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Lord, we are, we're thankful to know that you haven't left us in the Christian life to wander around to ourselves. Lord, we're thankful for the Scriptures, and we know, Lord, we're thankful that the Scriptures are sufficient with ourselves in the closet, personal studies, to know you, that you've been more than gracious to give the church men, pastors and teachers and evangelists, to guide us and lead us and shepherd us and teach us, dear Lord, and that we're so grateful.
We're grateful for these men that have given their lives to studying your Word. Lord, when a lot of us, we have all kinds of activities to do, jobs, and we depend upon those who give their lives to this study.
Lord, we thank you for the collective wisdom that is represented in these men behind me. We pray, Lord, that you give them clarity in their thinking and give them love and humility in their responses.
Lord, give us the desire to know and a humble heart to hear and to process what's been said and to be benefited and learn. Lord, we are to grow in discernment and wisdom so that we might please you better.
We know that this is very important to you, so help it to be important to us as well. We pray your blessing upon this evening, upon the conference to come, that your hand and grace and your blessing would reside upon all the attendees and all the speakers, that you would receive glory.
Let's be praying this Sunday. Amen.
My name is Alan Nelson. I'm the pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church, just down the road from here. Some of you guys are out of town, where our pastor is about 35 minutes west of here. What we want to do tonight is we want to just have a conversation.
Whether you want to call it evangelicalism, whatever that means anymore in our country, but there's much turmoil when it comes to the local church. I want to read a passage real quick, 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15.
I'll read through 16. I hope to come to you soon, Paul says, but I'm writing these things to you that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
Our association, our Baptist Association, Conway Perry Baptist Association, is having a conference tomorrow and Saturday. The conference is about the need for godly shepherds in our churches today. When I found out that we were able to do all this, and Dr. Strand is just right here, I invited him to be on a pre-conference panel.
And what we're trying to do tonight is we're not trying to tear anybody down. We're not trying to destroy, as it were. We're trying to give a positive case in our discussion tonight about what is a godly pastor and why churches need faithful pastors to oversee them.
We're here tonight because we love the church. And we see in the scriptures that God loves the church and that the local church is God's work in the world today. And so I'm just going to start out this conversation tonight just by letting these men introduce themselves.
So I'll start here to my left with Dr. Askel. If you would just introduce yourself and just give a short statement why you love the local church.
Tom Askel, I'm from Grace Baptist Church, pastor of that church in Cape Coral, Florida, for the last 36-plus years. Man, you know, I was nurtured in the church. I had a godly mother raise me in the church.
And that's where I learned the gospel. That's where I was baptized, where Sunday school teachers who cared for my soul. And it's been, you know, Augustine called the church the mother. And in so many ways I feel that.
The church has just nurtured me and helped me and continued to strengthen me even as a pastor. I can't imagine living my life without being fully committed to a local church.
Amen. Dr. Strand.
Amen to that. My name is Owen Strand. I'm the provost of Grace Bible Theological Seminary across the parking lot here and a member here at Grace Bible Church. It's difficult, like Dr. Askel alluded to, to begin thinking about how to be thankful for the church because in God's kindness it's been such a part of my life from day one, really.
Growing up in coastal Maine, where there are more moose than people. It's factual. I was raised in a tiny Baptist church, but I inherited so much from it. There were such faithful, godly men and women there who cared for me and nurtured me in the faith.
I remember my Sunday school teacher. This is in a Sunday school class of four kids in a basement, smelly basement, in East Machias, Maine. Mrs. Dennison gave us envelopes and told us to open these envelopes in her Sunday school class and they had our names written in them and she said, your names were written in God's book before the foundation of the earth.
And I was probably seven. And Mrs. Dennison wasn't trying to ascend any theological ladders or anything like that in the teaching world. I don't know that I've ever really been given a kind of living on the spot demonstration, reminder of God's kindness and grace to a sinner like me.
I've never shaken that off. It's that kind of combination of truth, but through an individual, through men and women who love you and are gracious that the local church provides because God loves the church and he nurtures the church and he uses the church.
So I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for its effect in my life and I wouldn't be here within the grace of God without it.
Amen. Pastor Mike.
My name is Mike Stone. I pastor the Emanuel Baptist Church in Southeast Georgia. I've been there about 26 and a half years and have a wife and four children and have served in a number of capacities in Georgia Baptist and in Southern Baptist life.
As far as my love for the local church is primarily because that is the only visible, tangible expression of the Lord's church. I do believe in what some would call a universal church or the church triumphant, but anything that God has commanded the church to do or to be has to be manifested and lived out through a local, identifiable body of believers.
It's the local church that preaches the gospel, that receives offerings and sends out missionaries and administers the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper. It's the local church where we serve, where we learn and grow and fulfill the great commission.
So it's just an honor and a privilege to serve the Lord by serving His people through that local expression of the church.
Amen. Before we dive into the questions, I'll talk a little bit about the format. First, let me say this, how thankful I am that these brothers are here with us tonight. Both Pastor Mike and Dr. Askel have traveled a long way to be here today.
And then Dr. Strand, most of you know, and if you don't know, he's lectured all day. And then he's agreed to be with us here tonight. So it really means a lot to me that these brothers are here with us.
So what we're going to do is I'm going to ask each individual a question. And then the other two, if they want, after that question is answered, they have freedom to chime in and add to the conversation.
I'll start here with Dr. Askel, if you'll get us started by just telling us, what is the role of pastors in the church? And why does the New Testament focus so much on their character?
Yeah, well, pastors are under shepherds of the great shepherd. And so we have the responsibility to watch out for those that are placed under our care. It's from the congregation that pastors are appointed to serve the congregation, overseeing them, shepherding them, feeding them, teaching them, helping them to make it to heaven.
And so that's God's way. Leadership is needed in every area of life. And just you see it in organizations that are not the church, that an organization won't rise any higher. An athletic team won't rise any higher than its leadership.
And so pastors are called to be those chief leading servants in the church to follow Christ. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. And every Christian ought to have that aspiration. Certainly pastors should.
When you look at the qualifications, we don't have a detailed job description for pastors in the New Testament. But we do have pretty significant qualifications that focus on moral and spiritual maturity and excellence.
And that also is not completely unique to pastors. Every Christian ought to be able to read those qualifications and say, I aspire to that. But pastors are to excel in that. Pastors are to be reputable in that.
