October 12, 2018 Show with Sule Prince on “The Stress of Ministry”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 12th day of October 2018, and I'm so delighted that my dear friend

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Dr. Tony Costa, who is professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, strongly and very highly recommended my guest today,

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Sule Prince, or should I say Sule Prince, I apologize for that mispronunciation,

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Sule Prince, who is the senior pastor of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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He also happens to be Dr. Tony Costa's pastor and Dr. Tony Costa in 2019,

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God willing, will be added to the leadership team there at Oakwood Wesleyan Church and today we are going to be discussing the stress of ministry and I'm sure every single pastor out there is going to want to hear about this topic address because I'm sure every pastor worth his salt is at times plagued with stress and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Sule Prince.

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It's a pleasure to be with you today, Chris. And if you could let our listeners know about Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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Well, Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, it's mainly a Caribbean West Indian church.

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I've been there for about, going on six years now, but the church has been around, going shortly on 85 years.

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And I'm actually probably the youngest pastor that they have had. The last pastor, he resigned and he was about 84 years old.

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Wow. Well, one of the things that makes this a very fascinating and unusual circumstance, in your case, is that you happen to be a

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Reformed Baptist and yet you are pastoring Oakwood Wesleyan Church. Tell us how that came about.

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Well, interesting, my Christian upbringing is very different. I wasn't really brought up in a Christian home. If you know anything about the

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West Indies, church is important in their life. They all go to church on Sunday regardless.

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If they're in the faith or out the faith, church is something that you do. It's grocery shopping. Most of the folks that I know from the

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West Indies are either Plymouth Brethren or Anglican or Seventh -day

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Adventist, that seems to me. Yeah, Seventh -day Adventist is the biggest sect of Christianity there.

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They're the number one, then you have the Pentecostals, and then it'll go down to the Baptists and different other denominations.

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Wow, I did not know that the Seventh -day Adventists were the largest group there. Yeah, they are the largest group.

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And it's interesting because when I was born, my mom baptized me as Anglican. And then when we came to Canada, she joined the

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Pentecostal Church. And then from there on, when I eventually came to faith,

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I was a part of the Pentecostal Church, but then I was going to seminary for a

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Baptist school. The Toronto Baptist Seminary? Before that, it was Heritage Bible College, that Dr.

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Costa is also an adjunct professor there as well. Great. So I started going there. So how, again, did you as a

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Reformed Baptist wind up pastoring a Wesleyan Church? And it's very interesting because I was going to a school at that time called, you'd probably know it as Tyndale University.

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Yes, in fact I've interviewed faculty members of Tyndale. Okay, so it was a Toronto, Ontario Bible College when

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I went there. And I became great friends with a guy

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I dormed with, and his father is Assistant District Superintendent of the

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Wesleyan Church. So at one time I was a church planter, he wanted me to plant a church for him.

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But for two years we didn't talk, and I just ended up planting a church. And I met him again after two years as Assistant District Superintendent, and he said to me, you know, it would be good for you to have a body over you.

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It'd be good for somebody to govern your church. And then he introduced me to the Wesleyans. Even though they knew who

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I was, we proceeded on. I had a church, and then we bridged it into another church, and from that church they called me to be the senior pastor of the church.

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So you were already a Reformed Baptist when they called you to be the pastor? Oh yeah, very much so.

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Wow, that's interesting. So you have not been met with hostility or anything like that? I get hostility on both ends.

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You mean on the Reformed side for being in the Wesleyan denomination? I get looked at very weird.

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Why are you in a Wesleyan church, and then from the Wesleyan, they have an eye on me.

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So why do you go to that school called Toronto Baptist Seminary? So I get it on both ends. Well, I'm assuming though that the majority of response that you receive is favorable, because you're still the pastor there after six years.

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I am still the pastor. The church is interesting, because remember when I talked to you about that, it's like a cultural

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Christianity? Right. And that's kind of the issue that I deal with at the church, is this cultural sense of Christianity.

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That people think that they are saved because they have been in church your whole life. They think they're saved because they have been baptized.

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That's what I confront. That's interesting, because that seems to be in opposition even to Wesleyanism.

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Yeah, definitely. But what's interesting about this church is, it's a Wesleyan church, but a lot of people are from different parts of the

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West Indies, and when they came to Canada, they know themselves from the West Indies, and this is the church that they all gathered in.

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So if I were to sit down with them and cross my legs and say, tell me about the Wesleyan church in the background, a majority of them could not, because it was just a gathering for the

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West Indies. Well, this is the way I would answer the question when somebody in your position, if they say, tell us about the

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Wesleyan church. Well, you could say that John Wesley was a very close friend of George Whitefield, who happened to be a

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Calvinist, and this is where I pick up my story. That's good.

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Well now, as we normally do when we have first -time guests, I'd like you to give a summary of your salvation testimony.

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You already started it a little bit, but give us an idea of the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, and what providential circumstances the

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Lord used to draw you to himself and save you. You already mentioned that you were baptized in an

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Anglican church, and then your mother became Pentecostal. If you want to address the story in more depth, as far as your own personal conversion.

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Yes, so we went to a prominently a Pentecostal church, West Indian.

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I was dragged, I would say. And it's so funny, because you go to church.

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But when I became 12 years old, one day my mom came into my room and said, Sule, do you want to go to church?

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And I thought, you're asking me? No! And I threw the covers over my head, and I never went to church with her again, and she continued to ask.

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It was when I was 14 years old, I became a rebellious youth. I was very rebellious.

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I lived by the statement, if I can't get respect, settle for fear. And that's how

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I was known within my community, and I got to the age that my parents said, leave. And at 14 years old,

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I left. Wow. Yeah, I lived with friends, I lived in basement apartments, I rented rooms, and I was going into the nation of Islam.

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And this is what's interesting, as we had talked before, my name Sule is a Muslim name.

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Why did your mom pick that name, do you know? I think it was, in the Jamaican culture, there was a time that Christianity, every, like my older brothers

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Marvin and Andre, which are British white names, and there was a time in the 60s and 70s where African religion was coming in.

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And then, so you have my next brother Kofi, African name Sule. So they were seeking your roots, as to say, your

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African genealogy, and so we get stuck with the African names. So my middle name is

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Ola Tunde. So when a Nigerian hears that my name is Ola Tunde, they are convinced that I'm Nigerian.

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So now, Sule being a Muslim name, if I meet somebody who is

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Muslim, they will say Suleiman. And that's probably a name that is familiar to many people.

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So it's so funny that you have to be careful of what you name your children. Oh yeah. Because I was actually seeking the

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Muslim faith. Now tell us about that. How did you hear about this, specifically the nation of Islam, which as you know, is a completely different religion than the actual

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Quranic Islam. Well my brother was in the music business. Now if you do any research, my brother's name is

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Marvin Prince. He came out with a reggae singer, a white reggae singer, and his name was Snow.

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And Snow made big success. My brother went over to the States, he went to Germany, he was on shows like Arsenio Hall.

