The Role of the Pastor with Pastor Gabe Hughes | Rapp Report Weekly 0025 | Striving for Eternity

All right, this week we are going to talk about, well, what the pastor does all week. You know, he kind of spends the whole week just hanging out, gets up late, maybe makes a pot of coffee, sips it till like noon, maybe reads the newspaper, and you know,

Saturday night kind of opens the Bible and figures out what he's going to preach on, right? No. Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

And that's what we're going to find out. But today's guest is one that while I may have the face for radio, he definitely has the voice for it.

Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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All right, so we have none other than Pastor Gabe Hughes. You may know him from his voice.

He is the voice of what, and I probably can't do that right, but what .com, which is W -W -U -T -T, which stands for When We Understand the

Text. There's a lot of videos out there, but he is also the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

So Pastor Gabe, welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me on. It's not often that I get all the way to the

East Coast and even to Jersey, but through the advent of technology, I'm able to join you today, and I appreciate your invitation.

That's about the only way anyone wants to get to Jersey is through the technology. I joke that all good things come out of Jersey.

It's the stuff that stays that's a problem, like our politicians. As I described the week of a pastor, isn't that what your week looks like?

Usually you just kind of sit around, and then Saturday night, you figure out what you're going to preach on, right? Right. Yeah, yeah. Then the kids go to bed

Saturday night, and I go, okay, wait, I got to preach tomorrow. Let me go see if I can find something. No, actually, it's funny that you mentioned that, because just yesterday, which at this particular time, we're recording on a

Monday. So yesterday after church, I had a couple of things that I did in the afternoon.

I came home. Becky made the most incredible BLT that I think I've ever had.

It may have been the most amazing bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. She fixed lunch for us on Sunday, and then right after that,

I had a meeting. For about the first hour of that meeting, I wasn't doing anything.

They were doing some other stuff, and I'm kind of sitting there. So I pulled out my laptop and started prepping the next week's sermon.

It was just three hours after having finished that sermon yesterday that I'm already preparing the one for the next week.

So yeah, I sit in it, and I stew in it, and the Lord works on my heart, and I know exactly what it is

I'm going to preach on, because I'm an expository preacher. So it's just the next section in whatever book that we're going through, and the

Lord will convict my heart about those things that I'm studying and reading about, and then what I've been convicted over, over the course of whether it's that week or the last several months that I've been studying in that particular book, then

I take those same convictions into the pulpit, and I bring it to my congregation. And so I hope that for the next week, they're convicted about the stuff that I was convicted about in the previous week, as the

Word of God works on our hearts, and we're shaped more and more into the image of Christ by the

Word of God that is spoken. Wait, you expect your congregation to remember what you preached last week?

Pull something out of that. And that's going to be the work of the Spirit, since, you know, as Americans, we just busy ourselves with tons of stuff, and we love our distractions on top of that.

So may there be something in this Word that the Lord is working on your mind and heart to make you more like Him.

Yeah, because I think you just struck on one of the hardest things, I think, for a pastor in America is the busyness of American culture.

I know at our church, it's one of the things that comes up often, constantly we're discussing how to do things when everyone's being stretched in a thousand different directions.

Yeah, especially if you got kids and your kids are involved in all their extracurricular activities.

So it's always easy to fill up a schedule. But in addition to that, you know, we use that term busy, but there are umpteen million distractions that come our way as well, especially with all the different streaming media that's available to us today, whether that's social media, or it's the video sites,

YouTube, all the way to our Netflix and Amazon subscriptions. And it seems to be commonplace today to talk about binge watching.

And so somebody will sit down and binge watch an entire series or season of a particular show. And these things, we kind of may be unaware of the fact that we're adding that into what we will call busy, but it's not busy.

It's just a massive distraction from the things that we need to do, or even those obligations and responsibilities that we have to fulfill.

And so it's we as Americans in a 21st century context, on top of that, being busy and filling up our schedule with lots of different extraneous things, some of which are not even really all that important.

And then on top of that, being distracted by all the different stuff that our multimedia consumerism culture wants to consume us with.

Well, Lisa, I'm encouraged because see, being in New Jersey, New York area, the pastors around here, as we discussed, everyone thinks it's just a

New York thing, being so close to New York. And I'm always saying, no, it's a sinful thing.

We allow these distractions, I think with the internet, we just have a whole lot more of it. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, there is a necessity to prioritize. And when you are trying to figure out where does my devotional time come into my schedule, if you're trying to find a place for it to go, then you're not prioritizing properly, because that should be the first thing.

How do I fit my Bible reading in, my time with the Lord, my prayer, time with family? Everything else should revolve around that.

Sure, you've got a job and your employer is deciding your schedule for you, but the priority that you make in terms of spiritual growth needs to center around that time that you give to being with the

Lord. And also, for those of you who are men or fathers, husbands, you have to lead your family in those things as well.

That's your responsibility. So, it's not about trying to find a place for it. It's not trying to, where do

I get church in the midst of this schedule? If you're still finding a place to wedge those things in there, then they aren't your priority and they need to be.

You know, it's interesting you bring up devotions, and we want to talk about the pastor's role in things, but I remember when

I was a preaching pastor of a church, people had the assumption, even now, because I prepare sermons and I'm out speaking regularly at other churches, people think that I have these great devotions because I'm always in God's Word studying.

And I always had to explain it because people would be like, you don't understand, Pastor, it's so hard for me to be able to get devotions.

I mean, you're just always in the Word. And it's like, you know, there's a difference between studying and preparing for sermons, at least

I found, than my devotions that I needed separate from the study. And I think that a lot of people don't understand that, you know, even the pastor needs time away from the study for Sunday morning and just be in the

Word, in prayer, and have his own devotional time. So, we don't escape that just because our main job is to be in God's Word.

The same struggle that they have with the busyness to find the time, make the time to have those devotions.

Yeah. And that really is, a pastor needs to understand that as well. So not just the church understanding that a pastor has to have his own devotional time, even a pastor needs to get that.

Your study in the Word of God for what you're going to preach on Sunday is not the same as your devotional time with the

Lord. So, like with what I do, there's a series that we're going through in our

Sunday morning services. I've got an Old Testament study I do Thursday night. I've got the stuff that I do on the podcast.

And then what I do with my family is totally different than that. So right now, as a pastor, I'm preaching through 2

Corinthians. When I do my devotional time with my kids, we're not doing 2 Corinthians. We're doing something else entirely.

And sometimes I do that not just for my benefit, but also for theirs, that they see that Dad is giving time specifically to us in a particular part of the

Bible that's not the same as what he's doing in preparation for the sermon on Sunday, which they're just as responsible to have to listen to as anybody else in church.

