Episode 20: Hark! The Harold Angel Sings!

The rural church podcast 2 .0. Wait a second. It's December.

That's better.

Just a couple of pastors discussing light ministry theology the gospel from a local church perspective.

Eddie.

What's it time for?

The rural church podcast.

Christmas Encouragement for Rural Churches

Welcome to the rural church podcast episode 20. Say hello Eddie. Hello everybody. I'm Alan Nelson pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. I'm with me is my friend and brother and the Lord co-laborer Eddie Ragsdale pastor of First Baptist Marshall and then again we have with us the one the only Hark the Herald angel Harold Smith, what's up, my brother?

Oh.

Same old thing.

Hey, listen, I got a verse I want to start with and we're going to get back in we promised from last week that we're Going to get back into this question, but it's December 21st. So I've got a verse. I'm going to read This is from the book of Micah 5 2 Says but you Oh Bethlehem of Fratha who are too little to be among the clans of Judah From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.

Who's coming forth is from of old from ancient days obviously that's talking about our Lord Jesus Christ, but I want to start with that as we think about this time of year and This time of year reminds me that God is Pleased to use out of the way places smaller places looked over places to bring about His good plans, I think about Charles Spurgeon who wandered into this Primitive Methodist Church where there's like ten people one day, right?

And there's some lay person gets up and starts preaching look to me and be saved all the ends of the earth. I think it's Isaiah 45 22 and what happens Charles Spurgeon is Converted and of course, he needs no introduction.

So all that to say This Christmas season should remind us that God has a plan and Could be a great plan plan beyond our imagination. For rural churches you guys agree or have any thoughts about that? Yeah, I would agree.

You know you think about even the life of our Lord Jesus the vast majority of his life was spent you know born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth it was not spent in the urban centers of Jerusalem or Capernaum.

It was spent in the rural areas and amongst the people and even when he did in his ministry engage in those Larger centers. We we know that he was also engaging in ministry in the rural areas. If you even remember when he sent out his Apostles the first time he sent them to the villages that they would preach in those places and so we're The Lord has called us to preach everywhere not just in this in the centers of population.

Networking, Fellowship, and Practical Help for Pastors

So last episode We learned about Harold's ministry in this episode. What we want to do is we kind of want to pick his brain about encouragement advice counsel that he might have for Those that are in rural churches or actually I know the council will extend beyond just rural churches.

But Eddie you started with a question last week, and why don't you ask that question again? Yeah, I just want to reiterate this question. So Harold when you think about Connecting churches together that usually happens through the pastors having connections.

So, how would you encourage guys? Maybe they don't feel like they they're ambitious enough to try to put on a Preachers of Grace conference. But how would you encourage them to just start making those networking connections where it's more than just a professional Networking but really growing fellowship and friendship with other brothers.

The most biblical thing you can do is break bread together.

One thing every pastor does is eat most of them two to three times a day. So I would just buy lunch. Somebody called me one time the Apostle of biscuits and gravy because I would buy lunches. I would buy breakfast.

Anytime a group of preachers got together I purchased their meals. I do this on Numerous occasions. I don't do it to brag. I do it because I believe in it. Um, I believe in it because We we need to eat together.

The early church ate together not just the Lord's Supper. They had meals together and. That's how preachers need to form relationships. And let's be honest and upfront We are not going to be really close to those that we doctrinally disagree with.

You know me and the local woman Methodist preacher are probably not gonna eat a lot of lunches together. We just have too many doctrinal disagreements. I mean, let's be honest, you know me and the woke pastor I'm as hillbilly as they come.

Me and the hipster woke pastor are not going to be as tight as you guys are.

But.

The more we have in common the more we can be together. Now, here's the the kicker. If you find somebody you have something in common with. Invest yourself in them. Make make yourself easy to be friends with.

It's easy to be friends with a guy that always buys your lunch. And let's be honest lunch cost is 10 12 bucks. All right, if you guys will just quit dipping snuff for three days, you can buy another preachers lunch.

I Don't even know if you dip snuff, but I mean, it's nothing I do not. Okay.

I do not anymore. Years that before the Biden economy. 10 bucks. What are you gonna buy with that now?

