Q&A: Get to Know Joel Baker | Adult Sunday School

Our Father, we entrust our time here together with You, to You. We pray that Your Spirit would guide us in truth, and we are grateful for this opportunity to get to know

Joel, and we pray that Your blessing may rest upon our time here. We ask that You may attend us through this day, through our worship service that is to follow, and as we gather together as Your people to worship and fellowship and enjoy

Your Word, we pray that You would feed us from that, encourage our hearts in the truth, we pray, and give us a good time here as a body of Christ, celebrating our

Savior and Your grace, we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, well, just a quick word of introduction here regarding Q &As.

We did a Q &A last week, which was just a Q &A with me, theology, et cetera. If you were here for that, you remember that, and it was pointed out to me after we did that that we haven't done that since late 2020.

So it's been over four years since we did a Q &A, and I have received your feedback, and we are going to do that a little bit more frequently than that, probably dropping

Q &As into the rotation in adult Sunday school class more frequently, probably a couple, several times a year from here on out.

If memory serves, the last time that we did that, we just didn't have a lot of questions from the floor, and I thought, okay, everybody has all their questions answered, so there's no need to do another one of these for a while, and then four years went by, and before we did it again.

So we will tackle that again probably in a couple of months, do another one of those. Our guest today is

Joel Baker, and as I announced in the worship service several weeks ago, Joel is somebody that I've been in contact with for the last couple of months.

We've been entertaining the possibility as an eldership of hiring somebody to come not on staff with the church so much as work with the church as part of maybe on staff with a counseling institute, and it would be a church ministry that we would run as part of Kootenai Community Church, and we would need a biblical counselor to sort of work with discipling people, biblical counseling, couples counseling, premarriage counseling, grief counseling, all of that, and with the recent biblical counseling conference that we did here at Kootenai back in September, October, and November, I was put in contact with one of the teachers at the counseling center in Spokane, and I talked with him and said, hey, here's what we're trying to do, something similar to what you have in Spokane, because our area has nothing like that.

If you come across anybody that you would recommend, let me know. So as it turns out, he knows

Joel's dad, and they were chatting, and Joel's dad recommended Joel to us, so I called him, and then we've been having a conversation, and this is the next step of that.

This is not necessarily I'm going to introduce Joel because he's coming on staff, and you get to know that. He's getting to know us, so we're trying to put our best foot forward here this week, which means

I'm keeping as far away from Thomas Leo as I possibly can, and then we're trying to get to know him a little bit and see if our vision for what we could do in this area in terms of ministry would align.

So with that, Joel, let's begin with the beginning of your salvation testimony.

How did you come to know the Lord? What are the details of that, and tell us that story. Yeah. It's good to be here with y 'all.

Is this thing on? Can I be heard? Can I be heard in the peanut gallery? Yes. Okay, good. Yeah, sometimes

I have a habit. It's a bad habit.

I was a pastor. Grew up in Virginia.

So it was when the spirit kind of convicted my soul. It was about that time.

Grew up in a family where there were six kids of us. In this area of the country, that's not a lot. In Virginia, that was bordering on a lot.

Southern California, it was huge. My dad pastored there for about 14 years before we moved to Southern California, and always had family devotions.

One night, we were in a church. My dad was a pastor. My dad was always big into family announcements, whenever something exciting would happen.

And so one of my older brothers had made a profession of faith, and so my dad wanted to announce that to the whole family during family devotions.

So that night, that was kind of a turning point in my mindset, because until that point,

I'd never really thought about salvation in terms of anything other than, yeah, you go to heaven when you die. So that night, that was kind of one of those things that just clicked in my head, like, oh, if my brother needs salvation, what's the state of my own soul?

So I talked to my dad after devotions that night, and that was a turning point for me, where he explained the gospel very clearly to me at that point, answered my questions, and I was led to a profession of faith that night.

Actually, January 22nd of 2000. Whether that night was a true profession,

I'm not sure, but that was a turning point in my own soul as over the next few years living in Virginia, the

Lord was convicting my soul, bringing about growth in different areas of my life, and then the biggest challenge for me after that was the move to California, and that's when growth took off.