And it's also not the same thing that Dad's doing on his podcast or anything else. So they know that when

I sit down with them, and I'll just say, you know, what I'm going through with my kids right now is the book of Daniel. So when I'm sitting down with them and going through Daniel, they know that's

Daddy's time with us. It's just us going through the book of Daniel. That doesn't come from any of his other responsibilities.

So yeah, there is a necessity for a pastor to have his own devotional time that he is spending with the

Lord in prayer, hearing the Word of God spoken to him through what it is that he's studying. And that is separate from the responsibilities that he's going to have to also prepare the

Word that's going to be delivered to the saints on Sunday morning. And you bring up a good point and it's different from his family devotions that they know that's special as well.

Yeah. Because I mean, it is so unfortunately easy for pastors to serve other people in the body and forget their own family.

For a lot of folks, they are not in the role of a pastor. They don't really know what the role of pastor is other than seeing someone who gets up on Sunday morning and preaches on a regular basis.

So when we think about that, what is the role of a pastor? What's the function?

Because it's more than just the pastor who's preaching because there's other pastors that serve within a body as well.

Yes. So I believe that the pastor's responsibility is best summarized by Titus 1 .9.

There are definitely places where we can go to find qualifications for a pastor. First Timothy chapter 3 and Titus 1 .5

-9 are the most popular sections where we see those qualifications for a pastor. But for the pastor's responsibility specifically, if we're going to kind of sum it down to one quick blurb or qualification or mission statement, it would be

Titus 1 .9. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

And so we can take that verse and separate it into three responsibilities for the pastor.

He must be sound in his doctrine. He's holding firm to the trustworthy word as taught.

So sound doctrine being that which flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ, what our Lord Christ taught.

And then secondly, that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine. So he not only believes the true word of Christ, but he's also able to teach that and help people understand how to apply it.

So a person can be a teacher in the word of God, but maybe not be any more qualified than a professor at a seminary.

But to actually lead the flock of God in understanding how the word applies to their lives and how to live that out, that would be a little bit more specific to a pastor, to that role as a shepherd in the church leading the flock of God.

So it's understanding the true word of Christ. It's being able to teach it and help the flock of God know how to apply it.

And then finally, also rebuking those who contradict it. So there are going to be times for a pastor to have to correct a person who is incorrect in their behavior and bring them back to the path of righteousness where they may be straying off to the left or to the right.

And then there's also those wolves who are attempting to lead the flock of God astray. And a pastor, as a shepherd, will need to fend off the wolves and warn the congregation about those teachers who are false, who are not teaching the true word of Christ, but are instead teaching half -truths or deviating or blaspheming the name of God, claiming to speak for God when they really don't.

They speak something contrary to what the word says. And so those pastors are a defense for the flock of God in that they also fend off the wolves.

The Apostle Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 that there would be fierce wolves that would arise from among them.

So sometimes these wolves come from without, they are outside the church trying to lead people astray.

And then sometimes these false teachers may even arise from within the congregation itself. And so the pastor must be watchful and mindful of those things.

And so his primary role, his primary responsibility is to oversee the spiritual condition of the flock of God, the people that are in his congregation that have been entrusted to him to care for.

I want to play one of the clips that you have from your When We Understand the Text videos.

And I don't even know how many videos I had. I tried to look at it, scroll through, and it's just like page after page.

It's a little over 200 now. Yeah, 200. And for folks that haven't listened to these,

I want to play them so you get an idea of what these videos, the content, but also you see they're short.

They're about a minute and a half on average. So it's something that you can play quickly. Other podcasters, hey, if you want to find something that explains very concisely something that you're trying to say, these videos are great things to just slip in there.

I don't think that there's any copyrights that would restrict them. Are there? Nope. Yeah. No. However it works for you, whether you're showing it at a

Bible study or I even had a guy call me up recently who was a sidewalk evangelist, and he said, hey,

I play your videos on my smartphone and I show them to people. Is that okay? And I said, hey, man.

Amen. I'm glad it works out that way. So you can get all the videos at WWUTT, which stands for whenweunderstandthetext .com.

And they're all there. But I want to play this one. We just recently did a podcast on church discipline. And so this is what

Pastor Gabe had to say about church discipline. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Brothers and sisters in Christ, here's the thing, never, ever coddle a person who is being biblically disciplined by their church.

Do not sue the person who has left the church because they don't want to be told they're wrong. Don't put your arm around them and say, oh, it's okay.

No, it's not okay. That person is in unrepentant sin. If you continue to treat them as if nothing is wrong, they won't think they've done anything wrong.

They'll think the real problem is the pastor, the elders of the church leadership who are just holier -than -thou jerks, and they will feel justified in their actions.

You might think you're being compassionate, but you're not. You're probably the reason they won't repent, coddling them into condemnation.

Any relationship you continue to have with that person should be to remind them of their sin and call them to repentance.

Otherwise, you, too, are guilty of dividing the body. Every Christian needs to understand that sin separates us not only from Christ, but also his body.

To be put out of the church is like a small taste of hell. Then a person will realize the seriousness of their sin and come to repentance, lest they face eternal judgment.

Once they've sought forgiveness, the body of Christ will welcome them back, and the grace of God is displayed.

Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. To admonish means to reprove or scold in a good -willed manner, for even the

Lord disciplines those he loves when we understand the text. All right, so that was pretty quick. The thing I appreciated about that video is we just did a podcast, as I've mentioned, on church discipline, and I was focused on the process, and many times that's really where the focus is.

But from a pastor's perspective, I think you really brought out something that I had not done in my podcast, and often

I haven't seen people really focus on, is the fact that someone who is under church discipline shouldn't be coddled, which we see often with people who are in church discipline.

Let me ask you this, with that, from a pastor's perspective, you have someone you're trying to lovingly correct because of the purity of the church for their own spiritual well -being, you're bringing them under church discipline, and then you have people who are trying to make them feel better about it.

Why is that a bad thing? Well, it undermines the process. It is completely contrary to what that's supposed to accomplish, and that is, as it mentioned there in the video, giving a person a small taste of hell.

They are separated from the protection of Christ and his body, which is a protection.

So, the church is not just something that we do, we gather together on Sunday morning, but even in Ephesians chapter four, it says that the church, when it is maturing together in love, as we're growing up into the fullness of Christ, we're no longer children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

So as a church, we're being protected by the schemes of Satan, which are happening outside the church, which are happening in the rest of the world.

And when a person has been removed from the church or handed over to Satan, is the way that Paul puts it, 1

Timothy chapter one is one of the places where he says it that way, then they get a small taste of what it's like to be separated from God and from his body.

And they realize that their sin is so serious that it would actually cause a break in fellowship with God.

And so they would mourn over the fact that this has had to be done to them, that it's led to the point of having to remove you from the church until you can repent.

