Change

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

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I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Deren. David Kassin. And Andrew Hudson. This episode is a bit personal for me because we're going to be entertaining my question today.

My question has to do with change within a church. How quickly or how slowly should we want change?

Maybe what kind of changes should we desire in a church? But more specifically, we were talking off air beforehand.

When we see something that we want changed within our church, within our local body, and we have to consider our fellow believers, our fellow brothers and sisters around us, and we know that this change might be good for them, we might be right that this change needs to happen.

My question is, if we have a desire for change, how quickly should we expect it to happen?

And I know this may be a gradation as far as the subject. If we're preaching heresies about the

Trinity, that needs to stop today. But if we're talking about changes that are in minutia, maybe like a tertiary issue, we might think of these things in the more long -term where we won't see the changes, but we can help our sons, and we may be able to help our grandchildren within that church affect those changes.

The reason I ask this question is the context is in my short time as a Christian, come across many people who may rightly see things that need to be changed within a local body.

So I'm not going to say they're wrong. What I'm going to say is, the way that they want to go about it might be a little hasty.

Even though the zeal is good, the zeal is right, but for tertiary things to have preeminence over the good things that are happening in a church,

I find to be a little icky when I hear that type of stuff. Especially when it is being put forward as a major critique of a local body.

Like something is sickly wrong with them if they've got this tertiary issue. Whereas they may be a very unified body, but they're being made new, they're being made like Christ, and they are growing together as a body.

Those types of things have started to, I've started to recognize them when I hear people talking about change.

And when I hear them talk about change as well, it's usually paired with a comment like, well,

I wouldn't worship there because these things need to change first. Or I don't want to submit for memberships classes because these things need to change first.

Whereas they're kind of put forward as prerequisites for you joining a church at all.

And sometimes I think those excuses are not the real issue at hand. I think there's layers back behind them, but they're the things that they're putting forward.

So to answer that type of a question as to when we see change that may rightly need to be employed, how are we going to go about it?

What type of view are we trying to take, long or short -term views, and just general counsel when it comes to change within a church?

And I know this is a very broad question because this would go a number of different ways with a number of different issues, but I'd like general principles because I don't hear a lot about that when somebody talks about wanting change in a church.

When you talk about general principles, just at the baseline of this question, are you talking about structural, doctrinal issues?

Like there are stories abound of caged -stage Calvinists wanting to reform a church, and then they just don't burn bridges.

They dynamite them with people on it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So are you talking about a doctrinal stuff or some personal or personal preferences?

Like, you know, I think we need to, I think this church needs to have more psalm singing versus hymns, into something that's not necessarily right or wrong.

I mean, I certainly have my personal preference, but versus the doctrinal. You know, okay, this is a serious issue in the church.

Which direction are you coming from on this question? The majority of the time when I hear this put forward, it's usually on, like I said, tertiary things.

We were talking off -air beforehand. It may be like serving communion instead of once a quarter every

Sunday instead of having just psalms have a particular type of music or maybe a better -produced music or -

The Bible version from the pulpit has to be a specific one that you happen to like and say, yeah. Correct.

Like King James Version? Something like that. Or even something that may be like, it's not a structural issue, but it's the people in the places of the structure that they want changed.

Like, hey, you guys have plural eldership, but you need more elders or you need less elders. Like something like that where it's like, or you need better elders.

When I hear these types of things, and like I said, I'm not going to downplay the critique necessarily because it may be true, but using it as an excuse not to join, using an excuse not to maybe be the change you want to see in your church, or using it as an excuse to shake the dust off your feet and move elsewhere, these are kind of the issues that I have encountered.

And I'm wondering - Like straining gnats? Yeah, absolutely straining gnats. That's a good illustration.

Jesus had a good illustration there, straining gnats and swallowing a camel. And how many gnats on a camel?

I always wonder that. Lots of gnats on a camel. I love that illustration.

It's one of the funnier ones. So thinking about change in a church, I've only pastored two churches, but been, let's see here,

I don't know how many churches I've been a member of. Growing up, my dad pastored several churches, and he was in the ministry for over 40 years, and resistance to change is kind of a tradition, pun intended, in smaller

Baptist churches. And so there's a sense I would say within, just from my own extended experience through my dad's own pastoral ministry and just observing that and watching that and learning from that, is that small churches have a sense of, we do need something new, we need something different, we need something better.

Because if we don't, then we're going to die out, and our kids don't wanna keep coming, something's wrong, we need to get a new pastor in here.

And usually that's been the sense. It's the easiest thing to change, and there's always a little bump of excitement when the new guy comes in, and there's also a little bit of excitement when you kick the old guy out.

I mean, you get high attendance Wednesday night business meetings when you get close to kicking him out, and then you get high attendance

Sunday mornings when the new guy comes in. So it helps with attendance, pastor changes, and there's a sense that if we could just get the right dynamic guy in here, then we're gonna be okay.

And there's a lot of pressure, but no, we're not going to change any of our programs or any of our expectations or any of our structures, because certainly that's not the problem.

The problem was the last guy, we got rid of him. Now that's a generalization, but I, there's a whole lot.

Are you talking about the presidency right now? Oh, I'm talking about that guy. Yeah, I like that. Kick that bum out when you need someone else.

I'm talking about a microcosm of human nature called the small Baptist church. And so there's a kind of a focus on the man, right?