It's in my life and all that regarding the move. Southern California, what was your dad doing there?

Yeah, so he moved from pastoring in Virginia to being a professor of counseling at the Master's College, and occasionally class at the seminary.

No, sir. Biggest church I'd ever been a part of until that point was one in Southern California, where we had about 200 people on a

Sunday morning. So always parts of a small church. My dad was always wanting to be involved in as many people's lives as possible, and be known and know people who were in the church, and so the bigger the church got, the more uncomfortable he got having his family as a part of a really big church.

And we lived about 50, 60 miles away from Grace as well. Your early theological and spiritual influences.

So my father would be the biggest one. Growing up in Virginia, I never really thought outside of what my dad was teaching on a

Sunday morning. So growing up through high school and things, my father was the biggest spiritual influence

I had. Once I got to college, there were a number of other ones. Piper, just because I was required to read a fair amount of Piper, Desiring God, and that ministry was something that influenced a lot of my thinking as far as the practicality of theology, and applying the way that we believe about God to the way we live life.

So if we're living and believing that God is the ultimate purpose of the universe, that's going to directly affect the way that we live our lives and how we live as worshipers.

Did you ever attend at Grace, even when you were in college? Yeah, a couple of times when

I was forced to. And when you say that, it makes it sound like you were just trying to stay up far away from Grace Community Church as you possibly can, whereas for probably almost everybody in this building, they would love the opportunity to live that close to Grace Community Church.

Yeah, I got, in college, we had to go for our week of welcome, and so we had to go for that.

I don't have anything against Grace Community Church as a whole, I attended the master's seminary down there, love the pastors there that I know.

MacArthur's one of my influences as well, once I got to the seminary. My attitude in high school, just towards Southern California in general, was about as unsanctified as you could make it.

And I tried to make it that way for a long time, and the

Lord was very gracious in not allowing that to continue. Yeah, big churches were intimidating for me growing up in the backwoods of Virginia, and so being around a large crowd of people that I didn't know was...

Kind of like this morning? Yeah. Yeah, I'm popping out of my skin here, you can't tell.

Have you always had your current theological convictions, and what would you call them, Reformed, Arminian, Covenant, Dispensational, how would you characterize your theological perspective?

Currently, I would say I would align more Calvinistically as a Reformed Baptist without the covenantal leanings.

I mean, just about anything Grace Community LA teaches I would agree with. I think there's very,

I can't think of anything that I would disagree with on their doctrinal statement, their statement of faith, anything like that. Have you always had those theological convictions?

Yeah, no, I mean, I forget who it was. Who's the theologian back in church history who said, when I was originally saved and the

Spirit saved me, I started out as an Arminian, and then I started growing in faith and became a Calvinist? Yeah, that was

Spurgeon, he said everything good. Yeah, every, yeah, that makes sense. I don't know that that was

Spurgeon, I just made that up, but it sounded like Spurgeon, didn't it? Yeah. As I said, that was Spurgeon, and you thought, yeah, that sounds like Spurgeon.

And were there any, what were the things that shaped you theologically to make that change? Reading my

Bible. That was a good answer. So my time at the college, at Master's College, and then at the

Master's Seminary ran into a lot of great professors. All of them were Reformed in the vast majority of what they taught.

Very few of them were four -point or less Calvinists.

Actually, I can't think of any of my theological professors who would have classified themselves as anything less than a five -point.

So, yeah, I mean, college and seminary shaped me into being able to put onto paper what

I believed, and then just reading my Bible from a straightforward historical grammatical methodology of hermeneutics,

I don't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion than that. All right, tell us a little bit about your family. What is your wife's name?

My wife's name is Jessica. I understand there's a few Jessicas here. So fit in real well with that, and I have one daughter named

Bria, and she's 10. And what, well, let me back up.

Where did you guys meet? So we met at, well, technically at church as I was making fun of her and her friends.

So did not get off on the right foot with my wife, but we met at church in Southern California.

