181- Armor Bearers: How to Serve and Support the Senior Pastor

Welcome to Strength for Today’s Pastor. 

Our podcast title indicates our passion—which is to strengthen pastors and church leaders, that their churches might be stronger and healthy.

Today we have pastor James Chapman. James is an assistant/associate pastor, serving under and with senior pastor Sandy Adams of Calvary Chapel Stone Mountain in Lilburn, Georgia. 

Episode 181 is a recording of a message James delivered at the Deep South Pastors and Leaders Conference, last September in 2025. The title of his message is “Armor Bearers.” 

Having served pastor Sandy for over 40 years, James understands what it means to be supportive to the ministry of the senior or lead pastor. And in this message, James compares the ministry of the armor bearer in the Old Testament to his role. 

This message is highly applicable to elders, deacons, board members, and staff pastors and other leaders.

The text is 1 Samuel 14:6-14. He jumps right in as he opens his teaching.

Enjoy! 

For Poimen Ministries, its staff, ministries, and focus, go to poimenministries.com. To contact Poimen Ministries, email us at strongerpastors@gmail.com. May the Lord revive His work in the midst of these years!

Transcript

"Armor Bearers"

James Chapman
1 Samuel 14:6-14

Begin reading in 1 Samuel 14:6-14 … in verse 6, there it says,

6 Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.” 7 And so his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then, here I am with you according to your heart.” 8 Then Jonathan said, “Very well, let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to them. 9 And if they say to us, ‘Wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them.’

10 But if they say thus, ‘Come up to us, then we will go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hand,’ and this will be a sign to us.” 11 And so both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, ‘Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden.”

12 Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and to his armor-bearer and said, “Come up to us, and we will show you something.” 13 Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Come up after me, for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel.” And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and his knees with his armor-bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan.

And as he came after him, his armor-bearer killed them. 14 That first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made was about 20 men in about half an acre. 

You know, in the Bible, the armor-bearer is an interesting character. There are five armor-bearers mentioned in the Old Testament that seem to be of some note. The first we find in Judges 9. His name was Abimelech, and he had an armor-bearer. He was one of the 70 sons of Gideon.

Gideon was quite productive. And you remember the story. 

Abimelech, he was a bad guy. He, through treachery, decided that he was going to become king of Israel. But while he was attacking the city of Thebes, a woman dropped a big rock on his head from the city wall and wounded him severely. And realizing that he was going to die, he ordered his armor-bearer to kill him because in his pride, he didn't want it to be said that a woman killed him.

Well, this wouldn't be the last leader that asked his armor-bearer to kill him. It seemed to be part of the armor-bearer's life. In 1 Samuel 14, we find that Jonathan has an armor-bearer here. He's featured in this famous story that we just read. And we'll examine this armor-bearer a little more later. In 1 Samuel 16:21, we discover that David was actually the armor-bearer of King Saul for a short period of time.

In 1 Samuel 31, King Saul has another armor-bearer after David. And just like Abimelech, after Saul is wounded by the Philistines, he orders his armor-bearer to kill him so that he doesn't fall into the hands of the Philistines. It seems to be an important job of the armor-bearer is to make sure that you kill your master at some point.

We'll get more to that later. How to take over a church in one easy step for an assistant pastor. But this guy, he refuses to kill King Saul, apparently out of fear that he would be held accountable for the life of the king.

So moments later, Saul, of course, falls on his sword and his armor-bearer follows suit and commits suicide in the same way. The last one we see is in 2 Samuel 23. We find Joab has an armor-bearer.

This armor-bearer is mentioned by name as one of David's mighty men. He's a guy by the name of Naharii. I'm going to guess that that's how you pronounce it.

And I mention him by name because I figure if you're one of David's mighty men, you deserve to have your name butchered by somebody later in life. Now, from the history of the armor-bearer, we learn four or five various responsibilities that they had in addition to killing their superiors off at some point. And I'm going to suggest to you this morning that the role of the armor-bearer is one of the best illustrations of an assistant pastor that there is in the Bible.

An assistant pastor, an elder, a church leader. And we're going to look at the five primary functions that we see from history and from the Bible of what these guys actually did. And here they are.

Number one, they carried the weapons for their superiors. See, this was the most obvious duty of the armor-bearer, how he got his name. He carried the weapons and the armor of the guy, his commander, the guy he worked for.

Number two, he provided support in the battle for his superior. In other words, armor-bearers would often replace broken and lost equipment in the heat of battle. And often he would fight alongside his leader.