And so you were talking about, maybe there are others who think about the liturgy. Yeah, so I'm actually, when

I'm saying this, it's coming from many who are like maybe a 1689 or some flavor of Reformed background.

So they're not necessarily worried about the man, at least that's not what they're saying. They may actually have a love for the way that everything's set up in some cases, but maybe the right personnel aren't in the right places.

Or like we did say, some things are structural, like Lord's Supper every

Sunday or the way the liturgy is brought forth. So it's always been interesting to me to discover why these things, whatever they are, are so important.

And the folks that you're thinking about and have familiarity with are kind of a subset of a larger group of people who, when they come to a church, they're looking for signs that this is the right place to be and they're looking for those signals that, okay, this is a healthy, good, solid church.

But if there are particulars that they just can't, they don't believe that they can live without or they think that if this particular is absent,

I think this is such an important ingredient that if this is missing, the only future of this church is going to be downhill.

Or we're never going to grow in spirituality, we're never gonna grow in true fidelity to Christ, we're just never gonna mature until we have this particular ingredient put into place or I have a strong sense that this is looming very near on the horizon that this is going to be brought in.

And I kind of holding onto, like we have to have communion every week and as soon as that happens, then it has to be wine and grape juice and the bread has to be a certain thing, but then it has to only be wine.

And after that, it's, well, we need to have one loaf. Yeah, one loaf, one loaf, one cup.

And then we had these psalms as part of our repertoire of singing, but then after we get the psalms in, really it should be mostly psalms and then it should only be psalms.

And what are we doing with these musical instruments? There's no end. This sounds like the

Campbellite movements. Yeah, there's no end to the particularities. There's just no end to that. But there is a sense in which, and I'm burdened for folks who go through this arc, because there's a sense in which we need to please the

Lord. And if we allow X, Y, or Z to remain, we're not pleasing the

Lord and we only can please the Lord if we put these other things in their place. And there's a sense in which

I am, I can't be a part of this church long -term or stay here because if I do,

Jesus is going to be so upset with us for failing to worship properly.

And what they sense is the eminence of condemnation.

And I can't stay here because this is unbiblical worship and it is angering

God and I will not be a part of it, okay? And genuinely broken about it, and this is why they're so zealous, often zealous.

You don't have this and you don't have this. Don't you understand the implications of that? Well, these are people who take worship seriously and you kind of want to empathize with them.

I mean, I'd rather have it be hot or cold. That person's hot, that person is on fire. And they need some wisdom and probably a big leash and jerk them back.

But man, those kind of people are intoxicating. They are so much fun to be around for a short time.

So what I'm hearing from someone like that, and sometimes it's not about the reform or die mindset.

Okay, sometimes it is. And you talk about the reformed program. You think you know what reformed is.

There's always a bigger R reform behind it. There's no, I mean, until we are actually going to, the maximum way to be reformed is to invent a time machine.

And go back to the original writers. Yes, and if you invent a time machine that goes back to the 1600s, there's a bigger

R behind that. You've got to go back to the 1500s. So there's just no end to that. So what

I'm hearing though is a different kind of R. I'm hearing restless. Right, I mean, that's sort of what

I'm getting at. That's the critique. And like I said, it is very a part of what

I see as like a new American trend to be transient. And I think, again, we talked about that off air, where hopping from place to place is the norm for us.

We don't look at people in a church body and think that their, them and their descendants, their name is going to be here for hundreds of years.

We don't see that. You know, other places in the world, most of human history up until 15 minutes ago, they would look at their church congregation and they would say, that last name is going to be here 1500 years from now.

And they were probably right. That probably proved itself true. But today, we think that the norm is to hop from church to church until we get the exact right thing instead of honoring

Christ with the people he's placed us in front of and loving his people there where we're at, rather than like, church shopping is really weird to me.

So there's a sense in which, since there's availability everywhere, okay, there's a sense in which

I've got to find the right place to be, okay. Or if I'm going to stay here, then

I'm going to be tirelessly advocating for change and expressing just how displeasing we are to God until we make these changes.

And I want to stir everyone up to make these changes because I believe that they're going to be very, very good for our church.

And if some people get upset, it's because they're not spiritual enough and they need to grow and they need to repent of their selfishness and pride because they're the ones keeping us from pleasing

Christ. So basically, it's all very much American -style dating. I'm going to try out everybody or the young lady says, hey, there's a project.

Okay. And it's very much this American culture of transience, like you're saying.

So what kind of expectations are we to have about change in a church? Obviously, there are some situations where a church is so far out of bounds.

But in general, rather than focusing in on particulars, we need to be able to have a view from the scriptures to inform our expectations of change.

And number one, being restless, that is not a sign of being spiritual.

Or mature, right? Or mature. The spiritual and the mature rest in Christ, they are at rest in Him.

They do not live in constant pinging condemnation because they failed to worship in just the right manner.

They're not berating themselves and beating themselves up because they belong to a church that doesn't have the exact framework that they think actually pleases

Christ. They are resting in Christ and therefore they are free to labor with Him at a pace that is loving and true and good.

And so what are the expectations? Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like what? It is like a mustard seed planted in the field, that little garden that you have in front of your house and it grows.

How fast does a plant grow? Not very fast. And it grows and this mustard seed's pretty surprising because it becomes a tree.

