CONNECTING
The official podcast of the Northern New England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
CONNECTING
Finding Faith: Larry Kirkpatrick's Journey to Conference Leadership
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Larry Kirkpatrick shares his journey from a skeptical young man challenging God's existence to becoming the new Conference Secretary for the Northern New England Conference. God orchestrated improbable circumstances to lead Larry from watching movies on his childhood roof to serving in church leadership.
• Growing up with minimal religious influence until deaths of loved ones prompted spiritual questioning
• Reading the Bible to "judge God" but discovering God was judging him instead
• Finding Seventh-day Adventist teachings through Joe Cruz's Amazing Facts materials
• Experiencing a call to ministry shortly after baptism despite initial reluctance
• Serving in multiple conferences across the country during 30+ years of pastoral ministry
• Adopting two children, deepening understanding of spiritual adoption into God's family
• Navigating church leadership during COVID by finding balanced solutions through prayer
• Expressing enthusiasm for Northern New England Conference's "Revival in the East" vision
• Emphasizing the value of face-to-face connection in an age of digital distraction
• Sharing conviction that every person is precious to God and sought for His kingdom
Watch on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXiqg0oHl_EA6ldtvN68fd1wpF8boyTeh
Welcome to Larry Kirkpatrick
Speaker 1Well, it's a joy to be together on this podcast. We're very grateful that we have an opportunity to get to know our new conference secretary for the Northern New England Conference, larry Kirkpatrick. Larry, welcome, and we're very thankful that God has been leading in your life and directing you and drawing you closer to him and just working in your heart, and so we want to take this opportunity to say hi, welcome to our conference.
Speaker 2Thank you, I appreciate the welcome. God has proved once again that he is the God of the improbable. So here we are. That's right.
Speaker 1That's right. God's not someone we can put in a box we try to sometimes but he's got so much more wisdom and so much more love than we understand that he knows how to work. So we're thankful for that, and so I thought today, as we have this time together, that it would be very refreshing for all of us that don't know you well to be able to hear some of your story of how God brought you to a point in your life where you really were able to be filled with the Spirit of God, to be born again and to begin a new life in Jesus. That had his purpose and meaning, because Jesus said to Nicodemus you know, unless we're born again, born from above, we're not able to see or appreciate the kingdom of heaven. So would you be willing to start and just share some of your journey?
Speaker 2Well, I grew up in Portland, not Portland Maine, but Portland Oregon, the Portland area. It's up on a hill, kind of behind the local drive-in theater and as a kid you know we would run back, we would sneak back into the back lot of the drive-in theater and we would turn up. We had a problem we could see the movies, we couldn't hear them. So we would go back in and we would turn up in the back rows, the pull-ins, the car pull-ins, we would turn up the volume on all those. And then at night we went up, we put lawn chairs on the roof of our house and we watched the movies for free. You know we could hear them.
Speaker 2We so a lot of that grew up behind the 99e drive-in theater and so we saw all these, all the different movies, from disney to ether, and uh, so all these stories, all these kind of anti-hero stories and different things, and uh, and then I came to a place eventually where, you know, it was like I would have never thought I would be sometime telling the story, the master story, all these other stories are kind of pale imitations, but, and I know, today, you know everybody's got the in your pocket, you've got whatever video you want to watch, you can watch it till you, till you pass out. But but for us, though, that was a big deal and being kind of continuously filled with the media and the thinking of the world and all these stories. You know, not once, ever, never, did these stories point in a theistic direction. They never pointed really to God. They were all you know. Eventually the hero triumphs at the, the end, you know, and but he does it kind of on his own, he just pulls himself out by his own bootstraps and kind of goes bloody at the. At the end he wins. But that wasn't the real story. The real story is that Jesus, that God, as soon as there was, there was a Savior. God gave his son Jesus, and although we don't, we're not worthy of his great love or mercies. He has come down from heaven to save us, and so that was a.
Speaker 2So I grew up kind of in that dead kind of a thing. So anyway, I came along to a spot in my life where some key people died my aunt and uncle. They had always wanted a son. They're finally after a long time. They wanted a child and finally she was pregnant. It was like it had never worked out that way, but anyway that child was still born. I had a Bible not a Bible, I would say Bible. I had a guitar student. I used to teach guitar when I was in high school and I had a fellow that he was really one of the nicest kids in the school, but he was one of my guitar students and he developed leukemia and he died. I think he was 17 or 18. He died at that age.
Speaker 2And it's like I'm asking myself these questions. You know, if there's a good God, like my relatives, tell me. You know, like my, if there's a good God, then why are these innocent people dying? And I can tell you about one or two more. They all kind of died at about the same time, and so I began to really struggle with that.
Speaker 2You know how could it be, and at that time I was working at a late-night warehouse thing. It was like 12 and 14-hour shifts going just as fast as humanly possible. And to keep my schedule on my off days I would get up in the morning and I would walk through the graveyards in town and I would look at all the graves and think about that. And so, anyway, I came to this spot where I was really kind of angry with God and I said God, I finally prayed to him. I said God, I don't know if you exist, but if you do exist, I believe I'll find you in the Bible. I'm going to read through the Bible, I'm going to pray for understanding. When I'm done, I'm going to judge you. I'm going to make a moral evaluation about you because, look, all these people are dying and what are you doing about it?
Larry's Childhood and Spiritual Journey
Speaker 1Wow, you know what, Larry? Just to kind of backtrack a little bit. So when you were a kid, did your mom and dad go to church? Did you have any kind of teaching in the Bible?
