What Every Pastor Should Know (Part 3)

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.

Opening Banter, Gene Scott, and the New Book on Sexual Fidelity

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Ali Abendroth here. Abendroth. Abendroth. Today, it�s a new show. Just wanted to make sure Fred knew that. It�s a new show. It�s a new day. It�s a new day.

Keep those cards and letters coming. Remember Gene Scott? Type in �Gene Scott� on YouTube. He had the building in downtown, he�d write on the boards, and then he began to spiral out farther and farther into the atmosphere of theological quirkiness, then into apostasy, and then into horse racing.

Seriously, send me your money. He would smoke cigars. And the camera would get so close to him as he would talk and yell and actually berate people. I don�t know how people send money to the beraters.

I didn�t say �bereans. Beraters. It�s a new word maybe. You could see kind of pockmarks on his face and stuff. The camera was so close. How does that work? Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You send those in.

I get the letters. I usually get all the emails sent that week on Mondays to ruin my day off. Monday nights, Tuesdays, Spencer sends them over. And that�s how that works. Most of the time I�ll respond to you unless it�s from Daryl with the hellhound Satan worship skull desk topic.

Then we just read it on the radio. Topic skull on desk. Don�t forget, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, is going to be out in November. It�s a new book on that topic, Sexual Fidelity. And while I know I�m 55 years old and the title seems semi-boring, I didn�t want to go too provocative in the title of a sex book.

It obviously is not a how-to sex book. You know, they make some Christian how-to sex book kind of things. It�s obviously not that. I mean, there�s a way I would talk to my son or a couple in premarital counseling or a way I would talk to my wife or something that, of course, is inappropriate for blogs and books and stuff like that.

So I wanted to be careful. So if it sounds like it�s a book written by a middle-aged old fogey, I�m not middle-aged. I�m way past middle-age. If an average man lives to be 75, half of that middle, median, midpoint, halfway point is 37-ish.

So I�m way past that. I�m the age my dad died, 55. But I wanted to be appropriate because even the foreword written by Danny Akin, he said something to the effect that lots of books he endorses, it�s a qualified endorsement because basically it�s sexually explicit.

But he said I didn�t have to do that here in this book, and that was intentional on my part. That was missional on my part. That was intentionally missional. Because I want you to read it, and I want my sons to read it.

My son�s 18 now, but it stems from talks about the subject that I had with my son, and then we expanded into other things, whether it�s discussing pornography or dirty old men or husbands and wives watching out for adultery and fornication.

There�s all kinds of chapters, 30 different chapters. How do you talk to your kids about sex? What about homosexuality and hate speech? And then specifically, I wanted to make sure it was tied into the gospel.

What does union with Christ have to do with any of this? How does our union with Christ influence this aspect of our lives? Is sex the problem? Are hormones a problem? What should a single person do? How should dads, what should dads require when it comes time for dating and romance and all that?

So, I think you�ll be encouraged. It�s not a technical book. You�ll probably read it in a night, although I want you to read one chapter a day. It�s probably 140 pages, no co-media, and it�ll probably cost you just over $10 plus shipping, so that�s not too bad.

Critiquing Church Growth Advice and the Worship Planning Team

Anyway, I have been doing a little mini-series. I was going to do only two parts, but you know, parts is parts. Remember that old commercial? Parts is parts. There�s a book that I picked up, Baker. I don�t know if it�s Baker Academic.

It actually, I don�t know, let�s see, I guess I can tell on the inside there�s a sticker on the back. I always leave the stickers on my books so I know how much I paid for them. Baker Books, no, it�s not the academic side.

This book, we have blurbs by Tom Rainer, Nelson Searcy, lead pastor of The Journey, lead singer of The Journey, Eddie Gibbs, Ed Setzer, Elmer Towns. So that gives you an idea of the theme or the flavor.

One guy here, Gary McIntosh, he got his PhD at Fuller, president of Church Growth Network, and then Charles Arnn, professor of outreach at Wesley Seminary, president of Church Growth Inc. So what happens when Church Growth Inc. and then Church Growth Network collide?

What do you have? Well, you have a collision is what you have. And by the way, that�d be a good name for a church. I�m waiting here in the book, What Every Pastor Should Know, 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church.