Whoever would have thought that this little plant, this little seed, the smallest of the seeds, becomes a little plant in the garden and never was supposed to become a tree but then it becomes a tree and all the nations, the birds, they all come and nest in the branches.

Surprise, but over time, look what happens. And over time, by the way, have you noticed how Christ has grown

His church over time? Yeah, I mean, I've been just staring a hole through my screen looking at Ephesians chapter four and I'm just thinking about like, this is, it's

His work that He does to us. When I think about just, when I read the passage, in verse 15, it says instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself who is the head.

And so the motivation behind this for a true brother or sister in Christ, it's about love.

Is there a way that this love can be made manifest as love instead of as complaints?

Like what's the proper way? Yeah, 1 Corinthians 13, right? Right. I mean, there's a great definition. I like the way that Brother Ken -

Is it patient? Yeah, other than Brother Ken does it. You know, as he's counseling, he's like, just put your name right there.

Everywhere it says love, put your name there. And then consider whether or not that statement is true of how you're treating so -and -so, of how you're relating to so -and -so.

And then you'll know whether or not you're actually loving them or not. You know, Michael was patient. Michael was kind. Michael was not, you know, you see, not rude.

All the way - Belling to bear, all things. Yeah, just personalize that. Walk the, and okay, is that, are you being loving to this person?

Are you relating to this person in a loving way? And - I mean, then we will come to the fullness of stature in Christ.

Yeah, so there is a sense in which, okay, we have organic metaphors, don't we?

You have organic metaphors, Matthew 13, even the putting the leaven in the lump of dough, which is a very large lump of dough when you actually do the measurement.

I mean, I think this lady wanted to, you know, she needed probably 10 times the size of her normal oven to bake this bread.

But over time, this lump of dough probably just moved them all out of the house. It was getting so big.

But over time, and there's a sense in which this organic growth and change occurs in a way that is not a process that, oh, by the way, it's not a process that you're actually in charge of, by the way.

You know, a lot of folks are restless because they want to be the good shepherd. They want to be the good shepherd of the church.

They want to be the good shepherd of themselves. I shepherd me, right? And there's a lot of restlessness in that.

But, you know, Ephesians 4, interestingly, is followed up by Ephesians 5, in which Christ, as the husband, is washing his bride with the water of his word.

And, you know, that takes time. That takes time. And there is a, I was taught a long time ago, one of the most fundamental things for church health was a long -suffering patient ministry of the word.

And that doing this, looking unto Christ, then he'll have his way, by the power of his spirit, in his bride, and over time, there's going to be change, but it's not going to be something that, some sort of really neat strategy that you came up with and then implemented, some sort of management tool.

Now, a management organization and so on can be helpful, but that doesn't grow the vine.

The vine grows by the life of Christ, by the graces that he has identified, primarily by the ministry of his word, through his spirit.

And the vine grows, and then elders and deacons develop trellis to support the vine, so we don't get all tangled up on each other, and we're more productive if we have biblical, biblically sound trellis supporting the vine, that's great.

And that's what we try to do, but when it comes down to it, it's personal.

It's loving other people and being patient with them. Paul says to Timothy, preach the word, in season and out of season, preach the word with all long -suffering.

Right, so this ministry of the word, where Christ is washing his bride with the water of his word, sanctifying her, through the ministers that he gives to the church,

Ephesians 4, they're to do it with all long -suffering. So that sounds to me like that's a long -term expectation, when we're thinking about how fast should we expect people to change, how fast we should see a church shift, but this is the attraction of church planting.

Okay, the attraction of church planting is, we don't have time to wait, we don't have time to develop lots of relationships, we don't have time to see the old aircraft carrier make the turn, we need the -

Reset button. Yeah, we need the skiff, we need the torpedo patrol boat, we need to be zip, zip, zip, let's go, and you can.

You really can, but then there's so much, it's like, well, I'm so glad we don't have to worry about all of these so -called problems, when maybe that's actually a whole part of the point, that you have a multi -generational, very wide kind of group of people, and you're all working together, loving one another in Christ, growing up in him and learning him, and you are gonna be different than other churches.

Yeah, a church plant, something new, doesn't have that depth of character.

Not that it's bad, I mean, a church plant is not necessarily bad, every church body's gotta start somewhere, but there is a danger there, there is something that says, look, let's be wise about this, this church body that has been together generationally for a long time, and we're talking a church body that's healthy, preaches the word, wants to be more like Christ, yeah, it does take a while to turn that aircraft carrier, and it's a lot easier when you have a bunch of young people, young families who are fiery and are passionate, and are ready to make quick, nimble changes, but it lacks something, there's that wisdom that comes with age, it's okay, hold on a second, just let's take it slow,

I'm not saying you're wrong, let's kind of take it slow, that an older congregation can provide. And I've been very blessed to be a part of churches with deeper histories, now some churches that don't have a deeper history can have some particular challenges, and those will show up in different ways, but whether you got a church plant that is struggling in ways that an established church is not, or an established church that has some holdups that a church plant doesn't have, it's not gonna solve anything by you hopping around trying to find that perfect fit.

No, because you're still dealing with people, and when I hear a lot of times people talking about problems, the equation there is the people are the problem, right?

Yes, that's what they're saying. And that is whether they're saying whether they wanna admit that or not, that's what

I do here, and what we're talking about between a church plant, which traditionally in the

US is younger families, younger people, we're talking about seedlings versus the mighty oak over here.

