What is Fire? (Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals)

Your Calvinist

Subscribe

Download

Share

10

00:00

Hey guys, it's Keith Foskey. I'm coming to you from Blairsville, Georgia, where I'm attending the 2024

00:05

Southeastern Regional Conference of the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.

00:11

Yes, that's FIRE for short, but no, it's not Pentecostal. Our church joined

00:17

FIRE over 10 years ago, and we have really been encouraged by the fellowship that's provided through this church network.

00:23

There's not a lot of groups like this out there. We gather at our regional conferences for great teaching, but we also give church reports, where we pray for specific needs for the pastors and their congregations.

00:34

And in addition, we have a lot of time of fellowship. It's not packed with message after message after message, but with plenty of time in between to talk and get to know one another and really become brothers in Christ.

00:44

I really feel like every time I leave a FIRE conference, I definitely have gained some new friends and brothers in the ministry.

00:51

So if you're a minister looking for a fellowship of solid brothers or a church looking for a network to be a part of,

00:57

I definitely recommend FIRE, and you can learn more at firefellowship .org.

01:03

Yesterday, I published a video of the first speaker, Brother Matt Rayburn, on the subject of the shepherd and preaching, and today

01:09

I had the chance to sit down with the other three speakers and hear about their ministries and messages that they gave. So I'm gonna stitch all those videos together into one show for this week's podcast.

01:18

If you wanna jump to a specific speaker or topic, you can find the timestamps in the description below.

01:23

So stay tuned. Your Calvinist podcast begins right now. ♪ Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me ♪ ♪

01:38

So then I need a friendly voice with some good theology ♪ ♪

01:46

Calvinist to be speaking so I mix a manly drink ♪ ♪ Pepsi and shoe polish and I hit the

01:52

YouTube link ♪ ♪ Don't say hit, that sounds violent ♪ ♪ And I feel my troubles all melt away, oh oh ♪ ♪

02:00

It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky ♪ ♪

02:09

Beards and bow ties, laughs till sunrise ♪ ♪

02:16

It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky ♪ ♪

02:23

He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice ♪

02:30

Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience. Hey guys, and welcome back to your

02:37

Calvinist podcast. This is Keith Foskey and I am still at the 2024 Southeast Regional Conference of the

02:43

Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. And I am across the table today from Mark Mann and he is the pastor of Grace Bible Fellowship in Mount Juliet, yes.

02:54

All right, well, thank you for sitting down with me. We just heard you preach a message on the pastor in counseling.

03:02

Yeah, I wanna make sure I got the title right. And there were several things that you said, but before we get into that, introduce everyone to you because you have quite the history when it comes to counseling, you're no beginner.

03:16

Yeah, well, I didn't have to be convinced that the word of God was living, active, powerful and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

03:26

I was already convinced that as a brand new Christian back in 1990, 91, when we got saved, my wife and I got saved together.

03:34

So we got involved in a lay counseling ministry way back then. And over time,

03:40

I started sensing a call to ministry. We were in Orange County at the time. I was listening to John MacArthur on the radio, really enjoyed his teaching.

03:49

And I thought, well, if I'm gonna even explore the ministry, I wanted to go get a formal education in the Bible. So I did that.

03:56

And always involved in counseling, got certified when

04:01

I got my master's degree in biblical counseling at the Master's University in 1998, got certified with, it was

04:09

NANC then. Yeah, as I said, National Association of New Thetical Counselors. That's right, exactly. And now that's

04:14

ACBC Association, yes, of Certified Biblical Counselors, yeah. Tell us what New Thetic means.

04:20

New, yes, New Thetic. The Greek verb, New Theteo, means to caution, to warn, to bring to mind.

04:28

It has to do with recognizing that something's in error or wrong, and you're to give a warning to that person because they're headed for trouble.

04:38

And in English translations, it might be translated as admonish? Admonish, that's right. Often I think people hear that word and they don't know what it means.

