Episode 136: When Revitalization Takes a New Direction

to the Ruled Church podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom 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?

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.

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

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

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

Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Well, I'm just glad that the government shutdown has ended and the internet has returned back to the great state of Arkansas, and I can have another episode of the

Ruled Church podcast. Welcome to the Ruled Church podcast. I am your host,

Alan Nelson. I am one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas, and we have the great privilege today of Brother Jason Gunter.

And you know what? I cannot remember, you're in Missouri. What's the town in Missouri? West Plains.

West Plains, West Plains, Missouri. The one and only, at least the only

Jason Gunter that I know of has joined us today on the Ruled Church podcast. I was trying to think, did we meet through, did we meet through Richard Gamble?

Is that how we met originally? Okay. I was thinking about that just the other day. He took me to Clinton, to a conference, a

Bible conference that you were doing there, was my first introduction to you, and that's been 10 years ago, maybe?

Was that the one, was Jeff Johnson at that one? Jeff Johnson, I think Jim Ellis, maybe?

Yeah, okay. That was 2015, so that's good. So Jason and I have known, have met, you know, known each other a little over, well, over 10 years now, so it's great.

And finally, what a friend I am. I've known you over 10 years, and this is the first time that you have come on the

Ruled Church. Is that on me or is that on you? I don't know. I think we can both take,

I think we can both take some credit for that, maybe. Yeah, well, why don't, let's just start this way before we get into anything with the church.

This episode, I don't even know what the title's gonna be, but I'm sure the title and description will tell you that Jason is gonna talk about some difficult situations that he's had to deal with in ministry, and then this will be a two -part episode

Lord willing, next episode, talk about some beautiful things the Lord's doing. But why don't we start out right now just talking about who is

Jason Gunner? Just give us a couple of minutes of who you are, your family, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Jason Gunner now is a pastor of a little church plant here in West Plains, but it's been a long road to get here in a lot of ways.

I grew up in the kind of independent fundamental Baptist circles, was baptized at age four.

And then when I was 14, God saved me and it was really hard to get baptized because I couldn't convince anybody that I'd been saved.

So it took some explaining of what the Lord had done in my heart and meeting with pastors and even my parents,

God bless them. They've done so much to point me to Christ. And it was just a kind of a strange, but eye -opening and neat experience that whenever I was saved to have all these conversations anyway.

So baptized, saved at 14, did a lot of, that was in South Arkansas, did a lot of moving around since then.

When I was about maybe 14, 15, shortly after that, we'd started moving around a lot.

And so from age 14, 15 to, all the way through high school graduation,

I never was again a member in a local church after we'd left the church that I was saved at.

And so a lot of, just a lot of compromising took place. As a young Christian, an immature

Christian, trying, moving to schools, big schools, trying to make friends.

And so I got, I think in a stage of just being backslid for a time.

And then the day after I graduated high school, my mother and father moved back to Springfield, Missouri.

And I was just like, I'm not moving again. This is the third or fourth time in five years. So I stayed there, went to college at Western Kentucky University for a little while, but ended up working at a bar.

And don't know why I thought that would be a good idea, but I did.

And so 10 years, man, I spent flipping bottles in a bar in a very afflicted and conflicted state as a

Christian who was not living Christian life in the way that I knew

I should. But in that time, I met a cocktail waitress that has now been my wife for 16 years.

That God is also, that God has also saved. You know, we got married.

I had to chase her down to Arkansas. But after we had been married and moved away from Springfield, we got into a church together and had some people put their arms around us and really start to disciple us.

You know, they cared for us, they loved us. She realized, you know, that she wasn't saved in this time.

God had brought her in the conviction of the word as we were studying the Bible. And so I don't remember exactly what year that was, but the

Lord saves her. And I ended up being able to baptize my wife and my oldest daughter.

Subsequently later on at the, whenever she realized, you know, hey, it's time for you to be baptized.

My oldest daughter was 10 at that time and the Lord had just saved her. So even in that regard of running,

I don't know, running in the wrong direction for a long time, you know, being out of the church, away from the discipline of church, away from, you know, the responsibilities of a covenant and the accountability of brothers and sisters.

And I got some scars from that, certainly, but the Lord has even used that. I met my wife there and was able to see her saved.

And so as we kind of coming out of that stage of being seriously discipled, seriously in the local church is when the

Lord started then calling me towards pastoral ministry. And that's been probably about the time that we met.

That was around the time the Lord was really working in my life in that way.

Very confusing. You know, you have every argument in the world for why you have no business, you know, being anything like a pastor or a

Bible teacher. You know, you're just, or at least I was just content to just sit, you know, in the back pew and be a part of a church and worship the

Lord, you know, and spirit and truth. But there was a, you know, the hound of heaven comes and I think,

I don't know if I reached out to Richard maybe. I don't know how exactly that took place, but just looking for counsel.

And yeah, so I think that was about the time he said, why don't you come to this conference with me? And so we went up to Clinton together.

But probably within a year or two after that, we had moved up to Springfield. I'd taken a job with the city of Republic and I got a part -time ministry position at Old Baptist Church in Springfield.

I was there for a couple of years as a youth pastor and then ended up going to serve with Richard down in Louisiana for a couple of years as a family pastor.

