Are Celebrity Pastors Helpful or Harmful? | Striving for Eternity | Christian Podcast Community

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00:11

Welcome to Theology Throwdown!

00:20

We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. All right, welcome to another

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Theology Throwdown. This is put on by the Christian podcast community, where we gather together, discuss different topics in a theological nature.

01:05

Tonight's topic is going to be celebrity preachers. Now, I am making a distinction between celebrity pastors and celebrity preachers, because there is a difference between the two.

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We're including people that would not necessarily only be pastors. You think of many apologists out there that are not pastors, that would also be included in this.

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Many people that travel and are speakers. I could think of Justin Peters as one, who is more of an evangelist, or Ray Comfort.

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I would think of apologists in the realm of, you know, William Lane Craig, Jim Wallace.

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These are all men who are in the speaking circuit. They preach, but they're not necessarily pastors.

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We're kind of expanding that. What we want to do is cover some different topics about this.

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This is something we see in the church. A lot of people follow their different favorite pastor preacher.

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Is it helpful? Is it harmful? Those are some of the topics we're going to discuss. We have a smaller group of podcasters that are here today, but we're going to go through and let everyone introduce themselves, their podcast, and anything they have going on with their podcast.

02:16

Drew, I'll start with you. You were the first one in, so why don't you introduce yourself, your podcast, and anything else.

02:23

My name is Drew Vonita. I am one of the hosts of the Matter of Theology podcast. We seek to address church and cultural issues from a biblical standpoint.

02:34

We are on the Christian podcast community. We've been there for about a year, and we love it.

02:40

Andrew Rappaport is great. Despite the rumors that go around about him, we tolerate him.

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He's funny sometimes, but it has been a blessing to be a part of the

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Christian podcast community and a lot of the things that go on. I'm really excited to be here and to talk about this topic.

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When you say funny, I do appreciate that. Looks are not everything, so thank you.

03:08

Colleen, you were in here next. How about you introduce yourself and your podcast? I'm Colleen Sharp, and I host

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Theology Gals, and we talk all things Reformed theology and the

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Christian life. Okay, and then Eve, you are next.

03:26

Okay. Well, I'm Eve Franklin, and I co -host the podcast Are You Just Watching? in which we discuss secular entertainment from a

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Christian worldview. I also have a handbook called Are You Just Watching? as well that you can buy from Amazon that basically teaches you how to do the same thing.

03:47

Yes, and I've been trying to watch. Listening to your podcast,

03:52

I've been trying. I did set that this year I was going to try to watch all the Marvel movies. For folks who watch

04:01

Marvel movies, Eve makes fun of me because I started with the one called Endgame, which is,

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I guess, at the end of 20 -some movies. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, so I didn't get the point.

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But I'm Andrew Rapp, host of several podcasts, The Rapp Report.

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That's my weekly podcast that we have. It deals with primarily what we try to focus in on is interpretation of Scripture and also application, whether it be to culture, whether it be to church.

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We also have Apologetics Live, which is a live show on Thursday nights. You go to apologeticslive .com. You can join to ask any question about God in the

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Bible because I can answer any question that you have about God in the Bible. You doubt that?

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Well, join us on Thursday night and test that. Be happy to prove it. We're going to start tonight with the idea of celebrity preachers.

04:59

The first thing, I think, is to ask the question, are they helpful to the body of Christ? Again, we're thinking of, when you think of pastors,

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I think of men like John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, though he's now at the

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Lord, Votie Bauckham. Just think of the different names that people have.

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Basically, just think of the lineup at G3 conference. They're all like the celebrity pastors.

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By the way, I should give a shout out, Drew, to our friend Brandon Scaife, who runs

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Christ Form Ministries. I'm wearing his T -shirt, finally. Obey God.

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Obey God, defy tyrants. I've warned him before. He just gets upset because he's like, you never wear it when you're on your show.

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I don't wear T -shirts. I'll tell him. I'll tell him tonight. I will tell him that you wore it.

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I did it just for him. Let me just open it up.

06:02

Drew, I'll start with you. Do you think that celebrity preachers have a value to the body of Christ?

06:11

I think they do, depending on their motive. You mentioned

06:16

John MacArthur. John MacArthur, if you've gone through seminary and you've had to write papers,

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John MacArthur is not counted as a scholarly source. He's counted as a popular source because he is a little more celebrity status rather than scholarly status.

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But John MacArthur's whole focus and motive and goal is to magnify

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Christ. Through John MacArthur's, we'll say celebrity status, his whole goal is to make

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Christ known. He's just the tool that God's using to make Christ known. Now you also have on the other side, you've got people who want the fame and want the status of celebrity.

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And these are guys, the first one that pops into my mind would be like a Stephen Furtick. They're not theologically sound.

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They know how to hype up the crowd. They know how to get people in a frenzy, but they leave people void of the gospel and actually void of any biblical instruction and teaching.

07:21

So I think there is a value to a celebrity status, depending on the motive.

07:26

Now, the problem is we would, when I look at, we'll say in reform circles, who the people we would count as celebrities within those circles, they're also men that don't desire to be celebrities in the first place.

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They just want to preach the gospel, teach others to live out the gospel.

07:46

And that's it. Colleen, what are your thoughts?

07:54

Well, I'm probably going to have a little bit different perspective maybe. So I'm going to say celebrity

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Christians, because I think that encompasses a lot. You even have like someone like Al Mohler and he's popular because of his podcast and speaking engagements.

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And you even have somebody like Sinclair Ferguson, which probably isn't celebrity as much, but has written books and does some speaking engagements and whatnot.

08:28

Sorry, I just dropped something. Sorry to our audience. I have more and more concerns with celebrity

08:36

Christians recently for a couple of different reasons. And like Drew said, you have, you definitely have like some that are not very sound theological, although I may push back on what he said about motive, because while he was saying that I thought of somebody who

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I think really does have a heart to help people, but it's just ignorant and says some stupid things. Sometimes I was just,

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I just heard an interview with somebody not even going to say who it is. He's not actually, his church is well -known.

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Probably not as well -known as some that we're talking about. And I think this guy really does want to do something for the

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Lord, but he's just ignorant. So his motives may be okay, but he just hasn't been discipled well and been given a high position without the discipleship and teaching.

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But so one of my concerns, first of all, if we say celebrity pastor, it's very difficult for me to understand somebody with the,

09:39

I very opposed to large churches. I don't know how a pastor shepherds his flock in a church with thousands.

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Now I go to reform church. So we have small churches and I understand that's not always practical, but you know,

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I've always been that annoying congregant. If I have a problem, I'm calling my pastor at two in the afternoon.

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When I ended up at the hospital in the middle of the night and was having emergency surgery and we called my pastor and he at six in the morning, woke him up and he was there before I got out of surgery, praying with my husband.

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And so when I think of pastor, that's what I think of. So I would oppose it on that, on that level.

10:24

I think that there's benefits with the resources, but it concerns me a couple besides that.

10:32

The other thing that concerns me is the amount of people that are listening far more to other pastors than they are their own.

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That concerns me a lot. That other pastor has no authority over you to the point that they're going to be like, well, my pastor says such and such, but so, and so my favorite celebrity pastor says something different.

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Even with COVID there were celebrity pastors saying, if your church is doing A, B and C, you need to leave that church.

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Okay. That's no, I don't like that sort of thing. And then lastly, and I hadn't thought about this a lot, but I think,

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I think it's just so important for us to put our greatest emphasis on our local church.

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Okay. Then to my lastly is I also see a problem with some of these pastors.

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This is not their fault. This is maybe the people's fault. More being elevated to to an amount that makes me very uncomfortable there.

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So certain pastors in our circles, certain pastors seem to be fair game to criticize.

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So you can criticize Steven Furtick and Joel Osteen, Beth Moore, and blah, blah, blah, all day long.

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You'll even go on Twitter. You can get a lot of likes if you criticize any of them, but because of how much some of these celebrity pastors, preachers, teachers,

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Christians are elevated, there is a how dare you criticize them.

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And that makes me very, very uncomfortable too. And you know, some people, let me say that, let me say about that since I've been attacked very greatly for calling out the false theology of a certain popular celebrity pastor that I do think that we need to be very mindful in how we do it.

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We don't want to act like Christians, like word Jesus every day, turning over the tables, which I think some do.

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I think we are still called to have love and grace and wisdom in the way that we do that.

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So I know I said a lot there. I'll be quiet now. You got into all the whole, the whole outline for tonight.