Yeah, the point is it's cheap. It buys you an at least an hour of his time. And so you get to know him you can sit down have lunch with a guy you can tell real quick if you want to Have lunch with him again and so I Always say the easiest way to help a church is to help their pastor if you invest in a pastor.

You've invested in that church. And so when we started our pastors conference to build fellowship, I Told our church. We're not just ministering to preachers here because they were like, why do we need preachers here?

And I'm like if these men all go back to their churches feeling refreshed. And you know. Reenergized if they feel like they have, you know, they're not that they don't have the Elijah syndrome anymore.

They're not sitting under a juniper tree all by themselves. If they realize that they have a support system, they now have more boldness in their church. They're more committed that staying they're not coming through the back of the classifieds in the Baptist paper looking for a better option they they start to sink their lives in and stay and.

So, how do you minister to that preacher? Well, I give away books. All right. My ministry buys books in bulk cases of books. Because I know preachers read books and if I can give a pastor a good book I'll keep a Joel Osteen book out of his hand.

I'll keep a TD Jake's book out of his hand. I don't give away just any book. I give away books that help. If you find a pastor and you buy his lunch and you give him books that guy's indebted to you for 25 bucks.

Uh-huh. And so the next time you call him and say hey brother. I'm in your town. You want to grab a sandwich somewhere? He's readily willing to go and if you give the guy four or five books and you buy four or five lunches then he's coming through your town saying hey, look I'm buying this time and.

So now the relationship is both ways and that's just real practical and simple when a new pastor moves into our area. We we are not above giving them an old-fashioned pounding where we have the church bring in canned vegetables and not Imperishables and give them to them and if you show up at a new preachers door and you hand his wife four or five boxes of groceries.

Your friends these are physical things that we were given, you know, we have money so that we can share it. We can hoard it.

I appreciate you clarifying that because I'm not sure who all listens to this and I've been the experience I've been on the the good end of a few church poundings and. It's like last episode. I wanted to just clarify I never jumped in but when you talk about a warship You you you're not talking about a you're not talking about a ship, you know, it's got cannons on us.

But you're talking about worship brother. I speak the language of heaven. Get on board. They'll talk when we get there.

Generosity, Persistence, and Hospitality in Pastoral Relationships

So I think it's important. Let me just say that I give you I Won't say much about but my own personal testimony in the last few months I have been held together in many ways by a support system of pastor friends.

You know that We go through a difficult time here at our church. But the Lord has used brothers in the ministry to encourage me to love me and here's the old to. Some of these guys I barely know but some of the guys I've developed Relationship over the years and it's just been it's been such an encouragement.

It's it reminds me like I'm not alone. You know and and the Lord uses brothers in the faith to sharpen us to encourage us to To challenge us when we need to be challenged. We've all we've all had those experiences and Those listening you may not have had those experiences, but you can have those experiences if you're willing to put yourself out there.

You can't just say well if someone comes to me, we'll we'll we'll make this work. But no you you've got to give up the little bit of time. But it's it's worth it's worth the investment.

Yeah, I didn't gain all these friends by sitting in my office waiting for him to stop. I Made special efforts to go meet with them. And when I met with them, I was always generous. Guys we've got to get back to a spirit of generosity.

If we will get generous and Ministering to the needs of our fellow believers both in the church and outside the church God will get generous with us and his care and provision for us. I've been trading hundred dollar bills with God for the last 14 months and he's still up on me.

I cannot get ahead of him. I give away I give away stuff I give away money and I try to spend down what God's given me and at the end of the month I have more money than I started with. Another we've got to get back to that.

Generosity. And another thing I've seen you do personally I've seen you do this very well is Persistence and that is you know, you do get to a point. When you text a guy you call a guy you email a guy eventually get to a point, right?

Okay. This roads closed, but it takes you a long time to get to that closed road. Oh God doesn't call you back. You call him back. Later. He's got an text you back. You text him back got an email you back you email him again.

You know, I've seen I've just seen the persistence there a lot of times. You're not going to develop these relationships Strongly until bad things happen so you can you can extend, you know an invitation you can greet someone you can be kind to them.

