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No Compromise Radio

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

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

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

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

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Mike Abendroth here. We are glad to be on this radio station.

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If you'd like to go to Greece with us, April 17th, next year is when we're going, 2013. It'll be a $200 check -in before the end of November so you can secure a spot.

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We basically need to know who the players are, the playas. And so if you want to be a playa, you've got to put the money in ahead of time so we can put the deposit down, etc.

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We'd love to have you go. All flights out of Boston, probably $33, $3 ,400, something like that. It's going to be a great cruise, great time over in Greece.

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No Compromise action. I'm curious to know how many people will attend via the church, via just the local area, and then via No Compromise listeners.

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I hope we have some. If we don't, then quesara, right? What else can

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I tell you regarding No Compromise Radio? Our new NoCoEver video should be out soon.

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Josh just had a little boy, he and his wife, Natalie, Liam, they had. And so I'm sure they're busy, but we'll try to get that out as soon as possible.

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Thanks again to Todd Friel for hosting Wretched. Did you know our Facebook hits go up when

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I'm on Wretched? How does that work?

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I don't know how that works. All right, what are we going to talk about today? Well, I have a bunch of stuff. I actually cleaned my desk, cleaned the studio up a little bit for the

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Wretched production. And so now I just have a few things here. So I don't have to say, welcome to Wretched Radio.

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I did say one time on Wretched, welcome to No Compromise Radio. Just because when

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I'm in this microphone here, that's kind of what I say. Looking outside, it's a beautiful fall day.

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Leaves are turning colors, etc. Here's what I want to talk about today. A little bit of Christianity from a celebrity perspective.

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Not that that's me. I don't mean I'm the celebrity, but what about celebrity Christianity? I should have

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Carl Truman here. That would probably be helpful because he is really in tune with celebrity

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Christianity. I do appreciate his writings when it comes to that.

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I actually tried to get him to write a chapter of a book to put in something, but Carl, where's my chapter? I did see there's a very well -known person that you would know in evangelical

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Calvinistic crossway -ish circles. You would know this person, and they are becoming kind of a big shot in evangelicalism.

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I want to make sure it's not my envy or something like that, that this is why I don't like this particular thing.

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So I'm not going to mention his name because I actually, I like the guy. I think if I hung out with him,

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I'd like him. I just don't like this particular thing. So this will let me talk about this generically, and then you can't say, well, there goes

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Mike blasting somebody again, because I'm just blasting a concept. See how nice that is?

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See how nice we are today on No Compromise Radio? We've got the microphones all fixed up. Charlie did a great job, and we can now move forward.

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People wanting, by the way, Saturday guy, Tuesday guy on Saturdays, but since we had equipment problems, Steve hasn't been able to record.

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I think you'll probably record soon, and I think you'll like the first show. That's all I can say. I think you'll like the first show.

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That's it. It's not going to be on VNE. I guess they could play it if they wanted to do it for free, if they had some spare time there, but it'll be on podcast.

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So this is on, if you go to somebody's website, like if you clicked on Bethlehem Bible Church website and then clicked on leadership and you saw me, and then if there was, you know, do you want me to come and speak section?

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Now that's not found here. If you want me to come and speak at your church, I'm busy.

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Just kidding. I get emails all the time, and we'd love to have you come and speak, and it's a layperson listening.

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Well, I said, then get your church to ask me to come and speak. That's what you need to do. Or the one that I like the most is, would you please move here and be our pastor?

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Now I'm very thrilled by that, and it's kind, and I get the sentiment, but I have to switch that around because if there are a few people who have asked,

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I don't want it to seem like there's hundreds, but some have asked, and I think it's more in a, they're frustrated with their, the place where they live, and there's not a

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Bible teaching church, and that's usually where it stems from. I just tell them,

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I knew you have to move here to Central Mass, that's where you have to move. And we've lost about 60 people in the last couple of years who just have moved away, and they're going against the grain, against the will of God.