12:46

I mean, there's a lot we're going to end up digging into with that, but Eve, what are your thoughts when we talk of celebrity preachers and it's, you know,

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I'm saying preachers, cause I do think that it's, it's not just pastors. I think that, you know, it was interesting when

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Drew, you were talking, you know, or, you know, it wouldn't have been

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Colleen, but Kanye West came into mind, right? He's, he's this celebrity and he had this celebrity status beforehand, but it's like everyone just looked to him like he's doing these, you know,

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Sunday services things and he's not a pastor. He's not even really a preacher. He's, you know, he's a musician, but he had this celebrity status and he's not even, so he could throw in there just,

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I guess it was Colleen, it was just celebrity Christians because he, he's not really a preacher.

13:38

Right. So, so Eve, what are your thoughts are, you know, what do you find value in having men like this men or women that are have that celebrity status?

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I don't know. I guess I'm a little thrown by how you're defining a celebrity

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Christian, because I think that there are some good and there's a lot of bad and I think our only ruler by which we can measure the good from the bad is how they handle the word of God.

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And if, if they're promoting the gospel and they're promoting the authority of scripture and they're putting forward

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Christ then there's, and they have an actual reason for I guess, being in, in the front of people and in front of people and, and having, and they've been made popular because they have a message that people needed to hear.

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And they, they, I don't know. I don't have a problem with that because I think that the celebrity is driven by the necessity of their message to be heard, but there might be of that, that might actually be a very small minority of the celebrity

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Christians that are out there, the way you're defining it, there are probably a lot more of the ones that are celebrities simply because they, they crave the fame and, and they've allowed it to go to their heads and they're not promoting the gospel and their ministry is not led by Christ and they don't have godly men over them, you know, that are directing them in the steps they take in their celebrity.

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And, and I think that any, any ministry, I mean, even the four of us here can be, can be a celebrity because we're all generating following a following.

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When we do a podcast, that's what we do is we generate a following and, and the people who listen to us, however few that is or however many that is could consider us to be celebrities because of, of that, we have a message that we're putting out publicly.

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And so I think that it just engenders any necessity of us, whatever we do, whatever as Christians to always be putting the gospel and the authority of scripture first, because if we let any of this stuff go to our heads, any of us could, could take a wrong step.

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Cause we're all human and we're all, we all fall victim to pride and arrogance and the other sins that the set people who are celebrities.

16:24

Yeah. I mean, you make a good point. I, you know, I didn't think about that as much, but we are putting ourselves out there as podcasters and people do follow.

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And so how do you define a celebrity becomes, I mean, I, I was just this past weekend up in Boston and we went to this museum of science and, you know, all of a sudden

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I'm hearing someone saying, Andrew Rappaport, you know, now granted, if you're not wearing a face mask, it's easier to recognize a person.

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But, but, but yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, my bride and I've, we've gone places where, yeah,

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I, you know, I was on a cruise and someone had, you know, spotted me. And, you know, I just went up to, to go get a soda and, you know, they, they had read my book and knew who

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I was and ended up talking for a while. So, you know, you have that happen often, but at what level does this you suddenly become a celebrity.

17:15

Right. But so I'm thinking when I think of it, I'm thinking of the people that have the much larger platforms.

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How did they get those platforms? They started off small. Yeah. I mean, I remember a guy in New York city who he had, and I don't know if this is an actual thing he had like this, you're an

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ABCD level celebrity. And I forget how he, how he worded like, you know, how he figured out which level you are.

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I forget now. It was like, if people recognize you when you go out places, you were like a, like a

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D level. And then if I forget, he had all these different things for it, but there's, there's people that try to,

17:55

I guess, figure that out, but I'm thinking of the people, you know, when I, when I think of celebrity preachers,

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I'm thinking of, you know, we already mentioned like a MacArthur and I think the thing with MacArthur, you know,

18:07

Drew, you said, he's not seen as being scholarly. Well, it's because he really is preaching, you know, his, his platform is for his people.

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Right. You know, that's right. He's, he's writing the commentaries he's preaching. It's, it's for his people.

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The fact that others use it fine. That's great, but that's not his goal. That's, and that's the thing.

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And so what I ended up looking at, as I look at, you know, the case where I think there is benefit and how did we get these people?

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I think that this is something people don't really think about. I think a lot of it came about with the invention of radio.

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When radio first started, you had a lot of local pastors that were on the local radio stations and then certain people just started being listened to more and more and they started being syndicated.

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Other radio stations that were nearby wanted to carry the same person. So they ended up becoming syndicated.

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And really those, those are where you started having the celebrities where the, those people that were syndicated across different radio stations, and then they end up having a ministry.

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That's a radio ministry and speaking ministry, things like that. And so I think that you end up seeing a lot more of people who are, you know, have, have, you know,

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Eve, kind of like you said, they start off small building up a platform and people are just like them. Now, now what you see on the

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Christian radio is it's all like the celebrities. You don't have the, as much of the local guys anymore, which

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I think is sad. And we'll get to that when we talk about the importance of local church versus celebrities. Yeah.

19:47

And I'm glad I'm Colleen. I'm really glad that you brought that up. You touched that up. Cause I think that's super important to discuss.

19:54

I wanted to say real quick, just on Eve's point. I, I think what she said about some of them letting it get to their head reminded me, my husband as a new

20:03

Christian went to a church called Willow Creek before it was as big. I mean, it was, it was pretty big when he started going, but not what it became.

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I think most people in the U S at least my age has heard of Willow Creek. They really, I mean, my husband has been in Bill Hybels home and had great, great respect for Bill Hybels.

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And a lot of things that my husband really saw as ways to protect himself from being foolish,

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I guess, be from letting it get to his head and things like that. Even the amount of money in, at least in the beginning, he lived in a modest home.

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And when that got really, really big, he went to a church called harvest. That was a church plant meeting in a high school by James McDonald.

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Both of these pastors have, and he's, he's been in James McDonald home too. Both of these pastors have had pretty public fallings of sort, but my husband says something very interesting.

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He said, it didn't surprise me about James McDonald, but it did about Bill Hybels. And I think what, one of the things

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I think of even for myself, if I started acting, my podcast has gotten pretty big.

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If I started acting arrogant, I have accountability partners that would knock me down and say, you better stop right now, calling.

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I think an Andrew probably can speak a lot to that with, I know that he has so many people that surround him with striving for eternity that keep him accountable.

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But continuing that, because when you get popular, you also get a certain amount of power. And maybe it's easy to not to,

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I'm not going to be accountable anymore to those people or something. Well, yeah, it's, I think you get people that are just enamored with the platform and because of that, they don't want to say anything bad, but you know,

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Oh, go ahead. I was going to say that some of that might be where we look into the ministries and see if these, you know, like the face of the ministry has somebody that he's accountable to behind him.

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So like a ministry that actually has a board of directors of godly men who govern him or, or control, you know, control how big he gets, you know, kind of thing.

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And, and I think that's especially valuable for any ministry, especially a ministry of any size to make sure that they have that accountability within, especially if it's surrounded around a, a particular person, because even, even if that person is humble and is doing it for the

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Lord, he's human. And he, whether he falls from, from grace or he dies,

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God calls him home, the ministry will suffer either way. And so you need to have, you know, have something set up to take his place and not pretend like he's the,

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I've I've seen so many ministries that that happened to where they were centered around a, an individual and the individual dies or, and the whole ministry just.

23:16

Yeah. Well, that's why it's driving fraternity. We've we've for years. And Colleen knows this because she'd been around for a lot of it, but we we've been shifting so that it wasn't just about me.

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It's why we brought in, you know, Dr. Silvestro, we brought in Frank malls for a while, but we're trying to build up that.

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There's it's a speaking ministry of, and disciplinary mystery more than just Andrew Rappaport. Let me, let me ask the question.

23:39

Chris Huff, who is one of the other podcasters over at matter of theology has joined us.

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Chris, we're talking about celebrity preachers, not just pastors, but guys that are out there who are on the circuit, shall we say?

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Yeah. Do you find them to be helpful for the body of Christ? We ended up talking about already about like some of the dangers we're going to dig in more to that, but do you find them helpful for the body of Christ?

24:04

Oh, I mean, it just depends, right? It just depends on, on, on who it is. And if Colleen was mentioning some, some two, two names who have, who have unfortunately brought reproach on, especially

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James McDonnell on the name of Christ. And of course of, of have painted the church in a, you know, in a life that she shouldn't be painted in.

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I mean, I would say you're going, I think of guys like R .C. Sproul to the point you guys are just making, you know, you look at Dr.

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Sproul who passed away in December of 2017 and Ligonier is still doing great.

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Still going strong, still having you know, they just had their national conference and had a very, very good turnout there.

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They're still producing content, solid content through the teaching fellows there.

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And you know, I think Dr. Sproul would probably not want to have himself referred to as a celebrity preacher, but he's, he's known, right.