So one of the things we say in our own church is that our elders, as well as our deacons, but especially our elders, are to be exemplary. That we ought to be able to look at any of our elders and say, you follow this man as he follows Christ.
And if everybody prayed like this man, the church would be stronger. If everybody gave like this man, the church would be stronger. If everybody studied the word like this man, the church would be stronger.
You want exemplary men in order to help God's people follow the pathway that Christ has prescribed for us. And those men are called out by God. They're gifted by God. They are recognized by the congregation in order to serve the purposes of the Lord in that church.
Amen. Dr. Strand, would you add anything?
That was an excellent summary. I would only say what I hear Jeff Johnson here say a good bit from time to time, which is that really in earthly terms, the greatest blessing God can give the people of God is godly leadership.
And when God decides to judge a people, He takes away godly leadership. That's not to say that our hope is concentrated in men, because it's not. It's always in God and God alone, frankly. But it is a tremendous gift when we have the kind of pastors that Dr. Askel was talking about.
And so when we're assessing where we are as a movement, that's always something we're looking to. Are we being led by strong men of God who have that godly character? Or are the days low and we can't seem to find men like that any longer?
Alan, you mentioned the importance of character. I would just simply say in addition to the biblical qualifications from what both of these men have said, I don't believe the power of the gospel is dependent on my character.
We see some men in the Bible, their heart wasn't right with the Lord, but the power was still in the gospel to salvation. But yet at the same time, we don't want our good works to be evil spoken of. And when God's leaders do not lead in a righteous way and live themselves a righteous life, not a perfect life or a sinless life, but one that is above reproach, it brings shame and besmirches the glory of God.
It's a glory of God issue as much as it is just some litmus test, qualifications issue. I don't want the life that I live to cause the world to diminish the glory of God by pointing to some flaw or foible in my life.
I'm going to stay with you, Pastor Mike, and throw this question just based on some thoughts as I was thinking through what you guys were saying. Why do you think that churches today, or maybe you disagree with me, I think there are some churches today that seem to focus on a pastor's charisma over his character.
Why do you think that's a temptation and what's your counsel to churches that are tempted to do that?
It's hard to say that that mindset is definitely rooted in one thing. There may be a lot of different tributaries to it, but I think one of the largest tributaries, if not the largest one, is pragmatism.
It's just the idea of whatever works. And so if the culture is going in one way, whatever will get people in the door. And so if a pastor who dresses a certain way will get more people in the door, that's what we'll do.
If having a certain musical style will get more people in the door, that's what we'll do. If telling off-color jokes and kind of living down on their level, so to speak, will get more people in the door, that's what we'll do.
So I think the tendency to take that approach is rooted out of a results-based, man-centered gimmick that is itself rooted in pragmatism.
Dr. Strand, would you have anything to add to that?
Nope. I completely agree. I think we look to the world, I'll just say this, we look to the world and we want to be like the world. So we want a charismatic leader. We want a superstar. We want a celebrity.
And that's not what we're called to want fundamentally. Godly men may have a vibrant personality. They possibly could be a great football coach in another life if God gave that to them or whatever it may be.
But that's not why we want them to be a pastor. We want them to be a pastor because they have that godly character that these men have spoken of. They love the Word and they're going to labor in the Word.
Amen. Dr. Askel, would you want to add anything?
I'll just say amen to that. But I think there is that human tendency as well within us and we see it when Paul rebukes the Corinthians. You know, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Paul. That idea of kind of having a personality cult seems to be something that there's a proclivity toward in people.
And when you have a man who's gifted or who's able and has accomplishments, if that man doesn't have the kind of character that the Scripture's talking about, it's very easy just to draw that into yourself and to use that for these pragmatic purposes.
So that doesn't mean you want to get the dullest person and the least gifted person to be your pastor. It's not that. But to recognize that there is in all of us something that, if we're not careful, will begin to elevate a celebrity mentality in our churches just like we do in our culture.
And that needs to be fought against and needs to be acknowledged as a tendency and repudiated because, again, we're wanting people to have Christ formed in them. We want them to be like Christ. And if the people understand that, then they'll appreciate the ministry all the more.
It's kind of like if I write you a letter and I use a specific fountain pen to do it, when you get the letter, it would be rather foolish of you to focus on the fountain pen and say, man, wasn't it great, that fountain pen that sent me the letter.
You know, look at this pen. My pen's better than your pen. And it's not that. It's the author. It's the one who communicated to you through the pen. And so good pastors are like fountain pens. They're the instruments that God uses to do what he wants to do, what he's determined to do in the congregation.
Dr. Strand, you're gifted in many ways. You're provost of a seminary. You speak all over the United States. And so I want to start this question with you because I believe that you have encountered a lot of young men who feel called to the pastoral ministry.
And so I want you to give kind of a pro and a con. Like I want to know what you see that excites you, that is encouraging about the young men that you encounter all over the world, as it were, and what is something that you maybe wish they grasped a little better.
Thank you for your kind words. I don't deserve them. But I would say it does feel like we are in low days in evangelicalism, even in reformed circles. We had this kind of boom time in the conservative Christian world 15, 20 years ago.
And Time Magazine recognized it and called it one of the world-shaping ideas. I mean, it was high days. And more recently, in the last five years, it feels like Satan has really counterattacked against the true church.
And in God's appointment, apparently, it's been fairly successful. So it's kind of a disheartening time in many respects. But something that gives me regular and sustained encouragement is exactly what you said.
It is God continuing to raise up preacher boys who are hungry for the Word, for discipleship, for the truth, who don't really care about the world and its plaudits. And that's what we're seeing at this humble seminary here in Conway, Arkansas.
We're seeing young men stream in, find us. We had a student a year ago show up, just basically move himself, drive here, knock on the door, and sort of come. And it was great. But we didn't even have the staff to really receive him.
That's a little sign of what God is doing in difficult days. God is drawing young men to himself, and then God is raising up the next generation of preachers. So that's what really encourages me. What has been a little bit discouraging the last few years in particular is how few of my generation, who came out of this kind of new reformation or whatever you want to call it, have actually stood on some of the hard issues, have taken a stand for the truth, have put themselves on the line at least to a degree and stood on the side of God as best you can.
So I'm encouraged by what God is doing to raise up the younger generation. The good news is He's continuing to do that. But I'm also saddened by how many seem to think preserving their status or their cachet or whatever it may be is what life is about.
