Evangelical Pastors are Too Busy and Important to do Their Job

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to A .D. on the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network.

All right, well, before we begin today, let me just say this. If you have been waiting to purchase a copy of my new book,

Social Justice Pharisees, Woke Church Tactics, and How to Engage Them, first of all, what are you waiting for?

But second of all, you might be rewarded for your patience because I am conducting a sale this week in honor of this

Ed Litton plagiarism situation. He's been a habitual plagiarizer, and it's just ridiculous plagiarism.

I see this as a blessing from God. I did a video yesterday. If you haven't seen it, I explained why

I think this is a blessing from God. And I think it's a tremendous opportunity that God has given his people in the

SBC and in the United States in general, an opportunity to wake up to what has happened in the church.

It has gone liberal. It has lost its scruples. It has lost its morality. And this Ed Litton plagiarism situation,

I think, is tailor -made by God to give us an opportunity to turn, to repent, to stop circling the wagons, and to break ranks with this

Big Eva machine. And so in honor of that opportunity, I'm selling my book for $15 per book, shipping included, if you mention the

Ed Litton opportunity. Why do I think this is an opportunity? Well, watch yesterday's video if you want to find out.

But suffice it to say that I believe that God chose plagiarism as the major scandal for Ed Litton mere days after he was elected.

He chose it instead of anything else he could have chose because he knows that Big Eva has harped very strongly against plagiarism in the past.

All of our Big Eva leaders have written articles about how evil plagiarism is, how it's disqualifying for a pastor.

And so he is going to rub our noses in it until we wake up and say, wait a minute, how am

I defending or not calling for Ed Litton's resignation now if a few years ago

I wrote an article talking about how this is a disqualifying sin for a pastor to habitually be engaged in?

He's rubbing our noses in it, guys, and this is an opportunity. You can either stay there and stay in your sin and wallow in your filth, or you can use this as an opportunity to wake up to the whole scam that Big Eva has been running for years now.

And so my book is about the social justice aspect of that scam. Ed Litton is definitely the social justice jester at this point, court jester, king of ceremonies, all that.

So it's related. And so I want to offer this book for you. If you're waking up to the fact that Big Eva has pulled the wool over your eyes due to this

Ed Litton scandal, I want to give you this book for $15, ad at adrobles .com.

Email me, let me know how many copies you want, and I'll get that out to you right away. Yeah, just mentioned the

Ed Litton opportunity. Now, I want to talk about this a little bit more because this is a company that has come up in this

Ed Litton scandal a few times. Now, I have no idea if this company is related to J .D.

Greer or Ed Litton. Allegedly, J .D. Greer used to endorse this company. Docent Research Group is the name of the company.

If you want to check out their website, it's docentgroup .com. I have no information that this company has anything to do with Ed Litton or J .D.

Greer at this point, and specifically that Roman series. I don't know. I don't know. But the name keeps coming up, and people are wondering, is

Docent involved in this in some way? I have no idea. But what

I wanted to do, though, is I wanted to talk about this company and its existence just in general, because what

I often do when I think about things that are happening in the church right now, I wonder to myself, what would

Paul have said, the Apostle Paul? What would the Apostle Paul have said if he came across this movement or this website or this preacher or this message?

How would he have reacted? And I have to say, people that are involved in this social justice movement and Big Eva and the machine that has been created, this monstrous

Big Eva machine that has been created, spreading error left and right, liberalizing the church, you guys are lucky that it's me who's criticizing you.

You're lucky it's John Harris who's criticizing you. You guys are lucky that it's J .D. Hall that's criticizing you and Doug Wilson and people like that,

James White. You're lucky. Because I don't think Paul the Apostle would be as nice as J .D.

Hall is. That's a fact. That's a fact. I don't think he'd be as nice as James White is.

Because I really don't think Paul would have the same reactions or be as patient as many of us have been.

And so anyway, I was thinking about that regarding Docent Research Group. I wanted to just look at this website and really just do a tour here.

