. Thank you. And let me add that those who love James White's program, his webcast,

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The Dividing Line, and who also love Reformed theology have just about had enough of his discussions of cycling.

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We're sick of it, but I know that he doesn't care. I'll drop it, but if you want some trash on him,

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I got some stuff. I can tell some good stories. Anyway.

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In fact, nothing in the world will make James White talk more about cycling and other loves of his life and hobbies and pastimes.

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Nothing will make him talk about those things more than hearing negative feedback from listeners.

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They don't slow him down. They make him more passionate and vociferous. I'm well aware, well aware.

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Well, tell us about South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado. Sure, yeah.

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So our little church here, again, we're on the south side of Boulder. If you're familiar with the town at all, we have this fantastic view of the

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Flatirons. Again, if you're familiar with Colorado, Boulder just butts up right to the start of the

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Rocky Mountains. Colorado, University of Colorado is here, and I'm sure if you have a couple football fans, you'll know that Deion Sanders is now the new head coach here at CU.

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The campus is about 10 minutes away from us. People are pretty excited about that.

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Boulder itself, of course, is a very liberal, progressive town. My wife and I, my family, we absolutely love being here.

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Not that we're liberal or progressive, but we feel like we fit right in. I can talk more about that later. Yeah, the church itself started in the late 1960s, and it was known as Berean Baptist Church at that time.

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We just had one of our founding members from the early 60s go into the presence of the

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Lord. Her memorial will be here this next week, and that's kind of interesting. I think there's maybe two or three of the originals are still here, but we've said goodbye to glory to a lot of them in recent years.

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But this is a sweet one. We get to celebrate her life here this next week. It started meeting in a basement and then purchased this property here back when land was affordable in Boulder, and then got here in the early 2000s.

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The church was renamed Flatirons Baptist in reference to the mountains right outside the church here, and then we renamed it

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South Boulder Bible Church in 2016. It's a beautiful little facility, completely paid off, which is a huge blessing in this outrageously expensive place to live.

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So that's just a great blessing. We love God's word. We as a leadership, myself, we are committed to expository preaching.

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I've taught through Romans several years ago over a five -year period. I'm into 1st and 2nd

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Thessalonians now, and I'm really enjoying that. I'm committed to bringing glory to God in this place through the clear and unequivocal preaching of his word and discipleship and counsel and training.

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Yeah, just love being here. It's a great place to be. Amen. Well, if anybody wants more details about South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado, go to their website,

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SBBC, which stands for South Boulder Bible Church, sbbc .church,

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sbbc .church. And God willing, I will remember to repeat that information toward the end of the program.

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Sure. Well, we have a tradition here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Whenever we have a first -time guest on the program, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

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Lord raised up in their lives that drew him to himself and saved them. And so tell us about your story.

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Yeah, so appreciate the opportunity. Neither my wife nor I were raised in Christian homes.

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She attended some liberal denominations when she was growing up, but myself,

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I was not exposed to church life or any type of religious experience, literally, at all.

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I can count on one hand the worship services I went to before I was 17 years old, and I remember them well, which is odd,

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I guess. So in my home, very little religious talk.

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I think I had a Bible, a picture Bible, that I might have looked at a few times when I was a child. But more or less, it was a you -do -you type of situation.

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Find out what you love and go and pursue it. Being here, I was raised in Fort Collins, just north of here, about 60 miles.

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All my family involved in academics, working at Colorado State University, or my mother -in -law was a lawyer.

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My wife's father was an astrophysicist. My dad was a professor at CSU.

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My first stepdad was as well. My current stepdad taught there for a number of years, not as a professor, but as an art person.

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So we're very familiar with academic life, feel very comfortable in college towns. But long and short of it, personally, my family did not have any type of religious leanings.

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If anything, just sort of a you -do -you type of mentality.

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You're the best person who can determine what you want, do those types of things. And so I was kind of raised in that type of situation.

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And so as a young man, I began to define those things as success in athletics and success in the social life.

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I gifted by God as a very good athlete and excelled in football all through high school.

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But then I ended up playing in college for a couple of years as well. But what happened is, here's these things that I'm setting my joy on, and I'm finding them to be incredibly unsatisfying,

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I guess. And for me, it was one week, I make the interception to win the game, right?

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And I'm on the highest of the highs. And the next week, I miss the tackle that loses us the games, and I'm in the lowest of the lows.

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There's no in -between. And it just became an incredibly emotionally tiring existence for me.

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And the same thing in kind of the social party scene at the high school level, too. Just finding ups and downs there that were just, for me personally, really emotionally difficult for me to work through.

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So towards the end of my junior year in high school, I had a friend that I'd known since kindergarten.

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And I knew he was a Christian, whatever that meant. I knew he was religious. But he was also a good athlete, which was important to me.

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He was a good student. That was important to me as well. But he kept his nose clean.

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He stayed out of the nonsense of sort of the party social life of high school and seemed to have a fairly stable existence, which is something that I really longed for so I could get away from sort of this emotional upheavals that I would go through.

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And so I just decided that, you know what, I'm going to start attaching myself to this guy. And I'm going to be his friend and figure out what's going on there.

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And so I did that. Again, we'd been friends from early elementary, but then I just jumped on big time him.

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Anyway, one day he and I and another guy were going to a movie or something like that.

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I don't remember. And he's asking me about some things about life and what I was finding enjoyable.

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And I was moaning and complaining and whining and bemoaning my existence, as it were.

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And he said to me, Eric, you should come to church. And I said, I mean, literally I said this with this tone.

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I said, why in the world would I ever do that? I mean, literally.

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That's what I said. And there was no reason in the world why you would do that.

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No, I mean, there really wasn't. I wouldn't say I didn't believe in God per se, but if I did, he was not a part of my life.

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I had a near -death experience when I was 15 that was very religious in nature, as you might say.

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You've got to tell us about that. Oh, okay. This is a two -hour show.

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I know. Yeah, so my dad, he was a professor at CSU at Colorado State.

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And he did a lot of research in Africa. And so in my teen years in 1982 and 1984,

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I had the opportunity to go over there with him and spend a month in 1982 and six weeks in 1984.

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When I was there in 1984, I got really, really, really sick.

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No idea what happened. We were out in the bush about 12 miles or 12 hours from any type of civilization or hospital.

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And I just got really sick. Yeah, couldn't eat, couldn't drink, nothing, throwing up everything, screaming headache.

