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

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

19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports

legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

another.

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.

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.

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

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

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this

22nd day of June, 2023.

I am absolutely thrilled to have a first -time guest today who is

someone that I'm also thrilled 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 I was on a church search for one of the sons of

my friend Susan, who led me to Christ in the 1980s, one of her six children,

Nick, was providentially traveling down to the Boulder,

Colorado area for work, and I immediately knew that I

had to find a good, solid church where Nick could fellowship while there,

and in God's good providence, Nick met

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, 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 Nick and the South Boulder Bible Church in Colorado, and

Nick has given nothing but praise reports about how much he loves Pastor

Eric and the church family at South Boulder Bible Church, so I'm

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

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,

so I am nothing but thrilled today to introduce to you 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, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Eric Ellis.

Hi, Chris, thanks.

It's great to be here.

I will greatly affirm your words about Nick.

It's been wonderful to have him around.

Just neat to see the Lord working in his life, 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.

Yeah, James, I don't know if he's listening or not, but he's a great friend as well.

I 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.

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

bit, and then, of course, he'll come and speak at the church, and he's a good friend.

Yeah, I'm honored to be here, Chris.

Thank you.

And let me add that those who love James White's program, his

webcast, The Dividing Line, and who also love Reformed theology

have just about had enough of his discussions of cycling.

We're sick of it, but I know that he doesn't care.

All right.

I'll drop it, but if you want some trash on him, I got some stuff.

Yeah, I can tell some good stories.

Anyway.

In fact, nothing in the world will make James White talk more about cycling

and other loves of his life and hobbies and pastimes.

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

They don't slow him down.

They make him more passionate and vociferous.

I'm well aware, well aware.

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

Sure, yeah.

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 Flatirons.

Again, if you're familiar with Colorado, Boulder just butts up

right to the start of the Rocky Mountains.

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.

The campus is about 10 minutes away from us.

People are pretty excited about that.

Boulder itself, of course, is a very liberal, progressive town.

My wife and I, my family, we absolutely love being here.

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.

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

Lord.

Her memorial will be here this next week, and that's kind of interesting that 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.

But this is a sweet one.

We get to celebrate her life here this next week, but 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.

The church was renamed Flatirons Baptist in reference to the mountains right outside the church here,

and then we renamed it 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, and so that's just a great blessing.

We love God's Word.

We as a leadership, myself, we are committed to expository preaching.

I've, you know, taught through Romans several years ago over a five -year period.

I'm into first and second Thessalonians now.

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,.

And 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

sbbc, which stands for South Boulder Bible Church, sbbc

.church, sbbc .church, and God willing, I will remember to repeat

that information toward the end of the program.

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 Lord raised up

in their lives that drew Him to Himself and saved them, and so tell.

Us about your story.

Yeah, so appreciate the opportunity.

Neither my wife nor I were raised in Christian homes.

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

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

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, I guess.

So in my home, very little religious talk.

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.

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.

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

lawyer.

My wife's father was an astrophysicist.

My dad was a professor at CSU.

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.

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.

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

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.

And so as a young man, I began to define those things as

success in athletics and success in the social life.

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

But then I ended up playing in college for a couple years as well.

But what happened is, you know, here's these things that I'm setting my joy

on, and I'm finding them to be incredibly unsatisfying, I guess.

And for me, it was, you know, one week, I make the interception to win the game,

right?

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.

There's no in between.

And it just became an incredibly emotionally tiring existence for me.

And the same thing in kind of the social party scene at the high school level too, just finding, you know, ups and downs

there that were just, for me personally, really emotionally difficult for me to work through.

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

kindergarten.

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.

He was a good student.

That was important to me as well.

But he kept his nose clean.

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.

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, figure out, you know, what's going on there.

And so I did that.

Again, we've been friends from early elementary, but then I just jumped on big time on him.

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

I don't remember.

And he's asking me about some things about life and what I was finding enjoyable.

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

And he said to me, Eric, you should come to church.

And I said, I mean, literally, I said this with this tone.

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

I mean, literally, I mean, that's what I said.

And there was no reason in the world.

Why you would do that.

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.

I had a near -death experience when I was 15.

That was very religious in nature, as you might say.

But you've got to tell us about that.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So, all right.

This is a two -hour show.

I know.

All right.

So, yeah.

So, my dad, he was a professor at CSU, Colorado State, and he did a lot of research in

Africa.

And so, in my teen years, in 1982 and 1984, I had the opportunity to go over there with him

and spend a month in 1982 and six weeks in 1984.