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And so as a 14 -year -old, 15 -year -old kid, I would, on my own and with my other brother, go to New York.

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And my brother had a girlfriend who herself became a part of the nation of Islam.

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And then she was giving us the doctrine and I fully was embracing it. I thought this was amazing.

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Oh the black man is great, the black man is a god. And I liked what it sounded like.

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And that's what I was going to do. Well one day in my school there was a guy, his name was

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Eric. And he was a Christian. He was a bodybuilder at that time.

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And he was talking to my other brother Kofi about God. And my brother said, my little brother

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Sule is going to go to jail if he doesn't stop what he's doing. Speak to him about God.

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And this guy would actually come to me every day, every lunch. I mean he'd come to me and say, I don't want to talk about this, I don't want to talk about this,

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I don't want to talk about this. And eventually what I ended up doing is saying, okay listen, I'm going to give you one hour to talk to me about God.

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And I went over his house at a lunchtime and he spoke the gospel so deeply.

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And he knew so much of what he was talking about that after I left I said, I am in big trouble.

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I just felt this impression that I, I'm in trouble. And I went to school and I beat up some guy, got called into the principal's office.

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And I was thinking, how am I going to change my life? Well over a period of time he kept coming to me and inviting me to Bible studies.

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And he gave me this verse in the Bible. It took about a year. He gave me a verse. For what shall the profit of man if he gains the whole world and forfeit his own soul?

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And what can a man give in exchange for his soul? And when he said that I walked home that night and I said

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I have to do something with my life. It's interesting that he chose that verse because my brother was making success in the music business as a reggae rap artist.

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And that's what I wanted to do. And now I'm presented with this. What am I going to do if I gain the whole world but yet forfeit my own soul?

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So it was at that time that I said, I went on my knees. I was living on my own. I was living with a friend.

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I went on my knees and I said, God I don't know what to say but I know I need to change my life. And I just need your help with it.

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Because I have a bad reputation. Even till today

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I'll be honest with you, some people say, oh nah he could never be a pastor. I remember what he did back in the day.

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So that's how deeply I was involved into a sinful lifestyle. So when he presented the gospel and I accepted, we brought almost half of our school to his house one day.

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Me and my brother, because my brother came as well. And we started inviting people from the high school to the point that it filled out his house.

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That we couldn't really maintain the people that we were bringing. Wow. So tell us about the point where you realized that you indeed had to stop riding the fence.

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That you had to just cry out to the Lord for mercy and salvation.

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Where you truly knew that you needed to identify truly publicly as a believer and you were baptized and all that kind of thing.

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So it's interesting because in that year that we had with this individual, was a year of this training.

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He was teaching us the Bible. And he was young. If I were to think about it, he was probably 18 at that time.

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And he knew far vastly a lot of information concerning the

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Bible. And able to debate and contend with people. So it took us about a year of being trained.

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And from then on we just went right into the school and said, listen, I believe that how you start your

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Christianity is how you'll maintain it. If you start on false beliefs and lukewarm doctrine, that's going to be your struggle within your

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Christianity. He started us off that you have to share the gospel. There is no other choice than to share the gospel.

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So we went out and we went into the school system with life on fire. My brother brought his friend.

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His friend was a crackhead, turned pastor. He brought his friend and that friend brought his friend who was 17 years old and was on his fourth child.

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I brought my friend who brought his girlfriend and that girlfriend brought her friends. And so it just started multiplying.

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And we made our face known within the community. We were in the newspaper. We were on the news. We were doing youth crusades ourselves.

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And this was in the city, the town of Ajax where I lived at that time in Ontario. We would set up a stage and we would present the gospel.

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And people would come to the Lord. And it's very interesting. I remember preaching one day.

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We would do three days of sessions. And as I was preaching, a man was just walking his dog in the park.

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And he just heard the preaching and he just came to the altar with his hands up. He wanted to know about this

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God that we were talking about. Wow. So it's powerful what

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God could do into the life of those who truly, truly embrace

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Him and embrace the gospel. Amen. And know what God has done in their life. I know what

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God has done in my life. That's why I continue in the faith today. Because like the disciples, what else are we going to, what else is there to go to if it's not you?

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Yeah, well now tell us about how you realized that God placed a call upon your life to enter into the pastoral ministry.

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Now that's very interesting because my whole desire was not necessarily pastoral ministry.

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I did the desire to work with those who are down and out, those on the fringes of society.

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And I would go and I would probably preach on a Sunday. I wanted to be an apologetic.

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I debate people. But my life was turning out where I would be getting call after call after call to preach.

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And that's what I started doing. And the day I graduated, a pastor approached me and hired me.

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So I wouldn't say that this divine moment of this is what you're called to do.

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It was just as if I was walking into my calling. And in any ministry job that I've ever had has never been a struggle for me.

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And in fact, I never opened the doors. The doors actually came to me. And it was one pastor that sat down with me one day.

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And I respected this man. He was an older pastor. He had a PhD. He had a deeming.

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He had his own radio program in Scotland. And he, because I wanted, my goal was to be a teacher.

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Like Dr. Tony Costa. He's fascinating when he teaches the scripture. But this man looked at me and he said, you have a pastor's heart.

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And that's what God is calling you to. And he was a Reformed Baptist as well. Because I was a youth pastor in a

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Baptist church. And he said, you have a pastor's heart.

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And that's the way God is leading you. And from that time, that's the way I have went.

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So my goal is to be, in a sense, a scholarly, apologetical pastor. A pastor that is able to engage those that are struggling with Christianity and the ideas of Jesus Christ.

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Now, when in your journey as a Christian did you first come to discover, and how did you first come to discover, the doctrines of sovereign grace or Reformed theology?

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And how did you come to embrace them? And so on. You know what? It was part of my first year of Bible college.

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I was meeting a lot of people of that stream and thought. And it was really resonating with me.

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Ideas of, so if I choose God, then in a sense,

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I'm a partner in my own salvation. But I don't see that in scripture. I see in scripture where it says that there are none that choose

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God. We have all gone astray. So then how do we come to God? Well, Jesus came in to seek and save the lost.

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So as I began to read scripture and have conversations, it made more sense to me.

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And I am going to tell you this as well. I know a woman who every night spends about an hour and a half trying to remember every single sin that she possibly committed, because she doesn't want to die and go to hell.

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You see the bondage of that mode of thinking.

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Whereas I know that my salvation is in God's hands. So when

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I repent of my sin and the wrong that I do, I know that God has forgiven his children.

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And he knows that we are imperfect people. We are in this process of sanctification, but we're not there.

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Right. And of course many of our Wesleyan Arminian brethren will say that our theology, the

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Reformed faith, Calvinistic faith, doctrines of sovereign grace, however you want to phrase it, is a blueprint for licentiousness.

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They think that we are teaching, because we believe in the perseverance of the saints, that involves the fact that a truly reborn individual who is born from above, that that person could not ever lose his or her salvation.

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They think that means that we can make a profession of faith, get saved, and then live like the devil himself for our entire lives, which may be decades, and then die and we'll still be in heaven.