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And my dad and one of his associates threw me in the car and drove me 12 hours back to Nairobi. And took me to the hospital.

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You know, the whole thought would be is that I just put me up to an IV and everything would be fine.

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And, you know, give me a couple of painkillers and I'd be home the next day. Well, I ended up being in there for six days, five, six days.

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And my doctor, he was an Egyptian named Mohammed, a dear Muslim, took very good care of me.

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But I think I scared him because he came to me on the night of my birthday, my 15th birthday.

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And I'm lying in bed in utter agony. And no idea what's wrong with me, nothing.

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And so I think he just more or less emptied the medicine cabinet into me.

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Because he had no idea what was going on and did that and gave me a shot to put me to sleep. But I just remember that night,

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I'm laying there in utter, utter pain, utter pain, delirious.

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And then I'm also drugged out, you know, on every drug that the doctor could throw at me. And I literally symbolically raised my fist to God and I said,

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I said, look, you know, I can't do this. I can't do this. Either you take me out or get me better one or the other.

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You know, and in God's kindness, he chose to restore me because I was, of course, a hell bound sinner at that time.

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But I remember, again, this is not authoritative or it's just an experience that a drugged out 15 year old had.

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You know, it was really sick. And I just remember when I prayed that, I really felt God say to me, oh, you want my help?

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Which was a kind of an interesting thing because, of course, I was a blasphemer and mocked religion and all that stuff beforehand.

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He says, oh, you want my help? I said, yes. And then he said, you owe me.

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And again, now, I was drugged out off my head. So, you know, delirious. I have no idea.

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Anyway, so the next morning I woke up and was on the road to recovery. I was in the hospital for three more days,

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I think. Was on serious medication for the better part of six weeks.

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You know, I was a 15 year old kid, very athletic, very muscular. I lost 25 pounds, which

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I didn't have to lose at all. But yeah, I got home.

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My dad through the years was convinced it was Ebola. And I don't know. It was never tested for that.

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But the day before I got sick,

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I was in a location that in the 1990s, many scientists thought one strain of Ebola was sourced in.

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It was a national park in northern Kenya and there were some elephant caves in there. And anyway,

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I was in those caves. And in the 1990s, the scientists thought that was the source of one of these viral strains of Ebola.

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But again, that was never confirmed at all. I had all of the initial symptoms up to the point of no return.

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But then God and his kindness saved my life. So anyway, that was, again, a very religious and traumatic experience.

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But obviously it left a major impression on me. When I got off the plane in Denver, my mom flipped out, wanted to take me to the

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ER right away because I looked like death warmed over. But I said, Mom, I'm actually doing well.

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And I saw the doctor the next day and he decided I just ran into something nasty.

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But anyway, long and short of it, that was a pretty dramatic event in my life that I think did have a fairly substantial impact on my salvation to some degree.

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But back in the car with my friend, he says, you should come to church. And I said, why would

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I ever do that? And the words he used, I'll never forget it. I remember where we were in town, the road we were on.

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And he was driving. I was sitting in the back seat and he said, it's a place of rest. And that's all he said.

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He didn't share the gospel. He didn't talk about Jesus, nothing. He just said it's a place of rest. And the

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Holy Spirit took that and just pushed it down into me. And anyway,

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I showed up at church that next Sunday. Honestly, I opened a Bible and I saw the word

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Galatians. I'd never seen that. I thought it was a foot disease or something like that. Literally, that was my level of exposure to God's word.

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So anyway, I made my initial profession of faith about a month later. But again,

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I have no, I won't say I wasn't saved, but I'm not going to say I was saved. I had no clue.

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I remember responding to the altar call going up and the pastor looking me in the eye and saying, so are you confessing

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Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? And are you going to follow him for the rest of your life? And I'm like, what in the world am

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I doing here? And of course, I'm in front of a thousand people. And so I say, yes.

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But honestly, the only thing that changed was conviction of sin. I began to be convicted of sin.

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Before that, yeah, I didn't find life to, life was empty.

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Things were not real happy for me, but I had no conviction of sin at all. And so sometime over the next two and a half years of being a disciple, attending church, doing those types of things,

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I'm pretty sure somewhere in there, everything took. God opened my eyes to the gospel, brought me to himself, made me his own.

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And so I would say by the time I'm a sophomore in college, I'm born again for sure. Loving the

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Lord, growing. Immature as I'll get out, but not lacking in Bible knowledge.

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But yeah, so Christmas 1988, got on my knees before the

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Lord and again, felt this sort of impression from him. Okay, Eric, you know the gospel, you know who

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I am. I have saved you and now you need to commit yourself to me forever.

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And not that I, again, I was saved by this time. So it's not the moment of salvation, but yeah.

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So okay, Lord, I'm yours. You can do whatever you want and there you go.

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So it's been a wild ride those past 35 years, but there's the version.

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And it's interesting that it still took a while for that near death experience that you had to have any kind of real impact.

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You said it had some kind of an impact, but you were still resistant to even visit a church after that.

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It just shows the depraved heart of man. Even when we are radically in some way rescued by God and we are even conscious of that fact in some realm, we still rebel.

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100%. There's no doubt. And it was that type of thing. It was that deathbed religious experience.

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Okay, God, I need your help now. And then I'm better. And I, again, go back and I start excelling in football and I get all conference and sign a college scholarship and all this stuff.

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And I just put him on the back burner. It reminds me of a friend of mine,

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Staff Sergeant David Carnes, the United States Marine, who was a major character portrayed by Michael Shannon, a very well known actor in the movie

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Twin Towers. And David Carnes, who

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I have interviewed on this program, who I know personally, he was the individual, as depicted in Twin Towers, who rescued

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Port Authority police officers who were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the collapsed towers.

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Wow. And he rescued them. And David was at that time and still is a very zealous, passionate born again believer.

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And he visited his he visited the officers who were trapped beneath the rubble who he rescued.

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He visited them in the hospital while they were recovering. And each of them said,

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David, we owe you our lives. If it weren't for you, we'd be dead.

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Everybody had given up the search in the area where we were. Is there anything that we could do for you?

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And David said to them, one simple thing. All I ask is that you visit my church with me one

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Sunday. That's all I ask. And absolutely, of course, we'll do that.

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Not only did those men not do that when they got healthy and well and strong and released from the hospital.