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

No idea what happened.

We were out in the bush about 12 miles or 12 hours from any type of civilization or hospital,

and I just got really sick.

Yeah, couldn't eat, couldn't drink, nothing, throwing up everything, screaming headache.

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.

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

And my doctor, he was an Egyptian named Mohammed, a dear Muslim,

took very good care of me.

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

I'm lying in bed in utter agony and no idea what's wrong with me,

nothing.

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

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, that night I'm laying there in utter, utter pain,

utter pain, delirious.

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, 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.

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

time.

But I remember, again, this is not authoritative or just an experience that a

drugged out 15 -year -old had, you know, who was really sick.

And I just remember when I prayed that, I really felt God say to me, oh, you want my help,

which was a kind of an interesting thing because, of course, I was a blasphemer and

mocked religion and all that stuff beforehand.

He says, oh, you want my help?

And I said, yes.

And then he said, you owe me.

And again, you know, I was drugged out off my head.

So, you know, delirious.

I have no idea.

Anyway, so the next morning, I woke up and was on the road to recovery.

I was in the hospital for three more days, I think, was on serious

medication for the better part of six weeks.

You know, I was a 15 -year -old kid, very athletic, very muscular.

I lost 25 pounds, which I didn't have to lose at all.

But yeah, I got home.

My dad through the years was convinced it was Ebola.

And I don't know.

It was never tested for that.

But the day before I got sick, I was in a

location that in the 1990s, many scientists thought one strain of Ebola was

sourced in as a national park in northern Kenya.

And there were some elephant caves in there.

And anyway, I was in those caves.

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

But again, that was never confirmed at all.

I had all the initial symptoms up to the point of no return.

But then God and his kindness saved my life.

So anyway, that was a, again, very religious and traumatic experience.

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 ER right away because I looked like death

warmed over.

But I said, Mom, I'm actually doing well.

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

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.

But back to in the car with my friend, and he says, you should come to church.

And I said, why would I ever do that?

And in the words he used, I'll never forget it.

I remember where we were in town, the road we were on.

And he was driving.

I was sitting in the backseat.

And he said, it's a place of rest.

And that's all he said.

He didn't share the gospel.

He didn't talk about Jesus, nothing.

He just said, it's a place of rest.

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

And anyway, I showed up at church that next Sunday.

Honestly, I opened a Bible and I saw the word 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.

And so anyway, I made my initial profession of faith about a month later.

But again, I have no, I won't say I wasn't saved, but I'm not gonna say I was saved.

I had no clue.

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

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

And are you gonna follow him for the rest of your life?

And I'm like, what in the world am I doing here?

And of course, I'm in front of, you know, thousand people.

And so I say, yes.

But honestly, the only thing that changed was conviction of sin.

I began to be convicted of sin.

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

Things were not real happy for me, but I had no conviction of sin at all.

So sometime over the next two and a half years of being disciple, attending church,

doing those types of things, I'm pretty sure somewhere in there, everything took.

God opened my eyes to the gospel, brought me to himself, made me his own.

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

Loving the Lord, growing.

Immature as I'll get out, but, you know, lacking in Bible knowledge.

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

again, felt this sort of impression from him.

Okay, Eric, you know, you know the gospel, you know who I am, you know, I've saved you and now you need

to commit yourself to me forever.

And, you know, not that I, again, I was saved by this time.

So it's not the moment of salvation, but yeah.

So, okay, Lord, I'm yours.

Do with me whatever you want.

And there you go.

So it's been.

A wild ride those past 35 years, but there's the version.

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.

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

It just shows the depraved heart of man.

Yeah.

That 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.

100%.

There's no doubt.

You know, and it was that type of thing.

It was, you know, deathbed religious experience.

You know, 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, you know, get all conference and sign a college

scholarship and all this stuff.

And I just put him on the back burner.

There you go.

It reminds me of a friend of mine,

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 Twin Towers.

And David Carnes, who I have interviewed on this program, who I know personally,

he was the individual, as depicted in Twin Towers, who rescued

port authority police officers who were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the

collapsed towers.

And he rescued them.

And David was at that time and still is a very zealous,

passionate, born -again believer.

And he visited the officers who

were trapped beneath the rubble, who he rescued.

He visited them in the hospital while they were recovering.

And each of them said, David, we owe you our lives.

If it weren't for you, we'd be dead.

Everybody had given up the search in the area where we were.

Is there anything that we could do for you?

And David said to them one simple thing, all I ask is that you visit

my church with me one Sunday.

