Episode 93: Honoring Pastors (and Reformation Day!)

Welcome 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 better than 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. Big question, Edward. What's that?

What are you going for for Halloween? I think I'm gonna dress as a monk. Hey, it's not

Halloween, right? Or that's what we've tried to teach our kids. It's Reformation Day.

Happy Reformation Day. Happy Reformation Day from the Ruled Church Podcast. Actually, technically, it's not the

Reformation Day. Tomorrow is Reformation Day. Are you guys doing anything tonight at church for Reformation?

You know, we are recording this like three weeks before, and so I'll be honest,

I haven't planned that far ahead. I know when people are actually listening to this, it will be just a few hours ahead, but as of now, three weeks ahead,

I've not got it planned out. Maybe it's four weeks, actually. Is your church gonna be doing pints and psalm singing?

We will not be doing pints and psalm singing. I don't understand. What world do we live in, man?

Okay, so enough about that. Here's what we want to do today. We want to talk about the

Reformation, which we've done before, so you could probably listen to old podcasts on that, and then we want to move from the

Reformation to the local church to Pastor Appreciation Month. So October is two things important for us.

It is, well, there's more things with me, and now I've got Margie's birthday already passed. She's already one.

Goes by fast. They grow up in a hurry. I know. You turn around, you're like, whoa, but October is

Reformation Month, and October is Pastor Appreciation Month, so we are

Reformed Baptists, and we are pastors, so we'll talk about both of those things.

What do you think? That sounds good, man. So I may have shared this little alliteration on the podcast before.

I can't remember, but a few years ago, I was teaching on the Reformation, and I just kind of came up with three words that the

Reformation was about, and I'll share that with you, and we could talk about that briefly, but it'll get us into our topic today.

So number one, the Reformation was about authority. So what is the highest authority in the

Christian life? What do you say, Ed? That would be the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

That's right. Sola Scriptura, the highest authority is the Bible. The Reformation was really a time period to wrestle with, is the church the highest authority, or is the scripture, or even today,

I think this is probably relevant to discussions you see online today, is it some sort of extra revelation?

It's the Bible. The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Scriptura, so authority. Secondly, the Reformation was over assurance.

So where does my assurance of me being right with God come from?

Where does it come from, Eddie? Is it my works? It comes from faith.

Faith alone in Christ alone. You know, that's really all three of those other, all four of the other ones, really grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone to the glory of God alone.

All my assurance is based on what Christ has done, not me. And you know what, Ed? Why don't you give us the gospel?

Yeah, the gospel. You know, when we think about the Reformation, one of the things we remember is how, in many ways, the gospel had been perverted by that point because it was being taught that there was the need of merit and it was being taught that the saints or the

Pope could dispense merit. But the reality is that if we were to relate to God based upon what we have merited, what we have earned, we have all merited death.

We have all earned judgment. But God in his grace and his love for people provided not just a way of salvation, but he provided actual salvation through the

Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus coming and living the life that we should have lived, living on our behalf, living the life of perfection, and then going to the cross for our sins, not for his own sins, because he had committed no sin, but he went to the cross to die for every believer.

And that on the cross, he bore not just the wrath of man, but the wrath of God against sin.

And that he was buried in a borrowed tomb because he wasn't going to need it very long. And that he was resurrected on the third day so that everyone who places their faith and their trust in Jesus Christ can be born again.

And it's not just that we can be born again, but everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ, the

Bible says, will not be put to shame. All of our guilt and all of our sin can be done away with, can be washed away by the blood of Christ when our faith is placed in him.

And so that understanding of the gospel, a gospel that comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, is the gospel of the

Reformation. Nay, it is actually the gospel of the Bible. Amen.

Amen. Good. That's good, brother. Encouraging because the Reformation is not something new.

It's a recovery. And so the response, I don't know how someone would randomly be listening to this, that needs to repent and believe the gospel for the first time.

But if that's you, or maybe you're deceived, then we offer you Christ.

Turn from your sins and believe the gospel. It's not your baptism. It's not the works of your hands.