Number three, he acted as a bodyguard to his superior. The armor-bearer was responsible for the commander's safety. This included watching his back, making sure that in the midst of combat he didn't get attacked from his blind side.

Somebody was there to look out for him. Number four, he was a sort of a personal attendant to his superior. Armor-bearers could be called personal attendants or a body man.

He would attend to the leader's personal needs. Part of David's role as King Saul's armor-bearer was to do what? It was to play music for him when he was freaking out and having his emotional and mental breakdowns. Some of you may do that for your senior pastor.

I'm not sure. But it probably wouldn't be a bad job. And then number five, he would slay the wounded left by his superiors in battle.

And as we'll see today, our story, we're going to see how the armor-bearer finished off the wounded that were not killed by Jonathan. So the role of the armor-bearer is an interesting and a challenging one. And like I said, I think it's the perfect illustration of the assistant pastor of the church who comes alongside his pastor to help provide assistance to him.

In my 44 years of walking in this role, I've had plenty of opportunities to do the very things for my pastor that are illustrated in these responsibilities. And I'm going to talk about some of those today. So we're going to consider and compare these two roles for a moment.

And so if you're an assistant pastor or an elder, or just in a support role there in your church helping your pastor, I'm going to give you some questions that I want you to ask yourself honestly this morning. And here they are. We're going to take them one at a time.

First, do I carry the weapons and armor for my senior pastor? Now in other words, let's put it another way. Am I carrying some of the weight of ministry so that my pastor doesn't have to carry it all? Are you sharing in the load and area of ministry where he's asked you to be responsible? Or are you doing your job haphazardly so that he has to come along behind you and make sure that you're doing your job? Trust me, if that's the case, you're not helping. You're making his job harder.

We had a poster in the restroom of the place that I once worked when I was in high school and college. It was a simple poster. It had just a phrase on it. It said, half done work helps no one. And I have never forgotten that. I think of that often.

Because this is true in ministry, guys. When we have the responsibility of caring for people and of teaching people God's word, and we do it halfway, guys, it's dangerous and it's damaging to people. Listen, whatever weight of ministry that your pastor has given to you, you need to do it well.

You need to help him carry that burden. Now, others of you may be making your pastor's job more difficult because you're assuming responsibilities in areas of ministry that he hasn't asked you to and where he doesn't need you. In other words, rather than stay in the area where you're supposed to be, you're getting in the way of other people doing the jobs that the pastor has put them in charge of.

In other words, to put it bluntly, you've got to learn to stay in your lane. We talk about that a lot around here. Staying in your lane.

One of the things your pastor is counting on you to do is to care and manage people. And you don't want to become a hindrance to him by getting in the way and frustrating the work. And this was a lesson I had to learn because oftentimes I would get involved in what other people were doing, other people were responsible for.

See, years ago, it was just Sandy and I. That was all there was. And I was involved in every meeting. I was involved in every decision.

And so I just got used to that. I wanted to be a part. Well, as the staff grew, Sandy no longer needed me in certain areas of ministry.

We had a worship leader, thankfully. We had a youth pastor. We had somebody to handle the facility.

We had a children's ministry director. We had all of these people. But there were times when we'd be sitting in a staff meeting, and I would jump into the conversation that frankly didn't involve me.

And I could see Sandy getting so frustrated. Like, why don't you shut up? And he was trying to communicate a concern that he had for a certain area of ministry. And by me voicing my thought and my opinion, to be honest with you, it got in the way of what he was trying to communicate.

I had to learn to stay in my lane. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. My opinions weren't always needed.

And that's hard to swallow. Guys, sometimes your pastor needs a voice in the room, and sometimes he doesn't need your voice in the room. And a big part of being an assistant pastor is learning when your voice is needed and when it's not.

So I had to learn to stay in my lane of ministry. And I've got plenty of responsibility. I don't want to give you the impression that I don't, you know, just kind of don't do much.

I just kind of stay in this lane. One day Sandy walked into my office, and he handed me a single sheet of paper. This was several years ago.

And he said, James, this is what I need you to handle, okay? This is your job description. And he handed me a piece of paper. I have it taped on my desk.

You can go back there and see it. It's always been there. It said, Oversee Calvary Chapel's disciples, dollars, and details.

Sandy's always been into wordplay, so I got the wordplay. Guys, that's my lane. Discipleship.

