Greg Hatteberg Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth, and as you know, we have a little slogan, and that slogan is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

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I'm trying to get you to think about issues of life and theology through the lens of Scripture.

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What does the Bible say? And we live kind of in a culture these days where you don't want to discern.

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People peg you as some kind of discernment person, but even today as I was reading 1

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Kings, God said to Solomon, ask me for anything, and we default to, oh, he asked for wisdom.

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But if you read the text carefully, it says he asked for discernment, and then God gave him discernment and wisdom.

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And so we'd like to just sometimes discern, sometimes teach positive things, and sometimes interview folks.

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And I think the interview Wednesdays are my favorite, and today is no exception. On the phone with me,

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I have my dear friend, Greg Hatteberg. I probably should say Dr. Gregory Hatteberg. Welcome to No Compromise Radio.

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Hey, Mike. Thanks so much. Good to visit with you today, buddy. Greg, you're one of my favorite people to see for lots of reasons.

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You know, you're a nice guy, fairly handsome, kind. And your side is getting worse.

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But I love to see you because when I see you face -to -face, and I have for many summers, we are at the

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Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center for the Dallas Theological Seminary Conference, and that's when

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I see you. What a neat week that is. Yes. What a great time to be able to get together.

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And it's just so—you refresh my spirit when I see you.

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For many, many years, you brought Evie, and she was such a pillar, and your grandma,

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Evie. And I tell you, I miss her, but I'm just so glad to continue to be able to see you,

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Mike. Amen. We've just got a neat little friendship and partnership with even, you know, people like me from Master's Seminary and Southern Seminary.

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I can be friends with a DTS guy. That's for sure. Oh, yeah.

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When they say sister seminaries, there's a reason for that. It's because they're from the same family, but they fight like wild women.

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Well, Greg, I think we've talked about it. Most of my professors at the Master's Seminary were graduates from Dallas and or professors from Dallas.

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Yeah, right. Right. There's a number of people, especially there's—I mean, even as I speak now, there's a friend of mine that did his

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PhD here at DTS. We play Dr. Greg Harris, and he's head of the Biblical Exposition Department at Master's, and a close friend, a close friend of mine, and I continue to keep in touch with him and many others, many others at the seminary, which is—there's a sweet spirit between because there's a real common element of holding true to Scripture, which it's so, so, in many ways, remote in a lot of other seminaries.

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But that's one thing that Master's and DTS has in common. Greg, tell our listeners a little bit about what you do.

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I'm looking at the website. It says Dean of Enrollment and Alumni Services. You kind of sound like you're a big shot.

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No, no, no, no, no. What I do, Mike, I've been at the seminary for 32 years, and for many times people come up and say, boy, how do you get done what you get done?

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And I go, well, you just outlive them, you know. But what I do is—Lord has blessed us to be able to be here at the seminary for all over three decades.

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And I presently, while it's been a variety of responsibilities, presently the

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Dean of Enrollment and Alumni Services, which covers—I'm over admissions, registrar, alumni, and placement.

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And basically, from the beginning to the end, from the recruitment of them coming until after they leave, we have the opportunity to serve students.

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And it kind of gives opportunity to give that continuity, because one of the major reasons why people come to the seminary, like with Master's, too, is because of the alumni.

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And so alumni will either bring their kids or people from their church or ministries. And so we just really have an opportunity to serve them before they come in admissions and continue to serve them while they're here through registrars and placement, and then serve them afterwards.

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So it's a privilege the Lord's given me. One of the things I like, Greg, is you have a theological background and ministry background or involved in ministry now as well.

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So you got your undergrad at Moody and then your THM at Dallas.

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You don't do MDivs at Dallas, but the four -year THM. And then your DMin there as well. So you're in tune with what goes on in the life of a student and theological issues.

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And how does that help you with being a Dean of Enrollment and Alumni Services? Well, it just—you have the opportunity to intersect with people's lives as they're seeking what their type of service that the

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Lord wants them to do beforehand, should they come to seminary. I remember when

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I was Director of Admissions, they said that, oh, I'm called to seminary.

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And I kind of challenged them on that, and I said, are you called to seminary or are you called to serve?

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And seminary may be what the Lord's using to equip you. And I said,

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I don't want you to forget the end game. The end game is not seminary. The end game is service for Him.

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And so you have an opportunity to interact for those who are seeking the Lord's will.

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And as they come to seminary and graduate school, saying, oh,

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I didn't realize there was so much—so many more opportunities than I had visioned. I know that's—for me, that was the situation, because when

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I came to seminary, I thought, well, I came from a little small, you know, country church up in Illinois.

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And I thought, well, the Lord's called me to ministry, therefore, He must mean that I'm going to go back and be a, you know, a small church pastor in the country.