Speaker 2We went, I guess until I was four or five years old or something like that. The deacons of the church this was some kind of a Baptist or Presbyterian, I don't know what kind of church it was they came over to my dad's house, to our house, and they wanted him to mow the lawn and stop smoking and return tithe I don't even remember if smoking was an issue but modeled on and returned tithe and he became very. He was unhappy with them and we stopped going to church. Wow, so that was except for weddings and funerals. That was kind of my, that was my big religion. Now, on you know experience, what I had Now on my mom's side, we had they were all churchgoers six or seven brothers and sisters. They all went to the Baptist church. So most were Baptist. So along the way I began to explore.
Speaker 2And eventually, I began watching television on Sunday morning. You know, you got to find the right, right stuff. And so the first, uh, the first program I forgot which program it was, but the first program I watched they asked for an offering of only 220 dollars. Here I'm, I'm, mr, I just got, I'm just out of the house, I'm living in, you know, my first or second um apartment and, uh, you know, trying to scrape together. You know just enough. You know I've run out of money at the end of the month and get a little skinny. These guys are at only $220. So the second program we watched was much better. He only asked for $120. And I wasn't particularly impressed by those. It just seemed like, yeah, I heard that these were grasping. You know, this is all about money.
Speaker 2The third program I watched there was a man named Joe Cruz and he didn't ask for any money and he was preaching right out of the Bible. He's preaching about the Sabbath, the state of man in death and Mark of the Beast and so on, and so I was all ears to that, so I paid close attention. Oh, also, before some of this stuff happened, the first piece of religious literature I ever received, the first tract, so to speak, was that little Joe Cruz booklet called Death in the Kitchen I don't know if you've seen that and I actually stopped eating pork and stuff which had been a lot of my boy. There's a lot of oink, oink, oink in my background, but anyway, I stopped eating pork just because it looked like it was healthier. But I didn't really have the religious follow out into the religious line. So, um, so yeah, um.
Speaker 2Later I found out, so, yeah, I sent to Joe Cruz. I said, um, I would never done anything like that before. I said, look, I'm, I'm interested in this, this booklet and this booklet, uh, I appreciate, you know what you're doing and I'm very interested, but I almost I can't buy all these, but I'm interested in this and this. So, uh, uh, a week, week or two later I get back a note. I sent him a little letter, which, again, I have never done anything quite like that. So I get back this, this fat package in in the mail. From amazing facts it has. It has every booklet, every bible uh, study lesson uh, and book that they have it. He just sent it and plus a three-page letter, a personal letter from Joe Cruz, typed out to me and that was kind of mind-blowing.
Speaker 2So anyway, I went down to the library, looked up the handbook of denominations. I'm trying to figure out you know how do you do this it was very analytical. So I began going through and I'm looking at all the different denominations and I sort of boiled it down to the Seventh-day Adventists and the Baptists and the Methodists. And you know, most of my relatives were Baptists. So, looking around, I'm going around, and I went over to my grandma's house. My grandma kept the Sabbath. She was not a Seventh-day Adventist but she kept the Sabbath. And I said, hey, what's going on here? You know, this is what's going on. And do you have any books by the Seventh-day Adventist? She says, yeah, I think I do. And she pulls out of the closet this little book, cosmic Conflict. Oh, wow, okay, yeah. So I took that and I began reading it.
Speaker 2So anyway, I kind of continued this exploration. I began going to Sunday churches. I seemed to have Monday off, so I would go to the Sunday church. I would knock on the door and you know what? What do all the Sunday pastors do on Monday? They're not. At least in my town there were none of them that I ever found in.
Speaker 2So one day I found the local Adventist church address and I went up there and knocked on the door and I said, hi, I'm looking for I want to find out more about the Seventh-day Adventist. And they said, oh, come on in. And it was the Gladstone Park Church in Gladstone, oregon. So I went in there and so we talked there. The pastor was out doing Bible studies and I talked to the secretary, frida, and her husband Alfred. They were there, beautiful people, and they tried to give me some books. They came and said, well, let's get you some books here.
Speaker 2And so he comes in with a great controversy. I said, oh, no, don't give me that. I've just finished reading that. That's a fantastic book. It's filled with scripture from top to bottom. And he said, wait, wait.
Speaker 2And they came back with a book called the desire of ages which I had, uh, hadn't seen that. I said, okay, I'll take that. So, desire of ages and steps to christ. They gave me, and anyway, I got, I got in touch with pastor zoll and we began to study the bible together. Um and uh, finally, you know, on a some spring morning there about 8, 1989, 88?, I think 89, I was baptized, wow.
Speaker 2And so that was kind of the beginning the Adventists came through. I should mention too, you know, my uncle was an American Baptist pastor and I called him up to confess Christ to him out of Romans. I didn't finish that. Yeah, so I'm reading through the Bible and I started in the New Testament, so Matthew, mark, luke, john, acts and Romans. And in Romans, when we got out to Romans 10, it was like I'm not judging God, god's judging me. I'm the condemned person, I'm the lost person, I need you. So I called my um and said uh hey, I want to confess christ to you, and you know amen, yeah, it was he must have been excited.