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And many, unfortunately, evangelicals, modern evangelicals, do believe that, but they are not

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Calvinists. They seem to blur the distinction between the erroneous or even heretical version of eternal security with perseverance and preservation of the saints.

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So we have to make sure that we let our Wesleyan Arminian brethren and others know that we agree with them that if somebody is living according to the world, flesh, and the devil, unrepentantly, that they are not a child of God.

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A good tree bears good fruit. Am I right? Definitely. And Romans 6, when it's talking about, should we live in sin?

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Absolutely not. Right. That's not what we as believers are to pursue. In fact, if Paul did not believe what we believe as Reformed Christians, that would not be a built -in response to his teaching.

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That would not be an automatic response by his critics. Yes. Because they obviously were misunderstanding something that involves salvation being entirely of grace.

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Yes. Well, this is a such a pleasure to have you on the program.

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I'm looking forward to, already, I'm looking forward to future interviews with you because of the fascinating story behind your salvation and your pastorate.

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But you recommended that we discuss today the subject of the stress of ministry, and if you could tell me why that immediately came to your mind when you were invited to be on the program.

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Because I am a pastor. That's the truth. I want to give today pastors hope, but I also want to be realistic.

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I've been in the ministry for 15 years, and when I say ministry, I'm talking about paid ministry.

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I've been in paid ministry for 15 years, and oftentimes ministers feel alone.

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You know, pastors and others that are in a form of ministry leadership are under so much stress and so much pressure that they themselves feel that they're hanging on a string emotionally.

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They're burnt out and they're exhausted. And I know this feeling because I have been exactly there when you are so burnt out that you are doing things to do it, but the joy is kind of gone.

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In fact, I want to pick up where you left off right after this commercial break. Okay. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I could readily understand why this topic would lend itself to pastors specifically wanting to remain anonymous, or perhaps even congregation members who are asking a question about their own pastor that is showing signs of being stressed out.

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Yes, of course, you can remain anonymous, but if it's not a personal and private question, if it's a general question on the subject or even on theological matters or other pastoral matters, since our guest today is a pastor, please just give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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And don't go away, God willing, we will be right back with our guest, Pastor Sule Prince, and the stress of ministry right after these messages from our sponsors.

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I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

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Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

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Got to tell you, for my money, Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best.

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I think that's what it's called.

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This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV with Phil Johnson, of Grace to You, inviting everybody to come to the

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It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

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It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight to me.

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I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

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I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. My name is

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Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

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33:33

We are now back with our guest, Pastor Sule Prince, who is the pastor, the senior pastor of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

33:43

We are discussing the stress of ministry. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

33:52

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We do have a few listener questions already, but I want you to get a little bit more deeper into our subject matter at hand before we begin taking some of our listeners.

34:05

If you could, this might sound like a no -brainer question.

34:11

It may even sound to some that it's silly that I'm even asking it, but I think that there may be different definitions that people have in their minds when it comes to stress, and since stress is the main theme of our interview today,

34:25

I would like you to define stress exactly what you're speaking about. Well, when

34:30

I speak about stress, I'm speaking about almost an overwhelming feeling that almost debilitates you.

34:38

It kind of robs your your joy. I know that people look in the

34:43

Bible and say, the Bible says, well, do not worry. You know, we shouldn't have anxiety and stuff like stress, and I agree, but that's very hard to live out.

34:54

All we have to do is go to the doctor and hear that we have a certain ailment or they're testing for it, and often the anxiety goes up, the stress goes up.

35:04

I'm talking about that kind of stress where the pressure is so much on you that it's a feeling that you cannot bear, a feeling that you cannot continue on.

35:16

It prevents you from doing certain things, and in a sense it turns into almost burnout. Now, what do you think are the most common reasons why pastors get overstressed or stressed out, and include some of those things that actually involve your own pastoral life?

35:38

Sure, and I'll definitely speak for my own pastoral life and also what I see, and I think there's two main facets that cause a pastor stress, and the first one is,

35:47

I would say the expectation that people put on pastors. Expectation.

35:54

In my own life, in my own context of ministry, I am expected to be the it person.

36:02

Somebody is sick, it's me. Something happens, it's me.

36:09

A birthday party, anniversary, the pastor has to be there to pray, it's me. Plus, I have to prepare a message.

36:18

At the same time, I have to have time for my family. So the expectation that people may put on you, a perfect example is this weekend,

36:26

I have three birthday parties to attend tomorrow. Three birthday parties I have to attend.

36:32

So I have to truly decide, listen, I will attend this one, but I cannot.

36:38

And this is the second time within two months that this has happened to me, where I have three events to go to on one day, and the pastor is expected to be there.

36:51

I remember preaching a sermon in my church, and I talked about the need, the fact that the pastor cannot do everything.

36:59

I need help. Who is willing to be my hands and feet?

37:05

Who's willing to work this ministry with me for the sake of Christ and for the sake of the kingdom?

37:11

Because I cannot do it all. Because I will disappoint some people, because I am not omnipresent.

37:18

I cannot be every place at one time. And after I preached that message, a person came up to me in church and said, great message,

37:26

Pastor, very good. However, you need to visit this person and this person and this person, and you need to do it by this date and this time.

37:35

And I was actually shocked. And I turned to the individual and said, but I just preached on you helping me.

37:44

And they said, well, no, Pastor, you're the pastor, so it's not a real visit unless you do it. So this is the stress that comes upon a pastor.

37:54

And then the second facet that stresses out a pastor, that a pastor, they have expectations of themselves.

38:04

So as a pastor, you know you want to go in, you want to thrive in ministry, you want to build the church, you want to build a kingdom, and when things don't look like the way you expected it to, this causes unnecessary stress.

38:21

And you'd often have this, a church member will come to a pastor and say, I went to this church last week, and the worship is awesome!

38:27

The preaching is great! So what are you saying here? So those are stresses that really come upon a pastor.

38:38

And you know what? And then you have your family. You have the expectation.

38:44

You may have a wife, you may have children. You have to be able to meet their needs as well. I remember sitting in a pastor's fellowship where one of the pastors said that their little child in school, they drew a picture of the family.

38:58

And when the child brought it home, and this is a true story, he drew the mom, the brothers, themselves, and drew the picture of him.

39:08

But the picture of him was the picture of his back. And he said to the child, why do you have me facing backwards?

39:14

And the child said, because we only see your back. Could you imagine the feeling?

39:22

And he was actually shaking up as he said this. And in my own personal ministry, when

39:28

I started at this church, when I used to get up in the morning and get ready, the first thing my daughter, as a three -year -old, would look at me and say, bye daddy!

39:37

Because her assumption was I was leaving. So am I not meeting the needs of my family?

39:44

So you have the expectation of the church on you, you have your expectation, and then you have the family expectation put on you too.

39:53

And this becomes very stressful for a We have a listener in Cork, Ireland, Mary in Cork, Ireland, who says,

40:03

I am aware that many pastors are either burnt out or on their way for a burnout, and many are leaving the ministry for a nine -to -five job.