It's not what life is about. It's kind of like that funny meme on social media, you have one job. If you get a ministry position, you're not in that for you. You're not in that for your brand. You have one job.
You're in there to serve God, whether that's the work that everybody wants to do and likes doing and people clap for you when you do, or it's the hard work where you don't get applauded for it.
Pastor Stone, same question. From the perspective of a local church pastor, you also speak around in various venues and then you've also been heavily involved in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention.
So you've come across many young men who are either pastoring or feel called to pastor. So what thoughts do you have about that?
Well, perhaps it's been true in every generation, but social media tends to put it out on the forefront. It delivers the good news and the bad news into our hands, into our pocket by virtue of our phones.
There is an excitement about seeing younger men. Whenever I go preach, there will often be some younger men who will show up if it's just a local church event or a conference, and they're hungry for truth.
And what they want is someone who will just boldly proclaim truth. By the same token, there is that disappointment because there seems to simultaneously be a group that all you have to do to get them to close their mouth in the fight for truth is to post a negative comment to a tweet.
And all of a sudden they seem to me, I don't mean to be pejorative or trying to be cute, but all of a sudden they seem like they need a spiritual testosterone shot. And we are to stand in a line of people whose blood boiled with the fires of martyrdom.
And now we get upset if somebody doesn't share our Facebook post or like one of our tweets. And I think it goes right back to the root cause of pride and desiring the applause in the favor of men rather than being satisfied with the approval of God.
Dr. Askel, same thing here. You're a local church pastor, president of Founders. You speak all over the place, all over the world. You, too, have been involved in Southern Baptist life, and so you've encountered lots of young men who have felt called to pastor.
So what's something that encourages you about that, and what's something you wish that you would like to change your thinking on?
Yeah, well, I wish we had more healthy churches so that the young men that are sensing God's call would get better trained earlier. But I am encouraged that even in my lifetime, the last 30 years, it's not popular anymore to enter into the ministry.
You're not going to get accolades in the culture anymore. Whereas before, maybe when I was starting out, it was, oh, man, you're going to be a preacher. That's a wonderful thing. And then in my lifetime, it's like, well, okay, that's fine.
That's how you spend your life. Well, now, you must be nuts. You want to do that? And just look. You look at all the surveys that come out regularly of the different professions and where they rate in people's estimation of trustworthiness or esteem.
Pastors just keep going down. And though that's not a good thing, it might well become a good thing in terms of weeding out those that would want to get into the ministry thinking this is a way to make a living or a good life.
So the guys that I see that are younger, they generally seem to be pretty serious about the nature of that call, and that's a good thing. I'm encouraged with that. I'm discouraged with the way that so many, younger ones particularly, but it's in my generation too, they're just, I mean, Mike, you said it pretty well.
They just need a backbone. They need a backbone. And a lack of courage today, I think, has spoiled a lot of potential good that men who are gifted could have accomplished.
Amen. Let me shift gears and start over here with Pastor Mike. What is the pastor's role in the pulpit? And then how many times do you preach a week, and would you share with us your process for studying?
So what is the pastor's role in the pulpit? How many times do you preach, and how do you study?
Of course, we talk about what the pastor's role is in the church is more broad than your question. The pastor's role in the pulpit is to faithfully exegete and, led by the Spirit of God, help the people to apply the text of Scripture.
It's not to be an entertainer or to get applause or to preach for amens or the adulation of the people, but to simply be faithful to the text. That's my role as a pastor in the pulpit. I do try to shepherd the congregation primarily from the pulpit.
I don't do a lot of what some would call counseling. For one thing, I'm not good at it. What counseling I do, I usually don't get a lot of repeat counseling because I discover most people who come, and I'm sure everyone here tonight would be an exception, but they really don't want counsel.
They want affirmation. Marriage counseling, for example, they want. The husband wants me to correct the wife in his presence and vice versa. So I do most of my counseling ministry on Sunday mornings at 9 o 'clock and 10 .30 and again at 6 p .m. in our evening service.
That's my primary counseling ministry. It's also my primary shepherding ministry. I don't get into this personal. I don't get into a lot of the leadership vision casting. My vision casting or leadership casting is taking the next set of verses in whatever book of the Bible I'm preaching through and then trying to apply that to the congregation and obviously the individual lives of the people.
As far as my own sermon prep, I'm preaching at Lee, writing and preaching. I know in a lot of circles that's not the same thing, writing and preaching, but I write at least two new sermons a week.
You don't download your sermons, Mike. Is that what you're telling us?
I start with a blank Word document and a Bible. When I first started out, it was a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen, but we have a vibrant Sunday night service. I know sometimes geographically or culturally that can be a challenge for a lot of congregations, but we have a very well-attended Sunday evening service.
It's not a junior service, and so I preach the same sermon twice on Sunday mornings, nine and ten-thirty, and then we have an evening service at six. Ninety-five percent of the time, probably, I'm preaching through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, and I usually go a lot slower than what I intended.
I'm probably going to have around 75 or 80 sermons out of the book of Hebrews. That's what I'm preaching now on Sunday mornings. On Sunday nights, I preach through the book of Judges. That's what I'm doing now.
I'm usually doing an Old Testament and a New Testament, kind of back and forth. These are my 36th and 37th books of the Bible to preach through. Early in my ministry, I also preached a full sermon on Wednesday nights, and so that helped me get a lot of books under my belt, so to speak.
But I'm usually studying and preparing and planning at least a month in advance. By that, I mean preparing and planning that upcoming sermon. I don't necessarily have a year-long preaching calendar like a lot of people do.
But staying about a month out in terms of my thinking, illustrations and things that I'm looking for, and that's it in a nutshell.
Dr. Strand, what is the pastor's role in the pulpit? And then would you share some of your habits for preparing to preach?
The pastor in the pulpit is delivering the Word and sound doctrine to the people so that they can be strengthened in the faith, so that they can know the love of God, so that they can be transformed and they can live to the glory of God.
The pastor is acting in the pulpit as a shepherd. The pastor is acting as a counselor. The pastor is acting as a theologian. The pastor is acting as, in some sense, a prophet. The pastor has many different roles and abilities, really, even, in the pulpit.
My own engagement of the pulpit is not the same as what Mike just shared because I'm not a full-time pastor. So, I do get to preach and teach in the church setting once to twice a month. I love to preach.
And when I do it, I will typically, if I'm working on a sermon, I will choose the passage or be assigned the passage. I will read the passage in my devotions, hopefully several weeks out. I will try to formulate an outline as I am reading through it.
