Episode 123: The Bluegrass Baptist

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. What's the weather like right now in Kentucky?

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Man, we felt like we might need to build an ark, which I know we got one in northern Kentucky, but it's been raining nonstop.

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It's kind of funny. Every day, we've got rain. You're the one state that actually has an ark.

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That's right. Run over there and get in. No, it's been a crazy spring -slash -early summer now.

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By the time this comes out, it'll be officially summer. A lot of rain over here in Arkansas, too. Welcome to the

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Rural Church Podcast. I am your host, Allen Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas, central

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Arkansas. And with me is Joseph Allen. Brother, tell me what your position is and where you're at now.

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So, I am the pastor at Grace Community Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky.

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Is that solo pastor, or is it? Yes, yes, solo pastor at the moment. Yeah, good deal.

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So, tell me the church name again. Grace Community Baptist Church. So, it's like John MacArthur, Grace Community.

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Then you're going to throw the Baptist something in, right? Yeah, amen. Well, you and I met, let's see, it's 2025.

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What year did we meet? Was it two years ago, or was it longer? It was 2022, so it's been three or more years ago.

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Yeah, okay, three years ago. Roughly. I preached at your church two years ago, and when you're a pastor,

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I preach. Okay, great. Well, I've gotten to know you, brother. Grateful for you, grateful.

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I was just kind of saying that tongue -in -cheek, but really I'm sad to have you leave Arkansas, but excited for you to be back in Danville, Kentucky, because is that where you grew up, or it's close to where you grew up?

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Yeah, it's where I grew up. You know, this is an old stomping grounds. My wife also, we met in Danville when

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I was ministering at a church in Danville for a little while early, early on in my ministry.

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So it's definitely home for us. Amen. So let's talk several things

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I want to mention as we talk about that. I'm in a similar situation. I am in my hometown, and so I graduated here in 04, and then we moved back in 2016, and I have pastored here since then.

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So how long have you been now the pastor at Grace Community Church?

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Is it a month, or is it? Roughly, yeah. Technically, I started, well, technically

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June 1st. The first Sunday of June would have been my first Sunday preaching. I was here the Sunday before that.

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We had a guest preacher, the Ascending Church pastor actually preached for us, but I had just got in from moving.

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I got in at like 4 a .m., got up, came to church, so I wasn't preaching that day. So I was here, but I wasn't.

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Yeah, I hear you. So we're recording this on June 18th, so this is really fresh.

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A little less than a month, yeah, really fresh, yeah. Amen, that's great. So you don't really know maybe yet, but what do you anticipate it will be like being in your hometown?

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What do you feel like the advantages and disadvantages are? So, I mean,

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I think the advantage is there's a familiarity there that, you know, the church that I've come to,

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I've been familiar with the church ever since its inception, and really,

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I mean, it's technically right now a church plant still. We plan to organize here in the next month or two in conjunction with the

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Ascending Church, but familiarity, me being here, you know,

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I've got family here, friends here, a lot of them in the church. There are some that I'm not as connected to, don't have as much history with, which is good, too.

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So there's the advantage of knowing the area, knowing locations, knowing people. Even a lot of people that I grew up with and went to school with, that, you know, it could be gospel ministry opportunities to reach them.

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You know, there's a lot of opportunity there. Disadvantages, they know me from when

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I was really young at Honoree, and so I kind of have to curb that a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

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I can see that. I think it's similar here. You know, when I got here, you know, they say that it takes five to seven years before you really become a church's pastor, and I would argue that that can be accelerated a little bit if you're in a place that you already know and they already know you.

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So I definitely think that that can be an advantage, and you kind of know, not that this is happening in your church, but you kind of know the family ties and the pros and cons with that.

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You kind of know who's related to who, you know. It's just I've been in a situation before where, well, this is the third church

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I pastored and hopefully the last. But in two previous situations and in a couple of places with being a youth pastor, you know, just it takes so long to really get to know people, you know.

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And so I think that that can be that can be an advantage. Well, tell me, tell me.

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First, Joseph, just a big kind of theological question. What?

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Why? Why do you love the church? And then I want to talk and then I want to talk about specifically

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Grace Community Baptist Church. But first, just give me this is the rural church podcast. We love the local church.