That's all I ask.

And absolutely, of course, we'll do that.

And not only did those men not do that when they got healthy and well and strong and released

from the hospital, not only did they not visit David's church with him,

they said to him, David, leave us alone.

We're Roman Catholics.

We don't need your church.

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.

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

my mosque once, I would do it.

I wouldn't participate.

I wouldn't participate in a blasphemous, idolatrous, heretical ritual of some

kind.

But in honor of your friend who saved your life, you would.

Yes.

And I would even tell him that.

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.

But it just blows my mind that they did that.

And of course, there are countless stories throughout the lives of

not only people 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.

Yeah, 100 percent.

Well, we were going to go ahead.

I'm sorry.

That was me.

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.

That is our primary theme.

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

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

USA.

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

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.

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.

Don't go away.

We're going to be right back with our guest, Eric Ellis, right after these messages from our

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I ask of you to please go to that website soon if you have any intention to buy jewelry or have it custom designed

for yourself or someone you love.

I ask of you to do that soon because we have no idea when they're going to end that offer where they are giving us 100

of the profits from any sale to an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener.

So please go to royaldiadem .com soon and always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio.

We're now back with my guest Eric Ellis, pastor of South Boulder Bible Church in Boulder,

Colorado, and board member of XL Ministries.

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.

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

listeners about that organization?

Sure, yeah.

So yeah, XL,.

Be sure to remember it's X and L, not 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.

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

And so the question becomes, okay, here's a mandate that we as pastors have, okay, that

we're to be about doing this.

And so the question then becomes, are we doing that?

And if we are, what does that look like?

Or if we're not, how could we do that?

And so over the years, this ministry has developed.

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 God by equipping the saints,

right?

In this case, youth, they were not being equipped for the work of ministry.

Kids were not being evangelized, not discipled, not pushed to Christlikeness, not pushed to

holiness and service.

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.

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

the seniors.

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?

The churches themselves, and I think, again, you would find many people who agree with this, the churches

themselves had 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.

And so the youth pastors themselves would come in, and sadly, what would happen is that

some 18, 19, 20 -year -old guy with a Bible and seems pretty energetic and excited, and the

leadership would say, hey, go lead our youth.

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

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 be really disillusioned about ministry.

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

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

Many people get hurt.

I think, Chris, you probably know this, or if you don't, 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.

You know, there's a very high attrition rate in pastoral ministry.

The average pastorate right now lasts about four years.

The average youth pastorate lasts about 18 months.

Wow.

So if you think about those numbers, yeah, you think about those numbers, and that means the average, how many are well

under four years, how many are well under 18 months.

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

It really is.

It hurts the church.

It sets things back.

It can really make ministry and church life disillusioning to a lot of people.

It really can.

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

What can we do here?

And so they started XL Ministries, and the goal of XL Ministries is providing

excellence and leadership through quality 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.

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.

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

improve.

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.

I even had the opportunity to speak in the main service one time.

I led all kinds of trips, 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, 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.

My wife and I, we got married in June of 1993.

We just celebrated our 30th anniversary last week on a cruise in Alaska.

We had a great time.

Right after she finished up, she had a year of school left.

I didn't know about seminary at all, but the Lord called me, and the only seminary I knew that existed was Dallas

Seminary.

I got accepted, and down we went.

In God's providence, I ended up at one of these churches, Countryside Bible Church, which several of your listeners might

be familiar with.

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, and through an

interesting number of circumstances, I was appointed by the elders to start the college

ministry, 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, but over those next two to three years, Rocky

really, really invested in me, took me through this internship, 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, learning, growing, maturing, all this type of

stuff, and it was just absolutely essential, I would say, in my preparation for ministry.

So yeah, I completed it in the late 90s, and then 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—lead, senior pastor, associate pastor, children, youth, counseling,

missions, you name it.

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

alongside and try to equip that person to do these things.

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.

You can adjust the length as needed content to accommodate men who are in seminary.

In fact, we've, 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.

I've had the joy of taking two gentlemen through the internship over the years.

I've been here at South Boulder.

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

teaching 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.

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.

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, hey, dude, it's yours.

Take it and run and have him knock it out of the park.

So that was just a huge blessing.

The benefits are beyond measure, I would say.

Our board now includes the three original pastors plus four others of us.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

By God's grace, we've been able to really see a lot of neat, neat stuff happen.

Through the years.

It's been wonderful.

Praise God.

By the way, that echo is coming back.

I don't know why.