And then graciously, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter two, don't let that guy, you know, whoever it is that you've disciplined, mourn so much to the point that he grieves into hopelessness, but rather welcome him back in the body and forgive him.

So there is a period of time which we will grieve over our sin and we'll mourn over our sin. And it's to realize what it is that we've done so that we seek

God's forgiveness. And then we're brought back into the flock and the grace of God is shown, the grace of God that cleanses us from all unrighteousness in Jesus Christ.

So the purpose of this is not to kick a person out and, you know, show that we're holier than thou, but it's rather for their benefit that they would learn not to blaspheme

God and instead live in holiness as the church is expected to do. And realizing that when a person sins, it doesn't just affect you.

As I've shared with my congregation, no one sins on an island. Your sin affects you and it affects all the people around you.

And so realizing that our sin has affected other people and that we would turn from it and no longer pursue worldly means, but live as the kingdom people that we're supposed to be.

We're going to take a quick commercial break after that. What I want to do is ask you what a normal work week looks like for a pastor.

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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. Now you wouldn't have people thinking

Jeremiah 29, 11 should be the life verse because you preach expositionally, right? Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. So like I said, we're going through second Corinthians right now. And, uh, and you know what the next, uh, section that we're going to be preaching on is, you know, we just finished up chapter seven.

So, you know, whatever it is that I'm going to be preaching on next week will be somewhere in chapter eight. So, uh, uh,

I think it's John MacArthur has also said, I've never had to spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm preaching on next.

I already know it's, it's just the next part of, uh, of the scriptures that we're studying and going through together.

Yeah. It's only when you, when you end a book that you have to worry about what the next book is. Yeah. So when

I finished second Corinthians, I'm going to Galatians. Hey, easy enough. Well, I mean, you know, and the reason that really is, and the reason that's a benefit, if, if people were to read verse by verse and Jeremiah 29, 11, gee, does this apply to me?

Well, if they just read one verse before it, where Jeremiah 29, 10 says, and thus says the

Lord, when 70 years are complete for Babylon, I will visit you and I will my promise and bring you back to this place.

Well, Hey, if you're part of the 70 year Babylonian captivity, then yes, that versus for you, sorry.

Yeah, right. Yeah. I think we did a video on that one too. Uh, when we understand the text one on a

Jeremiah 29, 11, I think in those things we can certainly see the character of God, but ultimately the reward that we're looking toward is not some earthly habitation like, uh, the

Jews in Babylonian exile. We're looking toward rather we're looking forward to a heavenly kingdom, which we will receive in Christ Jesus.

And they never want to go down a couple of verses where down like 17, 18, where it says, you know, I know the plans

I have for you, famine and no one wants those as they're like, yeah, no, uh,

I like the prosper one better. Let's stick with that on a normal week. I mean, I remember getting a call one middle of a day, a guy called me up and said,

Hey, pastor, can you pick me up from the airport? When do you need a ride? Well, I'm there now. And I was like, why are you calling me now?

He's like, well, I forgot to plan ahead. And I figured you'd be around with nothing to do. And I said, I basically said,

I'll pick you up under one condition. You're going to take a week off and see what I go through, what I do to prepare for Sunday all week.

Right. He figured he'd call someone else. So what is it for you?

What does a normal week look like? Well, on a Sunday, uh, we'll start with the first day of the week, the

Lord's day. I get up earlier on Sunday than I get up any other day of the week and, uh, I'm, I'm up,

I'm showering. I spend time in the word that, uh, that I'm going to be preaching on that day. Uh, I'll leave the house before anybody else gets up.

And it's really the only day of the week where I'm the first one up, but, uh, I'll get out of the house and, and head over to the church.

And it's quiet and, uh, and I spend my time studying and in prayer. Um, I'm also making sure that, you know, like chairs in the sanctuary are lined up, right.

That's part of what I do. But, uh, um, that that's kind of an extraneous things, not really all that important, but while I'm doing that,

I'm walking through the sanctuary and seeing that our, our rows are still, you know, in comfortable lines, uh, and praying for the people who will be sitting in those chairs this morning, that their hearts would be open to hear the word of God, that, uh, this word would encourage them where they need encouragement and it would admonish them where they need admonishment.

And then there's, uh, some other prep things to do, getting the music together and ready for the band, because I actually, uh, lead the worship as well as, as well as the preaching.

So I'm, I'm doing that as well. And there's other folks that do plenty of things. It's not like I'm running the whole service, but, uh, but I, I still do that.

I, uh, lead the music and lead the preaching also. And then, uh, once church gets done on Sunday, uh,

I am, I'm flat out exhausted. So we get done and we get out of the building one, one 30, somewhere around in there, we go home and we eat as a family.

And then, uh, the kids and myself usually take a nap and Becky kind of has some time to herself while all of us are napping.

And then, uh, then we spend the rest of the day together as a family and we'll focus on spiritual things or we'll do things together as a family, whether that's playing games together, reading books or things like that.

Uh, we kind of have our own Lord's day, uh, way about us there on Sunday. And then on Monday, it's back to the office.

And, uh, Monday is a day that I've committed to my congregation that I'm going to be in my office. And so I try to, the other things that I have to do in the community for the rest of the week.

I try to put those on the other days of the week, whether that be Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. But Monday is, uh,

I've, I've arranged everything that I'm there in the office so that if anybody needs to come and talk about what was preached the day before, if they've been convicted over it and they want to talk some more about it,

Monday is the day that they can come and do that. And there, there have been days where I've had a line. So I get to church on Monday morning at nine and there's already four or five people that are waiting to talk to me.

And so, uh, one or two of them will say, Hey, I'll come back after lunch or something like that. But, uh, but Monday for the most part fills up with those conversations with doing spiritual counseling and sitting with somebody and talking with them about what's going on in their life, uh, where they're feeling convicted, uh, where they have sin they need to repent of, or, or where they just struggle to see what

God is doing and, and what do I, what do I need to do to be faithful in this moment in which

I'm waiting for God to move in my life, you know, something like that. So, so that's the, the time that we have for those conversations five o 'clock on Monday, I get done at the office.

I head to the house and the elders come over to my home and we sit and we have our elders meeting

Monday evening from five to seven o 'clock and every week, every single week. Yep. And we, uh, we talk about what was preached the day before.

We talk about where I'm going in the sermon the next week. We also talk about the classes that they're leading.

Um, and I've served food, uh, and I serve food every Monday. I have a crock pot that I've put on in the morning and, and then by the time

I get back, uh, for the meeting, I get back to the house and get ready for that meeting. Uh, the crock pot's done and the food's ready to be served.

So the elders come over, they've all got their own jobs. We have one other pastor on staff who's part time.

So he works bivocationally, uh, and then two lay elders and, and they have, they both work on posts.