25:03

His name is known. I think guys like Dr. MacArthur you know, 82 years old this June. And, and you know, when the

25:11

Lord does does call him home. I do know that that grace to you and, and, you know, grace community church has a solid team of elders and pastors and leaders there.

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And those ministries will continue. And I'll say because of the humility of those men, of Dr.

25:30

MacArthur and Dr. Sproul to answer your question directly, Andrew. Yes.

25:36

I think they're helpful. If they are number one regulated completely by the scriptures, and if they have a team to, to Eve's point or Colleen's point,

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I can't remember who just said that who's, who's willing to keep them accountable and not just a team of yes men and, but, but they have a team that's willing to say,

25:58

Hey, you know you're a sinner, just like I am you know and whatever the case may be, or, or, you know, what would be willing to kind of pull them back down to earth when they start thinking that they've levitated above everybody else.

26:12

So I go ahead. Yeah, no, I was going to say is, I mean, so so much of this that we've been like every one of us to kind of focus in on, yes, they're helpful, but right.

26:22

So you've already mentioned some of the, but so, so why don't we start with you, Chris? I mean, what are, what do you see as some of the dangers then of having celebrity preachers?

26:32

Ooh, some of the danger. I mean you, so what you can end up having is you can have people that will the celebrity status.

26:43

You know, again, I think of, I'm going to use the example just because he's, he's been a huge influence in my life of Dr.

26:49

John McArthur. And you've got people that will watch the live stream of grace community church, and they will substitute that in their lives instead of attending and plugging into and serving and being served by a biblical church locally where they are.

27:07

That would be one of the dangers. Now, again, I mean, grace does a great job of saying this is not a replacement. This is not in lieu of your local church, but it's, it's a way to, for the truths of God's word to, to, to use the multimedia and the technology that's that's available to us for, you know,

27:27

I think specifically about grace to you. I've just had this conversation with, with a brother today. You know, the whole mission statement of grace to you is to use the multimedia technology that's available to expose as many people to the teachings of Dr.

27:41

John McArthur as possible. Again, the danger of that though, is, is, is you don't want that to supplement the, the physical gathering that we're all commanded to, to do, to do week in and week out

27:55

Lord's day and, and to be involved in an ax two type of way in a church. So there's a danger it can, you know, some people can elevate that and try to supplement that for church.

28:05

Yeah. And I think that's that, you know, we've all kind of said this, each one of us have kind of focused on that is that there, there, there does seem to be this danger when, and I think drew you started with this is saying it depends on their motivation, right?

28:20

Are they helpful? Are they dangerous? If they're just trying to build a platform and I've seen this, I've seen guys that are just trying to build a platform.

28:29

They, they, they'll, they'll do things just to get numbers, clickbait and things like that.

28:35

I've seen people that are willing to be dishonest in social media, just to get a bunch of people about that.

28:45

And, you know, so, so we, we see that there are those types that end up focusing more on the platform.

28:52

And I think that becomes a danger that we've all kind of mentioned that they, they, they need to be, you know, focused on, on, you know, what their, what

29:03

God called them to, you know, like, I'll tell you a guy who I think could be in the celebrity pastor category and never will be.

29:10

And that's a Jim Osmond who has, he's got one of the, he's got his

29:15

Kootenai community church worship service is one of the podcasts on the Christian podcast community.

29:22

Jim is a guy that you're, you're never going to see on the circuit. Why? Because he's serving his church.

29:30

Yeah. If you listen to his sermons, he's probably one of the best preachers out there.

29:36

He, he is, he is one of my favorite preachers, but he's never going to, he's never going to go traveling to go speak at these conferences.

29:46

I mean, he does once in a blue moon, but he doesn't do that regularly because his focus is his church.

29:51

And so he doesn't lose sight of that. And he doesn't want to have anything that gets in the way of that.

29:59

Those are the kinds of men that, that I really, you know, uphold and look to.

30:06

Yeah. And I think, I think you can do, you can do both to a degree. You know,

30:11

I think of, I think of somebody like, like, you know, Dr. Josh Bice and, you know,

30:16

I think of what he does with, with G3 and you know, but, but his whole, you know, one of the whole reasons that Virgil Walker is now the executive director of operations for G3 ministries is number one, the organization of G3 is just too much for one person to handle.

30:34

But then number two, Josh, one of Josh's top priorities is praise meal

30:39

Baptist church. And so taking some of the operational side, the operational piece of the monstrosity just in size, that is

30:49

G3 and handing that off to Virgil. And so Virgil can do his thing, freeze

30:55

Josh up to be able to, to, to do what he knows to be of first importance behind his family.

31:02

And that is shepherding the flock that God has given him there at praise mill.

31:07

To speak into, into Josh, you know, cause Chris, you and I both know Josh and he's a guy that even after services, he may, he makes it a point to, if you're visiting, he wants to, he wants to meet you personally who are just visiting and, and personally welcome you to praise mill.

31:28

And that's, that's also how all of the elders there are. So it's not just him. It's all the elders that he has raised up.

31:35

They also have that mentality as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the thing that we ended up seeing with it is, and I think

31:44

Colleen, you were the one that might've said this is kind of when it goes to someone's head, that, that they're, they're big.

31:51

They start acting different. They feel like, Oh, I got to behave a certain way. You get that.

31:58

That's when I think that it can become a danger. And you know, as Chris, you mentioned and some others, you know, when you surround yourself with yes men, people that,

32:09

I mean, look, let's look at two, two individuals who passed away. We could look at Ravi Zacharias and R .C.

32:16

Sproul and just look at difference. When R .C. Sproul passed away, the ministry continued without a hitch and is still growing and doing fine.

32:27

And no one's questioning, you know, what's going to be the future of the ministry. Right.

32:33

Ravi Zacharias ministries is in great jeopardy because the people that surrounded him were not really keeping him accountable.

32:43

And now that's exposed, you know, they, they tried to do some cover up and things, but the reality is it's now exposed for everyone to see.

32:51

No, they, they dropped the ball. And, and I'm sure that their donations have taken a huge hit because of it.

32:57

There's talk of renaming it. But you look at what ends up happening. How does that happen?

33:04

I think it happens because when you start to have people that gain a platform, those that are around them, some of them, it, there is a pride.

33:15

We all struggle with pride and there's a pride of being like, well, I know so -and -so, you know, there's a pride of, of being, you know, being in the in crowd.

33:28

I remember, and this is sort of to my shame, but there was a guy who is a very well -known evangelist and we were at a conference, deeper conference.

33:39

He was one of the speakers and, you know, I knew him personally. He asked me to bring some stuff up.

33:44

He wanted some DVDs that I had. And I said, I'll bring them up, give them to you at the deeper conference. This guy had a line down the hall around the corner, you know, hundreds of people wanting to talk to him.

33:56

I'm not going to wait in line to give him DVDs. I just tapped him on the shoulder and you know, he did the quick look and then, then the recognition.

34:03

And he was like, Oh, Hey Andrew, you know, I obviously waited in between people. And I just said, give him the DVDs. He, he ends up, he's like,

34:10

Oh no, no, wait, wait, don't, don't go off. How'd that, that conference you went to, you want to know about him? Like, like Mark, just call me next week when we get back, you know, call me and we'll talk, you know, you, you know, my number, call me next week.

34:25

Well, you know, I don't, I'm like thinking of all the people in line. It was amazing. Cause this is the first time this happened.

34:31

Soon as I walked away from him, I had three people that suddenly surrounded me, acting like they wanted to get to know me and they really didn't.

34:41

They wanted to get to know the person I knew. And to my shame,

34:46

I, I didn't know how to handle it. And so I, I felt that pride of like, yeah, you know,

34:53

I know him, you know, we're friends, you know? And then the very next moment I'm like, well, how wicked is that?

35:00

And so to my shame, I lied and told this guy I had a meeting and I had to be somewhere and I really didn't, which was wrong.

35:07

And so what did I do? I walked out the doors pretending like I had somewhere to be. And I walked around the building and came back in and hoped he was gone.

35:14

But it showed me how prideful we could be, you know, and I've, I've, you know, I've learned to deal with that to realize, okay, let's, you know, because I, you know,

35:24

I am at conferences. I do speak with people. I do get to know some people and I, you know, it's, it's a thing where I got to be careful.

35:31

Like, I don't want to be, Hey, like I know so -and -so, but what ends up happening with a lot of these guys that are close to them, they're supposed to keep them accountable.

35:39

They don't. Right. The yes -men thing you were saying, I did want to say shameless plug on an episode of Theology Gals.