I do most of the counseling. I lead the men's ministry. I'm the principal of our elementary school.

I lead a weekly addiction group. I'm helping teach at CBI. Dollars.

I'm the CFO for the church. I handle the money. Details.

Well, that's everything else. No, no. I try to make sure that what Sandy wants done gets done.

Sometimes that involves staying out of it. Sometimes that involves getting very involved in it. See, my lane is plenty wide enough.

I don't need to assume somebody else's lane. And, guys, your pastor has probably given you a lane. Learn to stay in it.

Do a good job in that one lane that you've been asked to do. Now, the second question that we need to ask ourselves is, Am I supporting my pastor in battle? Or, to put it another way, am I fighting alongside my pastor, or am I fighting my pastor? Guys, that's an important question, and it's a big difference between the answer to those two things. See, I think too many of us are fighting our pastor rather than fighting the enemies that he's fighting every day.

You know the enemies that your pastor's fighting? Complacency in the church. Are you fighting that one? He's fighting the enemy of grumbling and complaining that are taking place in the church every day. Are you fighting beside him? He's fighting for people in prayer.

He's battling to move the ministry forward. He's battling sickness and depression and discouragement in the people around him every day, and maybe sometimes in his own life, or in the life of someone on his staff. See, are you fighting those battles alongside him? Or are you just another battle that he has to fight in order to get things done? Too often, I think, assistant pastors and elders become just another hurdle that the pastor's got to overcome.

He's got to fight through you to get you supporting his vision for ministry. He's got to battle with you to support his plans that God has given to him. Listen, church leaders, we need to stop battling our pastor, and we need to start fighting the fights that he's fighting.

Come along beside him. You know, I think too many elders especially, but also sometimes assistant pastors and other church leaders think that our job is to keep the pastor in line. Guys, your job is to hold the line against the enemies that are making his job so difficult.

Your job is not to hold him back from leading the church in a new direction. Your job is to have his back when the attacks come. And they will come.

He's out in front. He's leading, and if you're trying to follow Jesus, trust me, the attacks are going to come. Folks, listen, it's time we get in the battle.

Some of us have been sitting on the sidelines, or we've been fighting the wrong enemy. Guys, we've got to start fighting the enemies that our pastor's fighting. And if you don't know what they are, ask him.

I can promise you, he'll let you know. The third question we need to ask ourselves this morning is, like the armor-bearer, are we acting as bodyguards for our pastor? Now, yes, there are times when I think of that in physical terms. Sometimes on Sunday morning when Pastor Sandy's teaching on a particularly controversial subject, I make sure that I'm kind of close by.

We had this happen several weeks ago. He was teaching, and I don't remember. There's plenty of controversy in the Bible.

I don't remember what the subject was. But we had a guy walk in, and I don't know how the ushers didn't stop him. But we had a guy walk in.

And I'm not knocking any of this, okay? He's tatted up. He's got on this leather jacket, this long leather. He's got a big old belt with a big old knife hanging on his side.

He walks through the doors, walks all the way down the aisle, and sat on the front row, right in the middle of the sermon. Well, I'm sitting up there, and I slowly begin to make my way down, and I go through, and I'm sitting right there behind the glass because I'm thinking, what is going on here? And then in my mind I'm chewing out some ushers, but we'll get to that later. But so sometimes your concern is physical.

It turned out the guy was quite harmless. The knife scared me, though. But other times, though, you've got to stay close because there's plenty of argumentative brothers who will verbally attack your pastor.

We've got to stay close. But more likely, my job as guarding his back is going to be protecting him from things like unfair criticism or rebellious attitudes that are developing within the church. Making sure they don't gain momentum.

See, your pastor needs you to have his back. He needs someone who's looking behind him. You know, God created us where we can't see behind us.

I often wonder, God, why didn't you just put eyes in the back of our head? You could have created us that way. But we don't, because we need other people. We need somebody to tell us and to watch what's going on behind us.

See, we need a loyal friend to guard our six. I think maybe the greatest fear of most senior pastors is not just that they'll get stabbed in the back. I think they've kind of, well, okay, that's going to happen.

But that they get stabbed in the back and they never see it coming. See, part of our job is to help him see it coming. To know what's going on in the fellowship.

To listen to what's going on. And to stomp out some of the bad things that can get him. You know, one of the saddest statements in the writing of Shakespeare appears when he's recounting the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Caesar looks and he identifies among his conspirators his good friend, Brutus. And that's when Shakespeare has him utter the infamous phrase, At tu, Brute? That's a pretty good one. At tu.