Get a cool name. Relevance. Rev. Rasta. Collision. Collide. Collapse. Continuity. Culture Club. I never liked the Culture Club for lots of reasons. I�d rather listen to Wire. You want to know what motivates me on my bicycle, you can pull up Wire 12X.

How about that? 12XU. Somebody also has said to me, your intro is a secular song. Ska. Change it. Secular. You call yourself now Compromise. I�m wondering, everybody that wrote classical music, was that secular always?

Sometimes sacred? Okay. But at least the founding fathers were all born again Christians. At least nobody�s a Mason that I know of around here. Actually, when I got to Bethlehem Bible Church, there were lots of Masons here.

I don�t mean builders. I mean in the group, in the lodge, the 33 level behind the scenes that you don�t know about until you read the books that were published and the codes and the handshakes and what the G stands for and what the compass is like and all those other things.

I can�t remember. So I used to have to say in the elder board discussions when we were talking to deacons or elders, potential deacons or elders. And so what we would do, we would ask them questions. What do you believe about the atonement?

Tell me your view of the Bible. There was some form to fill out and they would have to affirm inerrancy. They�d have to affirm infallibility. They�d have to affirm deity of Christ, literal bodily resurrection and many other things.

But then we would have a little time where we would ask questions. And I would say, what�s your view of the atonement? Because I�d like to know. And if they could articulate their position, I never said, well, since you�re 4 .5 points, you can�t be an elder or deacon here.

I never said that. I wanted to know what they�re thinking. And then I would also say, I�d say, are you a Mason? Just ask the question because I needed to know. I saw lots of Mason�s lapel pins and lots of Mason watches and other things when I first got here.

Now, I think we�ve effectively run out all the Masons. I was told that we would be a good recipient for some Masonic money given to local churches as they do every year. And would we accept the $28 ,000 gift if we could then thank them publicly or have a plaque or something like that?

I can�t remember all the things that went along with it. I said, well, we�d gladly take the money if it�s in unmarked bills given in the offering. But when these strings are attached and now I know where it�s coming from, I guess if I come to your Masonic lodge and thank you for the money and then preach the gospel to you because of the Mason�s influence and why it�s a false religious environment, then that would probably work out.

We never had a bump in giving. Well, the book here, 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church. We�re going to do one more week because, see, we�re already 10 minutes in and I haven�t even started, so I might as well do it.

Maybe we�ll do two more weeks. If you push me, we�re just going to keep going until we get all 101 done. It�s just a jumping off point. So, I start talking about it and then I go off into no-co land, into no-co world.

All for Fred, by the way. Number 18. A worship planning team will enhance the quality, relevance, and message of your service because you�ve got to have well-conceived presentation. Now, of course, if you say, �These are good songs at the beginning.

Here�s a call to worship song. This song is a good closing song because it reminds me of the cross and who Jesus is, and even though I failed in many ways to obey the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5 about showing thanks and being thankful and this is the will of God and I don�t thank God like I should, let me be reminded about the cross and Jesus� life and death and resurrection.

Let�s plan it out that way. Let�s plan it so scripture reading is� I don�t want to step on any toes here. Number 1. If your public worship service when the saints gather on the Lord�s Day, on Sunday, to worship Jesus Christ and worship then the triune God as well, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I hope you have scripture reading. Why? Well, because you�re told to. That�s why. Not because I�m telling you to, but what does the scripture say? 1 Timothy 4 .13. I think it�s a pastoral epistle. �Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

Something about the public reading of scripture. Not because it works, not because J .C. Ryle was listening to Ephesians 2, 1 -10 as an unbeliever and God saved him through scripture reading, but because God has ordained this, because God has required this.

You can go back to Nehemiah 8 and see illustrations of the Old Testament like this being read. Something about public scripture reading. I love to get on my app on the phone and hit ESV and read out loud and just sit and listen.

If I�m working, just having the Word of God, I love to listen to the Gospels over and over and over again. So you should have public scripture reading. If you don�t have public scripture reading, you should start right away.

It�s mandatory. And if you do, I just want to say I commend you because regularly there�s more public reading of scripture in Roman Catholic Church than in most Protestant churches, especially seeker-sensitive churches.