35:47

Somebody who has very, very good things to say on this topic is Darby Stouffer, who is

35:53

R .C. Sproul's granddaughter. And she's, she's a dear friend and actually is on the

35:59

Theology Gals team and said, and she said one day, you know, let's do an episode together on celebrity pastors because she saw it from a very different perspective.

36:09

She grew up in it. And not a celebrity, a huge celebrity pastor, but does have some celebrity is my brother -in -law's dad,

36:18

Rod Rosenblatt. And that he doesn't even like it at all. When people are like get excited about meeting him.

36:26

But there was a conference a few years ago and I see Rod off talking to somebody and he's crying with them because that that's how he is for him.

36:37

It's all about the gospel and loving people and being

36:42

Christ to people. That's what he wants to do. He doesn't want to be the celebrity. He wants to be the one -on -one with people.

36:49

If you don't know, he is, he was on the white horse in a radio program. When it used to be a radio program for 25 years.

36:57

And yeah, people will do that to me. They'll be like, Oh, you know, Rod, you know, like, like Andrew was, was saying.

37:04

And yeah, I, and I think, I think. Sorry, I've muted myself.

37:10

I think the big thing that's so important for all of us to remember is it can happen to anybody because we're sinners.

37:18

And I think even in a ministry that maybe becomes popular, even if you try not to, you can still end up with yes men because you're the popular person there.

37:29

And I think one of my concerns I mentioned in the beginning is our tendency to elevate some of these teachers, almost like they're next to God.

37:38

And so then somebody says, well, I disagree with pastor so -and -so on such and such and everyone, you can see it on Twitter.

37:47

Okay. Someone can very with grace and kindness say, I disagree with John MacArthur or I disagree with RC Sproul and such and such.

37:54

And the fan boys come out and attack, like, how dare you disagree with them? Well, I had that in church.

38:02

I was in, you know, I don't agree with John MacArthur on everything, but it was almost as if John MacArthur was used as once he said it, it's almost like God has spoken.

38:11

And it's like, I'm sorry. Like John, John MacArthur. I think he's probably influenced me more than any other preacher, but he's a man.

38:23

There's areas that disagree with him. He's wrong. I think. And so we'll get to heaven.

38:28

We'll see which one of us is right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, cause one of the things that, that Colleen said early on is the idea of who do we get to disagree with?

38:42

You know, who do we get to call out because it's so easy for us to point out the false teachers.

38:48

And it's so easy to point out the ones who may be out, not that they're not believers, but they're just outside of our camp.

38:55

And so we, we, we poke at those who we just disagree with, but even in our camp, right.

39:02

You mentioned John MacArthur, Andrew, Chris and I had a conversation a couple of months ago.

39:08

And so I'm glad, I'm kind of glad you're here so that you can validate this, but you know,

39:14

John MacArthur came out and he said something that I disagreed with. I, you know, really disagreed because I think what, what he said could have been taken a number of different ways for people who aren't mature and able to think about some things.

39:31

And so, you know, it's almost like, it's not okay to, to criticize

39:39

John MacArthur on something, but it's okay to criticize say Al Mohler or, or one of these other guys.

39:46

But one of the things I think we need to do is we need to say, okay, my favorite pastors or my favorite preachers, my favorite theologian, fill in the blank.

39:57

Where do I disagree with them on? Because if I agree with them on everything, then they become the standard.

40:05

Andrew, I think you were alluding to that, that they become the standard of everything so that now

40:10

I don't even go to, to scripture anymore. I just say, I look up a topic and say what does such and such say about this topic and whatever they say is gospel.

40:21

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that becomes a different danger that other than, you know, other than the danger of idolatry.

40:28

But yeah, because it is a form of idolatry. Yes. I think that what you end up having is a lot of times you're talking about the fanboys that you, if you disagree with them, they come after and start attacking you.

40:41

It's, it's a thing of, as if they're, they have to always be right. I understand when you care about someone that you've learned a lot from, you don't want them being attacked.

40:53

I understand that the sense of wanting to defend, but we have to make a separation between defense of, okay, is that a legitimate point?

41:04

I mean, I, I recently I really re -released the episodes I did about Al Muller, right?

41:09

I think that the way that I went about that I thought was respectful. I'm using his own words and I'm just applying it.

41:20

You know, I've done we've done a series of episodes on Apologetics Live dealing with very well -known evangelists church.

41:33

And, you know, so yeah, it had huge impact. You know, we, we ended up having a very large ministry that I was speaking to just last week about it because they actually watched all, you know,

41:46

I don't, I don't even know 10, 20 hours of, of episodes. It's a lot.

41:53

It's a lot. Yeah. And you know, the thing that they, that this one person said was, we could see how you, you guys really handled it well.

42:02

You handled the issues of not just being attacking, but really trying to dig into what's going on.

42:10

And, and it was interesting because when we did that, there were a lot of people that just wanted to defend and attack us.

42:18

And in, in the end it started to say, Oh, you know what? I'm seeing some, some value here.

42:23

And there, there does seem to be concern. So I do think when you see those dangers it's a, that's a different danger than what

42:30

I was thinking. And Colleen brought up something I want to get back to as well. Cause that's something I didn't think of as a danger is the family or friends who the relationships, how it affects the relationships when someone does become a celebrity preacher.

42:46

It is something where, you know, that it changed, like for example you know,

42:54

I go to Shepherd's conference each year and, and even though it costs me more money to stay at a hotel, I go the week early.

43:01

And the reason I do it is I, you know, I go do open air evangelism with Ray Comfort.

43:07

Okay. We do go down and hunt in beach and I do it the week before, because I know when I'm there, he's going to, he's going to say,

43:13

Hey Andrew, you want to get up on the box and do some evangelism. I am uncomfortable doing it the week after when all the other guys that were at Shepherd's conference are there at the beach, because I've had it happen when rail say,

43:28

Hey Andrew, can you get up next? And when Ray does that, I get down and there's a whole bunch of people that really don't care a whit about me, but they're pretending to, right.

43:37

They, they care about, right. It changes the way that the relationships occur. You know, I think about, you know, my daughter who, when she went to Cedarville university and there's guys who'd be speaking at Cedarville who, you know, who knew me, you know, and it would be just, it was a thing where it changes the dynamic, you know, and she would go through it.

44:02

You know, it's, it's, it's hard when, it's just different when there's like people who I'm just thinking of Darcy that you mentioned

44:08

Colleen, like being R .C. Sproul's granddaughter, you're going to get to know a lot of very well -known people.

44:16

And, and his, one of his grandsons are, you know, I also know

44:21

I've met him through G3 and it's funny cause he doesn't have his last name on his name tag.

44:27

Cause he doesn't want anyone to know he's a Sproul. And he and I had talked about it and he's like, yeah,

44:33

I mean, once anyone finds my last name, they really don't care about me. He looks like R .C.

44:38

though. Yeah. Well, it was really funny because the, the way we found out was

44:46

Justin, Justin Peters and I were, were doing some with a hotel room, changing rooms.

44:51

He was helping take care of it. And he just happens to mention his, his grandmother, you know,

44:57

Vesta. And all of a sudden Justin goes, wait a minute, are you R .C.'s grandson? And he's like, well, yeah,

45:03

I am. To bring up a point from a little bit earlier where you, you were talking so much about the people defending celebrities and, and putting them up on pedestals.

45:16

And what I found interesting about that discussion was that you were all talking about the people who follow them, not the people being followed.

45:23

And so I think that at least some of the danger in celebrity pastors or celebrity, celebrity

45:30

Christians is they can't always control their followers and you can't, you can't necessarily hold every man of God who is publicly producing the gospel or putting forward the gospel and is standing for the authority of scripture.

45:44

You can't always hold them accountable for what their supporters do in their name, because. I said that.

45:51

So I do want to clarify because I don't think it's, I don't think that it's John MacArthur's fault that some people elevate him like that.

45:59

I think when we talk about celebrity pastors, a lot of the things I said in the beginning, I'm talking not about them as much as how we.

46:09

Yeah. How we elevate them. Well, it wasn't just you, Colleen. It was just this whole discussion that was going on just momentarily, not that long ago where we were all talking.

46:19

There was this discussion going on about, you know, that they would come up and be talked about and be defended when, you know, and all that kind of thing is that you, you can't always control what the followers do in your name.

46:34

Yes. Sometimes you can, like I have, I have issue when, with those that do that, like joy or Micah would be an example.

46:41

Yeah. When I would disagree with her on something she would do, She would word thing.

46:47

Like if she responded, she'd word things in such a way to get people to respond for her.

46:55

I remember calling her out once on something and her response was, does anyone here agree with Andrew?

47:02

And then everyone just piled on. Yeah. So in that case like that, Well, I'm not saying they're all innocent.