So if you're listening to this on podcast, you may want to check out the video of this one. But I'll try to narrate this as much as possible.

It's a snazzy looking website, right? It's a pretty sharp website, no question about it. But it's one of the shadiest sales pages that I've ever seen in my entire life.

I mean, it's pretty shady. And what I mean by that is it just doesn't really give you a lot of detail as far as what this company provides for you.

Now the point of this website, it's like a landing page. And they want you to fill out a form so they can call you and have a consultation.

They can tell you this stuff over the phone. But it seems to me that there are barriers to entry here.

And so I wanted to just talk about this. Because if you go to a typical sales page, this is sdbullion .com, my favorite bullion dealer.

By the way, this is a Christian company. So if you want to buy gold and silver but giving your money to a

Christian, this is a good way to do it. But anyway, you can see it's a typical sales page. It gives you a lot of information.

This is the new American Gold Eagle for 2021. Here's the front. Here's the back.

And it tells you what the pricing is. And the pricing is a little complicated because it depends on how many coins you buy and how you decide to pay.

You can pay with a checking account. You can pay with Bitcoin. You can pay with a credit card. And the pricing is slightly different depending on how much you purchase and how you purchase it.

It also tells you when it's available. It also tells you the shipping. It also tells you details on the coin itself, what the metal content is, what the purity is, all that kind of stuff.

Typical sales website gives you a lot of information. Docent doesn't really give you that kind of information.

Let's click Get Started for a second here. And you can get started. So what you need to do is you need to fill out this form.

What I found interesting about this especially is you name, what's your position on staff, your church, all that kind of stuff, your information.

It asks you for a referral. So, like, who referred you, right?

And, okay, maybe they get a little money for referring you and stuff like that. Or, you know, maybe you got to be invited into this special docent research group.

Who really knows? I love this question, though. Put in your church budget here. I wonder if this is, like, a way to sort of, like, maybe steer people away that have, you know, too small of a church to be relevant kind of thing or they can't afford it or what this is.

This is an interesting question. Put your church budget in. Imagine if you were trying to buy some bullion and they were like, well, why don't you give me your net worth before I tell you what this is going to cost?

Why don't you provide your net worth? This is more akin to, like, a financial service, right?

Like, asset managers often will do this to get you to the right, you know, the right kind of products. And I wonder if that's what this is all about, docent research group.

Like, if your church budget is $100 ,000, well, maybe we don't have any products for you, you know what I mean?

You got to have a minimum investment of a certain amount. I don't know. It's just a very interesting thing, especially for something church related.

But this is, you know, this is just my opinion, of course, and I'm not going to tell you, you know, what to believe about docent research group.

But I did want to show you their kind of about me of their services.

Let's take a listen to what they provide here. I'm going to narrate this, and so this is a video that they're playing.

Very serious Big Eva style video, if you know what I mean. Docent research group.

There once was a new church, planted with prayer and love. The Lord blessed it.

Lives were changed. The church grew. One pastor became.

Pastors wore too many hats. They felt pulled in too many directions.

And so the leaders chose to partner with docent. For sermon research to build powerful messages.

For best practices, insights, and book summaries.

For demographic research and position papers.

For information to make wise decisions.

For curriculum crafted with the church's DNA as a trusted partner focused on executing the church's mission theologically in tune, operationally in sync, and their effectiveness was multiplied like loaves and fishes.

With docent, pastors can concentrate on mission, on the gospel, on creating healthy disciples, and on creating new churches planted with prayer and love.

Let us serve you as you serve others. Docent research group.

So what's interesting about this whole premise here is that it presents this situation where a pastor is essentially too busy to do enough research to make his sermons effective.

He's too busy. He's being pulled in all these logistical, strategic directions, and he just doesn't have the time to devote to doing demographic studies.

So he doesn't have enough time to research enough for his sermons.

He doesn't have enough time to really know who's in his congregation. That's what a demographic study is.

You do a poll and you find out, I've got 10 blacks, I've got 30 whites, whatever it is,

I've got lesbians, whatever the demographics are. The other one was curriculum.

