2021 Summer of Interviews: John Tucker Interview (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes, as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Interview Setup and Praying Together

Tucker, who will be preaching tonight, and it will be kind of a, just talk about ministry and updates, you get to know him a little bit better, think behind the scenes. I don�t know where it�s going to go, that�s why I�m here, because I want to see what this is going to turn into.

I know, so let�s pray and then we�ll start. Father in Heaven, I thank you for another day. We realize that while we change all the time, lots of times for the worse, you are unchangeable, you are immutable, and we�re thankful, because that means your love for us never changes, your promises never change, your character never changes, and we�re thankful for that.

So help us today to learn, to grow, to encourage one another, and to remember that we have the great Savior, the Risen King, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. Amen. Well, this is my friend John Tucker, and John is pastoring out in Ohio, and is also a lawyer.

So I love pastors, and I love lawyer pastors especially, Ephesians chapter 4 talks about pastor teachers, and now we have a pastor lawyer. So we�re just going to have almost like a little behind-the-scenes, no-compromise radio interview.

Pastoring in Beloit, Ohio, and Practicing Law

John, tell me where you pastor and how long you�ve been there.

I pastor at the Community Bible Church in Beloit, Ohio. How do you spell Beloit? B-E-L-O-I-T. So, it�s literally on the road to Damascus. It is? Yes. How does that work? Well, the road that runs in front of the church, if you�re going east on that road, the next town is Damascus.

Have you ever seen any bright lights on that road? Not lately, no. Okay. And how long have you been there? I�ve been there a little over three years. And you were a congregant, layperson, deacon, elder, before you became the pastor?

I was a congregant.

I was assisting with teaching Sunday school. The pastor, who had been there for 30 years, retired. We brought a candidate in, that didn�t work out. I was asked to fill the pulpit on an interim basis. Did that for about three months, and they came to me and then asked me to be full-time.

And then you�re currently practicing as a lawyer as well? That�s correct, yes. And what do you do?

What kind of law? I predominantly practice in the area of labor and employment law and corporate law. So I work a lot of businesses with regard to their HR issues, labor relations with unions, and also advise a number of churches, Christian schools, things of that nature.

And this is, I�m not making light of this, or it�s not a joke, but you�ve helped pastors who have been fired before, maybe lawfully or unlawfully.

Yeah, dealt with pastor issues between pastors and churches and their elder boards, deacon boards, things of that nature.

Christian Disputes, Quaker Friends, and the Inner Light

I�m getting ahead of myself, but it�s interesting to me. So 1 Corinthians 6 talks about not suing other Christians. Do you then come in as some type of mediator versus using the law? What�s your philosophy on that?

Well, obviously, I agree with 1 Corinthians 6, and so I would disagree.

Good, because otherwise you�d be preaching at night. Exactly.

That would be bad. But no, so I come in to try to facilitate, oftentimes, a resolution, a biblical resolution, and to bring the parties together on a common ground to try to reach a consensus and a soft landing, so to speak.

Sometimes with denominations that you might not agree with in terms of some secondary issues? Yes.

Yeah. The area that I�m in is predominantly Quaker friends and Mennonite, and so I work with those, and they have some different perspectives on things. Are Quakers friends with Mennonites? I�d like to know.

Oh, sorry. You know, I�m not sure. I assume so. Tell the congregation a little bit about, just in general, a Quaker philosophy and friends and no sacraments, ordinances, and stuff like that. I mean, I think of Quakers when I think of U .S. history, and I think of Quaker Oats is what I think of.

But what�s a Quaker? Well, Quaker Oats, interestingly enough, were made in Akron for a while, so there�s a big silo in Akron about that, but their philosophy, of course, is that they�re led by the Spirit.

In regards to revelation, sola scriptura would be a foreign concept to them. They believe that there�s new revelation. They have really not a hierarchy within the church. It�s more of a congregational-type model rule.