So, I'll get my three or four truths or whatever it may be that I'm going to cover from the text. And then I will work to exegete the given sections that fall under each of those truths and then work in application and conclusion.
I usually write the introduction last. So, that's kind of, in a very quick form, my sermon preaching process.
Thank you, brother. Dr. Askel, same question. Do you want to add anything to what these guys said about the pastor's role in the pulpit? And then if you would share your own preaching and study.
Yeah, you're serving the people by serving the Word. And so, our job is to get it right, to get the Word right, to make sure that what we're saying is from the text. So, you know, I hate it when people say, you know, man, I've read that passage a hundred times.
I've never seen that. I'm thinking, oh no, did I make that up or what? Much rather than saying, yeah, I see that. I see that because that's what I want to happen, to help people understand that this is their book from God.
And it's not intended to be hard to understand. There are things in it that are hard to understand. But we ought to be trying to set forth Christ from this book because that's what the whole book is about.
So, the ministry of the Word for the welfare of the people. Yeah, typically I'm preaching through books. So, when I'm not, it's a little bit of a crisis because you think, well, what should I preach next?
You know, and just trying to figure out that text can be difficult and spend a lot of time on that. So, I love just preaching, which is normally what I do, through books of the Bible and just looking at the next section that you want to preach.
And you try to figure out what is the main point of this. So, I read it, I reread it, I reread it. And I might write it out. I try to look at it in the original languages and see if I can come up with, this is the point.
This is what is being communicated here. And sometimes it's a toss-up. You can look at it from different angles, and you can get maybe two or three of those things. But for the welfare of the church, where we are right now, what would God say to this church in this passage?
And once I determine that, then I try to work on the breaking it down. How do I find the support for that point in this section of the text? And it's just an ongoing deal. And every week can bring its own set of challenges.
And I try to build in margin to my weeks, which isn't always easy to do. But if I can have the thesis of the message by Sunday night or Monday, then it's going to be a good week. And if that doesn't happen before Thursday, that's my day off, well, then I know that that's when I'm going to be spending a lot of my time just meditating on, that's right, yeah, bad week.
So I want to get all that done and have it buttoned up by Friday night or Saturday morning so that I can put it to rest and then pull it back out Saturday night. Once I get my basic notes done, and it's kind of funny, people make fun of them that have seen them, I mark them up with all kind of different colors and stuff.
And I don't know there's any rhyme or reason to the colors. It just somehow keeps my eye on the page. But I work through the notes five times just to go through it to get familiar with it and then try to communicate it as simply as I can.
Amen. Well, we're going to shift gears now. I want to ask a couple of questions from some quotes from Charles Spurgeon. I want to mention that this comes from his work, The Minister's Self-Watch. Two places I know that you can find it.
One, it's Chapter 1 of his lectures to my students. Or you can also find, I believe you can find the whole thing on Chapel Library. I commend it to you. I commend it to your reading. Be sitting down when you're reading it.
But he says some things that I think that we ought to talk about tonight. I want to start with you, Dr. Askew, with this first question. He says, We shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition.
He's talking to ministers. We shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition. So we've talked about character. Pastors need to be men of character. Amen. Okay, how does a pastor maintain his best spiritual condition so that he can be the man of God that he needs to be for his people?
Well, first and foremost, you should realize that before you're a shepherd, you're a sheep. And what you're serving to people is exactly what you need. Man, the danger of professionalism in thinking that, you know, okay, I've just got to do this, I've got to perform in a way.
And so, who was it, Bunyan that said, I preach what I did smartingly feel? I think it was Bunyan. You guys know that? Yeah, one of the good guys in the past said that. And so you want to preach it to your own heart.
And this has become increasingly true for me over the years. And I find myself saying it. I'm not trying to be trite. It really is honest when people say, you know, boy, that message was just for me or you dealt with something I've been struggling with.
And very often, just a normal response for me is, look, I was preaching to myself and you just got to listen to it because God knows what I need. And the danger of somehow exalting yourself above the people so that you're preaching down to them or you're giving them something that they need.
Man, this is life and death. I mean, this is how we make it through this world to the world to come. This is how we are walking with God. And to believe that, to understand that, to feel something of the desperation of your own soul that is always true, whether you feel it or not, if God makes you to feel it and you can kind of keep your heart stirred up with those reminders, which if you're reading the Bible with both eyes open, it's kind of hard to miss because it's all through there.
And to recognize the incredible grace and kindness of God to us, to recognize the incredible dangers that assault us on all sides at all times, it just makes us see more clearly how we must cling to Christ.
We must have Christ cling to us. And with that, this is the book. This is the message God's given us. And this is what I must serve to the people, knowing that what I'm serving them is exactly what I need as well.
Amen.
Dr. Strand, how does a pastor maintain the best spiritual condition?
Ironically, by not doing anything in and of itself first. There are different duties and practices, spiritual disciplines, Don Whitney calls them, that are vital. We must do them. But I've been working on a doctrine of the atonement and it has struck me afresh just how amazing the love of God and Christ is.
I've been a Christian now for over 30 years and I've sung and heard, preached, and talked about the love of God a lot. But there are different caveats to say about the love of God. But fundamentally, the love of God is not dependent on us.
The love of God is dependent on God. And if we're not careful, we can qualify the love of God, I'm talking about for believers, such that it's like God loves us to a degree, but not very much. And on a given day, like an earthly father, he might be in a raging fit, he might be distant, he might be far away, he might just be disinterested in us.
And I've been in Jeremiah, in my devotions, and it has struck me afresh. And Jeremiah, sit down for that, like you said. But yet there are these times in Jeremiah where the clouds part and God says things like, I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Jeremiah 31 .3. And it takes your breath away. The difficulty of the judgment passages, bracketing passages like that, then make these glorious declarations shine all the more. So I would say, before we even get to the level of habits and duties, which are vital, I repeat myself, the preacher needs to be swimming in the love of God.
And he needs to recognize that the sheep need the love of God mediated to them through the Word on a weekly basis. We struggle to know we are loved. Many of us. We had a rough background. We had a rough relationship with our father, with our mother.
There are wounds that, frankly, in human terms, may not have come to full healing. But we have to grapple afresh with the love of God, and the Christian must remember, and the preacher must remember, the love of God is not ultimately dependent on me.