We have the aforementioned Nick, the now world

-famous Nick, who is now under your pastoral care in Boulder,

Colorado.

He has a two -part question.

Is there any data that shows the main reason for the attrition rate being so high?

He's obviously referencing your comments about the high

attrition rate for pastors and youth pastors.

He has a second part to that.

What is that reason and what could be done to change this?

I don't have the exact.

Reasons, but it could be any number of things.

I don't have data in front of me, but the experience, again, is you

just find people that aren't prepared to deal with the joys and travails of church ministry.

It can be tough.

It really can be.

You know that.

We all know that.

People get hurt.

Dealing with sheep is difficult.

Primarily, you're a sheep as well.

You're bringing your load of difficulties in and it's a bunch of people trying to figure life out together.

If you're not prepared for that, if you're not prepared to walk through that, well, it's an incredibly difficult

calling.

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.

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 Lord started calling me to ministry, they just said, oh, go to seminary.

They didn't, again, and everybody felt that maybe 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.

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

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, 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 Excel, and then saying, okay, now we're ready, 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 Lord would call you to, and that's great too, but then there's

some confidence.

There's some foundation that's built up.

So when this person is called by God, 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, 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, able 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.

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, 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, 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 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.

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.

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.

Our advertisers are absolutely essential to our existence.

We cannot survive without the finances that come through their advertising campaigns.

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

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We will be right back with Eric Ellis after these messages from our sponsors.

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 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.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3

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And there's more great news.

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Chris Arnzen, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the G3

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Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while

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Go to g3min .org and enter.

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It's

such a blessing to hear.

From Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show

he really loves hearing interviewed,.

Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Italy, in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, 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. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming,

Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr. Joe

Moorcraft is the author of an eight volume commentary on the larger catechism.

Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant

Reformation of the 16th century.

Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone,

grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.

Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

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

.com, that's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, or call 678 -954

-7831, that's 678 -954 -7831.

If you visit, have them Joe Roydigan, Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, and Mattoy, in County Kildare,.

Ireland,

send you.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens

Iron radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives

to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes,

or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will

join us some Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org, that's gracechurchatfranklin

.org.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ,.

Today and always.

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity.

He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key

doctrines of the Christian faith.

I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet

where folk won't be led astray.

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer

and in finances.

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting Iron

Sharpens Iron financially.

Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would.

All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com where you can click support.

That's ironsharpensironradio .com.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher

McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in

Coram who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the

unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ

Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing

of being showered by their love as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net or

call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711.

Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about.

Them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

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If you love Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio,.

One of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society.

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Getting a driver's license, running a cash register,.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.

Give yourself unto reading.

The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he.

Has no brains of his own.

You need to read.

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They publish and bring back into print nothing but the finest in Christian literature

dating back to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, extending all the way forward to our current day,

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So please visit solid -ground -books .com frequently, purchased generously, always mention that you heard about them

from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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, Pastoral Training at the Local Church

Level, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

First of all, folks, if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves, I'm urging you to visit

ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion, and if you prefer snail mail, mailing in a

physical check to a physical address, there will also be a physical address that appears on your

screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com.

If you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, your para -church ministry, your business, your private practice, like

a law firm or a medical firm, or if it's just a special event that you want to promote, please send me an email to chrisarnzen

at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

As long as whatever it is you desire to promote is compatible with what I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as

quickly as possible because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

Also folks, please remember, I never want anybody in our audience to give your own church where you are a member

less money than you're accustomed to giving your church on the Lord's Day in order to give to Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio.

Please never do that.

In other words, don't cut in to the finances that you have set aside for your Lord's Day giving to

your own church in order to bless us with a check.

Please don't do that.

There's two things that are clear in the Bible about finances.

We are commanded to support our churches and we're supposed to support our families.

Supporting my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you are financially blessed

above and beyond your ability to support your church and family and you love this show and you don't want it to disappear,

you have extra money in the bank collecting interest, you have extra money for benevolent recreational or trivial purposes.

Please, if you don't want us to disappear from the airway, share some of that money with us.

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now.

Also, I want to make sure that you folks put down on your calendars

September 15th, 16th, and 17th.

That is a Friday, a Saturday, and a Sunday because

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries is coming here to Pennsylvania in the

Lancaster area to conduct a three -day Bible conference.

We are still trying to arrange the exact location for the venue in Lancaster,

but we will keep you updated and you can continue to visit ironsharpensironradio

.com for more information on that and we will post that information as we have it

available.

