Pleasing God Podcast
Pleasing God Podcast
Navigating 23 Years of Ministry: Lessons from a Father-Pastor Part 1
What sustains a pastor through decades of ministry in one church? In this deeply personal conversation, Jonathan Sole interviews his father, Pastor Jim Sole, about his remarkable 23-year journey leading Quinnessett Baptist Church.
The conversation traces Pastor Jim's unlikely path from Navy sailor to church leader, beginning with his conversion at age 21 aboard a destroyer in the Mediterranean Sea. Unlike traditional seminary routes, his ministerial formation happened organically through Navy service, church involvement, and Bible institute studies. Most powerfully, we witness how meaningful discipleship shaped his ministry philosophy—the quiet sailor who "never preached a sermon" but "loved my soul" became his model for authentic spiritual leadership.
With refreshing candor, Pastor Jim addresses the challenges every minister faces. "You can't avoid sheep bites, but you can keep them from getting infected," he notes, sharing wisdom about handling criticism without becoming bitter. Equally insightful is his warning about praise: "Praise can be a well-intended thing that can ruin a man" when ministers become dependent on affirmation rather than finding satisfaction in faithful service.
The discussion reveals how ministry priorities evolve with experience. Looking back, Pastor Jim wishes he'd spent more time in prayer and intercession, especially during difficult seasons. Yet his greatest joy has been witnessing cultural transformation as the church shifted from being perceived as "exclusive and stuffy" to becoming known for community engagement and care.
Perhaps most remarkable is the successful father-son leadership transition now underway—a rarity in church settings. As Pastor Jim prepares to pass the baton completely, he expresses confidence that the church stands poised for even greater community impact under his son's leadership.
Want to hear more? Join us for our next episode as we continue exploring discipleship within the local church context and discuss encouragement for the next generation of ministry leaders.
Stock Music provided by wolfgangwoehrle, from Pond5
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Hi, and welcome back to the Pleasing God Podcast, a show focused on helping Christians to think biblically, engage practically, and live faithfully for the glory of God. I'm your host, Jonathan Sowell, and on this episode, I have the uh great privilege to welcome uh my guest, my pastor, a mentor, and my father. So, Pastor Jim.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Jonathan. It's a privilege to be here, not only as your father, but as your colleague and um your co-laborer here in our church.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, it's awesome. Um so what I want to do is uh I really want to kind of have like an interview with you and talk uh about your ministry and your ministry experience. Uh you've served faithfully for oh twenty three, twenty-four years. That's right, we're finishing up twenty-three years here at Quinnesset. Yeah, 23 years in one location.
SPEAKER_00:In one place, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:So, yes, so for this episode, uh I want to focus on lessons from the years of pastoral ministry, and kind of sit back and uh hopefully for listeners, they can glean some some wisdom from your experience, dad. Uh, the uh the highs and the lows and just everything that goes into serving faithfully over the long haul. And so I've got some questions for you, maybe some categories we can think through, but ultimately just a free-flowing kind of conversation. Uh, you can share a little bit about your heart and also reflect, too, on just God's faithfulness, which it's I mean, truly, any type of sustained longevity in one place, uh I must be attributed to the faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no, no question, Jonathan. It has to be. If there isn't a sense of divine constraint or divine calling, then uh no man would be sustained in this. He would leave uh not long into it because of the difficulties associated with it.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, are you saying are you saying pastoral ministry is hard?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I I would say that uh when you go into pastoral ministry, uh what you think it is is not what it will be.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the honeymoon phase?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there is a uh there's a lot of this uh starry eye that's uh you're excited about it, uh, and then uh you go through a honeymoon phase and then you start getting into the trenches, and it gets extremely difficult. And I think as you look at it uh as you go in, you think you're you're somewhat equipped, but you soon find out uh who is sufficient for these type of things.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you don't know what you don't know until it comes across, and you're and you're like, I wasn't ready for that. Or like or sometimes, yes, great principles and examples in the Bibles, but sometimes you're facing something and you just can't go to like a scripture and verse and say, boom, this is what I have to do right now. There's wisdom, prudence, judgment calls that have to be made at times.