Speaker 2He was. He was excited now, later on, without not too far further down. That was when I was reading desire of ages and he found out I was reading the desire of ages and very, he's an awesome man, a man of god, but he didn't, he didn't get. He said you know, be careful about those adventists. He said they're a cult and they've got uh, this prophet lny, you don't want to mess with any of that. Well, I was on page like 120 or 130 of desire of ages and it's like, except for the bible, this was like the most, um, the most blessed, uh things I had ever read. Amen, me too. And here I'm being drawn close to heaven, drawn close to Jesus. The Holy Spirit is working on me and man, I mean the Holy Spirit had to use some really big hammers on me, but he's working on me and so, yeah, I just kind of filed that but I kept on reading and I read through the Desire, desire of ages, but I decided I would read the bible through, remember.
Speaker 2So, uh, the day I was baptized I finished reading. I remember the last book was like second chronicles somehow. The begats out there sort of got stuck to the back, but I finally was baptized, uh, at the gladstone park church and uh, and yeah, just that day was a glowing day for me. How old were you then when you got baptized? So I was born in 1962, so like at the height of atmospheric nuclear testing. So you know, you and I, our teeth are filled with strontium-90 and so on. We basically glow in the dark, we're all contaminated. But in 1961, 62, that was like the height of that stuff. So how old was I? So, anyway, I was 28 or 29 when I became a Christian and became a Seventh-day Adventist.
Speaker 1Amen Now. Were you married at the time?
Speaker 2No, no, not married. Were you married at the time? No, not married, living alone and just kind of starting out. I did a bunch of things for years some of my own different things that I was trying to make work, and it didn't all kind of work out quite the way I wanted just yet. So I began attending church and I remember the first I started going to prayer meeting, and so at the end of prayer meeting this lady quotes from this crazy book. So at the end of prayer meeting I asked her. I said what book is that? Oh, she says this is called Early Writings. Oh, okay, that's interesting. And the pastor's wife was mortified. She says oh, you don't need to worry about any of that, just keep studying the Bible.
Speaker 2And I was curious, though. So I looked, I found out there was something called an ABC. So I drove over to the ABC and I go in and there's this wall and there's this wall filled with books by EGW, eg White, and there was early writings and it was like $12.95 or $11.95. And I was like for me it was like, okay, but that seemed pretty expensive. But anyway, I bought it and I began to read it, and I've read the Bible through and some of these others. So I remember going back the next week to prayer meeting and at the end I talked to that lady again and I said, by the way, I got that book early writing the pastor's wife. Her face kind of turned white and pale, she looked very nervous but I said that's a very interesting book. It's a lot like the Great Controversy and yeah, I'm glad you told me about that. So there was a little bit of nervousness among some Adventist at that time, kind of like let's not, let's not talk about Ellen White. We don't have to always talk about Ellen White. But anyway I was blessed as I had a little part in my conversion experience.
Speaker 2So then, you know, we were in Sabbath school, I was in the pastor's class and we were going through the book of this quarterly was on the book of Leviticus, which you might say that's terrible, the last book to give to a new Adventist. But the class was all soaking up Leviticus and I was soaking up Leviticus and one day the pastor was going to be out of town and he said now I've been newly baptized. You know, I'm so wet behind the ears I'm dripping, you know. But he says Larry, would you teach my Sabbath school class next Sabbath. I've never done anything like that. Oh no, go ahead, you'll be fine. So I taught the class and then I started teaching that every now and then they would have me teach the class. And one day after class some of the people in the class said Larry, you should be a pastor. It never crossed my mind. I'd never had any thought like that at all ever. I'd never done anything like that at all ever. But anyway.
Speaker 2And then the pastor approached me and he said look, larry, I want to take you out to the university. Maybe you want to roll and become a minister. I said oh no, I can't. He said we'll pay for part of it. I said no, you can't do that. He said Larry, hold on a second.
Speaker 2Let me ask you a question Is it more blessed to give or to receive? And I thought about that for a minute and I said well, it's more blessed to give. Okay, he says so. Are you trying to rob this church of a blessing? We're trying to help you and we're trying to give. Are you going to take away that blessing from us? I had no response to that.
Finding Adventism Through Literature
Speaker 2So we went out to the university and I got enrolled and began studying there for the ministry that fall and had a lot of actually it was interesting fall and had a lot of actually it was interesting. We had a lot of uh interactions in. It turned out that that particular school that I enrolled in was how shall we say, it really wasn't strong, uh, a strong representation of serious kind of Bible belief for these end times, and so the teachers were teaching the opposite thing from what I learned from the Bible and so we had some issues there, a few interactions. I was the older kid, you know a lot of the other guys were 19, 20. I'm like 29 or 30.
Speaker 1So you started going to the school about a year or so after you were baptized.
Speaker 2Yeah, I might have even been nine or 10 months, I can't remember. I was baptized in the spring and I started attending in the fall, so I probably was around the Adventist about a year before before that.
Speaker 1And you were still single at the time.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, still single, okay, and didn't have any super successful social things. That happened there. I did have a friend. I made my friend Sam, and he and I would study together and we both kind of noticed some things weren't all. They could be in the classroom sometimes, and sometimes I would ask questions that the professors didn't, or a little bit conflictive toward what the professors were teaching. And I became very depressed there and anxious. But I was very sad because I'm there to learn at the feet of these men of God, you know and I respected them, and yet they're telling me opposite things and I look at the Bible again and no, the Sabbath's still there, the judgment and so on is still there. So I became really, I was really struggling and even in tears some nights. Just why am I God? Why am I here? Why am I?
Speaker 2One morning I remember waking up and I was praying before I went to class Lord, why am I here? And I was crying and I said I don't even know why I'm here anymore. And so I went to class. The whole day went on and I prayed and I said I don't even know why I'm here anymore. And so I went to class. The whole day went on and I prayed and I said, god, if there's something you want to tell me, let me know why I'm here, because I was kind of beginning to lose my sense of what was going on. So I remember I went through that whole day.