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Give me your your appeal here as a pastor on why we should love the church and why you love the church.

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You talk about the church in general. I'll talk about just local churches in general. And then yeah, then

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I have some specific questions about your church. But why do you why do you why should we love just the church?

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Well, man, I love the church because Jesus loves the church. I mean, he bled and died for the church. And, you know, he's he's ordained at the local church, you know, his institution, his body, where his glory just shines forth as we as the church is faithful to the word of God, the gospel.

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And, you know, I love the gospel of the people of God. And I mean, she is his bride.

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And I just I love the people. I love love what God does in the church and how we're a community of the redeemed, who he has shed his blood for, saved us by his grace and brought us together, you know, in local local congregations.

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So I guess that kind of sums up theologically, you know, where I love the church. Amen. Yeah.

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All right. So some questions about Grace Community Baptist Church. First question. This came up yesterday, not about your church, but I was talking to a brother,

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Randall Chronister. Yeah, and Randall Chronister and I were having conversations just about, you know, churches and church planning and all that kind of stuff.

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And it's interesting that sometimes when we plant a church, we're afraid to put

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Baptist in the name, you know, because I can understand like we don't want to be like, well, we're just, you know, there's kind of two extremes.

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There's and I'm not talking about this side. There's the one side that would, you know, call themselves like, you know, new community, best church, not your grandma's church, you know, whatever.

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But then there's the other side. It's like, well, we're going to be a Baptist church, but we don't want to put Baptist in our name.

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We don't want the, we're not the stereotypical, you know, dry Baptist, whatever.

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So just tell me why I'm in favor of it, by the way. You're putting Baptist in your name and because we changed our church name, uh, and two years ago and we put back, we kept

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Baptist. So I'm in favor of it. I want to just want to hear, of course you came into the plant, but what's your position on, on having

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Baptist in your church name? I mean, I prefer to have Baptist in the church name. I understand there are some churches that we don't have

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Baptist in the name that their docs are in line with what we are as Baptist. I get that. Um, but you know, historically in our heritage,

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I'm not at all ashamed of the title Baptist. Um, I think it's biblical. I think it's sound and, um, it reflects really who we are.

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And I know within even the Baptist name, there's different shades, you know, we got different variations of Baptist.

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And so I think a doctoral statement really describes who the church really is. Um, but, um, you know,

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I'm, I'm a hundred percent in favor of having Baptist on my name. I believe it should be. I have a friend.

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Um, well, maybe it's too strong a word to call him a friend from my perspective.

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He is a friend, a godly brother, loving, but he, he, uh, we're, we don't know each other that well, but we do know each other is his name is

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John Snyder. He pastors in new Albany, Mississippi, and his church is, uh, you may know him from like behold your

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God, but he's, uh, his church is Christ church, new Albany. Yeah. And I love that name.

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And, and I have no, no qualms with that at all. I just know that in, in the, in the days that we live, uh, for me anyway, sometimes it's helpful to just go ahead and put up front, like this is who we are, you know?

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And I think, I just think that's, that's helpful from, you know, we're not ashamed of being

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Baptist, but, and it just kind of puts, puts that out there, but I don't have problems with people, you know, not using

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Baptist in their name, but, um, for us, it was important, you know? So I like to hear that.

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So you talked about different shades of Baptist. So that's, that's gonna lead me to this question. So what shade of Baptist is grace community

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Baptist church? You guys, are you denominational in the sense? Like, do you, are you affiliated with any, anybody,

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SBC, BMA, that kind of stuff, or, or, or where are you guys at with that? So grace is, uh, they're unaffiliated.

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So we're not part of, you know, any kind of association or, or convention. Um, you know, the, the church is kind of backed up a little bit of the history of how the church started.

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Um, the church is grounded in what we would call the doctrines of grace. And, um, so that understanding of soteriology, you know, is key in who we would identify as.

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Um, I mean, as far as titles or names, you know, I, I obviously lean more towards a reformed

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Baptist understanding as far as doctrine. Um, but we would be a historic

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Baptist church in the sense of, um, the doctrines of grace. And, uh, so we don't, we don't have a, a ironed out confession yet.