47:08

I'm just saying that, that you can't always, you know, You can't always be like the person who is the problem. And I would say that, you know, like Al Mohler, I don't,

47:14

I don't know what you said against Dalmore. I'm a I'm currently Baptist. So I kind of like our molar.

47:20

I wouldn't hold him, put him up on a pedestal. But. I think that at least half of the problem with celebrity pastors are the people who follow them, if not more than half the problem, because the issue is.

47:32

I would say that. Yeah, I can follow. I can like our molar. I can listen to his podcast occasionally and not put him up on a pedestal because, you know, as a

47:43

Christian, I feel like I should hold every leader over me accountable to the scripture.

47:51

But there are a lot of infant baby Christians in the Western church who are not capable of thinking for themselves.

47:59

And part of that is a lack of teaching of apologetics in churches and a lack of giving people the ability to study scripture for themselves without having to believe what teachers tell them.

48:13

And this goes back to their need to be involved in a local church, right? This goes back to the need for them to be shepherded by someone who could look them in the eyes and walk them through that.

48:26

And I think, you know, to your point, that's absolutely right. I mean, you can't, you know, you can't, you absolutely cannot, you know,

48:34

John MacArthur is not responsible for what, you know, some random Twitter follower or Twitter handle that has five followers gets on there and says in defense of him.

48:43

I will say though, however, you know, speaking, speaking back to, and this is kind of shifting gears a little bit, you know, speaking to guys like Al Mohler, speaking to guys like Matt Chandler, speaking to guys like anybody really that's higher up in the

48:57

Acts 29 or in the SBC, the problem is their title, they have popularity, right?

49:07

They do, but just merely by their title, director of Acts 29 Church Planning Network, Matt Chandler, you know, president of,

49:13

I can't remember, Southwestern, Southeastern, whichever seminary Al Mohler's at. Southern. Southern, thank you.

49:19

So thank you. So, so what the problem is, is you've got, and this is kind of shifting gears away from the people piece.

49:25

And I want to kind of come back to the family piece for just a second, and then I want to move on to this. Let me say the family piece first, you know, it's, it's super important.

49:33

You know, you think of the granddaughter, the grandson of R .C. Sproul, you think of the, you know, I, I personally know, and this is not to brag on me, you know, to interest point,

49:40

I want to make sure I'm not being prideful, but I personally know I've had, and I've had conversations with Mark MacArthur, John's son. And, you know, one of the things that you find when you talk to God, talk to people like, like Dr.

49:52

Sproul's granddaughter or Mark, or, you know, anybody in that, you know, in that, that side of things,

49:58

I mean, yeah, look, they're sinners just like us. But they also confirm that these men are the same on stage as they are off stage.

50:05

They are the same behind the pulpit. Well, to be honest, they're bulldogs in the pulpit because they should be, but they're soft, strong, firm leaders at home.

50:15

So, so, but that also puts pressure on the kids to make sure that they are pursuing holiness, that they're living lives, you know, because immediately if something goes wrong with one of their kids,

50:23

I think of, you know, something that R .C. Sproul Jr. went through a few years ago. I think of recent accusations against Mark MacArthur and they, their lives are under microscopes as well, just merely by the titles of their parents.

50:37

Now, let me shift gears for a second. We can come back to that. Let me speak to the people that are elevated to quote unquote celebrity status just by their title.

50:46

Okay. Al Mohler, Matt Chandler. The problem, and I'm going to get a little fierce here.

50:52

The problem is you've got people like that that want to talk out of both sides of their mouth, right?

51:00

You've got somebody like Al Mohler to, to Andrew's point, Andrew's episodes that wants to have his cake and eat it too.

51:05

You've got guys like Matt Chandler who want to talk about being reformed in their soteriology, but absolutely hold to an antithetical view of anthropology when it comes to ethnicity.

51:15

And so they want to talk out of both sides of their mouth to appease the masses. They themselves are yes men.

51:21

Well, I think that's where there does become a danger and I'm going to want to bring Keith in because he came in.

51:28

But I think where there does become a danger, and this isn't so much with the men sometimes, but publishers.

51:34

Oh yeah. Is, you know, publishers want to soften things to get the broader audience.

51:41

I know that firsthand. You know, I have one book that went through a publisher, Sharing the Good News of the Mormons. There's a phrase

51:48

I say all the time and they didn't like it. They had to soften it. You know, I say that the reason I do open air evangelism is one, to get the, you know, primarily to get the gospel out, right?

51:58

To preach the gospel unadulterated, unwatered down. But the secondary reason is to get one professing atheist to tell another professing atheist to shut up, right?

52:08

It talks about my character. I want to get someone that vehemently disagrees with the message, tell someone that he's on the same side with just to shut up because how rude they're being.

52:18

They didn't like that. They're like, no, you can't word it that way. I'm like, but this is how I say it. They're like, no, to get one unbeliever to ask another unbeliever to be quiet.

52:27

That doesn't have the same emphasis. Publishers, I think also influenced that because they're just focusing on the power.

52:36

If people don't realize, publishers nowadays, when you publish a book, they're no longer interested in the content of the book.

52:46

Literally the contract that we had, you know, with Harvest House or in all the others that it was pitched to, they wanted to know your social followers, your email list, how big is your platform?

52:58

That's what they care about. It's like, do you care about the content of the book? I think that's secondary.

53:04

But let me bring Keith in. Keith, why don't you introduce yourself and your podcast and let you get up to speed with this with any, we're talking just the preachers, not just pastors, but people that are celebrities, well -known preachers.

53:20

Are they helpful for the body of Christ? Are they a danger to the body of Christ? Yeah, this is

53:28

Keith Heltsley, co -host of Quest for Truth. My other co -host is

53:34

Nathan Caldwell. On the topic, well, just the fact that, you know, there's the way people are, there's going to be some people who rise to the top.

53:46

So you're always going to have somebody who is something of a celebrity in what they do.

53:54

So is it a good thing or bad thing? I would have to say, well, it's probably neither or I'd have to fall on the side of being good.

54:04

But you want to have good people, much as you're talking about people, good moral character, good moral standing, being there so they can represent correctly.

54:17

Yeah. And that's pretty much where we've all come down on. Let me, I want to shift gears a little bit and go to a different topic that we kind of hit on earlier.

54:30

And that, and I think this is really, I think the central thing we've all kind of been talking around, but Colleen really honed in on it.

54:39

It's the importance of local church versus celebrity preachers. I've, you know, when

54:46

I stepped away from being a pastor and I started traveling and speaking with Striving for Eternity, I was,

54:54

I was away anywhere from 48 to 49 weeks a year, traveling and speaking.

55:02

And I got to meet a lot of other guys that were doing the same thing. And I started to notice within a year or two that a lot of these guys had in their personal life, had some failures.

55:16

And those failures were not really noticed because by people, because they're up on stage and they're just moving to a next church and the next church and next church.

55:26

And so I ended up recognizing the fact that there, there's a need for the local church where we actually made a change.

55:34

And we, we basically require that any of our speakers at Striving for Eternity will be at their home church at least half the year.

55:44

Now it doesn't mean, you know, you know, it's either every other week or if it's going to be, you know, half the month, whatever it's going to be, you know, there's times where I travel for six straight weeks, but then

55:55

I'm at my home church for six straight weeks. So we have that policy. I, I think what it is, it's a protection against, like we were saying about the attaboys and that people get,

56:09

I'll tell you, being on both sides of it, I'll come to it from a pastoral perspective. As a pastor, you usually hear the complaints.

56:17

You bring someone in as a guest speaker that people have an issue with, the pastor is the one that's going to hear it.

56:24

But when I travel and speak, all I get are the pats on the back. I know that if anyone doesn't like what

56:30

I said, they're going to complain to the pastor, not me. But you can fall into a pride with that when all you're getting is praise and you're not having any local accountability in a local church.

56:44

You know, it's, there, there's this, there's an importance to doing that. I mean, one of the things

56:49

I loved was in my, in my, an older church I was at, we had a guy who is mentally challenged. But I loved talking.

56:57

He, he's, he would, you know, he, he said that outside of comic books and the Bible, my book,

57:02

What Do We Believe and What Do They Believe are the only two books he actually ever read. Right. So, you know, but he, he, it's so funny because I bring guys into the church with me that just happened to be visiting.

57:12

And he's like, you know, I don't, I don't just think of you as Andrew. You know, I do always forget you travel with these people and talk, right.

57:20

That's what we need. We need people in our life that just think of us as, yeah, you're just a guy I go to church with.

57:27

You know, I, I was used by God to lead a guy to the Lord who is very well known in jujitsu circles.