Speaker 2It was a fast, full day and it was about 11 o'clock. They threw us out of the psych building as we were, sam and I were studying greek, and we prayed in the parking lot together and we and we walked away, started walking away, and he says, hey, larry, and he turned around and I turned around and we looked at each other across the parking lot and he said, uh, do you know why you're here? And I said no, and I didn't remember that morning. You know my morning angst. And he says, larry, you're here to help us think for ourself. You're here to ask questions and help us to think for ourselves.
Speaker 1Amen, that's really the purpose of true education is helping us to learn to be thinkers and not reflectors of other men's thoughts. Oh yeah, absolutely you know to appreciate and process and study and pray, yeah praise the Lord.
Speaker 2So I turned around and I said, well, thanks for that, you know, and turned around and walked away and I walked about five or ten steps and I suddenly stopped in my tracks because at that moment I realized that God had, in the most direct way possible, god had answered the very words of my prayer in the morning with the words of my friend Sam, who we hadn't talked about that. So, anyway, I went from there and then I went to Southern and then I graduated there and then we began in the ministry.
Speaker 1Amen. So did you get married after you became a pastor or before?
Speaker 2After I did that school then I went to Southern and I was looking up all these young ladies in the yearbook with little, you know, they have a little Bible saying under their name and nothing, just nothing, happened. And I'm praying, you know, kind of for that. That was kind of a big thing. So finally, you know, I graduated in 94 from Southern and I went out and they took me on in Nevada, Utah, as a contract pastor and there I am in the desert, you know the deserts of Utah, with no spouse. But that was there that I met my wife, Pamela. Wow.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it worked out anyway. The Lord was gracious.
Speaker 1Amen, and you mentioned to me recently that you have four children, right?
Speaker 2We have Etienne and Melinda those are the older two and we have Shamus and Michaela and Shamus and Michaela. So we went from Pastoring in Nevada we married. After we'd known each other about 11 months. We married my Pamela and we went to seminary. They didn't force me to go because I was so, so old I was like 31 or 30 or whatever, but they but they decided they would sponsor me if I was willing and they kind of encouraged me to go. So I went there and did the master divinity degree. Right, yeah, we're coming to the kids. So from there we came back and they ordained me in 2001 in Springville, utah, and I went over the hill over to California where I was asked to pastor the Mentone Church in Southeastern California Conference. It was probably the largest kind of conservative church in that conference. So it was really kind of shocking, kind of amazing, an amazing moment in my ministry to come from some little church, little churches in Utah and they asked me to go there. I really didn't want to go there. I didn't have any desire to go to California.
Speaker 2In fact it was after we had four or five or six feelers for other stuff. We'd only been in this other district for about a year and a half and all these feelers started coming in. Would you be interested in doing this? We kept turning them down because we're just new in the district. We can't leave our people, we're brand new. But anyway, after we got to five or six not quite calls but almost calls where we kept turning them down, we said you know, maybe God's trying to tell us something.
Speaker 2So when this one from California came in, I said to my wife I said oh, this is never going to happen. This is never going to happen. So we can say yes, because I had openly, that conference was teaching something that was against what the world church taught and that was a very prominent thing there, and I had openly kind of complained about the conference president being promoting this viewpoint. And so when they called us, I said we can safely say yes to this. They're never going to call us there, it's never going to happen. Of course, you know the rest of the story without we went there. So we spent nine years, nine or ten years there pastoring in South California. That's where we Shamas and Mikaela are two children that are with us now. Now Shamas is 19 and she's 18, but that's where we we adopted them. We did foster care there. We had around a dozen kids at different times, ages zero to four. So, um, the lord was gracious to us and some, and we were able to adopt shamus and michaela wow so that's very sweet.
Speaker 1How old were they when you actually adopted them?
Speaker 2um, we did the age zero to four because we thought there'd be less conflicts over, you know, the lifestyle issues. So, boy, let's see, they were both born in 06, and we left California in 09 to go to, you know, boom across the country. We wanted to get out into the country with the kids, but we wanted the adoptions to be completed and so on. So once that was complete, that would have been 08. It was probably 09, because 09 we went up to Upper Columbia and we began pastoring in. Believe it or not, we lived on Ruby Ridge. You might have heard, or maybe not heard, of Ruby Ridge, but that's a historic place where there was some bad things that happened. But I began pastoring the Bonners Ferry District in northern Idaho.
Speaker 2It's as far as you can go north without being in canada wow and, uh, we, so we went from san bernardino, loma, linda area, we went from there, we just kind of jumped across to the the top end and and so we were able to adopt the children before we we got there. But you know, it's interesting because that led me to think and study, uh, you know, from the bible and remember that, um, you know, all of us, all the only people in the kingdom are adopted people, amen, every single person we're, we're children of abraham, amen. And so, uh, the idea of adoption, sort of we, you know, when you're adopted, you're adopted, you're not just forced to take a kid, you want those kids amen file've got to file for it, you've got to fight for it, you've got to go through the process and, yeah, it doesn't just automatically happen Now.
Speaker 2In some cases they're children that can't be reunited with their parents, but even then you've still got to go through a process and they've got to check you out and decide, I guess, that you're safe. So, yeah, the spiritual side of it was fascinating, because I hadn't thought about my spiritual adoption so much until I have my own children, we have the children we were adopting. And then I studied from Ephesians and and this morning in my devotions I read it in Romans 8. Yeah, the adoption theme is all through there. We are children of Abraham by adoption Amen, god by adoption.