04:46

Right. They'll hear it and they'll say, well, I don't know what admonish is. Well, that's just what you just said.

04:52

Yeah, it's not in our ordinary conversations. But warn is. Warning is, yes, that's right.

04:59

And tonight you talked about something very important in your message, and it's what I wanted to draw out because a lot of pastors reach out to me.

05:06

I mentioned that to you when we were talking. A lot of pastors reach out and just need somebody to talk to, need somebody to share their burden or just have somebody who kind of has been there and knows what they're going through.

05:17

And one of the things that you mentioned tonight that was encouraging to me is how the minister is not to just be from the pulpit, even though we understand the pulpit is an important ministry and is the first step of discipleship, but it's to also be in the lives of the people.

05:34

That's right. And years ago I heard a phrase, and you almost said it, you said a similar statement, but I heard years ago, and I've said it ever since, that a shepherd should smell like sheep.

05:43

Yes. And you said something similar. What did you say tonight? Yeah, I just said that you should never ascend the pulpit without the smell of sheep on you.

05:50

In other words, you're already involved in their lives. Otherwise your sermons will ring hollow.

05:57

The sermon should be organic. It should be filled with the knowledge of the people that have been entrusted to your care in terms of the care of souls.

06:05

And so when you're involved in their lives, it brings your sermons to life.

06:11

It's more meaningful to the congregation because they know that you understand them and that you care.

06:16

Amen. And you gave a great illustration of the shepherd who would run his hands through the wool. Does that, talk about that just for a second.

06:26

Well, sheep typically are dirty animals. They have a, they give off an oil in their fleece.

06:36

And so all kinds of nastiness will cling to their wool.

06:42

And they'll often get stuck with stickers and they'll get pests and all kinds of nasty things that they're just dumb and they're filthy.

06:55

They're actually a very filthy animal. They say that a pig is cleaner than a sheep.

07:01

That's interesting. So when the shepherd is bringing, calling the sheep out of the fold in the morning, he calls them out one at a time.

07:10

He makes his own guttural sounds for each one unique to them. And they each respond in kind to come to the shepherd.

07:17

And they, he runs his hands through their wool, even though he's gonna get his hands off greasy and dirty and grimy, but he cares to check to see if there's anything in there that might bring harm to them or how they are harmed themselves overnight or whatever the case might be.

07:36

And that's a great visual picture of the minister's work in the life of the people. And that we are to be in their lives.

07:44

That's right. That we are to be ministering to them, not just from afar, not just from a distance.

07:50

And that can be hard for some guys. Some guys I think are really good behind the pulpit, but when they get in this condition, the one -on -one, they're a little less comfortable.

08:02

There's nothing that we're promised will be comfortable about the pastorate. As a matter of fact, we're assured of the opposite.

08:11

That it's, in this life, you're going to have tribulation, but don't be fearful because I have overcome the world,

08:21

Jesus said. So we're going to receive, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard on many levels.

08:28

And one of them is going and getting involved in people's lives, getting into the pots and pans they're living, getting into all the little things, manifestations of their sin and things that are really hard to just...

08:43

It's like that man told me years ago in that internship. When I preached, he said, "'Well, you know how to preach, "'so why would you want to muck around "'in people's problems?''

08:52

And I thought to myself... I was hoping you'd mention that because that rung in my ear.

08:58

Yeah, so I thought, I didn't say anything. I wanted to, out of respect, I didn't say anything, but I'm thinking to myself, isn't that what the pastorate's all about?

09:06

We're going to... Sheep get dirty and they get into trouble and they injure themselves and they run off.

09:12

They get scared. They get doubtful. They get angry and they're running into thickets and there's wolves and they're in all kinds of danger.

09:21

So that's the analogy we're given. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd.

09:27

The patriarchs, I mentioned were shepherds, Moses, David, Amos, all shepherds.

09:32

So that theme runs through scripture. That imagery runs through scripture. So we're firstly shepherds.