The seedling's gonna be, it's gonna struggle, it's gonna have its own struggles, whereas the mighty oak has some other struggles that it's gotta deal with.

It's switching out one set of problems for another, right? That's really what you're doing when you're trying to hit the reset button and do the church plant thing, and you think you're gonna be able to put it in the right soil, give it the right position for the right amount of sunlight, and you're gonna have the right amount of rain because it's in the right climate now, and you're gonna make sure there's not any weird noises, you're gonna have the right music playing to it so it has a chance to grow correctly.

That's what is usually happening with these attractions to church plants, especially the ones that are done haphazardly like that.

And I think one of the things that greatly burdens me, and I've seen this, is sometimes it's not even a sense of particular convictions about church polity or liturgy or even doctrine.

It's, when I grew up, I was part of a church that left me with this rosy feeling and memory, and this was the height of all church experience.

And they just keep looking for that and looking for that. Or maybe they never had that experience, but they believe it's out there, and they just keep on trying.

And what it is, ultimately, in their restlessness, in their dissatisfaction, that is what needs to be addressed.

You can have a church full of people who want to love you and be for you and to relate to you and to spend time with you and pray for you, and you can say,

I feel all alone. Well, why? Because maybe you don't come because people don't like me. Well, they're trying to like you, they're trying to love you, or you have expectations that nobody, nobody can ever meet, so you're always disappointed with everybody.

These are the things, these are like issues that you need shepherding for. These are issues that you need accountability for, but you're never going to get it if you keep on hopping.

Yeah, because it's the desires of one's own heart that need changing and not necessarily, and that's how it gets rationalized a lot of times, is it's like, well, it's this or this or this issue.

But really, the problem is with your own self and the way that you want to be welcomed or the way that you want to feel on any particular

Sunday. And if something's off one Sunday, that's it, we're out. Yeah, something's wrong. Yeah.

We've grieved the spirit. But there is a concern that a lot of folks have if there's an expectation that, again, this comes back to our eschatology, and also comes back into whether or not you think

Jesus is doing a good job shepherding, okay? If the expectation is that things are gonna go worse and worse, and not only you expect the government to get worse and worse till it's very much just the glove with the beast's hand inside and so don't get involved at all, but there's also an expectation that comes alongside with a pessimistic eschatology that says churches will become more and more corrupt.

Exactly, apostate churches. Yes. And that is - Pitching ears. And the flow of churches are gonna go from bad to worse, and we're always sitting there just waiting for something to sound just a little bit off or wrong, and like, there it is, there it is.

They're going liberal, they're going woke, they're going soft, they're going squish, and as soon as they hear something, then there's like, yep, they're slipping, right?

And this has been only amplified by, and otherwise sometimes helpful in appropriate ways, discernment ministries online.

Right. Right, sometimes it's helpful to get the heads up about something, that's kind of helpful, but the cultivation of all these expectations that you have to have all of these factors in play before I can be a part of your church, where does that come from?

That makes you the good shepherd. So we're talking about change in the church and the desire for it.

Now on one hand, and we've discussed that these kinds of things do take time, you're dealing with people, especially with a larger congregation or multi -generational congregation, good change does take time, use the aircraft carrier analogy, and what we see in the

New Testament, the examples that are set down where Christ is washing his bride, these things just, maturity takes time.

It's in the word, it just takes time to grow that direction. What do you say to the person who says, look, this is something that does need to change.

Now I'm willing to put in the work, I'm not gonna be shopping for a new church, I am willing to stay here for a generation and in fact, my son will take the baton from me.

So what do you tell that person who has the right attitude, he knows where the change comes from, it's

Christ, we are the ones who are doing his work, we are listening and submitting to what the word says and becoming more

Christ -like, he is doing that in us and we're being surrounded by people who have that same desire and we have people who want to serve in this church and build it up for generation after generation, how do you tell them to start?

First of all, depending what the issue is, let's say they're concerned about music and usually it'll be coming from a position of not knowing, of being on the outside, observing and having been a part of it, okay?

What I'll do first of all, is I will try to bring them into the conversation, the flow of what has been happening, things that they probably don't know, the context of where we've come from, where we are now, showing a trajectory of where we're heading and showing them the biblical reasons why we're doing it, this is why we're heading this way because we are convicted by the scriptures here, here and here and if they're concerned about those issues, then they're very aware of those same passages and it's like, here's how we're working towards this, this is the path that we are on currently and I hear you're concerned about this and this over here,

I would love to hear more about your research and what you're looking at there, could you send me some of that?

And then very often I'll find that it wasn't very much at all or maybe there was a whole lot but there's probably gonna end up being fair amount of agreement, the question is about patience and timing and so on but if they know, here's where we were 10 years ago, here's where we are today, here's how things are moving, this is the direction we're going, that helps, that helps.

Like if someone's concerned about the Lord's Supper, here's context under our definitive historical pastor,

Harry Boydson, they had communion once a year. Nissan 14th? Yeah. Quarto Decimals.

Yes, well they had it once a year and now we have it 12 times a year, okay? So you can kind of tell the trajectory we're on.

12X. Yeah, we're. Parabolic. Yeah, how about that? Gradually and then suddenly.

And of course, we're still learning about these things and we're still growing in these ways, here's what we're doing.