It's not your good deeds. It's not your money. It's not your pedigree.

It's not your family. It's Christ. That's the only way. It's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

He can free you from your sins. He can deliver you from the wrath to come. He can reconcile you to God.

He can bring you into friendship with God. But it's only by what he has done. His perfect life, his vicarious death, and his victorious resurrection.

So the Reformation was about authority and about assurance.

And then thirdly, the third point is that the Reformation, and this begins to move us away from the first wave of reformers into subsequent generations, though I'm not dismissing the first wave because they helped greatly with this.

But we're going to talk about now authority and then assurance and then thirdly, assembly.

And so the Reformation recovers in many ways the great doctrine of the church.

So the church moves away from being under the tyrannical reign of Rome and you begin to see, oh, this is again a recovery.

This is the church. And the church only has two ordinances and the church ought to preach the scriptures and the worship of the church.

And you kind of see all that in the beginning with the first wave reformers. But then you have the inheritors of the

Reformation or the second generation and on and on. And you get the

Baptists. Baptists are in this. Now, I know there's arguments about this. I think it's pretty clear.

Christ has always had his church. Sometimes it's had more corruption. But the point is,

I have no problem saying that Baptists are inheritors of the Reformation. And we've benefited from this.

And so it's been a recovery of the scriptures, a recovery of the gospel, and ultimately moves us into a recovery of the church.

You have anything you want to say about that? Yeah, the only thing I would want to add there, I think oftentimes people, maybe it's just because of the name.

They, I think they assume a closer connection between the

Anabaptists of the post -Reformation time and Baptists today.

And not that there's no connection, but it's not a straight line from the

Anabaptists to us. And there's more of a connection between the 17th century

Baptists and us than there is the Anabaptist movements that people usually think of post -Reformation.

Yeah, and also there's even within the Anabaptist movement, there are different people.

So there were Conrad Grable, Felix Mons, these guys were with Zwingli, and they're a little bit different than say the

Anabaptists around Luther, or even the Anabaptists in, where was that? Was it Munster?

But anyway, yes, yes, agreeing with you. The point is, a lot of people who aren't

Reformed, they want to run back to the Anabaptists. A lot of baggage there, you know? Yeah, yeah.

And the term, by the way, the term Anabaptist, it just means re -baptizer basically is what they're saying.

It's a derogatory term. But anyway, yeah. So the point is, I'm drawing more of a,

I think there's more of a straight line from Luther and Calvin and even

Zwingli to the things they taught to us today. Obviously, our

Baptist forefathers threw out some stuff. I think, since it's

Reformation Eve, we'll go ahead and say this. I think that Baptists are the true

Reformers in the sense of taking the Reformation and continuing to press it on to where it needs to go.

So that brings us then, as we've talked about this, to the Church and brought it to the

Church and now just kind of segues nicely into Pastor Appreciation Month.

And one of the things about a true Church, and we talked about this, I don't know the order now, but I think it will have been last episode, but it might've been two episodes ago.

We had that episode where we talked about the Church. And one of the things about a true Church is rightly organized under qualified leadership.

That's one of the things about, we'll just say this, it's one of the things about people say, well, I don't have to go to church to be a Christian. Well, if you say you don't have to go to church to be a

Christian, how do you fulfill? Not only, there's a lot of one another, so we can talk about that. So maybe you could get in your mind and you could say, well,

I fulfill these one another's just out in the community. I totally disagree with that and you can't.

But what about, how do you obey Scripture that says, honor your pastors?

How do you obey Scripture that, like the elder who labors well is worthy of double honor.

How do you do that? If you don't go to church, how do you submit to your leaders as those who are watching over your soul, which is

Hebrews 13, 17. So the thing is, the Christian life is connected to the local church and every,

I'll say this, Eddie, every believer is meant to have an elder or pastor that's responsible for them.

Yeah, I'm remembering a conversation that I had a few years ago with a brother, a brother.

I was about to say friend, but this guy, he's a good guy. He loves the

Lord and their pastor had resigned and this had been several months later and they hadn't called anybody.

