Unsexy Church
The Unsexy Church podcast is dedicated to defining what makes a Biblical church truly healthy. Pastors Bob Block and Darren Selvidge bring a unique blend of humor, experience, and information as they discuss preaching, leading, and serving the local church. The Unsexy Church podcast is a ministry resource of FBC Tampa in Tampa, Florida.
Unsexy Church
Season 2 Episode 54: On Questions in Ministry
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Pastor Bob and Pastor Trent open up about the challenges and rewards of ministry, sharing about how their personalities influence their preaching and leadership style, and the work they do. Listen to this fun episode to get the inside scoop on our Pastor's preaching.
80s Music and Rock Evolution
Speaker 1that that keyboard sound right there? That doesn't that sound kind of 80s, kind of 80s. I see what you're going with the reverberation I've been grown up pounding during the 80s.
Speaker 2I don't really sense it, but yeah, I see what you're saying. 80s I don't really sense it, but yeah, I see what you're saying. 80s-ish yeah, Would it be from a different era? That's when the it wasn't a keyboard. What was it called A synthesizer?
Speaker 1Yeah, kind of came into Rock music and stuff.
Speaker 2Van Halen kind of brought that in in like 84-ish.
Speaker 1So what were the bands that kind of followed in that way in Van Halen?
Speaker 2Was Van halen a hair band? No, for sure, but not a makeup band? No, was makeup before van halen or after van halen?
Speaker 1uh, the more glam rock was probably after some some at the same time. Okay, so classic rock went to hair band rock, which went to glam rock, maybe maybe because my dad didn't like hair rock. He liked classic rock.
Speaker 2Sure.
Speaker 1Like Boston, which would have been before Van Halen right.
Speaker 2Right. Okay, they were contemporaries, but Boston was popular before Van Halen.
Speaker 1Okay, and Boston didn't have the hair? Did it? Did they the big hair?
Speaker 2I don't honestly remember what Boston looked like.
Speaker 1Oh okay. Wasn't the drummer of the Boston Boston didn't he get married to some preacher? No, you're thinking of Journey, journey, journey was Journey the same time as Boston.
Speaker 3Yes, and Van Halen really okay, so maybe my dad did like Van Halen but I know Boston and Journey were like big ones for him.
Speaker 1That's what he liked. A lot cool, yeah good taste what's the? The American Pie song bye, bye.
Speaker 2Good taste. What's the?
Speaker 1American Pie song Bye, bye.
Speaker 2American Pie. Yeah, by who Drove my Chevy to the levee?
Speaker 1but the levee was dry yeah so it talks about, as it continues, rye and other things. I'm not going to say their word, but I remember singing that as a young kid and my mom got mad at my dad and I didn't understand why, because in his truck we just listened to those kinds of music. That kind of music that era there was a station 93.9,. We listened to Yep, that girl.
Speaker 2Yep.
Speaker 1Interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, we won't say the name, nope, not of the band that sings that song but of the yes, here's the deal.
Speaker 1I think it would be good spiritual advice not to say her name.
Speaker 2See what you did there.
Speaker 3My advice would be to not take her spiritual advice.
Speaker 1Well, someone didn't listen. Do you know what's going on there? You?
Speaker 3do know what's going on there.
Speaker 1No, you do know what's going on there. I think you sent me something one time. I did. I've got a fact for you. We'll jump right in it, you do know what's going on there?
Speaker 3No, you do know what's going on there, that's okay, I think you sent me something one time.
Spanish National Anthem Fact
Speaker 1Oh, I did, you did. Yeah, all right, hey, I've got a fact for you. We'll jump right in it. Let's go. Did you know the Spanish national anthem, that is, the anthem of Spain, has no words. The marcha real originally intended.
Speaker 2Real Sure Rail. That's the Missouri way to say it.