They don�t do that. I mean, formal stand up, read, we got to get straight to the offering type of thing. But if you do do scripture reading, would it be appropriate to plan it out and say, �The passage today is an imperative from 1 Thessalonians about being thankful.

And therefore, instead of reading 1 Thessalonians 5 for the scripture reading, and of course any scripture reading is good, right? It�s all breathed by God. Why don�t you read something that is more indicatively driven and more Christ-centered and focus on Him so you have both the balance of indicative and imperative?

In other words, if you were talking about prayer, and of course we can guilt people into not praying enough, Luther praying four hours a day on his knees, and how do you get people to pray more? And should we pray without ceasing?

The answer is yes. But what do we do then? I think that�s appropriate to plan and then say, �Scripture reading today will be John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus. Listen to our Lord pray. And He�ll be praying for His followers and His disciples, and then He�ll be praying for you as well.

Aren�t you glad we have a great high priest who lives, to use the language of Hebrews, who lives to make intercession for us? So there�s certainly planning, but I don�t think we need to talk about, �Okay, who�s on the worship performance team, the platform MC, they call him, or worship leader.

I mean, the real worship leader is Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or maybe in one sense, humanly speaking, the pastor, because He�s the one you could watch do some leading. There�s a theme planning sheet, a service date, theme of the service, common attitudes, message, music, drama, sermon, testimonies, interviews.

The Sermon Is Not the Message, and Puppets in Corporate Worship

Number 19, the sermon is not the message, the service is the message. Quoting Paul Anderson, �Pastors may spend 15 hours on sermon preparation and 15 minutes throwing the service together. A better paradigm, according to our authors, as you design your service, begins with a very different assumption.

The message is conveyed via the entire service. For instance, of course, good music plus good preaching plus good drama plus good pace plus good transitions equals a great service. Puppets capture the imagination and a sense of childlike innocence in people.

Whereas people may be judged by their appearance, their manner of presentation, or their body language, puppets are immediately accepted. Puppets can teach many moral and spiritual lessons that might be lost if told by an adult.

Puppetology on No Compromise Radio. Mike Ebenruth here, No Compromise Radio. If you want to do a puppet ministry at your church, and it�s an outreach, or it�s for VBS, or it�s an Awana, Pioneer Club, any other thing like that, fine.

But if the corporate worship on Sunday morning includes puppets, you�re fired! Puppets, believe me. Number 20. What Every Pastor Should Know. When church members help select sermon topics, they are more likely to come hear you preach on them.

Well, of course, because when the sheep leads the shepherd, the ditch is much more visible. I often like to say in a class, we�re doing a marriage class on Sunday nights here at the church, what topics do you want me to address?

You�re a home Bible study. What topics should we go through? You are doing a men�s discipleship group. What are some of the things you want to have discussed? Obviously, I�m not doing this for my own good.

I�m doing it in the sense that it�s good for my soul to serve with the gifts that the Lord has given me. But I want to help the people. You want them to do well. But you have to be careful. What do we want to hear about all the time?

What is so wonderful about the continuous exposition, verse-by-verse, sequential exposition? As you touch on every subject. I mean, I�m in Malachi now. There are things in Malachi that I never thought I would talk about, but I end up talking about them.

Last week, we talked about why do the evil prosper? Now, that is in Psalm 37. That is in Psalm 73. That�s obviously in Malachi chapter 3. It is in Psalm 94, I believe. It�s in Jeremiah. It is a running theme in the book of Job.

Why do the evil prosper? Godly people throughout the centuries have asked that question. And then, we can talk about it from a biblical perspective. I normally wouldn�t pick that topic, but it�s good for the congregation as the Lord of the Church knows.

And if you just go verse-by-verse, you, by the way, will be relevant. This whole idea of being relevant. Scripture is relevant. And we as pastors might need to show them, you as a Sunday school teacher might need to show them the relevance of the topic and why Scripture is relevant.

But when you begin to think the Bible is boring and or irrelevant, I think that�s offense to the Holy Spirit. This is an offense to God Himself. Here it says under number 20 what you can do about it. �If money were no obstacle, if time and other commitments could not stop you, what is your dream?