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Not only did they not visit David's church with him. They said to him,

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David, leave us alone. We're Roman Catholics. We don't need your church.

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Just please leave us alone. I mean, I'll tell you one thing. Maybe some of my Christian listeners will be upset with me for saying this.

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But if a Muslim had rescued me and said to me, all I ask is that you visit my mosque once,

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I would do it. I wouldn't participate. I wouldn't participate in a blasphemous, idolatrous, heretical ritual of some kind.

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But in honor of your friend who saved your life, you would. Yes. And I would even tell him that.

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I would say, you know, I'm doing this because you saved my life and I am doing this out of respect for you and gratitude.

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But it just blows my mind that they did that. And of course, there are countless stories throughout the lives of not only people

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I've had on my show and people who are listening. I'm sure that it would take years to to review and explain all of these situations that have ever occurred with people who have experienced the power of God and then spit in his face.

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Yeah. One hundred percent. Well, we are going. Go ahead. I'm sorry. That was me.

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Sorry. That's OK. We're going to our first commercial break. If anybody has a question for Pastor Eric Ellis, as I said before, we're going to be speaking on pastoral training at the local church level.

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That is our primary theme. Since he is a pastor, we'll we'll allow you to ask any other kind of pastoral question.

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And we ask that you give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. But please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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And since we are allowing you to ask pastoral questions, I could very readily see that someone might have a very deeply intimate and personal question that they want to ask you.

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So we will respect your request and we will allow you to remain anonymous. But please, if you're just asking a general question, especially on the theme pastoral training at the local church level, give us your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence.

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back with our guest, Eric Ellis, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Or, it's interesting providentially, we have Nick's pastor on the program today,

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Eric Ellis. Well Nick's brother, Nick who I mentioned earlier, who has been attending a

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We're now back with my guest Eric Ellis, pastor of South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado and board member of XL Ministries.

38:31

We are going to be discussing pastoral training at the local church level and if you have a question send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

38:39

And this discussion that we are having is largely based on XL Ministries so why don't you tell our listeners about that organization.

38:47

Sure, yeah. So yeah, XL, be sure to remember it's X and L not

38:53

Excel, but XLMinistries .org. The goal of the ministry here is that we want to be about equipping local churches to identify and train men for eldership pastoral callings in the local church.

39:09

2 Timothy 2 .2, which again I would assume many of your listeners are familiar with,

39:15

Paul is instructing Timothy on what it means to lead and guide the church. And he says this, the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

39:29

And so the question becomes, okay, here's a mandate that we as pastors have, okay, that we're to be about doing this.

39:36

And so the question then becomes, are we doing that? And if we are, what does that look like?

39:43

Or if we're not, how could we do that? And so over the years this ministry has developed.

39:50

It started up in the early 1990s by three youth pastors who had noticed that, generally speaking, the typical youth ministry was not about glorifying

40:00

God by equipping the saints, right? In this case, youth, they were not being equipped for the work of ministry.

40:08

Kids were not being evangelized, not discipled, not pushed to Christlikeness, not pushed to holiness and service.

40:16

And again, whatever we do in the church, one of the main things is we're to be about building up the saints for the work of ministry, equipping them to do that.

40:23

And we would all argue that that goes down to the lowest ministry, the youngest ministry all the way up to the seniors.

40:30

And so we're to be about doing that. So the question they were asking is, what does that look like at the local church level in a youth ministry?

40:38

The churches themselves, and I think, again, you would find many people who agree with this, the churches themselves have perhaps and maybe still have a very inadequate or low view of how wonderful and helpful a biblical youth ministry can be in the local church.

40:54

And so the youth pastors themselves would come in and, you know, sadly, what would happen is that, you know, some 18, 19, 20 year old guy with a

41:03

Bible and seems pretty energetic and excited. And, you know, the leadership would say, hey, go lead our youth.

41:08

And this person would not be trained, would not be prepared to serve well in the church.

41:15

And the hard part with that is, of course, it ends up hurting a lot of people, hurts the youth, hurts their parents, hurts the person who thought and might get might be really disillusioned about ministry.

41:26

And so these three, these three guys, and their names are Rocky Wyatt, Brian Murphy and Chris Reiser. They're all on the board.

41:33

These three guys saw this need and thought, you know, we need to do something about this.

41:40

Many people get hurt. I think, Chris, you probably know this or if you don't,

41:45

I'm sure you've heard things like this. I think only one out of every 20 some pastors actually finishes his working life as a pastor.

41:57

You know, there's a very high attrition rate in pastoral ministry. The average pastor right now lasts about four years.

42:05

The average youth pastor lasts about 18 months. Wow. So if you think about those numbers, yeah, you think about those numbers.

42:12

And that means the average, how many are well under four years? How many are well under 18 months?

42:19

And that's just, that's a tragedy in any number of ways. It really is.

42:24

It hurts the church. It sets things back. It can really make ministry and church life disillusioning to a lot of people.

42:32

It really can. So in light of this reality, these three pastors thought, how can we go about changing this?

42:38

What can we do here? And so they started XL Ministries. And the goal of XL Ministries is providing excellence and leadership through quality

42:46

Christian training. And what they did is they put together a two -year pastoral internship that would thoroughly prepare a man to serve as a youth pastor in the local church.

42:58

Under the guidance and supervision of a mature, experienced pastor, the intern would be exposed to and involved in every aspect of ministry over that two -year timeframe.

43:10

He would teach many times. And each message is evaluated for strengths, weaknesses, and areas to improve.

43:17

When I was going through the internship in the late 90s, I won't even try to put a number on the messages that I taught in high school, college.

43:26

I even had the opportunity to speak in the main service one time. I led all kinds of trips.

43:32

So various activities of the ministry, youth, be it retreats, mission trips, monthly events, leadership meetings, weddings, funerals, counseling, training, whatever, every aspect of youth ministry.

43:45

Every aspect of what it means to lead in the church well. Not only this, this person would be involved in in -depth study of practical biblical ministry, and then theology, both biblical and systematic, extensive reading, writing on various topics and issues, in -depth scripture memorization.

44:07

My wife and I, we got married in June of 1993, just celebrated our 30th anniversary last week on a cruise in Alaska, had a great time.

44:17

But right after she finished up, she has a year of school left. I didn't know about seminary at all, but the

44:24

Lord called me and the only seminary I knew that existed was Dallas Seminary. And so I got accepted and down we went in God's providence.