And then from there, went up to Lake Ozark and was a pastor over life groups and youth ministry, a lot like a family pastor there.

And in those years really grew enough to know that I didn't know anything about being a pastor the way that I thought that I did.

But I feel like, you know, I spent this time of my life, 10 years maybe, of just being backslidden, you know,

I'd be back in church and repent. And then within, you know, it seems like maybe a month or so I'd be back to my old ways.

And so then there's like this other 10 years, I felt like God just really put me in this crash course of ministry, of afflictions and hardships, certainly bright moments too, but maybe to, you know, to make up for lost time.

I don't know, but it seemed like everything that I learned in my ministry in the first, you know, 10 years,

I've learned the hard way. And I feel like I learned more of what not to do than what to do kind of in the beginning stages.

And so we've gone through, you know, a few churches, few different posts, a few different moves and just relocations.

From the lake, we came down to Willow Springs, Missouri, which is the church we were, that we left out of before we planted here in West Plains.

But along the way, you know, I've made some great relationships, spent some time in seminary, you know, with Jeff Johnson down in Conway and taking some classes in some few other places.

But by and large, I've just been, I've read books, a lot of books, and I've been blessed to have men in my life who would offer, you know, correction, offer help, offer resources, offer teaching.

And so hopefully now I think maybe the Lord has shaped me into a pastor, maybe a real one.

Yeah, well, no, thanks for that. What, so just getting into this, listen to your story, your first, as far as like lead pastor or whatever,

I don't, you know, I don't love that terminology. I know we don't have that terminology in the scriptures, but your first, like, where you are the pastor was this previous church?

Right, yeah, First Baptist Church there in Willow Springs. First Baptist Church, Willow Springs.

And what, are they a Southern Baptist church? Yeah, they are. They, as far as I know, they still are, but yeah, the

Southern Baptist Church. I don't know, well,

I know that there wasn't really any active involvement outside of, you know,

Lottie Moon offerings and then those kinds of things. No messengers were being sent to the convention or anything like that until I'd gotten there.

Okay, so let's talk about that. And yeah, let's talk about First Baptist Church, Willow Springs.

What, how'd you get there? And what did that look like?

Just, you know, start out day one. It was an unmistakable, you know, providence of the

Lord, like this is where we need to be. And we were at Lake Ozark.

I was, just knew that my time was drawing near there for different reasons.

Of course, this is like, you know, 2020, 2021. So the Lord sends, you know, COVID and the church is being purged and sifted.

And so the, where I was serving there, there were some things that being brought to light that I certainly didn't agree with.

And I think brothers didn't agree with me about. And I felt like I was in one of those positions, like there's either going to have to be a compromise here or we're going to have to go.

That's pretty much the conversation I had with my wife. And of course she's like, why can't you just keep a job?

So why can't you? But anyway, so we're praying and really just seeking the

Lord. I remember spending, you know, hours on the phone with Pastor Rob Davis from Cabot, him and his wife talking to Ashley Jo and myself, like, what do we do?

How do we handle this and just seeking counsel? And I had talked to a few different churches.

I had a church in California reach out to me, which was, you know, when you're in a moment like that and the church out of the blue calls, you think, whoa, this must be, you know, something from the

Lord and had some interviews. There's a little reformed Baptist church. Of course, my wife's like, you'll be in prison in two weeks if we go to California.

Like we could just skip that. We could just go check you into the, you know, to the jail. But then there was another church in Utah.

I don't remember how exactly I got in touch with them, but that went really far. And it got to the point where they called and offered me the position, you know, here's, hey brother, we want to send, bring you and your wife out here.

We really think God's calling you. I think I remember that. I think that you had shared that with me and I was praying because what you're about to say, if I'm remembering correctly, is then you had this other one like kind of simultaneous, is that right?

Yeah, yeah. It was strange. I was actually in Conway and I don't remember what we were there for.

But when I got the call from Cedar City and I remember talking to that brother and I told him,

I said, you know, my heart should just be leaping right now, brother. It's not. And I don't know, I don't know what that means.

You know, I don't know why. I said, can you give me just, you know, a couple of weeks to just seek the

Lord and pray and, you know, make sure this is the right, you know, the right thing. Cause this is, you know, big move for us, states over away from family.

My wife's pregnant at this time with our youngest. So it was, you know, there'd been a lot of hardship there, but you know, we were willing to go wherever the

Lord was calling, but I couldn't figure out, you know, like why I wasn't just, you know, jumping at this and really excited.

And within maybe a week, I'd gotten a call from one of the deacons at First Baptist Church.

I'd sent a resume in months before that, cause it was close to us.

It's near, you know, kind of like West Plains. It's kind of a hometown area for me. Willow Springs isn't far away at all.

And I have family around here. So it would have been geographically, you know, and just the size of the town, a familiarity with it.

There's a lot of reasons that I thought it could be a good fit. Anyway, he called and I was like, wow, yeah.

Okay, this is why I've got some hesitancy in my heart. So I ended up meeting with them,

I think within a few days in, you know, the interview, I met with the pastoral search team,

Ashley, Joe and I. And within, you know, maybe an hour, it was kind of determined like, hey, we feel like the

Lord's working here. This is where, you know, I think we should, I think we should come.

They felt the same way. And so they made calls that week to cancel the upcoming interviews they had for the candidates.

