July 27, 2017 Show with William F. Hill on “The Challenges of Pastoring & Belonging to a Small Church”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 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 whom we converse with 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 hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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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.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 27th day of July 2017.

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I'm going to be discussing an issue today that I have never addressed, at least not as a full -length program before, and the idea came to me from my guest when

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I was at the Banner of Truth conference that you all heard me announcing for quite some time, a month or two ago, and I was at the

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Banner of Truth conference, and there in the darkness on a patio, there were a group of Presbyterian pastors conversing and relaxing with their pipes and some of them with cigars, and I heard somebody yell out to me, hey, why don't you do a program on small churches, and I thought that was a fascinating idea, and that voice came from the mouth of Pastor William F.

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Hill, who is the pastor of the Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina, which is a congregation within the

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PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America. He is also the former host of the

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Confessing Our Hope podcast, which is the podcast of the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor William F.

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Hill. Yeah, Chris, thank you. It's a great pleasure to be on the program.

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And in studio with me is my co -host, the Rev. Buzz Taylor. And hello, it's good to have you along.

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And we have the Presbyterians outnumbering the Reformed Baptists again, which always makes me uncomfortable.

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Yeah, you'll probably get even tomorrow. The program's going to be about cigars, right? And we could do a program like that later, if you'd like.

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I don't know why I would be getting even, because more Presbyterians, I think, smoke cigars than Baptists. But anyway, so today we have a fascinating discussion.

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In fact, I don't know how many of those of you listening would think it's fascinating, but I find it fascinating because I think it is a very prominent struggle.

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It's a struggle filled with conflict and challenges that I hear about often from men in the ministry and even members of churches.

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But before we even get into the subject of the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church,

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I'd like you to let our listeners know about the Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina.

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Sure, I'd be glad to. Landis was originally formed in the 1920s, eventually connected to the

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Southern Church, the PCUS, as the Southern Church began to fall into decline and move away from the fundamentals of the historic

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Christian faith, that is, the inerrancy of Scripture and other central issues. In 1974,

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Landis moved, transferred into the PCA after great struggle, in fact, with the

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Southern Church over their property, and has been in the PCA ever since. The history of the church, it started as a

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Sunday school work in Marion and grew into a particularized congregation.

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Its membership reached in the upper 80s and 90s, nearing 100 in its peak, but currently it sits at about 15 members on the rolls.

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It's been in decline for about eight years. They've been without a pastor until I came.

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They were without a pastor for seven years, which most without doubt caused much of that decline through that period.

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So that's a thumbnail sketch. It's located in a small town in Marion, North Carolina, as you've already mentioned.

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7 ,000 people, give or take, in the town proper. 25 ,000 in the county of McDowell.

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It's also located in a town with another PCA work. We can talk about that later, that's an interesting question in and of itself.

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But so there's two PCA works in this little small town, and the other one is thriving quite well.

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Landis is struggling to maintain itself and its viability at this particular time.

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So that's a thumbnail sketch, and with that comes all the small church struggles that we're going to talk about,

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I suspect. Yes, and I have a feeling that I may be speaking to the only pastor of a small

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PCA church on the planet Earth. Well, as far as the

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South especially, I could imagine a PCA church in New York being small, especially like in, other than Manhattan of course, there's a well -known one there, but there are many places in the inner city of the northeast

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I would expect PCA churches might be small, but not in the South, but we'll find out more about that later.

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In fact, I have an email that I'm looking at from a mutual friend of ours,

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Pastor Bill Shishko, formerly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, now a domestic missionary for Reformation Metro New York, a ministry of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination, and Pastor Bill Shishko says, in reference to you, good man, give him my warm greetings.

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He's a New Yorker, even though he's from upstate. Well, Pastor Shishko has been always near and dear to my heart.

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I was a student at Greenville Seminary, and he would come in once a year and do what I would consider to be the best class that I took there.

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Not to besmirch the rest of my professors, but Reformed Pastor class was absolutely out of the park, outstanding.

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But what really appealed to me was he was a New Yorker, I was a New Yorker, so we sort of connected immediately the language, all of it, and so it was just a joy to be in his class, and he was always very kind to me and encouraging and all the things that you would expect from a pastor, but just from a godly man.

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So I appreciate that. And I'd like to know, before I get into your own background more a bit,

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I'd like to have you tell our listeners something about Confessing Our Hope, the podcast that you formerly hosted with the

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Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and you could also let our listeners know something about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary itself.

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Oh sure, absolutely, be glad to. Um, Confessing Our Hope was really the idea of Dr.

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Joseph Piper. He was the president of Greenville Seminary, and he had heard that I had in the past done a podcast prior to my seminary days that I had some experience doing it, and asked me if I'd be willing, and when he asks those kinds of questions, usually it's more like you're doing it, and I'm asking nicely, but you're really good at doing it.

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But I was glad to do it. It was a way to promote the seminary, it was a way to engage, similar to what you do on your program, to engage in various topics and issues, books and materials that were out there, and I tried to craft a podcast in a very practical nature, drawing attention to everyday

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Christian experience, not just for the guys in seminary, for the theologians, but for the people that sit in the pews on Sunday and have to go out in the world and work and raise a family and take care of all those other things.

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And so the podcast was primarily to highlight and promote the seminary, but to address various issues.

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I did that for the bulk of my time at the seminary, typically once a week, but not always.

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And from that, we launched a segment of the podcast that has become extremely popular.

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Again, Dr. Joseph Piper is integral in this, what we call

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Faith and Practice. It's a segment by which listeners from all over the planet can write in any theological question or question of a practical nature, and he addresses them on air, live, once a month, and so it's a great way to interact with a man who's not only been a pastor but has been a scholar, a theologian, been a husband, a father, and so he has quite a bit of experience.

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And so it's really a wonderful opportunity to impart that information to the listeners and to really highlight as well what happens when you're in the classrooms at Greenville Seminary.

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It's a great segue into the work of Greenville Seminary. It's, in my opinion, it's one of the best schools in the country.

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Obviously I'm biased, I went there, but I say that because of its commitment to confessional integrity, the

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Westminster Standards specifically, but more importantly their commitment to the Word of God, its preaching, and its application in the life of the

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Christian. And so we hear that all the time in classes, whether it's in Hebrew or whether it's in Prolegomena, it doesn't matter, we're constantly being told that all of this heady information ought to drive us to worship, ought to drive us to serve the one true and living

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God. And so I commend the seminary both for its commitment to these matters, but also to its commitment to keeping the financial burden of a seminary education at a very minimal rate.

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Obviously they have to function, they have to pay their bills, but Greenville Seminary is much lower cost, tuition -wise, than I don't know of another school that's cheaper, frankly, other than the free ones.

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And so those two prongs, as it were, to thinking and approaching the idea of going to seminary ought to really cause a serious student who's interested in being a pastor and a preacher or a proclaimer of God's Word to seriously consider the seminary.

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They're doing a lot of great things, and so I can't speak highly enough of it.

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Yeah, I've had the honor to interview a number of the faculty members of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary on my program over the years, including

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Dr. Piper on several occasions, and Dr. Piper was kind enough to write a very wonderful endorsement for this program years ago.

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And one of my favorite guests that I've had on a number of times is Ryan McGraw, who

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I have really thoroughly enjoyed interviewing. He's quite a brilliant young man, and one of those guests on a radio program where there's no dead air.

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I mean, he's asked a question, and all of a sudden, like a computer, he starts spitting out information. Well, that's how he is in the classroom, too, but, you know, don't be with Dr.

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McGraw. The one thing that... I've been friends with Dr. McGraw even before he was

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Dr. McGraw, and the one thing about him is he's extremely personal, and at the seminary, he makes time for the students.

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It's not just this robotic, incredible, vast knowledge that he does have, but he knows how to apply it, and he'll sit down with you and work through issues, and he's helped me tremendously as a young pastor, though he's younger than me, but he's helped me a lot in my first couple years in the ministry, and so I can't speak highly enough of him.

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He's a good friend, and it's your brother. And we also have something here in common with you on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today.

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I know that you happen to be a mutual friend of Deckard Stevens, who is not only a friend of mine and has been on this program, but he's also the assistant pastor of the congregation where my co -host,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, is a member. That's great. I mean, he's, in my opinion, he's one of the best preachers out there.

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Again, I'm biased, because he was also, while I was in the seminary, he was my pastor, and so I was a member of his church during my time at Greenville Seminary, and so I got to sit under his ministry, under his leadership, and I learned a lot from him, things that I didn't think

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I could learn, but I did learn, and now that I'm actually doing what he's been doing for many more years than me,

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I see a lot of the wisdom that he tried to impart to me in my thick head that wasn't necessarily getting it at the moment, but now

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I really am grasping and understanding it, so I'm very thankful to his friendship and his ministry.

