The Reaching and Teaching Interview | Ryan Robertson

Well, we are back with another episode of the room for nuance podcast I'm Sean DeMars and I'm here with my guest

Ryan Robertson brother. Will you open us in prayer? Yeah, Lord Thank you for just the opportunity to have a conversation with a friend

God We pray that our conversation would glorify you. I pray that it would edify us Lord, I pray that you would keep us from saying things that are unhelpful and Lord in that You would just give us words to say by your spirit that are encouraging for the building up of your church around the world in Jesus name we pray amen.

Amen now Ryan before we Get started Luke was telling me that you're a bit of an you enjoy nature

And so you'd probably appreciate this little factoid about ants. Did we talk about nature? Well, maybe we did.

Yeah nature. Yeah Here we go. I learned the other day that all ants are female That's great.

Yeah, if they were males, they'd be called uncles Man, yes, we're done

Amazing Brother why don't you just start by sharing like a three to five minute version of your testimony?

Yeah, we can yeah learn a little bit more about you. Great. Yeah names Ryan Robertson We live in Louisville, Kentucky.

We being my wife Aaron my three kids Avery is 16 Calum is 14

Reagan is 12 and They're wonderful. I wish they could just travel with me everywhere I go

We are at 3rd Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky where I serve as an elder alongside Greg Gilbert You should get

Greg on here. I've tried. I've tried a thousand said no He says he says yes, let's get it on the calendar, which

I guess is a no. I will get you his PA's Email address by the time we're done. Oh, there we go.

Greg. You've been called out. Yes, so grew up in Canada born and raised It's cold.

Yeah, I loved growing up in Canada We grew up just outside of Toronto in a very multicultural area Okay called

Brampton huge South Asian population a lot of Indian Pakistani friends a lot of Chinese friends

The Lord was just wonderful to give me just a multicultural childhood. Yeah different ways Great great food scene

Toronto. Yeah. Oh, it was so good Louisville. They talk about their food scene It's nothing compared to Toronto because in Toronto, it's authentic right you get it's real

Yeah, if this stuff comes off the plane at Pearson Airport from India and Vietnam and China and then it goes to the restaurant

It's not this made -up stuff that but you're white people trying to do ethnic food. It's true Yeah, it's true and then when the mothers cook it for you and not the restaurant ten times better as Far as I remember as long as I remember

I grew up at Bramley Baptist Church With believing parents who weekend week out heard the gospel and so I gave my life to the

Lord a very young age After Christmas cantata, I think it was 1988 1987 1988 sitting there with my cousins.

I asked them. What does it take to become a follower of Jesus Christ? They told me and I truly believe that's when the

Lord converted me super thankful for that. Yeah, and I was baptized Probably four or five years later.

I'm not an advocate for Baptizing a lot of young kids, but you know, that was that was me then

Baptists gonna baptize so there we were and Grew up wanting to be in full -time ministry

Wanted to go to Liberty University Why Liberty are our youth pastor who went to Liberty?

And so there was this really weird video that was in our church library Kind of a recruitment video and I watched it as a teenager and I was like, oh,

I want to go to that place Okay, I was playing basketball at the time. I started getting recruited by Liberty. I would go down to their basketball camps and in the middle of recruitment

Junior year of high school committed to go to Liberty I was more kind of looking at mid -majors at that point and Liberty just stood up above far above and beyond everywhere else

I'm gonna put my hands into here All good So went to Liberty committed to Liberty and then

I just started dating my my wife my now wife Kind of last semester of high school Okay, and she ended up deciding that she wanted to go to Liberty too, which was a win for me

No, long -distance relationship. I went down to Liberty together. I Went from wanting to be a pastor to in my last year of high school

Just getting absolutely spooked about the whole idea of pastoral ministry, which I think is good for an 18 year old to kind of bear that Wait, oh, yeah,

I'm not really cut out for this We know where you spooked because you came to understand like the the gravity of it.

Totally. I loved public speaking I love the idea of just preaching on a Sunday morning and then just realizing as I got older Hey pastoral ministry has a lot more to do

With counseling and care than it does just speaking on a Sunday morning Oh, yeah, so I think what a pastor does on a

Sunday morning is the most important thing He does senior pastor, but for me, I was I was not interested in the counseling care at that point

I'm a self -involved teenager. So I decided to pursue finance when got a finance degree at Liberty and Left Liberty to do sorry.

What was Liberty like at that time? So Jerry Fowle senior was still around He was amazing got to know him

Well, I served on the board of old -time gospel hour in Canada, which is super weird when I look back at that going like It was like a

TV program with Jerry and the choir behind him. It was there I think it was their Sunday evening services taped.

Yeah, and They wanted a young Canadian on the board. And so I went on the board is like a 20 year old.

Yeah, totally under qualified Unqualified and just loved our time together. So Liberty at that time

Jerry Falwell senior was still around I was working on the old -time gospel hour Kind of television production that they were doing.

I was serving on their board. I love Jerry senior We would have differing. Can you I don't understand much about the history of the

Falwell's I see it feels like when I hear that name, that would be a controversial statement for you to say

I love Jerry Farrell Falwell Jerry Falwell senior was a wonderful man. I think it is controversial

I think my love for him I think Jerry and I would have different views right now on things like how we should think about influencing the nation for Jesus.

Okay Jerry was very much one of the founders of the moral majority in the 80s.

Yeah, super thankful for Jerry. Okay He would just do things differently than I would at this stage of my life

But it doesn't take away from how much I love the man. Okay, and I loved my time at Liberty So Liberty when

Jerry passed away Liberty from what I can understand I'm not an expert on it Jonathan Falwell took the ministry of Thomas Road Baptist Church Thomas Thomas Road Baptist Faithful Church in Lynchburg, Virginia okay, and Jerry jr.

His son trained as a lawyer at UVA took the helm of Liberty University itself and They I think just had different visions of what ministry looked like And so Jerry jr.

Made some astute business decisions and Liberty blew up not in a bad way at first In a good way at first They did a lot of online stuff before anybody else and literally they got to the point where they had like a billion dollars

Of assets on the balance sheet, which you look at the way Jerry senior managed it financially Liberty was nothing close to that We were on the edge of financial disaster a few different times because he was more ministry oriented more mystery oriented

They had had a thing in the 80s or 90s where they had a whole bunch of bonds that grandmas had bought through the old Time gospel hour and then they couldn't repay the bonds.

Someone came along and bought them for pennies on the dollar Yeah, it was a hard situation. There's books out there about Jerry and his impact on evangelicalism the good the bad and the ugly

But I loved I loved him as a man He would drive down in his SUV down campus to have this weird horn and all of a sudden like his suburban would jump the curb and you'd be like jumping into the bush

To avoid it and you'd look up and he's like chuckling kind of well, he's just waving at you Yeah, so he wasn't acting weird or deranged.

It was just Jerry showing like hey, I see you. Love you I'm just gonna keep driving I to try to run people over when

I want them to know how much I will have a really cool horn Yeah, it's goofy. What's weird all of a sudden becomes quirky and sort of hearing.

Yeah, I think it was more like a roadrunner like Jerry there you go.

You had to be there You had to be there, but Jerry Jerry senior wonderful man,

Jerry jr Just took the university in a different way. Yeah, and I don't think it was the Liberty that I attended

I think they've made recent changes that have me very very hopeful. Oh, they brought a new president There's a lot of controversy out there around Jerry jr.

They brought in a guy named Donde Costin PhD I think at least one of his PhDs from Southern Seminary.

Okay, but former military guy Just great resume faculty love him.

Yeah all that stuff. So yeah Liberty was great. We loved our time there Okay, I thought I was gonna play basketball

Lord had different plans. Yeah, I couldn't make a decision between basketball and School so I chose school.

I had to make a decision. So I chose school Came came out of our senior year went back to Toronto became a accountant auditor as boring as that sounds

It was even more boring. Yeah in boardroom after boardroom looking at financial statements for month after month after month

I cannot imagine a life more boring than being an accountant in Canada. You could be an actuary in Canada That's actually worse.

Those are the people that evaluate the mathematical risk of accidents happening. Oh, yeah, that's right.

So that would be more boring I almost became an actuary and a friend of mine was like no, you should be an accountant great

All right. Sure sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, that's real science. So you're doing that. Hey doing that I hate my life got into CFO work a few different companies chief financial officer

Kind of moving up and then in 2011 read radical Radical changed my life

To a lot of people it's yeah, literally we almost we were on the edge of financial disaster

Because I just made radical decisions after reading radicals that I should not have made again financial professional.

Yeah Textbook knowledge, but hey, I wanted to be radical. Can we pause here and talk about that?

I don't want you to say anything to keep you on the wrong side of radical and David Platt Work together in the missions world

I remember reading radical as well when I was deployed and it got me very seriously thinking about missions

I think that book the Lord used it to get me and my family to the mission field Yes among other things and then

I went back and I read it a little bit later and you know Sometimes books don't change but we do and I didn't it didn't read the same way

But I found especially kind of in reform circles after Michael Horton's book came out Which was meant to be sort of a rejoinder to it

You're talking about ordinary. Yeah, and the marketing on that was fantastic whoever did that but like it almost feels like it's kind of cool now to go back and dump on radical a little bit but Man, the

Lord really used that book to open a lot of people's eyes to wake them up to the sort of mundane blog

Non -great commission way that they were living. Absolutely, you know, so anyways, can you reflect on look like okay?

So it helps you but also you went a little too far like you went crazy. Like how do you interpret that? Yeah, I think

I think Looking at myself in my 20s. I Was already prone from a personality perspective to take big swings and do things drastically

I was not a calm cool collected patient person in my 20s And so I read that book did not go seek pastoral counsel.

Just literally just made up my own mind okay, here's how I'm gonna adapt this book and adopt it as kind of a mantra for my life and Yikes my my elders ended up calling me two weeks after reading the book and they're like, hey

We're thinking maybe you should come and meet with us And I thought oh, I'm in trouble like when your elders call you middle of the week.

Hey, yeah, you come in and talk. Yeah I was like, yeah, I'm in. I'm in trouble. They ended up saying hey, we want you to come on staff

And I had a number in my mind. I was like, okay I think I can make this work for like this much money and it was like way lower than that And I took something like a 75 % 80 % pay cut to go work for the local church and I thought man that that's radical

That's super radical. Yeah, I had a I had a Toyota Yaris lease. Ooh, and a lease a lease your finance got a percent financing, baby

Yeah, and it was a Toyota so it was worth way more. Okay a trade -in than what the buyout was So there's no financial incentive.

I know it's not a good financial move But I ended up having to get my sister to assume my lease which is super embarrassing my baby sister

Yeah comes and like takes my hundred and ninety dollar Canadian payment and runs with it because I can't even afford

My Yaris and so I was biking to work walking in like minus 20 degree weather to the church from our home

Just trying to do the radical thing Yeah And so I think I think if I could go back to 2011 and talk to Ryan with the orange book in his hands

I would have said before you make any decisions about this book. Just maybe read it again with an elder

Yeah, and and ask questions like hey, what do you think? What do you think about this? What do you think about this? I'm an older man.