Speaker 1I'm from the US, where we actually have a good national anthem with words, so the Marcha Real was originally intended to be played when the king reviewed his troops. It's one of only four national anthems in the world that has no official lyrics, so their anthem doesn't have lyrics.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Aren't anthems supposed to not only unite with music but also tell the story? It's our anthem, it's what we believe, it's what we think.
Speaker 2This is how we came to be. There's some really. Oh, Canada different national anthems out there.
Speaker 1Imagine if an Olympian stood on the gold medal podium and it was just like a guitar solo.
Speaker 2Do they play on the podiums? Do they play the gold? Yeah, they do, but do they play the versions that have the lyrics or do they just play the instrumentals?
Speaker 1Yeah, just the instrumentals.
Speaker 2So'd be cool to have like a guitar solo there's several versions of our national anthem played by guitar, jimmy hendrix, of course, being a famous one.
Speaker 1Yeah, that'd be cool. You've never heard that no, it'd be cool to have that, like during the olympics. Oh, yeah, to have that version, I've heard. Then he played that at uh, what's the big, the big, uh, woodstock, woodstock. Thank you yeah then is that where that happened? Or he played that for the first time and like unveiled it or something no way to know weren't you at woodstock? What?
Speaker 3year was that because there's been there was three.
Speaker 2He's funny there's one in the 60s I didn't live anywhere near there.
Speaker 1One in the 80s and then one in the 60s I didn't live anywhere near there One in the 80s and then one in the 90s right End of 90s, but the original one, the original one's 60s, yeah, 60s, kind of the peace-loving big fields, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Well, that's their fact. I don't feel like you guys liked it that much. I, it was a fact.
Speaker 2It was a fact. What do you want us to do with it? I'm just saying you're welcome, you can say thank you if you want to. Thank you so much for that really cool fact. I researched it. I thought it was a good one.
Speaker 1Y'all don't know how many websites I have combed through to have now like our 150th fact, because a lot of them have the same facts.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it's like women's health, and then it's like all these random magazines that have one random page of facts, you've come to the bottom of the universe of facts you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of facts we've got 150 of them, and there are no more in the known universe fun, crazy and wild and zany facts.
Speaker 1That's what I've googled, right.
Ranking Childhood Holiday Favorites
Speaker 2Oh, and they all have the same list perhaps change your adjectives and see what comes up what's's the fastest land mammal Cheetah?
Speaker 1Yep, it's a cheetah. There you go. Well, I do have a question for you, why? I know that I have no idea. I think 55 to 65 miles an hour. I don't know why. I know that in the top of my head, but I do. All right. Hey, I want you to rank the following holidays, but rank them of your enjoyment of them and their festivities as a child.
Speaker 2Okay, as a child. I got to go way back, Way Okay. That's a long way Back. That was a long way.
Speaker 1No, it was far back for me. Nor Kara, I mean Nor Kara Kara's, younger than I am. It was yesterday.
Speaker 3It was not yesterday.
Speaker 1You're married. You're getting up there, all right. Hey, we've got in no particular order Halloween, christmas, 4th of July, easter and New Year's Day. Okay, there are other holidays. These are the ones that I picked.
Speaker 2As usual, my question is are we going top to bottom or bottom to top?
Speaker 1I think. Least favorite, two favorite, and I want some stories here. We skipped over the banter pretty quickly. Least favorite, two favorite and I want some stories here. We skipped over the banter pretty quickly. I actually have to be somewhere today, but we're going to spend some time here. So least favorite. Why? As a kid, um new year's day I mean same, it was just another day. We didn't do anything for it. Yeah, it's not a day you might have done something the night before.
Speaker 2But you, new year's day you're probably you're watching football, hanging out maybe, but should I put new year's eve. That's what I meant new year's eve, new year's day same thing no, it's not well, same new year's eve and new year's day are distinctly not the same thing correct, but the but just think of all the festivities around it.
Speaker 1You said New Year's Day, bob pastor, sir boss, I'm a literalist. If it's New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, does that change?
Speaker 2No, thank you.
Speaker 3Thank you All right.