44:34

I ended up at one of these churches, Countryside Bible Church, which several of your listeners might be familiar with.

44:41

Countryside Bible Church in South Lake, Texas. We ended up there and one of these original board members was the youth pastor at that place.

44:48

And through an interesting number of circumstances, I was appointed by the elders to start the college ministry.

44:55

And they put me under his leadership, which, again, at the time I was less than happy about because I had a very low view of youth ministry myself.

45:03

But over those next two to three years, Rocky really, really invested in me, took me through this internship.

45:12

And as I was attending seminary and I was going through this internship, I was again serving in college ministry, youth ministry and being trained in all aspects of it.

45:22

Learning, growing, maturing, all this type of stuff. And it was just absolutely essential,

45:27

I would say, in my preparation for ministry. So, yeah, I completed it in the late 90s and then

45:34

I came on to the board of directors in the early 2000s, 2004 to be specific. Over the years, we have now expanded the internship to include all pastoral callings within the local church.

45:46

Lead, senior pastor, associate pastor, children, youth, counseling, missions, you name it.

45:53

If it's a pastoral ministry that can be fostered or pursued in the local church,

45:59

XL will come alongside and try to equip that person to do these things.

46:05

There's enough flexibility in the content of the internship so as to personalize it and make it appropriate for the given ministry that the overseeing pastor and intern are pursuing.

46:14

You can adjust the length as needed content to accommodate men who are in seminary. In fact, in the recent years, we've adjusted or we've developed an internship that will just come right alongside a three -year seminary track and also allow that student to be heavily involved learning in seminary as long and as well as being heavily involved in internship at the local church.

46:38

I've had the joy of taking two gentlemen through the internship over the years. I've been here at South Boulder.

46:44

One of them has left our church, unfortunately, and he is off getting his PhD and will probably end up teaching

46:51

Greek at the seminary level. The other one, praise God, not that I'm sad about the first one at all, but the other one stuck around and we ordained him and he's now an elder here at the church, which is a huge blessing.

47:05

I left the church last year for a month to go chase around World War II stuff in Europe and just left him in charge and he just rocked it.

47:15

It was great. It's just a huge blessing to see the Lord raise him up within our church and me have the joy of investing in him and equipping him and then being able to just say, take it and run and have him knock it out of the park.

47:29

So that was just a huge blessing. And so, you know, there's just the benefits are beyond measure.

47:36

I would say our board now includes the three original pastors, plus four others of us.

47:42

OK, looking at the board, I would guess we have around 150 to 200 years of combined pastoral experience.

47:48

Our board is made up of men serving in California, Colorado, Texas, Tennessee. But along with that, there are several many other local churches and pastors around the country that are offering the internships at their churches.

48:02

We're slowly expanding into other countries as well. A lot of our materials are now available in Spanish and we'll look to continue to do that.

48:11

That's a that's a summary and a history of what's going on. I would encourage everybody to go to the website. It's absolutely chock full of information, resources, everything, everything.

48:21

All these materials are available for free, so we don't charge for any of this. Again, the goal is simply to come alongside the local church and equip those pastors to identify and train men for full time ministry at the local church.

48:38

And to the degree that we're able to do that, that's our goal. And that's what we're trying to do.

48:44

And by God's grace, we've been able to really see a lot of neat, neat stuff happen through the years.

48:50

It's been wonderful. Praise God. Yeah. And by the way, that echo is coming back.

48:56

I don't know why, but we have the aforementioned

49:04

Nick, the now world famous Nick, who is now under your pastoral care in Boulder, Colorado.

49:13

He has a two part question. Is there any data that shows the main reason for the attrition rate being so high?

49:21

And he's obviously referencing your comments about the high attrition rate for pastors and youth pastors.

49:30

And he has a second part to that. What is that reason and what could be done to change this?

49:37

Yeah, well, again, I don't have the exact reasons, but, you know, it could be any number of things. So I don't have data in front of me.

49:45

But the experience, again, is, again, you just find people that aren't prepared to deal with the joys and travails of church ministry.

49:53

It can be tough. It really can be. You know that. We all know that. And people get hurt.

49:59

And dealing with sheep is difficult. And primarily, you're a sheep as well. And so you're bringing your load of difficulties in.

50:08

And it's a bunch of people trying to figure life out together. And if you're not prepared for that, you know, if you're not prepared to walk through that, well, it's an incredibly difficult calling.

50:17

But, again, I would say that the remedy for this, what would help to eliminate maybe some of the attrition is for local churches to identify within their body people that are men that are equipped and called to do this.

50:36

So, you know, I think one of the things that's probably happened, and frankly, this happened to me, as much as we loved our church in the town where we went to college, when the

50:45

Lord started calling me to ministry, they just said, oh, go to seminary. You know, they didn't. Again, and everybody felt that maybe

50:51

I had some gifting and calling, and that had kind of shown up through the years a little bit. But that's what they did.

50:57

And instead of taking time, again, this isn't a massive criticism against the church, instead of taking time to identify someone who basically is, first of all, qualified, according to 1

51:10

Timothy 3 and Titus 1, to identify if they're basically qualified.

51:16

And then do they have the necessary teaching ability or at least the seed or the little sprout of teaching ability that can be developed and grown?

51:25

And then taking the time first to identify that person, maybe taking a couple of years, investing in them through a ministry, through this internship like XL, and then saying, okay, now we're ready.

51:40

And you can either stay here at our church, which would be great, and serve here, or you can go off and serve in another place that the

51:49

Lord would call you to. And that's great, too. But then there's some confidence. There's some foundation that's built up.

51:58

So when this person is called by God, when this man is called to go out into another place, he's at least got a basic understanding of the joys and the trials, or the joys and difficulties in ministry, and maybe won't get chewed up and spit out.

52:12

And he's also been tested and measured to see if he has ministry skill, if he's able to teach, if he's able to counsel, that he knows scripture well enough that he can open it up and apply it to people's lives from the pulpit and from discipleship and one -on -one stuff.

52:28

And again, I think probably one of the reasons that there's such a problem is that that is not determined before someone is maybe thrown into the ministry fire, which can be, again, glorious and also difficult.

52:43

And so I think we see that that might be a lot of the reason that we see the attrition. In fact, we have a follow -up question from another listener who remains anonymous because of personal reasons that involve this question.