She was attending the college, and I had just gotten back from the Israel Bible Extension with the college. So she got to know my family, and my family, like, that was the longest period.

I'd been away from my family, so my family was missing me a lot and talking me up to her a lot. And then I, yeah,

I'm introduced to her, and she's like, yeah, not that. So we got to know each other while attending the college and attending the same church.

I stalked her in the bookstore. Books are one of my favorite things in the world, and she worked in the bookstore, and I was taking way too many credit hours as a college student.

And so I would study in the student lounge, and then when I got bored of looking at paper, I'd go look at a paper that I couldn't afford in the bookstore and ran into somebody

I wanted to get to know better, so I did. Your father, and give us a brief introduction of who he is and how he is connected to the biblical counseling world.

So yeah, my dad, Ernie Baker, he got his doctorate from Westminster Theological Seminary in Counseling.

Did that under Ed Welch, David Pallison, the whole guard for the

ACBC, NANC, and CCEF Counseling Ministries.

Did that, oh, I think it was 2001, I think, when he graduated with that.

I remember, if my memory serves. It's not great these days. But he's been a pastor my whole life, graduated seminary from Capitol Bible Seminary back in 80, 80, he was 80.

You were 10 in 2000, and your memory's not great? Yep, says a lot about it.

Is that what he's saying? Yeah, it gets worse. Yeah, I've got a lot to look forward to. But hey, it'll all be new. So your father is very well known in the biblical counseling world.

As a matter of fact, a couple weeks ago, we had a couple here from the Philippines. They were the pastor and his wife of the

Church of the Philippines that had Justin and I out earlier this spring when I was gone in April. They had come over here to the US, and they were here with us for a week, a couple weeks back, and we were chatting about you, and they said, oh, we know his dad because Ernie had gone to the

Philippines to teach a biblical counseling conference at their church. So he travels all over the place teaching that very thing.

Yeah, he's a fellow with ACBC, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, has been for about a decade now, and then his biblical counseling teaching at the

Master's College and Seminary, and then he's part of BCMW, Biblical Counseling Ministries Worldwide, and they do training and get seminaries and schools set up overseas with biblical counseling programs at the master's level.

And what is the most challenging aspect for you of being a father -slash -husband?

Staying sanctified when I feel impatient. Leading well in a society that really downgrades husbandry and masculinity.

Well, even now to the point where biblical femininity is under attack, let alone what parenthood should look like.

Yeah, that's been challenging. Southern California was a challenge because I was always on guard there. Florida has more freedom than that, but so many people, even in the evangelical realm, have started to cave and just become lackadaisical with the principles that they used to hold so near and dear to their own hearts.

And cultural pressure, never underestimate even your own ability as the most stalwart people to undergo cultural pressure and allow that to shift how you can give up on some of the things that you hold most dear to you.

I would say that. Okay. You're switching a little bit to your educational background. You said you went to college at the master's college and then attended seminary.

Yep. Tell us the steps that you went through. Well, did you graduate from that, get a degree from master's?

So yeah, when I started college, originally I was still kind of under the aftermath of not liking

Southern California, still wanted to leave Southern California when I graduated high school. My dad would not let me because he was at the college.

I could get tuition remission, get a free college degree essentially. At that point, didn't care, still didn't like Southern California, but was growing and learning sanctification and learning how to actually listen to my dad rather than great against everything he said.

And so the spirit was very, very kind in convicting me of that. And I was like, well, I don't know how to pay for going to Virginia Tech where I grew up.

So I also don't know anything about math. So me as an engineer would be even more deleterious than anything else

I could think of myself doing. So sure, I'll go to a Bible college instead, get a free degree and we'll see what happens from there.

So my dad signed me up for all my classes, signed me up for his intro to counseling class, which was instrumental in just kind of directing where I wanted to go.

I had worked at Hume Lake Christian Camps and gone as a camper for multiple years in a row, as well up in the

Sequoia National Forest. And that influenced me kind of with a love for younger people because they're so malleable.

There's something about that stage in life that is just rich. There's something really cool about being able to help people in that stage of life, come to grips with reality and maturing in life.