They�re governed by another body, external. They circulate pastors through, oftentimes, and an emphasis, like I said, on the Holy Spirit and the leading in that way.

I think they call it what? The inner light? The inner light, correct, yes. And the problem with the inner light, of course, is if the inner light is broken to some degree, affected by the fall, then you end up hearing errant what you think is revelation, right?

Well, absolutely, yeah, and that�s a real problem with the Friends, and they emphasize the inner light, although that�s not what they call it so much anymore. They call it leading or just the revelation of the Spirit, and they rely upon that rather than the Word of God.

Presbyterians, I know why they�re called Presbyterians, because they have elders, Congregationalists, because they have a congregation that would vote and have the last say, Episcopalians, because there�s a bishop.

Why would you call yourself a Friend?

Not you. I�m really not sure. To be honest, you know, William Penn in Pennsylvania with the Quakers, and I think over time it just developed that that was a name that was attached to that, and I really don�t know the history of the organization.

It kind of reminds me of, you know, what if the congregation was kind of ornery and they�re called Friends? You know, that would be bad advertising. Yes, it would be indeed. Kind of like, you know, if a church is named Excel and then you�re not excelling in the Christian faith, you know, am I allowed to come?

No, Mike. You can�t. All right. What�s the strangest court case that you�ve ever�or case that you�ve dealt with maybe in the ecclesiastical church realm?

The craziest court case in the church. Haven�t Been resolved without having to get that far. I don�t know that there�the craziest would be in the civil context would be a situation where an employee allowed a baby to go through an x-ray machine at an airport.

That was pretty bizarre. Of course, the individual was fired, and the fun part of the case was the videotape of the baby in the baby carrier. The woman is there waiting to go check into a building. The baby gets caught on the conveyor belt and gets pulled into the x-ray machine, and of course, you�ve got this video of a baby laying in a carrier, fully x-rayed, and then comes out the other side.

The baby was fine? The baby was fine, yeah, but that was intriguing. With churches, I think the most interesting thing about that is their inability to comprehend what God�s Word says with regard to the resolution of disputes.

They don�t have good governing documents that speak to those issues and the level of contention. Some of the most hotly contested issues that I�ve dealt with are the tensions between pastors and leadership boards in the churches, and the volatility of that is really striking to me.

Would it be fair to say that sometimes people in a legal suit who are both unbelievers act more moral than to Christians or professing Christians?

Yes, I have often found that to be the case. There is a certain level of civility in regards to civil litigation in the secular courts. You get into a church setting, and for some reason, sometimes that civility leaves, which is odd.

The Gift of a Custom Pulpit

Different subject, and we�re talking today to John Tucker. John, in pastoral ministry, there are great highs and lows, right? Lots of times we get to really be encouraged, other times very discouraged.

Tell the congregation about how your congregation encouraged you, i .e., with the pulpit.

My dad was a Baptist minister for almost 40 years in a town called Hartville, which is just west of where I live, a small Baptist congregation. Early in his ministry, one of the men in the congregation was a carpenter, and he made my dad a custom pulpit, customized to my dad.

So that was one of the things that my dad really loved in his ministry. My dad retired and moved to Springfield, Missouri, and so the pulpit went with him. It was in his garage and was kind of forgotten.

So I became the pastor at Community Bible Church, and one of the elders in the church found out about this and talked to my mom about it. One day, they drove down all the way to Springfield from Beloit, which is about a 16-hour drive, picked up the pulpit and brought it back and put it in the church, unbeknownst to me.

So I was teaching Sunday school. While I was teaching Sunday school, they brought the pulpit in, and when I got done teaching Sunday school, I walked out and there it was. It was just really a magnificent moment to be able to stand in my dad's pulpit, where he proclaimed God's truth faithfully for 40 years.

How was that sermon that Sunday that you preached? I was blown. I was just...