It's dependent on God. And when a man has that confidence, he does not enter the pulpit in a state. He's not jittery. He's not trembling. He's confident in God and in the work of God, and he can thus minister the love of God and all the counsel of God, as God calls him to do.
Amen. Thank you. That's a good word, brother. Pastor Mike.
Obviously, I agree with everything these men have said, but I want to add something that's very practical in my life in terms of living a life of integrity, so that you can minister to the people out of that.
And it really is the idea of communion and community with other God-called men in my church, to whom I know the word accountability can be a loaded term in some circles, but men to whom I know that they can speak into my life, that I invite them to speak into my life.
I'm thinking of a parenting situation that I'm facing right now, and just earlier this week, I had two men in my office and shared with them how I had handled the situation. I knew it wasn't all good, and I asked them, I need you, I want you, please tell me how you think I may be handling this well, how you think I may be mishandling this.
And that is true at the church level as well. We have a plurality of leadership in our church, and we have developed, and by God's grace, we have a culture where we can speak into one another's life and say, sometimes privately, sometimes in a meeting, depending on what it is in the context, that I think you're missing it here.
And in an environment of love and trust, you know that they're doing that for your good, and faithful are the wounds of a friend. And that is one of the means of grace that God has given us to help sanctify us as a brother, for you ladies, a godly sister in the church who can come alongside and hem us in and confront us in a loving, Christlike way.
Amen. Another Spurgeon quote, and I want to start with Dr. Strand. Spurgeon says, How horrible to be a preacher of the gospel and yet to be unconverted. So my question to you, is that real? I mean, is that a real possibility in conservative Christian churches?
And if so, what should our response be to a quote like that? How horrible to be a preacher of the gospel and yet to be unconverted.
Well, Spurgeon's context is a little different than ours. He's in a country, in a context, 19th century England, where there is a state religion, Anglicanism. And if you've ever read a Jane Austen novel or watched a Jane Austen movie, perhaps more likely, you will know that there are all sorts of examples of men who held the pastoral role, but who were not necessarily converted, frankly.
It was a respectable job. Dr. Askew was talking about that a few minutes ago. So Spurgeon, I think, saw that up close and personal. We don't have the same context, but we do have that. There are scores of unconverted pastors and ministers around us.
We're here in Conway, Arkansas. You can drive down the road for five minutes and you'll see lots of buildings where there is religion going on, but not necessarily where there is a converted pastor and a converted flock.
So we still have tons and tons of churches in America, but we have our own kind of burned-over district. We're a burned-over country in many respects. The great need of the day is converted pastors, men not just willing to stand in a pulpit, but strong men of God who will burn for the Lord and His glory and who love the sheep.
But it is definitely very possible, though we're in a different context. We have our own challenges contextually for people to enter the ministry and not know a shred of divine grace.
Dr. Askew, would you answer the same question?
Yeah, I was thinking about Gilbert Tenet's sermon that caused a lot of people to be upset in the Great Awakening, The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, in which he just laid it on the line. And I would agree that I think one of the biggest difficulties we have in the American church today is unconverted pastors.
And I don't say that with any delight in my life about it. I think it's a reality. There are historical examples of this as well. Benjamin Keech had a son named Elias who came to America and was looking for kind of an easy way in.
And so he pretended to be a pastor and actually started being a pastor, preached his dad's sermons, and was converted through one of his dad's sermons that he was preaching. So, I mean, those things do happen.
There are unconverted pastors. And it is a curse upon a church to have that. It's a curse upon a community where that is not unusual. And, man, we ought always be examining ourselves while recognizing that we are what we are by the grace of God, and that we are relying upon Christ, not our own efforts.
And I think we're pastors, and I can tell you I've been there. This happened to me, where you begin to just feel cold. And what you're preaching is true, but it just isn't resonating within. I mean, sound the alarms.
Reach out. Don't just continue doing that, because it is deadly. It's deadly for you. It's deadly for the people. And far better just to kind of throw up your hands and say, man, I need a break. I need help.
I'm going to step out for a while than just to gut it out and keep going. And that's the value of godly men in your life,.
In your church,.
Who can help you with that.
Amen. I hope you guys listen to that, especially aspiring to be a pastor in the ministry. That's very good counsel, Dr. Askle. Thank you for that. Pastor Stone, would you add anything to that?
Yeah, just real quickly, the essence of your question, I think, is assuming you're talking about a pastor in a church that preaches the gospel correctly, because we know there are a lot of pastors in other systems, whether that's Catholicism or Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, et cetera.
But if your question is limited to a congregation that itself embraces and affirms sound doctrine, I want to just quickly tie back into the idea that so much of what we do in our churches is man-centered, and it can't all operate, even from the platform, without the power of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.
And when everything just happens in man-centered gimmicks and pragmatism, you can go through the motions without the help or the aid of the Holy Spirit. And so what we should long for in our own lives is to make sure as a check on our own salvation, as we examine ourselves constantly to see if we be in the faith.
What about my ministry that is happening? Would it be happening without the help of the Holy Spirit as Christ, through His Word, that He is building His church? And so I think that's a question we should always be asking ourselves.
Amen. Thank you for that. We're going to shift gears again here. It's been my desire tonight not to focus on the Southern Baptist Convention because what we're talking about tonight is way bigger than the SBC, and God is working through local churches all over the world today that are not SBC, and God is doing great things.
But three of us up here are Southern Baptist pastors, and I think Dr. Askell has said it this way, the SBC is not all that important, but it matters. And so we're going to talk in this question about what's going on in the SBC right now.
Over the last couple of years, the Southern Baptist Convention has had difficulty in defining what a pastor is. And so Mike Law is an SBC pastor in Virginia. I'm going to start with you, Pastor Stone, so you can prepare yourself here.
But Mike Law, an SBC pastor in Virginia, proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention an amendment to the SBC Constitution that would essentially say, the convention will only deem a church to be in friendly cooperation with the convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work, which, and this is what he adds, does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.
And so the question is, and I think it's very pertinent that we discuss this tonight just because this is something that's just right here on our doorstep. Does the SBC need such an amendment to its Constitution?
Essentially, if you didn't catch that, the amendment would say that churches that employ a pastor or call a pastor who's a woman of any kind, senior, youth, college, whatever, outreach, that that church would no longer be in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Do you believe that an amendment like that is needed? And what does an amendment like this say about the office of pastor?