And I called Utah and said, hey, I think I've, I think I've realized what the Lord's calling me to.

I think he's sending me to this church here in Missouri. And they were, you know, gracious.

And of course, you know, when you're in that position and you're trying to call a pastor, the last thing you want is a pastor that's not called there.

So they're gracious to say, hey, brother, we want the Lord's will to be done.

And so, you know, if that's the place for you, then that's where you need to go. And so that would have been, actually,

I think we got to the parsonage July 4th 2021,

I think is when we moved to Willow Springs. Okay. So as you come into Willow Springs, what, where are you at?

Where are you at theologically on the reformed Baptist, at that point you were a reformed

Baptist, like confessional or just, yeah, yeah. And - Probably had six points to my

Calvinism by that point. Yeah, yeah. Did, was that an issue with the church?

No, actually that was, that was one of the biggest draws for me is they were looking for a reformed pastor.

Yeah. They wanted to go in the direction of reformed theology. And I was, you know, very, very excited about that.

You know, your reformed theology can get you into, you know, a lot of trouble, but it's something that, at least from my standpoint, that you can't, you can't avoid, you can't unsee.

And you certainly can't, you know, pastor with one arm behind your back, ignoring the truths of scripture, you know, preaching with,

I don't know, without trying to bring forth or trying to avoid, you know,

God's sovereignty over all things and salvation and the sufficiency, just all of the, so I knew if I was gonna pastor a church, it would have to be a reformed church or I wouldn't, you know,

I would just be causing problems. I wouldn't last, they wouldn't like me. And so that, no, that was one of the things

I was most, most excited about. I'd talked to the pastor there before me.

I'd reached out to him and, you know, pretty much said like, hey, is this, is this really the direction that they're wanting to go?

Or is it one of these situations where, you know, you've been teaching reformed theology and they just, they're just taking it, you know, they don't know exactly what it is, but they're seeing the scriptures, you know, so they're not fighting and, oh no, you know,

I've been teaching clearly on this for 10 or 12 years. And this is the direction that we want to go.

And so they were seeking, you know, reformed pastors, so from that standpoint, at that point, you know, that seemed just lovely.

Yeah, well, let me ask you what, so let's talk about the good times.

How long would you say that range of the good times were?

Until I moved out of the parsonage, we were there for, let's see, we had a couple really good years.

I'll put it this way. Whenever, you know, the rug started to be pulled out from under me,

I was blindsided. So in the time that we're there, the

Lord blessed us immensely. You know, when we showed up,

I remember, I think it was my oldest daughter said, dad, who are we gonna be friends with?

Because there was a couple of families there with young kids, but not many. And I said, the

Lord's gonna bring us some things. So we're gonna pray and he's gonna send them. So she said, okay.

And he did, you know, within a few years there, three or four years, you know, we've taken in,

I don't know, maybe 20 new families, you know, maybe 60 to 80 people had joined the church.

Lots of young families, lots of babies, you know, young couples, young kids. My kids had friends, great friends for the, you know, for the first time really.

So it was just an immense blessing to see, you know, to see that there were people that moved to the area for that church.

I have a dear family with us now that actually moved there from Cape Coral.

They were in Fort Myers, members at Haskell's Church there and, you know, cost of living and other things were kind of squeezing on the hurricanes and so forth.

And they found us, came to move, moved to Willow Springs to, you know, to relocate their family around a solid church.

And yeah, so, you know, in that few years, in the beginning, you know, from my standpoint, the

Lord was blessing, you know, baptisms and - Amen, yeah. You said, did you say 20 families?

Yeah. That's amazing, that's more families than our church has. So -

It's the most incredible, it was the most terrifying and most unbelievable thing

I'd ever seen. So - So what, during this time, let's just talk about your ministry for a moment.

Like, what are you preaching through? And these families just coming, like, are you doing anything, any kind of special thing, evangelismy thing, or what's, what, just talk about that.

What were you preaching through and what - To my shame, I wish I would have been doing more, just, you know, evangelism, street evangelism, that kind of thing.

Sure. There's some, you know, festival there in town that I would rent a booth and hand out tracts and like that kind of thing.

But it's, and you know, in the rural area, cause this is a really small town, you know, 12, I don't know, 2 ,000 -ish,

I think. Yeah. People, and there's no real, there's not a mall, there's not this downtown center where traffic, you can, you know, so it's, there's some walkability, there's a downtown, but anyway, there was some missed opportunity there.

But when I got there, the previous pastor who stayed on, we can get to that, but he had preached through up to Romans 9.

So I actually took over in Romans 9 on Sovereign Election, my first day of the pulpit, that's what

I preached on. The only time in my life that I really didn't want to clap during the sermon was on that.

And so it was like this, well, yeah, I know, warm welcome and like, wow, you know, just a great thing.

But so preached through Romans and I think I went through, I went back to the book of Jonah, went through 1

John and it was about eight or nine,

I think I just finished up chapter eight, chapter nine of 2 Corinthians maybe.

So just preaching verse by verse, which there's two chapters on giving, I didn't think about that. Maybe there's something to that.

So preached two chapters on tithing and then the pastor's gone. Yeah, so he had a couple of verses.

Yeah, so things are going well and you, families are adding.

I mean, that's amazing. The Lord's working. Any, so you said earlier that you're blindsided.