57:34

And I didn't know how well known. And it's really funny because in Christian circles, he looks up to me and he's like, oh,

57:39

Andrew's like the best because you haven't seen a lot, but he thinks

57:44

I'm so famous. But then like in jujitsu, when I'm in, in a gym, if I mentioned his name, well, everybody knows who he is.

57:53

You know, he basically had, you know, it was like, hey, he brought, you know, mixed martial arts to, to Abu Dhabi and these different places.

58:02

It's like crazy when I found out, like, and I'm sitting there going, wow, like, I just think of him as Brian.

58:09

That's all he is to me, right? He's a guy, a disciple, right? He looks at me and just goes, he just thinks of me as Andrew.

58:15

That's what we need. And that's where I think the local church provides. So what do you guys think of the importance of local church versus celebrity pastors in that aspect, the other aspect, which was already brought up by,

58:27

I think, Colleen. And as a pastor, I would agree with her. It frustrates me to no end when

58:32

I'm pastoring and I have someone that's listening to someone on the radio, you know, five, six days a week, and they're listening to me for an hour.

58:41

And who really has more, who has more influence in the congregation's life, the celebrity pastor or the local church?

58:48

Those are two things for you guys. I mean, I would definitely like to jump that off.

58:55

And then everyone can piggyback or, or beat me up or whatever. But, you know, looking at in just in notes, as I was, as you were talking, you know, really, there's three areas that came to mind.

59:08

One, you have the pastor to you have the preacher, which we could say is an itinerant preacher. And then you have the listener.

59:15

So what I mean, just so just some some names came to mind is, you know, one, I would say

59:21

Anthony Mathenia, right, a local church pastor in Radford, Virginia. He was he was invited to be one of the speakers at the

59:30

Cruciform Conference last year, he had to cancel because he had to deal with local church issues.

59:36

That was his main priority, right. And so as those of us who love the local church, we go, hey, we totally understand, you take care of your flock, because that's whom

59:48

God has put you over. That's your first priority. But then you have, let's say the itinerant preacher, right,

59:53

Paul Washer, Paul Washer is under the authority of Anthony Mathenia. So not only does does

01:00:00

Anthony have to look after his local church, he's got to look after this other preacher that is well known throughout the world.

01:00:09

And and Paul Washer also has to make sure that that he's, he's dealing in his local church, according to the shepherds that are over him.

01:00:19

And then you have the list. Let me just throw something out there, because people probably don't know, you know, to get

01:00:25

Paul Washer to speak somewhere. Paul doesn't make that decision. His elders do.

01:00:30

I don't know if they think that's the accountability. You know, he gets speaking events come in, and it's his pastors who make the decision, they meet and discuss whether he's going to go to that event or not.

01:00:41

Right, right. And then you have the listener, the person who is listening to the local church pastor, but also listening to these other celebrity preachers.

01:00:52

So and I think one of the things that has elevated preachers and pastors to the position of celebrity is conferences.

01:01:00

Now, I think their conferences are great. I think they're helpful tools and resources. But one of the things

01:01:08

I think conferences need to do, and I think this is direction, the direction that G3 is going,

01:01:13

Chris, you might be able to speak more into this, is more regional, but focused on the local church.

01:01:20

So one of the things I think is would absolutely be great is if you have maybe one well -known speaker, but then you have a whole slew of local church pastors, that way people in the community know who the local church pastors are.

01:01:34

And then, you know, so you can do things throughout the community and know the churches that are solid churches to be able to plug into or plug other people into and things like that.

01:01:46

Well, that's what we used to do with our Jersey, our fire conferences, we named equipped conferences. That's what we bring in one big name speaker, maybe two big name speakers, and then some local guys, you know.

01:02:00

Yeah, I love that. You know, Andrew, to your question, I think, you know, I think to a brother that Drew and I have had, you know, the blessing and privilege of getting to know a gentleman by the name of Reagan Rose, who is here locally.

01:02:16

You know, this guy was introduced to us through Pastor Brett Baggett, and who was a speaker at the

01:02:25

Cruciform Conference. And Reagan has taken so much time with Drew and I as Drew and I have been talking through and talking about planting a church.

01:02:38

And so, you know, Reagan is a guy who, you know, he's a local guy that you'll, you know, that is heavily involved in his local church.

01:02:48

But at the same time, he's all about finding men and pouring into them. You know, he spent over two hours with us on a zoom call.

01:02:56

And there's not a week that goes by that we don't have multiple texts and encouragement from him, resource sharing, so on and so forth, you know, you but but there's a name that a lot of people have never heard.

01:03:09

Right. You know, to to your point about, and I missed that point of the conversation.

01:03:15

But the person that listens to, you know, the radio six days a week and listens to, you know, your local church pastor on Sunday, you know, that that can be that can be a great thing for the encouragement and the edification and sanctification for that believer.

01:03:31

And can either be a great thing or a horrible thing for that local pastor. It can be a great thing, because that, you know, through the work of the word, the

01:03:40

Holy Spirit matures and sanctifies this person, and they come to your local church pastor and say, What can I do to serve?

01:03:45

How can I help plug me in, use me for the edification of the Bride of Christ, or they can constantly compare and contrast and create division and infighting.

01:03:55

And so it's one of those things that it's important to, from a believer standpoint, to listen to other preachers.

01:04:06

But at the same time, you must understand that your local church pastor has should be hopefully

01:04:12

Lord willing is spending anywhere between 20 and 35 hours a week, pouring over the

01:04:18

Word of God so that he could bring a message that God has ordained for you, because he knows you as a part of his flock.

01:04:25

So that can be it can go either way. Yeah. And just to also touch on something that Colleen said earlier is the importance of the local church and the local church pastor.

01:04:36

She mentioned that when she had to go to the to the hospital, she called the first the first person she called was her pastor, and he beat her there.

01:04:45

I have heard I've heard pastors say from the from the stage. Yep. At two o 'clock in the morning, and Chris has heard this too.

01:04:54

At two o 'clock in the morning, if you've got an emergency, call your small group leader, don't call me.

01:05:00

And I'm going, then you're not a pastor, you're a community organizer. So, you know, let me ask, you know, if you, you know, you tend to be quiet a lot on some of these, but I want to just give you an opportunity, you know, local church versus celebrity preacher.

01:05:19

What do you what are your thoughts? I think every Christian should be an active member in a local body.

01:05:25

That that's that's where we're commanded to fellowship with other believers. And the the issue of whether or not they're getting teaching elsewhere.

01:05:36

I mean, I sometimes find myself listening to sermons online, you know, from pastors that I appreciate, you know, their, their biblical leading and some of our podcasts are probably sermons, you know, that people we expect people to tune into and listen to.

01:05:52

I think it's wonderful if people are spending their free time listening to godly content that is outside of the church, because that's means they're not watching

01:06:03

Marvel movies and TV programs and feeding their minds with things that are not of God.

01:06:10

I mean, if if people are spending hours a week listening to Christian content, praise the

01:06:16

Lord. But at the same time, the local church has a responsibility to be teaching the believers within their body, how to discern what is truth and what is false.

01:06:32

And if they're not doing that, and, you know, their, their fellowship, the flock are going outside of the church and feeding themselves with all kinds of things out there.

01:06:45

We know there are wolves among the sheep, and the celebrity, the, you know, the, the great names that are out there, the big names that are out there, draw the sheep into their flock.

01:06:58

And if the local body is not, not helping to guard the sheep, they're going to be led astray.

01:07:06

And so I, you can't put it necessarily on the blame on either side, because the sheep are going astray.

01:07:15

Maybe because they're not getting fed by the shepherd. And I, I don't know what the solution to that is.

01:07:25

We can't force every Christian in the world, in the country to go to a church, to pick a church and, and go to it and fund it and spend their time in it.

01:07:35

They have to want to be there, they have to be spirit led to join and be committed to it.

01:07:42

And, and, and the celebrity pastors, some of them out there might actually have things to help feed the local bodies to do their job better, you know, to be better apologists, to be better at, at feeding the flock, so the flock doesn't go astray.

01:08:01

And I think there are quite a few ministries out there that that's the whole point of the ministry is to feed the church, to make the church better at feeding the sheep.

01:08:11

And so, and some of those people become celebrities, and I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with them being celebrities, if their focus is still to aid the local church in feeding the flock.

01:08:25

Did any of that make sense? Right, allow, yeah, yeah, yeah, right on. That was right on. I mean, let the

01:08:31

Lord, you know, elevate who he's going to elevate when he does and how he does it. And, and, you know,

01:08:36

Eve, to your point, yes, you know, and Drew mentioned it earlier, it's a, that's exactly why ministries and like G3, you know, and, and Josh, he, he wanted to move to an every other year bi -annual conference, you know, the

01:08:51

G3 conference, I mean, brings anywhere between five and 6 ,000 people to Atlanta, and it was, it was, you know, it was just exploding thing.