I should write with my dad. My dad's super wise man. Super love him I get to work with them now reaching and teaching but man,

I should have just asked an older man to walk with me through some of those decisions because The theology and a lot of the principles aren't wrong

It's usually people who'd kind of take it and run wild with it. You could have had someone say, okay What does it look like to apply this truly biblical vision of like radical following of Jesus to my life in a way?

That's wise and not dangerous. Oh, well, you even look at the illustration on the front. It wasn't that helpful like upside -down house

Yeah, it's a young guy in his 20s. I'm like, oh, yeah I'm gonna turn my house upside down and show you how radical I am It was it was it was a helpful book

It was not unhelpful for me not to read that book with somebody wise One of the things I tell people all the time is you also have to remember the context

That David was writing and he was at a very wealthy church in Birmingham We're like 80 % of the cars in the parking lot in the very big parking lot are luxury vehicles

Everyone's super comfortable and and I get it you have to be aware of the broader context But that really was the context that he was writing to and trying to correct

And so when you're trying to break down a big idol like that You kind of have to take a big swing a big hammer a big hammer

And I think the Lord can use books like that and others to suppress in our hearts I was sinfully caught up in a

Pursuit of materialism and status and more money and I needed to be wrecked.

I needed my pride Taken to task, but yeah, it would have been super helpful if it wasn't from a pages of a book alone

Yeah with one of my elders walking me through it. So okay, so you read radical Yeah, it was an idiot, yeah,

I almost bankrupted the family and started working for our local church Did that in 2011 for seven years?

So it was director of finance. We had this huge big multi -million dollar building expansion Again, it's probably not the like the most radical radical thing the radical purists for going to the mission field, right?

and I'm trying to both and it going all right, so I'll be radical and personally Go be radical but like this is great and and I'm I'm super thankful for that church

I'm super thankful for the building. You just you hear the irony in it Like yeah, I went oh, yeah red radical and then

I went helped finance a massive multi -million dollar building. Yeah, okay But that church has been super super helpful and I think they work with radical now, so they're full circle.

There you go But yes did that for seven years in? 2014 2015 area we were planted by James McDonald's Church in Chicago I don't know if many of your viewers harvest

Bible Chapel Our pastor had been mentored by James. The church was planted in 2004 just outside of Toronto We ended up going there after we returned back from Liberty Love the pastoral staff there got to serve alongside of them but James and some of his issues started to kind of come up to The surface 2014 2015.

Yeah, and I started to ask questions on polity in 2014 2015 and I just to find that yeah polity.

How does the church order itself? How do specifically how do elders in a congregation work together?

Yeah, how does authority flow? How does the authority just do the elders ultimately hold the keys of the kingdom the authority or to does a local congregation?

James some outside board or some outside board. Yep. Hello, Presbyterian friends. So hello shots fired.

Yeah No, no, no, no But so we I started to ask questions about that and discovered the writing of nine marks

As in my kind of pilgrimage started to ask some questions, and I wasn't fully convinced of the biblical arguments that I was being given dove into Our church at our church, which was elder ruled elder rule.

Okay Super thankful for those brothers. They're really good friends But I just I came to a different conclusion on who holds the authority of the keys within the local church

And I knew at that point. All right, I think the Lord's leading us as a family into something different My conscience is just a little too tight on this for me to be able to stay on staff forever

While that's too tight your conscience is too tight Everything's too tight, you know, but we decided to loosen up a little bit and move to America So I had been taking studies at Southern Seminary I got to know one of taking studies.

Is that like the way you guys say that in Canada? Everything we say in Canada is is grammatically correct compared to Americans.

Do not be judging my grammar Okay Yeah, we you take studies.

Yeah, don't you guys say that? No. Yeah, we go to hospital You go to hospital take fate. We go we go on holiday.

You go to you go to studies. Do you guys do maths? No, but I like maths more than I like my really yeah

You just watch the new Apple TV episode where they were talking about this the new Masters of the air

They talk about maths versus math. Oh, no. All right. I should watch. Oh, yeah, just launched on Friday.

Okay launched. Is that a pun? So we

We decided as a family Through those studies at Southern Seminary that making a transition possibly to do doctoral studies down in Southern was was what the

Lord Did you already have your master's degree? I had a master's degree in business administration was leveling up at seminary doing seminary like crazy

Yeah in 2017 in kind of the the full -on blitz of like let's get studies done

I ended up finding out I had Hodgkin's lymphoma Which I thought was just gonna derail everything. Can you tell the viewers what that is?

Yeah, Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer in your Lymph nodes. Yeah, it's a blood cancer.

So to speak. So your filtration system was was totally messed up I I was training for the

New York Marathon I know you can't see on my face now, but I was I was pretty skinny trying to get down I wanted to qualify for Boston losing weight like crazy and I just kept losing weight and I thought

I was going through spiritual burnout just because of some of the yeah things that were going on in my life and Nope, I had

Hodgkin's lymphoma. Oh, so Had an amazing oncologist Shout out to dr.

Trinkas. I don't think she'll ever watch this but The health care system of Canada. Oh, don't do it came in You just lost 30 % of your

I've lost What could I say So tell the truth.

How long did you have to wait for chemo five years? Not not a chance I was I was

I went from having my biopsy to being in chemo and I think seven days What was it? one of those things were like you were like Not going to the doctor like a typical man and your wife was like you really need to go to the doctor

Every woman in my life my mother My wife my see the reason

I say my mom first cuz my mom said it way more than my wife did Okay, cuz you know moms they're just like always on your case and so my mom was always on my case my my

Aaron was I think just trying to be supportive and But at the same time she was like honey something's wrong with you and in her mind she's like what is wrong with my husband

Yeah this the ladies at the church that I worked on staff with They would come in some of them like even in tears saying like something is wrong with you

And one of them said like I had a dream that you had cancer. Oh, that's kind of weird Oh, I definitely don't have cancer.

Yep. I did haven't been checked but up trust me. Trust me. I'm good I know my own body and this is like over the course of months.

I'm guessing right? Yeah, I had lost By the time I got tested the level of cancer they said I had it for about a year

Oh, but because I was so active they said there's no way that you would have been able to To check in on it.

It was really the last I think four months before I was diagnosed that were rocky So again,

I got in low got in the Lord Healed me. Thank you.

Thank you Lord for that and Back on my feet Hodgkin's lymphoma is super treatable. So you hear about like non

Hodgkin's lymphoma There's a whole bunch of different types. Some of them are kind of terminal and some of them are not Yeah, Hodgkin's lymphoma is a super treatable form of cancer.

If you catch it in time, okay, the chemo sucks So they just absolutely rocked my body with chemo six months of difficulty

But the Lord used that again to just kind of break me Yeah, I needed to be brought to the point where I I knew that I just I might not live

Yeah before kind of getting the final diagnosis and it's like okay Lord like I get it You don't need me.

I Love my family a ton and I'd love to be here for my like as long as I can be.

Yeah But it kind of just humbles you when you look at ministry aspirations. It's like the Lord's gonna build his kingdom

He does not need me Right, and so that's just a common reminder even even in days that are really really good that you can get your flesh can kind Of lean in and go look what's going on?

No, literally I can be taken out and the Lord's gonna build his kingdom. Yeah, so it was a good reminder post post chemo

So I went into remission in 2018 in March and we moved three months later down to Louisville, Kentucky.

Okay, so Was able to raise support start talking with an organization called reaching and teaching that I now lead about coming on staff with me

What's your position? I'm the president of teaching. No King sounds good, but I call you. Mr. President. I never do.

I would be super awkward Okay. Yeah, what does Brooks make you call him? Mr. President? Okay, then just Ryan or president

Brooks president Brooks the most honorable Yeah, I call him crocodile hunter because he's got all these cool crocodile skulls in his basement that oh, yeah,

I killed that one there Yeah, whatever. He's the coolest guy. I grew up with moose in Canada. What can I say?

Yeah, so Super lame super lame and they're like 10 hours north. So we're not even comparable.

But yeah Moved down to join reaching and teaching in a kind of a creative access role where I was gonna help missionaries get into closed countries

Using creative means because there's really no such thing as a closed country from God's perspective from God's perspective

Roll up our sleeves. Let's figure this out. Yeah, and When I was hired and moved our family down I realized like there was nobody

To work with because all of our workers were in like open countries So I was like in the super awkward phase of like so what am

I gonna do? Yeah And the Lord just allowed for for work to come with reaching and teaching that was not what

I originally thought it was gonna be Yeah, and then in 2020 one month into Kovat the board approached me and said hey, would you be interested in serving as president?

Let's backtrack a little. Yeah, what was your PhD in? So it's it's currently ongoing. Oh things have been really busy

It's in missions. So missy ology. Okay, so doing a doctorate of missy ology at Southern Seminary with thesis

I'm writing on English speaking churches in global cities. I'm gonna get absolutely wrecked on it by the missions community, but that's great

That's great. They're great. Yeah, I mean I think about like strategic like what's happening in Turkey UAE Dubai.

I mean Yeah, you tell us a little but we'll come back to reaching and teaching. Yeah Yeah, talk a little bit about the significance of English -speaking churches.

Yeah, absolutely So if you look at what the Lord has done specifically in East Asia We're gonna use a secure word for that because we got brothers there now and a place like Dubai It's it's a pretty unique thing when you look at missions history period

You go to Dubai we could hop on a plane right now and go to eventual Christian Church of Dubai where John Fulmer pastors

You've got a congregations with dozens and dozens and dozens of nationalities Yeah, they gather together with English as their language but there's almost 2 billion

English speakers around the world and because of economic migration and forced migration and The economic opportunity given to people who have

English as a second language at a high proficiency There's a ton of English speakers out there. And so rather than having 75 different Local churches that are homogenous.

There's one local church You look about you look at Ephesians 2 where Paul talks about how the gospel has broken down the walls of hostility

Between us Jew and Gentile there Wow, it's beautiful. You got Indians and Pakistanis You've got you you could have

Palestinians and Israelis You could have Ukrainians and Russians and they're all gathered together in one local church saying the kingdom of God trumps any

Political power that exists in this world and our citizenship is in heaven and that trumps whatever citizenship here on this earth

So when I hear you say that I don't hear anything controversial. I don't know why anyone well There is something controversial in that because when you look at the and I think you guys might have talked about him in defending confirm

But when you talk about a guy like Donald McCavern and I'm pushing for the homogeneous principle which is this idea that churches can grow if everybody is the same so in order for something to grow an

Institution to grow. Yeah, if you've got people with the same socioeconomic background racial background And the more they have in common the faster that thing is gonna grow well

Someone walking into a place where there's people who aren't like them Yeah, it's not naturally a place to grow and so from a from a sociological missy illogical perspective

There would be a lot of people who have concerns about it. Another concern with it. Honestly is the fact that English isn't the quote -unquote heart language of maybe 65 of those nationalities that are in that church

Which means they speak another language better than they speak English So folks would say like hey like they may not fully understand the gospel in their heart language

Because they're hearing it in English and how would you respond to that? Ah, I look at what

Paul's ministry was in in the early New Testament and he was speaking in a trade language He was doing ministry in a type in a trade language, which was which was

Koine Greek. Yeah, so Koine Greek English I think there's a lot of parallels there

Yeah So you you look at a church like that and then out of eventual Christian Church of Dubai they plant

Redeemer in Dubai Because Dubai is huge. It's growing Dave Furman starts pastoring Redeemer.