I mean, even now I'm getting tears in my eyes thinking about it, because it was just one of those... It was very gracious of that man in the church to do that, and my mom was part of that. And there's a plaque on it that talks about it being my dad's pulpit.

So it's a real honor to stand behind it and proclaim Christ. Wonderful.

Thank you for that. If we were to walk into the church that you pastor on a Sunday morning, what would we see or hear or do? Some churches on the website say, we're about casual dress and we're about this or that.

How do you promote the church and or what would we experience when we walked in? Besides the pulpit. We're very seeker-friendly.

Oh, you are? Good. We love seekers. Yes. No. So it's a church that's been there for over 150 years. It's an old congregational church. They left the congregational denomination in the mid-'80s, went independent.

We're in a rural community. It's a nice building located on a major highway running east to west in northeast Ohio. You're going to come in and you're going to be greeted by very nice people. We have Sunday school.

I teach the Sunday school class. We have a great children's program. What are you teaching in Sunday school? Second Peter right now. Working through Second Peter. We're in Second Peter chapter one. I'm also working through Sinclair Ferguson's book, The Christian Life, with regard to just the doctrines that are applicable to the Christian life.

So we have Sunday school. We have kind of a fellowship time in the morning, coffee and donuts, and people get to spend time with each other, kind of catching up and talking. Then at 9 .30, we start the Sunday school class, and that goes until 10 .15, and then we have our worship service at 10 .30, more traditional in nature.

We sing hymns. There's scripture reading, call to worship, pastoral prayer, and then we sing some hymns, and then I preach expositionally through Right now we're in Colossians. Excellent. How do we meet?

You want to tell that story? That's a good problem. That's a great story, and it's a demonstration of God's providence. So I like to listen to podcasts, and I was listening to a I don't even remember what it was called.

It was two young men who had put together a podcast, and they were interviewing Mike on the podcast, and so I heard about NOCO Radio through that podcast. I then went to the podcast and started listening, and found that he and I were of like mind and conviction doctrinally and in terms of preaching style, and so I just started listening.

I was at the Shepherds Conference, and I heard his voice. I didn't know what he looked like, but I heard him. Yes. This voice in the light. Come out here. Yes. And so I heard him talking to somebody, and I saw him, and so I kind of ran up and caught him and said, hey, my name's John, and I really enjoy your show.

Oh, that's when my handler said, stay away. Yes, you're dead. Yeah, the guy I remember that.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, now I remember. Yeah, that was difficult to get to you, but once I paid the entrance fee, everything was fine, so Yeah, kiss the ring, exactly.

Remember, it's not doctor, it's high holy doctor. That's right. Yes, indeed. Yes. Back to the church scenario. Tell our congregation a little bit about your philosophy or preaching, Colossians 128, and kind of an odd phrasing for emphasis, Paul says, him we proclaim, talking about the Lord Jesus.

Right. So instead of saying, we proclaim Jesus, him we proclaim with the emphasis there, we're gonna talk about the Lord Jesus, and of course, as Dr. Clark talked about the last two days, many congregations want practical application, how-to lists, steps for easy living, four keys to health, how to get through the work week, and there are some, obviously, scriptural verses that help us with the Christian life, but the dominating theme is Christ-centered preaching.

What's your philosophy on that? Well, certainly, Christ-centered preaching, you're not gonna get the seven steps, the five keys, the three movements towards a better life. We focus on preaching verse by verse, exegetically, expositionally, working through the text, making certain people are seeing Christ and learning to love Christ and appreciate what he has done for them, so Colossians, of course, is a great book for that because it's all about Christ, really.

The first two chapters are really focused on the work in person of Jesus Christ, and we've been working through that currently, and it's been a real blessing to the people, and that's our focus, is to proclaim Christ and crucify him.

Persevering Through People Leaving and Trusting Christ to Build His Church

How do you mentally and maybe psychologically work through people who are attending the church, and maybe they have friends and family, maybe they're members, have been members for a long time, and then you begin to preach this way, and maybe they want a different way, and then they say a few things to friends, and then they leave.

