Laborers' Podcast- Conference Recap

Conference Recap and Gratitude for the Laborers' Podcast

Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. It is Thursday night again, post-conference. We're glad to be back with you. Stick with us for tonight's episode.

Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ. Subscribe and follow the Truth in Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify and iTunes.

Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast.

There it was. Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Thumbs up. Fantastic job, sir. Tyler did a fantastic job on his. I felt like it was time for an update and I threw one together, praise the Lord. Boom. Boom. I'll be right back, y 'all.

Come on back. We're going to add another one. Uh-oh. There he is. What's up, fellas? He is live on location.

We are at the baseball game tonight, conference championship. Ooh. All right. We got the top of the six, two nothing, Mendes versus Wade. Big rivalry here.

Big rivalry. And your son's playing, correct? Y 'all doing okay? Yes, sir. How are you? All right. Very good. Is your son playing? Yes. Yeah. Nice.

So we had the conference championship track meet with my daughter. Now conference championship baseball game with my son. So we're dividing and conquering.

Well, how are you feeling. Post-conference, laborers conference?

I'm really happy with everything. That's what I want to jump on just for a minute, you guys. I won't stay on the whole time because I don't want all the background noise. Sorry, I had a phone call jump on there.

Sorry about that. Had to delete that. You know, guys, I'm really happy with the conference. We had a ton of positive feedback from everybody that attended. Everybody was very blessed. Everybody loved y 'all's teaching.

I think Claude gets the gold star sermon of the week. That's all I've heard about is Claude's sermon. So praise the Lord for that, Claude. You exalted Christ well and everybody. I know Christ was exalted and every single person that I talked to talked about how much the teaching was spot on, the encouragement was spot on.

I think we've got a lot of traction online through this. It's a lot of excitement. I didn't want to miss tonight. Sorry for the background noise. I knew my schedule tonight was going to be tight if I was going to be able to jump on at all.

I wanted to take just a minute and jump on here and tell you guys how much I love you and just overall great success. People are already talking about next year. They're already making plans. They're already trying to figure out travel plans.

They're already trying to figure out how they're going to get Knoxville, Tennessee. I think there's a few areas that we can always every year evaluate and improve on. If anything, my recommendation would be picking maybe one or two topics and really diving deeper on those topics.

Specifically, for example, if we did the family and dig deep on the family or whatever it was or theology. My folks love the Q &A. They really love it. They really appreciated it. Like I said, our folks, there's healthy diversity.

I feel like in my congregation, folks that are just grappling with theological issues have been grappling with for hundreds of years. They're really not wanting to settle for anything but the truth and I value that in our people.

That's why they're continuing to ask what seems like the same questions because they're still digging. I'm thankful for that and you guys helped them out a lot in that. Lastly, it really is something to continue to celebrate.

We mentioned it a lot of times, but the diversity among ourselves. Balanced answers with a gospel-centeredness. That's just something that at first, hearing a panel give different answers across. Most of the time you hear panels and they're just giving the same answers across the board.

Different perspectives at first. I think some of our folks were taken back just a little bit because they're just not used to that. They're like, you guys disagree? Maybe in some things, yes. I just think that's a great gift that the Lord has given us to love each other the way we do and continue to sharpen one another and develop that.

We're just honored to get to host the first one and we look for many more years to come.

Appreciate y 'all having us up here, Brother Jonathan. I know we said it a lot, but I want to make it known from here. Very hospitable group and I know that pride is something that we're supposed to strive against.

At the very least, you can be thankful, I think, that your church is such a welcoming one. And I believe an example of what the church ought to be.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, guys, again, I just want to jump on here and say I love you. Like I said, I'm torn with schedule tonight with ballgames and everything else. I was hoping this would be wrapping up so I could spend the full time with you.

Again, I just want to jump on here and say I love you. Jeremy, you can take over for me from here on out.

Alright.

Love you, guys. Love you, man. Talk to you later.

Thank you, Brother.

I'll be in touch with you, okay?

Jeremy, did you shave your beard?

I did.

We have a new man. A new member.

Well, my wife has been bugging me about it. I told her I cannot shave until at least after the conference. And then we had the conference, obviously. And then immediately it was like, so you're shaving your beard now, right?

I said, I'm not going to shave it at least until after the conference.

Oh, man. She met you at the door with a can of Barbasol and a razor. When you walked in, it was like, alright, young man, here you go.

Hang on. I'm working on a meme share here for you. Alright, talk amongst yourselves while I finish.

It's going to be a baby face, huh?

Oh, my goodness.

So, yeah, like Jonathan said, we had a lot of positives. And it's all credited to the Lord.