09:40

And so what he's equipped us with is a full -orbed ministry of the word.

09:46

And that's done publicly and privately. That's done from the pulpit and it's done in counseling.

09:53

It's all part of the care of souls. It's all part of discipleship, if you want to call it that. It's all part of progressive sanctification.

10:01

I mean, this is what we're called to and it's difficult work. Well, if you could say one thing and I do want to draw to a close.

10:08

I know it's starting to get late and the folks have left, but I appreciate you sitting down and talking to me for a few minutes.

10:13

If you could say one thing to a minister who maybe said to you, hey man, my job is to preach.

10:19

That's my job. I do my job. And I don't know if you've ever heard anybody say that, but I've been around enough guys who

10:25

I think they think that's it, especially the guys who don't smell like sheep. If you could say one thing to those guys, what would it be?

10:33

Well, I cited in my book, One Ministry of the Word, I cited John Calvin who he took issues with that.

10:41

Oh, I mean, he rebuked that in his writings, saying that there's pastors, for instance, that'll say, oh,

10:52

I'm not a counselor. Like they're just not equipped to do that. Well, by virtue of your calling in the pastorate, you must do that.

11:00

It's, if you have to get some training to get better at it, you need to do that.

11:06

But you can't walk away from what your obligation is, from what the

11:11

Lord's called you to. Hebrews 13, 17 has always just struck the right kind of fear in me.

11:18

You know, that the congregation, it's written to the congregation that they should obey their elders and submit to them, for they keep care, they keep watch over your souls.

11:27

And then this, as those who will give an account. So do this in a way that brings them joy and not grief.

11:35

So when I read that for the first time, it struck the right kind of fear in me. And I thought, this is a huge responsibility.

11:41

I don't have the prerogative to say, oh, we've got a counseling ministry here. And we let, or we let one of the elders do that because he's taken, you know, biblical counseling or something.

11:53

That's part of the calling. It's part of the ministry of the word. You can't just hide behind the pulpit.

12:00

Amen. Well, brother, I wanna thank you for a great message and for becoming a good friend.

12:05

I know this is, I think this is, we've met before, but I think this is the first time we really spent some time together. That's right. So thank you for sharing some time with me this week.

12:13

And I was glad to have met you. My pleasure. Hey guys, I wanna interrupt the show just for a moment to remind you again about our sponsor,

12:19

Tiny Bibles. This is the smallest Bible on the market. It is available in King James and New King James, and you can find it at tinybibles .com.

12:28

Remember, if you read a tiny Bible, it'll make your muscles feel huge. So go get yourself a tiny Bible today.

12:34

Also to remind you that if you wanna support the show, you can do so by getting a tiny Bible or by going to buymeacoffee .com

12:40

slash your Calvinist and leave a donation. Lastly, the most important thing we wanna make sure is that everybody who watches our videos, hears the gospel.

12:48

The word gospel means good news, but the good news has to be predicated by some bad news. And the bad news is that we're all sinners, which means we've all broken

12:57

God's law and we stand separated from him. But the good news is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

13:07

The Bible says God sent his son into the world to live a perfect life and to die a substitutionary death on behalf of everyone who will believe.

13:17

So today, if you find yourself outside of Christ, the Bible says to repent of your sin, that means turn from your sin, particularly turn from your unbelief and trust in the

13:25

Lord Jesus Christ and you will find him to be a perfect savior. Thank you for listening to that gospel presentation.

13:33

And if you have any questions at all, particularly about your own soul, please send us a message at keithfoskey .com.

13:40

And I am joined today by brother David and he is the pastor at, go ahead and tell me again,

13:46

I remember, but I - Redeeming Grace Church in Cartersville, Georgia. Every church here has the name Grace in it. That's right.

13:52

Because we believe in grace. We believe in sovereign grace. And you were the second speaker at this conference and you spoke on the subject of the shepherd in prayer.