We live right next to a military base. And so they both work on the base. And so when we get, uh, when we get past five o 'clock, they're done with work.

They come from post to, uh, to my house. And then, uh, I've got a study and actually where we're recording this interview right now,

I'm sitting in my study and I've got a desk on one side where all my books are kind of surrounding me. And then on the other side, there's a table and that's where we as elders sit.

And so we'll, we'll go through the word of God together. We'll talk about the things that are going on in the church, how we can better serve, uh, the people in our congregation, uh, making sure needs are being met and things like that.

Uh, we have a meeting with the deacons about once a quarter. So the elders and the deacons will get together to be sure that the deacons are helping to meet some of those physical needs with the members of the congregation while the elders are overseeing the spiritual needs of the congregation.

So that's Monday. And then on Tuesday, um, I get to church typically about nine or 10 o 'clock in the morning.

I start with devotionals. Well, no, not on Tuesday. I don't do the devotionals with the kids because they go to a homeschool co -op group and they're up earlier in the morning on Tuesday than they are any other day of the week.

So they go to, they go to that group and then I head to the church. And what I do on Tuesday while they're doing their homeschool co -op is

I'm actually ministering to and evangelizing high school students. So our, uh, church is catty corner to the high school.

It's just right out back behind the high school. And so on Tuesday we invite high school students to come over to us and we'll serve them lunch and give them the gospel.

And for about half of the students, it's the only gospel they hear all week long. They don't attend a church of any kind, uh, and they, they will come just because the food is free.

And we've got over a high, uh, over a hundred high school students weekly that will come to that, um, uh, to that lunch and where we're sharing the gospel.

There's a couple other churches in town that, that partner with us to do that. And I'll let some of those youth guys talk sometimes and share the gospel with the students as well.

And so then, uh, the Tuesday afternoon, we're kind of doing cleanup from that. And I might have some other meetings around town and things like that I'll have to attend.

Uh, on Wednesday, it's mostly an office day going over to the church, but there might be some other, uh, house visits or going to the hospital that I might do on Wednesday on Wednesday evening.

That's where we have our ministry that we, um, uh, teach the Bible to our children in the church.

So Wednesday evening is focused on, uh, teaching our kids. It's, it's all kids ministry from like age two, all the way up through 18.

So I teach the high school portion of that and it's myself and one of the other elders and, uh, we're, we're just starting as I'm doing this interview, we're just starting this coming

Wednesday on the next school year. So we're going to go through the book of Romans and we're going to spend all of the school year going through Romans with our high school students, uh, those high school students that attend our church.

And then on Thursday, that's a day that I work from home. And it's usually that day that I'll spend the most time on the sermon or working on what videos

I'll do that, uh, uh, on Thursday as well. And, uh, and, and then on Thursday evening, we've got a, an old

Testament study that we host in our home. And I also cook food for that. So we've got a, uh, about, you know, 12 to 15 people from our church that will come to our home for our old

Testament study. And then we're also eating together and fellowshipping together. Friday is my day off. And that's the day that I take away from any of my church responsibilities.

I don't take phone calls. Uh, I'll respond to maybe only a few text messages if I, if I need to, but that's the day that I've devoted to my family.

Uh, Saturday, sometimes we have a lot of things that go on at the church, whether that's a work day or, or it's, um, uh, doing a, like a breakfast that we have on Saturday morning, and then we might be helping somebody move or doing yardwork or, or we might have our own, uh, you know, uh, home projects that we've got to do.

And we invest Saturday in that. Saturday evening, I'm finishing up the sermon. I'm printing it off. Um, I'm going through my outline.

I've got the bulletin done. And then, uh, and then the routine starts over again on Sunday morning. Uh, one of the, one of the things that I didn't fit in there was the podcast.

I do that, uh, in more, you have more podcasts than just the, what does the, when we understand the text, right?

Yeah. It's more than just the videos. Uh, cause, uh, I do a daily 20 minute Bible study and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday is new

Testament. Thursday is old Testament. And then Friday, Becky and I, my wife and I, we do the Q and a together.

So we'll take questions from the, from the listeners and then respond to them on that Friday edition. And I record that in the evening when the kids go to bed.

So kids go to bed and either I'll sit with Becky and we'll watch a show. We'll pray together, uh, and, and then talk about some other things, things that are going on with the kids around the house, community church.

Uh, that's we, we spend that time together when the kids go to bed. And so either I'll record the podcast right after they go to bed.

And then Becky and I have our time together and then we can go to bed together. That's important. Husbands and wives or a will.

She's much more tired than I am. So we'll do that first after the kids go to bed and then she'll go to bed.

And then I do the podcast and then I record it for the next day. So, um, that's, uh, that's, that's kind of the, the daily routine.

That's, that's what my week looks like for the most part. And it's pretty full and, uh, anything that gets added into that really stretches us as a family.

Well, yeah. And, and I think that for a lot of people in a congregation, they're listening to that going, wow, is that what my pastor's doing all week?

And for good pastors. Yeah. You know, when I do the, we do a seminar we have called, you know,

Bible interpretation made easy. We teach people hermeneutics, how to interpret the Bible. And whenever we come into a church and we go through this and we lay out, this is what you have to do to, to dig into a text of scripture and understand its meaning, this is all the work you do to put into that, going into original languages and diagramming it out and looking at the context, all of that.

And we always end it. And I say, if your pastor is faithfully studying God's word for some of you, you're thinking this is overwhelming and he's doing that every week.

And I have had people that have come back to me after we've done those seminars and say, you know, I started praying for my pastor because I didn't realize he does that much work.

So on average, what would you say for you? What would an average sermon prep take? I would say it's somewhere between 10 and 20 hours.

Um, I've, I've heard of some pastors taking 40 hours. I don't really know how they do that.

I'm not criticizing that method. However they do that, you know, they spend 40 hours a week on the sermon. That's fine.

Uh, but as far as what I'm doing for the sermon that Sunday, it's somewhere between 10 and 20 hours.

Yeah. I used to spend about 20 to 30 hours, but I have the one difference that for me,

I had to do a lot more work in the original languages cause it wasn't, I'm not fluent. So it took me longer to dig into that than for someone who's fluent in it.

So, but it's, it is a sizable amount of work. And then if you start adding in your, if you're teaching the

Sunday school, if you're teaching a midweek, these things add up and people don't think about the amount of time it takes.

I want to play a commercial. I want to talk about though, you're basically this idea that we see with,

I'm dealing with in the daily podcast about spiritual depression. But you know, pastors are not immune to being burnt out.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Thing that many struggle with. And I want to come back and talk about that. Okay. Looking for strategies that will help you engage in meaningful conversations with members of the

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And as I always say, that book is also available at striving for eternity .org in our store. And you know,

Gabe, had I known that you have a book out, 40 Mormon beliefs and what the Bible says,

I probably would have contacted you to be one of the contributors to that book when, uh, when

Eric Johnson, I didn't know until I started doing my research in prep for this, that you had that book out.