So developing Sunday school curriculum or classes or courses.

So the pastor doesn't have enough time to do that either. And then the other one that I found was interesting was book summaries.

So the idea is that you pay docent research group and they read the book that you want to quote from, or maybe they read

Jamar Tisby's book or Woke Church by Eric Mason. Maybe what I'll do is I'll call docent research group, get a summary of my own book just to see what they have to say about that.

That'd be interesting. That's something actually. I like that. I might have some covert ops for you.

If you're interested in a covert op, let's talk about maybe paying docent to review my book and see what they come out with.

That'd be interesting. I wonder how much it would cost. Probably way too much for my budget. 80 Robles Media, we may keep our reserves in gold and silver, but I'm not saying we have a ton of it.

Anyway, so you're too busy to read books too and to think about them and digest them and stuff like that.

And so you're too busy to do your sermon research. You're too busy to know your congregation. You're too busy to develop curriculum for your

Sunday school or whatever it is. And you're also too busy to read books on your own. So what are you doing?

I mean, imagine if Paul the Apostle saw this and what would he say about this?

I don't think he would laugh. I mean, I'm sure Paul the Apostle had a great sense of humor, but I don't know.

I mean, this is really stupid, guys. This is really stupid.

It just really boggles the mind. So what is the pastor actually doing?

It's saying that the pastor should be concentrating on mission and on the gospel. But what they don't have time for is studying for their sermons, doing the demographic studies of their congregation, curriculum development, and reading books.

To me, though, that's a core aspect of the job. And so it's like you don't have time for that stuff, then you don't have time to be a pastor.

I mean, to me, it seems pretty simple. This is part of the job of a pastor.

There's an application I can make to my own universe because I'm a recruiter. And so one of the things that I do is

I charge fees to companies that are looking for certain kinds of engineers and stuff like that to find engineers for them.

I charge a fee for that. And there are recruiters like me that will outsource the recruiting.

So what they do is they charge a fee to the customer, and then they pay someone else to go and recruit. And it's like,

OK, I guess if you can make money doing that, that's OK. But I'm pretty sure that your customer isn't buying the service of you paying someone else to do the recruiting.

I'm pretty sure they think that you're doing the recruiting. It's just a very weird kind of thing to do. It's like,

OK, so you're a recruiter that doesn't recruit. More power to you if you can do it.

But the thing is, with a pastor, though, this is not really acceptable because a pastor has a commission from God, has a job from God, and God is definitely not going to be pleased if you outsource your job to someone else.

The job that he gave you, if you outsource that to somebody else, I don't think God's going to be pleased with that.

I really simply don't. Now, the other thing about this that I find so interesting is, you know, the docent is charging a fee to essentially do a good portion of the pastor's job for them.

But the thing is, though, that God actually preempted this whole problem.

Because if you remember, in the book of Acts, there was a situation where there was a dispute among the

Greek Jews that they weren't getting fed and the distribution of food and all of that.

The daily ministration is what the King James calls it. And so what does the Holy Spirit inspire the apostles to do?

Well, they set up deacons. They set up servants to serve the tables. And why do they do it? So that they can focus on what they should be focused on.

What does it say? Here is what the Word of God says, Acts 6, I'm sorry, verse 5, verse 4.

It says, And so God already has provided an office for this exact issue.

So if you're, you know, being distracted by logistical stuff, operations, stuff like that, well,

God said what you should do is you should still focus on your job, praying for your congregation, knowing your congregation, dealing in the

Word, doing your own research, stuff like that. Coming up with your own lessons from the Scripture. Like, that's your job, pastor.

And so because there's other things that you can get distracted with, like giving out food to the widows, why don't we set up people that their specific job is to do some of that operational stuff.

So that you can focus on your ministry of the Word. Knowing the Word of God, teaching the

Word of God, preaching the Word of God. This is the job of the pastor. And then we've got the deacons, which is another word for servants.