We'll get to that in just a minute, but like any, anything, any inclination, anything's wrong at this point?

Not to any degree, you know, there would be,

I think up to that point, the only critiques

I'd gotten that were, you know, kind of alarm, maybe not alarm, just negative, you know, the feedback that you get where you're like, well, you can tell this person's not, not real excited about me, was just how long

I was preaching. Yeah, how long was that by the way? You know, just usually about 40, 45 minutes.

Oh my. But then it was like, you know, 52, 55, you know, and so it would kind of, but I just, you know,

I got ate up about that a little bit. And one of the, one of the hardest things, you know, one of the moments that like sticks out that just broke my heart was not, it was man came in and that I, that I had a good relationship with and, you know, loved the man otherwise and still do, but he just let me have it because of how long the preaching was.

And, you know, this was, that was conference preaching, he called it,

I think it needed to be done somewhere else. What year is this when this man comes in?

This is, this probably would have been 23 maybe. Okay, so you've been there a couple of years before.

Yeah, it's probably like right in the middle. So, so just, so just help me. So just so we're clear, you're preaching, families are joining, the church is growing, and the complaint is you're preaching too long?

Preaching too long. Wow, I mean, I'm just, it just baffles me, brother.

I mean, you know, like if you're preaching, I don't, I can't, I don't know what the time would be. Maybe if you're preaching an hour and a half or something or two hours and, and you've got kids that are just, you know, flailing around or something,

I don't know, but goodness for. Well, it gets better. The, the main, you know, the big aggravation of this person was that, you know, all of the fried chicken is sold out at the town and country by the time church is over.

Oh man. And, you know, then, then the wife has to cook and then, you know, she's mad and it just really ruins the day.

So let me, I need to ask you this. I forgot to ask you earlier. So you going into this place, this is, is this, is this still kind of a typical deacon structure, like one pastor deacon model?

Yeah, so it was kind of, kind of strange the way we, we worked through that.

So when I, when I was coming, that was, you know, we had just transitioned to an elder led church or we're doing that in the church that I was coming from.

You know, we wrote the constitution, you know, all those kinds of things to make for a plurality of elders. When I'd gotten there, they, they had basically said like, yes, we're, we're, we're becoming an elder led church.

They had already, essentially they'd already selected their elders out of their deacons and were waiting for, you know, me or whoever to come and, you know, rewrite the constitution to allow for that form of church government.

And so then the elders could be, you know, ordained and actually put into office. But it was basically, you know, vetted, selected, and just kind of waiting, you know, waiting for the paperwork to catch up so they can be ordained, but they were already functioning in that way as, as elders in every sense of, you know, teaching and leading and those kinds of things.

But it was, it was kind of odd, I think, in the way that, the way that that went, you know, it seemed like, because they were just a deacon, single pastor for a long time.

And the previous pastor, I think making the right choice said like, hey, we need, we need to have multiple elders leading the church.

And so it was, but it was just like, you know, you men have been pretty much serving as elders.

A lot of you just with the role of deacon. So who, you know, kind of who feels called and some did, some didn't.

And that was like how it worked out. And so I don't know that there was any real, real vetting in terms of scrutinizing doctrine and those, those kinds of things.

But anyway, that's, that was a situation that we came into. And so that was something that happened pretty, pretty soon too.

That was one of the first things we were doing, meeting and adopting a new constitution so we could ordain the elders and put that in place, you know, formally in the church.

Okay. So this, so now you're two years in, if you had a couple of complaints, you got the man that can't get the fried chicken in time.

So now we're, now we're two years in, we're in 2023. Do, I mean, so let's talk about how, do things just keep kind of unraveling or you said earlier, you used the word blindsided.

So let's, let's walk through that. So around that time,

I think is whenever I had, I bought a house, I was wanting to move my family out of the, out of the parsonage for multiple, multiple reasons.

I mean, we were basically sharing a parking lot with the church. And so there's just a lot of, a lot of traffic to our house.

You know, we homeschool. So my wife's there and it's just real easy for people to pull in and say, oh, you know, you're not doing anything.

Can you just let me into the church or, you know, help me with this or that? And so that was, that was one.

And then just, you know, you kind of live in a fishbowl anyway as a, as a pastor and a pastor's family.

And so we wanted to have just a little, a little bit of privacy. So I got a,

I got a cabin and just a tiny bit of land, but it's about 30 minutes away from the church, which in hindsight, you know, maybe that wasn't the best, the best choice, but it wasn't so much as seeing the distance.

I don't know. There's a few, few people. One, one, one lady in particular was just called me sinful.

And, you know, this was just a big stunt. Couldn't believe I was trying to do something like this.

Is this the house you're in right now? No, no. This was the house that we sold when we, when we had to move.

But, you know, like I was just, you know, God didn't call me to, to, you know, build equity in a home.

You know, he called me to, to, to teach. Just, I don't know.

So anyway, I think that was one of the things that, I think in some people's minds might've been received as me putting a, putting a distance between myself and the church.

You know, not just like geographically, but like something that maybe communicated that I was, I don't know, that I was putting up a wall or something, something to that effect maybe.

I, you know, I say one thing about pastors and parsonage. I think, I think parsonage are great and they can really be a help, especially, you know, pastors with families and all those sorts of things.