And so that was instrumental in that. So I ended up with two degrees, one in counseling and then one in Christian education.

So I could start pursuing that. And then when I started getting closer to graduating the college, my dad was starting to push me into a further degree of some sort because I really didn't know what

I wanted to do with my life still at that point. I just wanted to do counseling, help people in the church and do something else. And so he started pushing me toward pursuing something further with a master's.

And so the natural step for me was maybe I'll just do the MABC program at master's, get my master of arts in counseling as well.

And he's, nah, you've got your undergrad in that. You know what you need to know about counseling. You should go do an

MDiv. So you can learn the languages, learn how to exposit the word, learn proper hermeneutics, and you'll be a much more effective counselor.

I was like, okay, cool, sure. And so I did that, got to know Ray Merringer because he was -

This was at the master's seminary then? This was at the college still, junior year at the college.

And so my dad kind of twisted my arm a little bit to go do an MDiv at the seminary. And so ended up doing that.

Ray Merringer got me hooked up and admitted into the seminary. It's great having connections, by the way.

It's really helpful. And so I got connected through the seminary there.

We started attending there. I say we, because as seminarians, your wife goes through everything you go through when you're working on your master's degree.

So my wife ended up graduating. When I graduated expositors, she got her, what are they called?

Her putting hubby through degree, her Ph .D. So that was fun.

So yeah. Started at the master's seminary and then eventually kind of shifted toward expositors.

Life was getting really rough, affording to live in Southern California. And so from a financial perspective, we were starting to look for ways to get out of Southern California.

From a cultural perspective, we were starting to have a more sanctified view of how to get out of Southern California rather than just reacting against the place.

And so the Lord opened the doors and we ended up at an expositors seminary and at the

Jacksonville campus. All my favorite professors were there too, which was great. They had transferred either from TMS or somewhere else as pastors where I had met a fair number of them previously.

And that's where we finished up. All right. And that's in Florida? Yep, Jacksonville, Florida.

Just on an aside, raise your hand here if you also came out of California. So you know.

Yeah. You're not the only one to flee. At the expositors seminary, we're familiar with the churches.

Most of us here are. The Master Seminary, Master College, Grace Community Church. A lot of people here have been influenced by that and kind of theologically in those circles.

The expositors seminary different or the same as masters and theologically, is it the same?

Yeah, basically. So masters is much bigger, much more straightforward from an accredited seminary standpoint.

They're much more rigorous on their academic side. Expositors is unaccredited technically, but their rigor, they try to keep at the same level academically as masters.

And so theologically, we got the same theology. We actually took more language courses, but from a slightly more practical perspective on how it would apply to our ministries.

And our theology was never just read these books and take this multiple choice theology exam and write a research paper.

It was write your research paper, take this essay exam. And now here's four or five different major homework assignments about people in the church asking deep theological questions and why you believe that.

Now write a letter to them, how you would respond to them from a pastoral perspective. And we were graded on pastoral responses for things like that.

Masters have a very high academic rigor standard. And so one of the other reasons that influenced going to expositors was just,

I like academia and I like it a little too much. And my ministry in the churches I was a part of in Southern California was starting to suffer from that.

And you heard a lot more Greek parsing in my teaching than you did pastoral ministry, so.

You're currently living in Florida. That's my relocation mistress, Florida.

Except for the humidity, I would never want to move there because of the humidity. But what do you currently do in Florida?

You graduated when with all of your education? So with all that education on my background,

I graduated in May of 2020. Immediately took all of that to the bank, cashed it in and joined an ice cream shop.

So currently I run three different ice cream shops in Florida, in Northeastern Florida. And that's your, you oversee part of a ice cream empire, basically.

Yeah, yeah, slowly we're taking over Florida, piece by piece. And where do you serve in ministry in your church?

And what church do you attend? So despite all of my desire in Southern California to avoid going to Grace Community Church because it was so big, we ended up at Grace Community Church in Jacksonville.