40:13

Surely because this is a high calling, should they not be taking care of better as they are pouring themselves out for their flock?

40:22

My question is, can their days off be increased from one day off to a week to two days off?

40:30

Can their vacation days be increased in order for their ministers to be refreshed?

40:37

And let's see here, whoops, I just I just accidentally deleted Mary's question. Hold on a second,

40:43

Mary. And by the way, while I'm retrieving this, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

40:48

chrisarnson at gmail .com. If anybody else wants to ask a question, and please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

40:57

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Here we go again,

41:02

Mike. Can their vacation days be increased from one day off a week to two days off a week?

41:09

Can their vacation days be increased in order for these matters to be refreshed and replenished? Why can't this be reviewed?

41:17

I think it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Yes, obviously, the actual specific details would be different from congregation to congregation, but the principle of making sure that a pastor is well -rested, that's vital because everyone's going to lose if your pastor is not well -rested.

41:36

Definitely, and I did experience that. I would go from Monday to Monday. There were so many needs.

41:44

When I started the ministry in this church, I did 16 funerals in one year.

41:53

And funerals take a lot of effort and time and preparation. Wow, 16, that must be a large congregation.

42:00

I mean, it's an old congregation. And also, you're attached to the family.

42:07

Right. Their family dies, and so I was doing a lot of funerals, which also played on my own psyche in itself.

42:15

I had to be able to find a way to process all that I was seeing and all that I was doing. One thing that people don't realize that a minister, yeah, he's there for you in the issue of death, but you have to look at his own mortality as well, as he's constantly doing all these things.

42:32

I believe that pastors should have a specific day off even, too. And you know, as I do it,

42:38

I really look at my schedule for the week. If my week is very, very busy,

42:44

I'll do as much as I can, but if there are days off that I can take extra,

42:50

I will do that. I will do whatever it takes to replenish myself. One thing that I learned that I would tell your listeners who are in the ministry is, you know, don't feel guilty to turn off your cell phone at a certain time.

43:05

I used to have my phone on where people could contact me, and they could text me, and stuff like that. So the first thing that I did, and many may not agree, is

43:14

I actually changed my cell phone number. So if anybody needs to get access to me, they have to call the church.

43:21

Because if they didn't call the church, they'd call my cell phone. If they didn't call my cell phone, they'll call my house number. If they didn't call my house number, they'll send me an email, a text message.

43:30

So I was too available. And when you're meeting the needs of a bigger congregation, you'll see that you are always meeting people's needs.

43:41

So my cell phone goes off at a certain time. There's an old saying that someone may be a jack of all trades, but master of none.

43:52

And at the same time, I think that relates to, if you are always available to all people at all times, you will actually be helping nobody eventually, because you are going to be overworked.

44:06

You're not going to be able to concentrate on the specific individuals who you are with ministering to.

44:14

And so people have to remember, because I even know in my decades as a pastor,

44:24

I got mad when my pastors were not available for me in my own particular needs.

44:29

I got jealous of the attention that other members got, and sinfully perhaps even spoke about these pastors behind their backs out of my anger.

44:39

But we have to remember as congregation members that you know yourselves that you could not be on call for every individual that you know to be, even as a brother in Christ, to be at the side of your best of friends.

44:59

If all of them were insisting that you run to their side and help them through some kind of a trial physically there with them, you know that you couldn't do it.

45:08

So we have to remember that a pastor is not superhuman. Exactly.

45:14

And for some reason, I don't think people realize that. When they call a pastor, they think that this is the only call that the pastor has taken for the day.

45:23

They think the pastor works one hour a week, one hour a Sunday week. Just preaching.

45:29

When he gets up there, that's all he does. Yeah, I have a friend, the woman who led me to Christ, one of her sons who has been coming to church every week for nearly a year now, thanks be to God, he's not a believer, he would admit that, but he is coming and he's faithfully coming with his children.

45:47

And I remember him asking me, does your pastor get paid? And I said yes, of course. Why? I said, what do you mean why?

45:53

Well, he only works like one hour a week, doesn't he? I'm like, are you kidding me? He works harder than I do, longer hours than I do, because he is always bouncing around doing all kinds of things, visiting people in the hospital and trying to rescue people out of a crisis that they're in, and all kinds of things.

46:13

You know, people don't realize, and the statistics say this, and this is from Souls Shepherding, that 90 % of pastors work between 55 to 75 hours per week.

46:27

Wow. And 90 % feel fatigued and worn out every week.

46:33

They don't realize that. I was involved in a case with the police, and in the

46:39

States they would call it Child Protective Services. And this went on for three weeks.

46:45

I would get up at about 8 o 'clock in the morning and get home about 4 a .m.

46:51

dealing with this, for three weeks. And the individual that I was working with said,

46:57

I thought pastors didn't do anything at all. I remember, as I'm dealing with this,

47:03

I still have a sermon to prepare. I still have other people in the church to attend to in their needs as well.

47:10

And of course, there are horrible pastors out there that many of them aren't even regenerate

47:17

Christians, that may only work one hour a week, if you could even call it work.

47:25

You know, who knows what some of these pastors and mainline denominations do. And I'm not saying that they're all working one hour a week either.

47:32

They may be doing many things, because even some of the liberal apostate churches are at least rolling up their sleeves and feeding the poor and things like that.

47:40

But still, we're not denying that there are bad pastors out there that never should have answered a call from a church to be their undershepherd to begin with.

47:52

But the dedicated man of God is typically doing a lot more than what people are seeing.

47:59

And also, isn't this of the very reason that God, in his infinite wisdom, breathed into his scriptures the fact that there are to be a plurality of elders and also a diaconate?

48:15

Those are the reasons that those things exist. Yes, and I think that it would be a helpful thing to ministers is to actually invest in leaders.

48:26

People who can help you with the ministry. And that's what Jethro was looking at, saying to Moses, listen, you can't do all this by yourself.

48:35

You need others to come in and help you with this. But oftentimes, a minister is left alone to do the work.

48:44

People actually think that the minister is going to build the church. They get a new pastor and, okay, the church is going to expand now, because he's going to bring in the people.

48:52

And that's wrong -thinking. It's a pastor to teach and train, and you are the one to go out and then bring in the people and bring in the fold.

49:03

So the stress of a pastor, people, minimize it.

49:09

What do you really do anyways? There's sometimes I am wrestling over a text of scripture for a couple days, and I'm scratching my head, and I'm doing a lot of reading, and I haven't even put anything down on paper yet, because I want to be true to God's Word.

49:24

I want the scripture to speak. That takes time. So when you look at this pastor, and he's preaching this sermon, sad when you see people sleeping or walking in late with all the effort that you put in.

49:38

That takes a lot of time as well. Yeah. We have an anonymous listener who says, what published resources have you utilized yourself to combat the depression and distraction of stress in your own pastoral ministry?

50:00

Well, I know me. There are certain books that I have read. There's one called When Life Goes Dark.