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I think the Reverend Buzz Taylor wants to say something. Well, yeah, I was going to say, with your permission, I'll pass your greetings on.

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Please do. All right. And tell him to call me, because he never calls me. All right, we'll do that.

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Well, I know that he is quite a busy man ever since he came here to Carlisle, and he is definitely filling a lot of shoes over there,

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I think, at the— He is, and not only that, as of today—I hope

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I'm not letting the cat out of the bag, I think it's pretty public at this point—as of today, he became a new grandfather.

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Oh, praise God. Was that Ryan McGraw's child? No, that would be his son

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David and his wife, well, I can't remember, Nick Carly? I think that's it.

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But yeah, so a brand new grandbaby girl. Well, I will congratulate him and tell him where I got that news.

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No, I'll probably get yelled at by Sylvia for saying that on the radio. Everybody in the world knows it now. Well, I don't think that they would mind having something like that announced.

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Exactly. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address. It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please give us your first name if you write in a question, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. If you have a personal and private question to ask about it, which this kind of a topic would definitely lend itself to the possibility of individuals having personal and private questions or questions on personal and private matters.

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So you may remain anonymous if that's the case.

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But please, if it's not a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name, your city and state and your country of residence.

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And I'd like to know a bit, before we even go into the topic, I'd like to know a summary, as I usually do when

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I have a first -time guest. I'd like to have a summary of your coming to Christ, about the providential circumstances in your life that our sovereign

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Lord used to draw you to himself and save you, even about even going back to the early childhood experiences you've had, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and all the other steps that the

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Lord brought into your path that led you to him. Sure, I'd be glad to. You asked me to be short.

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This is hard to do, but I'll do the best I can. I was raised in a Christian home. It was Baptistic dispensational.

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I never heard of the Westminster Standards, John Calvin, Calvinism, any of those things growing up.

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I did go to a church that, thankfully, was committed to the Bible and its centrality of its preaching.

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I was mentored by a man I'm still in contact with today, who probably can't believe

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I'm a pastor, given my religious nature in the church. But Dr.

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Harry Fletcher was the pastor that—he was the kind of man where you walked in a room—he was like the only man in the church.

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He could walk in the room, and whatever I was doing wrong, I'd stop. That was my upbringing.

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I did the Awana thing, the youth group thing. I was a typical church young man.

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If the doors were open, my parents had me there. Looking back, I thank the Lord for that. I don't think

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I was that happy during that time about it. As teenagers are wont to do,

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I ran from the Lord tremendously, probably between the ages of 14 and 20.

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I became extremely rebellious, got into a lot of difficult issues in life, did things

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I thought not to do, and it was only through the providential workings of God where I literally had—I was literally beaten on the streets of Rochester—that God began to end that phase of my life.

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He introduced me to my then—well, she was my girlfriend at the time, but now my wife, praise the

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Lord. She was raised in a Roman Catholic church. I was raised in a Baptist church.

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I believed I was a Christian. I probably was not, based on the way I was living my life, and yet I knew that I can't marry an unbeliever, believe it or not.

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It's amazing what you remember growing up, even though you're not a believer, right? So I came for the gospel multiple times.

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She eventually trusted Christ, probably before I did, and through her example, going to church and being faithful and doing the things that a godly wife would do,

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I became interested in going to church again. I started to go to church again, and the

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Lord really got a hold of my life, and things turned around. So unlike my

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Baptist upbringing, I don't have a date. I don't have a time when I actually said, I'm a sinner,

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I need Christ. I think I say that every day, frankly. And so, but if I had to pin down an area, a segment of my life, it was in that late teens, early 20s section where the

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Lord, through providential workings in ways that we don't have the time to talk about, no, you couldn't make this stuff up, what happened.

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The Lord drew me to Himself, and I'm thankful, even though it was extremely painful.

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I'm thankful He did, and I don't share the scars of my experiences.

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As some guys do, when they rebelled from the war, He preserved many of those scars and kept them from me during that time.

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But it was a very difficult time, but it was in that time that the Lord said, enough is enough.

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I'm tired of you running, and you're going to serve me. And so that's what happened.

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That's a summary. But maybe I'll write a book someday. Yeah, why not. And what were the providential circumstances that arose in your life that made you realize that you had received a call from God to be a pastor?

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Yeah, that's a great question. I distinctly remember this. I was 17 years old.

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I was still probably in my rebellion, frankly, but probably not a believer. I mean,

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I prayed a prayer when I was eight years old with my mom, and you know, did what they call the sinner's prayer, but my life certainly didn't reflect it after that.

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But when I was 17 years old, our youth group had the opportunity to do the Youth Nights, the Youth Worship Night at our

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Baptist Church. And that meant every member of the youth group had to play a part in the worship service, from ushering, to collecting the offering plates, to singing a solo, doing the choir, playing the piano, whatever it was.

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And of course, there was that one part that nobody wanted to do, and that was preach the sermon, or as Dr.

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Piper would correct me right now and say, exhort the sermon. But anyway, and I was glad to do it.

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I volunteered. I said, I'll do that. I'll stand behind the pole, but I could do that. It doesn't look that hard. So I worked diligently on a sermon with my youth pastor helping me along the way, and I preached the 25 -minute sermon that night from Ephesians 5.

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I think I still have the tape laying around here somewhere. It's actually laughable to listen to. And when

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I came out of the pulpit that night, one of the deacons in the church came up to me and asked me, what am

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I doing the rest of my life? I said, I have no idea. I'm 17. I have no clue.

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Like every other teenager, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm 17 years old. He says, you need to go into the ministry.

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I said, yeah, well, I don't think so. So I rejected that at that moment, but through the course of time, as I had more interaction with the church, as I came out of my rebellion, began to get involved in the church, and I began to feel a strong inclination to be in the ministry.

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It was through the guidance of an evangelical free church pastor who mentored me, helped me, and asked me a very penetrating question one day, and it was, why do you want to be in the ministry?

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And I looked at him, and I said, because I want to preach and teach. He told me, he says, if that's your reason, then don't bother.

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And I had no idea what he was talking about, and I said, well, isn't that what you do? And he said, well, of course, I do do that.

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But is that your reason to be in the ministry? And I said, well, yeah, because go home and think about it.

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So I went home and thought about it, and I called him three days later completely in a quandary, and I said, I don't understand what you're getting at.

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He said, look, if you don't love God's people, you're not really to serve and suffer for their sake and their souls.

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Don't bother. Forget it. And I really had to take a long hard look at myself, and that really wasn't my motivation.

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And so through the course of 20 years working in the issues and problems that they had in their lives, they would come to me and ask me for help about this, that, the other thing.

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I began to have a sense of a love for people in general, but then specifically a love for God's people.

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And once that began to, was born more in my heart, I began to pursue it.

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It wasn't until 2011 when my church that I was attending,

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Emanuel Presbyterian Church, Pastor Bill Harrell in Norfolk, Virginia, he came up to me one day and said,

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I've heard that you think you're called to the gospel ministry. And I don't know how he heard that because I'd never mentioned it, but apparently he found out somehow.

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And I said, well, I think so, but I don't want to go into the ministry unless the church sends me.

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In other words, if they don't think I really have the gifts to do this, then I ought not do it, whether I think I should or not.

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And he said, well, we'll test your gifts. So they did for a number of weeks, and I went through rigorous examinations with their session, one specific one

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I can remember, quite arduous, and they all agreed unanimously that I should go to seminary.

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And so off I went to Greenville with the full confirmation of the congregation behind me and encouraging me, not only emotionally, but physically.

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And so there was many confirmations that we were going in the right direction. And so that's the long,

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I guess the long version, but maybe it's a short version, but I hope that answers it. And yeah, you've answered it very well.

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And let me ask you why immediately when

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I had been walking around on that patio there at Elizabethtown College during the

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Banner of Truth conference, during that evening break where all the pastors were hanging out, and you immediately, when

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I was starting to introduce myself to people and told folks about my radio program, you immediately said, why don't you do an interview on small churches?

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Why was that like an immediate response as soon as you found out who I was? Yeah, well, first of all,

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I've known of your program through a mutual friend, and so I knew probably more of you than you knew of me.

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But anyway, I think primarily because I am a small church pastor. I'm in the trenches.

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I see the struggle of being a solo pastor of a small church with very little help, a small session.

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In my case, an aging elder who's a godly man, but just because he's aging, it's hard for him to get involved and do things

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I know he'd love to do but just is not physically able to do. And I feel that every single day, every time

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I walk in my study, every time I drive to the church, I'm constantly faced with the reality that I am probably going to have to do everything, as it were, if the church is to be served.

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And with that comes great temptation to try to do everything and be the Savior of the church.