Then you've got Brian Parks who's at Redeemer One of the original guys that went over with Max Stiles in the early 2000s.

He plants covenant Hope there's a vibrant campus ministry that's going on the UAE Through these local churches and a ministry that Mac Mac found and then you've got

Russell Kima Josh Manley Another faithful local church there in the Emirate You've got

Abu Dhabi with Aubrey Sequeira. You've got Fujairah with Jesse Brannan, then you're looking at pushing out past west of Abu Dhabi like time after time after time

Churches are being planted and the nations are gathering together to worship King Jesus And they're gathering in these very historically hostile areas, that's what's so significant

Yeah, and they're coming from historically hostile areas, right? so the amount of effort and money it would take for for you and I to move over to a

Pakistan and Train up pastors in Pakistan if we could even get in the country, right is it's huge But these guys can come and do an internship for six months to a year be part of a healthy local church experience where the healthy local churches

Do the hard work of okay, how does this contextually fit within our context back in Nepal or Pakistan or India and Then they do it and it's not a hundred percent successful I don't think anything is a hundred percent successful in church planning

But you see story after story after story in the Middle East and in Asia of God's grace through these English -speaking embassies

And when we look at United Nations statistics They say that almost 60 % of the world's population are gonna be living in urban centers by 2050 2060

And so what I want to say is like, hey, we've got a common language In English that's being used in economic trade

I'm not saying it's the only Sure strategy. I'm just saying like it's a strategy and it's a good strat and our friends are bearing fruit from it

And so let's let's not like we're we're impressing this. It's not like we're saying you have to come and be

Western and be English It's just it's just the truth. There are Christians in these places who want to gather and worship.

Yeah, and they speak English That's absolutely right. It's just an opportunity. That's that's absolutely right And I think another benefit of them is where you can you've got folks moving to do work in the local

National dialect or a local language. They're gonna have to learn language Well, where are they gonna gather as a local church, right?

Sometimes it's a small little house church and that's that's great as long as all the elements of church there. That's great But sometimes you can learn

Arabic or Insert the language while being a member of an English -speaking church And membering well for your first year or two and then going and joining or planting and a church in another language

And I think that's a super important element. So what I'm arguing for is there's really good missy ology within English -speaking churches and that's not neglect the opportunity that we have here in 2025 and beyond with English -speaking churches and then using an

East Asia case study and a Dubai case study is like, okay This is how I think it's missy ologically responsible in certain places

I'm even thinking through the lens of my own experience at CHBC even what you see and throughout church history, it seems like there are often these hubs that sort of Hoover people in you know the

Lord just kind of appoints them to be the People come in and then they go out through there and then they disperse the

DNA that they get while they're there so think about how many people have come through the internship at CHBC and Transmit that DNA all over the world or you think about Calvin's Geneva, right?

Like John Knox came through Geneva got the DNA took it back to Scotland and led the

Reformation there So it just seems like this model even historically makes sense. Yeah, absolutely

And then you even look at Paul Paul was working in Economically vibrant areas like Thessaloniki.

He was working in Corinth and Ephesus like these were not like Rome Yeah, okay.

These these places are super important and there's a lot of economic vitality there and a lot of transient community

Yeah, so people can come into a Washington DC or Dubai They can catch a vision for healthy church and as they continue to migrate out or back home

They're bringing that DNA with them And do you do you interact at all with like Keller's whole thing on an emphasis on the city city to city?

Yeah, I think he's got some good stuff We would differ on things obviously Yeah, I think he but his emphasis on like if we want to be at the fountainhead of missions

We have to be in the cities Yeah I think so But I I want to be cautious because even now people are watching this going like I cannot believe this guy is like only talking

About cities and I think one of the problems that we have in our culture today

And then even specifically missions discussions is the either or equation. So just because I'm trying to emphasize.

Okay, these are super important I don't want to negate the opportunity to say hey

We should also be going to languages that have never heard the gospel before let alone someone speak English So it's like the both both both cities and places that have never heard the gospel in their language both hand

Gotcha, but I do think I think Keller has a lot of To me compelling arguments in Center church and when he's talking about a city to cities initiative that like cities matter and they're mattering more and more again

Contextualization we would probably differ on some of the ways that happen words Yeah, but man if you if we're talking about places like Singapore where Eugene Lowe is right now

We're talking about Bangkok with a guy like Matt Tyler and Samantha Danny Spandler Davidson there We're talking about places like Hong Kong and so many other global cities around the world

You can point to those and say hub hub hub hub does not have to be English -speaking Sure, right, but we can get a lot of resources in under the context of international church with local authorities going

Oh, that's just expats doing their thing without recognizing like there's tremendous opportunity to impact

Locals kind of through that through that kind of hub mentality So by a hub you mean a place where people are flowing in and they're gonna take what they get with them back to wherever They're gonna go

Absolutely. Okay, and some of it's gonna stay there and just overflow. Sure, right? Yeah, so you some like a place like Dubai.

There's a number of healthy churches now in Dubai. Praise God All because I think four or five couples originally landed in Dubai at the

Evangelical Christian Church of Dubai and just Sat themselves there. Did they go there with the intention of planting an

English -speaking church? No, it was a revitalization they went so Mac and then the Lawrence's and the parks

So the styles the Lawrence's in the parks went over Lawrence. No David Lawrence. He's now in Erbil Iraq English -speaking

Church They went over to be part of a campus ministry to start a campus ministry in the

Middle East as they saw honestly before most people the opportunity in Dubai, you know and Launched out of student ministry and then

Mac wanted to be a member of a local church because he's good church guy Yeah, and you should get him on here hit the stories

I'm amazing Adam to the list of people I've tried Greg and Mac. Yeah get down here to decay Well, he hasn't even responded to my emails.

All right, he doesn't even I get it. I would respond I'll give you Leanne's email address and you can ask her

Yeah, but they go to join a local church and it just needs a revitalization It had been planted 30 years earlier, but it was planted 30 years ago in English It was planted 50 years ago in English.

Oh, yeah in the 70s and the story John Fulmer tells it really well, and he actually put a book out on it

But there were Christian missionaries in the desert where the Emirates are now

That were there before anybody discovered oil and they were faithfully ministering to the to the

Emiratis as they were like a wandering people and I think one of the original shakes was born in a missionary hospital and The original shakes of the

UAE I think maybe even the founding one And so he had made the statement to the early missionaries that you were here before Anybody even knew we had oil

Because you loved us and the Lord just used that to open up Opportunities for them like there's literally church buildings in Dubai Under the watchful guise of the shake.

Yeah, that's crazy. And he's given land over for it and it's nuts That's are you gonna take

PhDs are basically unreadable to the layperson. Are you gonna popularize this? Yeah, I'm gonna popularize it

Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but I am to back to reaching it. Yeah back to reach So you start off as the busboy?

Yep, effectively You have a job that you don't really know how to do but then wow you really prove yourself

They come to you. They ask you to be the president Yeah, I I always joke

So it was 2020 one of my CFO gig Sean was I was working in an aerospace defense company that was going under and I Was just helping it gently

That's right. So I thought like is this what these guys are asking me to do it's the beginning of kovat We had a couple

Trent presidential transitions at reaching and teaching. I thought Okay, this is a cruel cruel joke, but it looks like I might possibly be guiding this

Organization kind of through caught kovat and helping it unwind. We had no idea. What was kovat was gonna be especially internationally but the the board had approached me and just we had some really clear conversations about where my ecclesiology was and the void that I saw in the missions world as it related to Finding an organization that could serve a certain constituency of churches being those that are like the ones that you and I Pastor at so reformed baptistic complementarian churches.

Yeah that and you always say those three things Yeah, when you got on stage in front of 11 ,000 students at cross con a month ago

Yep You said those three things saying those three things and now like my team's like I think we need to add church centered There's a fourth and so I'm trying to remember how to do what why do you why do you always say that?

Why do I say reformed baptistic complementarian? Yeah, I think it our soteriology is so important in the missions conversations

So so that starting with reformed reformed. Yeah, so like what you believe about God's sovereignty and salvation

Has a definite impact on how you go about the task of evangelism and frankly It has a lot to do with your disposition as you lay your head down at night

Because you're gonna trust yeah, so I am a full -on Calvinist and Our missionaries lean into the sovereignty of God and we do not pursue quick fix methodologies in order to take shortcuts by which we can bring about people coming to Put their faith in Jesus Christ apart from the supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit because there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to success Somebody should write a book and someone should that's right.

Good mark Devin right before okay But yeah, I I think for us God's sovereignty is just so vital so vital yeah, like we are so dead in our trespasses that we are

Incapable in our depravity of making a decision to follow Jesus Christ without the supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit Yeah opening our eyes to the beauty of the gospel So so what that means is when we go out and we evangelize by appealing to the flesh

We may get something that we perceive to be conversions But may in fact just be what we see all throughout the book of John people sort of just getting

Emotionally worked up getting excited, but not actually being converted Absolutely and then we end up with the prosperity heresy all around the world because people get really really excited about something that appeals to their

Flesh and it graphs in a very satanic way to whatever the local religion is and it purports to be

Christianity And so God's sovereignty massive reformed Super important and at the end of the day,

I think if our main priority is God being maximally glorified a gospel that ascribes some credit to man and his ability

Right that the tracks from grace. Yeah, it's trying to rob God of some measure of his own glory

Amen, so my my 14 year old boy is being discipled by a guy at our church They're reading through Romans Calum gets on the car

Friday night And I said, how was how was your time through Romans with Ethan and he goes dad? I cried

I was like, all right, and I thought had something to do with school, right? Okay, did a girl break your heart son?

they're there, but he said we were talking about election and that God and I believe

Calum was was converted this past summer Wow, and he said God chose me and he broke into tears and Maximum worship comes out of that.

Yeah, you're like, okay My 14 year old worships God in a profoundly different way as he understands that doctrine and I told him son

You're never gonna get to the end of understanding how glorious not even in heaven not even in heaven, especially not even you should you should never

Ever ever fully comprehend how glorious and gracious God is Wow. So then baptistic.

Okay reformed reformed baptistic so we got a lot of reformed friends, but we're not gonna be able to serve them all and so we want to also put in the

The category of like from an ecclesiological perspective, we're baptistic and what we mean by that is we believe that Christians are to be baptized not

Children of Christians, but Christians and we just want to be very very clear that as we read the

Bible It's very clear that that we respond in obedience to Christ by being baptized as members into a local church

Yeah outward sign of an inward reality of faith. I'm sorry Martin Luther God does not give the infant faith through some weird mechanism

Okay, so baptism and I kind of wrapped up in that is also membership and discipline membership discipline understanding

How authority works making sure that missionaries are very clear with the other people on their team on how those things function yeah, and so we've got we've got a

Several different brothers that are serving with reaching teaching and more I think that it would be more of like an elder rule persuasion

Yeah, but we're only gonna ever come alongside of them and help them get over there if they're working alongside people with similar persuasions

Which would be elder led congregationalism. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so we really want to push into that so Baptistic and then complementarian.