And this guy and another guy in their church were, they were basically leading the meetings, you know, sharing the

Scripture each week. They were pastoring the church. And I said, why don't you just say you guys are pastoring the church, you're the pastors.

And he said, oh, no, no, no. Our people, they're really getting involved and they're working hard and they wouldn't do that if we said we were the pastors, they would wanna pull back and leave it to us to do and things are going so much better.

And I thought, but the Bible teaches this.

And you're just pointing that out about if we try to do things, we try to be smarter than the

Scriptures, which I really think is what people are saying. They're saying, I know the

Bible says that, but I'm able to love God without drawing near to the local church or putting myself under the authority of elders.

But the reality is you're actually stealing something from the people. Either yourself, if you won't join a church or in my friend's case, you're actually robbing the people of having pastors that they can name and that they can go to.

If you're saying, well, our church is just gonna be indefinitely three, four, five, 10 years without anybody in the office of pastor because we think that things are going better without it.

Well, you're actually saying to God, we think we're smarter than you. That's right. Because you've said we need pastors, but we think it's better if we don't have them.

Yeah, let's appreciate pastors. Let's talk about pastors. I mean, we could have a whole episode.

I'm sure we've talked before about bad pastors, unqualified pastors, but really let's go the opposite side here and let's be thankful for pastors.

Tell me, maybe we'll start this conversation here. What's the first pastor you remember growing up?

The first pastor, well, it's actually two. There's actually two. So I grew up going to a community church.

And when I say community church, it was an actual community church because it was two congregations that met together in one church there in Shirley.

And it was the General Baptists and the Methodists. Now, listen, folks, this was a long time ago.

So the Methodists hadn't become completely apostate back then. But back then, the

Methodist pastor would come one week and the Baptist pastor would come the next week.

And so the General Baptist pastor, his name was Brother John. And the

Methodist pastor, his name was Brother Baker. And I remember both of those men.

Brother John was a very kind of jolly fellow.

Almost a St. Nick type character. And he would invite the kids up for a little children's sermon, right before the main preaching.

And I just always remembered him as a very kind man. And Brother Baker, the

Methodist pastor, much more of a grave, solemn man.

Nothing against either of those men. It was just my immaturity as a small child.

I don't really remember anything that they taught or preached. Yeah. Did not really remember hearing the gospel from them.

I'm not saying they didn't preach it. I'm saying I didn't hear it. But those are the first two pastors that I really remember in my life.

Mine was, and I saw it was similar. Mine was Horace Gray. And his, and honestly,

I'm not sure if he's still living or not. I know it's sad.

He's gotten older. But this was in the late, or I guess in the mid 90s, of First Baptist Church of Perryville.

And I don't really remember a lot about Brother Gray. I do remember he got very red in the face when he preached.

I know that he was at the church a long time, like 17 years, which

I think speaks of, honestly, more pastors today should have that kind of legacy.

You know, 17 years. And I don't remember much about what he preached.

I was baptized under his ministry, but was actually baptized by the youth pastor,

Cliff Johnson. And you know Cliff, right? You've met him before. Cliff, he's

Pastors in Hope. And he is, now Cliff was very instrumental early on in my

Christian walk, you know. And so I don't even really believe in youth pastors today.

I mean, I believe they exist. I've met them. I've seen them. But I don't think that's a great paradigm. You know what I'm saying?

For ministry, I don't think it's a biblical model. But I can tell you this.

It's not because of the office of youth pastor, the invented office of youth pastor that I was helped.

It was in spite of it. But God used a godly man in Pastor Cliff Johnson to really show me some things.

And so I'm very, very indebted to him. And then the remainder of my teenage years, because Brother Gray left and then

Cliff left. So the remainder of my teenage years and into my early 20s was Mike Stanley.

And he was at First Baptist. And again, just a kind man.

And I was grateful, grateful for the opportunity to sit under these pastors and each in their own kind of way offered a picture of what a pastor should be.

And again, I would say similar to you with Mike Stanley and with Horace Gray, it's my own immaturity, not able to, you know,

I could tell you some things Cliff preached and taught because I just remember it.