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So I guess the reason, and to answer your question, was because I live it. And I don't think, when

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I talk to my other brothers in the ministry and in the PCA in general, the majority of churches in the

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PCA are in this position. They are in a struggling situation, less than a hundred members struggling financially, pastors are burdened with the reality of carrying too much burden, too much load, too much responsibility.

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They have families and they are doing all they can, and yet it seems like those churches, the small churches, which

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I think are on the front lines of the war, don't get a whole lot of attention, they don't get a whole lot of press, they don't get a whole lot of discussion.

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The big tent churches, of course, you know, they're the ones we always talk about, and that's right and good, but the guys that are constantly struggling.

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So I was thinking about it, not just from my own perspective, but from the guys that I have talked with, as well as seeking a way to, how can we help administer and edify one another as we all labor as small church pastors, because that's the overwhelming majority of PCA churches.

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And Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say. Yeah, this is just reminding me, I don't have statistics, maybe you have better statistics than I do, but I'm just reminded through this conversation that years ago, when we discussed my theological journey before we went on the air, that I had been to charismatic circles and all, and one of the churches

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I went to was a rather large, very progressive church. In fact, my pastor then had actually worked with Paul Cho to start the

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People's Church in South Korea. And seeing all these church growth seminars and things that came through, one of the things that I remember being said was that, and they gave a percentage, and I just don't remember if it was, you know, 80, 90, 95, or whatever, you know, but they were talking about the percentage of people that are in church today are actually in churches of less than 60.

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And I, you know, you wouldn't think that when you see these mega churches, but that is, most of us are in small churches.

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Yeah, I think, you know, unless you live in a large metropolitan area, like the nearest one to me, it would be

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Asheville. The second nearest one to me would be Charlotte. Unless you're actually within striking distance of these major metropolitan areas, you're living in a small town.

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And if you're living in a small town, it's likely that you're either driving one town over or two towns over.

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Attend a PCA church, or any church for that matter, that is of very small size, just because of the demographics, because of the region and the area you live in.

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Chris mentioned earlier about the South. You may be surprised by that. Actually, I think the inverse would probably be true.

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I think you'd be more likely to find stronger, larger PCA churches in the North than you would in the

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South, and primarily because just in the area that I live, there has to be,

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I drive by one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I drive by seven to eight

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Baptist churches just to get to the Landis Presbyterian Church every day.

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The heavy dominance of a Baptist church, the

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Baptist churches in the South over against the Presbyterian churches, they have them outnumbered by a factor.

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I mean, I'm guessing it's got to be a factor of 10, a factor of 15 for every

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PCA church in an area. There's probably 15 Baptist churches somewhere within striking distance of that Presbyterian church.

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So that causes some of the size issues without question. So if you multiply the region as being low population and then the

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Baptist church influence, and then you have a Presbyterian church stuck in the middle of it, that adds to or contributes to the size of the

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PCA church. There's not much you can do about that, but that's just the way it is. We have to go to a break right now.

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If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. You may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. We already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you,

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Pastor Hill, so we will get to as many of them as we can in the following 90 minutes.

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And we are going to be hearing a word from our sponsors now, so don't go away.

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God willing, we'll be right back with Pastor William F. Hill and our discussion on the challenges of small churches.

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We hope that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio blesses you for many years to come. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

36:00

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

36:12

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

36:20

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

36:25

Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

36:31

This is Chris Arns, and if you've just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little less than 90 minutes to go, is

36:38

Pastor William F. Hill, who is the former host of the Confessing Our Hope podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and he is currently the pastor of Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina, which is a member congregation of the

36:57

PCA, which stands for the Presbyterian Church in America. Today we are discussing the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church.

37:07

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com,

37:14

and please always give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

37:20

USA, unless you are remaining anonymous due to a personal and private question. We have a listener for the first time.

37:29

Well, I shouldn't say that I know that he's a listener for the first time, but he's a first -time questioner from Centerville, Massachusetts.

37:38

His name is River, and River says, I enjoyed immensely the

37:44

Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary podcast during the duration of Pastor William F.

37:52

Hill's career. I think he was also in radio in the past, too. Here's a question for him, my first question on the show.

38:01

To avoid burnout, you need a strong and active session and or help from servant -hearted lay people.

38:08

In small churches where there may only be one or two elders and one or no deacons, how do you cultivate the flock to equip lay people to step up and serve, and how do you handle all the responsibilities of shepherding while being understaffed in the meantime?

38:29

Excellent questions by River in Centerville, Massachusetts. Yeah, River, great question.

38:35

Thank you for the kind words about the podcast, and I hope you continue to listen as well.

38:43

Well, there's a number of issues in there. Of course, you addressed the one that speaks to the reality that you're understaffed.

38:54

In my current situation, as I mentioned earlier, I have one ruling elder, no deacons, and my ruling elder is aged, elderly man, godly man, but in his 80s and really unable to do the things that he probably would like to do and probably has done in the past when he was able.

39:18

And so what do you do in that situation as a pastor? Well, the sheep can't suffer regardless of the lack of of leadership.

39:29

And so the first thing I have done, and this is what I do, other small pastors may have different approaches.

39:36

I hope they don't on this first one. I have prayed ardently that God would give me more elders, either train up a man that's already currently in the congregation and bring him to a place where he's called and equipped to serve as a ruling elder, or bring a man from outside.

39:57

I do that both for ruling elders and deacons, because I'm mindful of what

40:02

Paul instructs the Church when he tells Timothy how a Church should be ordered, and that is it should have elders and deacons.

40:11

So I simply remind, quote -unquote, I remind, as it were, the

40:16

Lord in the way he ordered the Church. And if a man is passing a

40:21

Church without those things, the Church is going to be deficient in some respect, because the pastor can't certainly do everything that a viable, active session and deaconate would be able to do.

40:35

With that being said, if you have a pastor's heart, you feel compelled by necessity to fill in the gaps that exist in that kind of a situation.

40:50

And so in my situation, I've been forced to be a deacon, and that means whatever a deacon might have to do.

40:57

For instance, in my specific situation, I've been responsible for all the finances of the Church, paying the bills, writing the checks.

41:04

It's a bad place for a pastor to be. A pastor should never be doing that on paper.

41:10

But in my situation, it was either I do it, or it doesn't get done. And so I elected to disregard the counsel of one great, wise, good and wise friend of mine who said

41:22

I should not do it, just let it not get done. And I decided that for the good of the Church and the people,

41:28

I would just handle it. I'm thankful for my business experience. It made it easier, because I could organize it in such a way that it didn't take a lot of my time, but it was still a burden that was on me every single week, aside from the centrality of what

41:45

I ought to be doing, and that is praying and preaching and shepherding the people. So I hope that answers one part of it.

41:53

The way to develop, I think, and to help the people, the lay people, if I can use that term, those that sit in a peer that don't have offices in the

42:04

Church and those kinds of responsibilities, is to remind them that they do have those responsibilities, because Paul tells us all to serve one another, to love one another, and to think not only of our own interests, but the interests of others.

42:19

And so the first thing I have tried to do is to teach on this subject strongly, to preach on this subject in God's providence.

42:28

I've been preaching to the Book of Mark, to the Gospel of Mark, and I've been in that section where Jesus talks about serving and suffering and laboring and meeting the needs of others, and I think that's where it has to begin, and if it doesn't take root there,

42:43

I don't know how else it will, because I believe so strongly in the centrality of the priest's word.

42:49

And so that's what I've tried to do, and then not only preach it, but then model it to the best of my ability in serving the people.

43:00

The reality is that in that situation, a small Church pastor is going to work a lot of hours.

43:08

It's inevitable if you're going to do it, if you're forced into that situation. I have worked,

43:15

I've averaged probably somewhere between 65 and 70 hours a week since I've been here over a year.

43:22

People think that's, like, I tell people that, they're like, wow, that's crazy, and I'm like, well, but when

43:29

I was working in retail, I did that every week, so in a sense, the Lord had set me up and prepared me for this, and so it didn't seem like 70 hours a week to me, but it's still a burden, and the way to deal with that and avoid burnout is to take great opportunity at the times that I'm not at the

43:46

Church, and I'm not visiting people, or I'm not working on sermons and paying the bills and doing all these other things.

43:53

So when I have time to be alone with my wife in the living room, turn off the TV and talk and chat and try to enjoy those opportunities, because they're not often, but when they do come, use them as best you can and try to find something else to do.

44:10

In the meantime, for me, it's watch baseball games. I'm a Yankee fan. Everybody knows that. That knows me.

44:16

I try to do that as a downtime and take advantage of my so -called day off.

44:23

I'm off on Mondays, and I try to be undisturbed as much as I can be, and let the

44:30

Church know that. Let them know that, look, you know, this is really my only day off, and I need it, and just be honest with them, and usually people will, unless there's a major crisis, they'll not bother you with some tiny issue that can wait till Tuesday.