Speaker 1So why is it your least favorite, didn't? Really do anything Just really not a big deal Did you guys do the sparkling grape juice. No, my wife's family like makes a big deal out of it. They did the sparkling grape juice. They talk about one thing they want to accomplish the next year. My family like I guess we stayed up, but that's kind of it. Yeah you.
Speaker 3It would be my last, except for the that makes it my fourth option.
Speaker 1Okay, what's your last?
Speaker 3My last is Halloween.
Speaker 1Why is that?
Speaker 3Because we weren't allowed to celebrate it really Okay, because it was demonic. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm going to be quiet, but yeah.
Speaker 1Different convictions. Different convictions, different families, different convictions. We can talk about that, but you didn't celebrate it.
Speaker 3We didn't, we didn't. Sometimes, when we were older, like teenagers, we would convince our parents to maybe let us hang out with our friends or do whatever they were doing.
Speaker 1But other than that, just hang out.
Speaker 3Just yeah.
Speaker 1Which is fun. It is fun, but not particular to the festivity or the holiday. Okay, all right, let's go to number four, number four. What was your number four, bob?
Speaker 2I got to look back, there's only five.
Speaker 1Fourth of July. Is that age you just forgot? Stop it. Fourth of July. Fourth of July Again it was a day.
Speaker 2I mean, yeah, and I was patriotic as a kid because I was around in 1976. Oh, you know.
Speaker 1Just missed Woodstock.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, I was around for a while in 1976, but still, yeah, fourth of July was okay, but I don't remember us doing huge picnics or anything.
Speaker 1I'm going to have to disagree with you because mine is way down the list. 4th of July in a positive way, but way down the list or way up the list Way up Down in number, up in favoritism. Okay, kara, what was your number four?
Speaker 3My number four is New Year's Day, because we didn't celebrate it at all, Like pretty much the same thing. Maybe we stayed up, but probably not. But when I was older, we got over, we went to Kara Prokoko's house and at midnight I went with my siblings and she had her and her siblings there and at midnight we would run around the neighborhood with all her pots and pans and just bang them around. So it became a fun tradition, but it wasn't really all throughout Korea until then.
Speaker 1But we did that for like three years. I think, wow, it was a good time.
Speaker 2My number four Glad I don't live in your neighborhood or in Kara's neighborhood.
Speaker 3A lot of people were awake, though, and they would just yell happy new year, so then they would reply back. It was a good time.
Speaker 1Mine was Easter yell happy new year, so then they would reply back. It was a good time. Mine was easter. Hear me what? Listen, I'm a pastor. Now it's like number one okay, I get it oh, whatever, I'm talking about the festivities around it yes to be clear we did not, our church did not do an easter egg hunt. Um, our parents would do like a little small gift, almost like people get like an easter basket kind of thing but, mostly just like some candy and stuff.
Speaker 1So we enjoyed services that day. We dressed up nice, but we didn't make a lot out of it and I didn't grow to appreciate it until I realized what all we were learning, teaching and believing and putting at the forefront of that day.
Speaker 2Sure.
Speaker 1So, and you know what, every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. So so there, all right. Number three I had well, kara, you go ahead.
Speaker 3Number three. Yeah, number three, I put Easter.
Speaker 1Okay, I put.
Speaker 3Easter it was. It was fun. We would wear cute clothes, We'd go to church, we would decorate some eggs.
Speaker 1But also not too egg-decorate-y, because then that was too worldly, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3We died eggs Did you die eggs Once or twice, maybe we did.
Speaker 1We would get together with family and friends I forgot that evening and then we would die eggs. But I think I liked Christmas celebrations because we'd make gingerbread houses and that was more fun than dying eggs.
Speaker 2Easter is three for me, and it was one of those holidays where wow, yes you give me a face back off four, I'm a three it was one of the holidays. I remember as a kid that our family would gather around with other families, so I get to hang out with my cousins and we do fun stuff. So, yeah, yeah, big celebration day church in the morning and then go some to somebody's house and just hang out and do whatever hanging out my number three is your number two.