But at the same time, it's like you could pastor somewhere for 40 years and then you're like, you're out, you just retire.

You know, it's not, everything's amicable and you just retire. It's like, but you have no, like, what are you supposed to do?

You know, I know of a situation. I think it's kind of a beautiful, I've never heard of it before. The only situation

I've ever heard of this before that is there's a pastor and basically the church can't afford to give him like big raises and stuff.

What they do is every year it's written up where he gets another portion of the parsonage, basically a percentage.

And when he's there a certain amount of time, I don't remember how long it is, maybe 20 years, something like that.

But basically he will own the parsonage, you know. That's great. Yeah. That's great.

So, but yeah, so that's interesting. I mean, you know, and there's so many rabbit trails we could chase on all this.

So I don't wanna do that because I get it. You know, you're reflecting, you're thinking back, well, okay, I moved 30 minutes away and maybe, you know, hindsight rethink some of that, but okay,

I know we could run through all that and we could spend a whole episode talking about all that. Do you feel like your move separated you from the churches?

I'm talking about from Jason's perspective, not theirs. No, you know, from my perspective, it was helpful because I was feeling a bit, you know, just pressed and run down and needed a place where there was some, just some quietness and reprieve.

And so I felt like as far as, you know, preaching and seeking the

Lord and, you know, being a man that can spend time with God and then go and show God to his people, that that was, that became better there, you know?

I don't know if that makes, if that'll make sense to everybody, but for the pastor, you know, if you're unable to, you know, commune with God and spend time with the

Lord and study and just to seek him without distraction,

I'd feel like you can't do that. Then there's not really a whole lot that you can do for your people if we're showing

Christ to them. And so I felt like I was able to do that better there, but, you know, this was, you know, traditional, you know, kind of small town

Southern Baptist church and the pastor is still kind of thought of,

I think, as the one who would do everything.

Yeah. Because it was that model for, you know, for a long time and the previous pastor before me,

I think he did that. Yeah. I think that's one of the reasons he was run so ragged, you know, when

I got there was because of that. And so seeing something different and not understanding as well, and this is probably on me, you know, the function of a plurality of elders and what that looks like in the life of the church, you know, they're still looking at, well, yeah, but you're the guy that we pay.

So you have to do all these things. But when we've got, you know, we had eight elders,

I think. And so it's like, there's plenty there to take care of everything that, you know, within the flock that needed to be taken care of, you know, that live near the pockets of people.

And we had a pretty wide footprint because people were driving a long way, you know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, some of them, you know, some lived in town, you know, to the church.

And so, but I think they saw that as, you know, reaching duties.

I think a couple of things I'd like to say, like one, pastors are not hirelings.

And we got to move away from this idea of you hire a pastor. I mean, a church doesn't hire a pastor.

Church calls a pastor. God calls a pastor. The church affirms that call. And the church compensates that pastor so that he can focus on primarily the word, the ministry of the word and prayer.

The ministry of the word, yeah. And so, yeah, we got to move away from that. The second comment

I want to make is, I'll just briefly mention, you know, a situation up here, but it's oftentimes that things like this actually serve as a catalyst for exposing some things that are kind of underneath the surface.

Sounds like what happened for here, it was moving in a different direction with music. With, we had a lady that was leading in music ministry, and we just,

I and a couple of others came under this conviction, like this is not the right way. You know, this is ultimately a violation of 1

Timothy 2, 12. You have someone leading. And so when we went a different direction, there was some problem with that, but really with some people, but really what happened is it exposed some things that are happening underneath the surface.

So it's kind of, I mean, is that a? No, I think absolutely. Absolutely, that's what it did.

I mean, it just kind of, you know, it was a, you know, as Bodie might've said, a fault line, you know, a crack that began to spread.

And that, I think that though, you know, by me doing that, I think it gave a voice to those other kind of hidden critiques and complaints that were there.

Now there was a reason, a valid reason that someone could make a formal, you know, a complaint against me, you know.

We gave him this parsonage and, you know, we thought he was gonna stay there, you know, but he moved and now he wants compensation instead of just, you know, being able to live in a house for free.

And, you know, so it's like, here are the doors open. Is this, is he really a good pastor?

You know, is he, you know what I mean? Like the door just kind of opened up to where it's like, I think

I invited some of that on myself by moving. So I knew some people didn't want me to do.

When you moved, what year are we at now? I think we're still at 23. I think that's the year that we moved because we weren't even in our house.

Yeah, it would have been like 23 because we weren't even there. I got to pay, you know, capital gains taxes,

I think this year, because when we had to sell that place and move, we weren't even there, you know, two years.

So it would have been 23. And we got here, the house we're in now, I think we got here

May of this year. So yeah, it would have been right around like September maybe of 23, something like that.

So what, as we kind of, you know, look to the conclusion, I mean,

I'm not, obviously we can't conclude like right now, but as we've kind of, the plane has seen the arrival city and we're beginning our descent.

What gets us to where you have to leave? Yeah, so the way from 20, you know, we get there in 23 and then, you know, say from, you know,

I think we moved in, we got in before Christmas, purchased the place in September, moved in before Christmas.

And, you know, so from 20, you know, December 23, December 24 is, seems like a pretty good year from a family standpoint, a personal standpoint, and even, you know, church health and growth standpoint, you know, we're still seeing members added, still seeing baptisms, you know, salvations, still good things happening in the church.