But it's not until the deacons call a special meeting that this relationship is something you know what I mean? You can have this but it's not until the church has fired them and you show up with some Some provisions for their family and say look our church loves preachers and we love you and we're gonna see you through this.

You need to build that relationship in times of peace. So when the arrows start flying and the sword starts swinging They've got somebody on their side. And if we don't extend the olive branch in times of peace and try to you know, build networks then They're not going to reach out to us in times of trouble.

So look, I know you guys probably wouldn't agree with me, but I And in most of your listeners may not. I'm pre millennial. I think the world's gonna get worse. Okay Eddie don't. I think the world's gonna get worse.

I think the night is coming when no man can work. So right now we need to do all we can to build up churches build networks of pastors. Encourage people equip them get them plugged in find places where they're staying where they're solid that they're committed.

They're not constantly wondering is this the day I get fired. We need stability and we build that there in times of peace. So as the world gets worse and worse and worse we're already ready for that we're not caught off guard and It takes effort, you know, you've got to get out of your office.

You've got to get you got to do more than just text and call. You've got to sit down face-to-face with somebody and talk to them.

The Church Needs Hospitality and a Strong Pulpit

Interesting podcast coming out on the darkest day of the year. Yeah, doom and gloom go go ahead Eddie. Well, there's you know, there's also something to hospitality where it's not just The generosity aspect which is clearly there but also just the being welcome in a person's presence and.

You know some guys you get around them and you just feel like they don't really want you around them and you've got to be a person that that Extends that. And I would even say if we're going to be pastors, that's that's part of the requirement.

You know, we have to be hospitable if we if and that's not just the sheep in our own church but people in the community and other brothers in the ministry if we can't. Be hospitable and welcome them in to our presence.

Then we're not going to be able to be effective in serving Christ in his church. That's right. You know another question I got for you Harold. I was thinking about this. You've been around you've been you've been in churches in multiple states.

You've helped churches to find pastors. What counsel would you give? To pastors in their churches right now. Like like what's what's kind of the vibe you get from from the needs of. I know every local church is different.

But you I'm sure you see some patterns that are pretty similar in various churches. And so what counsel would you give to to pastors or maybe even other sort of leaders in churches? What do you see that churches need right now from?

From their from their ministers.

The.

Churches that's to my to me seem to be thriving have strong pulpit ministries. It's not the programs. It's not the outreach. It's not the you know, we've got 27 things for your kids. The strong churches that I attend have pastors that are committed to.

The exposition of the scriptures. It's not always verse by verse through a book of the Bible. It's some of them preach more like a Spurgeon type messages where there may be in a different book every Sunday morning.

Maybe going through a book on Sunday nights or Wednesday nights, but they're preaching a message. That's biblically backed and biblically, you know founded. What I see in all the other churches is a lack of preaching.

You can't outdo first Baptist. They've got a better volleyball court. They've got better hamburgers. They've got better hot dogs. We're eating bar s. They're eating Nathan's famous, you know, we can't we can't match them dog for dog.

But here's what they don't have. They don't have a man that'll stand in the pulpit open his Bible and rare back and tell him what it says. Yeah, and that doesn't appeal to the world. But you know who loves that sheep and sinners who were under conviction because of their sins and if a pastor will stand up and do that and do that and do that.

And do that and do it for a decade. Then all of a sudden people in town will be like somebody new will move in. I'm looking for a church. Oh, you want to go over to Lee Creek that guy over there? He don't care what you think.

He'll tell you what the Bible says like it lump it or whatever. When you get that reputation as a church. Then you see a really solid congregation because you see people that came to your church not because the kids liked it.

Not because you picked them up on the bus. They came to your church because the word was preached. That takes time. Strong pulpit ministries over a decade lead the strong churches. Everything else can fall by the wayside.

People would show up. What do you have for my kids nothing? But we're gonna build a fire in the pulpit in about 30 minutes. Just hang around. That was always the focus. That was always the emphasis at Lee Creek and it took years.

But today that is a strong church and Joseph Allen is our pastor. He's doing the same thing. He's committed to preaching everything else can fall apart but on Sundays and Wednesdays We have a man who's ready to preach standing in the pulpit and people show up and they're excited to hear the Word of God preached.

When you get people all they wants preaching preaching is all you got to give them.