Speaker 2So every one of us who will be in the kingdom is going to be there because God was willing. He's more than willing. He desired us, he wanted us as his children, and so he's adopting us into his kingdom.
Speaker 1Amen, that's so rich. You know, my wife and I had the privilege of adopting a couple boys from Guatemala years ago and he had such a rich experience. It really, you know, helps us to appreciate more the goodness of God and the love of God for us. So, moving on in our time together, what would you say, larry, over the years has been forming you into a man of God where you could bear the responsibilities of being a conference secretary. This is a responsibility. It's not an in-your-face responsibility, it's more just kind of keep things moving, keep things structured, you know, following the principles of the Bible and we're very blessed to have the writings of Ellen White and our church manual has so many good principles that are there to give structure. What would you say has really helped to form you and to prepare you for this time?
From Baptism to Ministry Call
Speaker 2You know, it's just 30-some years of pastoral ministry. In that time you're going to chair, I guess not infinite meetings, maybe that's for the secretary, but anyway you chair all the board meetings. You're in school boards and every kind of meeting all the time. It just seemed like there's meetings all the time. You've got two or three church districts. So I began, of course I had to kind of get into the church manual a little bit and get some of that stuff figured out, and so you have every kind of experience over, as you know, over a period of, you know, decades in pastoral ministry.
Speaker 2You know a lot of people in a few years they're out of pastoral ministry for various reasons. It's definitely not just something you just walk in and just everybody just does it easy with their eyes closed and their hands tied behind their back. A pastoral ministry is very, very emotionally challenging and challenging intellectually. You've got to deliver all the time. It's like my feeling is when I preach a sermon it's like they all have to be home runs. You've got 100 people there, 200 people there, 50 people there, whatever it is. They need to be spiritually fed. I need to be spiritually fed. And so you know there can't, there can't be any duds. You have to have a word from God for the people.
Speaker 2So studying Bible study, I mean real study and then trying to make it, you know, receivable. So just doing that over the years has really helped. When I came to a seminar for 97 and 99, we were up at Andrews here that was my first time in Michigan and we had the privilege of meeting C Mervyn Maxwell and some other wonderful folks. But we sort of got connected to C Mervyn Maxwell and we were out at Fair Plain Church and he was an elder there and so I was mentored and learned a lot from him. We would go on elder visits Church and he was an elder there and so I was mentored and learned a lot from him. We would go on elder visits together and he was showing me how to be a pastor and one day he said, larry, he says, always write out your sermons, then you'll have something to show for it. Wow.
Speaker 2And so I started that practice of always writing out my sermons. You know, it's not that you read everything off the page, but if you write it out, you know in your brain the pieces come together. So, being that kind of analytical, careful, kind of very careful about what you're saying because, look, you're feeding a hundred people, you know you've got a hundred people there that they'll say listen to you for 45 minutes. That's just a lot of man, that's a lot of hours and they need to be fed for the whole week. I mean, we need to feed ourselves every day, but you do the best you can on Sabbath to give the best. So, going through church challenges with the church manual, we had some conflicts, sometimes as time developed, with, sometimes, our church leadership I believe in the conference office. Now that's all going to come back and bite me, but I mean no, we had conflicts because we had one case where the World Church was making a big decision in 2015 about something and our conference president told us and he said, because the pastoral staff were saying, you know, the people in that conference were pretty much agreed with one thing and not the other, and he agreed, the president agreed that whatever the world church decided, you know he would, he would go along with that. So we were okay, good. Well, that very night after the world church made a decision which was the opposite of his, his desire, he was on Facebook with video telling how the decision was wrong and we need to do this. So we had some conflicts that sort of developed at different times and that led me to kind of learn more about something called the Constitution and bylaws and the working policy and different things like that.
Speaker 2And, of course, the church manual. The church manual. You know a lot of people. They rip the church manual. They just foolishly, they just kind of throw it out like listen, there goes, let's find the baby in the bathwater and just throw it all away. Everything's going to be fine. No, it isn't. Uh, there's a lot of wisdom in the church manual. There's a lot of insight. Uh, the church manual is not whipped together by two guys in a gerbil. I mean, it is, it is. It's for for years it's been perfected and it's still imperfect and it will always be imperfect. It's not a perfect document, but there's a lot of wisdom in there. You know, a third or a fourth of it is straight out from the Bible and inspired writings. So, and there's a lot of things that just make good sense there, good common sense. The church order is a big, big deal. Without the church order the church would go to pieces.
Speaker 1You know, maybe I could just share something, my own journey. My personality is not naturally structured but as I've grown in the Lord and gotten older I see the importance of structure. And you know God is a structured God. He doesn't try to control us but he tries to help us to be sensitive to that structure so we can work together and going through a process of going through whatever differences we may have. If we don't have structure, it's very hard for the Holy Spirit to work. So I can see that you know god has given you a mind and a personality that you know is careful about detail and seeks to to really bring that um, you know that allow the holy spirit to work to bring us into unity with his heart.
Speaker 1In the interview on sunday, when the executive committee was interviewing the different candidates and you had mentioned about what it was like going through COVID and how you know God had really convicted you to try to draw people together who had different viewpoints and you know different understandings of that. What was that like for you? You know working with different minds and drawing them together.
Speaker 2That was a wild time and the church is still the denomination as a whole.