44:50

So I hope I answered the question. There was a lot there. Remind me, Chris, if I missed something, but I think

44:56

I covered it. Yeah, I think you did cover it, and I thank

45:01

River for being a first -time questioner today, and River, you have won a free

45:10

New American Standard Bible since you are a first -time questioner. In fact, he says, here's my address for the

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NASB if my question gets asked. I've been waiting a long time to get one of those from the show.

45:25

Well, now you've finally sent in a question, and we appreciate it. I'm going to write in my own question for myself.

45:34

And keep listening, River, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and beyond.

45:40

In fact, I think River is only one of two people I've ever heard of with that name, one being the actor

45:46

River Phoenix. I don't think I've ever met anybody or heard of anybody named River other than that listener.

45:53

We have a listener from all the way in Slovenia who says,

46:00

Dear Brother Chris, thanks for being creative and innovative in choice of programming topics.

46:05

Well, actually, I got to give the credit to my guest, William F. Hill, for that. We are blessed by the rich range of issues you bring to us each day.

46:13

Just a few days ago, I was conversing with a megachurch about the topic of church discipline.

46:21

I was quizzing him about how seeker -sensitive, actually, he says seeker -sensual churches that are heavy focused on doing everything possible to get the largest number of people through the door and into the seats could possibly practice anything remotely resembling church discipline.

46:42

The overarching paradigm of doing everything possible for church growth militates against the whole notion of holding the members accountable to even the slightest degrees of personal holiness.

46:54

Setting out specifically to become as large as possible inherently means avoiding anything that will jeopardize keeping warm bodies in the building.

47:03

In this type of setting, attempting church discipline will potentially result in losing a member, something that is anathema in church growth models.

47:13

Those in megachurches who would experience discipline can always go down the street to join another megachurch, which is all too happy to boost their numbers by taking just about anyone into membership.

47:25

Under these circumstances, it seems to me that only small churches who aren't focused on growing larger for largeness sake can actually function as real churches because they can practice church discipline without violating one of their core values.

47:43

Please discuss this idea and critique my assumptions and conclusions. Thanks so much for blessing us today.

47:48

That was Joe in Slovenia. He actually has a very similar point of view to a dear friend of mine, a very close friend of mine who is now in heaven.

47:59

I don't know if you ever met or heard of Dr. Robert J. Cameron, Pastor Hill, but I haven't.

48:06

I'm sorry. Robert J. Cameron was one of the very few pastors of the

48:14

African -American community in the PCA, and then he later joined the

48:20

OPC where he was a pastor until he went home to the Lord. It was at that time

48:27

Mount Carmel Church in Somerset, New Jersey, and I don't think that the congregation exists anymore, or if it is, is it?

48:34

But anyway, Dr. Cameron was a dear friend, and he used to tell me that he didn't believe that a church should ever become so large that it was incapable of properly shepherding the flock, and he believed that those churches should give birth to baby churches, and they should automatically, when they reach a certain size, plant another church.

48:56

But what are your thoughts on what Joe from Slovenia had to say about this?

49:02

Well, I agree with your friend, absolutely. In fact,

49:08

I'm probably going to say Dr. Piper multiple times throughout this program, because he's not only been a professor of mine, but a brother and a mentor, and one of the things

49:17

I remember him saying in a class, I don't remember which one, I'll probably get a black mark for not knowing which class, but he said that when you get to 200 or 250 members, you should probably seriously start thinking about planting another church, and I hold that view personally.

49:35

It would be my preference for the reasons already outlined, proper shepherding, discipline, and care.

49:43

Now, with that said, I realize that there are people listening to this program that are in churches that are 450, 500 people, or even more.

49:52

I know of churches where personal friends of mine are attending that have 600 or more members. They're faithful to the ministry of the

49:57

Word, they're faithful to the ordinary means of grace, they're faithful to discipline and shepherd the people, and for that I commend them.

50:05

My only point in agreement with your friend is that it is more difficult than if, and I suspect if they were honest they would admit that.

50:13

With that said, it's not always easy in a small church, either. Typically a small church has already been highlighted as little help in these areas, and so it usually falls to one guy to shepherd 20 families or 15 families or whatever the case may be, and so in a sense it just turned out to be the same thing.

50:34

But I do think if you do get to that size, I think it is time to start thinking about planning.

50:40

It's always been my model after Dr. Piper dropped that bug in my ear in a class, whatever class it was, a few years back.

50:50

To answer and respond to the question, to the listener's question, I don't know.

50:57

I think I understand what he is saying in regards to discipline in the sense of, well, if we practice church discipline as outlined in Matthew 18 and elsewhere, that we might lose people, and then we'll just go down the street to another church and it'll fill another megachurch, and I guess that's possible.

51:19

I think the temptation for a smaller church, it's greater for a smaller church to not practice church discipline for precisely that reason.

51:28

They already don't have enough people to make budget, and to practice church discipline would mean the potential of losing that number to that church down the street, maybe the megachurch, maybe the

51:40

Baptist church around the corner, who knows, whatever the case may be. And that would mean a loss of, and I hate to say this, but we live in a real world, a loss of revenue, if I can use that term, a loss of giving in the church from that family or that individual that was attending during that time.

51:57

And I think there is a greater temptation, perhaps, for a session of a smaller church to skirt that reality, to skirt the necessary things that should be done in the life of a

52:11

Christian who has gone wayward, who needs that discipline and that loving discipline to bring them back to center.

52:21

I think a small church is more likely to be tempted not to do it because of those reasons. I'm not suggesting that guys out there that are in small churches are doing that.

52:29

I hope not. I've always said that I won't be handcuffed in that area, but at the same time,

52:36

I'm just one guy in the session and you never know what the other guys are going to do. So but I do think the temptation is probably greater for a smaller church, maybe not so much for a larger church, because okay, if I have 600 members and two people leave because of church discipline,

52:49

I have 598 now, probably not going to change much. And the Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say.

52:56

You all, of course, I've pastored small churches, so I definitely need to chime in here, but it isn't just that you lose two members.

53:07

You could cut a church in half if it's a small church because everybody's related. And I have found that they're not always united behind the pastor either.

53:19

And you know, I had a situation of church discipline where the prevailing attitude was who are you to judge them?

53:28

Yeah, no, you make an excellent point. And because of the interconnectedness of a small church, it's almost like a family.

53:36

And so it's like if you think a family unit of five, three children, and Johnny, the youngest, gets disciplined by mommy and daddy, and Susie and Sally think mommy and daddy were kind of one over the top.

53:49

So now there's kind of a house divided for at least a season. No, I think you make an excellent point, and that is absolutely a reality in a small setting like that.

54:00

Now, with that said, it's not to say that a large church couldn't also experience that. I mean, because if gossip ensues throughout because of the discipline, because people don't know all the facts, they don't know what's going on with the elders, people start talking, it could be cancerous, and it could affect 40, 50, 60 people.

54:18

So we have to go to a break right now. If you want to continue your thought when we return, you can, and that would go for both you and Reverend Buzz Taylor.

54:27

But we're going to take a break right now. If anybody else would like to join us and get online to have your question asked and answered, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages.

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That's chefexclusive .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study every

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Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on WLIE radio, www .wlie540am

01:03:25

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

01:03:33

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor.

01:03:44

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen and before I return to our guest, Pastor William F.

01:03:51

Hill and our discussion on small churches and the challenges that come from pastoring or belonging to small churches,

01:03:59

I have some special announcements to make from some of our sponsors. We have the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

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Actually before that, I'm sorry, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held

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August 3rd through the 5th at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine, Reverend Buzz Taylor's old stomping grounds.

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And the speakers at that conference include Don Curran, who is the

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Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society, the organization founded by Paul Washer, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, a dear friend of mine who pastors

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Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and he is the author of a number of books and he was just recently this week on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Pastor Jesse Barrington, who's also been a guest on the program, Pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, the

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Sister Church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, whose radio station airs

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every day in a pre -recorded form twice a day. And Pastor Nate Pikowitz, who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Ironworks, New Hampshire, and also the author of Reviving New England and his latest book,

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Why We're Protestant. If you'd like to join me at the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

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We have the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, November 17th through the 18th, being held at the

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Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The theme is for Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously referring to Satan from the classic

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Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress. Speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

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If you'd like to join me there at the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, November 17th through the 18th, go to alliancenet .org,

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And then we have coming up in January, from the 17th through the 20th, the

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I say next year's, G3 Conference is Knowing God, A Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

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On the 18th, the conference will be launched with a exclusively

01:06:49

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01:06:59

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01:07:07

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01:07:20

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01:07:28

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01:07:45

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01:07:54

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01:08:05

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01:08:12

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01:08:20

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01:08:29

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01:08:36

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01:08:44

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01:09:12

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01:10:30

And now we are returning to our discussion on the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church.