Just bringing somebody in, a lot of the times, part of the concern is, I feel guilty because I'm not doing anything about this issue and then when they find out, oh, there's lots of people here that are thinking about that issue and working on it, why don't you come alongside of us and help us pray about this and maybe you can share some of your research with us, maybe you can share some of your concerns with us and we can talk about that together.

Why don't you join us as we're walking that way anyway? Right, so it's not adversarially, it's togetherly.

Yes, exactly and to me, that's usually, people who have certain types of concerns, usually when you show them, hey, this is where we've been, this is where we are, so you can kind of see the trajectory we're going, we would love to have you help pray about this and participate with us in what

God is doing. I believe, I have firm confidence that Christ is going to be sanctifying us in this regard and that we are not the same church that we were when

I got here. I don't even believe the same things I believed when I first got here, that always makes me a little nervous. It's like, well, because I didn't have it all figured out, like I didn't know,

I was just in my 30s, what do you know when you're in your 30s? Nothing, I can't confirm.

So don't we really want people to be conformed to the image of Christ? Why would we not expect the pastor to also be undergoing the same process of sanctification?

So now, sometimes it's not enough and it may be because of such a very, what

I would say is probably an overprivileged conviction in which they are very, very restless until they have this thing as part of their, and I was like, well, again,

I can't frighten all of the sheep for the sake of this one concern that you have, but I would hope that you would see that we're heading the right direction.

If we're not heading fast enough for you, it's like, brother or sister, I hope you know we love you, but we just can't move that fast.

We are trying to obey Christ, this is what we're doing. So it's not like we're saying, we're fine, leave us alone, we're not saying that.

But then for some folks, it's just a matter of they're dissatisfied and the very fact, this is a strange thing, but the very fact that they know that this is not right and you can't get it right, the very fact that they are in that position, that is so precious to their identity that they hold on to that posture no matter where they're at.

They are always more holy, more worshipful, more spiritually mature.

They know more than the elders, they're more committed to Jesus than everybody else and so everyone else is continually failing so they're continually moving and they have a ministry of superiority and that is so precious to their identity that until they are crucified with Christ and come in humbly to the kingdom, they're just never gonna be at home.

They're never gonna be at rest among God's people and that is my deepest concern and that is something I've encountered more than once in my pastoral ministry.

In that case too, what we're talking about, when we want change, we want to honor Christ when we're changing. The changes are because the

Lord is like this and so we should change accordingly. But we're also talking about loving the saints that he's given us to be around, loving the brethren, doing it correctly and bringing them in the same fashion to these positions as we ourselves came and doing it patiently even if it is like you said,

I'm gonna die and my son's gonna take up the mantle for this. But if you're willing to move on to hold on to the superiority, the one thing that you should have, a love for the brethren, you're not sitting down in a place and putting roots somewhere to actually do that.

You're not there to actually love them. You're not in any place long enough to love a group of saints, are you?

It's an interesting way you put it when you're thinking about long -term because you're thinking about ways in which to love people on a weekly, sometimes two, three, sometimes even four times a week.

You're loving these people that are part of your church family and you're loving them with a thought of,

I'm loving you not just for the now, I'm loving you for the sake of years to come.

The years of goodness that I just trust that Jesus has planned. And again, you don't know in the providence of God what he has planned.

My wife and I often look at each other and we say, love them while they're here. And we've had to learn that because you just don't know when someone all of a sudden just, they're gone.

The transience of the American way. But in a sense, you want to love them with a sense of, for instance, for generations.

So here's coming from the pastoral side. Pastors have the temptation to love people very loosely and lightly and not get really involved and ingrained.

Because they may leave at any time because this is a subscription -based service, right?

And if we just don't offer enough, then they're off to another subscription. Well, that's another part of the transience is like pastors hopping churches, man.

Yeah, pastors do the same thing. Yeah, and I didn't know how big of a problem it was until recently, because I just wasn't in enough churches to realize it.

But like, I mean, just seeing online how much it's announced, like, it's crazy.

Depending on how you define pastor. Okay. Or pastorette. Fair, in pastrix.

Yeah, depending on how you define pastrix, pastoral tenures are anywhere from 18 months to three years average.

And the average lifespan, meaning, imagine the amount of time that somebody for their whole life bears the title of pastor or the role of pastor.

Role is a better way of saying it, is 10 years. 10 years is the average of how long people last.

And you, of course, I know people that have lasted decades. My dad was a pastor for over 40 years, and my brother's pastor,

Marty Brown, has pastored for 40 years or more, you know? So they're counterbalancing others who are just lasting just a very short amount of time.

That's a generation that's currently in their 20s right now, late 20s, early 30s. They stay at jobs 18 months to three years.

That is that culture. There's good reason for that one, though. We can talk about that off air.

I agree with you in some ways, yeah. They're saying it's much more acceptable now.

Oh, yeah. It's very normal. Yeah, it's ingrained, yeah. And I have a friend of mine, I'm in late 40s, and he's in investment banking.

He's like, oh, that's a very, you know, high -hoity -toity job. He's changed jobs every year and a half, two years, in the last 20 years.

It's crazy. Yeah, we've bought and sold two pieces of real estate in five years, and our real estate agent had three different jobs, the same guy, but three different agencies.

Wow. And it's like, so we can say it's part of the culture and so on, but as we think about how to love one another, there's a tendency amongst not only pastors or church members or so on to love with reservations and keeping things all just kind of appropriately distanced so that if I have to change gym memberships without complications,

I can. Right. And that's a concern. In our own church, and stop me if this goes too personal, but we have made some really good changes in our nursery in the last, it took some time, but your bride, and she's been a part of it, your bride has been a part of it, yours and mine and others, and it's been good.