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They've left Massachusetts, and then they've left Bethlehem Bible Church. I mean, we have people who leave because they don't like this, that, or the other.

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That doesn't happen that often. It happens, but not that often. But then when these families leave, when we have homeschool families leave, you know, one family, it decreases the attendance by,

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I don't know, like 30%. Just kidding. We went to two services last year.

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We're probably going to have to go back to one service, who knows, because of all the issues with, these people keep moving.

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I think California, they exit us out of California, Massachusetts too. So anyway, back to the point.

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Now let's just talk about celebrity Christianity. Here's how ministry, I think, should work. Ministry is ministry.

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Maybe we'll call the show that today. Ministry is ministry. And so if you want a speaker, you just say, could you please come and speak, and I will be curious in my mind.

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I can't lie. Well, I, this is going to be interesting to see how this works. But I don't say, you know,

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I'm going to do it for a certain honorarium. I've been to very rich places and not gotten much, been to very, what would seem to be poorer places or more rural places and gotten shocked when it comes to honorarium, but we don't ask.

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There's no fee. I've been asked, Mike, what's your fee to come and speak? My fee.

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I don't know. You can talk to my agent. What's my fee again?

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There's no fee for gospel ministry. Now if you're a church, I think you should realize that people who work in gospel ministry should get paid.

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And if you have somebody come out and work for three days and give a bunch of messages, you should pay them. That's exactly what you should do.

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But there's not the fee up front. It's completely different. If the church says, we want to give you some money, thank you for ministering.

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That's a lot different than the person saying, I want the money up front. I want to know what I'm going to get.

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You would be very, very surprised. Maybe you wouldn't be surprised what goes on behind the scenes in evangelical culture.

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So here's a speaking request form. I'm not going to tell you whose request form it is, but maybe you can type in some of these words and Google it up.

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I don't know. Maybe I'll just change some of the words too. If you want someone to come and speak, then here's the deal.

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I guess maybe when so many people want you, you have to do this. I'm not in that ballpark, you know, ignore the man behind the curtain.

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This is just all, you know, I don't know how much money we have invested in the studio, but you would be surprised it would be that much.

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All right, so here's what you have to do. You have to complete all the stuff and then it goes to the secretary, full name of conference, sponsor of event, primary contact, phone number, email, website.

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Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. You got to get that information one way or the other. Expenses. And again, maybe

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I'm just cut from a different cloth and maybe I am a nobody, which of course is true. I'm amazed what has happened and how the

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Lord has blessed No Compromise Radio and the impact that, you know, it's had in people's lives.

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Praise the Lord. I'm encouraged by that. It's just an overflow of what goes on in the ministry here. The expenses.

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If you really want me to come speak at your church for a conference, you're going to have to pay for the flight and then, you know, get me there and put me up and stuff, but I'm not going to say any of that.

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I'm just going to assume you're going to do it. If you assume that I'm just going to fly to Alaska to do your conference and do it on my own expenses, church budget's tight, my budget's tight, it's not going to happen.

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But I don't say, you've got to cover my expenses. And that's exactly what happens on this form. If you decide to fill this out by filling out this form, you are agreeing to cover the travel plus the vent cost of blank and his companion.

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So either it's his wife or a male friend slash colleague. So I don't say that's a bad thing, that you would want to travel with someone for accountability purposes, maybe.

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That's what they do. To me, the whole accountability issue is pretty moot.

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If you want to get away, you can get away. Maybe you want to bring a male companion because you're discipling that person and spending time in gospel ministry.

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I understand that. But I wouldn't say you've got to cover my wife's cost and this person's.

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Why would I not do that? Because here's what I would do. When I get asked to go speak, lots of times

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I do bring one of my children, one of my four children, or my wife, and so here's what

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I do. I say in my mind, this is the crass way to say it, I'll burn my honorarium,

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I'll spend my honorarium on my kids. So I don't say, you know,

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I want you to be able to pick up my wife's cost. Now occasionally what we'll do at the

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Bethlehem Bible Church when we ask a speaker to come is we'll say, we'd love to fly your wife up too. We think that would be good.