But as far as the Sunday morning sermons from these other guys, I just don't honestly remember much.

So I want to get to another pastor in just a second, but that's kind of early, early years.

So where do you want to go? Well, let me mention, since you mentioned those guys,

I do want to mention a couple of pastors that had a lot of influence on me early on.

So my first pastor as a believer was

Kirk Hardy. Kirk Hardy was the pastor of First Baptist Church there in Shirley.

And, you know, today there are a lot of doctrinal differences I would have with Kirk. But I want to say

Kirk Hardy really was a great influence in that he really taught me how to love people.

He loved his church and he loved the people in the church. And so my first experience as a believer was that pastors really love their people.

And I'll never forget just the kind of influence that that had on me to see that the church was really about the fellowship of the believers.

And that was emphasized in everything that happened in that church, the importance of believers actually living in real community, real fellowship, not just kind of we show up and we get the teaching, we get the lesson, we go through our formalities and then we get out of here.

But there's real love, real fellowship, real life happening in the church. The second pastor

I'd like to mention is after I turned to ministry, I became the youth pastor.

And I would agree with you. I don't think that's a biblical model, but I became the youth pastor.

Scotland and the pastor there at that time was

Charlie Deckelman. And I would have some theological disagreements with Charlie on some things.

But Charlie Deckelman is the first man I ever sat under who preached the next verse.

He was an expository preacher and the first expository preacher I was ever exposed to.

And I learned from him how to be dedicated to get in the book and just go through the book, teach this to the people.

And I'll say that was probably one of the most influential things that has affected my entire life in ministry has been being introduced to the idea of, you know, you don't jump around this

Bible and just grab from here and grab from there. But you take it the way God wrote it.

Yeah, you know, I think that, and I know both those brothers, but with Brother Kirk Hardy, I just remember he said he used to pastor, what was that church?

Pleasant Valley. Pleasant Valley. And he would say, and it's not always pleasant in the valley.

But yeah, I agree with that. And just, I'm again, I'm not, we're not encouraging doctrinal infidelity or whatever, you know, like we hold strong conviction.

Also, let me say this. I'm not anathematizing youth pastors. You know, if you're a youth pastor, whatever, I'm not saying, you know, like you're evil.

I was a youth pastor before too. I'm just saying, I think as we study and understand the church better that that's an office that we shouldn't have.

But anyway, the next guy I want to get to is I left First Baptist in 2005.

So I was 19 and I started going to First Baptist Church of Apollo.

And that brings to a man that you and I both know really well, Pastor Gene Tanner. Now, Gene, he was definitely not a

Reformed Baptist at that point. You know, he was not, you know, Calvinist, anything like that.

But he taught me so much about loving people.

The brother just loved his church. I mean, like he just showed me like a pastor goes and shepherds his flock.

He would visit people, even, I don't know if he'd say it, maybe even to a fault, you know, he'd visit, he'd visit the person's next door neighbor's cousin's, you know, granddaughter or something, you know, in the hospital.

I'm like, well, and I would be, and I would go, here's the benefit I had. Because speaking of youth pastor,

I eventually became youth pastor of First Baptist of Apollo. So I went on, I would go on hospital visits with him, you know, and I'm like, now who is this person?

And they're like, well, you know, so -and -so and that's so -and -so connected. And it's like finally gets back to church. So we'd visit people like that.

But he just showed me what it was like to make visits, to pray for your people, to pray with your people and to just love people in the church.

And I think a lot. So I think that there are a lot of pastors out there today that I would call like the

Gene Tanners of the world. And that is, you know, it's not like you have any social media presence, you know, by design.

No, you know, I mean, people know who you are in your region, but as far as like the world's concerned, people don't know you, but you're making an impact in the kingdom.

You're influencing young men in the kingdom. Gene, later I could tell so many stories about Gene.

Good stories, funny stories. And we've had our own share of disagreements doctrinally. But Gene and I, you know,

I became, I came to reform understanding of soteriology in 2008. Gene, a few years later, and we served again at church together.