But when, when Eric Johnson contacted me about this, his idea was, he said, Hey, look, I have this idea. There's a whole lot of different ways to reach

Mormons and I want to put them into a book. He was going to self publish it. And I said, you know, I have some bigger name friends who have

Mormon backgrounds or write on Mormonism. What about if we included that and maybe get it published?

And he was like, really? No. You know, so I contacted, you know, a couple of friends and I contacted someone, you know,

Jim Wallace, who has a background in Mormonism and his family's Mormon. Well, it turns out that Eric contacted his friend,

Sean McDowell. And basically between the three of us, we convinced him to put that not self publish, but actually get a publisher to back it.

It's been going very good. It's a really interesting book because there's 24 different ways that people reach specifically to Mormons.

But I find that it helps people to realize just different ways they can evangelize to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And had

I known you had a book out there on that. I would have, uh, I would have reached out to you at that.

I'm actually, I'm actually updating that. Uh, and the, the, the title of it, the updated title, cause

I'm going to put it on Amazon is not going to be 40 Mormon beliefs. It's just going to be what Mormons believe in what the

Bible says. So it's still the same layout as it had before, but the introduction is a little bit different and then, uh, it'll be, um, available through Amazon and on Kindle.

So that's coming up later on in the year. I thought maybe there was a trend because you know, like, like Erwin Lutzer has, you know, seven reasons for everything.

Like everything he has a list of seven. I noticed your, your new book, you know, is, is 40 of the most popular verses and what they really mean.

And so I was thinking maybe this is what you're, you were going to start doing is, you know, you're going to have 40 for everything. Yeah. Just do 40 something.

Right. Yeah. Although, you know, for original sin, your book, you have a book on original sin. I think 40 was going to be hard for that.

Yeah, that was, that was a little more difficult. Yeah. There were nine essential doctrines that we narrowed down and, and, uh,

I did sermons on those doctrines. Oh, it was a couple of years ago. And so then took those sermons and put them into small books.

And so there was the doctrine of original sin. So that was the, that was the one book. And the other would be the deity of Christ.

Deity of Christ. And I'll, I'll have links for folks to buy all those in the show notes so that if you're, if you are interested in those, you can, you can pick those up.

So this is a thing I know that I had suffered with when I was pastoring.

Um, I remember in one church where I was, uh, working full time as a pastor, putting in about 60, 70 hours a week, then having to work a part -time job that was almost 40 hours a week and then having family responsibilities.

I had suffered from a time of being just burnt out where I just,

I needed to get away and I thought I really thought that I was the only pastor that ever struggled with this.

I, when I would get together at the pastor's fellowships, the local pastor's fellowships, no one, no one really talked about that.

And back then I really wasn't going to conferences so much. I just didn't have the time, uh, which is where you and I met you and I, I think we first met if I remember correctly at the

Shepherds conference. At ShepCon. Yup. Yeah. I don't remember how we met. I, the only, I just remember that the first time we had met, uh,

I was giving you and Nate Pickowitz a ride somewhere. Right. It was back to his aunt and uncle's house.

Yeah. I don't know how I ended up giving you a ride. I knew I had a car, but I don't remember how that came about.

Yeah. I don't know either. I had taught, I had talked with you and, uh, um, oh, who's the fellow that does the ministry with you at, uh, uh,

Dr. Silvestro, Anthony Silvestro. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so we, we were talking actually in that little square right before or right in front of the master's library.

And, uh, and then it was later that evening you gave us a ride back to, uh, uh, back over to Nate's aunt and uncle's house.

I remember. And we didn't tell you, you and Nate were in some conversation, uh, that didn't involve Anthony and I, and you guys just were talking, we drove you, dropped you off, and I don't,

I didn't see much of you after that, but that was the first we met, but, but, you know, I didn't have a time to go to, to conferences and, and basically share with anyone the struggle.

I dealt with it myself at that time. And I remember going to, uh, Jim Boyce had a conference and back when he was alive, uh, at 10th, 10th

Presbyterian church. And I remember going to that conference and someone had basically been sharing how he was experienced, experiencing just being burnt out from ministry.

And that's when I realized, oh, there's others who, who struggle with this. Is that something you've ever struggled with it?

Do you talk to other men? Is this something you see as common with pastors? And if so, why do you think this, this is?

Well, I, as a pastor, I've been, uh, at first Southern Baptist church for eight years. I was there two years as associate pastor, and I've been the senior pastor for the last six.

And so in the eight years that I've been there, I've not experienced burnout. And I don't feel like I've even come close and I really have a very gracious congregation.

They encourage me to go to conferences. They want me to take time off. And because we have plurality eldership that I've got three other guys

I can rely on, um, I can even feel, you know, free to be sick on Sunday and, uh, the teaching to somebody else and not feel like everything's, uh, going to trash, you know, or something like that.

But, um, uh, so I've got a, a very loving congregation takes really good care of me and of my family.

And, uh, it's, it's I, for lack of a better term, I mean, it's a dream job. It really is the kind of environment

I think any pastor would love to have. And that doesn't mean that we don't have our problems. It doesn't mean that as a church body, we don't have our squabbles or that people always agree with everything that I say and we never have disagreements.

That's not what that means, but, but just that we're very patient with one another and, and people take care of their pastor and I look after that flock.

And so we do have a very good relationship and it's a very easy environment to work in. But when it comes to burnout, when it comes to burnout that pastors experience, there are people who are very sound in the faith and, and very great at what they do, expositing the word of God and, and teaching it on a weekly basis and that will still experience burnout.

But when I've looked at, at least across the spectrum of Southern Baptist churches where I'm most involved, where I've seen burnout happen the most is usually in one of two areas or both.

And it's either the laity's unrealistic expectations of the pastor or it's the pastor's unrealistic expectations of himself.

So you'll have the, the laity, the church congregation just has expectations of the pastor that really aren't the pastor's responsibility.

And, and it could be that he's the only guy there. You have a one pastor model where the rest of the church is kind of under that guy and everything becomes his responsibility.

And what the church expects of him is really even duties that should be stretched out among the deacons.

And it should be members of the congregation even that are doing some of those things. So like when we talked a little bit ago about church discipline, when you go by the qualification or the, the outline of church discipline, the method that's supposed to be followed that Jesus gave in Matthew 18, 15 through 20, that's not something that a pastor is supposed to do.

It's the whole church does that. So when, when somebody sees someone else walking in sin, that they confront that brother between the two of them alone.