50:06

It's by Richard Winter. I actually did a course with pastoral counseling, and that was one of the texts that they used.

50:16

Wow. Yeah, it's very good, When Life Goes Dark. A lot of people don't understand. Yes, pastors suffer with depression.

50:24

They say at least 85%. And it goes back to this idea of expectations put upon the pastor, and expectations that they have on themselves.

50:35

Another book that I read, which was very good, is Rethinking the Successful Church by Samuel D.

50:42

Rimmer. A very good book. You know, and this is another, when

50:47

I talk about the expectation that pastors put on themselves, one thing that I would want to caution our listeners and those who are in the ministry is do not compare your church to another church.

51:00

That church that has all the buses to pick up the people, they have four guitars on stage, a drummer, they have the lights in the air, it looks all nice and fancy, and then you go to your little small church and you're just getting by, don't compare yourself to that church.

51:18

God has called your church with a specific DNA. God has called you to a specific task.

51:23

Do that task faithfully. So whether your church is full of seniors, and this church over there is full of those thriving 20s and 30 years old, know that God has called you to a specific work, and just be faithful in that.

51:38

In fact, you may chuckle off the air when you hear the next ad, but when you said guitars and lights, you're going to immediately know what

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I'm talking about with this next ad from Waiting River Baptist Church that you're going to hear. But if anybody would like to join us on the air, this is our longer -than -normal break because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida airs their own commercials and public service announcements to localize

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida. So please be patient with us during this longer -than -normal break.

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Use this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that they will continue being our advertisers since they are being patronized by my listeners and being further encouraged to remain advertising with us and helping us survive financially.

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But also use this time to write in questions to our guest Pastor Sule Prince on the stress of ministry.

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Our email address is CHRISARNZEN at gmail .com. CHRISARNZEN at gmail .com.

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James White here, co -founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme,

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A Biblical Understanding of Missions. Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Weiss, yours truly, and many more.

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I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to G3conference .com.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the entire two hours, with about an hour to go, is

59:36

Pastor Sulay Prince. He is the senior pastor of the Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and if you have a question that you'd like to ask him on the stress of the ministry, please send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

59:54

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

01:00:03

USA. Before I return to our discussion, we just have a few special announcements in regard to special events.

01:00:13

Coming up next month, November 9th and the 10th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

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01:00:28

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01:00:47

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01:00:53

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01:05:35

Pastor Sule Prince, who is the senior pastor at the Oakwood Wesleyan Church of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

01:05:45

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:05:54

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Before we return to our stress topic, we do have a listener in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Ted, who has a question that is not on that subject in particular, but it does involve something that you said earlier on in the program about your life and ministry.

01:06:18

Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama says, I don't know what's the bigger shock, that Chris is interviewing a

01:06:25

Wesleyan pastor or doing two live shows in the same week. Well Ted is being sarcastic here.

01:06:31

I usually do a live show every single day, as Ted is well aware, but this week we had some technical difficulties and other things that demanded that we air reruns.

01:06:43

But this is a very rare week when we only had two live shows.

01:06:48

But anyway, he says, seriously though, I was struck by the pastor's interest in apologetics, given that he is ministering within a more aggressively secular society.

01:07:00

I'm wondering how that environment informs his approach to apologetics.

01:07:07

And let's see, I have to go to the rest of his question here. His approach to apologetics, and if he has any observations he'd like to share with his

01:07:17

American brethren, given that we appear to be going down the same road ourselves. So Sule?

01:07:27

That's an interesting question. I know apologetics is necessary. That's why

01:07:33

I thank God for bringing Dr. Tony Costa in my life. To be honest with you,

01:07:38

I went through a phase where I almost gave up on it, because I could not find a church or pastor or school that was doing apologetics.

01:07:45

I was actually told that it's unnecessary, God could defend himself. So I became very discouraged.

01:07:54

I ended up meeting Dr. Costa by wanting to hold a conference at my church on the reliability of Scripture.

01:08:02

I called Toronto Baptist Seminary, and they had the registrar there referred

01:08:09

Dr. Costa to me, and I was elated. This is, and I'll be honest, this is one of the only seminars that I ever did that no one even budged and left.

01:08:21

They were so excited for this conference. We even had to change rooms, because something was scheduled to be in the sanctuary.

01:08:30

Wow. And nobody, everybody came into the room, and they were asking questions.

01:08:36

So I think society is going down a road where Christians have to be prepared to answer the question that the world is asking, at least to be able to give a rational argument.

01:08:51

Now, we know that apologetics doesn't save anybody. We know that that's the work of the Holy Spirit. But we have to do our best to be able to adequately defend our faith.

01:09:03

I know the issues that are out there, and be able to speak against it. And I'll be honest with you,

01:09:10

I'm having a harder time, actually, with the Church than actually people in secular society.

01:09:17

I could talk to a person on the street about God and have a debate, but to talk to a

01:09:22

Church person about the seriousness of their faith and for them to take it seriously is actually a little bit harder for me.

01:09:29

Well, thank you, Ted, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Keep listening to the show, and keep spreading the word about Iron Trump and Zion Radio in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and beyond.

01:09:41

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks, obviously when pastors are experiencing that dark night of the soul, perhaps plunging into depression because they are stressed out, they may be frequently reaching a breaking point which drives them to questioning whether they belong in the ministry or not.

01:10:07

Can you give us signs that a pastor should look for that leads him to the opinion that he should remain as opposed to leaving the pastorate?

01:10:18

And also, obviously, include in that, afterward, the signs that perhaps the ministry is not what his calling should be.

01:10:28

Well, you know, really it goes back to where you even called in the first place.

01:10:33

Do you have the sense of God's call on your life to be a pastor? Nobody can really determine that for you.

01:10:40

You have to have that connection and that relationship with God yourself. I have been through the dark times, but I know that God has called me this route, so I can always go back to that.

01:10:50

That keeps me remaining within the faith. And I'll be honest with you, I had a conversation with my wife about a couple weeks ago on for her to convince me as to why

01:11:00

I should be in the ministry, because it is difficult, it is discouraging, it is hard, and sometimes you feel like a hamster on a treadmill.

01:11:08

You just feel like you're just spinning the wheel. You feel like that there's no progression. And I thank God for my wife because she was able to encourage me.

01:11:16

But you have to have that initial sense of calling on your life that this is what God did call you to.

01:11:23

And that relationship and that opportunity to pray and ask God, God give me strength. Send me what

01:11:30

I need to be able to continue on in ministry, because I am weak. We have to be honest with God, and God knows that God can take what we say.

01:11:38

God, I am weak. I don't feel like continuing on. Help me with my struggle, and help me with my feeling of inadequacy or ending the call.

01:11:50

But you know, it's a sign that you should be able to look forward, that you are probably going through depression. I would think that you've lost your joy.

01:12:00

There's something that is lost concerning the ministry. You're not happy anymore. You're tired.

01:12:08

Constant fatigue. Maybe frequent illness as well. You're getting sick.