SPEAKER_00:And it comes, it comes uh through many failures and many um years of experience. Uh, as I look at 23 years here, um, I would like to go back and restart it based on what I know now, uh, and go back and redo a lot of things because I see how patient God has been with me, how good he's been with me, and how he's blessed despite me, uh, not because of any great things I've done, but because he's such a great God who loves his church far more than I do.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think it's you touch on a good point there, too. Um I think we all at some points in our lives would say, if I could just hop into that time machine, bring my knowledge and experience of the man that I am now, and apply that to the man I was early on, what different, you know, oh man, what a world difference that could have made. And but we know we can't do that. So one of the things that we can do is have a conversation like this one that well, whether so you might not be able to get into your time machine, but you can pass down the wisdom so that the rising generation of men maybe considering ministry or early on in the ministry can still glean from your experience.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that's where we can look back, and not with regrets, but we can look back and see all the things that we went through and to shape us as where we are today. And now we can take young men uh who uh sense a call and we can help them and and maybe even teach them in the early stages to avoid some of the things that we uh experienced.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, I stepped on this landmine, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So 23 years in Quidnessa, and we've been serving together in ministry for over a decade as well. So half your time had been that thorn in your flesh.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I wouldn't say thorn in the flesh. I mean, there were uh it it certainly is a unique uh experience for a father and son, uh, because a lot of times it just doesn't work. Uh God has allowed us to allow it to work. It hasn't uh been always easy, and but yet he has allowed us to have a same vision, have a same passion for making disciples, seeing the lost come to Jesus. And so in that in that uh context, it's been very good and very encouraging to co-labor with you, not only as my son, but as what I see as a rising star, and to see that uh how God uniquely equips people different ways. Uh as you know, I've I've had two careers. Uh I spent 24 years in active duty in the Navy, United States Navy, and I actually got converted on a warship in the Mediterranean Sea. And my first couple of years as a Christian, um, the church never sought me, and I never sought the church. And so I didn't see the importance of the church.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, okay, getting saved kind of through outreach on a ship, not necessarily through the context of a local church. Parachurch, so I mean for at best. So let's talk about that kind of first category, and you know, the share with us kind of and for our listeners your call to ministry, how that came to be. You got you got saved on a destroyer in the Mediterranean, and you became a fanatic immediately.
SPEAKER_00:I I did.
SPEAKER_01:How much of that is just your personality, too?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I think it was largely in part is because of the man that God used uh to draw me to Christ. Is this man was an introvert? He never preached a sermon in his life, um, very quiet and very reserved, but he loved my soul. Uh he he really took an interest in me, and I watched that over a period of time, and he earned a hearing. Uh, when he came to me with the gospel after a few months on deployment, uh, I was willing to listen to him. And to me, that stuck with me as one of the great things to carry over into pastoral ministry is to have a love for souls, to really love the lost and to have an interest in the soul.
SPEAKER_01:So, time time stamp, okay. You're you're saved when you're in your early 20s? I'm 21. 21 years old. Um it's interesting, my story kind of everything turned around for me at 21, too. Um and how long from coming to know Christ and really just starting to cut your teeth? What is the Bible? How do I from from that point till you started to sense maybe uh this called aspiration?
SPEAKER_00:Um what how long a two year and uh what initially after I was converted, uh this man um we pulled into Naples, Italy, took me to a Christian services center and bought me my first Bible. Okay, and he showed me how to read the Bible. King James Version. And it certainly was a King James Version and memorized my first verse, uh Hebrews 10 23, let us hold fast our confession of faith without wavering, for he is faithful to the promised. And and he showed me, so at the early stage, I knew the importance of one-on-one of personal relationship discipleship, because this man did this to me, and then yeah, six months uh after that he was gone, and uh I got plugged into a church where I met your your mother.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and where where so this you're not that's about 18 months after my conversion. Okay, you're not in Italy or anything.
SPEAKER_00:Not I'm now in Virginia, okay, and I've gone to Roanoke, Virginia, my first shore station. Okay, and so here I am, and uh I had no no aspirations of being a pastor or anything. I had a desire to grow. Yes. Uh I knew nothing about the church, and so I met another sailor uh who took me under his wing as a young believer, and uh he used to um do services for the Navy and Marine Corps reserves at the station I was at. And so I would help him. I would set up chairs, I would put hymn books out, and he did the preaching. Um I never once even considered that.
SPEAKER_01:And um was there something like did you did you enjoy preaching? I never preached prior to. Did you enjoy listening to preaching? I did. Because some people because some people uh it's not their number one thing, right? And uh obviously us, we're we're pastors, we're preachers. Like uh you you're not a good preacher if you don't love good preaching. I agree with that. And so so yes. I know one of the things for me um in just the kind of rise into ministry is that I fell in love with preaching, not not the act of preaching, but like when I would hear really good preaching and and good sermons, and like I felt like something was like it it like lit a fire in my soul a bit.