And it was started by Scott Christmas back in 2000. It's been around for a while and now we've got another master seminary guy who is our senior pastor,

Justin McKittrick. So yeah, there I serve as a small group leader.

I lead a small group every other week. Do a fair amount of discipleship and counseling as it comes up.

And then I also lead the parking lot ministry where people need to learn how to drive.

It's Florida. People need to learn how to park. Let's just say that right out. Yeah, I've thought about it. Amen to that. I know you're not charismatic, but you can say amen to that.

Yeah, I didn't see a whole lot of parking lines in the parking lot out here, but that wouldn't matter where. Yep, yeah, we don't have potholes and we still have a hard time getting people parked in a straight line, so.

Your family serves there as well? Yep, Jess serves as a nursery coordinator and then

I co -opted her into doing a book study with the ladies in our small group every other week or once a month as well.

And your church and leadership knows that you're entertaining the idea of moving and going into ministry somewhere?

I hid that from them as best, no, just kidding. Yes, yeah, I had a conversation with my senior pastor on Thursday.

He's excited. Yesterday we had one of our elders in training doing his ordination.

And so he was gonna talk to the rest of the elder board at that point to just kind of give them an update on where we're at in the process and that I'm up here right now, not at church, where they would expect to see me in the parking lots.

Yeah, if you can't tell that my suit has more dust on it than most evangelical Bibles in America. I haven't worn this in a while because I'm normally out in the parking lot sweating, so.

What, let's switch a little bit to the subject of biblical counseling. Give us a definition of biblical counseling. Definition of biblical counseling, in short, intensive discipleship.

It's the practical working out of the one another's in the church from an intensive discipleship standpoint.

So if we take the Great Commission and broaden it out to everybody in the church has a responsibility to minister to one another, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is the mission of the church is to make disciples. Counseling exists as an intensive form of that where the one another's are put into practice in everyday life.

And, sorry, I'll get my mic a little bit higher, make Micah happy. Sorry. It exists as an intensive form of discipleship so that we can be in each other's lives.

It's the goal of every church from a local level to be able to perform the one another's, love one another, serve one another, and be kind to one another, forgive one another in a fashion that works for us and works toward walking in life toward one another in a fashion that glorifies

God and sanctifies one another. How is that different than other forms of counseling?

Because often we think of biblical counseling and we just think you're a Christian psychologist who has an office downtown and has people come in and gives them bromides and helps them through their day.

Yeah, so the difference is that walking together, the one anothering aspect. A therapist can't do that or won't do that.

Every now and then you'll see a Christian psychologist who will try to be a part of somebody's life, but ultimately what they're offering is a solution that is cultural -based or philosophy -based, man -based religion rather than scripturally -based.

So the biggest difference is a firm stance on the sufficiency of scripture, the efficacy of the gospel to change lives.

So where you have a therapist in the modern world, integrated Christian psychology or something else, what biblical counseling is is that it takes the truth of scripture and applies it to daily life and firmly stands on and practices that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

And that's the major distinction that would set it apart. And that's the type of counseling that you were trained in?

The type of counseling that you do? Yep. Let me just see if there's a, before we go on to some other personal questions, is there anybody here has a question about biblical counseling we can take from the floor?

Anything that we've covered here? Nope? Okay. All right.

What are your hobbies, non -ministry interests? Non -ministry interests,

Tolkien. I absolutely love J .R .R. Tolkien. There are some screen adaptations that should be avoided at all costs.

The Jackson films are about as canon as you can get. I can go off on J .R

.R. Tolkien. Aside from that, most fantasy stuff I'm not a huge part of. But Tolkien's one of them.

I enjoy hunting, getting outside, guns, things like that. California was very difficult to do any of that with.

They look down on that quite a bit. Reading, I do a lot of reading, if you consider audio books.

Most of my time is spent in a vehicle, so I have to do a lot of reading by audio book these days, and so I consume a lot of literature that way.

Hoopla, for those of you who are homeschool moms, you probably know what hoopla is, and the wonders that it is to have free books at your fingertips is great.