14:01

Yes, sir. And I want to say, first of all, thank you for your message. Thank you for your heart and you're encouraging us with your message.

14:08

Thank you. But I thought what might be interesting to our people is to talk a little bit about your background because you have not always been

14:16

Reformed. That's right. Most people that I talk to come to Reformed Theology from some other background.

14:23

And, but your background's a little unique because you come out of the Pentecostal world. So tell me a little bit about your, how you became what you were and what you are.

14:35

It took some years. Okay. Slowly, but the first Pentecostal Bible college

14:43

I went to was actually JSBC, Jimmy Sweyer Bible college. God had a good purpose there.

14:49

I didn't finish out, of course. There was a scandal later on, unfortunately. I was going to say, is that about the same time as his scandal was going on, was when you were in the

14:58

Pentecostal? Just about, just left months prior. Oh, wow. The scandal was aired on television.

15:05

I remember. Nationwide about, it was in March of 1988. If you look -

15:11

Well, when I say I remember, I was eight years old. Yes, sir. So I was, how old were you in 88? I was about 21 or 22.

15:19

Okay. Yes, sir. And my wife, well, at the time, not that she wasn't my wife, but we, my fiance -

15:27

Yeah, and this is your wife that you - Yes, yes, yes, sir. Teresa, Teresa Harris.

15:33

Amen. She was from Savannah and I was from Rome, Georgia. And she was from Savannah, Georgia, Southern Belle, but she was there.

15:42

She went for the MRS degree, you know, so she finally got it.

15:47

The Mrs. Degree, is that what it's called? The Mrs. Degree, that's right. Oh, okay, well, that's funny. So I met her, so God, in God's providence, we married actually one month after that scandal was released.

16:01

Oh, wow. So it was, it was kind of, it was a shocker, but, you know, there was a lot of, it was, it was nasty.

16:09

Sure. A lot of broken people, a lot of people stopped following Christ because of that. Well, of course, unfortunately, people had their, they had their eyes on a man.

16:18

Sure. And they were lifting him up too much. And we still, we're still seeing this.

16:24

We're still witnessing this, you know. Yeah, unfortunately, the reformed world recently rocked by an unfortunate scandal.

16:33

Yes, it's really sad. I would say, unfortunately, a falling. I don't know if, hey, hey, what were the news?

16:38

It's still so fresh. A disqualification. Hard to talk about. Yes. Definitely, definitely. You know, and we do pray for their family.

16:46

Absolutely. And pray for him. And for the church. And repentance and restoration. We pray for the elders to come alongside him and lead him gently and restore him.

16:54

And I pray that he's receptive. But yeah, I mean, in the Pentecostal world, this was nothing new.

17:01

I've, you know, witnessed scandals down through the years. And it just,

17:08

God reveals. Nothing hidden that shall be, shall be revealed. Yeah. You know, so, but judgment begins in the house of God.

17:17

But. But it was about that time that you started learning reformed teaching. And maybe we just say

17:22

Calvinism, because reform's a bigger umbrella. Yes, yes. It would be a while before we come to the doctrines of grace and understanding what that meant, the solos.

17:37

But when I was introduced, first of all, over the radio, we cut on, this was around 1989.

17:46

We started listening to Grace to You, John MacArthur, Pastor John MacArthur. And of course, he was very

17:52

Calvinistic, but still, we didn't understand covenant theology. Neither was he.

17:57

Yeah, that's right. Somebody's gonna get me for that. Uh -oh. No, he understands it. He just don't agree. Yeah, that's right, that's right.

18:04

But R .C. Sproul was the one that I learned a great deal of covenant theology, the ins and outs of the solos.

18:16

And it really was his passion for how he taught.

18:23

MacArthur is more of a pastor. He's a pastor. But R .C.,

18:29

as you well know, and you've heard R .C. for many years and even met him. Yeah, yeah, met him in some awkward positions.

18:36

I heard that. Yeah, that's. I have to explain that story sometime. But anyway, listening.