It's been hard in some places. It's been tough to get through some inertia in others, but it just takes time, and I'm actually quite proud of the changes that have been made in that ministry.

So looking back on that over the last five years, do you think that was a good example, was a good template to follow as the way that we as a church accomplished that, a biblical, proper way to go about changing a needed ministry?

Yeah, I would say that particular change is like many other changes that I've seen in the last 10 years here, filled with attempts to obey that sometimes, like a toddler, we were able to keep our feet untangled, and sometimes not, and that's unforeseen things, things that we could've done better.

How much did we learn from it? I hope we learned a lot from it. One of the things we've learned is that in the life of a church, one of the ways to make sure that we're open and ready for change is that ministry, if at all possible, should not be monopolized by a single individual, single person, because those folks, as dear saints as they are, get cut off from the life of the body, and they don't know how to keep up with the rest of the flock, and they get isolated, and then all of a sudden, they're not with us anymore.

And that wasn't because people were being unloving, but because this person wanted to serve in such a special way, they poured themselves into it, and they get isolated from the rest of the life of the body.

But if we can serve together in teams, serve together with many hands making light work, as the old saying goes, and as Brother Brian always says, then we're able to, we're ready for, because no one has particular ownership, right?

No one in this area of ministry, whether it's nursery, audiovisual, kitchen, whatever it is, nobody's standing there like,

I'm the good shepherd of this space, right? You can't, you know, it's like, this ministry was given to me, it's my calling in my life, and I'm going to fulfill it.

And if you're hindering me, then you're hindering God's special calling on my life. Okay, like, oh, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, of course, I have not heard that from anyone in our congregation, but that attitude does exist,

I have seen that. So that attitude exists, and it's something that I talk to folks in our prospective members class, we've had several of those in the last few months, and as I talk about, when you want to get involved in ministry in the church, we do not have titles, we don't have like title positions, we try to move away from that, we try to shy away from that, we don't have committees.

If you want to be part of a ministry, you're gonna be part of a team, but I mean, we're not gonna have official voting power and all of it, and one of the best ways to minister are in the ways that nobody knows you're doing it, and you're just doing it, and just helping out.

I mean, there's a reason why all of our flower beds and gardens look amazing, it's because Sister Cheryl is just doing it.

She's just doing it, because she enjoys it, and she just spends hours laboring on it.

And it's like, well, someone ought to give her a title. No, no, please no, no, please no. It's like, give her a bottle of water, give her some help, give her a hug, thank you, give her some company.

Thank you, Cheryl. It's like, what a wonderful thing, what a blessing, when you just find ways to help and to serve.

So what I hear you describing in my own head, and correct me if you think this is different, I hear you describing people taking responsibility and not necessarily ownership.

Right, so what we're talking about, maybe taking responsibility for changes that you wanna see, or things that are being left undone, or things that are done that need to be redone, take responsibility for those things, rather than just outright ownership of that thing.

Yes, so Jesus, it's like, I don't know who was supposed to wash the feet that night, but Jesus is just like, hey,

I'll wash, I'm gonna wash your feet tonight. And of course, there's a lot going on in that passage, but certainly what's going on for sure is that Jesus is washing his disciples' feet.

Literally washing their feet. Like he actually did that. That's plain reading. Yes, a lot of other things going on, but one thing we know for sure was going on was that he was actually washing their feet and they needed to be washed, okay?

And this is him saying, hey, remember I taught you, I'm teaching you, love one another, even as I have loved you, right?

And this is a really good signal that we don't leave, yes, of course, we think of Christ dying for us upon the cross as that ultimate expression of how he loved us, but we don't leave that into the abstract, perhaps ethereal realm of theological meditation.

But look, he did something very practical that was needful in that day and hour, and that is a great way for us to love one another.

And that will actually bring about the kinds of changes that are pleasing to Christ in the body when we are looking and learning to do that for one another.

A lot of times people are looking for change in terms of official changes in the bulletin, official changes on the sign, official changes in the bylaws, the change that Jesus Christ is most interested in in the life of a church is the change that he's working in our lives, in our hearts, and knitting us together.

Amen, well, I appreciate the answer and the discussion on this because it's been something that I've been mulling over for quite,

I say quite a few years, just a couple years as I've started to kind of watch dynamics between individuals and churches they may be coming to visit to, or they may be off in other states and they're talking about churches that they're interacting with and they may have even joined, and then they have these things pop up and it's just like, that just seems like not the way to go about it, guys.

And I don't always know how to put my finger on it, but I'm kind of off -put by a lot of those things.

So I appreciate all the answers and all the commentary that we had here. Michael, do you have a recommendation to start us off with this week?

Yeah, so I have a book by Herman Bavink called Biblical and Religious Psychology.

And so what he means by that is, it's an anthropology, but it's a real focus on the inner life of man.

And so it's kind of a two -part book. And one side of it is Bavink, as he does very well, collating all of the biblical data, all of the scripture references,

New and Old Testaments, all the different expressions of soul, spirit, body, flesh, mind, heart, all of this, and seeing overall, how do they actually interact and how are these expressed in the life of man in his relationship to God and to others, and how is he distinct from angels and animals and all that kind of thing.