52:59

And we will take that question when we return from the midway break. The midway break is typically a little longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

53:07

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida.

53:19

They do so with their own public service announcements and other local things. Also, simultaneously, while they're doing that, we, on the other hand, air our globally heard commercials.

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Write down as much of the contact information that our advertisers provide as you possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

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Our advertisers are absolutely essential to our existence. We cannot survive without the finances that come through their advertising campaigns.

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And also, send in your questions to Eric Ellis, to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We will be right back with Eric Ellis after these messages from our sponsors. Yeah, back together again.

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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01:09:27

Before I return to my discussion with Pastor Eric Ellis of South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado, and board member of XL Ministries on our theme

01:09:37

Pastoral Training at the Local Church Level, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

01:09:42

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01:10:10

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01:10:37

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01:11:44

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01:11:51

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01:12:05

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01:12:19

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01:12:30

So that's September 15th, 16th, and 17th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the conference with Dr.

01:12:41

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be conducted. And keep in mind,

01:12:46

I'd like you to pray also for me as I am continuing to try to arrange a theological debate featuring

01:12:54

Dr. White to have that as a part of the three -day conference.

01:12:59

We have been unsuccessful getting people to take the invitation because they take a look at Dr.

01:13:07

White's videos of his debating skills, and it so far has scared them all off.

01:13:13

So we have to keep praying about that, and hopefully I'll have good news for you soon. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a

01:13:21

Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado, well, no matter where in the world you live,

01:13:32

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience from all parts of the world find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

01:13:44

And that may be you, too, if you are without a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful church home. Just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:13:51

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Eric Ellis of South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado.

01:14:01

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And as I said before the break, we have an anonymous listener, and the question will reveal why he's remaining anonymous.

01:14:15

He says, While it is very true that the person who is a candidate for pastoral ministry who is being trained might be the one at fault and may be the one that is not skilled or equipped to serve in a level of leadership in a church, at the same time, very often the churches and denominations and boards of all kinds are the ones at fault because of their lack of patience and their unreasonable demand.

01:14:47

Sometimes, if you have not achieved numerical success as far as the number of people you have quote -unquote led to Christ, you are looked upon as inadequate and as deficient and sometimes are dismissed from your post because of that.

01:15:07

Yet there have been missionaries throughout history who are great men of God and theologically sound and bold in their

01:15:14

Christian witness who saw very little fruit from their missionary laborers and then when they went home to be with the

01:15:22

Lord, the seeds they planted became an enormous harvest and crop that sprung forth and where revivals have taken place.

01:15:33

Isn't it true that very often churches and denominations and boards sometimes have these unreasonable expectations of men being trained for the ministry?

01:15:45

One hundred percent, okay. Absolutely agree there.

01:15:52

There's unbiblical standards, unbiblical ideas about what success in ministry is.

01:16:01

Gosh, there's so much I could say on this. So tell me to stop if I keep going on too much.

01:16:08

No, we've got a long time, bro. Yeah, so number one, just to encourage the questioner there,

01:16:16

I've been involved in lead pastor ministry now since 2001 and neither of the churches that I'm serving in have been over 70 people.

01:16:24

One of the churches that I served in, I didn't see anyone come to saving faith in seven years.

01:16:30

The question then becomes is whose fault is that? Well, it's nobody's fault. God is sovereign over the growth of his church, right?

01:16:37

And so we entrust ourselves to that. And one of the huge benefits,

01:16:42

I guess, of holding to a reformed view of theology is absolute resting in the sovereignty of God over these things.

01:16:52

And what is our responsibility as pastors? It's to preach the word and it's to disciple the sheep.

01:16:58

And, I mean, I'm going to say this, and it's hard for me, so please don't think I'm being trite with this type of stuff.

01:17:05

You know, when you don't see fruit, tangible fruit, it is discouraging. It really is.

01:17:12

But that doesn't mean that you're unsuccessful in ministry. And if a board or a pastor or anything like that is saying, hey, you know, you have a quota.

01:17:23

You need to save 20 people a year and baptize them or you're done or however many of the numbers is, that's wrong.

01:17:29

I mean, that's flat out wrong. And so there's a couple of things that if I could recommend, go to countrysidebible .org.

01:17:40

It's in Texas, and Tom Pennington is the pastor there. He has an excellent message from 1

01:17:47

Corinthians 12, 4 through 7, about navigating trials in ministry. And I'll just say the four points without getting into too much stuff.

01:17:57

God has chosen the character of our gifts. God has decided the context of our ministry.

01:18:04

God has determined the results and efforts of our ministries. God has prescribed the purpose of our gifts.

01:18:11

And so if I could just encourage you to go to Countryside Bible and find that, the encouragement there is very strong.

01:18:19

It's very hard for me even to hear this stuff sometimes. I would be lying if I wasn't. It's tough to pastor in a small church that maybe you don't see a lot of fruit.

01:18:28

That's really hard. But the thing is, is that is fruit occurring? Are people being discipled?

01:18:33

Is evangelism going on? Is the word being preached? Are people growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ?

01:18:40

And sometimes those things are a little harder to measure than, you know, people in the chairs or the pews.

01:18:46

But those things, that is where true, I mean, discipleship, true growth is going on.

01:18:52

So be encouraged in that regard. And I just want to say that if there is these expectations that numbers is the sign of success, well, amen to our

01:19:03

Muslim and Mormon neighbors, right? Massively growing in some places of the world.

01:19:09

If that's the standard, then, boy, we're in trouble. But if the standard is faithfulness to the word of God, pursuit of holiness, training the people that God brings to you, rejoicing in what he has, then, friends, you can be successful, according to God, in the smallest ministries that are out there.

01:19:29

You can be encouraged, too. So with that said, I do want to advocate that if there are pastors out there that are pastors of small churches and you're like, wait a minute, this is crazy.

01:19:40

How can you do this? Well, again, I encourage you to go to the website, hit the Contact Us button, start reading through stuff.

01:19:48

Rocky Wyatt has written a book recently called Pastoral Training in the Church. It's available there for free.

01:19:55

Just begin to think through what this looks like and take some time. You don't have to do this tomorrow.

01:20:01

You don't have to do it next week. Take a couple years and think it through. What does it look like? Train your church, train your elders to start thinking about what true discipleship looks like in a local church for the equipping.