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That's part of what's coming, you know, as far as like how we're going to identify ourselves and what's going to be a good one, the doctrine defines us.

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Yeah. Yeah. I do too, brother. It's on your coffee mug.

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Yeah. Oh yeah. That's right. That's right. Um, so yeah, that's good, brother.

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Um, I think that there are some folks, even within our circles.

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That and, and labels, whatever, you know, I'm not going to necessarily be married to a label, but, but reformed

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Baptist particular Baptist, it, it just lays out there who you are and well, how about say this when you say, cause, cause

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I do have some thoughts on what I, what I mean, let me just ask you when you say reformed Baptist. So what do you mean by that?

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Because you are talking about soteriology, the doctrines of grace that, um, you know,

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God has chosen a people before the foundation of the world, given them to Christ.

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Um, the Holy spirit has guaranteed to apply

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Christ's redemption in time. So there's trying council, a covenant of redemption. This is applied in time and God saves his elect.

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And, you know, we, we, we preach a well -meant offer of the gospel here. So we preach the gospel to all sinners and plead with them to come to Christ.

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But at the same time, Jonah two, nine, we know salvation is of the Lord. So soteriologically that is going to be, um, in line with, with a lot of guys who call themselves

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Baptist or sovereign grace Baptist or whatever doctrines of grace, but, but would, what would you say is the, is there a different,

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I mean, I do have some differences, so I'll mention about what I mean with reformed Baptist in just a minute, but I'm just kind of throwing that out there to you.

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Like when you say reformed Baptist, is that only dealing with soteriology or do you have other things in mind?

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So I think it ties into more than just the soteriology. Um, I think it also ties into having more of a covenantal understanding of how

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God has worked redemption. Um, in contrast to say dispensationalism, um, there's a lot of sovereign grace

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Baptist that are dispensational and good brothers of level. Um, but you know,

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I don't necessarily see that as a reformed view. Um, maybe I'm wrong there, you know?

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Um, but you know, Calvinism, one to one, you know, con covenantal structure, um, confessional to a degree.

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I know some, some are probably more hardline confessional than others. Um, I wouldn't be rigid to a confession, but I, I think confessions are needed for the church.

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Um, both for church history and understanding, you know, how doctrines develop, uh, but also for a guide to help the church, you know, in, um, in understanding doctrine today.

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And, um, those three aspects are part of the core. What I would kind of categorize as reformed

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Baptist, which I know, um, some vary in some degree, you know, as far as how far they want to go with that.

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So that's kind of a brief view of my take on that. Yeah, that's good. You know, tomorrow by the time people listen to this, it'll be last week, but.

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From our, from real time tomorrow is John MacArthur's birthday. And the reason

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I know that it's not cause I'm a fan boy. I'm very grateful for him. But the reason I know that is because he and Spurgeon share the same birthday,

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June 19th. I didn't know that. That's different years. Did you know that? Okay.

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But, uh, I have been influenced and encouraged.

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And, uh, by John MacArthur. Um, I, you know, our nation,

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I believe would be better if we had a thousand more John MacArthur's and John MacArthur has taught me a lot over the years, you know, especially early on about the doctrines of grace, you know, but like you distinguish,

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I appreciate the distinction there. You know, we wouldn't, some people would erroneously say, well, he believes in reformed theology.

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Well, he believes in reform soteriology. And, and so we're grateful for that.

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And I'm, and by the way, I don't, I don't know how you feel. I, I, I kind of cast a wide net on brothers that I'm friends with and that I want to partner with and that I'll preach in their church or they can preach in our church, like I'm not drawing a hard line on, on that.

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You know, as far as like, now there might be certain things like we're going to plant a church. Well, I might have to draw that line a little bit.

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You know, that circle a little narrower. Um, but as far as like gospel ministry and preaching and evangelism, like I think we should have a wide group of friends and, uh,

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I know sometimes, I don't know, I think sometimes I have the reputation of just like, you know, not, but it's just not true.

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You know, I, these, um, folks that have different views are, are, are welcome to, you know, fellowship.

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I, I love that. But when we talk about a reformed Baptist, I love, you know, what's your, your, the road you're going there.