I'll answer your question in a way that seems like a contradiction. I support the amendment. I signed the petition, so to speak, and I'm very grateful for Pastor Law and his efforts in this regard. But if I parse your question, does the Southern Baptist Convention need one?
No. We already have a doctrinal statement that says the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. When I was serving as chairman of the SBC Executive Committee of the convention in Birmingham, 2019, a precious lady, the mother of a pastor friend of mine, offered an amendment to the Baptist faith and message and to insert the words, and function, the office and function.
For these same reasons, I was not then, bearing my soul here, I was not then in favor of amending the Baptist faith and message, not because I didn't agree that the office and function should be limited to men, but I thought it was almost an insult to the document we have to suggest that it's not clear.
However, in the subsequent years, it has become obvious that what is crystal clear from the Scripture and should be clear from our Baptist faith and message is not as clear to some as it should be. And for that reason, I believe that we should codify this.
Secondly, I think it's stronger to do it through a constitutional amendment than amending the Baptist faith and message because the constitutional amendment requires a different level of vote. It requires two successive years, so it is therefore a stronger statement amending your governing documents if you're talking about something that would determine the parameters of cooperation, whereas the Baptist faith and message is a simple majority vote in one setting.
So I think it's a stronger statement to go with a constitutional amendment. But I will come back where I started. Should we need that amendment? No. Do we need it? I think in this hour, I think it'd be a helpful thing.
Dr. Strand, you have a long history in the SBC, so what is your thoughts?
Yeah. I'm so thankful for so many in the SBC, including these three men up here. I love so much of the SBC's work. I was hugely blessed by the generosity of SBC churches and individuals that financed seminary for me and blessed me in ministry and paid my salary as a seminary professor.
So it's a little bittersweet to even talk about this for me. I don't regret not being in the SBC, but I'm still... I haven't burned down my friendships in the SBC and have no intention to do so. My father-in-law is a SBC seminary professor, and I'm glad that he is.
I would totally concur with what Mike said, and I would say... Public record. I would say it is hot nonsense for a lot of people to make the arguments they are making about tinkering around with this idea that pastor doesn't really mean pastor.
It means senior pastor. I won't speak for them, and I won't make them responsible for what I say, but I'm not drawing an SBC salary at this time. And so I will say, for someone like an Adam Greenway to say that only senior pastor is in view there, I don't understand the argument.
He's a very bright, gifted man, but I can't understand this. We're playing word games. You are playing word games, and others are playing them with him. It's clear in the Baptist faith and message. The Baptist faith and message, again, I'm not under it now, but I'm quite familiar with it.
It doesn't say everything it could say, but what it says, it means. So if we're playing word games with documents, we're not in a good place. We're just not in a good place, because it says the office of pastor, and everyone should know, especially coming out of the conservative resurgence, this wasn't a minor issue.
This wasn't 17th on the list of issues plaguing the SBC pre-resurgence. This was really the issue, or at the very least, one of the top issues. The giving over of the pastorate to unsound hermeneutics and women serving in the pastorate.
So if the SBC is now debating this, that's not a good sign, and we need to, I pray my brothers in the SBC, I'm still speaking like I'm in it, old habits, we need to pray for our brothers in the SBC, faithful men like you, faithful Christians represented here, that they will hold the line, and we need to pray that sound arguments will prevail, because that argument is not a sound one.
I'm going to let Dr. Askell answer this too. Before I do, Dr. Askell, I just want to kind of remind you of the SBC's position on this. A few years ago, the position was, I'm talking about from the upper echelon, the position was there's no women pastors in the SBC.
And then we progressed to, oh, there's a few, there's a handful, but you guys are going to raise a stink about a handful, well, we've dealt with it, it's taken care of. Well, recently, there's been documentation that's come out that's shown documentable proof that there's nearly 200, I think it's numbers like 170 or something, that we know of, that this is becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger issue, and so I just want to kind of throw that out there as you answer this question.
What do you think about Mike Law's proposal to amend the Constitution? Is it needed? And what does that say about the Office of Pastor?
What Mike said, and Owen, I agree wholeheartedly with, we shouldn't need this. What it highlights, and I've supported Mike, encouraged him all along the way in his process, and I applaud his tenacity and his refusal to be backed down when there were those trying to back him down.
So I will support it if I get an opportunity. I would certainly vote for it, speak to it. But the bigger problem is we've got a crisis of leadership. Or may I just be real blunt and say lack of leadership.
I want to know where the SBC leaders are who know exactly what Owen said is true,.
And yet.
Their silence is deafening, and they should be speaking out, and they refuse to speak out for whatever reason, and that's between them and God, but they are failing in leading the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention who pay their salaries, or who appointed them or elected them to office.
And that can only be solved by a work of God that humbles a man and reminds him of the stewardship that's entrusted to him with his responsibilities. And the churches, I mean, we should be holding them accountable as well.
So we need a reformation of godly leadership. If we had that, this would not be an issue. Because when someone said, well, the Baptist faith of message doesn't really mean that only qualified men can be pastors, we should have a chorus of leaders standing up and saying, you're out of your mind, if you think that's the case.
It is not the case. This is not a question of exegesis of biblical text. This is a question of English grammar, what the words on the page of the Baptist faith and message actually mean, and anybody who can read English would tell you that's what it means if they're just being simple and honest.
So...
Oh, and I.
Just gave you a little cover there, brother.
May I add that you mentioned it's not exegeting the Baptist faith and message, but to the extent that exegesis involves authorial intent, most of those men are still alive. And they have said what it meant.
And what it was communicated to mean at the time. I'll just add for this one other personal comment. I served on the inaugural credentials committee, for those that are Southern Baptists, this new iteration of the credentials committee.
There were churches referred to the credentials committee of the Southern Baptist Convention who have female senior pastors, because a lot of the argument deals with, well, it's just a titling issue. It's the music pastor, the children's pastor, etc.
We don't have that many with female senior pastors. I can tell you.
Firsthand.
There are key leaders who were on and around that committee who did not want us to take any action related to churches with female senior pastors. And this issue would have already come to the forefront.
Back in.
2019 -2020, except for the fact the churches which had been submitted that had female pastors, when contacted by the committee, didn't even know they were still Southern Baptist churches. And so as a bookkeeping matter, it's sort of like, you know, if you're doing Matthew 18 in a local church context and then you find out they're actually not a member of your church anymore, it becomes moot from an administrative standpoint.