Speaker 1I can see it on your sheet of paper, so my number three was halloween. So, um, there were specific rules that my parents had pertaining to halloween. We could not dress up as anything gory or scary, or do haunted houses or participate in the occult. Our neighbors weren't either, thankfully, nor anyone on our street that I know of, but we got to go down our street that I know of and if they were, they'd probably do it other nights of the week as well.
Speaker 1But we went out, we got free candy and I liked candy. So I dressed up as a baseball player one year. I dressed up as, I think, fred Flintstone when I was really young, and so we met a lot of our neighbors that night. And again, christians have different convictions, different ways that their conscience are pricked, and so we did. We would hop in the back of a minivan with all of our church friends. We would hop in the back of a truck with all of our church friends. All of their families kind of got together. My parents kind of had a posse and then we would go to our pastor's house and it was a lot of fun. I remember the memories. It was good memories. We'd come back, we'd dump all the candy. My parents would say you can't eat that tonight, you can eat it over the next few days. But we would eat a lot, and so it was a lot of fun, fun stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You Number two? Now I was going to say you gave my number two away, sorry, yeah, halloween's my number two. Why? A lot of childhood memories and my family didn't have a lot of rules around it. Same kind of stuff, no, scary stuff, that kind of stuff. But our school, our elementary school, would always have a carnival around Halloween, oh yeah, and they would do prizes and different things for costume contests. So I remember that fondly. I remember winning the contest one year as what.
Speaker 2Well, and that's the interesting thing. So I dressed as like a hobo who jumps onto a train and had a stick with a bag, but I won Things you could do back in the day. But I won. They thought I was a pirate, so I won prizes being the best pirate, but I was actually a hobo.
Speaker 1Pirates take over cargo and you just would hop in the cargo hold of the train. I guess I was a train pirate. Our church for Awana back at Halloween for a minute would do dress-up things, but you'd have to dress up as a Bible character. One year I dressed up. My mom dressed me up. My mom's very creative. She would make a lot of the costumes. She made my Spider-Man costume. She made me a Pharaoh outfit and then she attached like fake frogs all over it and then like flies all over it.
Speaker 1So cute, which is really cool, yeah, clever.
Speaker 3All right view. Just to clarify for the church members watching.
Speaker 1Do you want to move on as?
Speaker 3children, I've enjoyed Halloween more than Easter. As children, we enjoy the festivities surrounding them.
Speaker 1And that's not to say that that would be the way we would rank them today. Moving on Kara to you accusing your pastors, or something?
Speaker 3Who invited Kara back? There's not two witnesses here, Kara.
Speaker 2It went a lot quicker last week when Kara wasn't here.
Speaker 3Hey, hey.
Speaker 1I somewhere to be Kara. Come on now.
Speaker 3Okay, Number two my number two is 4th of July, just because my family would get together and barbecue and it was a good time with everyone.
Speaker 1Nice. So I think I'm now at my number two and I would agree, so 4th of have in my list, because we would barbecue, because we would spend my parents wouldn't spend it but I'd like to save up my money to buy fireworks. Uh, I loved pyro, so I would, you know, try to put fireworks together. We blow up mcdonald's toys, um, and then we try to, you know, get the ones that, like the shoot up little little balls that make lights and sounds and stuff, and we would always have bottle rocket wars. So did you ever do that? So we would get like old Coke bottles and just chase each other and shoot bottle rockets at each other. Thankfully no one got hurt, but that was a lot of fun we did.
Speaker 1We did do like the Roman candle wars, but they weren't as fun cause they didn't pop. You know, you run far enough away from them. But bottle rocket wars, but butter rocket wars, you'd have to aim and some of them were pretty close to your legs and feet. Nice, yeah, that was fun. Good days. Number one I feel like we all have the same number one. What is it? One, two, three, christmas.