Okay, right so people who love to pay compliments just compliments everywhere just nice people

The Canadian culture coming through. Yeah, are you polite great come with us? Yes. No by complementarian

We believe that scripture is very very clear as it relates to the role of men and women in the local church

Specifically in the role of elder slash pastor slash overseer Yeah, so we think that's reserved for men according to scripture when you look at the qualifications

And so we were we really want to be clear about those things we added this fourth category church centered care because We just want to kind of put it out there that we think that the ends and mean of missions the means and end of Missions is the church.

Yes And so we have friends like good churches and radius and others that kind of all this nine marks

We're all espousing the same things But we also just kind of want to put our hat on that hook saying okay We also want to be very very clear on the front end that this is where we're at Yeah after the

American Gospel came out a lot of people Asked if I would I've had several opportunities to go speak about missions because people's they love the jungle

Story and all that and they tell us stories from the jungle. I don't go talk about any of that I just go talk about missions in the local church

That's just it's the only beat on my drum because it's just so absent in the missions world.

Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it's it's astounding It's astounding how many people don't talk about the local church and missions

So it's astounding because of how intricately connected missions is to the local church in the

Bible We could take a stack of missions books right now and we would read read way more about culture and anthropology

Than we would be about the church. Yeah, and that's crazy to me crazy We need to retrieve

The the William Carey ish kind of impetus of like let's go establish churches Let's have churches send people to go establish churches when people get saved

They're gathered together into this thing called the church. That's right. That's what Peyton was doing. It's what Carrie was doing

It was Hudson Taylor was doing they were church planning. Yeah, and so we want to get back to that So that's on the back end assuming we've done our job and God has been faithful.

That's right on the front end One of the big issues with missions in the local church is that people? Don't don't think that it's the church's job to a train them and be send them

Yeah, can we can we talk about those in turn? So the local church's job in training missionaries, isn't that?

Isn't that naive? I mean, don't we need to send them somewhere? It shouldn't seminary be training people for missions.

I mean can the local church actually train missionaries? Yeah, I think they can I think the church in Antioch did

I think I think Paul was actually school in the school of the Holy Spirit He was only in Antioch.

I think for one year New Testament scholars will leave comments on how wrong we are But yeah, there's one two three for sure, you know, but you had religious schools.

We know they existed in Jewish culture We don't see seminaries as they are in the New Testament. I don't see missions agencies in the

New Testament I don't see those I see local churches doing local church things by sending out missionaries to equip to plant to train to strengthen and evangelize you see all of those things happening throughout the

New Testament, so I I think what happened Sean when I look at missions history when you look at kind of this great century of missions from 1792 to 1910 you've got

William Carey on the front end being sent out of the North Hampton Shire Association I think it was like 14 churches in northern

England Andrew Fuller was kind of their the kind of the lead guy and all of that with the most influence now

They were Baptist so it wasn't a lead guy in terms of right authority. It was influence. Yeah, I need a ton of cooperative

That's right. And so you've got William Carey being sent out by the British Missionary Society or something like that It was a really no, it was like the

Missionary Society really original name. Yeah, and because we're Baptists It just right there in the name

Baptist Missionary Society, you know, all right, so they send out Carey who loved ecclesiology

One of my colleagues just put out a little monograph on Carey's ecclesiology We don't talk enough about it

But this brother started to wilt because of his absence from a local churches as he was transitioning over to India His whole demeanor went down and then with three other brothers

Covenants together as a local church four of them four brothers and he writes back to the church in England and and for a transfer of membership and they write in their their records in large script

Transferring brother Carey to the watchful care of this local church over in India and we're writing this in big words so that we can

Remember God's goodness to our congregations something like that. And so he loved his ecclesiology

You see John Payton Presbyterian brother being sent out by the Presbytery in in Scotland in the 1800s

Payton Payton did church planning work. He looked to me oddly Baptist as he went about his work in the

New Hebrides But we're not gonna go too much into that sure But then you see and I think it was 1888 was the student volunteer conference in the northeastern

United States and you had 250 students gathered together and For the first kind of the og student conference and a hundred seriously, it was like the og cross og

Urbana It was up there in the northeastern United States. They also have Indian shaman people opening the event with prayers.

No Like I'm glad you said Urbana That's why cross exists in many different ways

But from from the student volunteer movement, you have a hundred of the 250 students Signed the

Princeton Pledge that says something like I'm gonna endeavor to give my life to go to the nation's and I don't see a ton of involvement in the local church in that Sean Yeah, something was going on in the mid 1800s to late 1800s.

We got all second Great Awakening stuff Revivalism was happening. You had student volunteers and again

Ryan in his 20s read radical without the counsel of an elder started to do some pretty crazy things And I think what happened in 1888 is you had a lot of students getting excited about the evangelization of the world in this generation

Without being under the watchful care of their elders as this was going on Yeah, and you had a lot of what our modern -day missions agencies being formed by entrepreneurial missionaries who wanted to band together to reach the world in this generation and The local church all through the through the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s

I think just kind of handed over the missionary task to agencies They handed over the training up of seminaries and seminaries were integral in the early days of America.

You had all your denominational Seminaries that are now Ivy League institutions Princeton but they all started to go liberal and I think as they started to go liberal because they weren't as connected with local churches and They're the reins weren't there.

And so I think what we've got today is just the result of a few hundred years of Institutions being separated from the local church

Yeah, and it's it's devastating and when you look at our missiology being implemented around the world today

Churches are surprised when they hear what's actually being propagated overseas. Oh, yeah, and it's like well, how did you not know?

Oh, it's because you you've just been taught never to ask questions. Yeah, so here's our guys handle that.

That's right They're the experts. Yeah, and what I want to say to a local church is this and Most of what your missionaries believe they're not believing it in their soul because Their missions agency taught them.

This is what your theology is they've sat under your watchful preaching for years and Good healthy churches produce good healthy missionaries and pragmatic churches produce pragmatic missionaries and I think there's this messy middle where you've got

Faithful local churches who are preaching the gospel But have no clue what to do in the area of missions and their people get excited because they're sitting under faithful preaching

They get excited to take this gospel to the nation's the church is under equipped to able to help them and they've been programmed okay, just go to an agency and they've got it from here and Those missionaries because they haven't had certain things kind of forged into them by their local church about missions yeah end up just buying into a

Methodology that they don't they don't agree with and like there's a conscience issue there and but they can't exactly point out

Here's where my conscience is or they buy into it because they haven't been trained or they haven't been trained or or they end up reading something five and ten years later down the road like no shorts cuts to success or Church membership by Lehman and they read something and they're like, wait a second.

Uh -huh yes, this is what I believe and then they ask questions of their missions leadership and their missions leaderships like Yeah, I don't don't read any of that.

Yeah, or They just get kind of pushed to the side and we've been meeting with missionaries coming off the field because they've had a kind of Like an awakening

Overseas of like good theology. Yeah, and their agencies will not have anything of it and some of them are getting fired some of them are having team implosions and It's super sad to me because it's man if we can only get local churches owning the task of equipping and training and sending out missionaries and Agencies understand our role is coming alongside of exactly.

I think we course correct Yeah, because because what we're saying is not that missions agencies are bad or even that they're not needed

It's just they can't be they can't have the central role, right? They can't be the primary actors

No, we don't have a biblical week like we're we're non -biblical is what I like to say Like we're we're not unbiblical.

We can be unbiblical if we do if we usurp authority from the local church I can do unbiblical things as an agency.

But as Andy Johnson talks about in his book on missions, I can come along It's such a good book. He's got this wonderful analogy about bride and bridesmaid

Sean think about the travesty like it would be shocking if a bridesmaid of a wedding you were officiating actually just stood in front of the groom and Held his hands and like just kind of took the place of the bride him at the end

It would be totally like there would be fights breaking out all over that building Between the mother of the bride and like it just would be horrendous.

That's what happens when missions agencies Take the place of the bride by saying hey, we've got this

No a good a good bridesmaid adorns the bride She makes sure that the rings there the flowers are there the dress is all laid out

She stands off in the side and she's ready at every beckoning and call of the bride to say what do you need to do?

My my goal is to make you beautiful. Yes, and that's what we want to do as a missions agency is say, okay local church

You're it's like you're the bridesmaid You're sorry. You're the bride. We're the bridesmaid so we're gonna we are gonna do make you do everything you can so that you can adorn the gospel beautifully and The minute that I'm like, hey, we could do this better than you.

Let's get in there. It should feel Super awkward and Ethan. Let's make sure we clip that one buddy.

My boys over here spitting fire Mmm Going back to the local church build like training missionaries,

I think one of the reasons why we struggle with that is because of The way we think about training.

That's right, right We think it's like this condensed highly concentrated Folk and it can be that focus time where we learn about culture and language and praise

God for radius and the good work Super thankful there. Yeah, but the vast majority of training for every missionary is what they receive in the local church

Every Wednesday night Bible study every Sunday morning sermon all of the one another ministry in the local church

That is the vast majority of the formation that we need in missionaries before they go to the mission

Right and a year at radius or three months at this program or a degree from this institution is not going to counterbalance 15 years of unhealth in the local church.

No and and less pastors be confused There's very few seminaries out there that offer courses in ecclesiology.

Oh They're just like can you elaborate on that? Yeah, so I think Southern Seminary and a few other

Southern Baptist Seminaries have Jonathan Lehman on as an adjunct professor and you can go take an ecclesiology course with our

TSD see Yeah, our TSDC does that anytime students that are listening that you can take a course in ecclesiology

Yeah, you should do that. That should be Especially if you can do it with most of it's just part of your systematics, right?

Most of it is systematic three or systematic to however, they splice it but it's and even then it's mixed in with the

Holy Spirit and what I want to say to missionaries and Missions professors and pastors who think seminaries proficient for this even in missions courses.

You don't talk a ton about ecclesiology It's it's all about the art of crossing cultures and those are important things, but they're not the main thing

So the way I would describe it is pastor 95 % of your person's missiology is actually going to be ecclesiology

Yeah, that's right So when you you mentioned Wednesday night Bible studies You're teaching someone what it means to read

God's Word and understand it for themselves and giving even some of them when appropriate in the

Context opportunity to teach on a Bible study. Yeah, great Sunday morning. I'm a regular principal guy.

We pray the word We preach the word we see the word we read the word so When we when we pray the word we're teaching we're teaching our congregation how to pray

You're teaching missionaries what it means to pray because one day that missionary is going to teach a brand new Christian Lord willing by his

Grace how to pray. That's right. So what kind of prayers are you preaching in your Sunday morning gathering? Are they

Bible centered prayers or they man -centered prayers because your missionary is gonna copy that what songs are you singing, right?

Are they rich in theology? Your missionary is gonna go through some of the hardest times they'll ever face as they go overseas in that first few years

The songs that you sing on a Sunday morning The Lord is going to bring those to mind

Christ the sure and steady anchor how firm a foundation He will hold me fast or use.

Are you singing some type of trumped -up? excitable song that it Theologically weak a big sloppy wet kiss from God is not a lyric that's gonna sustain you through malaria

Oh, that's exactly exactly right so that what songs are you singing and and again that missionary Lord willing is gonna lead somebody to Christ and Maybe that person is gonna write hymns in their own language in their own musical style so that they can worship

God and he can Be worshiped amongst the nations another nation. So what songs are you singing? How do you how do you preach

God's Word? How do you exposit God's Word like are you are you a flaky topical kind?