Speaker 2We're all still kind of sorting a lot of that Some of it's never sorted out really, and I don't know if all ever will, but in my churches we were just as confused and discombobulated as everybody else. You know what do we do, and in one of my churches in particular, we have a fairly high age statistic. Our overall age bracket is very high so, and most of the people on the church board were older. So it turned out during COVID that a lot of our younger, a lot of our people who wanted to continue attending church and keep the church open, were in the younger half of the demographic, and the people on the church board were mostly in the older half of the demographic, and so the church board was ready to more or less, you know, whatever the government said. You know this is an emergency, we've got to do all these things, and so they were ready to practically close the church and the other people were saying Pastor, please keep the church open. You know this is our spiritual. We want the church to be open, and I don't know that the really older people wanted to close it. You know, this is this is our spiritual. We want the church to be open. And it's not know that they really older people wanted to close it, but that's what they were being told.
Speaker 2So we were kind of in the church board. We were just on the knife edge on some of this stuff. We, the Lord, we prayed and prayed, you know, and and thankfully, praise the Lord. We. We kept finding solutions, like like one of the in our state. Here the governor came out with just bajillions of executive orders. There'd be two or three new executive orders every week part of the time, and so we were told you can't do this, you can't do that. You got to do this. You can't do that, you can't even meet, you can't sing in your church. So we sorted that out of the church board and we said, well, okay, so what we'll do is we'll gather into the sanctuary and follow all these procedures, but we'll, we'll all go out and we'll go out under the church lawn, in the church parking lot, and we'll sing our hymns together. Wow, and the car is driving by. We've got a fairly busy street here. That we're, this church is a Muskegon church is on. The cars driving by will see us. It'll be a little bit of a witness and we'll be able to sing together. So we went out and during COVID we sang in the parking lot and the cars would drive by, and so we would go back into the sanctuary, careful, like and on we went. So praise, thankfully we were able to come together.
Speaker 2But there were definitely very different opinions because you have people you know with totally different information sources, the old, old kind of what we might call old media, for better or worse. Um, they're all kind of giving one story you know. Basically, you know, do everything we say and hide under your bed until this virus goes away, except the viruses never go away. And then we had another, people that were looking at all the different sources of information on the internet and didn't just follow just along.
Speaker 2You know, seventh-day Adventists are kind of like I don't know if you can say it kind of like spiritual Yankees I don't know if that's the word to use, but you know, like the people in the Northern New England area, without the people in the colonies there and the spiritual strength and the determination, there would be no America. That is gigantic that those people were able in that time to resist the tyranny. They came here for freedom and they were determined to have it at any cost. And in the spiritual world, in the church world, seventh-day Adventists really should be the same. We should have that very paradigm. I mean we should be determined to follow the Word of God though the heavens fall. We should be determined to be true to God no matter what, with wisdom and care. But we need to be very determined, and so I was glad that our churches were able to stay open. And we need to be careful because the things we hear, the things that are constantly being spewed into our ears, all those things are not truth. A lot of those things are particular sets of stories that come to us that we're wanted to think that way so that people can fulfill other plans they have for us.
Speaker 2But we need, we are and this is the last remnant of time we need to be aggressively serious Bible Christians. We need to be sharing our faith. You know, jesus said my food is to do the will of him who sent me. You know when the disciples went you know John 4, the disciples went and got food and when they came back, jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman and they were stunned. You know what's he doing, talking to her. Well, he said my food is to do the will of him who sent me. Amen. And when we share our faith with others. We're actually being fed, we're feeding the others and we're being fed by God.
Speaker 2That's an awesome. The church needs to be about its work. Our Father is worthy of our strongest affections and advocacy.
Speaker 1Amen, amen, praise, amen, praise the Lord. That's very special. So you know, the last few years our conference has really kind of galvanized around a couple of biblical principles. One of them is the priesthood of all believers and the other is revival in the East. That you know, there's this sense of urgency and the other is revival in the East. There's this sense of urgency that God wants to bring true revival, which always brings reformation. And how do you believe that the experience God has given you and the giftedness that God has given you can help us to continue to grow in this experience? It's not just the theory of the priesthood of all believers, but this experience that every member is a minister. You know every person has special value and that we do need revival, that we can be prepared to give the loud cry in these last days. How would you say God has prepared you and how you can help to continue to grow in this vision?
Speaker 2Larry, Well, you know it was very interesting. When I began to find out more about Northern New England Conference I did see right away the vision, some of the vision for revival in the East stuff, and I came up to a meeting that was in April there in your conference that's right, I met you there.
Speaker 2Yeah, we met and we had just a precious time there. But at that meeting I became much more acquainted with the idea of revival in the East. And you know you don't know it, well, maybe you know it but the vision that's been articulated for Northern New England Conference, for revival in the East, and you know it's laid out in different pieces, this is what we need to do. I mean here's the statements that this is going to come back. This is a way to get there, but we need all hands on deck, amen. And to see that articulated so carefully, spiritually, godly, biblically, is very precious to me. I've pastored in well, I don't know how many conferences now. I pastored I think 13 churches down through the years, these three decades and more, and I've been in conferences from California. I pastored in Nevada and Utah and California and in Idaho and Washington and Michigan, and it's very rare. I mean there's always a program articulated, but it's very rare to see one articulated like Northern New England has done it now, like President Gary has done it now, like president gary has done it. So I I've been very, uh, I was very struck by the clarity, the um, the priesthood of all believers piece in there, um, and so, yeah, I've been very encouraged.