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Cause I would say that it, it, um, it, it, it affects your soteriology.

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It affects your eschatology. Now I'm not saying that you have to be all meal, but, uh, or, but I would say dispensational pre -millennialism is going to be just going to be outside of that camp.

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Um, and then that's why the 1689 doesn't address, you know, eschatology in the sense of you have to be pre meal, all meal, post meal, but you certainly, you certainly couldn't be dispensational.

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Right. Um, and then of course, the most important thing, well, not the most important thing, but a big area to mention is also it affects your, uh, your, your ecclesiology.

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Yeah. You know, your view of the church. And I don't know what, you know, you guys are a plant, you guys are figuring things out and, and you, you know, you hadn't even been pastor there a month.

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So some of these questions might be kind of unfair, but like, like, um, or just this discussion, but, but we, we believe in the regulative principle, you know, of worship.

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We like the word of God. That's not stifling the spirit. We just believe the Holy spirit has given us instruction on, on how to worship

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God. We believe in, in regenerate church membership, but that's, I know all Baptists do, but that's, we believe it's practical in the sense of, of, you know, our, our, our,

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I'm not saying close the front door, but guarding the front door on who we let in. And then also having a, um, a back door that is not shut, but willing to open and let people out, dismiss people from the church and church discipline.

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So all of that, you know, all of that is affected. So yeah, we're, we're reformed Baptist here. We're not trying to be, uh, we're not trying to be like niche or whatever, but we're just kind of like,

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I think it's helpful to just say upfront, this is who we are. Sure. Reformed Baptist. I don't know. I'm kind of rambling now, brother.

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You got any thoughts, comments about any of that? No, I agree. I mean, the principles you laid out there,

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I think they're just biblical, you know, man, that's, that's really the aim is just to be biblical.

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Whether somebody tells that reform or whatever, I lean towards that as being biblical and, um, that's our goal.

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You know, we want to be as true to the scriptures in every aspect of what the church is and does. Yeah. And you're going to get a label.

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You know, I understand that people try to not get labels and I agree, you know,

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I mean, I think if Calvin walked in and we were talking about Calvinism, well, first of all, if Calvin walked in, he'd probably be wanting to execute us as Baptist, but second, you know, he's going to be, he's much, he's much more chill now that he's in heaven, right?

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That's right. But secondarily, I think you would be disgusted that people use the label

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Calvinism. Um, but you're going to get labeled. Our church is labeled.

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Your church is labeled. So, so my argument is if you're going to get labeled, why don't you just go ahead and for us set that label out there of who you are and you explain it.

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So on our website, you know, we're Reformed Baptist Church, but then we also to say, this is what we mean by it.

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Right. Yeah. So talk to me about, uh, your, your vision.

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I know you're, you're only been there a few weeks, but do you have a vision for evangelism there in Danville?

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And what, what do you, what do you hope that that, how do you hope that takes shape?

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You know, what, what does that look like for you personally, as a pastor and then leading your church? How big is

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Danville? So Danville is, I mean, I don't know the population.

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You know, I mean, I can kind of contrast it. It's probably close to the side of Van Buren. If you're, you know, you know, you kind of have an idea of where being here is like,

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I can say, Oh, big city. Yeah, it's not Fort Smith big, but it's, but it's probably about Van Buren size.

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Maybe in between. I'm not sure. So you're almost ineligible to be on the rural church podcast.

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No, we're kind of on the, we're on the outskirts of Danville. So I'm staring through a window, looking at a golf course across the street and we're, uh, we're kind of out on the outskirts.

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No, no, that's good. So, so what, so what, what do you, you have plans, anything or, you know, future, what, what does it look like for evangelism?

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Absolutely. I mean, obviously the key to that is teaching your people to be evangelistic.

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And so I want to be able to teach our church what it means to be one evangelistic would have healthy evangelism, you know, understanding the gospel, being mindful of taking the gospel with them as they go about their days, you know, as they go throughout their life and, um, but also outside of that, doing things in our community, you know, to try to reach people and bring them into the church and just share

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Christ. Really. And, um, so yeah, there's, there's a lot of things. I don't know. The church is very evangelistic.