18:42

He's a theologian. Yes, yes. Absolutely. And there's a difference. And not to say that both are into theology.

18:50

Church needs both. Absolutely. But there is a difference. It's almost like when you're listening to R .C.

18:55

Sproul, and we still listen to him. We listen to his study on foundations, dust of glory.

19:01

And I was telling all the brothers and sisters, I said, you are like, it's like I'm back in Bible college or seminary and listening to a professor teach this.

19:11

And I said, what you're listening is invaluable. I mean, it's, and R .C. could explain it.

19:17

And he loved, you know how R .C. was. Luther, he's passionate about Luther.

19:23

Reformation, it was like he was a historian. And when I started listening to that, the historic view of the

19:32

Reformation, classical reform, and what the Reformation was all about, it's like the

19:41

Lord opened up my eyes as I was looking in scripture and what God was doing in history in his sovereignty.

19:49

And when I saw that, I thought, wow. Then started studying a little bit more what the doctrines of grace meant and what these reformers stood for.

19:58

So that came slowly down through the years. It took some time, Brother Keith. About how long do you think before you, well, let me ask you, were you pastoring during that time?

20:08

No, sir. No, sir. Okay. Yeah, it still took a while. I mean, I was reading. Honestly, I didn't read a lot of Puritans back then, but when

20:16

I started reading the Puritans, like Owen and Watson and Baxter and those guys, oh, it just was like fuel to the fire.

20:27

And then I was introduced later on to D. Martyn Lloyd -Jones, listening to him. It was just a total transformation.

20:34

But yeah, it took some time, Brother Keith. I mean, I would read some pretty solid teachers.

20:42

Actually, the first book I've read, a young man from Bob Jones University gave me the book when it was first fresh off the press,

20:50

The Gospel According to Jesus. Which is MacArthur. Oh yeah, it was MacArthur. And of course, but he was explaining the biblical view of repentance, salvation by faith, especially the

21:02

Lordship salvation that he was fighting against these believers. So, but with that as a foundation, it gave me a hunger to dig deeper.

21:13

And then I started digging into R .C. Sproul and listening to him. And I was grabbing every cassette back in those days.

21:20

It was cassette tapes. You know, so all the cassette tapes I possibly had, VHS tapes.

21:25

That's before the DVDs. Before streaming. That's right, that's right.

21:34

But, and of course, the first study session that I listened to from R .C.

21:43

was this classic, The Holiness of God. That, I cannot tell you,

21:49

Brother Keith, what that did to my life. I wanted to pass that on to everybody. And then -

21:55

You know, we still do. We buy, I buy a box of them. Yes. And we give it to new members.

22:00

I love that, amen. It's life transforming. Everybody out there, please get a hold of R .C.

22:09

Sproul's. You could go on YouTube and listen to these. You can listen to these series.

22:15

Yeah, his messages are free. And free, yes. And they will transform your life. But as far as the doctrines of grace, you know,

22:21

R .C., he really taught a lot of that to me. When I, especially when I was listening to his series on chosen by God, that was incredibly good.

22:33

Then I started buying books and books and books, stacks of R .C. Sproul, you know.

22:39

But MacArthur was right along with him, you know. And both of those men ministered to my heart down through the years.

22:45

And they actually challenged me to go to the scriptures to be a better Berean.

22:52

And now, by God's grace, I'm trying to apply all that they taught me in my life.

22:58

So, by God's grace. Well, how long have you been the pastor where you are now? Yeah, Redeeming Grace Church in Cartersville is, we've existed since 2018.

23:08

Okay. So it's roughly, what, about? Six, seven years. Six or seven years, yes, sir. Yeah, God's good and we're slowly growing.

23:16

It's slow growth, but we want healthy growth, not the wrong kind. Well, I have to tell this story because I thought it was kind of funny.

23:25

You are bivocational. Yes, sir. You are a, tell the world. I am a milkman. I didn't know they still existed, that you're a milkman.