I'm just gonna decide what it is I'm gonna preach on are you going to teach somebody what it looks like to systematically go through God's Word and Exposit it so that the meaning of the text is what's being exposited and applied missionaries have to be able to do that and then

Seeing the word so baptism in the Lord's Supper your people whether or not they know it the way that you practice the ordinances are

You're you're creating And catechizing somebody for church formation as a missionary when they go overseas

So do you baptize members into the local church or just kind of baptize them and just kind of leave them out there with no

Look church membership involved as if that's even possible Ontologically ontologically, it's not possible, but it happens a ton, right?

What spontaneous baptisms not spontaneous, but I am I'm not a spontaneous baptism guy

I think you have to and especially in other cultures where people can cut caught up in the Euphoria of seeing other people make this decision or it's another religion adopted

You have to be very very careful on that end and the Lord's Supper so one of the most like devastating things that I think

Exists out there in the missions world as people just don't know the importance of the Lord's Supper and how it applies to the local church, so I hear

Different stories about missionaries on a team not with reaching and teaching. They know not to do that We got good good folks, but you hear missionaries taking the

Lord's Supper as a team Okay, but that's a church ordinance. That's right, right. So pastor.

Are you how are you fencing off the table? Are you fencing it off? How are you fencing it off the table all of those things

Sean catechize missionaries? It's it's like anatomy when when you send a doctor to To a special medical program you're assuming they've taken their anatomy class

Pastor when you're sending your missionary to route to radius you better believe Brooks Believes that you've taught them basic anatomy because radius is a fantastic finishing school.

It's like going to heart school I don't want someone operating on a heart who doesn't understand how the heart actually function

Yeah, don't teach them about a knife at Medical school if they don't even know what the way the bodies don't worry about contextualization

If you don't even know what church membership is It doesn't make any sense whatsoever And and I think because we're so woefully inadequate in our understanding of ecclesiology in our seminaries you you then have a lot of missions departments that are outside of the biblical studies program, which

That's awkward. That's unfortunate because now you don't have your New Testament scholars helping your missions guys

Interpret key New Testament texts about Paul's work in the in the New Testament. They're kind of doing it isolated

I think we've just got over a hundred years now of unfortunately pretty bland

Theology in our miss missy ology and it's go ahead Travesty when I hear you say stuff like this

I think an al moeller president of Southern Would would sit here and he would amen every last thing you've said

Do you know and gosh, I'm not trying to get you to say anything bad about some of your main constituents enrolled at Southern Seminary But I mean are they are like do you hear of any of these

Baptist especially Reformed Baptist seminaries making any of these changes to improve I have

I Listen, I think the my props at Southern. I love them a lot I kind of developed a reputation amongst my classmates as the guy who was always quoting nine marks in his papers because there was just No ecclesiology in the literature

It's just just there's nothing there. Yeah, and I think one of the reasons why is

Our Southern Baptist institutions are Connected to the

Southern Baptist Convention and we have a we have a broad ecclesiology that's permitted within the

Baptist faith and message and I think the minute you start to push on an ecclesiology and Do we go?

Do we have this philosophy of ecclesiology or this philosophy ecclesiology? This philosophy ecclesiology is going to lead you to do pragmatic things in the field

This ecclesiology is going to encourage you to to be careful and use the ordinary means of grace and Go slow and steady and in the way that you approach the missionary task to have a

Seminary jump into the middle of that. It's gonna be a very brave seminary because you've got

You've got churches with different persuasion sending out missionaries with different persuasions that are all meant to cooperate together and the

Great Commission And it just gets really really dicey And That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

I think I think what we need to do is is kind of restore Restore the theological

Components in such a way is that we can have rigorous rigorous debates in our classroom where I'm not being told so much like hey

This is just the way we do things or it's bland I want to have robust theological debates in my missions classes with someone who's a bit more pragmatic in their understanding of baptism or Their methodologies in the missions world,

I want to have rigorous debates I I think the Academy is the best place to have those we're just we're just not having a ton of them

Yeah, and it's for the sake of I think cooperation, which is a good impulse but then what happens is that we end up having these conversations through podcasts and through books and and We're only we're only catechizing the people who are picking up those books or reading those podcasts.

It's unfortunate I don't remember who said it but I heard once somebody say something like the seminaries are only gonna do what they perceive is

Desired from Southern Baptists. That's right, and I'm not a Southern Baptist, by the way, so are you not I'm not a Southern Baptist I mean

I could be but I'm not okay So which is one of the reasons why

I appreciate Nine marks because what they're doing is I think they're actually changing the conversation at the local church level

Now there's I think 40 ,000 some odd churches in the Southern Baptist Convention So that a lot of change yet to come but brother,

I think I've seen an ecclesiology revival. Oh, yeah In my city 55 ,000 people, but one of the most church cities in America Ten years ago.

I could not find anyone anyone who believed in nine mark stuff. I Had lunch with a pastor recently welcomed him to town do what

I always do go to give him all these really good Nine -marks books Exponential preaching elders, you know all this stuff and he goes.

Oh, yeah. I got this one I'm reading it. Oh, I'm using that one to train my deacons and it's like that every time I turn around Yeah so my hope if I'm trying to be hopeful and not cynical for like the future of Southern and Southeastern and all these seminaries in relation to their ecclesiology training is that this sort of Grassroots level revival and these churches that are beginning to value ecclesiology will start applying pressure

So that these seminaries actually go Okay, we will become more distinctly Baptist in the way we train missionaries to think about the church

I hope so And I hope I hope I hope we don't go down the road of the Browns and and the Harvard's and the

Yale's and the Princeton's Yeah, and just kind of abandon our institutions. I think we need to lean into our institutions and so don't give up on Southern Do not give up.

It's Southern's wonderful like again, I Got to take New Testament with Tom Schreiner I had where and I had

Wellum for systematics you senator Jim Hamilton for Old Testament like these are incredible scholars that shaped my missiology in many many different ways sitting in a systematic or You think about Hakin and Wright teaching historical theology?

Praise God. I'm so thankful. I'm also thankful for my admissions profs. I just I wish

I Wish that we would have some of the the rigorous debates within the admissions world and the missions theological classes that We have in some of our other studies.

Gotcha. So that's what I'm looking for now, I think and again I'm at the expense of maybe being controversial when we look at seminary degrees, especially in the

Southern Baptist world Like when I when I hear that there are internships that people can do that They can get six classes 18 credits by going through an internship at like CHBC or something like that Sean like everybody should be doing that.

Yeah, like all of those have to our ministry classes We should be taking through the contact taking through the context of a local church and Southern is most valuable because of its relationship with Emmanuel Baptist and Clifton Baptist and Hunsinger Lane and Kenwood and Sojourn and Third Avenue and you go on all the churches around Louisville that students are attending.

That's where they're getting their ecclesiology. I understand Yeah, but man, what about the students that are taking online classes?

That they're they're elders aren't as oh, yeah leaning into these things

They're not leaning into these these matters in the same way. How are they gonna be equipped? And so I think

I think if we can proliferate internships and churches can be generous by sending Some of their members to go to internships at other churches and then come back and there's so many let's think about some other ones

Garrett Kell Del Rey Del Rey is incredible Vernon Mount Vernon with Aaron Michael Lawrence out in Portland.

You've got one Sanchez is down at High Point, right? You've got Raymond Johnson's in West Spencer, Pennsylvania on a much lower note

Sean DeMar Sixth Avenue Community Church Decatur, Alabama BAM. You can do that one did it Luke. Would you recommend our internship?

Maybe do both. Yeah, sure Go ahead. Yeah, I think

I think Simeon trust you can get you can get preaching credits through seminaries doing stuff with Simeon trust So like I would just encourage

Pastors one of the ways that we can hold our institutions accountable is by looking at diverse ways to educate our people that actually bring

Sometimes a greater value to our community In that specific job subject because that that seminary is going to course correct if they're finding that most students aren't taking

This class, but they're taking this one outside of the institution. They're gonna go. Okay. Wait a second.

We want those enrollment dollars That's right. Yeah It's very pragmatic, but it's true

Yeah And so I think I think we just need to Constantly be seeing how can we do better at the seminary level in these things one more thing on seminary and then we're gonna get back to reaching and just Think about how preposterous it is that in seminary

Where you go to be trained to be a pastor To lead the church that you don't have a course on The church, you know what

I'm saying? Like I mean, I had a guy at CHBC Tell me he said I learned more about how to be a pastor like how to actually be a pastor

In five months at this internship than I did three years in seminary, right? You're you're learning how to An ecclesiology class will cover everything from baptism in the

Lord's Supper church membership church discipline expositional preaching all that stuff Yeah, that's the vast majority of what you're gonna do as a pastor

You're probably gonna have two conversations in 30 years of ministry about Textual criticism, that's right, you know or or about some philosophical debate regarding inerrancy not nothing that stuff doesn't matter

Yes, it does matter I'm talking about emphasis Day in day out where the rubber meets the road the thing where you're gonna have to give an account for the

Lord You're gonna stand before him and give an account. It's all in this ecclesiological realm.

That's right, you know, so yeah, it would seem wise for these seminaries to have a

Greater concentration of study in this area because it's the vast majority of what pastors do it's true And I think so you look at ecclesiology you look at preaching and then you look at counseling.

So yeah in Southern we've got Bob Jones and Jeremy Pierre Phenomenal biblical counselors like you want to train up pastors give them some good counseling profs because you think about preaching

You think about the public ministry of the word the private ministry of the word and then you think about where am

I actually doing? It it's in the context of my local church. Yeah, and then and then you kind of build off your seminary off of there

So hey, I would just challenge maybe if a seminary took a bold step and Got in a room with some of the guys at nine marks because it's a growing constituency within the

Southern Baptist world Yeah, and just say hey Jonathan mark Here's a white piece of paper

You you have relationships with all these churches around the u .s What what would be a valuable with all your experience with all these interns and all these seminaries would be a valuable seminary degree

It'd be really interesting to see what comes off that piece of paper. Yeah, and then you pull in let's pull in Simeon trust Let's see what that's pulling radius and see what missions training looks like Yeah, I think you could have an incredibly robust attractive seminary and then

Turn it around and say how much of this seminary could be done in the local church Again working hand -in -hand with the seminary institution.

Yeah, but hey come take a class with Jeremy Pierre on counseling And then do a practice in your own local church in which there's the symbiotic relationship between seminary and local church

Yeah, getting back to the missions conversation if we're training up our missionaries like that where our seminaries are

Physically partnering and they they do their best I get it I do not want to be seen as being negative and no and but I think we can do better And I think

I think we got to think outside of the box for the sake of our future We could keep talking about this forever.

Let's move on. Let's move back to reaching and teaching stuff let's say that I'm a young man or woman and I want to go to the mission field and Somebody makes a recommendation reaching and teaching and I reach out and what do you know?

There's a representative of reaching to teaching reaching and teaching in my area and we sit down and talk

Give me the reaching in teaching spiel, right? You kind of already did that a little bit reformed complementarian

But like why why wouldn't I just go with the IMB if I'm in the SPC and careful?

Or why wouldn't I go with some other organization? What what why would I choose to go with reaching and teaching?