And it's enough. I think that's a lot. I think that's a lot of encouragement right there. But would you add any additional? Encouragement maybe if someone's listening to this and you know, they're like, well, I'm trying to do that, you know.

Like what. Because you we've all been there. We've all ministry can be discouraging. What what would Lisa say?

It's the Lord's Church, it's not your church not my church. It's the Lord's Church. Sometimes the Lord turns out the candlestick. He didn't promise to keep all churches afloat. Some churches are gonna close some pastors are gonna get fired.

You can do everything right and still end up out on the street. It's still the grace of God that turns things around. So we pray we trust the Lord. We check our own attitudes. We repent of our own sins.

We you know as much as it depends on me I want to do it right and then I trust God to do what only he can do and as far as anything else goes. The problem I see especially with young preachers is they like well I came in and preached a five series sermon or five Five a five sermon series on the doctrines of grace and then they fired me.

I'm like, dude, I Preached the doctrines of grace not from five points, but from 66 books. Yeah, and I did it for years. Yeah, it takes years. Something that that Jeff Knoblet has said and John O'sims have said is you need a 20-year plan?

You need a 20-year plan when you enter a church don't say, you know this time next year I hope to have this this and this fixed. No 20 years from now and I tell pastors unless you're ready to clean their toilet.

Don't go there. Because you got to be willing to do it all because it may get down to everybody leaves, but you yeah. You are the doorkeeper. You do run the vacuum cleaner. You do mop the hallways. I've done all those things and those were really dark and dull times and I begged God to send me somewhere else and he wouldn't and then things got great and big churches called me and I got popular and people wanted me to travel off and preach and I Said no, I'm gonna stay here with my faithful 25 that loved me and I love them.

Amen, we've got to get to that point and when you really committed to decades of ministry.

Building Fellowship Through Local Church Conferences

What was it like when you woke up and Realized you really were the pastor not just a guy not just a hireling. Yeah.

Yeah, where your Christmas bonus wasn't in the budget. It came out of their pockets. Yeah, that's the difference. You know when I came there they had a they had a Christmas bonus in the budget. It was the same amount every year was very generous.

But when the church loves their pastor, they would come up and go. Hey look I know that's all part of that's in the budget. We love you. Here's this. Here's this for your wife. Here's this for your kids and they're providing for the needs and.

Then when you get to that point and I'm speaking as a guy that pastored the same church 14 years that eight preachers every two Years and I didn't want to leave there. God drugged me out of there to do this.

But when you're there don't ever abuse that authority as long as you're transparent and honest. And you tell everybody all the dollars that came in and where they all went.

Hey.

Nobody can lay any charge against you. And so just be open up front honest love them and preach the Bible as some old Puritan said As long as they know you love them, you can tell them anything. It takes a long time to know you love someone.

I mean really love someone not like you're dating a girl. No, honey. I love you. No, I'm talking ten years and two kids ten years of marriage and two kids later. That's when you know, you love somebody and it's about the same way with the church in my opinion.

So so, you know, I asked the question at the start of the podcast about Encouraging and Helping with the fellowship of those pastors. Now, let's kind of bring that down to the local church because we've been talking a lot talking around and talking about Lee Creek and I think Lee Creek is a man.

It's just wonderful example of a local church that really loves not just pastors, but just loves each other loves one another. Serves. Well, you know, I mean, I'll be honest I look forward to going to preachers of grace conference every year and the preaching is wonderful.

The preaching is always good but it is the meals and Meeting with each other and it's the the the wonderful folks at Lee Creek that really make it make it great. You know, I used to go to some of the big conferences and I kind of decided I was done with doing that.

You know because the preaching at those were Wasn't good. It was wonderful but I found that I really liked hanging out with my friends that I went to the conference with and I went why am I traveling to Atlanta or To Louisville to hang out with a bunch of guys from Arkansas that I could just hang out with in Arkansas.

And so could you just kind of speak to how do you build that kind of fellowship in? That actual local church and you're gonna tell us to eat aren't you? No, I.

Was listening to a sermon the other day by the old Baptist preacher Vance Havener, you know, I love Vance Havener. I think he was. He was a real gift to the Lord's Church during the 1900s. You know, he was born in 1909.