SPEAKER_00:It did for me too. When I first uh got there, I started listening to um some some fundamentalist. I started listening to uh the Sword of the Lord guys, and I used to get cassette tapes of Jack Hiles, and I had hundreds of those tapes and listened to those. But this man uh he told me one Friday, and I never ever wanted to speak in front of people. I was always scared, afraid of that. And so he told me that I was gonna preach that Sunday, and uh, it was Friday, and I said, That's not gonna happen. And he says, uh, if you don't preach, there'll be no service, and there's gonna be about 60 people in this room. So he threw you and so he threw me into the fire, and uh, I said, I can't do this. He goes, then we won't have a service. So he really uh he he put me in a in a very awkward position. So I remember scrambling around Saturday in Psalm 8, and I had no idea. I don't know anything about outlies, I know nothing. Psalm 8. You know, it's a uh, you know, how excellent is thy name and all the earth. And so I remember uh sweaty palms, sweaty armpits, standing up in front of all these people, and I didn't know at that time that people took notes uh when they listened to preaching. And in the front row, there was uh there were six individuals there. These were older men, and they were enrolled in Liberty University in the seminary, and they had these uh they had these these clipboards, and I thought they were there to critique me. I had no idea what the what the who these men were.
SPEAKER_01:Were you sweating as he said?
SPEAKER_00:And there was one individual who had he'd come out of the business world, he was older, and uh I had known him a little bit, and he was going to be a pastor, and they all sat there and I fumbled through this sermon for 20 minutes or so, and then after it was over, uh he had wrote uh written me a personal note and he gave it to me afterwards and just walked away.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And I remember taking that note, I opened it up, and it's it said, Jim, God has given you a gift that if you don't use it for his church, the church will be at lost.
SPEAKER_01:Ooh.
SPEAKER_00:I stuck with you. And I thought, wow. And so I then had opportunities, and then I went back to sea duty and I had all kinds of opportunities on the ship? I did. I was running Protestant uh services every week, I was preaching every week, I was orchestrating uh Bible studies every week. Uh I took a Bible institute at our church, I went through that for an education purposes.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Bible Institutes and churches are a good thing.
SPEAKER_00:They are. We're doing that here. You've instrumented in our our church, and it's uh it's a really good thing. We need those type of things. And so the Bible institute was very fundamental uh in my growth because they we had uh professors from Liberty University were coming over to our church and teaching that on a Monday night. So, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um that was helpful to you.
SPEAKER_00:Doctrines, New Testament survey, Old Testament survey.
SPEAKER_01:Because you had you hadn't gone to Bible college, Bible school, etc.
SPEAKER_00:I'd only been a Christian for two years.
SPEAKER_01:So you were you were the guy that was on fire for the Lord, read your Bible a lot.
SPEAKER_00:And you were in knowledge. And so after that, I went back to see and I enrolled uh online Liberty University in school, my undergraduate work.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so that is this the is this the point where you you've you're starting to say, okay.
SPEAKER_00:I started to get a stirring then.
SPEAKER_01:That I need to where that whatever God's timeline is for me, but this was when you're like, I believe that uh God's calling me to be a pastor.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that's right, Jonathan. And I and your mother was was also because she was a perfect uh pastor's wife to be. Uh she was the assistant uh pastor secretary, she was the apple, uh Apple the I, the senior pastor, and so she was uh she was very well really equipped for this. And so we talked about it. Was she serving in ministry before you? We actually served together before we got married in Iwana in our church.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but she was in the church serving when you met her.
SPEAKER_00:She was teaching in the uh Christian high school business, she was also the secretary of the assistant pastor, plus she was uh, you know, was was really an adopted daughter for that.
SPEAKER_01:Can it's a different subject altogether, but uh God, I truly believe God gifts pastors' wives to the church as well. Absolutely. Not not um Herschel York said it in his Pastor Well podcast, um, which was really helpful to me, but when talking about the the pastor and his wife, he says she's not called to the ministry, or she's not called to the job, but she's called to the life. Absolutely. And yeah, that's a whole different thing.