Family Formation and Adoption Journey
Speaker 2The holy spirit. I mean, we're living in the time of the outpouring of the latter rain. Why wouldn't we? We want some. If you took a kid and said, look, you know, hey, we're living in the time of the outpouring of ice cream, would the kid be happy or sad? The kid would be saying you know, bring on, bring it on. And here we are. We're adults, we're following Jesus, we're trying and we live in the time. We know the time of the outpouring of the latter rain, uh, and yet, and yet, sometimes we're got this creepy indifference, uh, to our father's beautiful gifts. What, what in the world are we doing, you know? And we've got our eyes on our all this nonsense we're looking at, scrolling on our phone, and meanwhile the clocks are ticking. People are not ready for heaven, we're not ready for heaven, we're not ready for heaven.
Speaker 2So to see that vision articulated in that way is, I think I feel like it's the best articulation I've ever seen. I mean, there's good things I've seen at the total member involvement. There's some very good pieces and I've been part of needing seeing some really neat things. But Northern New England has that. And there's also the rights of the obligations of the church towards its members. The church manual talks about the obligations of the church towards its members. There's certain rights that members have. Ellen White will even use the word not very often, but she'll use the word rights and normally we don't probably think of ourselves in terms of rights. But the church, the members have obligations toward the church and the church has obligations toward the members, and so it all works together when there's proper church order and Northern New England, with the affirmation statements document and so on. I don't know how much you want to talk about that, but Northern New England has articulated not only an evangelistic vision which matches the end-time vision that I find in the Bible, but it's also articulating liberty of conscience.
Speaker 2There are things that you know the conference are put in the conference's authority. There are things that are put in other parts of the church. You know there's things that only the unions can do, there's things that only the general conference can do, there's things that only the local church can do, and it's just so. So Northern New England is, in my mind, is a foremost conference today in upholding church order. In some places I don't think church order is being upheld in the same way, because I just don't think. I don't think that people, I don't think the church is populated by supervillain leaders. I think that a lot of leaders are very busy. They're doing 18,000 things, which, from my, it looks to me like that's what the secretary does. He does 18,000 things.
Speaker 1So you're going to have to learn to do 18,000 things and stay focused on the mission yeah, 18,000 or nine, I counted them.
Speaker 1So I wanted to ask you this you know you're quite a few years younger than me, but you know we're not kids anymore. And how would you see yourself? You know, ever since COVID I've been very moved at the dedication of our teachers what they have to surround. You know the trauma that kids went through, you know the uncertainties of that time and parents. And how would you see yourself supporting the young people, the children and the teachers in our conference?
Speaker 2The way that the government responded at the COVID time to our schools, to our kids, was basically a crime. I mean 99.8 survival rate close all the schools. This is going to be great. That's not the way it was. Our kids are our most precious piece. Without the kids, where does the future come from? So I know Northern New England doesn't have a super abundance of schools, but what we have we should guard and strengthen as best we can. I mean, homeschooling is good, uh. Church schools are good and it's critical, uh, today, you know, a lot of the education is coming to pieces in different places. The kids, all they want to do is well, what there's? There's just a lot of distractions for them. Why should I do this when I can just basically be entertained my whole life? You can understand if you know. If you or I grew up with the kind of distractions that some of our young people are facing today, I don't know where we would be.
Speaker 2I mean maybe we'd be. Maybe you'd be sitting on the couch, you know, in your underwear, being 40 years old, watching watching videos all day long, you know, and dipping your hand in the bowl and eating chips. I don't know where we would be. God help God, god help us that we wouldn't be that way, but, but, but we need to do a lot for our young people. We need to connect with them.
Speaker 2It's interesting how the world is so connected now, more connected than ever. But it's not. It is. There's more loneliness. There's an epidemic of loneliness and meaninglessness such as has never been on planet Earth. Yet we all have our little pocket computer that tracks everything we do and we're on there all the time. But what we need is face-to-face, real, live connection amen, mentoring each other, um, sharpening iron, amen, real thing. And you know what's interesting, and I could mention this uh, now that we have these AI, computer generated audio, they can replicate your voice and mine instantly. They can replicate our image, and now, within the next, it's already there. Basically, they can make an image of you or I doing anything that would be photorealistic, and so, basically, we've come to the time, we're already in it. We're in a time when you do not know whether the photograph, the video, the audio, you don't know whether anything that you hear, that you get over your phone, you don't know whether any of that is real, is authentic, be made up and generated which means that the value of face-to-face, same physical space communication has gone up thousands
Speaker 2of percent Right now, thousands of percent, and so if we can be face-to-face with other people or men, women, children we can do a lot now because now the generation that's growing up, now we're already all of us are there. So the value of being in the same place with somebody and expressing direct you know, when you're with somebody, you shouldn't have your gadget and be talking to you and then we need to put these things away, we need to set them aside and give direct attention to people. Of course, you're going to have to take care of one of those 18,000 things, but we need to give people our direct attention. That's a piece of loving. In the end of time is telling you you are so valuable to me. I'm setting aside all the widgets and all the distraction because I want to hear what you're saying and I want to respond to you. I want to love on you, I want to be. We're here together in the same space. Amen.
Speaker 2That's the way the early church was and that's the way. The Holy Spirit came down when they were all in the same space. Now you and.
Speaker 2I are separated by 11 or 1,200 miles here over the air as we're doing this video, so we're not in the same space and this is kind of a um, you know it's, it's a kludge, it's a, it's a backup plan, uh, but hopefully in the very near future I will. I will be, uh, face to face with you in the same room and and be able to be ministering in this new way.