So reading, hunting when I get the opportunity. My dad being as well -connected as he is has opportunities to get me and my brothers out hunting in places we'd never dreamed we'd be able to go.

It's all kinds of fun. And then, yeah. And what five books have most influenced and shaped you?

The first one would probably be Don't Waste Your Life. Other than the Bible. Okay. I assumed that.

Okay, good. Five, five more. Five more. Don't Waste Your Life by Piper was one of the first Piper books

I ever read, and that was influential in my freshman year of college. Just thinking about life from the perspective of don't treat anything as if it's not

God's will for your life. God's doing something through this, so you better sit up, pay attention, and put it to practice for his glory.

My dad's book on marriage, Marry Wisely, Marry Well, it was his doctoral dissertation. Shameless plug for that.

You can find it on Amazon for pretty cheap. It's really great. He wrote it for people who were not in relationships, but I use it in premarital counseling.

I use it in pre -engagement counseling. I use it in discipleship. I use it for just about all kinds of counseling, so it works.

It's not a very thick book. It's worth reading, but it was very influential in my life just for its practicality on what it looks like to walk in sanctification, not just in marriage, but it's applicable outside of that as well.

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges, very influential for me. Again, on the sovereignty of God, and then there's so many books to try and choose from.

I'd say Tolkien again, but influential. Biblical Doctrine was really good to read.

It was refreshing to have a simpler systematic theology come out while I was in the middle of seminary, so that was refreshing.

Biblical Doctrine is the one by Dick Mayhew and John MacArthur, big, thick theology text. If you get one systematic theology text and you had one on yourself,

I would recommend that one. It's very good. Yeah, that's the Grace L .A. Doctrinal Statement expanded.

Yeah. It's great. Micah wants me to remind you to put the microphone on. There we go. Sorry, Micah. Have you written any books?

No. Do you have any in the making? No. Okay. What books are you reading right now? Currently working my way through The Decline and Fall of the

Roman Empire. That's the main one I'm reading. It's eight volumes, so technically eight books. And then -

The one you read? Okay. Yeah, I've been working through that one.

That one's kind of like my daily drive read. Again, if you consider audio books a read,

I'm still in that stage of should I, should I not? There's a David Powelson book on spiritual warfare called

Safe and Sound that I'm reading through. And then George Zemeck wrote a book, his doctoral dissertation,

Tethered to the Text. And Expositors just started their own publication where they put that in print kind of as his tribute.

He passed away this past year. And so they put that in print. Did a really nice version for alumni, for the school, nice leather bound.

So I bought myself a reader's version. As far as professors go, he had one of the more profound impacts on my library because I can't read a book now without underlining just about everything that I come across and making notes in every margin and destroying my books as most book lovers would call it.

All right. What books or what subjects interest you today that you have not really looked into that you want to study in say the next five years?

The idea of PTSD has been something I've been wanting to look into and research more.

Greg Gifford's done some good work on that, being former military. So that makes sense.

So PTSD is one of those topics I've wanted to study for a while, especially with the current trend in counseling and especially people who have been breaking away from ACVC going toward the trauma informed therapy mindsets.

That's something that I've wanted to kind of dive into and tackle a little bit more personally. In college, schizophrenia was something that I enjoyed doing and researching as well.

We're not schizophrenic? We are. Well played.

It's good. I was gonna go somewhere with that.

Oh, speaking of Greg Gifford, PTSD, there is a conference in February in Spokane, a faith

Bible church called Transformed Conference. Greg, excuse me, Greg Gifford's coming out to speak at that. And Greg Gifford's done a lot of work on the mind body distinction and the mind, what does he call it?

The mind soul aspect of us. And he's writing a book on that currently.

And I forget what the title of that is gonna be. I think it's Lies My Therapist Told Me. I think is the name of that book when it comes out.

It's due out this year. But anyway, Greg is gonna be speaking on that subject in Spokane in February. So if you wanna, if anybody wants to register for that,

I think it's 65 bucks or something. It's two days, a Friday and a Saturday. And it's just dealing with that issue of the mind and soul, mind body distinction.