I practiced that. It's my Latin. At tu, Brute.

What it means is, even you, Brutus? Even you? See, Julius Caesar, he knew that there were people that were out to get him. But what broke his heart was that among those people was the guy he trusted. See, we've got to make sure that those words never get uttered about us.

We've got to have our pastors back. Pay attention to what's being said around the church. Stop the conspirators before they gain momentum in the church.

Because they're only going to damage your body. Let them know in no uncertain terms when they come to you that you are on your pastor's side. You're not in their corner.

Many years ago, I made the mistake, and this was a long time ago, I made the mistake of thinking I could calm down some rebellious members of our church by giving them a hearing. So I went to them and I said, Okay, there were some friends. I said, I'll pacify you.

I'll listen to you. Boy, was that a mistake. Because you know how that was interpreted by them, don't you? James is on our side.

Which it wasn't true. But that's what they thought, because why? Because I listened to them. I heard their concerns.

I thought I could play peacemaker. Guys, that doesn't usually work. Guys, what you've got to do is make sure that they know, Hey, I'm not on your side.

I'm on my pastor's side. I've got his back. And this is going to stop right here.

Do you have your pastor's back? The fourth question to ask is, Am I willing to be a personal attendant to my pastor when he needs me? Look, my job is to make his job easier. And if that means doing a personal favor for Pastor Sandy, I'm fine with that. It doesn't bother me.

If it means running something out to his house so that he doesn't have to leave what he's studying, drive into the church and get it, that's fine. I don't mind. If it means going to his home office and rummaging through his desk doors trying to find his passport, and then driving it.

Oh, it gets better. And then driving it to the Atlanta airport so that he can lead a team to Israel. Even if it means driving 95 miles an hour on 285 to get there so he doesn't miss his flight.

And yes, that happened. And no, I didn't get a ticket. The Lord was with me.

And he made his flight. Guys, don't ever forget, whatever your role in the church is, especially if you're an assistant pastor though, your job is to assist him. Don't gripe and complain when he asks you to do something that you feel, oh, that's beneath me.

That's just nothing that's beneath us. Or when he asks you to do something that wasn't on your to-do list that day. You know, Jesus said, the person who's greatest in the kingdom, Gail Irwin taught us, will be the servant of all.

And listen, you can't be the servant of all if you won't even be the servant to the person who hired you. Okay? That's a little bit of a problem. Yes, sometimes your job is going to be doing your pastor a personal favor.

And I hope you'll learn to find joy in that. Now, the final question that we need to ask yourself today is, do I understand how to slay the wounded enemies that are dying and not quite yet dead? And we're going to come back to this in a few minutes. I'm going to leave you, because this needs a little context.

Okay? So let's go back to our passage in 1 Samuel 14 for just a second. Let's go back to verse 6. Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, Come, let us go over to the garrison of the uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.

And so his armor-bearer said to him, Do all that is in your heart. Go then. Here I am with you according to your heart.

Now, most of you are familiar with the story. King Saul has been hesitant to attack the Philistines because fear had gripped his life. He wasn't a man of faith.

And yet his son Jonathan on the other hand, he's a man of great faith. And boy, he is ready to step out. He's ready to give God a great victory.

And I love his faithful declaration where he said, It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few. Now let's step back into our analogy just for a second in talking about supporting our pastors. Here's where you have to help your pastor take a step of faith.

See, your pastor gets excited about things. God gives him vision of what can happen in your church, what your church can do. He's thinking big.

He's ready to move out. And if your pastor came to you, how would you respond if he came to you with some big plans? See, I'm afraid too many of us respond like this. Have you really thought about that? Have you really thought about what could go wrong? Have you looked at this problem? Or have you looked at that problem? Are you sure you really want to do this? Now guys, I'm familiar with those sentences because in too many occasions, I've said that exact thing to Pastor Sandy.

Somehow I felt my responsibility was to point out all the Philistines that were just over the hill to him. As if he didn't know how many were there. You know, oh that we would respond the way Jonathan's armor bearer responded that day.

Do all that's in your heart. Go then. Here I am with you according to your heart.

Wow. Guys, I think your senior pastor might faint if you said those words to him. But notice the two statements.

They're important. First he says, do all that's in your heart. In other words, he says go for it.

That sounds like an amazing idea. Notice there's no hesitation in his voice. No lack of faith.