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And they're all very excited about that because we know how important it is for husbands and wives to stay together, ministry, get away weekend, come to New England, we want to refresh you.

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We love Bible teachers. We love Bible preachers. We love conference speakers. We want to love you because that's the

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Lord has taught us to do that for Thessalonians. God teaches them, the

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Thessalonians, how to love. So I don't, I like it that the wife gets to go, but I would never say that.

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This is on the form. If you fill out this form, you agree to cover the wife's costs. Airline tickets for wife and companion, parking,

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I won't tell you the airport parking lot because then you'll know who this person is, lodging, one room if it's with the wife, two rooms with a companion, transportation, pickup, rental car, shuttle, taxi, meals and tips, invoices will be mailed, preferred method unless hard copy is requested.

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When I asked Carl Truman to come here and speak just recently, why didn't he send me any of these forms?

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Well, because it's just lowbrow, that's why. It's lowbrow. Carl, we picked up his expenses, his hotel, his this, his that, his other, he didn't have to spend anything, a little bit extra for some expenses, here's a super deluxe honorarium and we want to love you.

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But he didn't go into it asking for those things. I think if you go in asking for them, we tell them no.

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We have all kinds of musical groups that say we'd like to come and sing at your church, it's $1 ,000. Been up to $4 ,000 plus all kinds of expenses.

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So we have to say to them no. And then sometimes we temper it by saying, we don't work that way, we think it's ministry and if you want to come, we'll really try to help, we'll ask for a free will offering and we'll give it to you and maybe we'll kick in a little bit from the church to try to meet your expenses.

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But if it's firm, this amount or we can't come, then sorry, because this isn't some charge.

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This is not how we work. This isn't ministry. This would be then a money -making deal.

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Ministry is we trust the Lord, he's given us these gifts, he's given us the training, he's given us the vocal cords, he's given us the seminary training, he's given us these things and we're going to use the gifts that God has given us to help other

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Christians, to encourage other Christians, to okay, with music, entertain other Christians, whatever it might be.

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But to say up front, here the next part here on this speaking request form,

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I'm pretty sure I'll never be big enough to have a speaking request reform, reform, reform speaking request forms, but please don't let me ever do that.

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If you want to email me, hey, come and speak. I love that. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does,

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I'm thinking, great, I get to go to Europe just in a few weeks to teach a preaching class for six days in Germany, and I teach a how to preach

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Ephesians for two days, 10 seminars in two days in the Czech Republic, swing down into Austria for a night, did

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I say Austria? And I'm excited to fly through Dublin. This is exciting.

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Somebody's asked me to come and do it, right on. But I didn't ask them for anything.

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I didn't say how much money is the honorarium, are you going to cover my double espressos, are you going to cover my, well in Germany they have a grocery store,

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I think it's Kaiser, and they have yogurt there, and this yogurt is, they sell it in a kind of a glass mason's jar, a fruit, what do they call it, canning jar, do you can fruit?

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What do you do with fruit? I don't know. You don't bottle it. I don't know these things, but what do they do in the old days?

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You got a lot of fruit, you got to preserve it, and you put it in a jar, a little jar.

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Sometimes they're fun to drink iced tea out of. Well, whatever those jars are, that's the kind of glass jar that this yogurt comes in, and they have a rhubarb yogurt, and I'm telling you,

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I should have put in the rider. Double espressos, a lot of edelweiss, and this rhubarb yogurt is so good.