01:20:14

So, yes, I understand that, and it breaks my heart to hear the questioner and these types of things.

01:20:20

And all I can say is I'm sorry that ungodly or unbiblical standards have been put on you.

01:20:26

And be encouraged to find a pastor or a church that's holding to true biblical standards of what success in ministry looks like.

01:20:33

And that's preaching the word, discipling people, counseling, preaching the gospel. It really is. And the numbers are

01:20:40

God's business. And believe you me, that's hard for me to say. So please don't think I'm being trite, okay? By the way,

01:20:46

I have an update for you as a little correction that should make you happy.

01:20:53

The Mormon cult, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, is actually experiencing now for the first time,

01:21:00

I think, in their history plummeting membership. Praise the

01:21:06

Lord. And people in massive droves leaving the cult, not always for the best of reasons, not because they're necessarily becoming saved by the blood of Christ, but because they see the inconsistency in the abandonment of the teachings of their own religion and accommodating more and more to the leftist world around us.

01:21:29

But I have heard from reliable authorities like Dr. James R. White, who has ministered for decades to Mormons, that that is the case.

01:21:38

I've also been reading recently that in the Muslim world there's mass conversions going on.

01:21:44

That is just a huge encouragement. So yeah, but again, numbers is never the final determiner of success in ministry.

01:21:52

In fact, you've seen it, I've seen it. Massive churches have unqualified men that are not doing well and end up hurting the church more than helping it.

01:22:02

And so, yeah. By the way, anonymous listener, if you provide for me your full name and your full mailing address through an email, obviously we're not going to divulge your identity over the air, you will receive, if you're a first -time questioner, that is, you will receive a brand new

01:22:19

New American Standard Bible, compliments of nasbible .com,

01:22:24

nasbible .com, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, the latter of which will actually ship the

01:22:32

Bible out to you absolutely free. So if you're a first -time questioner, give us your shipping information.

01:22:40

I think that it's, I think, a good idea to mention, although many of our listeners may already know this, but a lack of fruit from either a church or an individual as a minister, it may be because they are not equipped for the calling which they think they have received.

01:23:05

They may not be minister material, pastor material, elder material, missionary material, and wouldn't you say they do need to examine that aspect just to rule it out at the very least?

01:23:19

Well, I would say, Chris, that the ideal place for that to happen is in the local church, right?

01:23:25

Right. And so if someone feels the call of ministry to whatever type of ministry, missionary or what, that board of elders should take some time and examine them over an extended period, okay?

01:23:38

And again, we're fallible human beings, so we're going to mess up. We understand that.

01:23:44

But wouldn't it be great to identify this person and say, look, appreciate your heart.

01:23:51

Your desire to serve is exactly what God wants. You need to develop that. But right now, at least at this time in your life and maybe for the rest of your life, it's not to be an elder.

01:24:00

It's not to be a missionary. Your gifts are going to be something different, more service -oriented. And you know

01:24:06

Paul's words in Romans 12, 13, and 14 that the lesser parts are just as important as the more noticeable parts and so foster that.

01:24:16

And maybe, just maybe, we stop someone from, number one, going out there and maybe investing tens of thousands of dollars in education and then also hurting a church and being hurt themselves.

01:24:30

And so again, we're flawed, broken people. But why doesn't maybe let's foster the idea that the elders of the local church have the responsibility, according to Paul's words to Timothy, to identify these people, make sure they're qualified, at least at a basic level, and then have some teaching skill so that when they're trained, when they go out, they are prepared and don't get turned over and spit out and run over.

01:24:57

We have Cindy in Findley, Ohio. I am wondering if it is common practice to train youth leaders in youth and teen departments expecting they will move on to higher positions.

01:25:13

My experience being in independent fundamentalist Baptist churches before recently becoming

01:25:18

Reformed, youth and teen leaders seem to come and go through a revolving door of sorts.

01:25:25

Having teenage boys without a proper father influence, this was devastating. They would become attached to these men and almost suffer abandonment when they would leave for positions elsewhere.

01:25:37

I'm wondering if this is common practice and if it is even thought about in the church. Well, unfortunately,

01:25:44

I do think it is common practice. Again, but that would not be ideal. It shouldn't be fostered.

01:25:50

Again, the local church, the elders of that church, in their searching for any type of associated ministry, again, looking for someone who, again,

01:26:01

God is sovereign over where we move. I'm not saying that you can't have profitable ministry in a place for a short period of time and we rest in God's sovereignty and where He moves us, but the general idea ought to be that if I'm going to take on a ministry, if someone is going to take on a ministry, then let's do it for an extended period.

01:26:21

I think it's Dr. MacArthur who says, you know, your church doesn't even really get to know you until you've been there for at least seven years.

01:26:29

I think there's some truth to that. So I think as we go about trying to find pastors to serve in whatever area, the consideration ought to be given that, look, we want you here for a long time.

01:26:43

We want you here to invest in the lives of these kids, maybe a couple generations of them. I've had a couple of guys that I know of youth pastors that have served as youth pastors well into their 40s and 50s from their mid -20s.

01:26:58

So it can be done. I would say ideally it should be done. One of the things that I think is really perhaps causing some of the problems, again, is that we put guys in the position of youth ministry as 18 - or 19 -year -olds, and they don't even know where they're going to live next week.

01:27:17

So you do this type of stuff, and you should expect lots of transition if that's going to be the case.

01:27:24

We as a board, we would not, we as XL Ministries, I should say, we would not advocate anyone younger than their early 20s at least, well out of high school, maybe even out of college age at least, and have some, you know, they're kind of settled down so that they can be there.

01:27:43

So I think ideally that's what we should be looking for. Unfortunately, I think the questioner, Cindy, is right, that it's typical just to see youth pastors come and go with a revolving door, and that is hurtful.

01:27:54

We have another anonymous listener who says, speaking about youth departments in churches,

01:28:03

I have seen the devastation that the very existence of these things in a church can create because very often they become not only subcultures within the church, they can become countercultural elements of the church where the leaders are not even on the same page with the pastors and what is being taught.

01:28:24

And very often the Word of God is watered down and diluted and even to a nonsensical level.

01:28:31

Is this something that you see as a greater problem than most of us who have had youth departments in our churches care to recognize?

01:28:41

Well, again, that's a very legitimate issue, and I think it's widespread, unfortunately, but it shouldn't be that way, and it doesn't have to be that way.