See, this armor bearer, he trusted Jonathan. Even with his life. Because he knows that if this plan goes south, it's going to involve his life.

Look at the second statement. He says, I am with you according to your heart. In other words, he's not just encouraging Jonathan to move forward.

He's promising Jonathan that he will be right there beside him every step of the way. If one thing will encourage your pastor to move out in faith, it will be to know that somebody's going with him. The reason a lot of pastors just won't go where the Lord wants them to go is because too often they're going alone.

Their staff's not even with them. Their elders aren't with them. Listen, if the only time that you're going to go with your pastor is when their plan is very smooth and predictable, you're not going to go very often.

Because God doesn't do a lot of smooth and predictable. But see, we need to learn to be right there beside Him even when the congregation opposes what He wants to do. Even when there's resistance coming from the community.

Even when your friends at church start questioning His direction and His decisions. This is when too many of us bail. Because like the armor bearer, we don't share the pastor's heart.

We don't share his heart for the community. We don't share his faith. We don't share his vision.

See, it's one thing to verbally support your pastor. You know, to sit in a staff meeting and go, oh yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, go for it Pastor Sandy.

We'll be right here. You go for it. It's another thing though to catch his vision.

To catch his faith. And to say, yeah, that's great. Let's do it.

See, your senior pastor may be a man of great faith. But are you a man of great faith? A woman of great faith? See, I think too often we'll follow if we're pretty certain that we're going to win. But if we're not, our faith begins to decrease.

And we get nervous. And we get uncomfortable. And guys, if our problem is that we don't trust our pastor, that's an us problem that we've got to deal with.

And look, if you've been with your pastor for a given period of time and you can't trust him, do him a favor. Go find a pastor you can trust and let him find men that trust him that will surround him. Guys, you've got to be people of faith.

You know, it's interesting. We think Jonathan, or when we read this story, we think Jonathan wasn't aware of what could go wrong. As if Jonathan hadn't thought about this.

As if Jonathan hadn't thought, you know what, when we go up to these Philistines, there is a possibility that we become the dead guys. Jonathan knew that was a possibility. And he was concerned.

He was concerned about his armor-bearer friend. Guys, I know for a fact one of Pastor Sandy's greatest concerns when he's making a decision is not just how it will affect his family, though he is concerned about that. But I know oftentimes his greatest concern is how his decision is going to affect the 20 other families that are employed by our church.

That's a heavy, heavy concern. Listen, your senior pastor's carrying a lot of weight in the decisions he's making. He knows the decisions and the weight of those decisions much more than you do.

Can you come along beside him and share his faith and trust him and move out with him? Look at verse 8. Then Jonathan said, Very well, let us cross over to these men and show ourselves to them. The support of the armor-bearer freed Jonathan up to move out. And when you support your pastor, it frees him to move out.

It bolsters his faith. And he's ready to go. Look at verse 9. And if they say to us thus, wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them.

But if they say thus, come up to us, then we will go up. For the Lord has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us. So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines.

And the Philistines said, Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes they've hidden. You know, I love what Jonathan does right here. He shares his plan with his armor-bearer.

And just a word to senior pastors this morning. Do your staff and your elders and maybe even your church leaders, the people that matter to you, a favor and share your vision with them. Share your plan.

Talk it through with them. Get them on your side before you jump out and throw it out there to the congregation. You know, I think this is one of the things that I think Pastor Sandy has really done so well with our staff over the last few years is he'll come to us and say, Guys, especially with the pastors, Hey, this is what I'm thinking about doing.

Or to the elders, Hey guys, this is what I'm thinking about doing. What do you guys think? And he shares that vision. He lets them know that he's got a plan.

He talks through the plan with us. You know, this will really help get your guys on board with you. See, when he shares his plans with Jonathan, it served two purposes with his armor bearer.

It served two purposes. First, it assured the armor bearer that the man he is following has a plan. How he's going to do this.

That he's thought about it. He's planned it. He's prayed about it.

See, Jonathan said, Hey, if the Philistines respond one way, then we're going to retreat. In other words, if God closes the door here, we'll back off this. But if he doesn't, if God opens the door, then we're going to move forward.

We're going to attack. And this served to bolster the armor bearer's faith. Okay, we've got a plan here.

We're trusting the Lord. We're giving God a chance to back us out of this. Second, it allowed the armor bearer to be a sounding board for Jonathan.