SPEAKER_00:But okay, so but I would caution young men if they're gonna think they're the the God is calling them and they're married, uh they better go slow and they better make sure that their wife, though she may not, they won't know what it's get what initially what it's going to be like, but she has to be very supportive and be willing to uh commit to that type of life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, oh yeah, I know. I can remember the conversation with Caitlin before we got married, and I just said, you know, uh I'm I wasn't in pastoral ministry, but it was pretty clear that my life was going into the trajectory of vocational ministry, and whatever that I don't know, I'm gonna be a missionary, I'm gonna be a teacher, I don't know, but I knew that my life was given over to the hopefully the local church that service the Lord. So we had that conversation, and and I think both of us then, young in our mid-20s, she was a little younger, but it felt like we were signing a blank check together. That's right. And it's like she but she said, I'm all in. And to this day, she's never not been.
SPEAKER_00:She's not, and she is a she's a great pastor's uh wife, and you know, get back to how this continued to evolve. I wanted to be involved in in like that man did with me. I wanted to see young men come to Christ, I wanted to see sailors come to Christ, I wanted, and I have I had opportunities to preach. And then when we moved to Rhode Island, uh we started coming to Quinnesset when I was still in the Navy, and Pastor John Burnett. Okay, he gave me all kinds of opportunities to serve.
SPEAKER_01:And uh that's when you started really kind of honing in on this.
SPEAKER_00:That's right, that's right, Jonathan. I sensed that I was going to be a pastor someday. It was the desire I had, uh, I didn't know where, I didn't know how, and frankly, I didn't really I didn't really hone in on that. I saw the Navy, I saw it as a real uh um um equipping ground for me because I had all kinds of opportunities to serve. And so it was unique in the sense that I didn't go the traditional, you know, seminary route. I mean, I finished my undergraduate work, I I enrolled in seminary for for 18 hours, but I I saw that my path in the Navy, and because of my seniority, I was getting to interact and develop people skills that were instrumental in the pastor.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and so you uh you did your your Navy career. I did. You retired from the Navy, uh, you tell the story that you retired on a Friday, and then on that Monday you were brought on staff. You had already kind of been, it was clear that you were coming on the staff at Quinnesset, and that you were and it was very much a transition. Like when you came on, there wasn't like, oh, here's the transition plan that we had.
SPEAKER_00:And I think it's important for your audience to understand is that um I I believe that you know God calls a man and that the man has to allow that to percolate, so to speak, and has to intensify to where uh he can't do anything else but that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think there's the you know, we see precedent, 1 Timothy chapter 5, where Paul says basically, you know, Timothy, don't be hasty in the laying on of hands, the appointing of elders. Because like there has to be uh again this this time of of and process. That's right. And you you know, calls to ministry are both internal, external. I mean, ultimately a church has to call you. Anyone who's called to the ministry but not called by a church, I mean, to pastoral ministry, they're not called to pastoral ministry.
SPEAKER_00:I agree, and that's what happened at Quinesa is that uh Pastor Barnett had given me opportunities to preach. Um, people were affirming giftedness, uh there, and they I was active involved in the church, not that I was seeking a position, it sought me. Sure. Uh they came after me to be the assistant, uh, and so all the all that lined up where there was an affirmation by the church of giftedness, there was an affirmation of character, there was an affirmation of effectiveness, and so all those things kind of aligned, which I didn't seek. And I think it's important that all those things come to the man. Um and then it's affirmed by the body, it's affirmed by the leadership, and that kind of put it into play to where they extended a call to me to come as the assistant.
SPEAKER_01:Great. So you come on staff, uh, you you uh it's been a couple years as an assistant, and then uh you take over as the the lead pastor.