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Don't touch my yogurt rhubarb there, it is so good, big old chunks in it, and I love rhubarb, but people tend to ruin it these days by putting in too many strawberries, too many raspberries, and I just want tart,

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I just want pungent, I just want rhubarb. I can't wait to go, but in my rider, I didn't specify that I want that in my room when

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I get there. It'll just all take care of itself. I've been to Europe before and taught and hardly gotten any money,

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South Africa, hardly any money. India, you don't get any money because there's no money to be found, they give you flowers.

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So the point is, when you say on your speaking request form, list of attendees, is there an honorarium?

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If so, please name. Now I want to know really, does that factor into the prayer of whether you should go or not?

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If you said, you know, it says 50 bucks, or it said 5 ,000, and again, these are numbers that some people doesn't even cross their mind.

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To me, the difference between 50 and 5 ,000, it's a lot. It's more than two zeros.

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It's a lot of money, 5 ,000, $5 ,000. So if I said, well, you know what,

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I could either go to Timbuk4 for, you know, 24 bucks, that's what they'll pay, it's per diem.

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And, or I could go to whatever the place is, Manhattan, and I'm going to get 5 ,000.

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It's got to factor in, what are people doing? What are people doing? That's just like when we ask people, could you come to New England to speak?

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Well, how many people are there? Well, it's New England and our church is in a town of 6 ,000 people, it's out in the sticks.

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Probably not too many. Well, sorry, can't come. I'll send my pastor of music arts to come instead.

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And that's how, if I told you who this person is, you'd just be shocked. And there's someone,

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I respect this person a lot, but there's a little gradation.

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So if you have zero to 100, you get their fourth -in -line pastor. If it's 100 to 500, whatever the number is, you get your second -in -line pastor.

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If it's 500 or more, 1 ,000 or more, 500 pastors or more, whatever the numbers are these days,

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I don't even know, then you get the big shot. This is ministry.

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No wonder Rick Phillips talked about this kind of stuff that goes on as carnal.

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This is carnal. You say, Mike, you just don't get asked, because if you get asked all the time, you'd have to kind of weigh these opportunities.

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And you know what? I would have to weigh the opportunities, but I would weigh the opportunities in light of the ministry

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I have here, which is under my family. So family first, then the ministry here.

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I talk to the elders, and then we'd say strategically, I can only be gone once a month.

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Where should I go? What would be good strategy for my health, for ministry, etc.?

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I don't think there's a problem there. If you've got 25 people asking, and you've only got 20 slots, then let's figure it out with some board or something.

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I don't know. I never get asked that much, so it's pretty easy. You ask me, I go. That's how it works.

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Mike, would you love to go to Kansas? I'd love to go to Kansas, Pastor Mason. I would love to go and fly into Amarillo and drive 19 hours through the wheat field or something.

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I don't know where. No, it's the Dust Bowl. That's the Dust Bowl. And you know what, with Mr.

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Mason there, I had an awesome time. It was total deluxe in every way. Carbon fiber bike when

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I got there, my size even, 58 centimeters. It was awesome. We had a great time, spent some time with his wife, some of the elders, best bacon

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I ever had. It was a great time. But here, what if I listed what's the honorarium?

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Then it says book sales. Well, you'll sell some of this guy's books. Will there be volunteers, et cetera?

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What else is on this sheet? Airport recommendation. Okay, I get that.

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General age of group, expected attendance, what are your messages, speaker attire.

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Let's see what else. This guy does not use PowerPoint. He prefers a lapel microphone or over -the -ear.

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Oh, man. So my name is Mike Abendroth. The show's called

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No Compromise, and we try to talk about things from a biblical perspective that just push the envelope a little bit, is a little provocative.

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And I know some people don't like that. It's okay. It's even okay if you don't like me.

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I think if we sat down and had a, what do we drink together? Pete's coffee together maybe?

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Or some calm tea? Does that actually really work? Or a

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St. Pauly girl non -alcoholic? Well, if we sat down and had something together,

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I think we'd be good friends. But the show is talking about subjects like this.

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Some days we say, you know, here's what the gospel is. Here's what imputation is.