And then he came up to the North Central Baptist Association where you are.

All I want to say is that he's been a tremendous friend and impact and God, the example for me.

And so I'm really, really grateful for that brother. And then I've had others over the years that I've either been benefited by or learned, maybe both good and bad from.

And I'm grateful for God's providence in that. So that's any other pastors you need to mention as far as in your past?

Well, I would just say, I met Gene through you, through getting to know you.

And then, like you said, Gene became our associational missionary. And Gene really has been a mentor.

I know he's been a mentor for you, but he's been a mentor for me in a lot of ways.

Even now, he's not our associational missionary. He's just, he pastors a church in the same association that I'm in.

But I still go to Gene. For that kind of mentor advice often.

I just remember Gene gave me some of the best counsel I've ever received at a really important point in my life.

In some ways, it was instrumental in God's providence in bringing me to the church here in Marshall.

Because I'd kind of written off the idea of coming up here to Marshall. And Gene gave me some great advice and some great counsel in that.

So I'm thankful for Gene Tanner. It's really been a blessing, a blessing to my life. Amen. Yeah, good.

So now, then we obviously are benefited by pastoral friendships.

And, you know, Eddie was in 2000, was it 13, October. This is our 11 year anniversary,

Eddie. Oh man, look at that. What'd you get me for man? It was October. It may have actually been like today.

I walked into a association meeting and Eddie was preaching his guts out.

And I was like, at the end of the sermon, I was like, have you ever heard of Paul Washer?

And Eddie was like, did you hear that sermon? And then we, goodness, us and our,

I think our wives were there that night too, weren't they? But yeah, they were. Talking forever that night.

Eddie likes to talk. Eddie can talk the horns off of Billy Goat. That's right. And, you know, we just benefit.

And Eddie, you've been a tremendous, I can't even say, you know, articulate it.

You've been a tremendous encouragement, help, counselor, just so much to me over the years.

So I appreciate you, brother. I'm grateful for you and the friendship that God has knitted together between us.

And even though we're miles apart now, I can't see each other nearly as often.

It's a joy to have a pastoral friend like you. And I hope that some of our listeners, you know, one encouragement

I would give some pastors is you got to be friendlier, you know? Yeah, yeah. You've got to be willing to sacrifice and be the one and take the initiative because, and it's worth it to invest and have these kind of friendships.

You need pastoral pals. And, and I'm going to say some of us,

I'm not a great, I guess the word for it nowadays would be networker.

It's just not my skill set. But there are some people that the Lord just gifts that they just, they connect and they connect other people together.

And you are one of those, brother. You're, you're a connector. I think that there are a lot of pastors who could say that they have more relationships with other pastors because they've known you.

I know that's been the case for me. Honestly, you mentioned that day that we first met and I just looked back and it looks like our 13, or I mean our 11 year anniversary was two days ago.

Really? Two days ago, yeah. But, but, you know, you think about that night, the reality is

I had come to some strong convictions, not just reformed convictions, but real practical convictions on, on how we should be calling people to faith.

And I was preaching that message to the, basically the pastors of the association.

And I went in there with fear and trembling. I looked at it like I was about to blackball myself and, and I was going to be scorned by everyone at this association was my assumption.

And part of the reason was because I'd come to hold to these, these beliefs, but I didn't hardly know a person who believed the things

I believed in, in real life. I knew people online. I knew the people

I was reading the, their books. I knew, you know, the, the apostle

Paul through the scriptures that believe the things I now believe. But you hadn't found anybody else. I hadn't found people in, in, you know, in the flesh.

And, you know, I met you that night and through getting to know you, I've now met several brothers.

You know, this, this next weekend, I'm going to go down and be with our friend, Adam Willett and some other brothers down there for a

Bible intensive. And, you know, I didn't know any of those guys until I, until I got to know you and got a lot of those connections made.

So I just want to say to brothers, man, if you're not, if you're not a natural networker,

I'm going to say there's probably one that you could get to know and he'll help you.

And he'll help you meet some people because, because you, you played that role in my life.