SPEAKER_00:Three years of the assistant, and then um you know voted in as the senior, which really was the uh the only.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, you were you were you're doing the solo pastor, rocking the solo pastor thing, had to build up an elder board um from that. So if you were to reflect, say, from that time that you came in and you, you know, you kind of you you were you were at the helm, you know, you're the lead guy. Uh what are maybe just a couple big lessons that you think you've learned over the long haul uh that would be helpful to someone who's thinking about ministry or uh just just even informing church members uh you know of kind of a behind the scenes with the pastors type of thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I think uh uh as an as the assistant, um, you know, transition uh from um from from from an all-volunteer service with the Department of Defense into an all-volunteer service in the church. Uh that isn't seamless. Um and I think that I had to to really understand that you can have a lot of strengths, uh, but you gotta be careful that you don't try to do spiritual ministry in the strength of self or in the strength of flesh. Okay. And I'm I I think I did some of that out of ignorance in the uh in the assistant role. Uh I saw that we needed change. I saw we need a lot of uh uh a lot of rudder changes, so to speak, here because we were uh a church that was in a maintenance mode at best, if not dying, and uh and I saw the need uh for a lot of change. And I think I was a little bit impatient at the at the pace of change, but I also, because of my military background, I was loyal to the chain of command. And so I wasn't undermining leadership or trying to be pushy, but I knew that we had to have a sense of urgency, and I think that contributed to um the change of leadership. I think it it contributed to the uh to the change. And so when I got over as the senior guy, um it was a uh it was uh quite a cultural shock because I really thought I had it figured out, but I quickly realized that this is way too much for for uh a mortal man to even attempt to do. Yeah, for sure. But you asked the question about what what I've learned when you look back. I look back and it was formidable eight years, it was four, four or five years, and um, you know, there was uh there was many challenges. There was many, one of the challenges of uh you know preaching uh two times on a Sunday, uh plus teaching in Sunday school on a Sunday. So there was this three times, uh, and then all the demands of people, because people want, and in some ways, we were a climate of an old church with with almost a a sense of the the social aspect of the church in the community. And for instance, if if someone visited someone in a hospital and it wasn't the pastor, it didn't count. And so that was a lot of pressure that placed upon me. And I I wanted to really get involved in people, but the demands of preaching and even the demands of funerals, we had an older congregation, as you know, uh, I was very busy with that. Uh, one of the things during that phase there, um, I would go back and what I would change is I would spend more time praying and more time interceding.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Interceding, especially for the problems we were facing, especially for the people that sadly uh were sometimes uh um uh guilty of sheep bites. And so I I would spend more time interceding for the people.
SPEAKER_01:Talk talk a little bit about sheep bites, um, you know, and that how can you give good or some good wisdom or counsel um because they're real uh and they hurt, and oftentimes usually you don't get bit in the face, you get bit in the back, right? Or something. And so uh because you don't see it coming. Um how how can someone pastor well uh in the midst of what we're calling sheep bites?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think that um you know Pastor Burnett told me one time he says you can't avoid sheep bites, but you can keep them from getting infected. And what he was referring to is don't grow bitter, don't grow bitter. And uh and and it's it's easy to do is because a lot of times you feel it's unwarranted. Um and one thing with that is when the criticism comes, which it does, uh, I had to learn, which I did not learn initially, I had to learn to step back and before any type of impulsive response, either internally or outwardly, I had to ask the question first, is there any truth to the criticism? And if there is, then I need to thank the Lord that this was revealing something in me that needed to change, or if there wasn't merit for it, then I need to let it go and just and and not let it become infected. So that that would I would tell a young pastor or a young one that you're gonna you're gonna have your critics, uh, and you're gonna have those those times when your preaching is criticized. And you need to be very careful that you don't take that so personal that you forget that you're dealing with for the most part, you're dealing with God's sheep, and sheep are at different stages of growth and different maturity level, and Jesus bears with them all. And we have to do that as well.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, and some I mean, handling criticism is just a part it's a part of it's the nature of what we do. We stand up in front of the people, we lead from the front, um we are the target of criticism. And so, yeah, definitely But I've got brothers and sisters in my life that give me criticism and I love it. Um because I know where their heart is. And these are these are the these are the people that are sharpening me. And I I welcome it. I had someone the other day said, Hey, I've I've got a criticism for you, and I was like, Oh no. And they went to explain it to me. And I was like, That's criticism. I was like, if that's criticism, let me have it all the time. And it was just like, hey, I think you you said this, but here's a bit here's maybe a better way that this could be done. I was like, that is so much better. Keep that coming. You know, uh Mark Dever talks about when they do like service review and stuff, um, something I've listened to, that one of the things they try to model well is the giving of giving godly criticism well, receiving godly criticism well. Um receiving positive criticism well, and receiving negative criticism well, but ultimately to do it in a godly way.
SPEAKER_00:Um I think if you look if if if if you had to corner me to just list just a couple things that young pastors need to be constantly aware of is number one, how you respond to criticism, and secondly, how you handle praise. Uh because praise can praise can be a very it can be a well-intended thing that can ruin a man. Um because then if you start looking for the praise and you start waiting for the person to say how good that sermon was or how good this was, next thing you know, when that dries up, uh you're gonna find yourself really languishing in a sense of fulfillment and a sense of satisfaction because you're not getting that affirmation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, who's no one's patting me on the back anymore? They're getting just they're getting used to my preaching. That's right. Oh, they think more sermons are average now, like until you get a new person that comes in and they're like, ah, you know, but the person that praises you this Sunday may be the one that uh that bite you uh with a sheep bite next week. Yeah, don't get too high on the praise, don't get too low on the criticism.