And if you've won your brother over after showing him his fault, praise the Lord. It never has to go to the pastor.

That never has to be something that the pastor deals with if you're able to take care of, of that situation between the two of you alone.

And then furthermore, you know, I read from, quoted from Ephesians four a little bit ago, where it's, it says there in Ephesians four, 11, that God gave the apostles and the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers that would, that would be, you know, the pastor to prepare the saints for the work of ministry.

So there's work of ministry that should be happening in the church that the pastor has prepared the saints for that is not his responsibility.

The responsibility doesn't fall entirely upon his shoulders. The rest of the church shoulders, the weight of that responsibility of ministry in the community.

So the pastor definitely can be a model for that, but it should not be that the church has hired this guy to take care of all of those things.

You got to take care of all of our sick. You got to take care of all the evangelism in the community. You got to take care of all the disciplinary matters that come up.

And when the laity has unrealistic expectations upon the pastor like that, that can very quickly lead to burnout.

And it can also lead to a great deal of discouragement when he's not meeting all those expectations that the church has of him.

And then people get mad. And they're getting upset probably at things that they simply don't understand.

They just see a certain need that they expect to have met, and it's not being met. Therefore, the pastor's not doing his job.

Hebrews 13, 17 says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

So for the congregation to get the most out of their pastor and the responsibility that he has is to do this, have this relationship between a congregation and a pastor that's very joyful, for if it's full of complaints and it's full of unrealistic expectations, then he does that job with reluctance and with groaning, and that's of no advantage to anyone in the church.

So first of all, there's the laity's unrealistic expectations that can lead to burnout. And then secondly, there's the pastor having unrealistic expectations of his own job that can also lead to burnout.

I think that one of the safest things that a pastor can do for himself to prevent burnout is to be an expository pastor.

If he is not an expository preacher going through the word of God chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and instead he has placed upon himself a burden to have to come up with new series and new material and new object lessons and things like that to go with that material, he is placing an unnecessary burden on himself to be the authoritative voice in the church when he's not supposed to be that authoritative voice.

The word of God is the authoritative voice. And so you simply open the Bible and you let it fly.

And that authority rests upon the pastor as well as every other member of that congregation. This work has already been done for you, preparing this material.

It's right there in the Bible. So the pastor's labor on what to teach on any given

Sunday is just to be focused on the next section that has already been written by the prophets and apostles that God appointed to speak his word.

And now the pastor is proclaiming that word to the people of God and teaching them what it means and how to apply it.

So he has taken pressure off of himself to have to be relevant, to have to come up with ear -catching material that's going to please everybody.

And that's typically what you get when you have those seeker -friendly, topical -driven sermons. And when he's not focused on having to come up with series and topics, and instead he just rests in the authoritative word of God, he's taken a great deal of the burden off of his plate to have to be a relevant, hip pastor.

And I think that's one of the first things that he can do to help to prevent himself, not just from burnout, but even spiritual burnout, even personally getting spiritually burnt out over his job when he relies upon the word of God instead of his own word for teaching authority.

Well, yeah, the relationship between the pastor and the congregation has a major, major impact on it.

But, Son, you said that a highlight, because when I came into the Chinese church where I was pastoring, first thing

I started doing was establish elders. I was the only pastor. They had deacons, but I was the only pastor.

And the first thing was need to establish a leadership, need to have a plurality of elders. And because that's the other thing, it's not just having the congregation -pastor relationship working very well, but the shepherd needs to have other shepherds come alongside him and carry the burden and do the work together.

Amen. And I have wonderful men that I look up to and that I submit to, and it is a joy to be a part of a plurality eldership in that I'm one of those elders, and I also get to experience submitting to elders.

And there's one man in our eldership who's much older, and he's kind of the grandfatherly figure of us, and we look to him for more experiential counseling because he's been through it before, and he knows how to guide and teach us as elders as well as the rest of the church through those kinds of things.

And then we've got a guy who's even bilingual. And so he teaches one of the bilingual courses at our church as well as a part of our congregation and participates in the worship service on Sunday morning as well.

And so we're a great bunch of guys that are very encouraging and upbuilding of one another, and I don't know what

I would do without them. I can certainly see burnout being a greater risk for a pastor that is not a part of a plurality eldership, as opposed to when he's got these guys that he can lean on and can build him up as well as keep him accountable, can discipline him, can hold him to a right standard of those qualifications that we have for an overseer in places like First Timothy chapter three.

So they help to keep him on that path and then doing the word of God together. So he's not even doing his labor and study by himself, but getting feedback from the other elders and spreading the responsibility of caring for the church among those guys.

So it's not just resting on one man's shoulders. It's a wonderful blessing, and I can't imagine doing this without them.

And, you know, there's churches, being Baptistic as we are, I've been in independent Baptist churches pretty much ever since I started going to church.

And the thing, you'll have pastors where it's pastor and deacons. And the reality, a lot of the times,

I mean, I was in a church where, yeah, I may have been called a deacon, but I functioned as a shepherd. And you have that where some people, and when

I got to Cheney's church, there were some of the men there that were actually shepherding and others who were doing more the deacon role of serving.

And, you know, if there's pastors who go, hey, we don't need to have plurality of elders. Well, usually you do have that, whether you recognize it or not.

Right. The guys who say, well, I have a deacon board I can rely on the same way. But a lot of times those deacons are not functioning in that way.

Yeah, yeah. And we talked about that because when I first came on, we did not have a plurality eldership.

And so it was something that I proposed to the congregation. And then it took us two years of study. And ultimately we decided, yeah, this is what we need to do.

So we restructured our constitution to allow for plurality eldership and then elected those men to those positions.

But so we had that same sort of thing like you were talking about, where the deacons were kind of serving as elders, but they were also like a disciplinary board.

And it was odd because that's not the qualification for deacon. We don't have anything about that given in First Timothy chapter three about those qualifications for deacons.

And so it was it was confusing to everyone, including to me, even though I relied on those guys and they were faithful men and I loved working with them.

I had nothing against the deacons. But even though those men were wonderful to work with, it was still an unrealistic expectation of them to fulfill that role when that's the role that an elder should be fulfilling.

And we're not even testing those men according to the qualifications of elder when we appoint them as deacon and then they become deacons and we expect them to function as elders when they haven't been tested according to that standard.

Yep. So so, you know, it get like I said, it gets confusing and there was some misunderstanding as to what a deacon was supposed to do.

And sometimes I would make decisions and every once in a while you would have a deacon say, well, you didn't you didn't talk to me about that decision.

Well, I didn't know I had to, you know. So there's confusion in that structure where you had the pastor deacon model and then those deacons function as elders.