Our brother, Harold Smith, he is that same gifting, you know, he just, he's, if you get to know

Harold, you're going to get to know a hundred other pastors. Probably, you know, just from being around him.

And so there's, there's a real value to having those friendships, those brothers, you know,

I think of our friend, Wes Brown, you know, such a, such a valuable friendship and, you know, having those, those friendships.

He, and I would also say this, there is a value to also having pastoral friendships with guys that you don't agree on everything with.

You know, it, it doesn't just have to be, well, you know, I have this statement of faith and this guy down here has the same one, so we can be friends.

You can have pastoral relationships with guys, even from different denominations that you maybe have some serious disagreements with, but, but they are believers.

We're not talking about unorthodox situation where you can still have a lot of fellowship and you can still support each other through that.

Yeah, we probably got to do a little bit better job. I think some people close the door when they, you know, get disagreements or whatever, but, you know, through Harold, I met also

Randall Easter and the Lord, and then through Randall, I met pastor

Jonathan Murdoch. And actually today, which I know if you're listening, it's the 30th, but today is actually

October 9th. And we, there's an episode airing or has aired today that I talked with Jonathan Murdoch and John Speed.

We talked about post -millennialism and John's, you know, coming out of post -millennialism.

But the point is through those networks, you know, and those brothers, particularly

Randall and Jonathan have really shaped me. And then getting through them, getting to know these pastors in Mexico, you know,

Juan Carlos and Felipe and Pastor Christian.

And, you know, these brothers have been a tremendous impact. But the last thing, and we kind of,

I want to just talk about, and I made this comment earlier in the episode, and then I want to get to you.

And obviously I'm not, you know, your model right now is different than ours, not by design, but just by providence, you know?

And so, and then of course, I'm not, I'm not, I need to, I could just nuance this to death,

I guess. I'm not attacking solo pastors. I'm just saying that is in God's good design, that each church should have a plurality of elders.

That should be the goal. Should be working toward that. Because every pastor needs a pastor.

That's right. And people say that a lot. People do agree with every pastor needs a pastor, but then they usually be like associational missionary or another pastor friend.

And I'll say this, pastoral friends are great and they're counseled and you need that. That's wonderful.

But each church is designed in God's goodness to be led by plurality of faithful brothers.

Yeah, can I speak to that for just a second? Yeah, yeah, go ahead for sure. Yeah, because there is a great value that I can see in that.

And as a guy who theologically and practically, I hold to the idea that we ought to have a plurality of elders and yet we don't yet have it here at Marshall, but that's the goal.

That's what we're praying. And seeking to see happen. But let me just say one of the reasons why it's not enough just to have, you know,

I mentioned Gene and I'll go to Gene for counsel a lot or you, you know, but here's the problem.

If I come and I tell you, here's what's going on in our church, you're hearing my view of what's going on.

You're not actually here in the church. You don't know other than what

I'm telling you. That's right. Same with Gene. But if you and Jacob are talking about something going on at Providence Baptist Church, well, you're both there.

And maybe you are seeing it one way, but Jacob sees another because he's actually there to see it.

And so the value of having other brothers who are actually in the church that can both be your pastor and they're there to pastor the church together, the value of that both for the pastors and for the church body.

I mean, I just can't imagine how anybody wouldn't see it as beneficial.

Yeah, I don't, I don't understand the pushback on it. You know, I don't, I mean, it's, it's clear.

It's not a, it's clearly in the Bible. It's, it's, it's as clear as so many other things, you know, and so that churches in the new

Testament had plurality of elders. It's just a reality. And these elders, as we, so, so let me say this,

I'm absolutely indebted to and grateful for our other pastor here, Jacob Robinson, you know, he's been a friend to me, a pastor to me, an encourager, help.

And so I encourage, you know, churches, you need to move toward that model. Can it be difficult?

Actually it can, it's more difficult sometimes than I realized, you know, with, you know, maybe deacons playing power play or whatever.

And it's like, this is, but it's crazy. Like you just think about this, how many, how many, how many people do you want caring for your soul?