01:10:37

Our guest is William F. Hill, former host of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of the

01:10:47

Taylor South Carolina, and he currently pastors the Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina, which is a congregation in the

01:10:55

Presbyterian Church in America, more commonly known as the PCA. And in studio with me is my co -host, the

01:11:02

Rev. Buzz Taylor. And I wanted to make sure, Rev. Buzz, that you and Pastor Hill had completed what you were saying before we had to go to a break.

01:11:11

Well, I want to start by just, if I can quote Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, because this is bringing back, thank you for bringing up such painful memories.

01:11:21

And while you're at it, why don't you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? There, now they got that out of the way.

01:11:28

But I have found, and you can comment either yay or nay on this, but in small churches, many times there's a different mindset that exists there than they don't see in some of the other churches.

01:11:42

There may be some reasons why they're small because of some of their expectations.

01:11:47

I remember hearing people saying things like, oh, we're a nice little family. I really don't see why we need to grow. Or, you know, they put an emphasis on, you know, the most important thing to the pastor is how many visits does he do a year and that kind of thing.

01:12:03

Yeah, I haven't had the pleasure, and I use that in air quotes since we're on radio.

01:12:12

I haven't had the pleasure of those comments. However, I think

01:12:18

I haven't personally even experienced that. But I think the danger is that there can be an ethos that is pervasive throughout a smaller congregation, that they kind of circle the wagons, they've closed ranks, and we're a family, and we have this relational element going that a larger church may not have.

01:12:45

And then when an outsider does try to come in and visit, there can be a sense by which they're kind of pushed away.

01:12:53

I don't think anybody does this on purpose. I just think it's sort of the atmosphere that says, who are you, and what are you doing here?

01:13:00

Now, with that said, there's danger on the other side of the equation where, and this

01:13:05

I have experienced, and I don't say this to besmirch anybody, it's life, it's reality, where a small church desires so badly visitors to come and stay, and so a visitor shows up at the door on a

01:13:22

Sunday morning, and what happens? The visitor gets bombed by the current membership, almost to the point of overwhelming them with love.

01:13:33

And even a chloroform -soaked rag across the mouth. So instead of remembering what it's like to be a visitor, and people are apprehensive, they don't know anybody in this room, they don't know anything about this church, they don't know where the restrooms are, they don't know anything.

01:13:52

And to just give them some space, you know, do a casual greeting, ask a few questions about them, not talk about yourself, something that I think every church should train members to do, how do you greet visitors the right way?

01:14:06

And then give them space to kind of feel their way through things, and the order of service that they've never been a part of before, a bulletin that they've never opened before, a pastor they've never heard preached before, and maybe go too long like I do.

01:14:21

And so there's both going on, I think, in a small church situation. Now, this is not to say that large churches don't have those problems either, but I think

01:14:31

I've experienced more of the latter issue of just overwhelming the visitor, and to the point where if I've watched, and I've actually done this,

01:14:43

I've stood back and I've watched this whole thing happen, where I can see the visitor creeping ever so close, backing ever so slowly to the door at the end of the service, and the member is following them as they go towards the door.

01:15:00

And it's like the member's just not reading the visitor's body language, and what they're trying to communicate is,

01:15:06

I want to leave. And the member needs to let them do that, and not overwhelm them, because it comes off,

01:15:15

I think, it can come off as desperate. We're a dying church, we're a small church, and if you come here, it'll so make our lives all that better, all that much better.

01:15:26

It might, but we don't want to overwhelm them either, and so I've seen that actually happen.

01:15:34

I've seen that happen more so than the former, where they kind of freeze people out, they don't want to talk to them, and we're a family, leave us alone.

01:15:43

Yeah, I can remember, I don't believe that I was born again yet, but when I was going through a period of searching, and the

01:15:52

Lord was drawing me, and I was visiting different churches, and one church where I started to visit was this little tiny

01:16:00

Pentecostal church on Long Island, a member of the

01:16:06

Church of God Cleveland, Tennessee congregation, and I can remember that church was small, and I can remember, even as an unbeliever, having the really palpable impression that the pastor was desperate for people to remain there, and I can remember when

01:16:25

I would, like, leave and walk out the door after the service was over, he'd be calling out to me, please come back, we hope you return, don't stay away too long, you know, that's a living example of what

01:16:41

I'm talking about, and the pastor's doing it, so oh boy, yeah. But, and also,

01:16:47

I want to say one more thing in a negative fashion, but I don't want people to accidentally tune in late and think that they're listening to Andy Stanley on my program, that we're bashing small churches, who have made those ridiculous comments that people were sinning and being selfish in regard to their children by being in small churches.

01:17:07

Yeah, no, I think those people that are doing that, they genuinely desire people to come, and I think for all the right reasons.

01:17:14

I'm not trying to ascribe any motives, I'm just suggesting that there's probably a better way, and I've witnessed that, and I thought, you know, this is a teaching opportunity for a pastor if he witnesses that in his congregation, to help their congregation that is small and struggling and probably hurting in a lot of ways, and one of the things

01:17:33

I pray for my church often is more to encourage these people with visitors.

01:17:39

It does encourage them to see them come in, but to teach them how to receive them and how to let them leave, so they leave with a good feeling about being there.

01:17:50

They were welcomed, they were treated kindly, but they were bombed with all this attention that just kind of, it's overdone, and that's all

01:17:58

I'm saying. Right, and one other thing before I move on to some positive things I think we should be talking about as well, and we have mentioned a couple of positive things, but I have found in my own personal experience, not that I have been a member of a church like this, but I know people who were intimately involved in a circumstance in a church like this, where you can have a church that is small by design, maybe unconsciously by design, but it is the fact that there is a heretical or dangerous teaching that this congregation has, and they are very suspicious of newcomers, and they drive them out if they have a different point of view.

01:18:48

The one example that I'm thinking of immediately is there was a church on Long Island that I became very familiar with because the pastor of that church, when

01:19:03

I first became acquainted with the church, became a friend, and he was at that time theologically sound.

01:19:11

But then this man drifted gradually into extreme hyper -preterism, and the pastor retired, and he asked a young pastor that he knew, because the young man was actually saved in that congregation before the congregation became hyper -preterist, and for our listeners, that is a view that Jesus Christ finally, for all time, returned in judgment to the earth on the temple in Jerusalem in A .D.

01:19:50

70, and there will be no future physical, bodily, visible return of Christ, and there will be no future resurrection of the dead, and that's just a couple of the major heresies of this group.

01:20:05

But when the pastor who retired called upon a young man to take over the pastor there, even though he knew that that young man did not believe in the tenets of hyper -preterism,

01:20:19

I guess he had reached a point of desperation and he couldn't find anybody that was a cookie cutter of himself, but then when this young man took over the pastorate, and he tripled the size of the congregation,

01:20:32

I believe, but none of those two -thirds of the congregation were hyper -preterist, and they eventually fired the pastor and drove all of those people out because they did not agree with the hyper -preterist tenet, and I know that that can be a problem that exists when you encounter a small church, but I want you to comment on that, but I do want to move on to some positive things.

01:20:59

Yeah. I mean, personally, I haven't really experienced that. I'm sure that is certainly a possibility where that a small church congregation may not be open to any other ideas, you know, this is the way we've always done it, and it's right, and we're right, and everybody else is wrong kind of mentality.

01:21:21

And you've got to avoid, we don't want to be sectarian about other churches.

01:21:27

I mean, I just preached a sermon recently from Mark, of course, as I've been going through it, and I had a repentance of my own attitudes against my

01:21:35

Baptist brothers in town and other issues. They're preaching the Gospel, and people are coming to Christ, and I'm going to be applauding it, not criticizing every nuance.

01:21:44

I mean, we differ certainly on certain theological points, but we're all going to be in Heaven together. And with that said, you know, we want to be careful when our sectarianism comes in with different views, different ideas.

01:21:54

We want to listen, we want to be patient. They may not be the greatest ideas or the greatest views, and they need to be dealt with pastorally and carefully.

01:22:01

We have elders that do that, and a small church may not have too many elders to do that, but the fact is, you still want to deal with that in a careful, pastoral way and not create

01:22:10

World War III in the middle of a congregation. Unfortunately, the membership can create that ethos, and the pastor, though loving and kind and gentle and doing all the right things, is outnumbered by the people.

01:22:22

That's why I'm thankful to be Presbyterian, and in a Presbyterian church, that is not likely to happen as far as the pastor's concerned, because it just doesn't work that way.

01:22:31

It's difficult for a congregation to just jettison the pastor out of the pulpit and out of his ministry. It can be done, but it's much more difficult.