Yeah, that's a great question. We were to start off by saying hey, listen if your church has an existing relationship with another organization

We don't want to replace that in any way I think what we want to do is say to local churches and to the people that they send out

We can provide a an organization with alignment along all of the major theological categories

Which carry themselves to be very very important as it comes to the carrying out of the missionary task on the field

Yeah, so I we've got workers in Latin America Africa Middle East Asia Europe that can jump on a zoom call and A hundred percent of the time have theological alignment on every second level theological category

Which means that all matters relating to the local church and and salvation and so forth like they're gonna be an agreement on Ryan in these troublesome times

Aren't you drawing the lines too tightly don't we need broader partnership broader affiliations great

Yeah, I love I love broad partnership where it's appropriate when we're talking about planning churches together

If we can't attend the same local church here in the u .s. Why on earth are we planning churches together overseas?

Because we look at the last hundred and something years brother. What we see is That our desire for Catholicy and ecumenism in the world of missions has meant that we set aside theological differences on a number of different categories

And then we only end up talking about a certain percentage of theology for the sake of unity

Oh, and we're not giving the whole Council of God teach them all that I commanded you how to do

Jesus told us in Matthew 28 so how can we teach everything that Jesus commanded us to do if we don't talk about a certain percentage of it because we have

This unity on our own team on these matters and those things that we can continue to gather together a local church

But have different views like maybe eschatology Yeah What a wonderful way to show for Christian brothers and sisters that these are not essential and how we covenant together as a local church

And there's a good way to have charity with people that you disagree with within your own congregation I think if we can have local churches that are a hundred percent bought in on a

Strong theological statement of faith all around the world whatever that looks like contextually whether they write it down or not

Whatever that looks like I think what's really really wonderful about that Is that you can be truly

Catholic small C in the way that you come alongside? Presbyterian and Anglicans and even

Baptists with different convictions than you and you can high -five each other in the streets in the world and as You're going off into your villages

Just saying hey, we're so thankful that you're here and we're thankful that you're planning a gospel center church Yeah, we just wouldn't attend it because of our convictions, but he's

God for the work that you're doing what we've done in the whole ecumenical Movement over the last hundred and fifteen years or so since Edinburgh in 1910 is we've just kind of let's just decide to set aside

Theology yeah, and then when you set aside theology what comes in is sociology Oh, and that's just been really really gross.

So what I want to do is recover back to The associationalism we saw in a great century of missions, especially in the beginning

I want to say to a group of churches that all Hang out together and have the same convictions whether that's pillar network or Acme or another association that's like -minded and say hey brothers

You all do life together. Yeah, you all know that you have this common agreement Why don't you send your missionaries together to go do something around the world that?

Like just carries out your partnership in the gospel Globally, and you know, they're gonna get along and in this case that they don't you guys have such a strong connection here stateside

That you're able to jump in and rather than some member care personnel from a missions agency doing it

The church helps to do it And so what we want to offer to churches and to missionaries is a marketplace of like -mindedness

That's not for everybody, but I think it's for a good number of evangelical Christians Specifically Baptists here and say what can we cooperate together?

Here's the cool thing about that that I did not even foresee a few years ago Now we've got our brothers and brothers leading churches in Places like Latin America and Europe so you take

Germany you take Spain you take Argentina I've had conversations with brothers in those countries that like we are all on board with you theologically

How can we work together in great commission work in missions? They want to set out missionaries and they want them to work alongside reaching and teaching people

That's amazing. And that's only possible because we've got common theological convictions with these brothers And so I think

I think what we're trying to say to the missions world is listen all of you missions agencies

They're effectively the same thing So I'm talking not talking about the IMB because I think the

IMB is an institution of itself for the denomination SBC yeah, not a domination. They're gonna get mad at me

Man alive, there's I'm gonna get a letter tomorrow. Yeah The IMB is an institution that helps

Southern Baptists to cooperate and if you're a member of a Southern Baptist Church You should think about should

I go through the IMB or not? and if your church has wonderful connections with the IMB and they can get you to From your local church over there to do what you want to do to a good team to a good team

You agree with and with all of your convictions praise God what a good use of cooperative dollars

Yeah and I I pray that happens in every country around the world that I mean listen if reaching teaching didn't have to serve

SBC churches because The all of that was happening. That's great. Well, yeah, we'll serve churches like yours

Sean who aren't SBC I'd be super thrilled with that But I think sometimes a local church for one reason or another can't send through the

SBC And so they come to us and say hey would reaching and teaching be able to facilitate this partnership and guess what?

We have wonderful partnerships with our IMB friends around the world that are like -minded that we're able to say Yeah, and we're gonna work alongside

Yeah The friend that because you've got a medical condition that you can't go through the IMB You can still go work alongside that person.

Praise God but man all these these big agencies these behemoths that That just look the same theologically

Why not just combine? Okay And and just like be one big org without seven different overheads have one overhead

You have one building not seven buildings like just be lean and if you're gonna be kind of Negating theological differences number one don't do it

But if you're gonna do it just don't don't have all these institutions out here Yeah because what I would rather have is donor dollars that are going towards all of these buildings for all of these institutions and and All of like seven presidents and seven vice presidents all of this.

Yeah, what if we could say hey Presbyterian friends Go start up a like -minded

Presbyterian or kind of niche boutique like go do that Like we need big banks.

We also like our little credit unions. We should think the same way about missions agencies and I I personally am dreaming of a day where I'm sitting around a table with missions leaders and each of them is

Different I can't I'm not looking at eight of them going like you guys effectively just do the same thing and you're basically competing

Look, that's gross. Like just be a behemoth and great. That's that guy.

But this is the Presbyterian guy This is the Anglican guy. This is the Pentecostal guy man because of our theological convictions

Here's our IMB guy Like we all have a place at the table and there's really no competition because we all understand who does what man?

That's meaningful Catholic city. I think in the missions world. I don't know if we're ever gonna get there, but seems unlikely

It's true because who everybody wants to keep doing the status quo and I think we just need a little bit of a disruptive

Technology to kind of come into the industry and have people say on the front end.

Here are my theological convictions Here's where my our missy illogical major practices are and if you're not in alignment with these maybe there's another organization for you

Yeah, let's celebrate our theology rather than like putting into the closet. Yeah, or just never talking about it

Well on that note, especially brother. I think you would agree That you actually can't set your theology aside.

You can say that Your view on baptism doesn't matter But you're gonna baptize somebody and there's gonna be a view of baptism built into the way you practice it or you can say that Disagreements of the

Lord's Supper doesn't matter But when it comes time to celebrate the Lord's Supper, you're gonna have a theology of the Lord's Supper Female pastors you can say we can disagree to disagree.

I don't think that's true Yeah, you're gonna have a theology of all these things. And so Yeah, why not?

Self -consciously say we're gonna have a tight shot group a tight affinity on our doctrine and our philosophy of ministry

That's not to the exclusion. You're free to go do your ministry. You're free to partner but in this voluntary association

We're gonna voluntarily have a tight affinity group so that we can just work together together in an easier way, you know

Amen. Yeah, I think that'd be so would that be so so you are the president.

What does that mean? What does that look like? Is your you just promoting the company? Are you trying to build it out? What governing day -to -day operations?

Yeah, so We have workers currently in 46 different countries around the world So in one name them alphabetically

But one of the things that I'm responsible for is just making sure that our Relationships with those missionaries with their sending church and with the local church that their members of on the ground are all being coordinated

We've got a wonderful team of regional leaders member care personnel. Their whole job is is strategizing

Relationship management care coming alongside of churches. So we're responsible for the care.

We're responsible for the logistical support So people donate money to reaching and teaching to go towards the support of workers

So is the money being donated actually going out to support the work that it's being given towards and so see your background in finance

Really? Yeah Ensuring security so issues in Middle East Southeast Asia always keeping an eye on security.

So responsible for the security apparatus of the organization Part of my job is overseeing

Donor relations so we've got a donor relations team as folks are giving towards reaching and teaching as an organization making sure that those those relationships are good and vital and vibrant and Then finally just the recruitment aspect of it so we have a great team of mobilizers we call them rather than recruiters and their job is basically to build relationships with local churches and With our understanding that the majority of those relationships may not end in someone going with reaching and teaching

But we're just building friendships with churches that if they end up going with another organization We're really thankful that we can help to have that church think in a helpful way about missions

Yeah, so our mobilizers are often if they're kind of just educating people through conversation Yeah, so super thankful for that.

So even if they don't go with reaching and teaching Hopefully they will take some of that DNA with them. Totally. Okay, totally especially from the sending church perspective

Yeah, we can kind of build up the sending churches there as they're sending out so these sending churches, even if they don't go with you guys for whatever reason because Life is weird

They may they're still probably gonna be looking for the right things They're gonna want a partnership with the right people totally and we're really happy to make connections all around the world for for them as they're thinking about potential places to land and Doing intelligence briefings for them so to speak in terms of yeah, there's an actual need in the specific area.

Yeah There's agencies that are specialized and so much not not so much on theological differences or denominational differences

But more on like task Yeah So we want to if someone's coming in and they want to go with reaching teaching and then they maybe they look at wanting

To Bible translation. Well, there's organizations that do that wonderfully Well, and that's all that they do and they might be a better fit for them.

Yeah, praise God We still want to have a relationship with that church to encourage. Yeah Same with folks that only go to unreached language groups.

Uh -huh, right thankful for them We do we do a broader group of tasks in them

But we're really excited when someone's like no, I want to go to an agency that this is all they do Yeah, praise God We still would love to be an encouragement to your local church as you do that.

And so my job Effectively is to coordinate internal resources bring in external resources and then network broadly

Across the world and then specifically amongst our tribes so to speak. Yeah Is there any fun?

We're gonna launch and do a series of questions here. Is there anything that you would want to say to Anyone watching or listening about reaching and teaching that we haven't covered so far

Yeah, I I think I just really want to be clear that I don't think reaching and teaching Deserves to be the agency of choice for anybody.

I think for us It's a delightful duty to serve local churches and missionaries that have a certain set of convictions

But I would want people to know that reaching and teaching Were for those that have different theological convictions as long as they're not doing pragmatic things in the field

Yeah, we're able to to really get behind them and I'm thankful for gospel centered friends that are even doing pragmatic

Things and I would disagree with them and doing that and I would implore them like please stop doing that because it's so dangerous

But it doesn't mean we're not Christian brothers and sisters Amen, and so I want to make sure that people as much as we talk about our thorough theological convictions we're we're often being accused of being elitist and all of that stuff and That's I if that's if that's what comes with it.

It's unfortunate Yeah, but I think if people could really see through and say hey We're we just want to be who we are you be who you are, but let's be open and honest about it

And encourage each other and openly disagree, but do it in a benevolent and yeah way I think that that that is of benefit to the nation's

Wow going back to the reformed thing being one of the main Characteristics you think about Peter getting the answer right when he's talking to Jesus in Matthew 16

Who do people say that I am and Jesus is like, okay, you got the right answer But just so you know God revealed this to you.

It's not like you're just some really smart guy that's right same thing with a Pastor a church an organization strong convictions good.

Yeah, but let your reformed theology Inform the way that you hold those convictions graciously

Compassionately understanding that the only reason you have it right if you do have it right is because God has been exceedingly kind Exceedingly kind and the other thing

I would add on Sean to what I want people to know that what we do we talk a lot about Pastoring and we talk a lot about church planning.