01:09:01

And so he didn't want it to be just about the conference, but what was G3 doing to equip local churches?

01:09:10

And so to Drew's point, I mean, they've, they've partnered with some phenomenal ministries and they're going to start churning out content, free content available.

01:09:21

I mean, solid content available to pastors and churches just for that, the right, just as Ephesians says for the equipping of saints and the building up of the body of Christ.

01:09:31

And so that's why they moved to a bi -annual conference schedule. And then on the off year that the big conference isn't happening in Atlanta, they're going to do multiple regional conferences.

01:09:41

And they're, they're, look, they're going to places that, you know, that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

01:09:47

I mean, they're wanting to do right now, they're looking at some, some, some venues, possibly somewhere in the, the, the upper

01:09:54

Midwest, they're looking down South, South, South Florida, and some other places throughout the country that, that people can't get to, you know, they can't spend thousands of dollars to go to G3.

01:10:05

They can't spend, you know, pastors can't spend, don't have it in their budget to spend three to five grand to go to the

01:10:11

Shepherds Conference in LA. And so, so ministries like G3, ministries like Founders, what

01:10:18

Striving for Eternity does, you know, it's, it's, it's, that is awesome.

01:10:24

You know, and I think that, you know, going back to scripture, right, taking it back to scripture, we, we, we remember the

01:10:30

Apostle Paul's words for, for those who think that they, that they have arrived, you know,

01:10:37

I think of Philippians, you know, chapter three. And when, you know, when, when

01:10:42

Paul says this, he says, and I'm reading out of the LSB, the Legacy Standard Bible says, not that I've already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which

01:10:53

I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself as having laid hold of it yet.

01:11:00

But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, you know, and, and, and to everybody's point, what lies ahead is, is obeying the commands of scripture, to get involved in your local church and should the

01:11:16

Lord, you know, raise up a pastor and put him in the limelight. Again, other people have said this too, may they be men of strong moral character and, and men who are seeking to serve your local church above and beyond.

01:11:30

I want to just add one thing to that too, Andrew, that your original question here, if, if I were to emphasize one point in this whole entire conversation, it is the importance of the local church.

01:11:45

You know, in the local church, when you are a member of a local church, there is an authority that your pastor and elders have, a spiritual authority, doesn't mean you have to agree with them on everything, but you do need to honor that authority.

01:12:00

I mean, they are the ones that, well, in the Reformed church, they're the ones that decide, that admit you to the communion table, that administer the sacraments, baptism,

01:12:09

Lord's supper. And I will tell you if, if I had like two churches near me and one of them had a dynamic pastor that I maybe would almost never speak to.

01:12:22

And the other one, maybe he was preaching the word solidly, maybe not as dynamic as the other one, but that one was, was the one that comes to your house in the middle of the night when you're having a severe marriage problem or a problem with one of your children or the one that's going to disciple you, that's really going to shepherd, because I think ultimately that's one of the things that we have lost.

01:12:47

I see it all the time in my, in my own Facebook group, we've got almost 7 ,000 women and we,

01:12:54

I'm very, very strict in there. And there are a lot of posts that come through and a woman says, should

01:13:01

I do such and such, such and such? And we go to her and we say, this is a question for your pastor, not a

01:13:06

Facebook group. But I want, that's the thing that I, even more than these celebrity pastors is to really value the importance of the local church and your local pastor who should be shepherding you, not only in preaching those sermons every week, but also in, in biblical council and just doing life, that community that happens.

01:13:38

Okay. And I, I know that going to reformed NAPARC churches for me for the last 26 years that they are small churches.

01:13:47

I understand that. And even a lot of NAPARC churches, it gets to a certain size time to plan another one.

01:13:54

But I being in those sorts of churches for 26 years, I've seen the value in that.

01:14:00

And just having that, that community and knowing my pastor, my pastor,

01:14:06

I mean, in, in reformed churches, pastor and elders come to your house, even twice a year, just to sit down.

01:14:13

How are you doing? What are you struggling with? How's your marriage going? How's parenting going? Can we help you with anything?

01:14:19

You're seeing them every week and you know, you can go to them, but having them come and sit in your house and really just talk to you and find out how are you doing?

01:14:28

Cause sometimes we don't tell people, well, actually I'm struggling. My, my son is rebelling and I don't know what to do, or, you know, so that's, that's a one thing, even with theology gals, even with my group that we emphasize over and over is the importance of the local church and the shepherding and the discipleship that happens there.

01:14:47

We've had people email the, the matter of theology email and just asking question after question, after question.

01:14:58

And the, the, the, you know, there, there's some theological and doctrine questions that, that are sure, you know, we'll answer, but there comes a point where, when it starts getting into relationships between husband and wife, you know, kids, things like this.

01:15:15

I've had to reply back and say, you need to be involved in a local church because this is, this is a job for a pastor.

01:15:21

And I'm not your pastor. I can answer your questions on, on, on doctrine and theology, cause that's what we cover.

01:15:27

But, but this stuff, this is pastoral issue and I'm not your pastor. And, and come to find out this person was one of our

01:15:37

Patreon supporters. They stopped becoming a Patreon supporter and they eventually told me why, then they reached back out and they said,

01:15:43

Hey, I'm involved in a local church. And my wife is now a believer and you know, and just all these things.

01:15:51

And I'm going, Hey, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, man. But someone, another person

01:15:56

I wanted to throw out there that is sort of in the celebrity realm, but is a local church pastor and, and, and elevates the position of local church pastor over everything else.

01:16:08

That's, um, a person named John Snyder, um, who is someone that I have come to respect a lot of the work that he does.

01:16:16

And I had a phone call with John Snyder about a month ago, and we talked for about 45 minutes and stuff like that.

01:16:23

And he was telling me about when they planted Christ church, new Albany, uh, he was living in South Mississippi and I think new

01:16:31

Albany is in North Mississippi. And one of the things he said has to be a staple is

01:16:37

Sunday evening prayer gatherings. He said, he said, I will, I will not be a part of it if we can't have

01:16:44

Sunday evening prayer gatherings. And so they were just getting started and it was one of those, you know, he w he would drive up, um, you know, to preach and so, but because he lived five hours away at the time and the person he was planning with would say, you know, you don't have to come, you know, tonight, this is what we're doing, but you know, we got it covered.

01:17:03

And he goes, no, if I'm going to be a part of this and a part of this local church, I need to be there because the people are going to get their cues from me as a local church pastor.

01:17:14

They're going to pick up on what I think is important. And if I think that the local prayer gathering is important, they're going to think it's important and they're going to come.

01:17:23

If I think my local church is important, then they're going to think the local church is important and they're going to be there.

01:17:30

Yeah. And that brings up another point. It's just, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I was going to say, we, I have a policy similar to Drew, you know, when

01:17:38

I get people that contact us at Striving Fraternity asking for counsel, you know,

01:17:44

I usually will say, have you spoken to your local pastor first? I won't even get engaged with counseling them.

01:17:51

And unless they, you know, they have to prove to me they, they, you know, cannot speak to the local pastor, which

01:17:58

I don't see any reason they can't. And so, you know, I'll give general advice, but I'm always saying you got to talk to your local pastor.

01:18:05

He's the one that is the authority in your life. And if you're not going to him, then typically people that are doing that is because they're trying to avoid, they're going to go to people that they want to hear what they want to hear.

01:18:20

They're going to go to the, oh, okay. You didn't give me what I want to hear. I'm going to go to someone else. And once I, once I get what

01:18:25

I want to hear, I can feel justified. Yeah. Well, it's also easy if you're not going to your local church pastor, because your local church pastor should know the things that are going on in your life.

01:18:35

If you're going to someone outside of that, it's easy to manipulate the situation and not give all the information.

01:18:42

So it's easy to gain the answer that you want when you're talking to someone that doesn't know the whole story.

01:18:48

Yeah. Well, and I mean, that speaks to, you know, Hebrews 13, right? It's you obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

01:18:59

So that they will do this with joy and not groaning for this would be unprofitable for you. You know, you, you submit to your local church and true.

01:19:07

I love it that you just brought that point up. You know, it would be easy, you know, to, to, to find a quote unquote celebrity pastor or something like that, or, or somebody associated with them and, and tell them, you know, your church hurt story, but not include your part of that.

01:19:21

You know, were you involved in that? Right. What did you do? You know how, you know, what, and, and it may not even be something that you did, but what did you do to try to rectify to reconcile?

01:19:32

You know, there's so many things that could go wrong with that, but, you know, to, to Colleen's point on, I love,

01:19:37

I love that, you know, her point about the, you know, true reform churches, your pastor is going to come to your house, sit down with you, sit down with your wife, sit down with your, your family, ask how things are going.