01:22:39

But I have experienced that personally. Just a quick correction, Chris, if you don't mind, just on the hyper -preterism thing, just so people are clear, it's not that only

01:22:49

Christ returned in judgment, he returned bodily in 70 AD, which makes it all the more heretical.

01:22:57

He did return—I do believe he returned in judgment in 70 AD. I'm a partial preterist.

01:23:02

Yes, so am I. Yeah, so I think the judgment occurred there in the two sides of Matthew 24, but not—but the bodily issue is the real critical piece that's heretical.

01:23:14

I'm sorry, I just had to get tight. I understand that. Well, I actually did not know that they taught or teach the bodily return in 80 -70, but I do agree that he returned in judgment in 80 -70, but that's why

01:23:28

I emphasized once and for all. Yeah, right. There's a future coming of Christ in our future, absolutely.

01:23:37

But that's a subject for another day. Right. And going back to something that I believe it was

01:23:44

Joe in Slovenia was saying, when it comes to a large megachurch not wanting to discipline anybody because they don't want to lose them,

01:23:54

I think it's probably, from what I have heard from people who have belonged to megachurches, more that it's just impossible to oversee them, especially since many of them do not have enough elders to do the overseeing compared to the number of people that exist there.

01:24:13

And you can easily hide in a megachurch or a very large church as opposed to being in a small church.

01:24:20

You can't really hide if you're living a scandalous life or if your sins are known to the outside world or to those inside the walls of the church.

01:24:35

And people like to hide in that mass of humanity. And I've met a number of people who are members of very, very large churches, and I've asked, oh, so how is

01:24:44

Pastor so -and -so? What kind of a man of God is he? Well, I don't really know because I've never met him.

01:24:50

You know, I think that that's really where you've reached a point where it's going to be...

01:24:56

Well, to me that's just tragic. Speaking, John, just from the...I'm

01:25:02

a Presbyterian, so I'm going to talk from that perspective. You know, again,

01:25:08

I know a number of Presbyterian churches that I'm...I know the pastors personally, I know a number of their elders, and they're doing a yeoman's job, doing everything the

01:25:17

Lord's called them to do, and they made their tribe increase, and I'm glad for that. I do think there is a...there

01:25:23

can be a tendency. It doesn't have to be a tendency to go through bars. It doesn't mean these issues have to be the case.

01:25:31

If the church is training the elders, if they're being trained to do the office that the

01:25:38

Lord Jesus Christ is calling them into, to whom they serve, one of the things that I tell my congregation all the time is that I am your servant, but you are not my master.

01:25:48

And elders need to keep that always in front of them. You're going to serve the people, but there's going to come a time when serving them means you're probably going to get the sheep bite, and they can't bite.

01:25:59

But you serve Christ, ultimately, and you have to do what He says, even if it means the sheep are going to be mad at you about it.

01:26:06

Well, with that said, if they're being trained properly in their office and understanding expectations, most of the large churches in the

01:26:14

PCA that I'm personally familiar with, they have a system of visiting and shepherding that the elders are accountable to, and they hold their feet to the fire on that, and that is a wonderful way of dealing with that.

01:26:26

Of course, in a large church, men and women, boys and girls, can hide from their elders and their pastors, and there can be scandalous or very serious sins going on, and they're not discovered until after it's too late.

01:26:40

But that's true about a small church, too. You know, we live in a fallen world.

01:26:46

I'm the biggest sinner in the church. I wrestle with my own sin like the rest of the congregation. It wrestles day after day, and they can be hiding.

01:26:55

I might never know it. Even if I visit them 15 times in their homes, people are really good at putting on faces and hiding from things.

01:27:03

So I don't know that that's necessarily just a big church problem versus a small church problem.

01:27:08

I just think it's a sin problem, and elders need to be doing their due diligence, whether in a small church or a large church.

01:27:15

The challenge for the small church situation, however, is that functionally, it's the pastor and maybe one elder, maybe two, who feel the complete burden of all of that.

01:27:31

They understand what Hebrews 13 says, that they're going to give an account to the Lord Jesus Christ for their souls. They take that seriously, sometimes keeps them up at night, praying for the people that are wandering or having a difficult time.

01:27:43

And they visit, and they do the things. All of that falls to them, where a larger church, they have a great...they

01:27:52

have more resources to pull from in that area and probably a great...a little bit more help to flush some of those issues out.

01:28:00

So I think that's really maybe the only difference, if there is a difference in that particular issue.

01:28:06

As far as the large church, people not knowing their pastor, I think that's just a tragedy as far as I'm concerned.

01:28:13

That should never happen, ever. I don't think there's ever a time where a member should not know their pastor.

01:28:20

I don't care if you're in a church of a thousand people or ten. That's, to me, that's tragic, and it's not faithful to the office of a pastor, in my opinion.

01:28:30

And one, before I go to the break, perhaps you could ponder on what I'm about to say, is that there are many unsung heroes out there who are pastors and members of tiny, tiny congregations.

01:28:47

And providentially, those tiny congregations are tiny because of the fact that they have stood firm on truth in the 21st century, where more and more churches are caving in to leftist, repulsively wicked ideas and ideologies and becoming more and more resembling, if not becoming, apostate churches.

01:29:14

And you have these tiny churches, depending upon, it might have something to do with the geography where that little church is, but they may be so surrounded by extreme leftism that God has, so far, preserved that tiny group as a remnant of true believers.

01:29:32

And we'll have you respond to that when we return from our final break, so don't go away. We'll be right back at Willing with more of Pastor William F.

01:29:41

Hill and the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church, so don't go away.

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01:32:52

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes and the next 26 minutes or so will be

01:33:00

William F. Hill, former host of the Confessing Our Hope podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and current pastor of Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina.

01:33:14

We are discussing the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church.

01:33:20

And by the way, I don't know if you saw this, Pastor Hill, but I forwarded you a question from a listener in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, that was kind of lengthy, so I wanted to have it in front of you.

01:33:31

Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania wrote a fairly lengthy question, so I emailed it to you or forwarded it to you.

01:33:37

But before we go to Jenny's question, if you could respond to what I said in our way to applaud those faithful men that faithful remnant of pastors and believers who are living perhaps in areas of the

01:33:54

United States and even other parts of the world where the gospel has been so barren or the areas have been so barren of the gospel that they're small because the people in the area have been in mass conditioned to hate the scriptures, to hate the gospel of the scriptures, and to hate the

01:34:16

Christ of the scriptures. You know, I think you raise an interesting point, and it's clearly the case,

01:34:26

I think, that those churches exist primarily because of that reason, that they are in the sea of either progressive or moderate to liberal or full -blown liberal positions, perhaps even in their own denomination.

01:34:47

I'd even go that far. And so because of their commitment to the critical issues of the

01:34:56

Church and understanding what the Church's mission is and what it's there to do, and their commitment to the unapologetic preaching of God's Word as the centerpiece of every worship service, the commitment to the regulative principle of worship as our

01:35:12

Confession, the Westminster Confession teaches in chapter 21, and their unwillingness to yield on these central things that the scriptures teach from cover to cover, the possibility is real that they remain smaller or small as a result.

01:35:37

I am, as you are, I'm sure, and many of the listeners likely feel the weight and reality of the

01:35:47

Church caving in to many of the social and cultural issues of our day, appeasement and worship to entertainment.

01:35:56

I watched a video recently of what I would call an abomination in worship that occurred in a

01:36:04

Church, and this is what people want. They don't want the ordinary means of grace.

01:36:13

They don't want the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. They want to be entertained. They want every program under the sun.

01:36:20

They want to make sure Johnny has something to do and Susie's got something. So worship isn't the central thing, though preaching of God's Word isn't the central thing.

01:36:28

And then, of course, if that's not the central thing, well, then the truth, the doctrines, the historic

01:36:34

Christian faith, those things that matter, define us as Christians. It's easier to push them into the backseat of the bus as well.

01:36:43

And so yes, it is very possible that some churches are in that state because of the region they're in and their full -out commitment to the scriptures, the inerrancy of the scriptures, its infallibility, and also their confessional standing, if indeed they hold to a confessional position, as I do.

01:37:07

And so because of that, they are small, and people don't get a lot of part of that because people misunderstand what the

01:37:14

Church is. It's not an entertainment center. It should be joyful. Worship should be joyful.

01:37:20

I can't ever emphasize that enough. It's not a funeral. It's a joyful time, but the preaching of God's Word, the ordinary means of grace, need to be in the center.

01:37:31

And if we kick those out, then everything else comes in, and if that's the case and they're small because of it, then you know what?

01:37:38

Make your tribe increase. That's what I would say. You keep laboring, you keep being faithful because you're serving the

01:37:44

King, and He's going to bless you regardless of the numbers you have. And with that said,

01:37:49

I think it's important to point out that just because you're small doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It doesn't mean that God isn't blessing you.