01:12:18

Those are signs that we need to be able to look for. You feel helpless. You're cynical towards people and toward the

01:12:25

Church. And I went through a hard time with my Church, and I became very cynical. And then

01:12:31

I have to see within myself that I'm probably going through a state of depression here, and I need to take some time off.

01:12:40

Yes, most pastors that I know, especially those that I've known for a considerable length of time, have taken sabbaticals, which is a prolonged vacation so that they can be restored and refreshed and invigorated and so on.

01:12:56

But during this depression, when should a pastor come to the idea that, no, this is not the calling for me.

01:13:10

I mean, obviously every pastor is a human being. Every pastor is a person with feet of clay.

01:13:19

They are prone to sin and depression and all kinds of things, and of course there are certain sins that would automatically disqualify a pastor from being a pastor if they were scandalous and brought him to the place of no longer being above reproach.

01:13:34

But, you know, obviously even the best of pastors have remaining sin and have depression and things like that.

01:13:43

But what is the mark, the dividing line, if you will, when somebody should wave the white flag and say, brothers and sisters in Christ, I'm really sorry,

01:13:52

I cannot continue on in this calling as your under -shepherd? Well, you know, concerning the idea of sin, if they choose to continue living their sin, well, we know right there that this is not a route that they should be pursuing.

01:14:09

But I think when it comes to a state of depression or a loss of desire to continue to do it, and you know, you have prayed about it, you have talked to vice -counsel, you have talked to ministry friends, and I think it's through the conversation, and you're honest with yourself, that should lead you to determine, maybe this is not for me no longer.

01:14:37

But you know, truly a connection with God, it's truly being honest with God, honest with the people around you, seeking that wise counsel.

01:14:45

I believe that pastors should have pastoral friends. That will tell them the truth, and be able to look and evaluate them as well, to be able to say, you know what, maybe this is my time that God is calling me to do something else.

01:15:03

Let's see here, we have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, can you give us four or five practical words of advice to provide for our pastors that we may know are experiencing burnout and stress, on how they can have victory over this and climb their way out of it by the grace of God, of course.

01:15:28

Yes, well, I would say if you notice that your pastor is stressed out or going through some, probably a bout of the depression, you know what, one thing

01:15:37

I think that is imperative that we should do as congregants, is to be able to say something good to your pastor.

01:15:46

You know, a pastor receives a lot of criticism. I would always receive my criticism prior to going on the stage, to start the service, or right after I finished preaching.

01:15:59

The other day, it was about a month ago, a person called me and said something nice, and I couldn't even respond. I didn't,

01:16:04

I am so used to hearing criticism. Sometimes that word of encouragement, that pastor, you're doing a good job, we're here for you, we're praying for you, could lift your spirits.

01:16:17

But positive words, maybe churches to look at their pastor and be able to say, listen, he needs help.

01:16:28

How can we help take some of the burden that the pastor is going through? It would be a beautiful thing to, and I have no churches have done this, send your pastor on a vacation with his family.

01:16:41

I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. Tell him to take a couple weeks off and enjoy his relationship with his wife and his kids again.

01:16:49

Because the brunt of ministry will always come down on the pastor's family. Don't you think it might be,

01:16:54

I mean, this could be occurring even in churches with a biblical diaconate who are actually fulfilling their calling and duty and roles as deacons, and it could even occur when there's a plurality of elders.

01:17:11

But isn't this also possibly a time, if that is not the case, for pastors and their congregations to be re -evaluating whether or not their church polity is biblical and whether there is enough support for the pastor?

01:17:26

Definitely. I would definitely agree with that. I know within the Wesleyan Church, they don't have elders, they don't have deacons, they have a local board of administration.

01:17:38

Really? Yeah, so, which I know everybody is very interested by that.

01:17:45

So a lot of the weight does come on the pastor, although the pastor has the ability to bring people on and find the extra help.

01:17:52

But I really believe that if they could really focus the pastor on what he is to do, it's a little bit more helpful.

01:18:01

If you want a pastor to be there and to visit the family and to preach on the other areas, it is necessary that you find other people to help in those kind of areas.

01:18:15

And I know within West Indian churches, I don't know if you have West Indian listeners. Oh yes, we definitely do.

01:18:22

Definitely, a lot falls on the pastor. And the pastor cannot be there at every visit of the sick.

01:18:32

He cannot. He cannot be at every single birthday party, every single anniversary.

01:18:38

Thank you for the invitation, but that takes away from other aspects of ministry that the pastor needs to do.

01:18:46

And people should not get offended by it, but ultimately they do. We have an anonymous listener who says, when it comes to things that come up in the life of the church that are infinitely more important than a birthday party, such as somebody on their deathbed or even just seriously ill or injured in the hospital, don't you think that if it is at all possible for a pastor to be there, that he should be there, even if deacons and other elders can be present?

01:19:21

You know, I would believe that it would be good if the pastor can make it, but if the individual has injured themselves and they're going to be in the hospital for some time,

01:19:33

I don't think it's necessary for the pastor to go there right now, this second, in the middle of the night.

01:19:40

He could definitely fit it in his schedule to be able to visit, but there should also be people to enable the pastor to do this.

01:19:47

He should have a pastoral team. That's why some churches have deacons and elders to be able to take on those roles as well.

01:19:54

We view the pastor as the only one that is able to do this. That's where the pastor begins to get stressed out.

01:20:02

The pastor has a sermon to do. He has the needs of his family to meet. He has other affairs to do within the church.

01:20:09

I was in Rochester last week, and you know, thank

01:20:15

God that I have a friend in Dr. Tony Costa that I could get for him to fill in for me.

01:20:21

But there are these... and also, to tell you this, I had another death in our church that I have to do this week coming up.

01:20:29

It is interesting, and I thank God for this, that I scheduled Dr. Costa to come this

01:20:34

Sunday to preach for me. Or I would have had to have done a sermon for the funeral, and all the preparation, and also the

01:20:41

Sunday message as well, and all the preparation for the church as well. So if the pastor does have that flexibility, and I know that many pastors do, definitely go and visit as much as you can.

01:20:52

But I don't think that it should be the dividing criteria. If he does not go, he is not a good pastor.

01:21:00

Or if he doesn't go right away, he's not a good pastor. Right. Well, I think the listener, especially with the deathbed issue, or the very serious illness that might demand a more urgent visit,

01:21:13

I'm assuming that any pastor would have to have a real, serious, providential reason that they would not be there.

01:21:21

Definitely. Like you are somewhere across the country, and that you can't make, but I more than likely would feel that many pastors, definitely they would go with a terminal illness.

01:21:34

I've been in hospitals at 2, 3, 30 in the morning, because I know that we have a member in the hospital that may not make it.

01:21:45

So I've kept my phone on and said, call me. I will be available for them. Let's see here.

01:21:54

We have an anonymous listener who says, What is your reaction to the kind of a pastor that some might categorize as a celebrity pastor, who does nothing but teach and preach, and never does any kind of a visitation at all?

01:22:10

He is never seen nor heard from six days a week until he is behind that pulpit.