Amen.

And I know if any of us were to get the compliment, and I think the compliment that Jonathan shared, you know, something that I share with Claude, I'm edified. And I know everybody's edified by Claude.

And we appreciate him. But amongst us, and people should know this, but they're not going to know it until they know us like we know us. So if somebody gives stars or five stars or a compliment, we're giving credit to the Lord.

Amen.

I mean, so there's no building each other up and puffing one another up. The compliment's because we know from whom our blessings have come from.

That's right.

And so just know that about us. We're thankful for what the Lord taught us through Claude and through Tyler and Jeremy and John and Jonathan and Jesse and everybody. We're thankful for what the Lord has done.

I mean, the conference went really well.

Amen, Rob. I believe that. I'll send the thing if you want to put it up real quick, too.

That's the wrong time to look at this. Rob's being serious and loving and everything.

I'm trying to find it.

And then here's this guy.

Oh, it's in the messenger?

Oh, my word. You got to put that up there, Rob. I don't know how you do it. Somehow you use the force or whatever.

If you or all of y 'all, if y 'all want some great memes, go to Bearded Gospel Men. Look up Bearded Gospel Men.

Sounds like it's got all kinds of stuff in the title right there.

For the record, Claude, I'm in a group and somebody asked for a good reformed church in the Pigeon Forge area. And I sent them a link to your church.

Praise the Lord.

I tagged you in it, but because you're not part of the group, it said it would not notify you. I just wanted to give you a heads up. Oh, my goodness. You can just put that over my face the rest of the time.

Beard Bereavement.

And there's actually, if y 'all would keep in prayer, there's actually about two to three months ago. Now, I guess, maybe longer, I'll lose track of time. There's a young man. He's 40, but he moved from Phoenix.

He's been attending Apologia for years.

This is not a conference, right?

Huh? Yes. And he started coming to the church. And this Sunday, there's another family that's contemplating moving to Knoxville from Phoenix at Apologia Church. And they're coming to visit to check the church out.

And I'll tell you what I know. Years ago, church shopping, the term church shopping got kind of a bad rap because it was done flippantly and it was very shallow because they were looking for emotional needs to be met and wanting this for the kids and that for the children and so on and so forth.

But I think that there's a generation of people now who are genuinely church shopping for good theology. They're actually looking for a good theologically sound church. And so that's a blessing when you got folks come in and they'll ask you hard questions right off the bat.

That's a blessing.

And there's some guys trying to put together some good directories out there.

Yep. 1689 .com. I just signed us up on 1689 .com or something. I don't know. I can't remember.

I know the guys at Founders Ministries have a Reformed Church Finder as well. They actually go as far as listing some of the different Reformed points. Like, are they confessional? Do they hold to five points, etc., etc.?

Absolutely. That's a wonderful resource. Yeah, when you find that link, follow it out.

Well, there is 1689 .com.

Is it?

Yeah, I actually know the guy who runs that site.

Let me make sure that I said the right thing there.

I need to get on him because my church ain't on there. We don't hold to the 1689, but he should still put me on there.

Yeah, 1689 .com. That's it.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I just somehow came across it on Facebook, or I don't know. I don't know how it happened. I just thought that's a great, great thing. I know Founders does that. Founders .org does that as well.

Sorry, Rob. We've got off track. You were leading us in the way in which we should go. Go ahead, sir. I'm sorry.

I mean, that's a good segue to something else that we can talk about, too, because one of the things, as we're growing as a network, that I would love, and hopefully you all would love to see it happen, too, is a directory within the network.

So the ones that you mentioned. So this is what happened. The ones that you mentioned, 1689 .com, the comment was made, well, we hold to the 1646. And Tyler, he's non-denominable Presbyterian.

He's not Presbyterian.

He's not.

You've got to be one or the other, brother.

I told you that's wrong.

All right, well, I get to my church, and I'm actually in the minority.

I've got a good Presbyterian brother that goes to Red Fermana.

So you've got 1689. And you've got founders that are not going to represent this.

I'm on four founders. Founders put you on there. And they have me listed, our church listed as 1644, 1646.

Okay, okay. Do they represent Presbyterian?

I hope not, but maybe.

But they're definitely, probably not going to have a Church of God.

I would say probably not.

So there we leave out Big John. And so with the Truth and Love Network, we want to not skimp on the foundations of the faith. We want to stand firm in those truths. But we also want to acknowledge, just like we do in our podcast, that we have brothers in other denominations that hold fast to the faith and do not shy away from the truth.

Where it's a directory for Apostles' Creed churches.