Speaker 2As a child, what better day is there? You know it's the day you look forward to all year.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's a good day, but I also put Thanksgiving because I loved Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1Thanksgiving 8. I wrote it in there, but even though you didn't put it in there, he chose Halloween over Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3I know See.
Speaker 1Celebrating the dead versus thanking God for your family and friends. Oh goodness, I don't like turkey that much, so Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2Your parents are in town. I'm going to have to have a conversation with them. Please do you celebrate Halloween too?
Pastoral Questions Begin
Speaker 1It was your number two, not number three. Hey, let's get to the topic. Y'all Goodness, let's go, let's move on. So a lot of these are geared toward you, bob. I want to Pastor Bob, I just have a few questions for you. I have six of them. We may make it through them, we may not. I'm going to hard stop in about 10 minutes. It's all about his schedule, isn't it? Hard stop. So you have 10 minutes to answer the questions. I get to Bob, are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert, 100% For sure.
Speaker 2How does your person what I know? That may be hard for some to believe, because I stand up and speak in front of large crowds all the time, but by nature I am an introvert and you're a coach, so you speak to large crowds as a pastor.
Speaker 1I'm not afraid of being in front of people.
Speaker 2It doesn't bother me being in front of people, but you rest alone. It takes energy to be in front of people where I I recuperate and rest privately, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1My my wife and I. I feel like I think this is a thing where I was more extroverted before we got married college and high school and she was more introverted before we got married and because of the profession that I'm in. I am around a lot of people, and so I need some breaks every once in a while, even to rest. And she before she's now a teacher. She was home more with our kids, and so she needed more interaction, and so I feel like we've leveled not leveled out, but I feel like.
Speaker 3I've less introverted.
Speaker 1She's more with our kids, and so she needed more interaction, and so I feel like we've leveled not leveled out, but I feel like I'm less extroverted, she's more extroverted but she's definitely introvert and I'm more of an extrovert. Yeah, I can see that for you guys for sure Easily. How does your personality affect your ministry, either positively or negatively?
Speaker 2your introversion- yeah, just being aware of it, knowing that my go quiet time, personal time, away from things, away from people, and knowing that that is not a good formula for developing relationship, developing ministry. So, again, it doesn't mean I don't like being around people, it just draws energy. So, making sure that I'm balancing my time of introversion with spending time with people, you keep your office door open so that so our extroverts can bother you. Yeah, exactly, myself included.
Speaker 1Yes, Try to yeah, you come to the offices and we're chatting.
Speaker 2Right, and, and, and and try to schedule lunches and meetings with people um go out of my way when I'm walking down a hall to them, so those kind of things.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I've seen you a few times kind of put your head to the ground and just run past people.
Speaker 2That was just you.
Speaker 1Yeah, all right, we're going to move on Number two. Hey, someone calls you last minute and asks you to preach for them. So someone got real sick. And it's a conference weekend, so it's a Saturday morning, so it's a. Saturday morning Sure and they need you to speak any text of scripture. There's no theme, for whatever reason there's no theme and they say you know what this is. So last minute, pick wherever you want to be. Do you have a sugar stick? Sermon Do you have a sermon you go to? Do you have a text?
Speaker 2Yeah, I wouldn't call it a sugar stick.
Preaching Frustrations and Inadequacies
Speaker 2I've got a few texts that I would go to that I could probably just you know, I've preached enough times, or it is something that I'm comfortable with, that I could do off the cuff. Romans 15, 13. And I made the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace. Uh, the last part of it. Of Ephesians three. First part of Ephesians four. Um, now to him who's able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond and then explaining the church in there. Um, so yeah, those are two, that, that two that come to mind off the bat. Nehemiah, chapter eight love. Nehemiah, chapter eight great, great text about the wall around the city has been built, but the job of removing the reproach isn't over. There needs to be spiritual rebuilding of the people, and they asked the man of God to bring the word of God and explain the word of God.
Speaker 1So it's yeah, those three are probably they weep for joy. They cry Exactly, they weep. They cry just by hearing God's word.