And then every once in a while, though I would get a, you know, the starting to hear just preaching comments on, you know, not being able to follow along.

I had the same complaint, that's crazy.

Okay, go ahead. Not being able to follow along, you know, there's words that we don't understand, and you don't, you know, you know, maybe you could make more eye contact.

You know, these are just kind of like, to me, petty. Not to just discredit, you know, what someone's struggling with, but in terms of what all is in a pastor's mind and heart when he's trying to preach the word of God, you know,

I mean, the following along thing, okay, yeah, I get that, but you hear these things, but then it's like, you can't deny what

God is doing in front of you and what you're seeing, you know, people that are growing in their faith exponentially, people that are being fed heartily by the word of God, people, you know, moving for that.

You know, and so it's like, okay, I get it, there's some people who are maybe not real happy or content with my style, you know, like this is, you know, mannerisms, maybe

I look down too much, or I use notes, you know, I read quotes, you know, things like that.

But so I'm hearing some of those things, but I'm thinking, well, okay, yeah, there's probably something to this.

And kind of like you said before, that probably isn't even really what these people are bothered by, you know,

I doubt they're laying awake at night thinking, he just really doesn't make enough eye contact with me and you know, when he's preaching that there's probably other things there.

But January, I didn't realize exactly where it was coming from, and it was a lot of it was coming from within the elder body.

And January, it's like January 1st of 2025, I got a text from one of the elders and the former pastor that they wanted to meet with me in private about the leadership of the church, the preaching and so preaching leadership and maybe there was something else in that and I refused,

I said, no, we're an elder body, if there's issues with their church and leadership direction, like vision direction.

I said, that's a meeting we all need to be together at. Sitting up,

I can, you know, if there's things to say about me, say them, you know, I'm a big boy.

Yeah. And they try to get, no, we really think it should just be in private, you know, and right or wrong,

I felt like they were trying to corner me. Because these were a couple that I knew had kind of had some critiques on, you know, maybe you should preach this way or that way or these things or those things.

And so I thought, well, you know, I think it's best if we just all meet and, you know, in full,

I don't think private meetings are helpful for the bond of unity that an elder body needs to have.

And so we met and I was handed a, handed a sheet that said, you know, church issues.

And it was basically, you know, like these, actually,

I think I still have it. But it was all these critiques on, you know, not being fed from the pulpit, you know, religious jargon.

Religious jargon? Like what does that mean? Well, I don't know.

I guess it's using words that - Propitiation? Propitiation, maybe, yeah.

No invitation was one of them. Then there was a lack of presence in the congregation.

I wasn't involved in activities. I lived far away. My office hours were by appointment.

Gone frequently on speaking trips or conferences or vacations. Which most of this,

I mean, there's some legitimacy there. I would, when I got to the church on Sunday mornings, I would go straight to my office.

I'd get there early and I wouldn't come out till it was time to preach. And that bothered some people, but I should have been, you know, socializing and having coffee and those kinds of things.

And, you know, there was an overemphasis, some thought on reform theology. You know, was being reformed more important than being, you know,

Bible -based, which it's like, hey, those two are the same, you know, the same thing.

And then, but then even there it was beginning to show, like some people were saying, oh, reform theology is the foundation of our church.

Like, well, yeah, yeah. And that's what was told to me. That's what I believed in a way.

And that's what I came to build upon. But then there was, you know, at that point, there was, you know, saying there was critical mass from the church and families that were unhappy and they were only coming because they liked

Sunday school and the songs, you know, it was just, they could suffer the preaching because they, you know, all their friends were there.

That wasn't the case. If their friends were there, you know, they'd probably just leave. And so, yeah, that's when

I felt like, wow, you know, this is kind of blindsiding me.

And then too, I was shocked that it was given freedoms.

You know, like you, as the elders of this church, you're hearing these things, these complaints, and you're not able to address those, you know?

You're basically in agreement with it then. And it turned out there were, I think, several there that were, that just for whatever reason, you know, they didn't like the way

I preached and whatever the Lord was doing there in the church to grow it, to reform it.

They didn't, it wasn't enough to override their dislike for the way

I preached and the way that I was leading the church, apparently. So from that point, you know, we had that meeting, and I don't think it resolved anything.

I think they got pretty upset with the way that I handled that meeting, because I was upset.

I was just like, are we serious? Like, these are real issues. Like, we don't know where we stand theologically.

We don't, you know, and so anyway, I had to go do a winter retreat.

I took our youth students and me and another elder, to a theology camp that we'd gone to the last couple of years.

And when I was there, I got a message that the elders were gonna meet without me. And it just floored me.

I mean, man, it just destroyed me. And I just begged and pleaded not, don't, no, don't do this.

You know, and then I think there was maybe a second one. And I begged and pleaded again, like, don't give the enemy a foothold in here.

You know, like, if we're not able to meet in unity back here and be as one body, we can never expect the church to be one, you know, to be united either.

And so, you know, that meeting happened again. And then it, yeah, it just kind of kept spiraling, you know, that direction.

And it kind of gets to the point to where it's like, well, what are you gonna do? Yeah. I'm like, well,

I'm gonna keep doing what I've been doing. You know, I'm gonna keep, you know, preaching and I'm gonna keep praying and I'm gonna keep trying to lead this church the way that God called me to lead.