23:32

They're still around. Now, it's not the old -fashioned guy that goes to the home, but I do drive a milk truck and it's a big yellow one.

23:40

Oh, okay. Yeah, it's actually, and we're based, it's a depot.

23:46

We call them branches, but you call them the depot branch and we have milk shipped to us on a tractor -trailer truck and they come by crates.

23:56

There's school milk, little half -pints. Yeah. We have school routes, men that deliver to nothing but schools.

24:03

Okay. And then we, I have a retail route. We have a few, about four. This is a smaller branch.

24:09

We have larger branches. There's one in Marietta, Georgia. There's one in Chattanooga. There's one actually in Blairsville, where we are right here.

24:18

And then there's others that's kind of spread out there, but make a long story short, yes,

24:25

I'm thankful to be a milkman and I've been with them for 10 years and I've been in retail all my life, along with pastor and bivocational.

24:34

I've never been totally, completely vocational pastor, but I'm praying for that in the near future.

24:40

Here I am, turned 59 today. Yeah, congratulations on your birthday. Yeah, thank you, yeah, praise God. I'm thankful to be alive.

24:46

Amen. But I'm praying as God wills it to open up those doors so I can put more of my energy and time into that.

24:53

But right now it's provisions that are needed, insurance reasons and to provide for my family as well.

25:02

So most of my five children, all five of my children are grown, have 10 grandchildren, but I'm so thankful for the milk route.

25:11

Yes, I have a route. Yeah, no, I love it. And some people say route, but it depends where you're from.

25:18

So I'm from the South. I say milk route, but anyway, I'm thankful to get out there.

25:23

Yeah, I push off sometimes five or six, sometimes 8 ,000 pounds of milk per day.

25:29

Wow. Yeah, it keeps me in shape. I was gonna say that's gonna keep you healthy. Well, I have one last thing

25:36

I wanna ask you and that is we're part of fire. We're both associated with fire.

25:41

Your church is a fire church? Yes, sir, it is. Our church is as well. Yes, sir. Just for the sake of the people who are watching, one of the benefits that I have found in fire is just this wonderful fellowship that we've had, the opportunity to get to know each other.

25:53

Yeah, it's been a blessing. And I mentioned to you guys that a lot of young ministers reach out to me, need somebody to talk to, need somebody to bounce questions off of, maybe even going through a struggle.

26:05

Amen. And I often point them to fire. I say, this is a good group of guys. Yes, it is. So tell us how long you've been here and give your 30 -second commercial for fire, if you would, just as we close, just say, this is why, if you think people ought to be a part of this group.

26:20

Yeah, that's a good reason. Yeah, I'll see if I can do this in 30 seconds. Well, fire, yeah, fire is like fire, little fire.

26:30

We need this in the church, especially in the reform circles as well.

26:35

We don't wanna be the frozen chosen. Amen. We wanna have fire. And of course, what is it stand for?

26:41

Free evangelism. Oh, fellowship of independent reformed evangelicals. But I can't ring that off as good as you.

26:49

But yes, it's a great association. Churches out there that wants to be part of this.

26:56

It's some of the sweetest fellowship you ever have, this side of heaven. And we meet on the

27:02

Lord's day, each church. It's a taste of heaven, but fire, the association is, to me, it's even just as sweet or sweeter, especially meeting with fellow pastors, sitting down, sharing notes, burdens, praying for one another.

27:21

That's what the church is about. I mean, of course, with pastors, we get together. There's others, elders, deacons, laymen, whatever the case, but it's the body of Christ that comes together.

27:33

And I just thank God for these brothers. And I mean, you tell me, serving.

27:40

Yeah, and they've served us well the last few days. They washed their feet, Brother Keith. Amen. And I thank God for them. But I don't know,

27:46

I just say, I would say, everybody out there, if you don't know anything about the Fire Fellowship, look them up.

27:51

And they were solid, I mean, solid as a rock on doctrine.