01:22:19

Is this an appropriate activity for any kind of a pastor? Well, you know, that depends on the size of the congregation.

01:22:29

Some churches, and I was a part of one that had called the pastor to be a preaching pastor, and that's what they want.

01:22:37

So they're telling that pastor, We want you to do a sermon and spend about 35 to 40 hours on that sermon, and on Sunday morning, we better be able to tell that you put that effort into the sermon.

01:22:49

Some churches do that. That is based on the makeup of that church.

01:22:57

And you do have celebrity pastors, that's all they do, and they have big churches, but the congregation accepts that.

01:23:04

That's how they see it. They have a plurality of elders that are able to meet the needs of the church in the week.

01:23:10

So if that's the makeup of their church, and the church agrees with it, I don't necessarily find anything wrong with that.

01:23:16

But I don't know about this idea of celebrity. What do they mean by celebrity pastor? I don't know.

01:23:23

Our listener would have to resubmit the question and give us further clarification, but I'm assuming it's where somebody has a notoriety for their writing or oratory skills, their preaching abilities, and therefore, it might even be the decision of the church.

01:23:45

We don't want you to do anything else but study, read, write, and preach.

01:23:51

The elders, the other leaders, may be intentionally protecting that individual from having his time diluted because they want him to be focused on those areas.

01:24:03

And you know, obviously, if a church chooses to do that, I'm assuming you would agree that it is their duty to have enough elders and have enough people in the academy to be able to take up the other load of what's required in ministry.

01:24:21

I look at ministers who I love so much, like John MacArthur. A sermon from a

01:24:27

John MacArthur is not an overnight sermon. You know that effort is put into a sermon, and he has enough equipped pastors in his church that are able to take the load of ministry in another area, allowing him to be able to produce a sermon like he does, and the other stuff that he does during the week.

01:24:45

He probably has meetings. He's probably writing. He's probably doing conferences as well. I don't see a problem with that.

01:24:55

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, I'm assuming your guest disagrees with his own denomination over their polity of not having a plurality of elders and a diaconate, am

01:25:07

I correct? Well, the biblical model we see is elders, we see deacons.

01:25:15

The Western Church does not have it. They have been able to function with it. I find it, for me, a little bit difficult in the church which

01:25:27

I'm in, because being the pastor, you are the one that really controls and visions out the church, and the local board of administration does other tasks.

01:25:39

So you don't really have this help of the elders and the deacons. But Chris, I'll be honest with you too.

01:25:47

Being in the Baptist Church as well, I've seen difficulties how boards really hinder the pastor from doing work as well.

01:25:58

So I come from both sides. I see it in this side where, you know, there's a lot of pressure and a lot of work put on the pastor.

01:26:06

The board kind of looks out for the policies of the church, whereas I've been in the

01:26:15

Baptist Church where, man, the pastor wants to do something that he feels that God is really calling him to do, and the board says, no, that's not what we want you to do.

01:26:24

So there are difficulties in that end as well. Yes, well, I'm assuming that you believe there's a difference between a biblically ordained office that the

01:26:37

Scriptures provide for us as a part of the biblical blueprint for polity.

01:26:45

Even those people can make wrong decisions. There's a difference between that, however, and a tradition of men where officers are invented that have no biblical reality backing them up.

01:26:59

Yes. And of course, when you say Baptists, there is a wide spectrum of churches that call themselves

01:27:06

Baptists. There are many Baptists, in fact, perhaps even the majority of Baptists today in the 21st century, that would be in vehement opposition to what

01:27:17

I believe is a Reformed Baptist. Yes, I definitely agree with that. Yeah, and is there even liberal

01:27:22

Baptists? There are, you know, just totally apostate. The Will Baptists, they're all over. Right, right.

01:27:28

Well, we are going to our final break right now, and if you'd like to ask a question of Pastor Sule Prince on the stress of the ministry, or even another pastoral question or theological question, feel free to email us, but do so quickly because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:27:43

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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that's cvbbs .com let todd and patty know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio and don't forget if you mention chris arnzen of iron sharpens iron radio and order at least fifty dollars worth of merchandise you'll receive absolutely free of charge the journalable psalm 119 published by reformation heritage books and you'll also get free shipping on the entire order of fifty dollars or more and you can not only order online you can call them toll free monday through friday from 10 a .m