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And came to, you know, came to seminary and then just realized there's so many more opportunities that the

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Lord is—the Lord wants to use your gifting. He's not trying to just fill a position.

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And so the result is helping students, you know, while they're here, think through that theologically of where is the

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Lord leading based on, you know, the gifting He's given you. And then afterwards, you know, as you know,

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Mike, being a pastor, you can kind of get beat up at times. And sometimes you need the opportunity to encourage, you know, pastors out there.

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And that's really what I found is that the Lord has kind of—I've had kind of the same gifts.

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He's just kind of put them in different areas at times. And shepherding is one of them that I appreciate the

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Lord has allowed me to be a steward of. And so then afterwards, as alumni, you know, they will come into contact with different theological positions out there, and they'll call back and say, boy,

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I just never—I knew something to this. You know, what are some resources? And I need to know how to think about this new kind of situation that the cultural issue is coming up.

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And just, I love what you said at the beginning of your program is to think biblically. And that's basically the filter that we really want to minister from.

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Are you playing Pokemon? No. My phone rings here sometimes, goofy things.

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We have a new phone system. And it's not like the old one where I have like five or six buttons on here, and I really don't know what all of them do here.

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But so sometimes you hear a little peep, and it's other people. Greg, I can honestly say that if I was going through a super difficult time, and I would say to myself, if I could call someone to have them help me think biblically and also cry with me,

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I know if I called you, you would do that very thing. And so I thank you for your ministry -mindedness and desire to serve the

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Lord. Tell me something wild that's happened at Dallas Seminary, something weird, kind of like the crazy story that pops in your mind out of 32 years being there in the center of things.

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What's something weird? You know, something like J. Vernon McGee when he walked into the, this is before your time, when he walked into the seminary building with the cigar and was told he couldn't smoke the cigar anymore.

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I mean, something weird like that. What do you have for me? Talk to me. Oh, yeah. I mean, in admissions, we have all kinds.

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I'll give you two, one kind of an admissions, one kind of a, well, both of them are kind of admissions -related of new students, but it just kind of illustrates what we have been dealing with at different times.

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You know, I had a guy come in and he says, I want to preach.

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And I said, well, that's great. I mean, how has the Lord directed you that? Well, I was driving down 75

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Central and I heard this guy named Chuck Swindle, and I thought, boy,

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I want to preach like him. And it said that he went to Dallas Theological Seminary. And he says, so I stopped and I found out where Dallas Seminary is and here

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I am. I said, well, that's great. I said, what church are you involved with? Well, don't really go to church.

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Oh, so have you preached at all? No, no. Oh, so there's really, so I said, when did you come to know the

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Lord? Who? I'm sorry, I'm laughing.

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It's probably not funny. No, and so I had a good opportunity to share the gospel with the guy, you know, but, you know, the other person who was trying to discern

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God's will, and he drove into a, he was in North Carolina and drove into a parking lot. And he says, well, Lord, where do you want me to go to seminary?

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And he says, wouldn't you know, right next to me was a car park and a licensed place at Texas. So I looked up Texas seminaries and DTS came up.

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So that's why I want to come here. Great. But I tell you, Mike, what has kind of been, now this will probably go, your phrase was look at it biblically and look at it, what was it?

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Provocatively. Yes, just kind of provoking, just to stimulate. Maybe the more provoking side. But just this year,

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I had someone call me and said, I don't know what box to check on the application.

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I said, which part can I help you with? Well, the one that says male or female. I go, oh, okay.

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What is, what's the difficulty? He says, well, I'm both. Oh. Now, you didn't say with those dear kind of tones of Greg Hatterberg, you didn't say, are you a hermaphrodite?

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You didn't say that? No, no, it was, I mean, they were dead serious.

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They did not, it says, I'm both. I was born female, but now I'm male. And so I don't know for sure which one to check.

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Why don't you have another box? So, Mike, we're starting to deal with situations that, you know, we really hadn't dealt with before.

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So some of them are kind of funny, and you kind of go, wow. But then some of them kind of take you back and say, oh, now we're interacting with a whole new group of people that really need to have biblical and theological grid, you know, dealing with them in gentleness, in love, but yet remaining firm to scripture.

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Pete Talking to Greg Hatterberg today, Dean of Enrollment at Dallas Theological Seminary, and dear friend of myself and my family.

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Greg, tell our listeners a little bit about your family, and I've told you in person, so I'll say it over the air as well.

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I love when I watch you interact with all kinds of people, and you are a good listener, and you are empathetic, and I know you're sinful too, but I mean, when

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I watch you with people, you're excellent with people. But then I think, you know what, behind the scenes, what people don't know about your wife and how you need to serve her, and she's a high priority to serve, and I just am very thankful as I watch

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Ephesians 5 about men loving their wives like Christ loved the church. Tell me about your wife and kids and how you have a special ministry toward her.