27:59

Basically, doctrines of grace, reformed view. And when we say reformed, I think a lot of people,

28:05

I've had so many people ask me, what does it mean? What do you mean by reformed? Anybody can use that word.

28:10

But when we're talking about this in the biblical sense of the reformation, the historic reformation that was sparked, as God sparked it, by a man by the name of Martin Luther.

28:25

And that's how it all began. And then, of course, Calvin picked up on it, and Zwingling, and these other,

28:32

John Knox, and all these other great men of God. But we just wanna be

28:37

Bible, that's what it's about. Biblical. And we're still reformed. Amen, yeah, semper reformanda.

28:44

Always reformed. There you go. And that means we wanna get closer and closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to God, and understand.

28:52

And we have to dig in our Bible. We need to know the Bible. I think that's the main thing. The main thing needs to be the main thing.

28:58

I think one of the preachers mentioned that today. But in every aspect of ministry is reach out.

29:05

It's about reaching out, disciple -making. It's about being a great commissioned church. The reformed theology is all about that.

29:11

It's all about the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And knowing what the text means.

29:16

Knowing what is God saying in our day. And he doesn't change.

29:23

He never will change. That's such a, he's immutable. But isn't it wonderful that we can take this, we have the light, and we need that fire to come alongside and tell people, and tell the world about Jesus.

29:36

Amen. Yeah. Brother David, I appreciate you sitting down with me. Thank you, Brother Keith. And I thank you for it. A privilege.

29:41

Thank you for this nice interview. Oh, yes, sir. And I am with Pastor Randy McClendon, who pastors in Memphis, Tennessee, not too far from the home of Elvis Presley.

29:52

Graceland, right there in Memphis. Yeah. Yeah, I've been there 30 years, and I've never been.

29:58

You've never been to Graceland? Never have been to Graceland. Well, you know, I came to your church a few years ago with Brother Andy.

30:03

We almost went, but we were just so exhausted. Yeah. It's such a long drive. I keep finding excuses myself.

30:11

Wanna go, plan to go one day, hope to go. It's just right down the road.

30:16

And what's the name of your church again? It's Trinity Reformed Baptist Church. It's actually in a suburb of Memphis on the northeast side of town, a suburb called

30:24

Bartlett. So we're in Bartlett, Tennessee. Trinity Reformed Baptist Church is 47 years old.

30:31

It's been around a while. It's been a reformed church. So it's older than you. Well, no, it's not. But it's been a reformed church for its entirety.

30:40

That's nice. And so it hasn't really changed a lot, but I've been at the church for 12 years.

30:48

It was a fire church when I came there. The previous pastor, who was a good friend of mine, told me a little bit about fire.

30:55

I didn't really know very much about it. So it's kind of been something I jumped into and learned about, and I'm very glad I did.

31:05

Yeah, that was one of the things I wanna ask. And this isn't a commercial for fire, but I do wanna ask, do you feel like this is worth being a part of?

31:13

Do you think this is something that men who aren't a part of an association should consider? There's no way, knowing what

31:20

I know about it now, that I would not be a part of it. Amen. And actually, Keith, I wish that I had gotten more involved sooner.

31:29

Of course, this church was my first pastorate. And so I jumped in, learning a lot about ministry, and just kind of learning the ropes.

31:39

And fire came along, probably, for me and my involvement, close to five years in.

31:46

But I wish, from day one, I would've started going to conferences, started meeting fellow pastors in fire, because the encouragement that I get, that I can, in turn, relay in ministry to my church, is invaluable.

32:02

Well, I'm hoping that some young pastors, young or old, doesn't matter, but ministers who maybe don't have an association will hear this and be encouraged.

32:11

As I said, when we were doing our reports, I said, I get a lot of emails from pastors, many guys who aren't a part of an association, or their church is part of such a big association, there's nobody they can really reach out to.