Yeah, something like that. But hopefully that can be a part of the Truth and Love Network. If you're a Church of God, here's a good church. If you're a Reformed Baptist, here's a good church. And we can point people in the right direction.

I think you can start with, you know, well, this is probably unique in the fact that the Truth and Love Network spans multiple states, but the story could be the same in each one of them. For instance, Claude would be a good reference for Knoxville and the Knoxville area.

And he could, more or less, it would be a burden on him as time. But you can say, well, I want to meet with the pastors in that area and explain to them. I would like to know where you stand doctrinally, just like you sent me a paper, which I assume that paper got signed and sent back to you, right, Robert?

Yeah, we all have access to it, yeah.

Okay, I was making sure. I signed my name on the computer and sent it back, but I never got any kind of confirmation saying it was received. But a document like you sent that said something to the effect that this is what the Christian, you can't be a Christian and not believe these things, right?

You can certainly believe more than this, but you certainly can't believe less than this, if that makes sense at all. And say, if you would at all be interested in having your name and your church on this list, then sign this paper that your church agrees to this, and I will look at a little bit of your material online that we can or visit.

And if it seems legit, then we don't mind putting your name on the resource page as some place that people can come visit.

Yeah.

You know, I suppose to some degree, that's what a denomination does, isn't it? I mean, our misunderstanding denominations to some degree.

Yeah, to some degree. You know, you've got to hold to certain doctrinal beliefs to be welcomed into that fellowship. And so in that way, it's going to be similar. But we want to broaden our reaches beyond denominational lines.

I agree wholeheartedly.

And I just want to say this before we move any further. I want to continue to reiterate this tonight because we're having a conversation about the conference. We're having a conversation about Truth and Love Network.

But just like we said before about complimenting each other, we're having a conversation about Truth and Love Network because we want to point to Christ.

Absolutely.

We want to point to unity in Christ. We want to point to scripture. That's why we're having this conversation. It's not about the network. It's not about us. So we want to continue to reiterate that as part of the conversation.

The Podcast Format and What Made the Conference Different

Let's start off with the most unique thing probably about our conference, the podcast aspect of it.

Yes, and that was fun and challenging.

It was. We could have done well with a small tutorial for everybody on how it all worked.

Yeah, there was a little bit of a lack of communication from session to session there.

Oh my goodness. You didn't like the Kung Fu fighting at the back of your sermon?

Hi-ya, hi-ya. Rob's just preaching. Hi-ya.

I think Jeremy and I, we talked straight through the music. Oh snap, somebody's preaching.

Let's go.

But overall, I mean, the idea came to life, and it was reality. I looked back over a good bit of it pre-service, pre-sermon, and post, and it went pretty well.

I thought it went well. I think so.

It was just like a time sink. Me and Tyler were talking, and we were talking about a lot of stuff, and then all of a sudden it was like, so when are we supposed to switch over? And Tyler was like, I think right now, so I need to just switch over.

But we had the thing where it was like, at like 12 -15, you stop talking and switch over. I think it would have been a lot smoother on that. But I think it went great, kind of the way it was. It was just, that would be a thing to improve in the future.

Room for growth.

You don't want to do it perfect the first time, and then get down from there, right? At this rate, we've got room.

But it definitely added authenticity, how imperfect we were with it, I think.

So two things I liked about it. One is, it was challenging. Me and Brother Claude got to experiment on this, and we found out that it does matter when you mute the microphones. We also, what I liked about it, is to Tyler's credit, is because there was absolutely no script, and because it was a little bit left to the individuals as to how you want to go about it, it did make it more authentic, I believe.

I mean,.

When I first sat down with Brother Claude, I was like,.

So...

It was funny, none of us have probably actually sat next to one another and actually had a conversation. So we got to sit down, and I was like, so you're Tyler.

I was like, oh, y 'all are so tall.

Yeah, Jeremy and I have never seen each other face-to-face before, and next thing we know, we're talking to Theonomy.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Here's a question for you concerning the podcast. Here's a question for you concerning the podcast part of it. Most of the time when we walk into the service, unless you go to a church where you're going through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, you kind of know what's coming up next.

Or if you go into a conference, you may know the topic, but how many people really that often are thinking about the message that's getting ready to be preached? We go in, and we're there waiting to be fed, and then we're fed.

So with the podcast, some of you had an opportunity to, because I heard you guys talk about it, think about what direction the speaker might take or what we might be looking for from that speaker. So how did you enjoy, or what did you think about having that time to meditate and ponder on what you're getting ready to hear?

I'm going to bow out.

I think it's a blessing always to know where you're going. I don't know too many folks that just get in the car and say, okay, I'm just going to get in the car and drive.