And he does that in a systematic theology too, but this is more on the level of an elevated essay.

But he also brings it into, how does this fit with all the different questions we might have theologically?

That's what his idea of religious psychology. So biblical data and then religious psychology, how does this understanding of man fit with all these other questions?

And he spends a lot of time thinking about this in his Reformed Dogmatics, but this is kind of a focus on it.

And whoever put this book together did a great job. They've got several, they have more than one translator that put this together out of the

Dutch, but the chapters are shorter and the translation is very clear with lots of help in the footnotes when

Herman is doing something clever in the Dutch or the German and helping you with footnotes that explain when he's talking about different translations of the text, because he's working with the

Dutch translation usually. So anyway, it's very helpful. I'm enjoying it. I'm almost through it.

And it's a great look at the inner life of man from the scriptures. David. On the recommendation of our own

Deacon Dylan, I appreciated the I'm not an Irishman comment before, because I am an

Irishman. And my middle name is Patrick. Just like my son. And I had never read the

Confession of St. Patrick. And so in March, as we were talking back and forth on that, you inspired me to find it.

Now, it was written, oh, you know, somewhere in the 400s.

So it's obviously in the public domain, but the version that I read was newly updated. And it was a forward written by Sean McGowan.

But the text itself was 1853. So he's gone through and kind of edited and updated some things.

But St. Patrick 380 to 461, possibly 490. So you're dealing with someone in the early, early stages of Christianity is in the 400s.

And he was a slave in Ireland. And then he escapes. He's British. And he escapes from Ireland.

He's radically converted. And he listened to his testimony, listened to the stuff that he's, what he felt and truly what he was convicted under.

And he goes back to minister to these people. And he can reach them. Because he knows how they live.

And I mean, Irish today are still wild. But I mean, back then, I mean, they were bloody. They were

Celtic warriors, much like the Scots. And the Irish venerate him and celebrate him.

And, you know, I had the Irish battle flag, Aaron Gilbraugh up in my room on St. Patrick's Day.

And I always considered myself such an Irishman. I had never read that book. I think if more people did, they'd have a greater appreciation for what this man did and the heart that he has for these people.

And so I highly recommend it. I got mine for a dollar on Kindle. Would it have passed any sort of scrutiny in today's academia?

Because he basically just quotes scripture left and right with any sort of citation whatsoever. And that's what I find funny about like old, like Christian texts is it's like, we're just gonna pull quote from here.

Constant allusion to the scriptures. Yeah, well, not just that, but like they may be alluding to other theologians and they're not even gonna give credit.

Like, I just find it kind of funny because we have these books here and it's like real well put together bibliographies.

And these guys are like, nah, we're just gonna pull the quotes and we're not gonna give credit. I just think that's funny.

It's scripture permeates everything that he says. It just flows out naturally.

It's just right up, he's talking about something in the scripture and then something else. It's just, it's like, it's a part of him. Yeah, there's actually a version that, and that may be one of those versions where online, where it has the scriptural references to it.

And so you can just like click on the hyperlink each time and it takes you to the verse that he's referencing.

So yeah, it's like you said, permeating and just soaked with it. Yeah, a lot of the ancients were like that.

Yeah, so I really appreciate the recommendation. Thank you for making me more

Irish than I already am. Andrew. I'm reaching the end of the semester at UCO and I don't find enough time to really dig into some of these topics.

But thinking about apologetics and being around the cults who are constantly on campus,

I don't think I've recommended this before, but maybe I have, but this is highly relevant to me in my daily life.

And that is the Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. And now there's a couple of different versions out there, but you can still find the original, the first edition for a good price used.

So I would recommend that. The one I have is actually by, edited with commentary by Ravi Zacharias.

And I would prefer not to have that version because it also, there's a section on Seventh -day

Adventism that clearly overturns previous teaching on that. So if you could find Walter's, find his version.

Okay, so you're recommending the first edition. Yeah, try to go with, it's still available online.

I was just checking. Yeah, the Kingdom of the Cults, very helpful in being informed biblically about how the cults differ because they don't all have the, it's not like we believe totally different things and they all disagree with each other too, right?

So learning their intricacies has been very helpful in my discussions with them about why, what they believe is ridiculous and anti -biblical and, you know, like the common, there are some commonalities like with the

SDAs, the, what was in the water during the 1900s here in the United States, but so many cults came out during that timeframe.

Very similar restoration movement type stuff. So some of that stuff does transfer over, but they had their idiosyncrasies, which the

Kingdom of the Cults was very helpful with. All right. Do you find that being able to articulate some of their beliefs when you're speaking with them is disarming to them?

Is this, oh, well, he respects me enough to at least learn about what I believe. I mean, where it comes off is

I respect you and love you as a person, but I don't have respect for your beliefs and I disagree with them because I understand them.

I mean, is there some, how has this been helpful to you? It has. It's been a way for me to get to know people personally, you know, by their first names and being able to talk to them on multiple occasions and talk to them about how, well, you know, you guys teach this, but the

Bible teaches that and learning the distinctions has been helpful. But the other day I had a conversation with three

Mormon missionaries and I knew their material on one of the things better than they did. So they told me like, you're the only one on campus who's ever said anything about this.

It's like, well, I'm trying to be informed about what you guys are walking around here trying to draw people away from Christ about.