I think we serve the church best when we're following the layout for church leadership that has been given to us in the word of God and and the church is able to best serve its members as well as its elders and its deacons when we follow that pattern.

Yeah. And so let me ask you this being you're down and you're in, you know, not in New York area where I am, where it's very different serving here, but in Kansas, I mean, you're sort of in the

Bible Belt, maybe how is it easier or more difficult to minister in Kansas than, you know, other parts of the

U .S. Like, I mean, New Jersey, New York, not the easiest place, right? Well, Kansas definitely has its liberal areas, but for the most part, we're a red state, so it's pretty conservative and and you'll encounter people.

Now, where I live in Junction City, it's actually quite different than most of the rest of Kansas because of the influence of Fort Riley.

And so we have a lot more diversity here in Junction City than most other places in Kansas, unless you get to those urban areas like Wichita or Kansas City or Lawrence, where the

University of Kansas is, then there's certainly more diversity in those places. But here in Junction City, we kind of have that small town feel, but we have a lot more diversity and church attendance in Junction City is way lower than the average of what it is across the state of Kansas.

So in Kansas, I think the most recent surveys that I saw showed it was like 60 to 70 percent of people go to church on a regular basis, whereas in Junction City, it's something like 15 to 30 percent, if that, you know, that's even given that people are being honest when they respond to those surveys.

So this is not a heavily church attending sort of populace.

But nonetheless, even when I go into Junction City and I'm doing evangelism, if you ask somebody if they're a

Christian, they'll say yes, simply because they attend a church of some kind. And so then trying to evangelize to them, they're almost shut off to the idea that they need to turn from sin and follow

Jesus when they think, hey, I've got a membership at this church down here, so I already know that I'm a

Christian. You don't have any reason to talk to me about this sort of a thing. So sometimes when we're having those conversations, the conversation will bend this way and I will say,

OK, so you tell me that you're a member of First Baptist Church and they'll say, yeah,

I'm a member down there. You know, I've gone there and I've pledged my membership and whatever. And I'll say, so if I went over there and I asked them who you were, they would know you.

And usually at that point, they're kind of white as a sheet because they realize they've been caught.

They haven't been there in a long time. And they'll say, well, you know, no, I haven't been over there in eight months.

Actually, one of the guys I most recently talked to said I haven't been to church in two years. So, OK, so they have no clue who you are like, well, no,

I guess not. I guess they wouldn't know me over there. So that's a great question, because when I when I am in the

Bible Belt, everyone's a Christian, right? Everyone, everyone makes that claim. I say, oh, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm totally stealing that.

Just so you realize with knowledge, I am going to use that next time. Yeah. Would they actually know you if you walk through the doors of that church?

And so, yeah, people will have this idea that just because I got baptized when I was seven or I attended a

VBS when I was 12 or I pledged membership to this church six or seven years ago, then

I must be a Christian. And I even had a situation happen recently where there was a man in our community who just received a diagnosis of cancer.

And he came to me at First Southern Baptist and said, I'm a member here. Is there something that the church can do to help me?

And I'm looking at him, I'm going, I have no idea who you are. I've never met you. So like you say, you're a member here.

We actually did a membership cleanup about four years ago. And it was like, if we haven't seen, if nobody can identify who these people are, they're not on our membership roster.

And so we narrowed that down a lot, which is very unsouthern Baptist of us to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I went through a church where, yeah, we were cleaning the rolls and it was it's amazing how all of a sudden people heard we were going to clean the rolls and they showed up.

Right. And they wanted their ability to vote on things. They just didn't want to have to attend.

Yeah. Yeah. I had a meeting with another pastor in this community, and this pastor was trying to tell me of things that he heard that was going on in our church, which was not true.

And what he had heard wasn't even true. And he said, well, I have two sources about these things, you know, that I've heard about your church.

And and one of them just recently, PCS, which is a term, a military term that they moved to another base, one person,

PCS, and the other person is still a member at your church. And I kind of smirked, you know, and I said,

I don't believe you, because if they tell you that they're a member at our church, the possibility is they haven't been with us for a few years.

They just think that their name is still on the membership roll. And it's really not. So, you know, a pretty common thing in most

Bible Belt states, as well as in Kansas, that if a person thinks they're a member of a church, they're a

Christian. And so it's it's a struggle to get over that wall that they've put up and show them how you have transgressed the law of God and how you need a savior.

And if you are apart from the body of Christ, how can you be how can you say that you're a part of Christ if you're not part of his body?

And so helping people understand church attendance is a requirement as a Christian. It is something that Jesus expects of his flock to do that we would gather regularly.

And and so helping a person understand they need that as part of of being a disciplined

Christian as much as they need to be able to say from their mouths that they are a Christian. And you mentioned the gospel.

So I'm going to do a quick commercial and then I want to play a game with you. OK, there's no pressure on you.

All the pressure is on me. But the game is going to be about the gospel. So let's do that right after this.

All right. Ding dong, Jehovah's Witnesses. Ding dong, Mormons.

Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get

Andrew Rappaport's book, What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth.

But it is very wise to know what they believe. And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com.

It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.

All right. So, Pastor Gabe, this is how we play this game. OK. Most people, most Christians say that they find it easy to share the gospel when the conversation gets spiritual.

OK. And their struggle, people say, well, tell me, they just they pray that God would open an opportunity to share the gospel.

And I always say you don't need to make that prayer. You need to train yourself to take anything from the natural world to the spiritual world.

And if you practice, you can take anything and make that opportunity occur. OK, we're going to play this game.

And the way we play this is you're going to give me something. And whatever you give me, I have to transition to the gospel.

And this does not get edited. So if there's long pauses, it's actually because I'm trying to figure it out.

So you give me anything I'm giving you, I'm giving you a topic and then you're taking that topic and bringing the gospel into it.

And I'm going to change. I have to transition from whatever you give me to the gospel. All right. OK, so do you want me to just give you a topic or are we being conversational and I'm talking about something and then you're going to do we do a topic?

But, you know, if you want to conversational, I could try that. Oh, I might have to be more creative to do this.

I'll do that. I'll take the less creative route. All right. So the the New Jersey Giants, or as they're otherwise known, the

New York Giants. Yeah. You know, the actually I find it amazing how many people give me things with sports.

And it is a running joke because I'm starting to think people do it on purpose because they want to know that I don't follow sports.

I am pop culture and for the most part, sports illiterate, though. It is the week of the

U .S. Open tennis, and that is I have two sports that I watch. One of them is tennis. And my sports are individual sports.

However, there is just something being from New Jersey that has always, always runs and you brought it up, runs kind of against us because, you know, here, where is it that the

Giants play? They play in New Jersey, right? Who gets it? And the

Jets. And who gets all of the and the Knicks, I believe, as well. Or at least I think they moved back to New York now.