What is your ideal vacation if money were no object? You know,

I thought about that question for a while over the last few days and I can't figure it out. I'd love to say

New Zealand, but I'd really only wanna go for the sites and the Lord of the Rings filming sites for that.

And aside from that, culturally, I don't wanna get stuck in New Zealand. But it would be gorgeous to go see all of that.

I mean, I would just nerd out, go into the shire and hanging out in the hobbit hole for 10 days.

Is that something your wife would join you? Oh, absolutely, she'd love it. We're both

Lord of the Rings nerds. Yeah. Anybody else here Lord of the

Rings nerds? Oh, we got, there's a few of us, that's awesome. I used to have the hair for Aragorn too, used to.

My dad told me I looked homeless and shouldn't, so. He didn't know who's up next for church discipline,

I guess, so that was a good question. You enjoy football, do you watch football?

I don't. You don't? I don't really watch any sports at all, sorry. I don't know where to go from here.

It could be worse, yeah, you could be a soccer fan. You got bad news. I don't watch it though.

You are a soccer fan? No, I am a soccer fan. I'm not a fan of most actors, and so I can't watch professional soccer.

He told me he liked soccer last night, I was just seeing if he was courageous enough to admit that here in front of everybody. I'll say it, yeah.

All right. You're heterosexual, right? Yes. Okay. Soccer fan, you gotta ask that.

All right, are there any questions from the floor that you would like to ask Joel? Local counseling, his upbringing, background, education?

Yes, Peter. It gave me an opportunity to run around with my friends.

I wasn't very good at soccer. They put me on full back for a purpose. I had long legs and I could get in people's way, that was about it, that's all

I was good for. Yeah, Andy. So the question is, why would you move from Florida to North Idaho, and are you gonna open an ice cream shop here?

So theologically speaking, if the Lord leads us here, that's the main reason. Position is something that's been near and dear to my heart.

I love biblical counseling, it's kind of been my bread and butter ministry -wise for a long time. And so a position like this is kind of right up my alley.

From an ice cream perspective, that would be awesome. I don't know if I'd be able to rope my founder into doing that.

He's Florida -based, he's a Florida local boy. And he had a cousin convince him to open one in Mississippi, so.

You guys know locally we have that ice cream shop, Cone & Coffee, and they have sort of the unique ice cream blends that are custom -made, custom -designed.

That's what his ice cream shop is like. We just don't make it in -house. So we're a step lower.

So you oversee three shops, how many shops total in the business that you are part of? Oh, so I think it's 16 ice cream shops across Florida right now.

The gentleman who started it goes to our church. He's one of our seminary students, expositors as well, which is how

I got connected to it. So yeah, 16 across the state of Florida, plus Mississippi.

And then we're about as far west, I think we're in Universal out in California with Popsicles, we also have a small

Popsicle business as well, small, it does more Popsicles than we do ice cream. You're pretty skinny for a guy that has access to three ice cream shops.

Sanctification happens. Tremendous self -control. Any other questions?

Paul. Landon can't get over this, there's somebody who would move to North Idaho from a warm part of the country, he's gonna lie awake at night thinking about that, aren't you?

This must be something mentally ill with this guy. I actually like cold weather. Can you repeat that question?

I don't even know what he asked. Do I agree that Tom Bombadil is the most foundational character in Lord of the

Rings? This deep, this deep, yeah.

Okay. I would say from an in -universe perspective, yes -ish?

From an outside of the universe perspective, no. That's kind of a weird answer,

I know, sorry. But I was told to stay this deep. All right, yes,

Joe. If you were to accept the position and move up here, what challenges would be most pressing for you and your family?

That's a really good question. So far, I haven't met anyone I don't like. So that's a good question.

You haven't met Thomas yet, I told you I've been trying. Okay, I'll keep that on hold. Yeah, transitions for us, they're not rough, but we're a little slow sometimes in acclimating to things, but we acclimate, we get acclimated and we begin to fit in wherever the

Lord places us. I mean, Southern California to Florida, from a cultural perspective, is quite the shift.