We've got folks doing evangelism discipleship Through the context of a local church and we've got people training up leaders around the world

We've got guys with PhDs that are going and doing theological training all through the context of a healthy local church

Well, that's how I first met reaching and teaching I was in the jungles of Peru and a guy was down there teaching a group of pastors like two hours north of me in The jungle.

Yeah, and I was like, who are these people? That's right yeah, and so we've still got we've got a team that do that wonderfully in various regions around the world and they're going into train guys and Old Testament New Testament hermeneutics and homiletics church history and It's a result of pragmatic decisions being made

Where church planting has been kind of just minimized or the understanding of churches this de minimis threshold?

Or the missionary task has just been evangelism. Yeah, and let's just give him a Bible and let the Holy Spirit do the rest yeah, and So we've got folks that are constantly pushing it on that So if someone's interested in evangelism and church planning discipleship

Theological training and have those convictions. I think reaching and teaching could be a fit for them Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily the fit.

Can you give out your cell number? Yeah I was recently at a dinner with Harshit Singh and Russell Berger from the defendant confirm infamous

CPM DMM series He quoted Mark Dever in talking about the Great Commission, and he said that we often only think about The Great Commission in terms of going out to the nations

That's one dimension going out But we also forget that the promise is that the Lord will be with us to the end of the age, right?

So we don't we don't think generationally and I think going back to that that pragmatism And even earlier in our conversation you were talking about this emphasis

On like we have to reach the nations within this generation That's right, but there's really no rush that we don't need to manipulate.

We don't need to cajole We don't need to come up with crafty new schemes We just need to be faithful and trust that if we're faithful to the word

Jesus is gonna be with us throughout all the generations. Absolutely, right and He gave that Commission 2 ,000 or so years ago.

Yeah, we just need to keep being faithful until Christ's return Yeah, I think I think that urgency urgency is good

Yeah, urgency misplaced can lead to pragmatism The fact that there are people dying without ever hearing the gospel

I mean that should bring us to a sense of urgency But our reliance should be on the Lord and not on ourselves and how we go about that I think urgency is mishandled when people talk about it in terms of Bringing about the return of Christ Oh Matthew 24 14.

Yeah, that's right It's like we have to do this quickly reach all the nations get them all reached so that Jesus will come back

And that's just that's just not really what Jesus intended. Well, if you really want to get controversial I just saw it's a statistic two days ago coming from Ethnologue Which is this organization that tracks the viability of languages?

Okay, and there's this a large percent of languages around the world are currently in the process of dying out within one generation

Yeah, so what I want to do is ask all of those Missionaries that Matthew 24 14 revelation 7 -9.

Those are wonderful pictures. They're God's Word Yeah, but the way that you're holding them How do you equate that with the fact that we know that languages are dying out?

Like how do you square that that's not how I did get to my urgency Yeah, I get to my urgency and that I believe that the local church is the gospel made visible

I think that as Christians we have a duty to to proclaim the glory of God to the ends of the earth and man alive

I want to see healthy local churches in every community around the world and it's not it's not up to me whether someone comes to Christ or not that is

God's work alone And I have to be I have to recognize limitations.

We have economic limitations. We have physical limitations There's so many limitations. We just got to trust the

Lord, but we got to be faithful and those things got to go together I want to tell all the missions people what my mom used to tell me when

I would get a speeding ticket Hey, we want to get there, but we want to get there safely. One of the limitations is the speed limit

We want to go as fast as Is possible while maintaining faithfulness, that's right as fast as we can go

We want to save as many people as possible But we never not even an inch want to cross out of faithfulness into pragmatism.

That's right in order to go faster Well, you think about the heart surgeon analogy that I talked about a few minutes ago

Sean if if I'm having a heart attack All right, there's urgency in that.

Yeah, something needs to happen. Yeah But I I don't want a medical student to come up to me and go it's my first day in medical school

And I think I know what a scalpel is and where I'm supposed to cut. Okay, we're all in agreement that the urgency

I want the person who's carefully prepared for that task who also gets the urgency and May take a little bit longer to do that heart surgery, but I've got a way better chance that it's being done

Right. Yeah, and if we're that careful with medical things, why are we not that careful with eternal things?

Yeah, and brother we could talk about this all day and maybe we should maybe we should just keep going

Somebody is watching this interview listening to this interview and they're thinking Okay, I want to start thinking more about missions

Either maybe they're already a missionary and they want to think about it better or maybe they're thinking about becoming a missionary and they want

To start off on a good foot give us and you you didn't get this question in advance So that's not fair to you, but give us five books that you would recommend for people to think well about missions

Yeah, so a conversion Michael Lawrence Evangelism Max Stiles missions by Andy Johnson.

So all three of those are in those nine marks little colored books here. Absolutely, right? I'm gonna give a fourth one easy to read easy to read corporate worship by Matt Merker.

Ooh, I like that. Yeah, okay And I think I'm gonna do

Compelling community by Devin Dunlop. Now that is those are five books that people probably aren't expecting when they're yeah

I think about missions, but if you've been listening to what we're saying, yeah, you've got to understand those elements and so I would just maybe

I say Pick up the hub building healthy church series and read read your way through it because all of those things are gonna be super element

The compelling community one pushing back on affinity based Ministry models huge.

Yeah huge and they're talking about in terms of a local church context But that that's playing itself out pragmatically all around the world in the in the world of missions

I think I think no shortcut success was super super helpful. Yeah, and and what it was addressing

I think I would want missionaries to be very very careful to learn culture and language Even if they're going to an

English -speaking church, I should learn language and culture So our East Asian brothers that are that are in East Asia right now that are pastoring

English -speaking churches It serves them to have the local language so that they can be discipling locals. That just makes a ton of sense

So no shortcuts is great Read a couple biographies. Okay, so let's let's top five or maybe top three top you have five

Okay, top three missionary biographies. Yes, so I would say To the Golden Shore at an arm

Judson classical I would say and make sure you listen to Piper's message on that as well at the

Desiring God pastors conference Yeah, I mean he I would actually say listen to that message first to kind of prime the pump and then go read the book

Yeah, yeah, that's good. And by the way at an hour. I'm good job becoming a Baptist buddy. Hey, man

Hey, you risked it all Luther rice get back there and start up another org.

Yeah second one. I would say would be I Think it's

Paul Schley line's book on John Payton. So John Payton has a wonderful autobiography, but I'm giving out a lot of books

Names, so I think the smaller one by Paul Schley line the banner of truth did on their life and theology of Payton is wonderful And then the third one that I would give out is one that Michael Hagen wrote on the friendships of William Carey Oh, and it is wonderful not heard of this

Yeah I think a missing element in our missions conversations are missing sending is talking about the importance of friendships and spiritual friendship

Mm -hmm And so I think I think it's real lonely out there on the job field and and Hagen does a wonderful job

Talking about men like Andrew Fuller and a few others that were in that North Hampton Hampton Shire group that were lifelong friends of Carey's Wow, and how they care just held the ropes from it's so good

What are you reading right now, what am I reading right now? I'm reading on Matt Martin's new book on reforming criminal justice.

We interviewed him. It was fantastic man, I Have not

Cried my way through a book recently like that one. Just it's heavy. Oh, it's the bail reform chapter alone

Well, brother, we we recently we have had a friend who has found herself in the criminal justice system through some

What it appears to be very unfortunate situations. Yeah, and it is It's sobering.

Yeah to Read that book and then see kind of what's on the outside So you would recommend would recommend it and then

I'm reading a fiction book right now called Wolf Hall Totally forget the author's name Martin's some what's her name?

No This is gonna kill me. It's about not Thomas Cromwell.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah So I'm not a big fan of historical fiction and somebody told me you you have to read this you have to Sorry, my voice thing picked up they said it's the closest thing to good history that you can get with a good story because the author is a

You know, basically a historian it's phenomenal book book book book book book book book

Hillary Mantel Hillary Mantel, though. The whole series is not equally as good but Wolf Hall is phenomenal

Well, someone was telling me yesterday Jonathan Rourke was telling me yesterday that bring up the bodies I think was another one in this series and he was like that one.

It's amazing. Is that the same? It's a trilogy By Hillary Mantel and so he recommends that one.

It's so that's what I'm reading like a little bit of fiction Yeah, like a little bit of Nonfiction.

What are you reading in the Bible right now? I am currently in Ephesians currently going through Ephesians 2 for like my hundredth time, which

I absolutely love it just never gets old never It's the main book that I use with discipleship, you know,

Mark is kind of like a good evangelism go to Ephesians is a good Discipleship go to and I'm walking through Ephesians with a brother a new a newer brother in our church right now

I'm just getting so hype. You know, I'm just getting we're walking through it. I'm like, man, I forgot how good the gospel is

Yeah, and I'm so thankful in the structure of it Especially as a pastor of a local church that I can read the first half of it and it's like, okay

This is our theology and then our practice in the second half of the book. It's such a practical

Epistle, who would you say has had the most influence on you in terms of like how you think about the gospel?

The church so on and so yeah, so growing up my dad. I love that answer.

Yeah, man So I always say that if I grew up to be like my dad man. Mm -hmm

And I hope your son will say that about my son says about me and Yeah, I think

I think from a men that weren't my dad category. I can think of three I think

John Piper and his work on soteriology And the glory of God mmm, so good.

Did you ever watch his tulip DVDs? Yeah, I can't find them anywhere No, they were I mean, there's there's a version of them out there

But like the original ones that I watched I can't find Super used to hold watch parties with those. I mean,

I can't teach it as well as he does in there. It's so good Yeah, yeah, I think Mark Dever and ecclesiology and Lehman I think

I endeavor because yeah, it's just big like we love mark. Yeah Jonathan and his writing have he systematized everything.

Oh and in a very helpful way Jonathan's a writer mark is not a writer mark is mark does what

I call intuitional theology That doesn't mean he doesn't read and doesn't mean he doesn't write what I mean is she just has this kind of Ability to like suss out the truth of a thing.

Yeah, but if you then want him to turn around and like Systematically explain that to you with a bunch of really high -level arguments

He's just not gonna do that. Well, and some of it comes down to just time He's like, I just want to get back to pastoring my he doesn't enjoy writing

But then Lehman comes along with the Brent look at the brain on that guy All right, and the pin on that guy.

Yeah, and then you know, he just spends the last 20 years Yeah, yeah for putting it down and hopefully that work continues on until the

Lord returns because it's so so important like we've covered Baptist We have recovered our ecclesiology.

Let us not waste it. Hey, man, what an opportunity? Yeah, and then I would say I wouldn't be doing what

I'm doing if it wasn't for David Platt Yeah, so he's got to be in my my Mount Rushmore Super thankful.

I recently had dinner with Matt Schmucker He's actually here with her shit. Yeah, and He said, you know,

I love all the guys in our kind of circle. I love him And I don't always agree with David on Things that he says or does, you know little things in there little to medium things here and there

And he says but I'll tell you what whenever I'm around David I feel like this man knows

Jesus Yeah, and I know when he said that I was like, I know exactly what you mean Yeah, you know, there's just something there the

Lord's blessed it. I think I think you watch the measure of the measure of a man is Really by watching the people that he has led.