And that was one of my frustrations. I don't know if I voiced it, but it's, you know, if you men believe in the sovereignty of God the way that you say that you do, and you believe that God calls his men, his pastors to lead churches, then let me lead it.

You know, it would be one thing if I was running the church into the ground and, you know, but that's not what's happened.

But it was the growth that the church had experienced,

I think from their perspective was it was despite me. Well, you know, we're listed on the founder's website.

So that's the only reason they're coming or, you know, we're the only, you know,

Southern Baptist church here, or it's just because we have the reform label. So it's not even really healthy growth, you know, it's not even new growth.

So there were all of these things. You got these out of towners coming in here. Got these out of towners.

And, you know, we've got this, you know, cool pastor with tattoos.

So we're just getting these, you know, people coming, you know, so none of it was ever like, man, the

Lord's really blessing this ministry, blessing the word. And so this was, you know, all of this,

I don't know, it just started to really, the foundation was starting to crumble, it seemed.

And I tried to do, was trying to do, you know, everything I could to hold it together.

But strangely, you know, in maybe the last, you know, three to six months, you know, the critiques would come like this, you know, we've really got to address some of these issues on your preaching, but the last sermons have been so good.

You know, I don't know what you've been doing, but just like, keep doing that. Like, what are you doing? You know,

I said, well, I've not done anything different. You know, like, it's just, you know, some sermons are going to be a dud, maybe

I'm not going to get it. I'm going to fall flat and there's going to be some that the Lord's really going to use. And, but it got to a point, you know, to like, they're just kind of like, what are you going to do?

What kind of changes are you going to make? And I just couldn't, I couldn't see any changes that I could make or should make in terms of something that I didn't think the

Lord was blessing me using. And of course, like, man, I hope I'm going to be a better preacher in, you know, two years than I am today and 10 years than I am from then, like always wanting to grow and, you know, be better.

So I remember I took just a few days, just kind of a private prayer retreat, went away.

And while I was away, I got a text that was about the ministerial alliance in our area.

And so ministerial alliance was a group of pastors, churches that had sort of formalized together to help meet like poverty needs, you know, so to provide food, billing assistance, you know, things like that.

So if you had someone come to the church and knock on your door, like, hey man, we could use some help with this or that, there was a process that you can refer people to, to get, you know, to get some help.

But apart from that was during, you know, leading up to resurrection

Sunday, there were these Lent lunches, Lenten lunches, and each church would host basically a noon day worship service.

And there was a Catholic church in that alliance. Whoa. And I could not,

I couldn't stomach that. So for the previous two years, we hadn't been involved, you know, we just hadn't,

I think we were still maybe given some funds towards that, but as far as, you know, me going and preaching the service or, you know, anything like that, or I just,

I had distanced ourself from it. I didn't see that as something that any Christian church should be a part of.

So anyway, I got a text and it was kind of like, hey, you know, the

Lenten lunches are coming up, you know, maybe now that, you know, in advance, you can actually, you know, come to one this year.

I thought, oh man. And then somebody else sent me something the same time. And it was like, it's like an advertisement.

I don't know if it's from the newspaper, maybe from a bulletin. I can't remember, but it had like, you know, these churches listed.

It was like Methodist church and the general Baptist church, I think the

Lutheran church. And then it was like our church.

And then right beside it was the Catholic church. And when I read those two names together, man,

I just wet. Yeah, yeah. You know, it just crushed me.

And so whenever I was coming back, we had a meeting scheduled to kind of get on the, you know, realize we weren't on the same page and we needed to figure out, you know, how we could get on the same page theologically.

And so we come back to that meeting. I said, look, I know this was just a regular meeting that we had scheduled before the, kind of the big meeting we had coming up.

And I just said like, look, this is a kind of a line in the sand moment. I can't be a part of this.

I can't leave my church, you know, our church to be a part of this. And it was just,

I didn't think it was taken seriously. Kind of like, really, huh? I'm just surprised that's a big deal.

You know, there was an evangelical statement that this priest had to sign that we wrote up. And so, you know, and I'm like, guys, if you preach a different gospel, you're to be cursed.

You know, how can we have a partnership with the

Catholic church? He preaches a different gospel. You know, I get, you know, father, whoever's, you know, a long time, good standing community member or whatever, but that doesn't make any difference.

And yeah, we'll probably need to address that. I think I said something effective, like, no, like I can't leave this meeting and be a part of that alliance.

You know, if you're going that way, I'm stepping off right here. Like, there's no way.

And so then it was, it came kind of, you know, so I'm like, oh, whoa, okay, yeah, well, well, you know, it's not really doing anything anyway.

But none of it really, besides one other brother, we're like, yeah, like this, this is, we can't have this alliance with this, with this other gospel preaching church, if we can call it that.

So anyway, I kind of got confirmation, like, all right, we're, when I leave here,

I can say with confidence, we're no longer participating in this. And so we've gotten to that point.

And then, so between that time and the time that we had the meeting scheduled, that everybody was coming to, that we were planning on being there, you know, like our meetings were normally at one time, this meeting was going to be in a different time where we'd have four or five hours, however long we needed to address like our theological issues and problems that were coming up, you know, preaching and so forth.