Speaker 2Yep, so those three are just. You know there's more, but those three would be. You know, if I had to preach right now. I'm probably grabbing one of those texts.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, 1 Peter. Right now it's into 1 Peter, it's beginning of Philippians and it's 1 John, 4, 7 through 12, the gospel. Yeah, okay, number three. I'm going to fly through these. So what's some of your, or one of your, biggest frustrations while preaching?
Speaker 2My inability. I could guess another one.
Speaker 1You have plenty of ability. Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2But no, that isn't. That's an honest answer, though it is just feeling inadequacy and doing it yeah, yeah, just no matter how prepared you are, and just being frustrated that you can't articulate it more clearly.
Speaker 1Feeling like Do you feel like I need to say this? I feel like I've said this before, but at the same time, I feel like I need this. So you're wrestling with man, they're hearing the same thing from me, but I know I need this, right, right. I hope they embrace it as well. Right, this is the gospel message. It is sweet to my soul. I hope they think it is sweet to their soul and don't just feel this redundancy here.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I would say it's an honest answer to say feeling inadequate, which can come across as a negative thing, but honestly, it's a reminder to me that I am inadequate and the word is what is transformational, not my presentation of it. That being said, I should present it well. I should present it so that people are excited to hear it, can understand it. So one thing that is frustrating is my own inability. Another would be, of course, just lack of response, and that's lack of immediate response beyond amens. Lack of immediate response beyond you know, amens. Or you know, when you present a text and you preach and then you give an opportunity for response and you don't have it immediately, at least not outwardly, visually you have to be reminded. Okay, god's working. It just may not be, you know, showing itself right here. So, yeah, that's our frustration.
Speaker 1Our church is set up in such a way that the entrances and exits are right next to people. They're peripherals.
Speaker 2There's no easy way to get in and out of our room.
Speaker 1Without feeling like you're seen and being seen Without being seen, yes, Do you feel like sometimes people that are rushing off to lunch? Does that get frustrating sometimes where? You're trying to land the plane. You're trying to call for a response and people exit.
Speaker 2That would be a frustration For sure, for sure I mean, and sometimes our service goes roughly an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes.
Speaker 2So, folks coming in after having their coffee in the morning. I understand, I've been there, you've got to take care of what you've got to do, but not everybody that's jumping up at the end of her end of the restroom. Some are jumping to head to whatever they need to do and we're not done. Worship's not done yet and there's times when I've called us out on that and I probably will in the near future again. But yeah, it's frustrating because we're not done. The Spirit's still moving and we need to focus.
Speaker 1We've still got songs to sing, announcements to give, announcements to give and people to see afterwards that maybe you didn't get to see on the way in, right, all right. Number four Well, we've got about four more minutes. Number four should pastors this is maybe more of an inside baseball question. Okay, pastors, this is maybe more of an inside baseball question. Okay, so our church has a statement of faith that one would be encouraged to know and affirm becoming a member. We believe this, we know this, we know this is being taught here. We want to be a member. Still, sure, should pastors have a more narrow statement of faith than what the church members affirm? Is there anything that you would say hey, you know what this is, this is a this broad and you can be part of our church believing this, but within the pastoral staff it'd be, wise to have a little more narrow statement of faith, a little more extra things you want to make sure are.
Speaker 2I don't know that I would use the word narrow. I might use the word specific, clarified, concise, so I don't know if I would use what was the word you used.
Speaker 1Narrow. Narrow, and I may just be using synonyms for that, I was just thinking, narrow is the path to being a pastor.
Speaker 2It's important for any church, anybody, to understand. This is what we believe Scripture teaches. There should be a doctrinal statement, and that statement should be more concise, more narrow, the smaller the group gets. Yeah, right, so if you're talking denominationally, and if you're in a teaching position.
AI Usage in Ministry
Speaker 2Right, right. So if you're talking denominationally, then that statement of faith is probably going to be a broad umbrella that is focused on the primary things and more generous on tertiary things. Primary things and more generous on tertiary things. But as you move down to local church, local church might want to be a little more specific on specific things and then as you move into an individual, such as a pastor, you need to know what you believe.