This issue would have already been front and center within our own credentials committee, an elected committee of the Southern Baptist Convention with key names that Southern Baptists would recognize that did not want to move forward dealing with churches with female senior pastor, lead pastor, whatever terminology you want to use.
This is not a settled issue in the hearts of the upper echelon of many in Southern Baptist.
Life.
Let's get it, little fire emoji there, but sad to hear, very sad to hear. I think why not just in the SPC, but key evangelical leaders don't want to take the kind of actions we're all talking about and defend the doctrines of God that we are talking about is cultural optics.
Because if you stand against women pastors, you are going to get a New York Times article against you by a very skilled journalist that will present you as some kind of Cro-Magnon fundamentalist who hates ladies.
Like, if you stand against critical race theory, you will be painted as a fire-breathing racist from the American past. And key evangelical leaders know these things. They know the bad press they'll get.
You get the bad press. I've gotten some of it. The men on this stage have gotten some of it. Alan, you included as a GBTS graduate. And so, it's not fun to get bad press. We don't want to go looking for it.
We don't want people to hate us for no good reason. But you have to be willing, whether you're in the SPC or out of it, you have to be willing to pay the price for the truth. Or else, what are we doing?
Turn the lights off.
One just additional comment. I know we're short on time, but one reason, practical reason why I believe God has prohibited females from serving in that role is because in His own design, godly men want to protect women.
And anytime that a woman is preaching and teaching and she, I believe that her pastoring or teaching in that role is itself biblical error. But if further, she teaches biblical error and someone rebukes that, corrects that, confronts that, all of the godly men in her life innately want to rush to her aid to defend her.
You're attacking my wife. You're attacking my sister. You're attacking a woman. No I'm not. I'm confronting the error that they're teaching. And anyone that cannot be properly rebuked if necessary, whether that's Mike Stone or Sally Smith, anyone that is not subject to being rebuked for their error in teaching has no place teaching the Word of God.
That's why I didn't start with this question. I know we could stay on that all night, but here's the reality if I may just comment here. And that is, you guys did, so I'll comment too. But if you're home, I don't know how many wolves are in Georgia, but Mike, if your home was surrounded by physical, actual wolves and you said to your wife, honey, go out there and defend our home.
I say, you're not a good man. You're not a good husband. And one of the pastor's roles in pastoring and overseeing the church is to ward off the wolves. And it's very similar to our own government's faulty move a number of years ago when they said that women can fight on the front line for our country.
That's not a woman's role. That's not demeaning a woman, that's exalting a woman. Because we love and we cherish and we honor. So to put a woman in that role is ultimately, it is ultimately a form of abuse towards her and even the church.
So anyway, we can move on from that, but I think it's a very important issue. We'll go back here to Dr. Askell. And let me get the pastor out of the church for a moment. Let me ask you this. What is a pastor's role outside of the church?
So I'm talking about his home, his community, and what about even his nation?
Yeah, well certainly his home is a part of his pastoral ministry. It can feel like those are in competition sometimes, but if a man can't manage his own household, how is he going to manage the church of God?
So my household is a part of my church's ministry, my ministry in the church. And to help the church understand that is a healthy thing, and then you are free to do the best you can in your home, recognizing that you're in a fishbowl, and yet the rules don't suddenly get suspended for you.
And so everything the Bible says about husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and children apply to the pastor, and we ought to be taking that seriously. I think it is also important that a pastor should communicate to his family, to his wife, to his kids, that they are more important than his ministry.
And that when it feels like there's competition, it's because something's not right, and we don't want to sacrifice our children or our marriage for what we think is a greater good of ministry. That's not right thinking.
Beyond that, we're Christians, we're all called to be salt and light. We're all called to find opportunities, look for the opportunities God gives us, to represent Christ however He might do that. And so that will vary in seasons of life.
I've got more time now because I don't have children that I'm raising in my home that I didn't have 25 years ago. And so a guy who's raising children in his home is going to have certain limitations about what he does beyond that.
And so I wouldn't try to make one rule fits all for any of that. But man, be salt and light. And I'm more and more convinced that in terms of our society, our culture, our nation, that we ought to be involved locally.
It's important to know who your sheriff is. And I've gotten to know our sheriff, I've known some of our police chiefs, taken them to lunch just to get to know them. Pray for our mayor and city council and our county congressional or council leaders as well.
To get involved and get your people involved as well. Speak up. Yesterday, today's Thursday, right? Yeah, yesterday in Naples, just south of us, the city council there had a meeting to vote on whether or not they were going to allow drag queen story hour in their libraries.
And I'm not in Naples, but I texted a friend of mine who is a pastor down there and said, hey, you need to know about this. And so he was able to get folks there at that meeting. And that's loving your neighbor.
That's loving your neighbor. And so what has God gifted you with? What opportunities has he given you? Seize them the best you can. And that might not mean that you do anything beyond your community or do anything that's noticeable in your community, but if it means going and I think you did this, didn't you do a story hour at your library?
Follow Dr. Owen's example and go to your library and read a good book to kids to be salt and light in those ways. That is a loving thing to do for your community.
Amen. We're running low on time, but anything you guys want to add to that?
Strong men of God are the need of the hour. We need men by the grace of God who will put themselves on the line, who will recognize if they're in a position of leadership they're not there for themselves.
They're there for the glory of God. They're there for the good of the people. That's the kind of man we desperately need. It's not that we don't need godly women. We need godly women all over the place.
We need them in every sphere of life. But because God has appointed men to lead.
Homes,.
To lead churches, and to be key leaders in society, we need strong men. And we need to cultivate strong men. And part of how we do that is not to browbeat men, particularly with young men, and just shake our finger at them and tell them what they're not.
Our culture's already doing that. Culture's done an excellent job of toxifying men and telling young men in particular that they're toxic. I mean, that phrase is everywhere today. And young men in their sin cooperate.
And so they do get ensnared in pornography, and they do lose their purpose in life, and they do give themselves over to entertainment or video games or whatever it may be. And they do not marry young women and leave young women to languish, and et cetera, and on the dance goes.
But we need to recognize that we have a real opportunity here to come alongside young men who have been flocking for years now to figures like Jordan Peterson and others who's kind of a secular pastor, almost.
He's a father in public. He's an older man who will speak up and who will put himself on the line. He had a tenured job at University of Toronto, the Harvard of Canada, and he put it all in the line over transgender pronouns.