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They enjoy doing things in the community and, you know, getting the church name out there, but also, you know, making sure we're putting

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Christ out there. Um, they're good about trying to get people to come to church with them already.

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And, um, you've got several people come as visitors and, um, some of them, I know that don't know

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Christ, but they're coming in here in the gospel, you know, week after week. And so, uh, you know, our, our plan is to be as evangelistic as we possibly can in our community, but also just helping people understand the need for, um, in their day -to -day life and taking the gospel with them as they go.

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So, uh, there's growth growth needed there, but they already kind of have a little bit of a concept of it.

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Yeah. So what, you know, and I, you love the people at Lee Creek.

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I love the people at Lee Creek. I've had the honor and privilege of preaching from that pulpit several times, and even, even a few times while you were, you were pastoring there, what, so what is there anything that you've learned now, now this is your second pastor.

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So what kind of counsel might you give? I mean, if young guys out there, I mean, anything that you've just learned as you, you go from one church to another, and you can get into that, if you want, if you want to talk about that,

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I mean, look at the end. I think both of us probably have this same view and that is, we want to be at the church forever, but there is a reality sometimes and God's providence and unexpected at times.

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He moves things around and, and then your, your move, you know? And so, um, so you've moved from Arkansas to Kentucky, but now it's your beginning, this like, are, are, are there lessons learned?

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Are there, you know, is there any kind of, it could be positive, negative, anything that you want to share?

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Uh, just about like, okay, now you're starting the pastorate here. It's your second pastorate.

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Are there specific focuses that you have now, now that you're, not that you were immature when you started

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Lee Creek, but now you are more mature because every year we grow in maturity. So anything you've learned now that you'd, you'd want to share or encourage pastors out there?

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Well, I mean, one thing that I've learned and continue to learn, obviously is, is that God is sovereign over everything.

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Literally, his providence reigns. And, you know, kind of like you said, I had it in my mind that I was going to just stay

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Lee Creek forever, you know, however long the Lord wanted me there. I was looking at that church as a long -term pastor position, uh, for me and my family, good loving people.

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The church is, you know, doctrinally grounded and there's a lot of liberty there to serve.

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Um, not a lot of, you know, traditional restraints that would hinder you like silly things.

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You know, I've experienced that in the past. Um, so we, we planned to stay there for a long time.

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Um, and like I said, providence changed that, you know, some unexpected things, even very sad things happened on this end back home, um, that led to us, you know, the, the church leading to call us and, you know,

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I've told others that at first that idea wasn't really open to it because I was settled with Lee Creek. But, uh, only

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I can bring that down to is that the Lord has changed my heart and my wife's heart. We prayed over it and we just knew, you know, he was going to move us back here home.

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So as far as learning, I think trusting, trusting God's providence, both in location, but also in how he governs in the church and the fruit that's

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You know, um, I had a little, I had a large IFB influence in my past where they really push results as in, like, it's on you to make results happen.

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And it's true that God uses us in the labor, but the results really are his and, uh, just seeing him work at Lee Creek for the way he did.

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And I know that he'll work here, you know, in his providence, his sovereignty as he uses his word to draw centers, but also just grow the people, you know, grow the saints that are there.

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Um, I've learned step -by -step to trust his providence and in the details, not just in the big things that we sometimes say, well,

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God sovereign over this and that he's intimate in the details of our life. And, um, that includes ministry that includes even the challenges that you might face in ministry.

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You know, the kind of people you interact with in ministry, the outside things of the culture of ministry, you know,

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God's developing his service. And, um, that's one thing I've learned is that I've, I've not arrived.

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I get to continue growing and trusting the Lord each step of the way. Yeah. Amen. So I want to,

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I'm going to circle back to the IFB thing because we have in just a moment, because we have a mutual friend,

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Nick white, who's been on the podcast. Yeah. And so, uh, great brother. So I'll talk to you about something about that in just a minute.

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So I'm saying that to remind myself, but let me ask you this. What, what, what, what are you preaching through right now?

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So I've not started a book yet. I'm going to start that soon. I've been preaching some subject focus, gospel centered messages.

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Um, just kind of getting my feet wet and getting the people used to me, but, uh, expositional preaching is what, you know, that's my conviction.