I don't know where I'm going.

I don't know what I'm doing. Having an idea of what you're going to hear, the topic, the scripture, so on and so forth, and then just to hear that impact and unfolded, I will say it is, for me personally, it's a great challenge to, even though it was still exegetical, it was still a topic, right?

To preach topically, because I'm so used, and I've heard people say it, and I just adopt it. A lot of folks will say it's cheating to preach expository verse by verse through the text because you know where you're going.

But I don't know of any other way really to preach. When I try to preach topically, I stumble and I fumble, and it's just a challenge. But to have those parameters in general for most folks is very, very helpful.

It's like you don't want to be blindfolded when you sit down at the table. Sorry, I'm just thinking all these. You're not going to sit down and just have somebody with you blindfolded and put a fork and a knife in your hand and then say, just eat what's in front of you.

You don't know what's coming, right? It's a little bit intimidating.

Speaking of food, could we make the analogy of wine tasting? There's preparation before you sip the wine. You look at it. You twirl it. You smell it. There's this whole experience before you actually taste the wine itself.

That's kind of what happened. Prior to the sermon, you were able to meditate on it, have an experience of what's in front of you.

That's right.

And then post-sermon, you were able to reflect, well, was I on track? And just further meditation on what the speaker actually said or what the preacher actually said. Anybody else have any thoughts on the podcast aspect of the conference?

I don't know if it's something that'll catch on with other conferences. I know that we're nowhere near the model that everybody's after.

Well, I think that if we were talking about making an improvement, I think the podcast was probably the smoothest part. I think if there wasn't a way, and I'm sure there is, even if it had to be done externally, I think that in the future, it might would be a good idea to have an external source for what's going on in the sanctuary, for one reason.

I'm speaking things that aren't, right?

It's the future.

So whenever there's, say, the question and answering portion from Friday night, we weren't able to capture that. You're right. So let's just assume that there was questioning and answering going on on the podcast because the next time there'll be so many people streaming, they're asking questions from home.

The questions that would be answered inside the sanctuary may be the same questions being asked or they may be different. However, it would be nice if there was a way that we could capture separately so that later on you could go back to YouTube and catch both question and answering portions without having one of them walk over top of the other.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And thank you guys for watching right now. We really appreciate it. If you have any questions, probably in about four to five minutes, I'd like to jump into the questions that we got from the conference.

And probably we'll try to hit on some of the ones that weren't recorded so that you guys can catch up to where we were. But if you have any questions tonight, leave us a comment. Like you see, we're putting up some of the comments that are left tonight.

Leave us a comment. Ask us a question. Let's see, what was another highlight for you? I know the Lord really blessed us so much. Jeremy Tyler?

I told you, this is the first conference I've ever been to. I can't compare it to other ones. But just the fellowship part of it to me was nice. Just to be able to talk to other pastors. Actually, the reason I knew about the guy from Apologia there, Jacob was his name.

Talking with him, it was a blessing to be able to talk with him. He drives an hour to go to Reformata there. That's an encouraging thing to see that people, they hunger for the word. We've actually seen it in the question and answer, I think, even though some of the questions, obviously, I wouldn't agree with if they would have taken the stand of some of those questions.

It's still the fact that they were, one of the guys that questioned, asked a question the next day, I saw him and I talked to him a little bit more. He said, the question wasn't really for me, it was for somebody else.

It was great to see this. Maybe we could have went on that first question and answer for probably three, four hours. None of us would have got tired.

And went to...

I got back to the Airbnb there at two o 'clock in the morning. But it was nice to see the hunger for the word of God. My favorite part of it was just seeing that many people that come together wanting to...

It was funny, one of the things I noticed, and I think every single time every single preacher got up and preached, when we got to the gospel, everybody in the congregation was like, amen, amen, amen.

They were excited people when we got to the gospel. Especially when we talked about the resurrection. We talked about the gospel, we get to the resurrection and all of a sudden you know you're about to hear 10 amens.

It was great because you don't see that anywhere else. Let Claude or John go to the Dallas Cowboys game and preach that same message. How many amens are you going to hear?

I don't know.

You probably won't hear too many because they're not here to listen to you. It was just kind of cool to see that people were excited about the gospel. I think that's the one thing that we all have in common.

Absolutely.

It's the one thing that every single one of us when we got up there to preach, all the people there got excited about and had in common as well.

Amen.

To me that was it right there. The communion and fellowship we have with brothers and sisters in Christ.

If I could just add to that real quick and pull two things together. In these conversations that we've had and the conversations that we're having right now, it seems like what I'm hearing is we're giving thanks towards Vertical.