You just want one, right? Like, you don't want a couple, you know, and you don't want, you don't want the pastor that you love to also have a pastor.

Like what, like, why, why are we like that? You know, I, I, I do not understand the desire to, to push against plurality of elders.

So again, if you're in a church with only one elder, I'm not saying your church is wrong.

I'm not saying your church is not a church. I'm just saying move towards the biblical model.

And you have to trust God's providence like you, like you can't just about, well, I think plurality of elders. So, okay, you, you over there, you're an elder.

No, you have to have qualified God called men. Right. So I think,

I think all that's been helpful. I think I already said this. I'm a Baptist preacher. So I say last when I don't mean last, but there was one last thing that we had talked about mentioning, and that is, you know,

I don't know how many non -pastors are listening to this, but I thought we would talk about here at the end, brother, how can lay persons show appreciation to their pastors?

Yeah. And I think obviously the first thing people think is that you can give them a gift, you know, maybe a financial gift.

Maybe you give them a gift card so that they can take their wife out, you know, for a date night or something like that.

And certainly those things are appreciated. Certainly those things convey your appreciation.

So I don't want to discount anything like that, that individuals or that churches might do that.

I mean, that's fantastic. I'm not at all saying don't do that. But I would say that, you know, maybe your pastor just needs to know that you've been a benefit to them, you know.

Just let them know that you've learned things from the

Scripture because of the way that God has taught you through them.

That's probably going to be a great encouragement to your pastor is let him know that his diligence, his work, that it's done something in your life or in your family's life.

Even just a note, a kind note, an anonymous note. Sometimes anonymous notes are left to be mean, you know.

But I tell you this, I gave him something more simple than that, brother. Two words, show up. Yes. Be present.

Come to Sunday school, come to Sunday morning. If your church has evening, come to evening.

Church has Wednesday night, come to Wednesday night, show up. Your pastor will be so encouraged by just seeing you.

You don't know. You literally do not know how much you just showing up at church encourages your pastor.

And for me, just to see you love the church. You don't have to show tangible love for me or whatever.

When I see you love the church, I'm like, he's getting it. It is very nice and very appreciated for someone to say, you've taught me this and I think that's great and I think it's helpful.

But even just more basic, 12 months out of the year, if you'll just show up, you'll just love the church.

You'll serve her. You'll say, Hey, I'm getting behind this. We're doing this. Our church is doing evangelism.

We're going, or I can't go, but I'm going to text the pastor and I'm going to say, I can't go today, but I'm praying.

And just to know that you are involved, that is one of the biggest encouragers.

I rather have someone who never told me thank you, but they're at everything, than someone who comes once a month and then they buy me a nice gift in pastor appreciation month.

Right, right. That's right. And I'll add to that, the idea that when you're really, like you said, loving the church, and if somebody's going, well, thanks guys, that's real tangible, loving the church.

Well, like you said, it means showing up. You know what else it means? It means hanging out.

I was listening to some guys and I don't even know who they are. It was a video popped up and I watched a couple of minutes of it.

But I just remember they mentioned these words and I don't even exactly know what they were saying about it, but I'm going to give it my own meaning.

I'm going to Isagy what these guys were talking about. But they said the ministry of lingering.

Yeah. And I was like, yeah, we need more of that in the local church. You know, we eat on Sundays.

I know you guys usually eat at somebody's home. Yeah. Man, show up, be at the meal.

Sit around really fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters. You know, as a pastor, man,

I come downstairs from where our sanctuary is at to where we normally eat.

And when I see everybody standing around or sitting around and they're involved in discussions and they're not just talking about the

Razorbacks beating Tennessee, but they're actually talking about, man, how Jephthah kept his vow, even though it cost the life of his daughter and what we just learned from that in the text of Scripture.

Man, that's encouraging. That's encouraging, not because I'm the one that preached the message, but because they're getting into the

Scriptures and they're lingering as believers over it. Man, that's more encouraging than anything.

And so to see the church really getting into living life together, seeking to honor

Christ. Yeah, I can't imagine that there's any pastor who wouldn't be encouraged to see that.