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And so we'll be probably getting into a book pretty soon. Um, been leaning towards the book of Titus, you know, church.

27:48

Oh, that's great. Yeah. Amen. Thank you. It might be fitting for the season and this, the state of the church right now.

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Um, so that that's coming pretty soon. Um, but as far as preaching, that's, that's where I've been.

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Have you read Nate piglets? I mean, he didn't write it, but he's the editor wrote part of it.

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Dear Titus. I haven't actually, I actually just Googled that book a couple of days ago because it caught my eye and, um,

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I'm thinking about Oregon. You should. So I, I, uh, I actually endorsed it.

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Um, they asked me to read it and endorse it. And I was very honored to do that.

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And, and then, so number one, I was honored to be asked, but then as I read it, I was like, I was so edified by the book.

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I mean, it's, it's geared towards church planners and it's kind of, it's not really like a commentary on Titus, whatever.

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It's like, you know, geared towards church planners. But I think what I wrote, my endorsement is like anybody in the ministry be encouraged by it.

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So it was, it was, it's some, it's some encouraging stuff there, but yeah,

28:52

I think, I think Todd is great. So what's your service structure look like? Do you guys, well, what's your, what does, what does a

28:58

Sunday look like it at your church? So we, we open service with a reading of pastor scripture, um, to open it up.

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And then we have prayer. Um, and then we do some congregational singing. Um, there'll be a time in there where I'll step forward and we'll do some announcements, just some stuff like that.

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But we'll also take prayer requests from people in the church, um, things that are, you know, pertinent on people's hearts and minds they want to bring forward.

29:25

And so we do that. It usually lasts about, I don't know, three, three to five minutes of prayer requests. And then we pray again.

29:32

Um, but we have, we have congregational singing, a couple of congregational songs after that. Uh, there typically is a fellowship handshake, you know, type, type deal with music playing.

29:45

Um, we have a choir that will sing a special and then after that it's preaching. And then at the end we have a closing song.

29:52

Yeah. I asked that poorly. What I meant was, that's what I mean was like, do y 'all do one service on Sunday or do y 'all have a, yeah, that's all right.

29:59

You got to get more order of service. Yeah. That's a, yeah. Sorry. You said you got like Sunday school, Sunday morning,

30:05

Sunday night, or just one service or we have, we have Sunday school and then we have Sunday morning. We don't have an evening service, but we get

30:11

Wednesday, Wednesday night. Okay. Yeah. So, so right now your, your preps, you have a

30:17

Sunday morning, do you do it? Do you teach any in Sunday school? Not, not currently now. So you're preaching Sunday morning.

30:23

Do you do any, do you teach Wednesday night too? Yes. Okay. So that's, that's still pretty busy.

30:28

A couple of, uh, a couple of preps and then just, you know, getting on the, on the ground there. So, yeah.

30:34

What, what, what are you doing in Bible study right now? And, uh,

30:41

I don't have a series or anything. Yeah. I'm just preaching some basic messages, subject focus messages.

30:48

Yeah. We're going to have to circle back maybe like in a year and be like, okay, you've been there a year.

30:54

So how things going? No, that's great brother. So let's circle back around to our mutual friend, Nick White.

31:00

Um, I don't have any questions about him, but I know on his, when, when I talked to him, he shared very similar, what you shared about the

31:09

IFB mindset, just you've got to, and then his journey into the doctrine of grace and then how that was costly, you know, for him.

31:20

And so I just wanted to ask you when you move from this IFB, well,

31:27

I'm not trying to say all IFB are man -centered, but I'm just going to just generally you move from a man -centered sort of soteriology.

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I've got to produce results to a biblical soteriology, the doctrine of grace.

31:41

Was that costly for you in terms of relationships or? And that's going to be a wrap today.

31:47

You're going to tune back in to hear Joseph's answer to this question that'll air in a couple of weeks.

31:53

And in that episode, we actually get into, uh, his move to the doctrines of grace and, um, his journey there, how that affected him and I share some of my journey as well.

32:04

And so tune back in for part two of this episode. I think it's going to air in two weeks. Thank you guys for joining us.

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This time on the Rural Church Podcast, God bless. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.