01:37:58

It doesn't mean that God doesn't love you. It doesn't mean that God isn't genuinely concerned for you or in Christ isn't shepherding you.

01:38:04

He's doing all those things. He's promised to do them. But if you're small for that reason because you live in an area where the truth has been jettisoned, then keep your hand at the plow, keep going forward, and the

01:38:17

Lord will bless it, whether it's with numbers maybe, but if not, He'll bless you other ways, and that's a very positive and good thing.

01:38:25

And of course, the key words you used is, if it's for that reason, because obviously there could be some folks who are lazy and they just don't evangelize, they don't ever invite anybody to church, they might be either hyper -Calvinistic or hyper -Calvinistic in practice, even if there are many, you know, there are many who act like hyper -Calvinists.

01:38:45

You're right. I mean, you could have a church in a situation where, you know, the community is of no effect to them.

01:38:51

They're not interested in the Great Commission. They don't want to labor in the Harvard, labor where they're planted.

01:39:00

They're not interested in inviting their neighbors to church. They're not interested in giving the gospel to others and striking up relationships with other people in very informal ways.

01:39:11

They're not interested in being hospitable in their homes and inviting neighbors into their homes, which is one of the greatest tools of evangelism that the

01:39:18

Lord has given us, frankly. I mean, we bring people into our homes and show them the aroma of Christ in our home. We're not willing to do those things, and we remain small, then you can't sit at the same time and say, we're small because we're doing it better and we have the truth and nobody else does.

01:39:34

That's just not true. We ought not deceive ourselves with that. We ought to be honestly assessing as pastors and elders, are we small because we're not being faithful to go into the community and share

01:39:47

Christ with the dying world that needs to hear of Him? And if we're not doing that, we're going to stay small, more than likely.

01:39:54

And a very, very quick joke. Six men on a lifeboat after a ship capsized, and the lifeboat eventually makes its way to the shores of an island.

01:40:05

There were two Jews, two Catholics, and two Baptists on the lifeboat. When they got to the safety of the shores of the island, the two

01:40:13

Jews built the synagogue, the two Catholics built the cathedral, and the two Baptists built First Baptist Church and Second Baptist Church.

01:40:22

I'm glad you said Baptist. Experience, that was the voice of experience with Chris.

01:40:30

And we go to Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania's question. I attended a megachurch for a number of years.

01:40:37

It had 22 ,000 members and was in the top five megachurches here in the

01:40:42

United States. And though I enjoyed the vastness of worshiping with so many other saints and seeing the success of all the many different missions of this church, in the end

01:40:54

I realized that it may not be biblical, since there was no sense of community. After all, every pastor was known by everyone, but in no way can the pastors know each and every one of the 22 ,000 members.

01:41:08

What is your opinion on this matter? Should we be in small churches and drawing more closer relationships among the saints?

01:41:15

Excellent question. We kind of covered it to a degree, but perhaps you could reiterate. Yeah, well, let me just first deal with...

01:41:24

Jenny, I appreciate the question, and it's a good one. I think first, the issue of whether or not it's biblical or not, you know, how do we define that?

01:41:36

And if it's a church of 22 ,000 members that's committed to the ordinary means of grace, the faithful preaching of the

01:41:43

Word, the sacraments and prayer, they're shepherding the people, albeit they're sinners and they're going to struggle, but they're going to do the best they can.

01:41:51

Then I would say they're probably biblical if they're holding firm to the truth once delivered to the saints, they're holding true to the gospel.

01:41:57

I don't think the size determines whether it's biblical or not. I just think practically, and this is the issue you raised, is what kind of sense of community can you have?

01:42:08

Now, here again, it's possible, because within that 22 ,000 members, you can have pockets of people that have a great deal of community with one another, while they may not know a lot of other people in the church, they still feel a sense of community to one another and connectivity to one another in the church.

01:42:27

So while Joe may not know Susie way over there on the other side of the room and may never ever know her,

01:42:34

Joe may be intimately acquainted with 27 other people in that congregation and be growing significantly as a result.

01:42:42

So I think community can still happen, but I do think, and this is again just my opinion,

01:42:47

I think when a church does reach a certain size, it ought to think about planning another church in an area that is unchurched or maybe needs a church, and that,

01:43:01

I think, takes some thinking through. I don't know that we have to be in small churches, and I don't think the

01:43:07

Bible says we must be in small churches, and the small churches are more biblical than large churches. I don't know that we want to make that statement, again, because there's a number of faithful large churches that I'm personally acquainted with, and they're faithful, and the

01:43:22

Lord's using them, and the Lord's giving them resources to accomplish much in God's kingdom that He hasn't given to the small church.

01:43:29

That's just it. I mean, He's the King ahead of the church, and He puts people where He puts them.

01:43:35

And so I'm thankful for my brothers in ministry who are faithfully pastoring large churches, because they have resources and avenues of ministry that I simply don't have and never could have, love to have, but don't have.

01:43:50

But be that as it may, I don't know that it's unbiblical to be in a large church, providing their maintaining their integrity to the ordinary means of grace, and they're faithfully shepherding the people, albeit they may be, you know, weak at it, but there's effort being made to do that in its capacity and whatever it looks like.

01:44:14

So I don't know if I answered your question. I think I did. Yeah, I think you did. And of course you, and this,

01:44:21

I hear this directly from the lips of many of my Southern Baptist of friends in the pastoral ministry, that you could have a church with 22 ,000 members on the membership roll, but in actuality only a thousand are coming to worship, sir.

01:44:37

And Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment. I'm in agreement with you on if a church gets very large,

01:44:43

I think it would be better for the people and for the church to divide up into separate churches.

01:44:50

But I will also say to their, in their defense, that a lot of your larger churches are built on small cell structures where I saw in one particular case where there were hundreds of pastors in a church, and they worked harder than a lot of pastors of smaller churches in reaching to the people in their care.

01:45:15

So we can't say just because a church is large that people's needs aren't being met and that they don't have that social structure that you can get in a smaller church.

01:45:25

Well, thank you, Buzz. Yeah, there's a false psychotomy we want to avoid. You know, we don't want to lead this program and lead the listeners thinking, okay, large church is bad, small church is good.

01:45:37

No, I think what we're trying to communicate in this program is that there's a sense that there's a very real reality that a pastor of a small church, as well as the members, there's unique struggles that they share, that they have every single week.

01:45:56

I can speak from my own experience with my church. I know our people would love to grow, they would love to grow for the right reasons, and it just hasn't happened.

01:46:09

It's been eight years. The Lord has not been pleased to do that, and we always have to remember that the Lord builds the church.

01:46:14

We don't build the church. The pastor doesn't build the church. It's up to the Lord to do that, and I have to remind myself of that all the time, because I sometimes start thinking it's up to me to get out there and evangelize the community, and if I do that, then the church will grow.

01:46:28

Not necessarily, it might, but it's not up to me. It's up to me to be faithful to do what I'm called to do.

01:46:33

The Lord builds the church, but I do think smaller churches, they have a struggle.

01:46:40

They have a financial struggle, whereas they reach a point where they can't even afford to have a pastor anymore, because they just don't have the funds anymore to pay for a pastor, and that's unique to small churches often.

01:46:53

They have the...there's not enough hands on deck to do all the work that needs to be done, mow the lawn, maintain the church building, clean the church, pay the bills, do the finances, meet and greet visitors.

01:47:05

They have the struggle of not enough men even capable of being elders at that particular point.

01:47:14

Or men at all. In my situation, I have more women than men as members, so that creates its own problems.

01:47:23

And so it does fall ultimately to the pastor to do quite a bit of work that they don't ever hear about in seminary.

01:47:30

You know, in seminary, we get painted this rosy picture. I mean, let's face it, it's great on paper, but when you get out there and start to do it, you find out, well, this is, yeah, this is hard work.

01:47:41

And it is. And so I think smaller churches have that unique struggle, and I think there's also the emotional struggle, you know, why aren't we growing?

01:47:51

You know, are we doing something wrong? Maybe not. And I think it takes a wise shepherd to guide the congregation through that so they don't feel guilty when they don't need to feel guilty, and to encourage them when they most need it, because they come to church and there's people sitting in the pews.

01:48:08

I preached the other day, there were four people in the room. And a small church pastor, only a small church pastor understands what that feels like.

01:48:20

It's almost debilitating. You work hard on a sermon all week long, you walk out into the room, and there's four people there.

01:48:26

And you think, why did I work so hard? Well, because I'm not, because I serve Christ. And you have to remind yourself of that.

01:48:33

And so I want to encourage my brothers who are in that situation, that you constantly have to tell yourself what

01:48:39

I tell myself. It's not unique, it's just simple. You serve in the Lord, even if there's only four people sitting in there, sit in the room when you're preaching

01:48:48

God's Word. Amen. And also thank God for recording devices and sermon audio, where eventually those sermons that were in front of a live audience of four can reach countless thousands.