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Here's who the Lord is. And other days we say, what are these people thinking? How can people say that?

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Someone said, well, why do you want to talk about somebody if they live in Atlanta or something? Well, because the people here at the church

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I pastor listen to said preacher in Atlanta. That's why. People need to know.

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People don't know. This is my job to know. What's on page 162 of the Charles Stanley book on eternal security,

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Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth, is in hell. It's in heaven, but it's just outside the ring on, you know, you're not on Saturn, but you're on the ring of Saturn.

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People just need to know that. If you're a teacher and you preach publicly, then you should be prepared for public criticism.

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When people criticize me, somebody wrote Yvonne or something, a no -co ever, because I used the

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Kooks and Barneys thing. She didn't like that at all. Okay, fine. Can't lose any sleep on it.

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Just move over. I'm glad there's one who speaks of me before the Father, and I'm happy with that.

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So if you'd like somebody to speak at your church, I wouldn't jump through all the hoops if I were you.

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I wouldn't do that. Here's what I would do. We have a ministry opportunity. We think you can encourage people with the

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Word of God as you talk about Christ Jesus the Lord. Could you come? The guy either says yes or no, and if he comes, then you bless him.

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That's what you do. You bless him. Because I'm a preacher? No, because he's away from his family for three days. He speaks eight times, and you say, you know what?

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I should give him, let's see, eight times 200 and some. Let's give him a $2 ,000 honorarium check.

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He's away from his family, and let's give him more than he needs, more than he deserves, etc. However it works. I don't care.

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If you've got $500 a budget, give $500. But here's what

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I'll do, and I need the information ahead of time, and this is my request form. It just strikes me of corporate

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America, strikes me of celebrity, strikes me of if you'd like me to be on your radio show, you've got to call my literary agent.

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You say, Mike, you said you have an agent for your books. Yeah, I know, but it's because I don't know anybody in the publishing field, and she's trying to help me get my books published.

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That's all. It's not because I'm a big shot. You know why I have an agent for some of these books?

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It's because I'm not a big shot, and now the world is. Here's publishing world. Sorry to do this to you, but here's the publishing world.

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We really can't publish the books. If they want to say Mike can't write, I could get that.

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I mean, it's sad, but I could understand. But here's what they want to know. How many Twitter followers?

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Do you have a radio station? How many watts does the radio station have? How many books did your other books sell?

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What's your blog traffic like? How big is your church? And the list goes on, because they know we've got to sell books.

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And so how do people sell books that shouldn't be selling books? Maybe I'm one of those people.

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I don't know. They do it because there's a lot of people at their church, and it just goes.

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It's the money go round. Follow the money. I remember one time

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I tried to get some very famous evangelical. I got his free book in the mail through the publisher, and they said,

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I said, okay, I'd love to interview him because that's the deal. You get the free book, then you read it and interview the person if you like the book.

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That's the way the game goes. And so I said, I'd like to, and they said, well, how many people listen to your show?

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How many downloads and how big is the radio station watts that you're on? I said, this is New England.

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And so I said, you know what? No, thank you. I'm not interested because this is a big game.

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This is, you know what? I said, I thought this was ministry. And you can tell Mr. So -and -so, you'd be shocked who it was.

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Tell Mr. So -and -so, no, thank you, because I thought this was ministry. And so if this can help just this congregation, then it can help this congregation.

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That's why if someone says to me, could you be on Podunk Radio Station and do this interview? I've had people

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I say, could, you know, I have a small podcast, would you do the interview? Yes, I'd be glad to, because I want to do this for the kingdom.

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Not because I'm great, but I just see the error in other people's ways. And I think, warning, warning, stay away.

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So this is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. If you'd like me to speak, just, you know, it's going to cost you a lot of money, that's all, but we'd love to.

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And then we'll talk about the Lord in free grace, free sovereign grace, undeserved, unmerited.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

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

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

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