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to 4 30 p .m eastern time at 800 -656 -0231 800 -656 -0231 please always remember to mention chris arnzen of iron sharpens iron radio we are now back to our final 15 minutes or so of our discussion today with pastor sue lay prince of oakwood wesleyan church in toronto ontario canada on the theme the stress of ministry if you have any further questions our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the usa and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter uh let's see here we do have a question uh from bb in cumberland county pennsylvania and bb asks the question i don't know if i missed this earlier but i was wondering if you could give our listeners the primary ways that pastors are put under too much stress and how our congregations can help prevent that from happening okay well the primary way that our pastors put um under stress is um and it kind of goes back to the the church's view of preaching if they have a high view of the bible in preaching well the pastor has to put a lot of hours in preaching also um uh visitations that the pastor may have to do meetings that the pastor has uh during the week and the rest of life with with family so ministry in itself is a very stressful job um one thing i like about it is every day is different but that's also a difficulty as well every day is different so i could be planning to do my uh sermon today and i hear that uh um somebody's having a surgery they want me to be there well that takes a good portion of my day so now the pastor deals with a lot of criticism he deals with a lot of conflict he deals uh just recently for an example i was i was to do a wedding and i went to do a uh a one hour of counseling and the the the groom looked at the bride and said uh he's not marrying her and the wedding is next week it was actually within uh six days and now that is a slew of difficulty that i'm going to have to deal with now for a good period of time so i don't get to just leave my office and say okay he doesn't want to marry you it's consoling it's calling it's um helping her plan out her life it's dealing with him and what he he just has uh done so there's a lot of difficulty the days don't look the same the problems are never the same and the amount of time to handle these difficulties are different but at the same time the pastor has to prepare a sermon he has to spend time with his family and his kids as well that that makes us uh the job of a pastor very stressful yeah in fact uh your pastor your own pastor would be in sin if the congregation was demanding so much of his time that he was neglecting his wife and children that you would have a pastor that would be openly sinful in fact uh it would be a situation requiring of church discipline if it continued if he continued to ignore his wife and children because he was just running here and there and everywhere i think i just i think i just quoted dr zeus well one thing i do i i am so thankful that my wife is a great partner in our our ministry and a lot of the back end stuff she she's really good at doing the technology and getting self -printed and getting stuff ready but i um at the beginning it was very difficult because there was heavy demands on me and i would leave early in the morning and come home late in the night and i had to make a decision that this is not how my life could be my my my family has to be my first ministry uh do you think uh oh i'm sorry i'm starting to read a question without even identifying the listener uh we have arnie in perry county pennsylvania who says do you think that pastors who are being accused of being neglectful of their flock when they know that is truly not the case can take comfort in the fact that even jesus christ the god man did not heal every single individual that wanted healing he did not go through the crowds of sick people and heal every person that surrounded him he was not everywhere at all times even though being god he could have been he did not even arrive at the bedside of lazarus his friend before he died can pastors not take comfort in this that is a beautiful observation and i really liked um that that comment and that question um you can't please everyone as a pastor um jesus could not yes and just like lazarus he did even take a couple days to go visit um his friend i personally do take comfort in i do as much as i can with god's help and the rest i just pray for grace amen and by the way i just want to clarify that something that arnie's i'm sorry i think you maybe you cut out my thing says i have one minute remaining i don't know how that um the reality that i can not do everything i could only do some stuff and with god's grace he could help me to do as much as i can but i i do agree with him and i do take comfort in the fact that i cannot do everything and jesus didn't himself no when you know when you said you have one minute to go is your phone service gonna yeah but i could call you on my another phone if you'd like why don't you do that now just so we were not interrupted midstream because we have about uh eight or nine minutes left so okay i'll do that right now all right great and if anybody else wants to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and just to clarify something that arnie said in his question slash comment obviously the fact that jesus did not heal everyone that surrounded him he was he was not referring to to an attempt by jesus to heal somebody that failed or anything like that uh jesus did not proactively approach everyone that surrounded him to heal them is was what obviously arnie meant by that i don't know if you heard what i was just saying i just heard a yeah when when arnie said that jesus did not heal everyone that surrounded him he was not indicating i'm sure that jesus was trying to heal people and failed yeah jesus never tried to do anything he always succeeded at every mission yes exactly yeah um yes well this uh area of the uh the burnout pastor i think requires uh god's people god's flock to really be on our knees more and in prayer and lifting up our own pastors before our lord's throne of grace uh because these are not hirelings these are not people who are typically being paid an hourly wage uh and they uh are therefore in some way contractually demanded to be everywhere to satisfy the whims or even genuine needs of everybody uh and i think that we always have to constantly remind ourselves about our own lives our own abilities to even be there for our own family members and our own friends and neighbors how we know that it's impossible for us to always be there for those who either need or want our attention so therefore we should not be expecting anything more from our pastors because they are human beings definitely and we should be encouraging pastors to spend time with their families to spend time with their children and their wife and in enjoy them which makes ministry for the wife and the children more enjoyable i know um various pastor um children who would never be in the ministry because they see what their father goes through they see that their father is always gone um they see the criticism that comes to the father they see the fact that um as a pastor he can never do anything right they see his stress and his heartache and they say i don't want that life for myself yeah can you imagine a a young man not necessarily just a young man perhaps an older man but he is a candidate for a pastorate and the elders of that church are asking him questions about his personal life and his life of this family could you imagine uh an elder board asking a candidate so tell us about your family life do you spend time adequate time with your wife not only on the day -to -day uh expected types of things but even romantically and are you there for your children uh are you there helping them study for tests and are you there throwing a baseball to them in the backyard and enjoying recreational activities tell us about your oh i don't have time for them i'm just too busy now obviously most churches would probably never hire or or extend the call i should say to a man that said that during an interview and yet the church is very often or expecting him to do that after he accepts the call and they appoint him as their pastor that's a very good point because that's exactly what ends up happening the pastor is always there and he always must be on call and everything that happens it's necessary and this is just in our culture i hear in some of the eastern cultures the pastors even demanded even more um to always have a sermon ready at every visit at every function he has to be on par to be able to preach and then you get the criticism so you you have the performance and you have the uh feeded feeling of the pastor that is even adequate they actually say 70 percent of pastors say that they have lower self -esteem now than when they entered into the ministry well i want you in two minutes time to just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today if i uh a quick summary um don't feel guilty for a pastor to turn off your phone uh at a certain time um live by your schedule in your life i think is very important it is important for you to have days off um and and and schedule it to be able to say okay this is going to be sermon uh prep day this is going to be visitation day these are the times i'm going to spend with my family um a pastor doesn't have to be a part of everything that happens in the church as well at all the events that happen during the week he does not need to be there um if i were to be in the face of a pastor i would say invest in leaders into people who can assist you um go away often um find time with god also that's what jesus did um luke 5 and 16 says jesus often was true to lonely places to pray don't let um church steal your relationship with god and it's true it can happen you could be so busy that you um don't connect with god at all and isn't that what god said to the church of ephesus in revelations too you lost your first love um don't lose that lose that love relationship with god also do not compromise the gospel to please people i had a pastor say to me that and i was shocked when he said this he said um i should preach the prosperity gospel because that's what people want to hear i don't want to bring them out and i and i was so shocked and i looked at him and i said we don't preach what uh we people want to hear we preach what the bible tells us to preach so don't compromise the bible and as a pastor you have to live with this reality you can't please everyone so don't be so hard on yourself and don't try to be the uh perfectionist pastor um everything has to be uh flawless you have to allow room for error in your life and going back to jesus christ as an example in john chapter six among other places jesus christ purposely preached unpopular things knowing that the the herd following him would be thinned out and many uh walked away never to follow him again so yes pastors should not be primarily concerned with numbers exactly very good and that's a good point because and that's that if i were in front of a or talking to a group of pastors it'll go to my next point don't compare yourself with other churches um do what god has called you to do within your congregation do it faithfully stick to the word uh spend your time with god but you have to do what you have to do and i don't care if the church next door has 4 000 people and it looks great and it's bursting and your your congregation is very minimal and you're just making the uh the payments to pay the bills and to pay the pastor do what god has called you to do praise god well i want to make sure that our listeners have uh all your contact information first of all the oakwood wesleyan church of toronto ontario canada's website is oakwoodwesleyan .org

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oakwoodwesleyan .org do you have any other contact information that you could give yes they could also go to the third degree spelt all out .org

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that is um the youtube channel of me and dr costa we go through um apologetical and theological issues i ask him questions he shoots back amazing answers um i think that they should uh your listeners should visit that website we use it as an evangelistic tool um send it to your friends um if they're curious about um uh creation curious about christmas um uh any other topics that we have there that are interesting send it to your friends so that they could hear and also something has um greatly happened with me and dr costa on my church on sundays we do on the trinity a course on the trinity we just started um with the goal to train people in um theology and apologetics and it's just growing um it is it's bursting out and now it's almost turning into like a global online school wow it is so we are doing now the doctrine of the trinity fascinating i have done this with dr costa this would be my third time going through it um and every time he teaches i um i'll learn something new so people could still hop on now if they want to uh for online listeners it's only a hundred dollars we'll shoot you all the previous stuff that dr costa has taught but we're also having an up and coming course on the virgin birth you could go to oakwood wesleyan in a few weeks it will be advertised there if you want to be a part of that course as well it'll be for four weeks and we'll uh it's only a hundred dollars and that's oakwoodwesleyan .org

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and the other one was the thirddegree .org .org or you could go on youtube type in dr tony costa his name is probably easier than mine or type it on sule prince s -u -l -e last name prince third degree and you'll see our videos as well now the website the thirddegree .org