Speaker 1One more question. I'm going to skip the youth pastor one. I think that one deserves maybe its own conversation. Okay, I think so. Maybe you're most prepared for that one. I don't. One deserves maybe its own conversation Okay.
Speaker 2I think so. Maybe you're most prepared for that one. I don't know. I'm not prepared for any of these.
Speaker 1The question is let's table it, but we'll do one more. The question that we'll table is why are churches finding it so hard to find a youth?
Speaker 2pastor right now. Oh yeah, you asked me about that. That is a good question. We may come back and do that.
Speaker 1That might deserve episode, because that is true. Is there an appropriate use of AI for pastors?
Speaker 2There's an inappropriate use for it. You should not be using AI to write your messages. I shouldn't have. I can hand on a Bible, stand before and say I have not, but I don't use AI in any fashion other than if you consider Google AI. But I mean no, I don't go to.
Speaker 1What if it's the Google AI? Yeah, I call Gemini.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't, I don't use any of it. Yeah, maybe it's to my detriment, but I don't. I don't say, hey, write me a sermon on this text. This amount of words. Don't do that. I don't. I don't think that's intellectual or spiritual honesty. Okay, so we need to do our own research.
Speaker 1Now can you use. You're crafting an email for a grant or asking another something and you put it in ChatGPT. I actually never used ChatGPT, but Gemini or whatever that is. And you say correct grammar, good Sure.
Speaker 2Why not? Okay, it's a tool. If you're using it for a tool for your ideas, if you're using it for a tool to sharpen what you do, then fine. Just don't use it as a crutch.
Speaker 1Graphic ideas for a sermon series. As the media director of a church, give me six examples of a sermon series on blank Right. Yes, why not? Okay, I have used it. Here's what I used it for. I had a very so this is the first time I've used it and it was only for this class, not for a class I was graded on.
Speaker 1But I was in a Baddest History class last semester and I had a very specific question I could not find the answer to, and it was did John Calvin ever call out Luther for his language? As they were contemporaries toward the end of Luther's leadership to Calvin's, and Calvin was really popular. People were following Calvin, people had followed Luther. Some went from Luther to Calvin. Did Calvin ever have an issue with Luther? And he did. He wrote to Luther, and so what AI helped me do was to find some links to answer that specific question, and in fact, calvin had some language for Luther for not responding. Apparently, calvin wrote a letter through Philip Melanchthon. Philip Melanchthon went to Luther. Actually, he didn't go to Luther. He went back to Calvin and said he's not going to want to read that, and so Calvin said do you not have time for me? And Melanchthon did deliver that note. I wouldn't have known that I had books on the issue and I couldn't find it.
Speaker 2I think AI would be another conversation and I'd love to bring other guys in that use it for research. I've just never dived into it, delved into it, dove, dove, dove.
Speaker 1Diven, diven. What's the verb tense? Delved, delved.
Speaker 2Delving, but I have, I know some guys that use it as a resource. They don't write their sermons with it, but they use it as a resource, and maybe I'm missing out on something right.
Speaker 1Maybe, instead of using Google, they'll say give me a synonym for this word Sure.
Speaker 2Because you're trying to keep PPPP or SSSS and what's the difference between that and using a thesaurus? Or what's the difference between that and the thousand commentaries that I've got on my shelf that I'm going to pull off and use as resources?
Speaker 1Yeah, it was really helpful for the Baptist history class when I had a very specific question. It was really helpful for the Baptist history class when I had a very specific question Like what are three key differences between the New Hampshire Confession and the Westminster Confession? It helped, all right. Well, I think that does our episode. I've got to get to Cambridge to pick up my kiddos.
Speaker 2Oh, that was the hard deadline we were up against.
Speaker 1Yeah, so you know, I think we're going to end the episode. You guys, good with that? Okay, bye, Ready.