01:19:48

What do you need? And, and, and because those leaders ultimately will give an account for your soul.

01:19:54

You know, it's, you know, as Andrew, to your point too earlier, you know, Dr. MacArthur has been one that's, that's,

01:20:00

I mean, anybody who knows me knows I, I love the guy. I appreciate him and very influential in my life, but Dr.

01:20:07

MacArthur is not going to give an account for my soul. Right. That that's going to be my local pastor.

01:20:15

That's going to do that. And those, those celebrity ones who we mentioned earlier that are chasing the platform, they need to be careful because they're going to have to give an account.

01:20:28

That's right. That's right. That's right. So let me, Keith, I don't know if you have anything more that you'd want to add, you know, you've been kind of quiet, but give you an opportunity.

01:20:39

Well, yeah, the local church is the way to go. I mean, if I have a problem, I'm more apt to call my local pastor, then

01:20:47

I'll say, Andrew Aperborg. I barely know you.

01:20:56

And when it does come to local churches, yeah, the pastor does have to answer for your soul.

01:21:03

I have been in a church, at least one where the doctrine wasn't being preached right.

01:21:14

And there was very little pastoral care and things just came to a head. And we actually changed churches because of issues with the local church and the pastor not doing what he's supposed to do.

01:21:29

So sometimes local church has issues like that. But even so, there ought to be somebody local that you can go to first if you need support.

01:21:42

Yeah. So I think the overall, the conclusion we've had here tonight is, yes, you know, there is some value in with celebrity preachers.

01:21:53

They are helpful for the body of Christ, but, and it's a big but, it comes with a lot of dangers.

01:22:00

There's a lot of harm that ends up being done. And I think overall, what we end up seeing is that the focus really is the local church versus some celebrity.

01:22:12

The celebrity is not, yes, you can learn things from them, but they're not the ones that are going to give a count.

01:22:20

The reality is that there's some people who reach out to different ministries, whether it's Grace to You, Striving Fraternity, Matter of Theology, Theology House, whichever.

01:22:30

There's a reason some people reach out to a ministry rather than the local pastor.

01:22:36

And some of it's because the local pastor actually knows the person, right? If I get someone that is going to contact me,

01:22:43

I get their side of a story when they're telling me about what happened in their church. I don't know the church, right?

01:22:49

I don't know any details. I only know their side of an argument, and everyone's going to make it sound like their side of the argument is the true side until you talk to the other side and go, oh, yeah, right?

01:23:00

So there's a whole bunch of people that do reach out to ministries like that because they want to avoid the fact that their local pastor knows they're a problem, right?

01:23:09

And so the thing that we've all kind of agreed to is the local church is the priority.

01:23:16

We should be getting our pastors to pour into our life far more than the guys we would listen to on the radio or the podcast.

01:23:31

I remember I had a book that I'll probably never put into print, but I was working on a book on evangelism.

01:23:40

And in there, in the opening, where you have the acknowledgement type pages, I basically had a thing in there that said, and I should have actually included this in my other books, and maybe

01:23:50

I will in the future, but I had a thing in there that said, if you haven't read your Bible today, you shouldn't be reading this book today, right?

01:24:00

If you haven't heard from your pastor, your pastor hasn't been teaching into your life this week, then you shouldn't be listening to our podcasts.

01:24:11

And that may seem like a strange thing to say, right? Because we're all podcasters, but I would rather people listen to their local pastor than my podcast.

01:24:22

That's the importance, because they're going to sit under that teaching and be learning from someone that's accountable for their soul.

01:24:30

Well, and Andrew, can I jump in for two seconds? You know, our hearts are idol factors. So, our hearts are idol factors.

01:24:41

That was John Calvin. And taking that a step further, you know,

01:24:47

I had a brother, Reagan Rose, who put on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, you know, what do you reach for first in the morning, your phone or your

01:24:57

Bible? And so, what I've done is on my nightstand now,

01:25:03

I put my Bible in front of my phone, so I have to touch my Bible to turn the alarm off, and then I grab my Bible and want to read it.

01:25:09

But that was a little bit of a hard shift. Now, the reason I share that is to piggyback on what you just said, is this, you know, we have a tendency in our own hearts to elevate and to worship who we would view as or who society, even

01:25:25

Christian society, would view as a celebrity pastor. So, my question for all of us, all of us, us talking, anybody listening, is, do you seek to know

01:25:40

Jesus the way you would seek to know X, Y, Z? Is your desire to know

01:25:48

Christ and Him crucified as strong as your desire to listen to the latest John MacArthur sermon?

01:25:55

Is, where are, what are your priorities?

01:26:01

What are your focuses? You know, and so, and I say that to say this, going back to, and then

01:26:07

I'll be quiet, Andrew, going back to the local church piece, you know, Scripture is clear that when a biblical church gathers, and the pastor stands behind the pulpit,

01:26:18

Christ, and truly exposits the scriptures, Christ is speaking in that moment.

01:26:26

So, my question is, for all of us, you know, are we going to submit to that, or what we hear on the radio?

01:26:35

Now, again, that's not minimizing the importance and the use of ministries like Striving for Eternity, Grace to You, G3, etc.,

01:26:42

so on and so forth. But, you know, who do you want to worship more? A celebrity pastor who can do no wrong, or Christ who died in your place for your sins, and His imputed righteousness was given to you through the shed blood of Him?

01:27:00

Yeah. And I will make the point of saying that any of these celebrity Christians, they are all people just like you and I who have feet of clay, and they all struggle, they all have the sin that easily besets them, they all have issues.

01:27:17

And if you get to know one of them, you will immediately see that they are just people.

01:27:24

And so, you know, don't always look towards, you know, the face on the screen, or the voice on the radio, or whatever it is, because that isn't

01:27:36

God speaking to you. That's just another man who's possibly bringing you the

01:27:41

Word of God, which is good if he is, but that's not where our focus should ever be.

01:27:47

It should be on the Word of God first, and on the local church second, and then on, you know, having the, working on having the

01:27:59

Spirit -led conviction to, or the ability to know when you're hearing truth, so that you're not led astray.

01:28:07

No, I mean, that's the important thing is, you know, look, I've traveled, I've spoken with people,

01:28:13

I mean, names you would know, and there's some people who that I retain a friendship with, and some who

01:28:19

I don't. There's some guys, I mean, I can name names of people who they, you love to listen to them when they are preaching, and they're teaching, and it's like, wow, they're amazing, and then their personal life, you're like, really?

01:28:32

Are you even saved? It's, there are some people like that. And then there's guys who, you know,

01:28:40

Justin Peters, that guy is the same on stage, and well, okay, maybe not exactly, because he'll never tell a joke on stage.

01:28:50

You know, he does tell jokes. He'll just never, you know, he'll never make fun of me, which I'll do privately.

01:28:55

I keep trying to get him, but but, you know. Hey, we tried to get him too. But that's, you know, that integrity that you have, and I think it's a good point,

01:29:06

Eve, that you brought up, but I think, I hope for folks who are listening, you at least were encouraged, the value of our local church.

01:29:15

You have one last thing to say? Yeah, I want to give an encouragement to pastors, local church pastors as well.

01:29:22

Now, I'm not a pastor, but I am currently looking to plant a local church.

01:29:30

My encouragement would be to make sure that you're attending to your flock, and not chasing after a platform, because you're going to have to give an account, to your local, to the flock that you're over.

01:29:46

Now, I have found, and this is through personal experience, this is why I believe

01:29:52

I have been called to plant a local church here in my community, but I have found through personal experience, that it is so much easier for me to get in contact with, in a phone call, with some of these, you know, quote -unquote local or celebrity pastors, than it is a local church pastor, because they're chasing after a platform.

01:30:16

So, I would just, if you are a local church pastor, that is the position God has gifted you.

01:30:22

That's a mercy from the Lord, and I would strongly encourage you, focus on that.

01:30:30

Don't focus on a platform, focus on your flock. That's a great way to end this episode, so thank you for that,

01:30:38

Drew. And so, we just want to encourage you guys, you know, it's your local pastor, your local church, that's where we are accountable.

01:30:45

And so, just to let you guys know, as we wrap up, this is, you know, this is part of the

01:30:50

Christian Podcast Community. We have a lot of podcasts out there. Go to christianpodcastcommunity .org,

01:30:56

and you'll be able to listen to the podcast mentioned here, and many others.

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01:32:30

I think we're going to talk about next month, we're talking about possibly discussing apologetic methods, evidential apologetics, classical apologetics, presuppositional apologetics.

01:32:39

So, that may be the topic for next time. And we hope to see you then. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.