01:49:01

Lord willing. And I want to make sure I try to fit in as many of our listeners as possible here.

01:49:08

Sure, sure. We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who says, first of all,

01:49:13

I'd just like to thank Bill Hill for the great encouragement he gave many of us many years ago in the

01:49:19

Reformed rooms in PALtalk. So glad the Lord is clearly using you.

01:49:26

May he continue to bless you and make you a great blessing to others. And his question is, Acts chapter 2, verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the

01:49:35

Apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Would you say these four things, teaching, fellowship,

01:49:41

Lord's Supper, prayer, are the major things that every small church should be practicing? I would say those are the major things that every church should be practicing.

01:49:52

Small or large. You know, I think the Kingdom of God would be taken by force, you know, taking that passage in Matthew, if God's people, not just the elders and the pastor, but God's people would get behind those things.

01:50:10

I think every church needs to be doing that. Amen, and we have... Small churches. Yes, amen. And we have

01:50:15

Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. How, if at all, does traditionalism create challenges in a small congregation?

01:50:22

By this I mean the attitude of, that's just how we've always done things. Well, I came out of 30 years in the business world, and that phrase gets thrown around a lot by upper management.

01:50:36

And to me, that expression is often a death nail to what's going on.

01:50:47

If the way we've always done things is the right thing, and we know why we're doing it, then fine.

01:50:55

But if we're just doing it because that's the way we've always done it, but we really don't know why we're doing it, we don't understand the philosophy behind it, we haven't thought through the theology of it, then we need to reevaluate it.

01:51:08

Perhaps it's not the right thing, and maybe it needs to change. And so I can't think of an example off the top of my head on that, but I just know that in the business world,

01:51:18

I would hear that often from my bosses, but they could never tell me why we're doing it, and what

01:51:24

I would present as an alternative that maybe would make more sense. I don't know. You'd get that funny look like, you know, we've always done it this way.

01:51:34

I'm like, yeah, but why? And so it's the same thing in the church. If that's your mentality, and you know the reason, and it's a good one, and it's a theologically correct one, and it's right, fine.

01:51:46

But if we don't know why we're doing it, we need to think through that. And we have Daniel in San Jose, California.

01:51:54

Hello, brother. One question I have for Brother William Hill is, would you consider one challenge of being a pastor of a small church to be sin amongst members?

01:52:05

For example, in a small church, most people know each other, so when someone within the church gossips or commits another form of sin, everyone seems to know about it.

01:52:15

Not only do people know about it, but multiple people could be affected because of that sin.

01:52:21

If so, what would be a good solution to this all -too -often problem?

01:52:29

Well, again, I don't think that problem is unique to small churches. I think it can be more—

01:52:35

Well, for everybody knowing about it, it might be more unique, unless it's so public.

01:52:43

It runs to the surface pretty quickly in a small church. You know, the sin of gossip, for instance, it just becomes abundantly obvious that it's happening, and how do you deal with that?

01:52:52

I think, you know, you deal with it biblically. You confront the one who's engaged in that behavior.

01:53:00

I guess, you know, just off the top of my head as I'm thinking through that question, if that were to happen in my church where it was rampant,

01:53:09

I would probably elect to preach a sermon on the subject, and just address the entire congregation with this particular sin if through the ordinary means of grace, and let the

01:53:20

Spirit of God work on their conscience. And there may be repentance, but failing that, you know, gossip is one of those very difficult sins to track down and get to the source of.

01:53:36

But again, I think even in a larger church, while it may not have the wide -scale effect, although it could, because I think gossip is the biggest cancer of a church, and it can erode a church rapidly,

01:53:49

I'm not sure that there's a strong difference between a small church and a large church, although it becomes in a small church obviously much more obvious to everybody more quickly.

01:54:03

And by the way, you can look up on the Iron Trip and Zion Radio archive if you go to irontripandzionradio .com,

01:54:10

and if you type in the search engine in the archive where it says podcast or older broadcast, type in the search engine

01:54:18

Grimaldi, G -R -I -M as in Michael, A -L -D as in David, I, Grimaldi, you will see among several interviews

01:54:27

I did with my former pastor, my most recent pastor before moving to Pennsylvania, Mark Grimaldi, he wrote a book called

01:54:35

Gossip the Church Killer, and it's an excellent little book. It's brief enough where churches can order it and put it in their track racks, and it's also large enough where it thoroughly examines the issue.

01:54:50

So keep that in mind, and I hope that some of you or many of you order that book.

01:54:55

Now of course there are people, there are churches, there are pastors, and there are congregations who rightfully are longing for church growth because they can't afford to adequately pay the pastor, they can't afford to adequately keep up the building, the maintenance, there's many things that they want to do, but isn't first and foremost the goal to be to draw lost sinners to Christ as far as the reason why you're longing for church growth?

01:55:27

And secondly, should there not be many pastors and congregations who should be just content with the size that they are, as long as they're not foregoing their obligations to evangelize those around them, and leave it to the

01:55:47

Lord to grow the church? I mean we're supposed to be planting the seeds and watering, and it is the

01:55:53

Lord that gives the increase, shouldn't this desperation that many churches have to grow for the sake of growth, isn't that a dangerous thing?

01:56:01

Because then that also leads very often to compromise and all kinds of gimmickry and things that really dilute or damage the gospel message.

01:56:13

Yeah, I think those are always possible dangers, and I think you have to be very leery of those.

01:56:18

I think the comment about contentment, absolutely, but every

01:56:26

Christian is called to be content wherever they are, and pastors aren't unique to that struggle, and any other parishioner would be unique to it.

01:56:34

It seems like it's in their face all the time, but yes, I mean, I would encourage my brothers who are pastoring small churches that labor with contentment to seek the

01:56:45

Lord's face and ask Him to plead with them, to give them what He commands, to be content with whatever circumstance they find themselves.

01:56:54

I've had a wrestle with that, and it can be very, very discouraging at times, but at the same time, it is

01:57:02

His Church. It's not up to me. But men, the pastorate, and I hate to say this, but well,

01:57:12

I don't hate to say this, it's a fact, that they've got to pay their bills, they've got to feed their families, and maybe by vocational work, and a subject we didn't even get to, which

01:57:25

I thought would have been maybe helpful, is when should a small church contemplate closure? When should they say, you know what, we need to close, the

01:57:33

Lord's leading us to close, it's over. Yeah, and I know a number of pastors who were forced to make that decision.

01:57:41

Yep, well, it's never an easy decision, and when should a pastor in a small church take a call elsewhere for the sake of the family?

01:57:49

Which, you know, leads to something you've been saying all the way through this two hours about the current pastor of Landis Presbyterian Church.

01:57:57

Many of you know on social media, I've accepted a call to a new church in Newport, Tennessee, within the

01:58:03

PCA. It's not a mega -church, it's not even a large church, it's a medium -sized congregation.

01:58:11

It came with great struggle and travail as to what to do, but at the end of the day, the

01:58:17

Lord's called me to be a husband and to take care of my wife, and I saw that as my first primary responsibility.

01:58:25

It is my first responsibility, and so after much prayer and thought, we made that decision.

01:58:31

In fact, in the middle of moving, my house looks like I've got boxes everywhere. So you keep saying the current pastor, that's true until Monday, but I love the church

01:58:42

I'm at right now, and I do pray and wish the best for them, and they're facing some of these issues, but pastoring small churches is taxing.

01:58:52

Well, I want to make sure that I have all the contact information necessary.

01:58:57

First of all, the church until Monday where my guest is pastoring, that website is landispca .org,

01:59:05

landispca .org, and we have the podcast of the

01:59:15

Greenville Seminary, that website is confessinghope .com, confessinghope .com.

01:59:23

I'm sorry, confessingourhope .com, shows you I need glasses, confessingourhope .com,

01:59:29

Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary is gpts .edu, gp for Greenville Presbyterian, ts for theologicalseminary .edu.

01:59:39

Do you have any more contact information, perhaps even the new church where you are called to be the shepherd?

01:59:47

Yes, do you want me to give you that now? Yes. Yeah, it's

01:59:52

Fellowship Presbyterian Church, it's in Newport, Tennessee, and the website is not up yet, so I don't have that information yet.

02:00:03

That's being developed. In fact, I've been working on that for the last two days, so I don't have a website, but it's

02:00:10

Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Newport, Tennessee. All right, great. Well, I want to thank you so much, William, if you could hold on the line, because I'd like to schedule another interview with you, and I wanted to thank you for being our guest.

02:00:22

I want to thank the Reverend Buzz Taylor for being our co -host today, and I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who submitted questions.

02:00:29

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