01:28:49

And again, I think the tendency is just to throw people in there. That could be the case that you're just putting people in there without giving it thought.

01:28:57

And again, I've seen guys come into churches. They're dynamic. The kids love them.

01:29:04

They're able to communicate well, and they're not qualified, and they're not skilled to teach, but the kids love them and end up being divisive.

01:29:14

Any type of youth ministry or any ministry, for that matter, within the local church that isn't coming alongside, supporting the direction and philosophy of the elders of that church, supporting the parents as they raise their children.

01:29:26

And one of the horrible things I've heard is that, you know, we don't want parents involved because kids won't open up.

01:29:32

I'm like, what hogwash. Parents should be involved. Parents ought to be involved and should be giving oversight, and not oversight in the sense of, you know, looking over a youth pastor to find out all the wrong things, but to come in and support because any ministry within the church, especially towards kids, the only thing it can do, and I mean this, is to come alongside and assist the parents, specifically the father, as he raises his children in the fear and admonition of the

01:29:59

Lord. And again, fathers are doing that. It's not a question of are you doing it or are you not doing it.

01:30:07

It's just how are you doing it and where are you pointing your kids. Are you pointing them towards Christ? Are you pointing them towards holiness?

01:30:13

Or are you pointing them to, you know, hobbies, activities, you know, things like that, you know, material wealth, all these types of things that are of lesser value, and your kids are going to follow you in that area.

01:30:26

And so I would argue clearly that starting at the top with the elder board, there needs to be a very, very strong, consistent vision for the entire church and the person or people that they put in charge of whatever ministries need to be on board with that vision, need to be on board and submissive to the elders according to the

01:30:46

Scriptures, right, and then accountable to them. And the elders have the responsibility to make sure that that ministry is functioning according to what they've set.

01:30:58

And when that's not happening, again, that's neglect on the part of the church. And again, as the questioner says, it ends up hurting bad.

01:31:08

And we have a listener who obviously knows you personally. And I might as well give his full name since I will give a plug to the organization that he represents.

01:31:20

His name is Randy Brandt. Yeah, Randy. And he is with Band of Tours, affordable military and history tours of Europe and the

01:31:30

United States of America. And the website, by the way, is bandoftours .com,

01:31:37

bandoftours .com. I just need to say real quick, when I was gallivanting around Europe last

01:31:44

September, I was with Randy and he was pushing me in various directions. So, amen. Great.

01:31:49

Well, he asks, what is the most unusual ministry opportunity you've ever had near General Patton's grave?

01:32:00

And after you're finished, I'll give you the 50 stories I have about General Patton's grave. I'm only kidding.

01:32:06

I'm only kidding. I'll make it quick. It was really cool. We pulled up to this graveyard, this soldier's graveyard in Luxembourg, where Patton's buried.

01:32:14

And this guy, he's a South African. He just walks up and starts talking to us. I mean, it was weird. It kind of freaked me out at first.

01:32:21

And long and short of it, we shared the gospel with him, had a great time, prayed with him, all that stuff. So, that was really cool.

01:32:28

Great. Well, by the way, I mean, this is entirely off topic, but do you believe that General Patton's automobile -related death was just an accident, or do you believe that there was an assassination involved in that?

01:32:45

You know what? Should I say something sassy about that or not? You could say whatever you want about it.

01:32:52

I think the world's flat. Maybe that'll help you. I don't know.

01:32:58

I honestly don't know, and I'm not going to speculate. So, there you go. Okay. By the way,

01:33:06

Randy, you are a first -time questioner. So, if you want to give me your full mailing address, you have won a brand -new

01:33:15

New American Standard Bible, compliments of nasbible .com, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:33:27

So, give us that information so that Bible can be shipped out to you as soon as possible.

01:33:34

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, don't you think that churches very often, when they are in need of a pulpit to be filled permanently, they too often go outside of their own congregation rather than trying to raise up men to begin with to be ready for such an occasion within their own congregation to be qualified for this post?

01:34:03

Yeah. Again, I fully agree with that statement. And, again, we've developed a pattern, I think, of, you know, in our pastoral search we automatically start looking outside.

01:34:13

Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. My experience is that in good situations where a pastor comes from outside, there's usually networking involved there, like someone knows somebody who can affirm this man's giftedness and calling, candidating, stuff like that.

01:34:31

That is a legitimate way of finding a pastor. But if you are able to raise up within your congregation people to do that stuff, what a blessing.

01:34:42

I mean, you sit there, you think about it. You know, I hope I'm not retiring for at least another couple decades.

01:34:47

We'll see. But the issue being, wouldn't it be great if there's a man here that has been a part of the church for years, okay, and then we're just able to transition and maybe it's just a real smooth transition and, you know, the senior pastor who's retiring can just kind of fade away into the darkness, or not darkness, but background and be good.

01:35:10

That's a great way to do it. And if you're able to do that, amen, praise and glory. But in our current situation,

01:35:17

I think finding good pastors through excellent organizations and stuff like that.

01:35:24

So like here at Excel, if you're looking for a pastor and you contact us and you say, hey,

01:35:30

I'm looking for a pastor for this particular role in this particular place, if we know someone who's gone through Excel and we're confident of their calling, we're confident of their giftedness, then we'll send them out and say, hey, check it out.

01:35:46

See what you think. And so that's a legitimate way of getting new pastors in position, but I really do advocate, if possible, to see that person raised up within the local congregation.

01:35:58

Well, please remind me after the show is over, because I know at least two churches that are searching for a pastor.

01:36:08

So let's talk after the show and see what we can do to help these churches.

01:36:14

Sure. We're going to our final commercial break right now. If you have any intention to ask a question of Eric Ellis, I would strongly suggest you send in your question very quickly, because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:36:28

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:36:34

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

01:36:54

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

01:37:02

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, the 23rd. On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

01:37:16

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

01:37:28

And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Go to g3min .org. That's g3min .org. And enter promo code

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Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, the 23rd at the

01:37:55

G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

01:38:00

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

01:38:06

Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the 8 -volume commentary on the

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Joseph Morecraft. It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

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Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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For details on the 8 -volume commentary, go to WestminsterCommentary .com WestminsterCommentary .com

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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit

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Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Hello, my name is

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Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corum, New York, and also the host of the

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Ivino, and thanks for listening. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.

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Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications.