I think he died in like 1989 something like that. Maybe he's born 1901 died not anyways he began preaching at 12. So for most of the 1900s Vance Havener was a preacher and and on a pretty big platform but he was talking about being filled with the Holy Spirit and He said preachers are getting up and they're trying to get the church to exhale to breathe out to do.

And he said and so they're exhorting them. They're they're shaming them. They're they're berating them. They're beating them over the head with the Bible and he said the reason that most churches aren't breathing out is because they've never breathed in and Received the Spirit.

Hmm, so we're not going to go to a church with nine million problems and expect them to start acting like a Church that's filled with the Spirit and yielded to the Spirit and well-fed sheep. It takes time.

I think it was. Somebody I can't remember who it was. It might have been Jeff Knoblet. He said Preaching is biblical counseling. If we get our pulpits right we do less counseling. If we get our pulpits right old crusty church members would get saved.

I don't think you're gonna see a great church at work until you see a small church that's saved. We can't expect people to act right if they're not right on the inside and Most of our churches and you guys would admit if we look at Baptist churches at large Most of them are filled with lost people.

Is that true or false? That's true. Yeah, true. I'm not saying you run them people off. I'm saying you preach to see them saved and when you get a majority of saved people they act like saved people and then the Church acts like the church.

You'll always have tares among the wheat. But the more wheat you have in the field the better harvest you'll reap.

Why Local Church Conferences Strengthen Fellowship

Yeah, you know kind of in a little bit in line with this kind of mixes this all together. But you and me are having lunch tomorrow with the brother talking about a conference. I Think that local churches having conferences.

Answer some of these things that we're talking about. That is when you have a conference it builds fellowship with your own church. It brings in other pastors to fellowship with you know. And this church that we're meeting with.

And by the way. Our church is a small church. And this church that we're meeting with tomorrow the pastor. Dear friend.

Vars.

They're a small church. You do not have to be a huge church to have a conference so you want to speak to that any or like maybe a. As churches look we're here at the end of the year. Churches think about 2023.

Why not set aside of Saturday a Friday and a Saturday or Whatever and and and have a conference. Speak to that for a moment.

When we started the preachers of grace conference our church ran about 25 and regular attendance and we hosted. I think that first year I think we had 21 preachers.

But.

Only half the church showed up of our 25. Well, we had 12 people there. The other 12 was like I'm not interested in preachers. I'm not a preacher. That's not for me. The next year the 12 that were there told the 12 that wasn't there and said hey you guys missed it.

It was great. It did more for our church to minister to people than it did to the people we ministered to. Conferences are cheap preachers will preach for free. They just want to preach and So all you really need to do is feed them one thing Baptist are good at is cooking.

So get your ladies to cook that doesn't cost nothing. Get get a couple of preacher buddies to come in and preach and encourage them to bring people from their church. Then we accomplish a lot of this.

We accomplish pastor fellowship. We accomplish inner church Relationships and then that church Will have a conference. And it's not expected but eventually people are like hey, I want to experience that here.

I want this to happen. So we've seen this happen over and over and over it just. There's something about Christians getting together. Outside of a Sunday morning regular routine. The only people that are gonna come to an extra conference are the people that are hungry for it.

So the people that are hungry get an extra meal it's like going back for seconds. I was talking to I was talking to a missionary here a while back and he and his son we're traveling and his couple invited him over to the house to eat supper and said they sat down the plate and it had a little small salad on it and like two ounces of roast beef and like one little dollop of potatoes with no gravy and So they ate it and it was like it was like nothing there.

You know, these people were big health nuts. So these were probably measured out portions of green starches and and His son is a big kid. You know, he's he's he's special needs. He's a big kid and She said so they ate what was on their plate and they reached over to get the plate and He said I need to keep my fork because he was expecting something else to come out or dessert and she goes no, that's it.

And he was like Okay, and so they sit there and when they said well we left there we had to stop at McDonald's and finish out our meal. Christians need to eat together and when we eat together as a church, it's like that.

It's a meal. It's enough for us to live on but when we eat with another church, and I don't mean just physical food, but spiritually. It's like getting to go back to the buffet again. It's like I want more roast.