And in the meantime, it was opened up to the church to send in a letter, basically to the elder body, you know, if you have any complaints or -

Whoa. Issues that need to be dealt with.

And so it kind of turned from, hey, this is kind of an in -house thing, we're going to work on what we need to do to get on the same page, to now the meeting is going to be steered by, here's the complaints that, so it's just kind of cycling.

Do not bring an accusation against an elder without two or three witnesses. Well, we're -

And now they're just saying, essentially they're saying, hey, you know what? Nevermind about that. If you have an accusation, just send it in.

Yeah. Just write your letter, your email, you know? And man, that was probably the hardest week of my life.

Goodness. We started getting, I mean, it was already just so hard.

I mean, the tension was bad. My family's worried. You know, I'm struggling to preach because I know there's people who are wanting me gone.

But anyway - So now we're just a few months ago, right? I mean - Right. Yeah, we went from January 1 of 25 is to like,

I don't know. That's just when it all started to really be like a concentrated attack is what it felt like.

Whether formalized by people or spiritually anyway. So we started getting these letters and it's just, man, they were brutal.

That's when it seemed like the gloves kind of came off. Our church has taken care of the pastor for the last four or five years and not the church.

And we need to do, now we need to take care of the church and not worry about the pastor essentially.

He's just following a man. He's not following God and he's a Calvinist. And so, and he's just, he's not even preparing his sermons.

He's just reading quotes from other people. And we're just so spiritually dry right now.

I don't know how much longer I can hang on. And just give us some application.

And one of the ones that was, well, then there's like, I don't know what he does.

I drive by the church. He's never there. I don't think he's doing anything. But one was just like, said that it was so hard to even, well, one guy said he just didn't even like the way he put himself in a position to him.

But that when I was emotional in the pulpit, because I don't know, man,

I can weep sometimes up there. And it's just hard.

It just happened when you preach, I think. Tears just flow sometimes, but that was scripted.

That it was just, I can't even watch because this is just part of a, basically part of a show.

It's just trying to put on up there. It's just so hard to even look at. And I got through.

And it just kept, it was like one day, a letter, one day, a letter, one day, a letter, one day, a letter. And it just kept, it kept coming.

And finally, the last, one of the last ones that I read, I just texted,

I emailed the elders and I said, look, brothers, I can't do this anymore. I can't, I'm not gonna be able to preach. It's just too hard, too heavy.

I think as hard as it is, I'm just gonna have to step down.

I don't know what that needs to look like or what needs to happen, but basically you tell me how this needs to go and I'll do it.

And nothing, like, no phone call.

I think I got a text. I got a text, one text or two, and one text from like the guy, but just from a couple of guys like, oh, this is,

I would just hate this to happen. And then one text was kind of like, I hope you're not just running from something because it's hard and so forth.

Anyway, so I said in that email, I said this, if you wouldn't mind, just if I can just make one request, just give me a couple of weeks before we would announce anything so I can kind of get my family prepared and so forth.

And I got a formalized response from the elder chair that we've received this and yes, we'll grant you that request and we're praying for you and that was it.

So there was no, hey, we think we can still, and it wasn't like you're crying wolf, like I knew

I was done. I don't know if there's anything anybody could have said that would have changed that, but I didn't hear anything.

And then it was just in two weeks, they basically read that email to the church as my resignation letter.

Whoa. You know, and in the meantime, I haven't said anything to anybody besides Jeff.

I've been talking to him. You know, he pointed out, it was interesting, like all of these letters had a connection point.

They were all in the same family or all worked together. Oh, wow.

So anyway, and it was, I had showed those letters to Jeff. I was like, here, read these. What do I do with this?

And he was just like, and he called that out and said, this is it. All these people are family, aren't they?

And I said, yeah. He's like, well, you can tell there's a fountainhead here that they're all drinking from. And he kind of said, well, you can wait till they fire you.

You know, he said, or you could try to take a vote of confidence or you can, you know, it might be time just to step down.

And I felt, you know, my biggest fear was the Lord has drawn all these people here.

You know, what are they gonna do? You know, who's gonna continue to feed them, to shepherd them?

And what it seems like, you know, what happened was the

Lord had drawn all of these people in and had planted this reformed

Baptist church inside of this traditional Southern Baptist church. And that year was the birthing pains of that church being birthed out into its own thing.

Yeah, well, let's stop right there. That's a good stop.

And we're going to, you and I aren't gonna stop. We're gonna keep recording. But for the listeners, that's why we're stopping.

And we're going to, you'll pick back up on this conversation next week.

And we're gonna get into what happened, this new church that was birthed and what's going on now and even how they can, you know, just be praying for you,

Jason, and your church. I will mention this before I get off on this episode.

I'll share this link in the podcast unless you have a better place. But Jason is the author of To the

Praise of His Glory, a primer on the Pauline doctrine of predestination. Is the best place for them to check that out on Amazon or is there a better place?

Yeah, you can get it through the publisher at Savoring the Savior, but I think it's still is just, Amazon is still the best place to go for that.

Cool, I'll share that link in this one. So thank you guys for listening to this episode of the Rural Church Podcast.

Next week, we'll have a more positive episode as we think about what God is doing in Jason's life and the church plant.

So catch you guys next week. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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