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Please visit us at truthloveparent .com. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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01:51:12

We're now back with Eric Ellis, our guest today, who has been discussing pastoral training at the local church level.

01:51:19

And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, Although I believe knowledge of the

01:51:26

Bible, being equipped to teach, and the knowledge and wisdom of a man who is a candidate for officer in the church is of the utmost importance,

01:51:38

I believe that his character and his heart for a flock of Christ exceeds that of his head knowledge.

01:51:49

And I was wondering how you would respond to that. Yeah, 100 percent.

01:51:55

So if we think about our priorities as Christians, and this isn't even really as, you know, I can say as a pastor, but what is our priority as believers?

01:52:04

Number one is to be Christlike. It's to love our Savior, right? It's to be pursuing

01:52:09

Christlikeness and then taking the love that he has bestowed upon us and carrying it out to others.

01:52:16

And so that's our that's our first priority. The church, this man is directly and very correct.

01:52:22

The church does not need us to be dynamic, awesome, skilled, knowledgeable pastors.

01:52:29

Now, that's nice. It's good. But what the church needs is holiness. What the church needs is a man who is himself committed to following Jesus with heart, soul, mind and strength and then loving his wife.

01:52:41

Next, loving his kids after that and then serving with joy in the church.

01:52:47

And if those priorities are mixed up and there's an unloving character there, if there's again, we look at the characters, the character qualifications in First Timothy three and Titus one.

01:52:58

If those aren't in place and growing, not that we have to be perfect in all of them, not that we ever will be perfect in any of them.

01:53:06

But if those character qualities are not in place, then there needs to be some restraint in putting someone, even if they're an incredibly dynamic, knowledgeable, thoughtful person that can bring the word to bear.

01:53:21

One hundred percent character is first and foremost before ministry. Yeah, you may have a man who wants to become a pastor just because he's in love with his own voice.

01:53:33

He fancies himself as a gifted orator, and perhaps he is. He has a celebrity mindset of becoming a renowned teacher and preacher.

01:53:47

But the man has absolutely no heart for shepherding the flock, for visiting the sick or those who are experiencing the worst moments of their life, perhaps never does pastoral visitation at all.

01:54:05

And one of the saddest things I've heard, one of the saddest things I've heard, Chris, is, you know, some big churches, they want a star, right?

01:54:11

Right. And so hire this guy and he tells them, I will preach on Sunday mornings and that's it.

01:54:17

I'm not doing funerals. I'm not doing weddings. I'm not doing counseling. And specifically, he's preaching so he can write his books and sell them.

01:54:24

And I mean, we've heard of that. And that's that's that is not pastoring. That is that is self aggrandizement.

01:54:29

It really is. And he shouldn't be tolerated within the church. We have another anonymous listener who says, don't the wives of men that we are observing as candidates for leadership in our churches also have to pass a litmus test if they really are excited and enthusiastic and gifted to be able to be a pastor's wife?

01:54:57

There are some women who may be far too jealous of their husband's time. And although a pastor should never neglect his wife and children because of the needs of the church, sometimes their activities will need to at least on occasion be sacrificed.

01:55:15

And they will have to have set appointments broken and so forth when a urgent need of the flock is at hand.

01:55:23

Don't you agree that a woman who is not equipped to be a pastor's wife could be the death knell of a man's ministry?

01:55:33

One hundred percent. I'm cautious in talking about giftedness and calling in that regard.

01:55:40

I don't know. I wouldn't say that there's a specific gift of being a pastor's wife. Every woman is called of God to support her husband in what

01:55:50

God calls him to do. And if a wife is either not willing or desirous to grow in that area, then, yeah, that's a problem and it needs to be dealt with.

01:56:00

Hopefully, if that problem shows up, that takes some time off and deal with it and get it right.

01:56:07

My dear wife would be the first to say that being a pastor's wife is not the easiest thing, but she loves me.

01:56:15

She loves the church and she's committed to serving and she'll do it even when it's difficult and hard. What is one of the qualifications?

01:56:22

I don't have it in front of me, but it says the man must manage his own household well. In other words, he needs to have a healthy home life.

01:56:28

And that, number one, after our walk with the Lord, if we're married, that marriage is the most important relationship, earthly relationship we have.

01:56:39

And if it's not healthy, not to say there's not difficulties at times because there always is, but if it's not healthy, then, yeah, that's an issue.

01:56:47

And it needs to be addressed, either taken care of, or if it can't be taken care of, then, yeah, that man needs to step aside.

01:56:54

Now, well, although there may be no biblical blueprint for a so -called calling of a pastor's wife, don't you believe that she needs to be prepared to share her husband with people in need in a way that is far more frequent, perhaps, than your average wife?

01:57:15

Just like a doctor's wife may have that responsibility upon her shoulders to give up her husband far more frequently than she cares to, or other types of callings in areas of employment where a husband may need to run out of the house at any given notice?

01:57:36

One hundred percent, yeah. And, I mean, that's, I think, if you're not coming into it with that type of mentality, you will soon learn that that has to be a part of it.

01:57:48

So, one hundred percent. Well, could you please summarize in about a minute what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding pastoral training at the local church level?

01:57:57

Sure. Well, number one, just that Second Timothy 2 .2, this is a mandate. We need to be doing it. I want to say to pastors out there that are interested in this, it might be a major paradigm shift in your thinking.

01:58:08

Amen. You know, start thinking that way. But don't think you have to do it tomorrow. Please go to the website.

01:58:14

Take a look at our contacts. Contact us. We will walk with you however long it takes for you to get this up and going.

01:58:21

We have two of our board members right now that have recently retired from literally decades of pastoral ministry.

01:58:27

They're available to actually go to churches and help spend several days there and help churches get their mind around this, talk with the elder board, work through the materials, all that type of stuff.

01:58:42

We'll go anywhere. In fact, one of our board members was in Romania last year. So, again, please look at the website.

01:58:49

Contact us. This is a mandate. It's a glorious mandate. Please pursue it. And don't forget, folks, the website for South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado is cbbc .church.

01:59:03

I'm sorry, sbbc .church, sbbc .church. And the

01:59:09

XL Ministries website is the letter X, the letter L, ministries .org,

01:59:15

the letter X, the letter L, ministries .org. I want to thank you so much,

01:59:20

Pastor Eric, for being a superb guest. I want to thank everybody who listened and especially those who took the time to write questions.

01:59:27

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.