So that's September 15th, 16th, and 17th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday here

in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where the conference with Dr. James R. White of Alpha

and Omega Ministries will be conducted.

And keep in mind, I'd like you to pray also for me as I am continuing to try to arrange

a theological debate featuring Dr. White to have that as a

part of the three -day conference.

We have been unsuccessful getting people to take the invitation

because they take a look at Dr. White's videos of his debating skills and it so far has

scared them all off.

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 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, 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.

And that may be you too if you are without a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful church home.

Just send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com 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.

That's chrisarnsen 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.

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.

Sometimes if you have not achieved numerical success as far

as the number of people you have quote quote led to Christ, you are looked upon as

inadequate and as deficient and sometimes are dismissed from

your post because of that.

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

bold in their Christian witness who saw very little fruit from their

missionary laborers and then when they went home to be with the Lord, the seeds they planted became

an enormous harvest and crop that sprung forth and where

revivals have taken place.

Isn't it true that very often churches and denominations and boards sometimes

have these unreasonable expectations of men being trained.

For the ministry?

100 percent.

Okay, absolutely agree there.

There's unbiblical standards, unbiblical ideas about what success

in ministry is.

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

on too much.

No, we got a long time, bro.

Yeah, so number one, just to encourage the questioner there, 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.

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

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?

And so we entrust ourselves to that.

And one of the huge benefits, I guess, of holding to a reformed view of theology

is absolute resting in the sovereignty of God over these things.

And what is our responsibility as pastors?

It's to preach the word and it's to disciple the sheep.

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.

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

It really is.

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, 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.

I mean, that's flat out wrong.

And so there's a couple of things that if I could recommend, go to countrysidebible

.org.

It's in Texas.

And Tom Pennington is the pastor there.

He has an excellent message from 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 7 about

navigating trials in ministry.

And I'll just say the four points without getting into too much stuff.

God has chosen the character of our gifts.

God has decided the context of our ministry.

God has determined the results and efforts of our ministries.

God has prescribed the purpose of our gifts.

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

is very strong.

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.

That's really hard.

But the thing is, is that is fruit occurring?

Are people being discipled?

Is evangelism going on?

Is the word being preached?

Are people growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ?

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

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

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 Muslim and Mormon neighbors, right?

Massively growing in some places of the world.

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.

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.

How can you do this?

Well, again, I encourage you to go to the website, hit the Contact Us button, start reading through stuff.

Rocky Wyatt has written a book recently called Pastoral Training in the Church.

It's available there for free.

Just begin to think through what this looks like and take some time.

You don't have to do this tomorrow.

You don't have to do it next week.

Take a couple of 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.

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

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

And be encouraged to find a pastor or a church that's holding to true biblical standards of what

success in ministry looks like.

And that's preaching the word, discipling people, counseling, preaching the gospel.

It really is.

And the numbers are 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, I have an update for you as a little correction that should

make you happy.

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

time I think in their history, plummeting membership.

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.

But I have heard from reliable authorities like Dr. James R. White, who has ministered for

decades to Mormons, that that is the case.

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

That is just a huge encouragement.

So yeah, but again, numbers is never the final determiner of success in

ministry.

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.

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 New American Standard Bible, compliments of

nasbible .com, nasbible .com, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

cvbbs .com, the latter of which will actually ship the Bible out to you absolutely free.

So if you're a first -time questioner, give us your shipping information.

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.

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?

Well, I would.

Say, Chris, that the ideal place for that to happen is in the local church, 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?

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

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

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, it's not to be a missionary, you know, your gifts are going to

be something different, more service -oriented, and you know how, you know Paul's words in Romans 12, 13, and

14, that the lesser parts are just as important as the, what, more noticeable parts, and

so foster that.

And maybe, maybe just maybe we stop someone from, number one, going out there and,

you know, maybe investing tens of thousands of dollars in education, and then also hurting

a church and being hurt themselves.

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 there, they are prepared and don't get

turned over and spit out and run over.

We have Cindy in Findlay, 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.

My experience being in independent fundamentalist Baptist churches, before recently becoming Reformed,

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

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.

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

Well, unfortunately, I do.

Think it is common practice, again, but that would not be ideal.

It shouldn't be fostered.

And again, the local church, the elders of that church, in there searching for

any type of associated ministry, again, looking for someone who, again, God is

sovereign over where we move, right?

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's going to take on a ministry, then let's do it for an extended period.

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.

And I think there's some truth to that.

And 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.

We want you here to invest in the lives of these kids, maybe a couple generations of them, you know?