We've got the servants in the church, the office of servant, deacon, to do the operational stuff.

And so docent is stepping in and saying, well, look, look, guys, look, you're too busy. You're a mega church pastor.

I mean, you can't be expected to know your congregation. So why don't you pay us? We'll come in.

We'll do the demographic studies. We'll do all this. And we'll figure it. We'll write the position papers.

Like imagine that, a position paper. So you're going to put out a position paper on something.

And instead of doing it yourself because, you know, that's too hard. It's just too much time. I don't have time for that.

You pay somebody else, a company, an external company to write your position paper for you.

Your curriculum to do your research, to read the books for you and tell you what the book says in summary form.

So you don't have to read it. I mean, what would

Paul say about this? I just I can't imagine Paul would be pleased with this situation.

And it's like, so why does this company exist? I just I had to pause it there.

I'm at a loss for words. I'm like stuttering over my words here, which I tend to do that from time to time.

But it's just I can't even fathom being a pastor and doing this. It's not like I can't fathom doing it as a recruiter.

Right. You know, company hires me to recruit for them. And then I turn around and hire somebody else to recruit for me so that I can do whatever it else is

I want to do. Like, I wouldn't do that because I don't think it's right. But it's but it's different than that, because this is a business, right?

Like, I'm in a business situation. So whatever, however, I solve the problem, that's up to me. And if I as long as I'm not lying to my customer, as long as I'm not committing fraud, then that's up to me.

But the thing is, but but a pastor is different. Like a pastor has been told what their job is.

And they've been told that when you're too busy to serve the tables and stuff like that, then your job has to change.

You have to you have deacons there to do that kind of stuff. And it's like, but no, no, no. Docents like, no, no, no.

We we you you're too busy. I mean, you can't be it's a it's a meager mega church. You grew.

God blessed you. God blessed you so much that now you can turn around and abdicate your responsibility because you're just too your time is too valuable.

I just I can't even fathom what Paul would say. What would Christ say? Right. Imagine if if Christ, you know how he wrote those letters to the churches in Revelation.

What would he say to the church today? What would he say to the church in America today? The liberalized church that hires docent research group.

You guys are lucky that it's it's it's YouTubers that are that are that are criticizing you.

It's J .D. Hall. It's James White. It's all these. You're lucky that this is what's happening because I don't think that Paul or or Christ would have the same kind of tone with you that we've had.

I think they would ratchet it up. I really do, because this is unbelievable. Now, I wonder

I'm I've heard I this is allegedly allegedly. I've heard that if you work for docent or if you employ their services that you have to sign an

NDA about this, because I want, you know, honestly, I wonder how much of this like lockstep big

Eva thing where everyone's saying the same stuff. And I wonder how much of this ad lit in situation is connected to maybe not docent, but companies like docent or consulting services like docent, because it would make sense.

I mean, these guys are writing your position papers for you. So if they're woke, then everybody's woke.

Every megachurch that uses them is woke. Like, like, this makes a lot of sense to me that this would be, you know, a key linchpin to this entire big

Eva movement, this entire big Eva machine. Like, like, honestly, like, if you have a church and you're

I think you deserve to know if your pastor is doing their position papers, their curriculum, their entire job, essentially, through docent research group.

The ministry of the word is being done through docent research group. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these megachurch pastors are doing this.

All the ones that sound the same, they sound interchangeable. I wonder, I wonder. I have no evidence of this.

This is all allegedly, but I wonder. And this NDA stuff, like, if you're at a church that the pastor is doing this, they're not doing their own research.

They're not writing their own position papers. They're not, you know, doing their own, you know, demographic studies or whatever it is that's supposed to mean.

You know, if you're in a church, like, you deserve to know that. You deserve to know that. I don't know, man.

Like, can anyone help me out here? It's been a while since I've been at this much of a loss for words, but this docent research group, man, this is so shady.

This is so shady. Why don't you give us your church's budget, yeah.

And then we'll talk about how much it costs. I'll tell you how much it costs after I know how much you can pay. Like, that's the last thing you do.