So when I when I look at Mark and I I Have gotten to become friends with so many of the men's that he's meant men that he's mentored and you see the profound influence

You're like, okay, that's legit. Yeah, that's right. I see I see the same thing with David in that The people who are working alongside of him at the

IMB Guys that are my friends now Paul Aiken Scott Logsdon Zane those guys like they love

David Yeah, so it was like I'm just gonna go with David Yeah Yeah Like for said to give up what he was doing Sebastian Traeger former

Executive vice president the IMB to give up his entrepreneurial career to go work at the IMB That speaks a lot of who

David is yeah, and then Scott Logsdon recently went with reaching and teaching overseas and just to see

Scott who is one of my closest friends the way he Talks about David. Yeah, I'm like, okay

So like super thankful radical super thankful for secret church and all the things that happen through that but man

He's had an impact on the men that have been closest to him and I'm thankful for that. Yeah, man It's unfortunate though that he is woke he is a wolf

I'm just kidding. There's a document. Oh, I saw it. I haven't seen the documentary I saw a 10 -minute trailer, which

I mean, why would I watch the documentary if in 10 minutes? It's Thoughts on that. Yeah.

All I know is that The people that I love that are at McLean Are just super saddened by it because that's not that's not

David. Yeah, and those are the people I trust yeah for the people that I know and We have to be very very careful not to watch somebody's

Edited docu -series and come to conclusions without going and speaking to the people that have sat under someone's pastoral ministry for years and say okay, so how is that different from the person that you know and Again, I'm gonna

I'm gonna ride or die with Scott and Cindy Logsdon who loved David and have sat under his faithful ministry

We have to be so so careful That we don't get caught up in the world's

Gotcha schemes and then just put it out there for the world to watch on social media Like yeah, how like I'm watching that trailer

Sean and I'm like, how does this make much of Jesus? Yeah like literally we're talking about a man who has committed his much of his ministry to Encouraging young people and old people to give up everything for the sake of the gospel and I I've seen people go

Well, his house has cost this much money. I'm sorry But like have you ever been in the DC area go drive around and look up pull up Zillow Yeah, just start trying to look for places like it's ridiculous what we're doing in terms of character assassination these days in the world now

If you're gonna have a disagreement with something theologically leave it at do not start taking personal attacks on people

If he said something publicly that you think you need to respond to publicly do so but do so without ad hominem

You know without trying to attack his character. Yeah making insinuations that that are unhelpful how

How does that build up the body of Christ? Friend who's pastoring you through coming up with all of this stuff?

And yeah I wanted to the people who made this documentary are the pastors of the churches where they're hopefully there.

They're at a church. Hopefully Maybe not but if they are I wonder are there pastors like proud of them.

I think like wow, you're really Crushing it for Jesus with this project where they like, I don't know

You know and pastor if you if you're in that area and you are proud of them I would just challenge you to get within whatever

Pastors breakfast that David's a part of and just get to know him. Yeah, and then see for yourself.

Yeah favorite book of all time Favorite book. Yeah, and you can do one fiction one nonfiction if you want.

Oh, man Sean you have stumped me.

I what book do I go to time after time after time? time after time

Yeah, I would say the book that I have appreciated the most that is a

Nonfiction book would probably be Desiring God by Piper.

It's just a paradigm shift, man God wants me to be happy. Yeah, and he wants me to be happy in him

And that's actually my duty. My job is to pursue happiness in Jesus duty of delight. Whoo Yeah, so that one that one

I think just it set me on the trajectory like I wouldn't be reading ecclesiology And I wouldn't be reading plot if it wasn't for encountering

Piper in the early 2000s. Did you listen to the most recent pastor's talk on transcendence? No, not yet.

Sorry, Jonathan It's one of the better ones mark interrupts less than ever

One of the things that Jonathan asked him about the young wrestlers and reform movement and in mark is quick to say

Yeah, a lot of us contributed to that but really the heart of that movement was John Piper's Relentless emphasis on centering

God, you know, just once people get a vision of God Reformation is gonna take place and nobody did that as well and as consistently and as passionately as John Piper well, you know and and lift it out like I was across and I ended up in a conversation with John at one of our meals and I ended up talking to him about the pew the beauty of The doctrine of limited atonement like how how it's just remarkable like think about it.

There is not one person who is in an eternal state of damnation who

Christ's blood wasn't sufficient right like we believe in the absolute sufficiency and I'm I'm like just getting all riled up about this and then

I literally have this moment where I look over at John Piper and I'm like All right. I'm so sorry. This is like preaching to the choir.

Like this is such a weird, but I'm so thankful I'm so thankful for his writing and desiring

God just set me on this incredible trajectory Because it's Calvinism in its right place, right?

We are not angry Calvinists No, not haughty Calvin not haughty Calvinist It's like you've got that that Ed Edwards style of just delighting in the glory of God.

Yeah, it's wonderful It's biblical and enjoy is the most attractive right like angry

Calvinism not attractive proud Calvinism and nor should it be right? It's it's straight from the flesh

But when a when a Christian in dwelt by the Holy Spirit Perceives your joy in God's grace.

They're just drawn to it like a moth to a flame It's wonderful because it's something the world just cannot offer ever ever ever ever so non -fiction,

I want to say It's a series of books by a guy named in Rankin On a

Scottish detective named rebus and I lost we already man. I've lost everybody

But I love I love Grant. I love all the historical fiction things, but there's this this Scottish writer he's you'd like his last one the

Grands last I thought it was good the wager. I thought it was good. It wasn't as good as killers of Flower Moon Which was fun.

Not that one was phenomenal. Yeah, it was it was like, okay. It's like I think this is pretty much every Boat that ever sunk somewhere and had people.

Yeah, I'm sure this stuff happened. Yeah, but yeah in Rankin for me was Is that is that historical fiction?

No, it's it's literally a Scottish Detective who is often on the wrong side of law just interesting

I didn't sir Arthur Conan Doyle already do that. Well with Sherlock pretty sure I love reading fiction because it actually makes me a better reader of nonfiction actually speeds up my my reading.

Yeah Favorite food favorite food Mango so mango rice

So mango rice from Thailand. Have you ever had it? I I have not from Thailand.

I had it in Peru Okay, but when when we lived in the jungle, you know mango trees everywhere everywhere and during the ripe season

Yeah, I mean you just couldn't eat another mango It's just you eat all you do is eat mango

But when a mango is perfectly like you can't get them like that in the States You probably got them if you're in a tropical environment you get good fresh ripe mango

There's nothing like it man No, and then you and I know it sounds weird to people to say add it to rice But you have to understand that for the majority of the people around the world rice is your base like you start with rice

And then you add whatever else you're gonna add to the meal Well, if you're if you're gonna hate on on rice, you've got to have rice with Condensed coconut milk

Nice and sticky and then you chop up some mango on that And yeah, that's like if I have my choice on what's at the marriage supper of the lamb.

Oh, it's sticky rice and mango Favorite candy or sweet favorite.

So there's these they've now come to the US but I I'm a sucker for these things called fuzzy peaches There are

Canadian aren't all peaches fuzzy their candy called fuzzy peaches Lots of sugar

I've had about five root canals and I'm pretty sure three of them were related to fuzzy peach consumption least favorite candy

Jolly ranchers just drive me nuts Like a texture thing or like it just gets stuck on your teeth, you know, like come on now

Yeah, they're just it's such a sharp taste. It's an angry. I Also don't want to just have to keep something

Compartmentalized in my mouth fell on it's like let me eat you or not It's exactly just get out of my mouth.

Yeah careful favorite movie favorite movie Braveheart Dude, I don't know what you call it.

I know what a like an anglophile is Is there like a Scot a file like you just all things Scottish man your favorite books your favorite movie.

Yeah, I love Scottish culture You love Mel Gibson You love everything he's ever done

But man Braveheart Mel Gibson was amazing when we were soldiers Mel Gibson was amazing Yeah, he had a good run there and then he just got crazy lethal weapon.

The weapon was fun. He was so fun Yeah, yeah, but Braveheart for me His some historical inaccuracies.

Yeah, whenever I'm like loving my English friends Shout out to the Grace Guilford guys.

Love you. But like whenever I want to just Remind myself of what they've done to us for hundreds of years.

I put on Braveheart. Yeah Are you wearing a kilt right now under the no, actually I have a true story

I have a kilt arriving in the next four weeks from Scotland. Why? So I can bust it out for weddings

Seriously I was in Glasgow in the summer and for my 40th birthday my wife

Said yeah, you can go get fitted for a kilt Hey, man, you don't spend that amount of money without It is not cheap.

You can get cheap ones at the souvenir shops, but I wanted like a Robertson kilt I wanted our so my clan fought with Robert the

Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn true story and They played this song called the coming of the

Robertsons on to the onto the field. That's your last name It's my last name. So when my wife and I got married to cool

Scottish things We had our hands fast as if you watch Braveheart when him and his wife get married

They tie tartan around their hands, it's called hand fasting. Okay, so we did that with the

Robertson clan Okay, so tying the knot. Yeah where it comes from Okay and then the second thing we do is we had a bagpiper and he played us into our reception none of this corny dance music

That people do we had a full like dropping Murphy's bag. No way Yeah we had a

Legit bagpiper walk us in with the song he found it the coming of the Robertsons that my clan had played going into battle

And so you want to talk about Are you kidding me like what more manly thing to be played walking into your reception then what your

Forefathers and your wife was cool with that. She thought it was cool. I I wanted to wear a kilt So this was our I didn't know where this was our common.

Okay, you got the song didn't get the kill But now you're a skirt wearing four weeks. You're gonna be walking a skirt kill

It's the same thing Isn't there a verse about this in Leviticus about not wearing women's clothing?

Hey, man, I think it's men's clothing. It's a kilt It's not a skirt. Okay Are you gonna gird up your loins while you wear it if you have to like you're not supposed to talk about these things

Okay. Well brother, thank you so much for coming on for talking about reaching and teaching I I hope that the

Lord blesses your ministry that you guys continue to move in the right direction I think reaching and teach like when

I think about like an ideal missionary I think somebody who's been in a healthy church with all the nine marks

Who then maybe goes and gets good seminary bible training at a you know, any number of different institutions?

uh, usually thinking more in terms of who they're studying under than the institution that they're at And then they go to radius to get their good finishing school on language and culture and then they sign up with reaching and teaching and they go and take the gospel to the nations that to me sounds like a

A well -trained missionary amen. Hey, man, let's end on that. No, let me pray father Thank you so much for my brother.

Ryan. Uh, we pray that you will Remind him of your grace every day

Uh strengthen him by your grace every day your holy spirit working through your word and through the church Uh are the only means by which he can accomplish what you've called him to we pray that you'll keep him holy

We pray that you'll protect him from any uh Well from the world the flesh and the devil

And we pray that you'll help him to be happy in jesus going back to our conversation earlier about john piper.

We pray that That he will have a fragrance an aroma about him That shows that he truly sees the glory of god in the face of jesus christ and that that will be contagious

Uh in all those interactions that he has on behalf of reaching and teaching Lord, we pray that if reaching and teaching is faithful You will bless their ministry until jesus comes back or until you have a different Appointment for them and if they move away from the gospel if they move away from faithfulness

We pray that you will be merciful and in their ministry before they do anything dangerous or unhelpful

And we rejoice knowing that we can say amen together to a prayer like that because of our similar convictions