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Well, you're very gracious, Mike. I appreciate that, and you've always been such an encouragement.

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And the path that the Lord wanted Lisa and I to journey on is we have four kids, but we've been married for four years, and I was planning on going back farming, you know, but the

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Lord was kind of tweaking our hearts toward ministry. And then so the first semester that—so

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He basically was, He says, I want you to, you know, plant seeds and help them grow, but instead of corn and soybeans,

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I want you to do the Bible and plant the seed of my word in the hearts of people. So you're still doing the same activity.

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I'm just changing your field. And so we came down to seminary, and the very first semester in seminary,

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Lisa started having some difficulties with her eyes. And so we thought maybe she was tired.

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She was an executive secretary at Big Bank downtown. And after a few days, it continued on.

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So we went to the doctor, and so the doctor said that, well, it's one of three things. It's either a tumor, an aneurysm, or MS.

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And this is back in the early 80s, and so MRIs weren't real good at that time.

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And he says, and so I don't, he says, I don't know how good it'll be, but he says, all the symptoms lead toward MS, multiple sclerosis.

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And so we were just devastated at that point in time. We'd just come off the farm, first semester of seminary, you know, starts, you know, at that point, you start thinking,

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Lord, did I take the wrong turn? Is this a punishment? It's interesting how when you get into trials, your view of God really comes to the surface.

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And so I, so we cried and prayed and, you know, just, and, and so we just continued to move forward.

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Well, found out Lisa had contracted MS. And so that's the journey that the

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Lord just kind of put us in. It's interesting, she contracted the MS. Then, you know, we had some, you know, medications and stuff like that.

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But then later, then she got pregnant. And I mean, you know, I was there, but I mean, that the thing was that when she got, when she became pregnant, all the symptoms went away.

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And so we thought, oh, we found the cure, you know. But, um. Hey, hence the four kids.

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Hence the four kids. And, and, you know, Mike, for five years, we had, we had four kids within five years.

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And she had, she did not have one MS symptom. And it all went away. And she actually, she was only, she only had three days of morning sickness in the four pregnancies.

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And so she was just a baby machine. I mean, you know, but the thing is, after our last one, David, he came two and a half months early.

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We knew that we needed to, but for both the health of Lisa and, and a potential fifth baby that we needed to stop.

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But six months after David was born, Mike, um, the MS came back with a vengeance.

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And by within a couple of years, it had taken the use of her legs. A couple of years after that had taken the use of her arms.

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And a couple of years after that, then had taken 75 % of her, of her vision. And, um, so today, since, so basically since 1999,

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Lisa has been bedridden and it put our, put our marriage in a total different perspective as all of that.

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You know, I mean, we were, I was dealing with, you know, a six month old, a one and a half year old, a three and a half year old and a five year old.

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And, uh, and Lisa, Lisa was losing, you know, mobility all the time.

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And so, uh, the Lord really, uh, was using that to, to put both of us through a grinding through a, um, refining if he has, as the one song goes, the refiners fire.

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Um, and, uh, and it was, it was really to the point today where since 99, she's been bedridden and, and, uh, at home, we've been in hospice, uh, for seven years, um, off and and you say hospice for seven years.

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Well, she would continue to stabilize, but, but at any point in time, within a few hours, she can be in respiratory distress, you know, because her compromised lungs.

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So Mike, it's put, put both of us in a, in a position of, um, seeing what the

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Lord is going to do. It's interesting. Lisa's, you know, I asked Lisa one time, I said, you know, what, why, why do you think the

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Lord's doing this? And I know a lot of times where I'm supposed to ask the why question, but I think it's good to reflect on, on what's going on.

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And, and her life verse, I mean, is, you know, Psalm 119, 71, it says, it's good that I've been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes.

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I thought, wow. Well, I said, wow. My first reaction was, why'd you pick that one?

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You know, but, uh, no, she said, I used to be a, I used to be a gymnast and, um, a track runner, and I was very independent from God.

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And had the Lord not done these things, I would never know what it was like to depend on him. And, uh,

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I mean, that's the type, I mean, Mike, since you know her, I mean, if you want a picture of the peace that passes all understanding, that's, that's my

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Lisa. That's my Lisa. Um, and I'm continually challenged, you know, by her.

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Um, it's interesting, we, you know, you and I both came home from Mount Hermon just a few weeks ago.

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When I came back, um, for some reason or another, both, I got an infection in both of my knees and they flared up and, uh, and I was in bed for four days and now

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I'm still having to take care of Lisa, but I'm laying next to Lisa and my legs are flared up and swelled up and hurting.