Everybody knows you go to a used car lot. You don't tell them how much you're looking to spend first because then they'll rake you over the cold.

This is like sales 101. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. But the whole point of this is

I saw this, look at this, demographics, position papers, church surveys, book summaries.

Like, you can't even read your own books. You need somebody else. I'm interested in what

Color of Compromise says. Can you, I'll pay you, you know, I wonder what the price is, man. I really want to know. I'll pay you $10 ,000 if you read

Color of Compromise for me and tell me what it says. Like, if you're too busy to do your own research, to read your own books, to get your own, like, you're just too busy to work.

You're too busy to be a pastor. You have no business doing it. Man. And of course nobody's going to criticize anything

Tim Keller says because they're not even reading his book. They're just having Docent read it. And tell me what Tim Keller says.

Well, I'll tell you what Tim Keller says and I'm sure this won't be a problem at all. Here's Tim Keller endorsing

Docent. Yeah, so I wonder if you're going to get a fair shake on some of the issues with Tim Keller, you know, his latest book, when they have him endorsing the service.

Sure. That's exactly what's going to happen. When I started in ministry 45 years ago, the world was a lot simpler.

The culture was considerably simpler. Everything's too hard now. You see, back in the day, you know, when

Paul was talking to the people here, I'm sorry, it wasn't Paul doing this. When the apostles were working in the ministry of the words, things were easier back then, back in Rome, right?

They're easier in Rome. Now the world's too complicated and so you got to pay Docent to do your research for you.

Oh, by the way, you want to know what Tim Keller's book says? Well, we'll tell you what Tim Keller's book says. I mean, he's one of our buddies, so of course it's perfect.

It's a great book. There's nothing wrong with it. Guys, if your pastor's doing this, I'm usually not one to be like, leave your church.

But if your pastor's doing this and not telling people, and he's like, yeah, I read the Tim Keller book. It's a great quote from Tim Keller.

It's amazing. And he never actually read the book. He just paid Docent to do it for him. Yeah, I think you get my point.

I think you get my point. I posted this one on Gab, and it's like, why Docent? Why Docent?

Well, there is enough time in the day for pastors to do all the things they need to do.

The modern pastor is an administrator, an organizer, a strategic planner.

But many pastors weren't trained to do these things in seminary, or they didn't get into pastoral ministry for these reasons.

We leverage our researchers to maximize our clients' time, to help them focus on the things they are called to.

You are called to do your own work in the Word. This is so beta, man.

I don't say beta very often, but it's just like, oh, there's not enough time in the day to do what I have to do. I mean, I didn't even get into ministry for this.

Like, well, that's too bad. If you didn't get into ministry to do your own work, that's too bad. And again,

God has made a provision for this. He gave us deacons and elders. He gave us pastors and servants.

Like, He has made a provision for this. But now you've got to hire Docent Research Group. And you've got to sign that NDA, allegedly.

So nobody knows. It's just unbelievable. I can't even believe that this is a real thing.

And again, I've heard that there have been some people—I heard J .D. Greer used to endorse them.

So maybe they are involved in some of this nonsense. But guys, like this—I don't even really know what to say.

I think I have to end the video there, because I just—I'm speechless. I'm totally speechless, and I'm just repeating myself at this point.

Guys, if you want to get a copy of Social Justice Pharisees, Woke Church Tactics, and How to Engage Them, I can guarantee you that I did my own research when

I wrote the book. I did not hire Docent Research Group when I wrote the book. I did hire an editor, and they did an edit for me and stuff like that.

But of course, you know, that's not very different than hiring someone to write a position paper for you.

I don't know what my position should be on social justice and LGBT. Can you write a position paper for me?

Maybe I already know—maybe I do know my position, because Big Eva told me so. But I don't know how to defend it.

Can you defend it for me? I gotta go.

This has to be over. This video has to be done. I hope you found this podcast helpful.

God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the

Fight, Laugh, Feast Network. I'll see you then.