And young people have flocked to him in part because he's a man who's courageous. And that's encouraging as well. When men are courageous, young men flock to them. David didn't have a hard time assembling a band of mighty men.
The mighty men flocked to him, and they were willing to do anything for him. They went and got a cup of water from the enemy's camp. So there's a real... there's two words of encouragement there. Number one, when we go to young men and we say, you're not toxic.
You're not toxic. You're a sinner. You're a sinner. This isn't therapeutic. This is moral. This is spiritual. You're not toxic. You may be trapped in porn right now, but if you will repent and trust Jesus Christ, you will gain everlasting glory, and you will become something far greater than you ever thought you could be by the power of God and Christ.
And then we need to also recognize that as those young men are transformed, as they are saved and redeemed and changed, and as they stand in public in the kind of ways that Dr. Askew was just talking about, God will use them powerfully because strong men create other strong men as God works.
Amen. I feel like someone needs to come up and play the piano after that. Amen, brother. Okay, last question. Last question. We'll just go through this real quick, but I just wanted to ask each one of these men, basically the scenario is this.
Let's say, we'll start with you, Pastor Mike. Let's say there's a young Mike Stone in the congregation tonight or listening online. What is one piece of advice that you would give to a young Mike Stone that you've learned along the way, that you wish you knew when you started out in ministry that you would like to share now that you've grown in wisdom and maturity?
Well, the.
Context of it probably is important because I became a pastor of a church that had just broken ground for a new sanctuary. We were a healthy church, biblically healthy, unified congregation, but we were strapped for space.
And so very early in my first pastorate, which I'm still in my first pastorate,.
We.
Built a new building. I don't mean the exponential growth for our small little town. And while I never tried to use numerical growth, I wasn't driven by that.
I felt.
Like I saw it early on as a sign that I was doing the Lord's will.
I mean,.
I preached, people came forward, we're growing, I must be on the right track. And I think I would say to the younger Mike Stone, that the evaluation is not at the end of the service. It's ultimately at the end of the age.
But even in the human realm, what God did in that service, and I'm just speaking very practically, this is something young Mike needed to know more clearly.
Ultimately,.
You don't know what God did in that service. You just simply don't know. If you think it flopped, you don't know. God may have just radically transformed someone's life with His.
Word.
Or everyone may say it was the greatest sermon on prayer they've ever heard, but they don't go home and pray anymore. So you just don't know. So not to be driven by statistics, response, those sorts of things as a measure or a standard that you're fulfilling God's role in your life.
That's a good word, brother. Thank you. Dr. Strand, what would you tell the young Owen Strand who's listening tonight? I would say.
Stop playing basketball because you're going to tear both your Achilles tendons. And you're not going to make a red dime off of the whole enterprise.
So.
I would say that first. And then I think I would say.
If.
God does call you into the fray at some level, if you have the privilege of standing with Christ, then just remember that you have to cultivate full-orbed character. And you don't want to become a joab.
You don't want to be cutting heads off at every turn. We have to know ourselves. We have to know our temperament and our tendencies. And it's good to be in the fray, but we want to make sure that we never think that fruits of the Spirit like gentleness or meekness or patience or kindness are effeminate or below us or sissified.
I don't know. Choose your word. Those are fruits of the Spirit. Fruit, singular, of the Spirit and Paul's thinking. And so don't choose between being courageous or being gentle, God willing, as God works in you.
Be both. But just remember you don't want to become a hardened.
Warrior.
Who is always in fight mode. You don't want to come home like we were talking about a few minutes ago as if your wife and children are the front lines of a doctrinal battle. In many cases, your wife is doing well just to keep everyone generally in the vicinity of the house and fed much of the day.
So she needs you to come in and be tender and loving and never think that that's not biblical manhood, not godly strong manhood.
Is there a young Tom Askell out there who needs the wisdom of that older Tom Askell?
I think I'd just say stop. Anything you're thinking of doing, just don't because it'll wind up better. I think overall, I would want to communicate that God is far more faithful than you can imagine. And Christ is more patient and loving and forgiving than you can imagine.
And that when things look lost and when it looks like there's no hope, that God is working. He's always working. He's not going to let any promise fail. And Christ is going to receive every ounce of glory that is His through all that He has accomplished once and forever.
And so you can live a life of faith. You can live a life of hope. You can live a life of joy. You don't have to be determined, defined by your circumstances. And they don't have to determine how you live.
In this world.
So the.
Thing.
That God's taught me over the latter part of my life is this certainty and the reality of unseen realities and how much more important those are than the things that we can perceive with our senses. So if I could have gotten that earlier, it would have served me well and I probably would have served, definitely, would have served others better.
Amen. And at the end of the day, the one we'll stand before is Christ, not presidents, not governments, not the Southern Baptist Convention. It's Christ. Thank you, brothers, so much. It's been a tremendous encouragement to me.
And I hope it's been an encouragement to you guys as well. Just make a mention real quick that Dr. Askell and Pastor Mike will both be preaching tomorrow night at Second Baptist Church of Perryville. I'm sure most of you already know that information, but if you don't, you're invited to come and join.
It's open to anybody at 6 o 'clock, and we look forward to that. I want to communicate, I'm going to ask Brother Jeremy Williams to come up and close us in a word of prayer, but I want to communicate one more time, this event tonight would not have been possible if not for the usage of Grace Bible Church.
And so I just want to tell the elders of Grace Bible Church, in more ways than one, how much you mean to me, and I'm thankful for you and your prayers, but I'm also thankful for the usage of this facility tonight.
If you're a member of Grace Bible Church, I want to say thank you as well. Let me say one last thing, and then Jeremy come forward, but just be mindful of, I do have to get these guys back west tonight, and so we are going to hang around for just a couple minutes, but please be mindful because before too long, we need to head west.
So Pastor Jeremy, Jeremy's a pastor in our association, Houston Baptist Church. I'm going to ask him to come and close us in a word of prayer. Thank you, brother.
Let's pray. What manner of love you have given to us, Father, that we may be called the sons of God. We praise you, Lord, for making us and for giving us life, for drawing us to yourself and giving us an opportunity to know you and serve you in this way.
We pray for everyone in this room, the families and churches that are represented. God, may you be honored through our lives. May you bless this conference that goes on for the next couple of days and these men who have come a long way to preach.
May your word return to you, having done exactly what you sent it out to do. It will not return void. We believe that because you've said it. Lord, give us safe travels home. To you be all glory and honor and praise for you.