32:21

It's one thing when you're a part of a giant association, but a group like this is nice, because I know who everyone is.

32:30

And the irony is, when I began pastoring at this church in the suburb of Memphis, Memphis Metro, huge area, pastoring can be very lonely.

32:45

Oh, amen. You can feel just like you're out there in a boat on the ocean with no one miles and miles around.

32:52

And I felt that way many, many times. And we're all going to probably go through situations where that's just part of being a pastor, but knowing there are brothers that are going through similar things, and men that I have come to know, men that have reached out, called, text, these relationships that have been built and established,

33:16

I can't imagine pastoring without something like this. It would be much more difficult.

33:23

Absolutely. Well, tonight is our last night, and we have one more session tomorrow, and that's the session that you're going to be leading.

33:31

And you're leading the Shepherd and, I know the subtitle is

33:37

When Sheep Bite, but what's the title of the message? Yeah, The Shepherd and Criticism. So you know you're in trouble when you're the only message that has a subtitle or a parentheses underneath, and that's what mine is,

33:52

When the Sheep Bite. And so when I was asked to speak, that was the topic that was given to me.

34:00

Didn't have to do a lot of research on it and read up on something that I didn't know anything about because I did, as most pastors do.

34:07

Unfortunately, it's something that we have to deal with. It's something that I don't think either at seminary level or in internships in local churches where we're preparing young men to go into the pastorate that we prepare future pastors enough for.

34:27

And obviously we can't prepare future pastors for every hypothetical situation, but we should be telling them, now look, at some point, you're going to have to deal with something.

34:40

Somebody's going to come after you, you're going to be attacked. And it may not be very severe.

34:47

It may be very severe. The enemy is going to do everything he can to try to destroy the church.

34:53

And this is one of those angles. Well, if you don't mind, because I know

34:59

I'm talking to you before the message, everybody else I've interviewed, I've interviewed after their message, but since I'm talking to you before, can you tell us the text you're going to be using?

35:09

Are you using one? I know like the other two brothers tonight, today used several texts.

35:14

Yeah, I'm primarily going to begin in 2 Corinthians 6, where Paul talks there about really what

35:21

Joel Beakey calls the paradox of ministry, where we, on one hand we're poor, but we have everything.

35:30

And so he's kind of going back and forth, back and forth there in a section of 2 Corinthians 6, talking about how we are unknown, but we're well known.

35:40

And so you have this paradoxical thing with pastoring.

35:47

And the reason why is because there are two perspectives. There's a heavenly perspective and there's an earthly perspective.

35:54

And sometimes as pastors, I think we have that mostly earthly perspective where we just feel like we are failing, not realizing that the

36:04

Lord is watching over us, that we're accomplishing things for him, oftentimes unknown to us.

36:10

And that's probably good. It's not good for a pastor to have a sense of success and, you know, earthly speaking, that is.

36:24

So I'm going to begin there and talk about how the struggle for the pastor is the norm.

36:34

You know, we go through seasons where things may not be very difficult, but when difficult things come, we should kind of prepare ourselves and understand when they come.

36:43

This is what we've been called to do. And so I'll then take, you know, my fellow pastors to a couple of examples from the

36:54

Old Testament and talk about how there are some there that had to deal with difficult things like Moses and like David.

37:00

And I'll pick out a couple of particular instances in, for lack of a better term, if we would call it, their pastoral ministries.

37:09

They weren't pastors of New Testament churches. I understand that, but they were functioning as shepherds in a sense over God's people.

37:17

And so we have some good examples about how we deal with criticism, personal attacks, things like that.

37:24

Well, wonderful. Well, I look forward to hearing it and look forward to being ministered to by the word through you and under the power of the spirit.

37:31

So Randy, I want to thank you again for sitting down with me and for giving your time to this conference and getting an opportunity to spend some time with you.

37:38

Well, thank you very much for having me. Absolutely. I want to thank you guys again for watching. Remember, if you liked the show, hit the thumbs up button.