In other words, if he had concerns that Jonathan was missing something, this gave him an opportunity to speak up. See, guys, assistant pastors, elders, you want your pastor to listen to your input, then first you've got to show them that you're on the faith train with them, that you've listened to their plan, that you think their plan has merit and you're with them. You want a voice in moving your church forward? Then show your pastor that you're moving in the same direction with the same purpose that he's moving.

Look, he'll want your voice. He'll want your help. Now, one of the other observations that I want to make here, just to begin to wrap things up, is that too many associate pastors, assistant pastors, they take the attitude, you'll go and I'll watch.

In other words, when I'm sure that God is with you, then I am with you. Guys, that is not faith. Okay, that is not faith at all.

We don't need to have that kind of attitude. We've got to follow in faith and we've got to step out just like our senior pastor is stepping out. Look at verse 12.

Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, Come up to us and we will show you something. And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, Come up after me, for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel. And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and his knees with his armor-bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan.

And he came after them, and his armor-bearer killed them. As I mentioned earlier, part of the job of the armor-bearer is to finish off the wounded enemies. Jonathan left a few, the armor-bearer comes along, Hey, we got them, we got them.

Sounds like a great job to me. You do all the fighting, I got them. But see, a lot of times that's the way it happens.

Jonathan is leading the fight. He's taking it to the Philistines. The armor-bearer is close behind rendering the death blows.

See, the armor-bearer knew his job to make sure that the dying are indeed dead. The armor-bearer knew his role. He didn't get ahead of Jonathan.

See, Jonathan was the trained warrior. He was the expert fighter. The armor-bearer's job was to follow and to finish.

Guys, I know sometimes in our zeal and excitement to do your job, you start doing more than your senior pastor needs you to do. See, he doesn't need you out in front of him. He needs you following behind, making sure that the problems are solved.

In Jonathan's case, stabbing a few guys, making sure they're done. See, much of the role of the assistant pastor, the elders, it takes place backstage, out of the spotlight. And this is where your pastor needs you.

He needs to be out front, not you. He's teaching the Word. He's leading the people.

Your job is to finish up and to kill all the details. This is what we kill. We finish off the details.

We dot the I's. We cross the T's of ministry. We finish things up.

He gets it started, but then we come along and we finish it up. Part of my job on Sunday morning is to stay close to Pastor Sandy in case... You know, we all the time have people coming up wanting something from him. And you know what he's able to do? Hey, I want to introduce you to Pastor James.

He's going to take good care of you. Or I'm going to introduce you to Pastor Andrew. Andrew knows exactly what you need.

We stay close because he doesn't have time to give that particular person in that moment the attention they need and they deserve. Or the specific need. Sometimes it's benevolence.

He doesn't want to get involved in telling people no in benevolence. He lets us do that. And so we've got to know where our role is in finishing off the details.

See, our job is to kill the details of ministry. Two weeks ago, I arrived early on a Sunday morning and we had this huge dead deer lying right up in front of our church on the side of the road. And just welcoming people to come to worship.

You know, just so inviting. A car had obviously hit it the night before and he's laying there all dead and mushy. And so, before Pastor Sandy arrived, and yes, Andrew and I and Matt, we all try to get here before Pastor Sandy arrives, we were trying to figure out how to get rid of this massive carcass.

Probably weighed 400 pounds. And it's not as easy as you think to get rid of a dead deer. Okay? A few years ago, we had a dead deer and you know what we did with him? We put him in the dumpster.

Not a good idea. Do you know how long it takes to get rid of the smell of a dead, decaying deer out of your dumpster? I mean, you had to wear a mask to get within 20 yards of our dumpster for the longest time. So I turned to Andrew and I said, Andrew, go get the gator out of the shed.

And so we got the gator, we loaded the dead deer up on the gator and we took him down here to Killian Hill Road and we dumped him about a quarter of a mile down the road. See, you gotta know how to do these things, guys. It comes through years of experience, okay? See, we knew that Gwinnett County Animal Control would come by and get him, so why not make him more visible for them? It's a busier road.

We didn't put him in anybody's front yard or anything like that. Just there on the side of the road, nice and visible. Now why am I telling you this story? It is because of this.

Killing off the problem of the dead deer was what Pastor Sandy needed Andrew and I to do that morning. That was the problem, that was the detail that was really in the way of a good morning of worship. Later that morning, I was telling Sandy about the dead deer problem and he commented very simply but true, he said, just another day in the life of an assistant pastor.

And I said, amen. Let's pray.