It's hard to be a pastor and have people leave. It is, yeah. Because, I mean, we want to be liked, and we're not trying to run people out. I remember sometimes Luke would be five, and he'd say, Daddy, those people left the church, didn't they?

Why don't they like you? You know, just things like that. How do you work through that? Because I know people don't stick around Christ-centered preaching churches unless that's really what they want and have been taught to want.

Well, you know, Christ will build his church, and sometimes he does that by subtraction. And certainly, we don't want people to leave, but we're not going to change the message in order to appeal to them to make them want to stay.

We're not pragmatic. We focus on the scripture, and we trust that the Holy Spirit will do the work. It's sad to see people leave. We don't want people to leave. But at the same time, we understand that the Lord is working in people's lives and hearts, and we trust that he's building the church in the way he wants to.

And so I have to trust that. You know, it's difficult at times as a pastor to watch that. It hurts. Sometimes people don't tell you why. Sometimes they do, and they can be very direct about that. But I always appeal to them on the basis of what scripture says in terms of proclaiming Christ, as Paul would say in the book of Colossians.

And if that doesn't help, then they move on.

Missions, Evan Burns, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I'm talking to John Tucker today. John, you and I both know Evan Burns, and the congregation here knows Evan Burns, our missionary in Thailand and Alaska. Evan and I went to Beloit last year to do a conference, and then you guys have picked up support for Evan now, and so how do you explain that?

And maybe we'll send some men to Alaska.

Yes, so Mike came out to our church last May for our Pillars of the Faith conference and spoke on assurance, and Evan did the presentation on Adoniram Judson. And so through that process, we got to know Evan.

The people really loved him and liked his ministry. And so we actually changed our missions. We transitioned away from some areas that we were focused on so we could have a better level of support for Evan.

So we had brought Evan on as a full-time missionary at Community Bible Church. The people loved the conference. They really loved Mike, and we appreciated the message that you brought on assurance. And we're looking forward to you coming back in April.

We've got everything worked out. I made a mistake. I didn't have the temperature of the water in the car was not quite right, and I'm really sorry about that. I am, yeah. Well, I didn't want you to pick me up.

I asked for the driver. That's true. I know. We're working on that. Okay. What is it like to be a celebrity in Beloit, Ohio? You know, it's really amazing.

It's pretty amazing. The farmers and the cows really appreciate me.

You have speakers come for conferences. Have any speakers ever asked you to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the day off? Yes. There has been one.

There has been one. And, of course, what else would you do after a series of powerful messages on assurance?

You go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I just was trying to see if he was a legalist, and so we were going to try to help him with the sanctification and drive that legality out. Well, you did. You know.

It's like the people say, well, I never listened to any secular music, and you go, do you listen to classical music? Were they all Christians?

Yeah, I know. That's right. Very interesting. No, we had a good time. We had a great time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Concerns in Modern Evangelicalism and the Need for Christ-Centered Rural Ministry

Tell me a little bit, John, about some of your concerns in modern evangelicalism, and then when we're done with that, some of the encouraging things that you see going on in churches and maybe in American modern evangelicalism.

Let's start with the negative first concerns.

Well, just the lack of Bible preaching, the lack of the presence of the word in the ministry, the absence of the exaltation of Christ through the preaching of the word. The emphasis on the finished work of Christ is really troubling to me.

There are so many churches in the area in which I live. We have several very large churches, and you can listen to these messages, and Jesus Christ is not referenced. Again, it's the biblicism that Dr. Clark spoke about yesterday, the seven steps, that type of mentality, so that's discouraging to me.