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And she's laying there and I said, well, we're quite a pair. And, uh, and, uh, you know, and really that's almost a picture of what it's been like for the last 32 years with this

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MS is that, you know, you just got to go through it together and help each other. Greg, thank you for sharing that.

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I was just looking at second Corinthians chapter four and Paul says, so we do not lose heart though.

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Our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

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For we look at the things that are, that are seen, uh, not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen.

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I mean, what do people do? I don't want to be cliche here or anything, but what do people do when they don't have the

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Lord and that eternal perspective? I mean, how, how difficult it must be to be in the situation and then to think wrongly about it.

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And so, uh, I'm sure you now have a very tender heart through all this as you can minister to other people when, when other people call you in there in a trial, um, do you, do you sometimes think to yourself, well, my train, you know,

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I know my trial is bigger than yours, but you know, when you're thinking rightly, you probably say, do you know what the

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Lord's faithful and how has this helped you, you know, encourage people and counsel them? Yeah.

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Oh yeah. It is, it's been unbelievable. The opportunities that Lisa and I have both had, uh, just to cry with people as they're going through difficult situations.

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See, the thing is you never, you know, whether, whether it's, you know, 20 or 32 years of MS or whether it's a broken home, whether it's a child who's gone astray, whether it's someone who has contracted cancer,

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I mean, all of those, no matter what it is, what is the Lord using to help us be conformed to his image and to help us, uh, learn a little bit more of his sufficiency.

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I mean, if Christ is sufficient for all things, then that's, unfortunately, we live in such a way that a lot of times rules that out.

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And sometimes the Lord brings these things in as opportunities to say, this is not a punishment, this is an opportunity for me to show you how much

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I love you and how much I can be there for you. And, uh, that's, it sounds cliche -ish, um, but the thing is, you know, somebody asked me one time, you know, what is it?

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Has it been hard? And would you wish it upon anybody? I go, no, it's been unbelievably hard, and I would not wish this on anybody.

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But if it's going to happen, you have to have the Lord for hope.

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You have to have the Lord perspective, and you can't do it on your own. You can't do it without him.

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And, uh, otherwise you feel lost. Greg, I have a real personal question

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I'd like to ask you, and you don't have to tell our listeners if you don't want to, but does Lisa like your wolf man, um, sideburns?

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Well, okay, let me put it to you this way. I used to, I didn't have any until I became an elder.

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My dad had these sideburns, and so to remind myself of the characteristics in 1 Timothy and Titus of the characteristics of a godly elder,

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I had the picture of my dad, so that's why I grew them. Well, I decided, well, I'll just grow not only sideburns, but the whole thing, beard and everything.

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And, uh, Lisa said, tell you what, sideburns, that's okay. Beard part, not going to work.

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I married you clean -shaven, you're going to stay clean -shaven because it itches. So, uh, so that's why some of it, some of it was by, uh, um, uh, design, but then other one is, you know what, if it's between a full beard and kissing my wife,

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I'm going to take kissing my wife every day. See, amen. Before I knew who you were,

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I, before I knew who you were, I had your book, The New Christian Traveler's Guide to the

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Holy Land that you co -authored, and for anyone who wants to go to Israel, that's an excellent book to get.

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Greg, we've got about one minute or so left. Bill Bryan, you followed in his footsteps in terms of taking over things at Mount Hermon.

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Just talk to me a little bit for a minute or so about Bill Bryan, and you remind me of him so much because both godly men who want to serve others, and you might not be the chaplain at Dallas Seminary, but you easily could be in my mind.

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Well, when I came to seminary, I wanted to, I wanted to know what ministry was all about, and so I worked,

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I went to work under Bill Bryan. Bill Bryan married us, and married Lisa and I, and he was

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Lisa's youth pastor, and I'm so indebted to him for the principles that he ingrained into her heart.

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But, um, you know, I love Bill. He has, he has that pastoral heart.

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I learned shepherding ministry from him, and that, you know, knowing people's name, that, you know, the

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Lord knows our name. Why shouldn't we know other people's name and reflect the same thing? Because it gives value.

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It gives worth. It instills a sense of value and worth. And so, knowing people's name, just caring for them, listening to them.

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I mean, one of the greatest compliments you gave me, Mike, is to listen to, that I listen to people.

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I had to learn it, but once I learned it, then it was kind of like, this is great.

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I can see the Lord working in these people's life, and where he can now interact and show himself great.

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Amen. Well, I wish I could listen to you for another 24 and a half minutes, but the show's over. Greg Hatterberg, Dallas Seminary Dean of Enrollment, and in my mind, a number one guy as I've watched him say no to self and love his wife

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Lisa for all these years. Greg, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. Hey, thanks for the sweatshirt too. Hey, no problem,

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Mike. Thank you so much. It's just good to visit with you, buddy. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.