We'll talk about the fellowship among us who were preaching. But really, we're talking about the unity that Christ brings in us together.

Amen.

We were the same group. We were the same body. Vertical was serving. First Baptist served. They served us. We as the speakers and we weren't just serving as far as preaching a message. We worked together so well.

What we did together, the podcast, everything that we did, we served each other. We didn't try to step on each other's toes.

Amen.

It was just so smooth among us so that the church body was serving. The speakers, the preachers were serving. Everybody was just serving. There was nobody, no personality, no celebrity, nobody above anybody else.

We were just all serving one another and Christ brought that unity amongst His body there. That was a beautiful thing to observe.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church and he said this, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making prayer with joy because of your fellowship, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

I'm sure of this. He wasn't going to leave this out. I'm sure of this, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

That's really what, in the book of Philippians, that's probably one of my favorite epistles of Paul. That's where you're at brother.

Yes.

It's probably what I would refer to as the mushiest gospel because really there's just so much that Paul is pouring out to the Philippian church about his thankfulness. It's all centered on and in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Suffering. The suffering and the joy that we look to, that we find in the gospel.

Something I heard Claude say, he's quoting Paul, I think it was Claude, have this mind in you, Philippians 2 and 5, have an attitude in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus. I am a man based in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in the appearance as a man.

He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross. And it goes on. But one of the things that when I woke up Monday morning, I could hear Claude reading that scripture. And it's on my mind all day.

And I thought, one of the things that, and this isn't just for this group of guys. This is for the church as a whole. Have this mind in you that Christ had. We're to be a people who minister. And that means to serve.

I've seen men who if we're being honest, I love to listen to some of these great speakers, whether or not they're of my camp or not. I love to listen to them. I'm not going to say their names because I wouldn't want to do anything to bring any shame or any kind of embarrassment.

But I know that if I went to a conference where big name pastors were coming to speak, I wouldn't see one of them tie a child's shoe.

That's right.

I wouldn't see one of them plunge a toilet.

Right.

I wouldn't see one of them pick up trash out of the parking lot and throw it. But I've seen these things in you men because you serve, because you understand. We always have to equate everything that we do is what Christ has done for us.

We don't love until we understand how much Christ has loved us. And when we know how he's cleaned us up and saved us and made us alive, it's easy to love somebody else because we know how unlovable we are.

Amen.

And how much Christ loved us. And I think that if there was one thing that separated what I saw, and truthfully, it's not that it's entirely unique among this group because I see it in other churches.

That's right.

I've had the privilege to be able to go to many different churches and play music. And there's a church up in the mountains that I see them serve one another, other churches inside that same town. And they have the same thing we have going on.

Amen. There's a church of God, a Baptist church and a Methodist church. They all hold services once a month in the same location and worship God together. And they actually have a sign when you go into the town.

I'm not going to say the town because I don't want them to come under attack. But it says the city of blank churches welcomes you to our town. God loves you. And this is the mind they have with one another.

It's like, yes, we disagree on some things. Yes, we love each other. Yes, we disagree in every area. And we can work together because it's not about us anyway. And I think that if we can continue that mindset, gates of hell won't prevail against us.

Can I add something to that?

Sure. You can take it away if you want to.

I don't want to talk too much on it, but it reminded me of, you know, it's not just in the mountains of North Carolina. It's all over the world. I could walk into a church in North Africa. I could walk into a church in Russia.

I could walk into a church in China. I can walk into a church. And the thing about all of this is, is it's God. That's what it is. It's not because, you know, you're a different color than me or, you know, you're in front of mountains.

And obviously we kind of joked about, you know, some of us have different accents like Jonathan, before he got off, he said, Yuns.

Yuns.

It's okay. I understand.

But it's the awesome thing that we have in a new covenant. I was thinking about this the other day. You know, in the old covenant, you had a small nation that worshiped Christ. One on the Sabbath, right?

They set apart one day a year in a small little part on earth. Now we have it all over the earth. And we're worshiping God all the time. And God is receiving praise and worship all hours of every single day of every single nation, tongue.

And it's just, it's great to see.

Amen.

That's the key is that it's about Christ. It's about his glory. It's about, you know, it's not about you or me or whether we're from the north or south. It's about Christ.

That's right.

They said, this is how they'll know you that you have love one for another.

That's right.

And not just love for those, but especially for those of the household of faith. And that what you said, brother.

That's right.

I think that that's, that's very important. Brother Jeremy, is it? While I was speaking in terms of the things that we've witnessed personally, you're, you're a hundred percent right. If you're thinking about churches that you're shopping for, is that the right word you were looking for?