So. That actually seems to happen often with young Mormons. And that's probably part of the problem with the model.

What are you saying? Like a 20 year old guy? Yeah, I know. When I see that, I'm like, oh, temporary elder. Guys, you don't know what you're walking up to when you walk up to reformed houses.

No idea. I was on campus. It was like six o 'clock. These guys walk, they're walking past me and they're like, hey, do you have time for a

Bible verse? And I was like, yes, let's do this. They had no idea what was waiting for them.

I thank the Lord for that opportunity. Because they just, they had their world wrecked that day.

Any chance I can get to talk to Mormons, there's like, to me, they're like one of the easiest to demonstrate that what they believe is not biblical and it's not internally consistent.

But I will say that they are the most intransigent about objective truth and their subjective truth.

Yeah, because that's what it all hinges on, right? The burning in the heart. The burning bosom. It's like, man, oh, that's difficult to get past.

And they are well trained to resist that. They love to retreat to that.

Oh, yeah. Anyway, thanks for that. No, yeah, I appreciate it. I'm actually going to do exactly what

David did. Due to his recommendation, I went out and bought Don't Waste Your Breath by Brian Borgman. And I'm about halfway through, but I do recommend it as a book to read alongside the book of Ecclesiastes.

I already had a similar view to Borgman on the book of Ecclesiastes in that we aren't dealing with some sort of writer who is dealing with atheistic thoughts or someone who's a modern man who's some sort of skeptic about things, but that we are actually dealing with somebody who is writing about the temporalness of the earth, the finitude of the human as he exists embodied, as an embodied soul, and how infinite the creator is in comparison and how the creator controls the things by which we interact with on a daily basis and that they are like a breath, they are like a wisp or a vapor, and they may be passing away.

But I don't think it's some form of pessimistic versus optimistic view in that sense.

I actually think it's the writer's dealing with the reality of the world and the reality of human nature and making that as clear as possible in order to leave in stark contrast the permanence of the

Lord and his glory as well as it's everlasting where these things are passing away.

So I really appreciate that recommendation and I recommend that to everybody out there. Brian Borgman's Don't Waste Your Breath.

So what are we thankful for, Michael? I am thankful for the absolute blast of fun we had

Saturday night, a bunch of us out in the rain, digging trenches at Chris's house because of all the water.

And my son and I got over there late and we had thrown a bunch of stuff in the van.

We got over there and I was so thankful that I still had my pickaxe. You never know when you're gonna need it.

But when you need it, man, do you need it. And so we got out there and got muddy and we were just absolutely soaked and wet.

We got back in the van and we're like, now that was fun. Yeah, that makes you feel alive, you know.

But you get to help somebody and it was just, it was very fun. Anyway, we just enjoyed it. We just enjoyed the whole excitement of the whole night.

Did y 'all call Okie 411 before you went digging? I'll dig it today. Yeah, we didn't dig that deep.

But. Do they still have electricity and cables? Yeah, right. Yes. Yes. We didn't go two feet down or even, you know,

I don't know how far we went down actually, but it was fun. And we met some of Chris's neighbors.

And so it was very fun. So Ben and I really enjoyed ourselves. Awesome. Dave? Yeah, when

I showed up that night, most of the work had already be done. And I was like, what do

I do? You know, but it was so great that they did this. We needed to dig this to keep

Chris's house from flooding. And it was just, it was incredible. I showed up, everything was done, like wow, in maybe 30 minutes.

And Joel comes up to me and he's like, I got here about 10 minutes before you did. And they were just animals.

They just got it done so fast. I don't know what to do either. I mean, to have that much help that quickly, he sends out the signal flare and everybody comes running.

It was really amazing to watch. I too am very thankful for our group.

Mike Goulet kind of helped to spearhead that. And he lives the farthest away and was the first one there.

So thanks to him, thanks to everybody who showed up. And they're doing much better.

You know, they got some things to do with the house, obviously, and we'll be there to help them.

So thankful for that family and thankful for the church family that all showed up last night. Amen, Andrew? Well, I guess

I can go along with this idea. Knowing that the brothers, and I can't speak for the sisters because I'm not in that realm, but knowing just demonstrably how the brothers love each other, that is something to thank

God for. That is not everywhere. There are many congregations where love is cold, but it was very evident.

And it's not just one event. It happens all the time. You're just not always gonna hear it trumpeted from the rooftop.

So I thank God for a congregation that loves each other. Amen. I was thinking about this today as I was thinking about the question of change, but I'm thankful for a musical library that the church has stacked up over the generations and millennia.

I know that's part of the long game. That's part of what is to be produced and what is to be sang and used by the saints generation after generation.

And I'm thankful that we've been able to, using technology, preserve much of it. I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff that's been lost that was just glorious.

Like, we just don't know, right? There could have been stuff written on vellum that we just, it's not there anymore.

But we have what we have and the Lord has preserved it for us and he's kept it there for us as an inheritance for us to use, for us to pass down to our children.

And when I think about the, what seems like too many hymns or hymn books in our house,

I'm like, this is, I'm barely cracking the surface of what's actually out there. And all

I have is Baptists and hymns of grace and I might have one Presbyterian hymnal over here.

So there's all kinds of stuff in between that I just don't have. But to think of that massive library and the

Lord preserving it and the saints using it and being blessed by it, I'm so very thankful that it's there for us to use and to draw from whenever we get the chance or whenever we want to.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read.