But there's many teams that play in New Jersey. And yet the credit is given to New York.

Now, this really became an issue with the Super Bowl. I don't know if a Super Bowl came to New York. Yeah, just a few years.

That was the Broncos and the Seahawks, if I remember that right. Was that I don't have any. I did go out and evangelize the folks at out.

But I didn't. I never know who's playing. But I told you, I'm illiterate on these things.

Right. Bible, maybe I can handle myself. But, you know, team sports, not so much. But here's the thing.

You know, it drove a bunch of people in Jersey nuts was the NFL experience. All the the tourism and all the money that came in was in New York.

Right. The hotels, they had everything. Who do you think got to pay the tax bill for all the security for the

Super Bowl? Oh, yeah, that was Jersey. That was Jersey. You got that right. I mean, so, you know, it's a thing where you end up seeing that New York gets all the credit and, you know, gets to reap the benefits of what happens in New Jersey.

And, you know, though we may think we look at that and sometimes say, you know, that's that seems wrong, but that's actually the agreement that was made up front, that this would be called the

New York team, even though they play in Jersey and it was accepted. You know, and this is the thing.

There are times when that is not only beneficial, but necessary. In fact, there are things that I have in my life that have absolutely no credit for anything that I've done.

I fully 100 percent get rewarded and benefited because of the work someone else has done.

What I'm speaking about is the fact that because of my life, I'm a rotten person. I've broken laws.

I deserve to be as any criminal should be treated. I should be guilty. But somebody else paid the fine that I should pay.

And because of what he did, I get 100 percent of the benefit of that. That person, you may know of him, actually, he's he's the most known name in all of the world.

And most people use his name as foul language, even though he did the ultimate thing that anyone could do for another person.

His name is Jesus Christ, almighty God, who came to earth, died on a cross as a payment of sin.

If we turn from trusting ourselves as a good person or our good works and turn and trust what he did on that cross and that alone, we can have eternal life.

We have to receive that. But this is what he did. We did nothing to credit it. He did all the work. We get to reap the benefit.

That's how I would transition from the New Jersey Giants. I like how you said that. I have to say that I was incredibly impressed by that because you avoided talking about sports and still took a sports topic and managed to spin it into the gospel.

That was impressive. I enjoyed that. Well, it is called 30 plus years now of experience.

That's the thing. You get better at these if you do it. We turned it into a game. That's right. We used to do this with our youth group.

We would just go around and give different topics and you'd find that in a room of 24 people, 25 people as we had in our youth group, everyone came up with a different thing and you'd start seeing variety in it.

And, you know, we play it as a game. But there's many of these times where I remember some of these transitions and those incidents come up and I can go, oh, wait,

I remember what someone said here, what I said here. Right. And I go for it. Yeah, the best teaching tool for evangelism is just getting out and doing it.

Amen. I am fully with you on that. Yeah, it's just the experience of it.

And I mean, you learn how to have those conversations with people and how to share the gospel. I think

Ray Comfort's series on Way of the Master is tremendous, but it's not going to be beneficial to you until you get out and practice something like that.

So, so, yeah, the best teacher for evangelism is the experience that you get from going out and sharing the gospel with total strangers.

So that's a great, a great object lesson you use there to take a topic like that and bring the gospel into it.

And, you know, look, I've been doing it for years. I have had someone walk up to me at a conference.

I was talking to a couple people and this woman just walks up, goes, artichoke hearts, gospel, go. It's like, no pressure.

OK, you know, so I've kind of gotten known for doing this, but I encourage others to play it.

But just like an artichoke heart tastes absolutely terrible. Your heart is sinful and depraved before a holy

God. There you go. Yeah. Into the gospel. Now, I've tried playing this game. You mentioned Ray Comfort.

I tried playing with like Ray Comfort. This is his way. It doesn't matter. You gave the New York Giants. Here's how

Ray Comfort would transition. Well, speaking of the New York Giants, do you consider yourself to be a good person? Yes. That's his transition.

That's right. I could see that. Yeah, with my Kiwi accent, not so good.

But hey, Pastor Dave, thanks for coming on. I hope that this was insightful for folks. I hope that pastors would be encouraged by it.

I hope that people in the congregations would be encouraged by this to know what their pastor does. Anything that you want to share before we go, anything about, you know, either your church ministry, your podcast, when we understand the text ministry, which is,

I encourage folks to go out there. I'll put the links in the show notes so you guys can go to those and check out those videos. Anything else you want to share?

Yeah, just one final word for pastors, and that is don't expect that the calling that you have to shepherd the flock of God automatically means that your children are getting what you're hoping that your church congregation gets.

You still have to show a focus and a love toward your wife and toward your children that is unique and is specific to them and cares for their own spiritual upbringing, and that is a focus and an emphasis that you have on your family that is separate from the responsibility that you have as a pastor.

Among those qualifications that were given in 1 Timothy, it says that if a man is not able to care for his own household, how will he care for the flock of God?

Your ministry is first to your family before it is to your church, and do not forget that responsibility.

There's also a responsibility upon you, as Andrew and I have talked about over the course of this podcast, to be in the

Word and have your own devotional time with God. Your study doesn't always translate into that quiet time that you have with the

Lord and with prayer—the study that you're giving to your sermon, anyway. So certainly have that time where the

Lord is working on you and growing you in sanctification and in holiness, just as you have a responsibility to help your congregation grow in those things as well.

Well, thank you, Pastor Gabe. Thanks for coming on. I'm looking forward to seeing you again this year at Shepard's Conference. I won't be there this year.

I have a— You said that last year. Yeah, I did. This year, though, my hands are tied, because I actually am committed to teaching at a men's conference the same weekend that ShepCon is going on.

So yeah, I won't be there this year, but if you're going to be at G3, I'll see you there. Okay.

Well, I haven't decided yet. All right. All right. So it's still up in the air. But folks, just to close out, let you know, if you get our newsletter, you know that I'll be speaking coming up in September, October.

I'll be out in San Francisco, Coronation, Washington. I'll be up in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Have a couple of things. I'll be, again, able to speak at the South Jersey Apologetics Conference.

And if you're interested in any of those, just email us at info at strivingforattorney .org.

We'll get you the information and those churches that they're at. So if you have any ideas you want us to cover, or just give us feedback, because folks, listen, we actually do these podcasts, and the thing that I'm looking at right now is this big black microphone.

And that's what I see. You know, we don't know how this may impact you, how it benefits you, how it helps you.

Your feedback is helpful. You can write reviews in iTunes or what you could do is emails and let us know how it's helping you.

If you think there's things we could do better, and there's probably lots that we could do better, let us know. I hope this is beneficial to you.

I hope that you'll share this maybe even with your pastor so that he might be encouraged. And folks, until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.