And your pastor, yes, he will be encouraged by just by those things.

Now, you know, I do think gifts, and I would say this pastors, it's hard on pastors because it's so flip -flopped, you know.

So we have 18 families and there's two of those families are pastors. So the pastors begin giving people things.

You're talking about, well, that's 16 other families or whatever. So that's kind of hard.

But pastors can give gifts to their congregation. I think that's good at times. But I think it is good.

It's good sometimes to give a tangible, you know, there is nothing wrong with like, here's a meal card, you know, or, or if you can't, if financially you can't afford something like that, that's okay.

Like just a note, just a simple note. Hey, you know what? It's probably this is a made up month.

Pastor Appreciation Month. That's made up. It's made up. But you know what? I just want you to know you're appreciated and I'm praying for you, you know, or sometimes do something for their wife, you know, or whatever, whatever the case may be.

But I'll just say this in some tangible way. It's good to show honor to whom honor is due, you know, and I would say to, to some degree, it comes down to show that, you know, in, in whatever you do, like it may not be as much about the amount of exactly money as much as that, that it shows that you actually know this guy, you know, for,

I'll, I'll use an example. A couple of years ago, the church got me, and I don't even know what these things cost, a hundred bucks, maybe.

They got me some of these bone conduction headphones. Yeah. The, the shocks brand.

And, and I use them every single day because I listened to lots of stuff. I drive, I do lots of things.

So, I'm always listening to, listening to sermons, listening to podcasts and things. And I'm like, you know, that shows that they know me.

Yeah. You know, they could have gotten me something that was more expensive.

They could have gotten me a gold watch or something, but I'm not a gold watch kind of guy, but I do listen to stuff all the time.

And, and it's not, the value of it is not actually the thing that makes me appreciate it as much as it is showing they actually know me.

They picked this out because they know me. And so, and it may be something that costs $5, but if it shows that you know him, man, that's, that's gonna, that, that's probably gonna encourage him even more than, you know, something that's far more expensive, but that's just doesn't show that you really know him.

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Well, I hope, you know, I hope didn't come across like self -serving.

And when I'm thinking about this, I'm just thinking about all those years, like our churches loves me and I'm so encouraged, but there's been some years

I was at churches that, you know, it, it didn't necessarily feel that way, you know?

And, uh, so I'll encourage you if you have a pastor and you think, ah, he's encouraged.

Think about how my, maybe you could just tangible and it just start with just showing up, you know, showing that you can show up and linger.

Yeah. Hang out, invest your life in the church and, you know, and then if you can take this month,

I know it's October 30th. So you got today and tomorrow. Right. But if you can take an opportunity to shoot it, even just a text message,

Hey, I appreciate you. I'm grateful that God has given you to this church.

Those things are good. And not only good. I think I do think it is biblical. You know, the elder that serves well is worthy of double, double honor, you know?

And, uh, you don't have a perfect pastor, man. He needs Jesus. He needs the gospel. He sins.

He needs to repent of his sin. He, you know, all the, all, all these things that it's right in every

Christian wall. But most of you listening to this, I'm sure you could say you have a godly man in your church.

Who's seeking under God's, um, power by God's power to serve.

If you don't have that pray for that man. And if you've had someone in the past that you haven't honored, maybe you reach out to them and let them know.

But these are good things that I think the scriptures encourage us to do because we're just so weak.

Men are just so weak and we need, we don't need false. We're not talking about false, uh, pumping somebody's ego.

We're just talking about encouraging pastors. So you got anything else to say? Yeah.

I'm, you know, we've referenced kind of Hebrews 13, a couple of times, but I'm just going to leave it with this sentence after talking about the importance of obeying and submitting to your leaders because they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account.

Then the Hebrew writer says this, let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you, man, let your pastor, pastor the church with joy.

Not with groaning. That's good. That's, that's important. So happy reformation day tomorrow and happy pastor appreciation month right now.

And thank you for listening to this episode of the rural church podcast. We'll see 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, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.