I want more mashed potatoes. I want more of those things. When we get together, it's like second helping. It's like double dipping. It's I love it when someone says they're having a conference. I go just give you an example.

You're gonna be preaching in a conference this Friday and Saturday. I plan to be there both nights. Why because I need that second helping not a food. I don't think we're eating at this meeting. I need that second helping a fellowship with another church.

I need that second helping of preaching. I need that second helping of worship the way I said it the way they say it in heaven. I need that second helping now most of the church is like yeah but if you get a couple of people going I Think we were all at a conference.

You weren't there Eddie. We were at a conference in Bloomer with Michael Sanchez. I Think I had like 10 or 12 people from my old church there. They've got it. They've learned. Oh, man, we can we can go to the buffet twice with these conferences.

Eddie didn't come unless he's preaching. Yeah, right.

I.

Don't ever preach at conferences. You know what? I hear you said that the preachers of grace conference did a great job.

Yeah. What. What I hear you saying Harold is we all need to build a smoker and we need to subscribe to preachers day off So that we know what to do with.

On.

YouTube everybody subscribe to preachers day off on YouTube. Well, it could be a simple back to the conference. You realize but it could really could be a simple. I mean any church. It doesn't matter your budget any church could say hey.

You know what this Saturday? We're gonna have a conference at 10 o 'clock. We're gonna have a sermon at 10. We're gonna have a sermon at 11 and we're gonna eat lunch and that's it. You know, I mean like it could be as simple as that and that's that is hard.

That's that's really that's that's I think a lot of guys Overthink this but you really could call your buddy from across the road or across the state. They say come preach or and another guy. Maybe you don't know as well, but you know, he's faithful come preach Amen, and and so you say well, but nobody in my church would come.

Well, what if three people came? What if five people came, you know and and show that it's important and it'd be good for your own soul. Yeah.

Yeah, here's the thing. We need this. The early church did it we need it. When you hear people and when you read the end of Paul's letters. You know a lot of people get to that last couple of paragraphs or even last chapter and they just flip over like I'm not Reading all those names.

The names of the people in those churches knew the names of people in other churches. I'm not talking about just Apostles and traveling missionaries. There was inner church Interaction and they knew it and they knew who they were and they had spent time and we find the same men who are not Not traveling Apostles their pastors.

But they're mentioned at the end of several different books because those men traveled around and did this. We've got to get back to that. We've got to get back to that and here's why we need to get back to it.

So that when someone in our area moves to another area. We know somebody in that area and say look, let me save you a lot of headache and looking. There's a bunch of wacko churches there. Here's a couple of good churches in that area that I know and many times they know because that pastors preached in their church that kind of networking that kind of recognition of Preachers and churches and Christians outside of your own little town and community is really important.

Christmas, Church Traditions, and Contact Information

Amen. Amen. Man, it's been a joy having you on these two episodes. This is the last episode before Christmas 2022 so you guys have any Christmas Greetings. I just hope everybody has a Merry Christmas.

Enjoy your worshiping on the Lord's Day in your church on Christmas Day.

Yes.

Amen, and let me let me just say something balance all this out if your church has Santa Claus in it. It's not the end of the world if your church has a Christmas tree in it. It's not the end of the world.

I don't agree with those things. I don't think that's a part of the normal worship service. But guys we're living in a dark time. Don't don't just blow up because everything's not Completely and totally orthodox if the Gospels preached.

You may have to stomach some stuff for full reform to take place. The reason I say that it's because a lot of young preachers are entering churches for the first time this year. And they're gonna get fired over a Christmas tree or a wreath on the door or somebody wearing a Santa hat and it's not worth it.

Be patient trust God to change hearts and over time those things will work themselves out if you have a high view of Scripture. Hmm.

Amen brother. Thanks for joining us again. You want to share your contact info again on this episode?

Yeah, easiest way to reach me is pastor Harold at a TT net and You can just reach out to me through email. I'm on social media, but I really ain't on it that much and So just shoot me an email. I'll be glad to get in touch with you.

We're grateful to have you brother.

Thank you guys for joining us on this episode of the rural church podcast. Say goodbye Eddie. Hey Harold, it's good to see you brother. We'll see you guys next week.