What would you love to see or do? Maybe travel somewhere? Perhaps you would like to have lots of money, or a particular job, or special relationships? Dreams are powerful things. What are yours? You can have little cards, little dream cards for the dream.

There�s a church around here that�s closed. It�s called the Dream. Dream Church, Dream Spectacle, Dream Team. Dream A Lot. Something that�s called. It�s closed. Number 21. Monitor attendance to close your back door.

Okay. Some pastors don�t feel comfortable with the idea and prefer to remain in the dark about who�s attending and who�s absent. All right. We�re dive bombing now. Newcomers number 22 must have seven plus friends in the church within the first six months to become fully assimilated.

Okay. This part isn�t going to dive bomb because it�s important. In my opinion. If Jesus is enough, then this church should be enough. If Jesus Christ is proclaimed faithfully, regularly, weekly, that church should be enough for you.

How many friends? I mean, I do know. Immature people attend churches because their friends go. But I want those immature people then to mature and then to have them realize if all my friends abandon me, if all my friends abandon the faith, I�m here.

A byproduct of a local church is friendship. But it shouldn�t be the driver. It shouldn�t be the initiator. I go for friends. Just like with family. If your family is at a good church and then you get talked into going to a good church, that�s a great side benefit.

What if your family is at a bad church? You don�t follow them. The man leads. He consults with his wife and then off they go to a Christ-centered church. It doesn�t matter if there�s any friends there or not.

And you, if you decide to go to said church and you want to minister and serve others, I pretty much guarantee you, you�ll pick up a friend or two. And if you don�t, then you probably will, and you can then end up singing �What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

It�s not about friendship. It�s hard as a pastor, you can imagine, to have a lot of friends in ministry. People say, �Well, you�re playing favorites, this, that, or the other. And so I have to say to myself, I�m here to serve the Lord.

I�m not here for friends. My friends are in different states. And I�m a loner in the sense that my best friend is my wife. I�m friends with my kids now that they�re older. You start off with kids and you�re the dad, you�re not the friend, and then you become more like friends as they get older.

So, so, so, so. Try not to say �so� so much, so you know what I�m doing. Number 23. 23. 20 of your visitors should be involved in your church within a year of their first visit. 9 out of every 10 members should be involved in a ministry role or task.

100 of your new members should participate in your new membership orientation class. 100 of new members should have a sponsor. This is like AA. I�m going to do a show on AA pretty soon. Do a show on Masons, a show on AA.

That would be good. R. Scott Clark wrote a good thing about AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. Number 27. Your church should have a list of characteristics that describe a fully assimilated member. Okay, that wouldn�t be bad.

Let�s see. More small groups. Every small group. Each small group. Five small groups. And what you could do about it. Okay. There you go. Lastly, number 34. Every church group has a life cycle. Like Sardis.

I�ll never forget the time Howard Hendricks was talking about, �Well, we�re a New Testament church. And he had this mocking thing that he would do. �We�re New Testament. We�re Sardis. I always thought it was so funny.

Oh, here it is right in front of my very own eyes. A reformed critique of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. R. Scott Clark. He�s no D-Min. He�s no Ph .D. He�s no T-H-D. He�s a D-Phil. Doctor of Philosophy.

Impressive. Associate Professor of Church History and Academic. Dean, Westminster Theological Seminary in California. Dr. Scott Clark. I�m glad he�s on our side. But we�re going to talk about that pretty soon.

If you want to write us, we�re here at No Compromise. We�re here to serve. And so you give us a topic so we can talk about the topic. See? I�m going to extract those principles of the answers we got from that church growth book.

And then we apply them to No Compromise Radio. See, we�re already shrinking. We�ve been replaced by James McDonald on the radio. We have our footprint. Paul Weller with the Style Council sang the song �The Ever-Changing Moods.

The ever-shrinking footprint of No Compromise Radio. A few weeks ago, I was ready to shut down the show. And then Fred, with his generous donation, talked me out of it. I appreciate that, Fred. Very, very kind of you.

You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Some don�t know we have a YouTube channel, No Compromise Radio YouTube channel, over a hundred videos that you can watch. And now you don�t have to go to Netflix.

Now you don�t have to go to the Red Barn, to the Red Box.

Closing Credits and Station Disclaimer

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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.