SPEAKER_00:You want to be uh the same in season, out of season, with criticism, with praise. Uh you have to have that because your people need to see a consistency in us. Uh we they have to see. I told someone one time uh that one of the things about being a pastor is that you always have to be on your A game. And uh and and that isn't being a hypocrite. The fact is you gotta be steady because your people need to see steady. I'm a very a very strong advocate, is that we grow our own staff. We've done that here. Uh I believe growing your own pastors, growing your own staff is so important because it gives the sheep that sense of security and safety. I think longevity and leadership is very important. I think if anything, though I haven't been the perfect kind of pastor, what I have been though is able to establish kind of a steadiness throughout the years.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, 100%. Um I think in many ways you're the man in this place to start to um bring about positive change holes in the ship and do good work um because historically uh you're the second longest tenured pastor. And there's a reason why a church at 200 years old isn't wasn't for a long time seeing long-tenured pastors. And that has a lot to do with the culture of a church. And churches church cultures change. Um, and I think that your steadiness uh has contributed to a positive cultural change in the church. Now, we are running out of time, and I'm loving this conversation. Um before and we should pick up and do a part two on this. Uh, but before we do that, can you share what your greatest joy is if you reflect on your ministry? What is like the highlight or the or something that just brings you great joy as you think about your time in the pastorate?
SPEAKER_00:I think two things is one is to see how our church has changed from having a reputation in the community as being exclusive and stuffy, so to speak, to one of being caring and outreach. We have made a community impact uh in in the last ten or fifteen years, and you know it because you've been a part of that. Our basketball ministry, our clothing ministry, we have we have impacted uh the community in significant ways, which I don't think we uh really realize how wide that is. And I think that's been it.
SPEAKER_01:And I've got ideas for stuff that even more that we can do that I'm excited to.
SPEAKER_00:I just think that that'll be one thing is uh is I think because I I can go anywhere in town and people recognize me, hey, hey, you're the church ball pastor, you're the and so and that's just one area of it. Is it and the funerals that I've been able to do with all the different funeral director directors, we have got a good reputation as a church. So that is one thing. And the other thing is being able to pass the baton, so to speak, to you, and to know that we're in a good place, and as much as uh, you know, it it's hard, um, but it's right. And I'm I'm confident that we are we are in a in a very good place to uh and uh to really impact our community even more and further. And because I look around and all I see is a ton of young people and kids. Uh it wasn't like that when I got here. And it's very it's it's thrilling to see that you know, in nine or ten months that I'm gonna be able to uh you know to uh officially just uh walk away knowing that we're in a
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's exciting.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's my son. I mean, how many times do fathers' sons not work and yet probably more often than not? Probably not. Probably not. But I think in this case, and our churches embrace that to where uh it's it's healthy and it's good, and uh I'm pleased, I'm pleased that the Lord has allowed that to happen.
SPEAKER_01:Well you talk about you know healthy churches develop and raise their leaders. That's right. I think I think there's merit to that very much so. Um and we talk also about the church being a hospital for sinners. And we do, we want to be, you know, uh we don't want a hospital with no patients, right? No. But at this other time sense too, uh I see the church as kind of a teaching hospital where you have certain you know, hospitals that are caring for for the lost, the sick, the patients, right? Then you have other hospitals that are training doctors to help care for the and my vision of the church is that we are both, because pastors I think are truly developed and and and they come into in the local church, and that way they can have on-the-job experience in ministry.
SPEAKER_00:And I think when you look at what the way our world is really um uh unraveling, is the church needs to be equipped to handle some of these cultural challenges as a trauma center because it that's where we're at.
SPEAKER_01:And I think we could talk a little bit about that. So on our next episode, we'll we'll continue our conversation um and we'll focus on the essentials of discipleship in the local church. We'll talk a little bit about New Day Mercies.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so. And one thing we might want to discuss too is because we're seeing that in our church, is that uh there is a lot of uh member-on-member ministry occurring, shepherding each other, which uh really is thrills us to see that happening.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And so, yeah, let's talk about those two things and then uh we'll finish off with just encouragement for the next generation.
SPEAKER_00:Very good. Thanks for uh having me today.
SPEAKER_01:I want to thank you for listening to the Pleasing God Podcast. If you have any questions, I would love to hear from you. You could reach out at questions at pleasing Godpodcast.org. And remember, first Thessalonians 4 3. This is the will of God, your sanctification.
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