Took us a little while to kind of shift into thinking like a Floridian and living like Floridians, but once we get there, we get there.

Takes a couple years sometimes, or just a little bit of time. We love people, and so getting to know people is pretty easy, but yeah, cultural shifts are never easy one way or another.

I think it would kind of be almost like coming home for Jessica, just because she grew up in Salem, Oregon, and so there's kind of that Northwest kind of mentality and feel that she grew up with.

Bria might have the bigger time, but then again, Bria's just excited to be a part of life, and so she'll make a friend anywhere, with anybody, at any time, for whatever reason, just because.

I'm surprised she didn't make any friends in the airport, but then we didn't see a whole lot of little kids running around, because she has done that in the past, just running around in the airport waiting for a flight, and she makes a friend.

Yeah, the biggest challenges, typically, are the cultural side of things. Human beings and shifting from one culture to another is always a little difficult, but we're pretty...

I would guess moving from California to Florida is gonna be more of a cultural shift than moving from Florida to North Idaho.

Yeah, we actually kind of like the cold weather, believe it or not. I grew up in Virginia, and so hunting, fishing, things like that happened in cold weather.

A lot of freezing mornings, waiting for the sunshine to come warm you up, sitting in a tree stand, and then you're in the only shadow in a 30 -foot radius.

Yeah, a lot of memories of that. Yeah, Joe. What temperature do you define as cold?

So, I walked out barefoot this morning, if that tells you anything, on cold concrete.

I don't know what the temperature was this morning. I don't know,

I mean, just from a Florida mindset standpoint, I would say in the 30s is cold, but at the same time, cultural definitions.

So that's not cold for here. Growing up in Virginia, cold was anything below 20 degrees.

Hunting was typically in the teens or lower than that. I remember hunting in freezing cold rain that was sub -zero.

How that turned into rain, only Virginia can figure that out. So yeah, anything less than 70 degrees for a

Floridian, a true Floridian is frigid weather. So yeah, it's kind of a squirrely answer.

Yes, Emily. So my wife and daughter like playing board games.

I'm not a board game person, but I'll play because we get to do things together. So there's some card games we enjoy playing together as well.

I don't do games very well. I can dominate at Monopoly if I'm patient enough for it, but I'm not very good at board games.

They love playing board games. I can't figure out why, but I'll play with them. Bria enjoys playing like Lego video games, and so she's been recently roping my wife and I back into playing some of those, and those were some of our favorite pastimes when we first got married was like Lego video games together and then we read a lot of books together as well.

Outdoor stuff, hiking. Yeah, Florida is hard. My wife is a bug magnet.

So any bugs within about a 5 ,600 mile radius will find her, which is great for me because they just avoid me at that point, go straight for her, but getting outside.

We've done a lot of hiking before in Southern California where there really aren't bugs, but we enjoy a good walk, a good hike, and things like that.

One more question before we're done? Simon. She's smarter than I am.

No, seriously, from an administrative perspective, she keeps our life on track. My ability to organize my own calendar is clumsy, to say the best

I've had to learn over the last five or six years, managing a kitchen at Chick -fil -A before ice cream, and then managing ice cream shops.

I've had to learn how to get more organized from an administrative perspective, but my wife is much more gifted at that than I am.

The research she's able to do on home remedies and homeschool things and just keeping our life calendared and organized is phenomenal.

And then someone like me who leaves my socks on the floor consistently, I need that.

Good. All right, let's close in prayer and then we'll be done. Our time is up. Our Father, we are grateful for this morning, the time that we can have here, the laughs that we can enjoy, the fellowship.

We're grateful for how you, by your providence, lead and guide us for the work that you've done in Joel and Jessica's life and educating him, equipping him and calling him to ministry.

Pray that you would guide his steps from here on out and encourage him and strengthen him as he looks for ways in which he can serve you.

We pray that you would be honored and glorified through how you might use him here or anywhere that you put him. We're thankful for this church and our opportunity to gather together for worship and for the heart of the people who are here that love biblical counseling and truth.

And we pray that you'd be glorified through that as we pursue you this morning and into this week ahead.