The law gospel issue is discouraging to me. It's amazing to me that we have lost sight of that because there's such a freedom in understanding the distinction between the law and the gospel, and it's remarkable to me people want to be able to do something so they can have assurance in what it is they're doing rather than assurance in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

And that's something that you can even find in a church that's been established for a long time. People lose sight of that, and I think it's easy to do, and I think that's why it's important every Sunday that you put Christ back in front of people so they know that the work is done.

They can rest in that. To me, that's the beauty of the gospel and something that we emphasize at Community Bible Church.

Okay, so that's the concern. How about positive things that you see as you look at the swath of evangelicalism in America or beyond?

It's hard to find encouraging things in that regard. You know, there are people that I'm seeing in churches, Bible churches, if you will, that are transitioning away from the emphasis on works and the misunderstanding between sanctification and justification.

You see men beginning to understand that distinction better and working towards that, and I'm encouraged by that. It's a slow process, but I am seeing that, and I'm encouraged by that. Thanks to men like you and others like Dr. Clark and people who are taking the time to explain these things in forums that are available to them, so thanks.

If I were to take your iPhone and go to podcasts, what podcasts would I find there? Of course, NOCO is number one. It's the most listened to. What was the alphabetical order by guest host last night?

NOCO, yeah, Fieldcast, Dr. Clark's podcast, so those are probably my top three at this point. Okay.

How about music? What kind of music do you like to listen to? Jazz and classical.

Okay. Do you play the banjo? I do at times. I used to play quite a bit in college, but I haven't played in some time. I pick it up every once in a while and play with it and have been intending to get back to it and get better at it.

You live on a farm, right? I do, yes. What kind of livestock do you have? We raise cattle. We have a couple of cows. We used to raise horses. I used to raise American Quarter Horses and Missouri Foxtrotters, and so we've got chickens and some cats and a dog, and so, yeah.

Do you ride the horses at all? We did, yeah. We live... Our property backs up to a park, a state park, and it's got bridle trails, and we used to ride our horses back there. My daughters were into the horses with me and my wife, and so we enjoyed that together.

Why is it in America it's fine to... We kill cows and eat them. Nobody does anything, but when it comes to horses, we don't really like horses. Yeah. It's just... I just don't think it's... Well, you know what I was thinking about?

I know. I was just thinking about Lewis and Clark. You know, they're stuck. They're snowed in. They're eating fish every single day, and they would beg Lewis and Clark, could we please kill a horse to have some real meat?

Yeah, well, when you're hungry, you'll eat about anything, I guess, right? So... No, I don't know. I just... It's not... God didn't intend for us to eat horses, so I think he made them less tasty than cattle.

Oh, really? Okay. All right.

All right. Well, this is just random thinking here, obviously. How about... Speaking of horses and rural, there's a big push in evangelicalism with city and urban, and of course, we wanna minister to people in cities, and there's a lot of people leaving rural areas to go to the city, and New York City, and Chicagoland, et cetera.

But almost every book that I hear about is designed for city ministries, and I'm thinking of Tim Keller, especially, and his acolytes. What about rural pastors? Who writes for the rural pastor who is behind the scenes?

You're not going to have 50 ,000 people within a few block radius. I mean, people have to drive for a long way to get there. There are challenges for the rural pastor. How does he become encouraged or given insight by these publishers, our leaders?

They're really not. I think they're forgotten.

Rural ministry is unique in that, typically, you find people who are very established and set in their ways in regards to either having been attached to a particular denomination or raised a certain way, and so that presents a unique challenge.

It's interesting, too. A lot of the problems that you find in the city are also present in the rural communities. I was reading an article recently about the opioid epidemic and the problems there. It's as prevalent within the rural communities, if not even more so than it is in the city.

There are great needs there, and they're oftentimes forgotten in that regard, so there really isn't any type of books or materials that are being written for or focused on rural ministry. But again, I think in the context of any ministry, the issue is Christ.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the city or if you're in the country, and so what we're trying to do for these folks in the community we're in is to put Christ in front of them. Okay.

Good answer. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.