And 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.

And 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, right?

And so you do this type of stuff and you should expect lots of transition if that's going

to be the case.

And so, you know, 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, or college age at least, and have some, you know, they're kind of

settled down and so that they can be there.

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 the revolving door and that is hurtful.

We have another anonymous listener who says, speaking about youth

departments in churches, 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.

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

level.

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?

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.

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 a thought.

And again, I've seen guys come into churches, they're dynamic, the kids love them,

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.

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.

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

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 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 Lord.

And again, fathers are doing that.

It's not a question of are you doing it or are you not doing it?

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?

Or are you pointing them to hobbies, activities, things like that,

material wealth, all these types of things that are of lesser value, and your kids are going to follow you in that

area.

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 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.

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.

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 he represents.

His name is Randy Brandt, and he is with Band of

Tours, affordable military and history tours of Europe and the United States of America.

And the website, by the way, is bandoftours .com,

bandoftours .com.

So I just need to say real quick, when I was gallivanting around Europe last September, I was with Randy, and he was

pushing me in various directions, so amen.

Great.

Well, he asks, what is the most unusual ministry opportunity you've

ever had near General Patton's grave?

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

I'm only kidding, 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, and this

guy, the South African, he just walks up and starts talking to us.

I mean, it was weird.

It kind of freaked me out at first.

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.

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?

You know what?

Should I say something sassy about that or not?

You could say whatever you want about it.

I think the world's flat.

Maybe that'll help you.

I don't know.

I honestly don't.

Know, and I'm not going to speculate.

There you go.

Okay.

By the way, Randy, you are a first -time questioner, so if you want to give me your

full mailing address, you have won a brand -new New American Standard Bible,

compliments of nasbible .com, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley

Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

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

possible.

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?

Yeah, again, I fully agree with that statement, and again, we've developed a pattern, I think, of

in our pastoral search, we automatically start looking outside.

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, 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.

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

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,

I think finding good pastors through excellent organizations and

stuff like that, so like here at XL, if you're looking for a pastor, and you contact us, and

you say, hey, I'm looking for a pastor for this particular role, in this particular place, if we know

someone who's gone through XL, 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, 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.

Well, please remind me after the show is over, because I know at least two

churches that are searching for a pastor, so let's talk after the

show, and see what we can do to help these churches.

Sure.

We're going to our final commercial break right now, and 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.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of

residence, don't go away, we'll be.

Right back after these messages.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

Here, I'm very excited to.

Announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to

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That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I have been preaching,

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

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Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade,

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

church level.

And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, although I believe

knowledge of the 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, I believe that his character and his heart

for a flock of Christ exceeds that of his head knowledge.

And I was wondering how you would respond to that.

Yeah, 100 percent.

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?

Number one, it's to be Christlike.

It's to love our Savior, right?

It's to be pursuing Christlikeness and then taking the love that he has bestowed upon us

and carrying it out to others.

And so that's our first priority.

The church, this man is directly and very correct, the church does not need

us to be dynamic, awesome, skilled, knowledgeable pastors.

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 next, loving his kids after that, and then

serving with joy in the church.

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 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1,

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, but that 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.

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.

He fancies himself as a gifted orator, and perhaps he is.

He has a celebrity mindset of becoming a renowned

teacher and preacher, 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.

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?

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

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.

And I mean, we've heard of that, and that is not pastoring.

That is self -aggrandizement.

It really is, and.

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?

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, and they will have to have

set appointments broken and so forth when a urgent need of the flock is

at hand.

Don't you agree that a woman who is not equipped to be a pastor's wife could be the

death null of.

Man's ministry?

One hundred percent.

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

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 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.

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

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

but she loves me, 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?

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, 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, 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, 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.

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, 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 and

areas of employment where a husband may need to run out of the house at any given notice?

100 percent, yeah, and I mean, that's, I think, if you don't, 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, so 100 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?

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, you know, paradigm shift in your thinking, amen,

you know, start thinking that way, but don't think you have to do it tomorrow.

Please go to the website, 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.

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

that are now 100, 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.

We'll go anywhere.

In fact, one of our board members was in Romania last year, so again, please look at the website,

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, I'm sorry, sbbc .church, sbbc

.church, and the XL Ministries website is the letter x, the letter l,

ministries .org, the letter x, the letter l, ministries .org.

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Eric, for being a superb guest.

I want to thank everybody who listened, and especially those who took the time to write questions.

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.

Thanks so much, Chris, enjoyed it tremendously.

Amen, I did as well.