Speaker 1That's a beautiful thought that God created us for relationship and he created us for connection, and if we ever needed that, we need it now. And I just want to give a real heartfelt thank you to any teachers that are listening, Anyone who's working with young people, because I think you have the most important you know work and responsibility.
Speaker 1And we just need to pray more for you and pray for our children, lord. We, you know, god knows the struggle that our children are going through, our young adults are going through and they need our love. You know, as we're going to start winding down now in this very special time, larry, I was thinking about, you know, the whole issue of trust. You know trust is such an important thing in the last days. You know, in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, it brings out the principle that we're not to receive any accusation against another person except through the you know, two or three credible witnesses. Right, and building trust has never been more important, especially with some of the things you just mentioned about AI.
Speaker 1You know what is real, what's not real. You know, and getting to know people. You know being transparent. You know being down to earth, being genuine and real. That is so valuable. God created us to be those kind of people and you know growing in that takes a lot of security. You know we tend to be insecure. Sin is probably one of the worst things that sin has done to us is caused us to be insecure, right. So you know what are, what are some of the Bible teachings that have really strengthened that security in your soul, being secure in God's love, being secure in your relationship with God, that you know you and God can go deeper and that your trust has grown for God.
Speaker 1What are some of the Bible teachings that have meant so much to you over the years?
Leadership Development and Conference Role
Speaker 2I'll tell you what. One of them that really touched me is Luke 12, 32. Luke 12, 32. It basically says there that it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. And people have this idea. You know, we, we're going to strive and maybe I'll be in the kingdom because I did these good things or something. But no, or maybe god is going to um, god's going to just kind of put us through his sieve and only only a few are going to pass the test. They're going to be in the kingdom. But it's god's, it's his good pleasure. Little, he says, little pockets to give you the kingdom.
Speaker 2He wants us in the kingdom amen very high price for us to be in the kingdom. He sent jesus um. God suffered for us so that we can be in the kingdom. Jesus died on the cross, you know, for basically a race of rebels that cannot merit it. We cannot. There's nothing that we can do that can earn us our salvation. So that's a precious thought to me. Is that God wants me. Amen.
Speaker 2He desires us, he has sent, he's done the most amazing thing to get us into the kingdom and we just stand up and take it for granted. So God's desire to have us with him, that's a big piece to me. Reading through the Gospels, I'm kind of on a three-and-a-half-year plan now. I'm reading through the whole Bible six chapters a morning, plus maybe during the day some other things, but at least six chapters every morning two in the Old Testament, two in the Gospels and two in the rest of the New Testament. By the time I'm done with this little thing I'll have been through the Gospels I forget how many times New Testament several times and then the Old Testament too. But as I'm going through the Gospels kind of like continuously, I just see this theme over and over.
Speaker 2You know, god wants us and unless we are immersed in the Bible we're going to pick up other messages in the Bible. We're going to pick up other messages and and we will become confused. So I mean, if all you've got all this incoming to you all the time and so you've got to, I mean, even reading six chapters a day is hardly enough to match all the other stuff that's coming at you all the time. So we need to be in prayer all through the day at different times. And we need to be in prayer all through the day at different times. And we need to be in the word. We need to start the day by having the word. God will speak to us through his word. God will.
Speaker 2He wants to visit with us in the morning amen well, not just the morning, and so that's a precious thought to me.
Speaker 1You know, one of the things, as you just mentioned, that that is very moving to me, and I say it a lot. Some people probably think you know it's just a cliche, but it's not for me that we're precious to God. You know, in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31,. Right, he has loved us with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness has he drawn us. Right, we're precious to God. Isaiah 43 says we're precious. He gave everything. And you know, if there's one thing that God is trying to build a foundation in our souls is how valuable we are to God, because so many people don't understand how valuable they are. You know, the value that we try to find from the world never satisfies that longing in our heart.
Speaker 2It cannot, it cannot, it cannot. That kind of God-shaped hole. It does sound like a cliche, but it's true. In John 1,. You know, jesus is the light who lights every man. I mean God is trying to get us all, as many as are willing. He wants us in the kingdom. He has a place for everybody. If King Ahab had, god wanted, jesus wanted king ahab to be with him for eternity amen uh, did it work out that way?
Speaker 2maybe it won't, but, um, maybe it hasn't. But you know what god wanted. Every one of us, amen. We are not disposable, people are not disposable. Each person has made the image. You, every one of you, while listening to this, you are valuable, you are unspeakably. There's no words for how precious you are in God's sight to him. I go to ourselves. We say, really, you know, how could it be? I'm burnt toast, how could God love me? But God knows all about you and more. And he still came for you. Amen.
Speaker 2And so yeah, in the world, humans are interchangeable. You're just a number, You're just something to be exploited, but in the kingdom of God, in the way God has ordered the universe, each and every person is so precious. We need to share our walk with Jesus so that others can be drawn toward him.
Speaker 1Amen, amen. Wow. Well, I'm very thankful for the way God has been working in your heart and your life. It's going to be so special to meet your wife and your children.
Speaker 2You'll like them.
Speaker 1Amen, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1Well, we're very grateful that you folks have been willing to dedicate your lives to loving people and loving God's Word and sharing God's Word, and we're certainly going to be praying for your transition. And you know, one thing I've already learned about you, larry, is that you're a person that is humble, you recognize how much you need God and that you want to be close to people. You know you have mentioned to me in the past that you know you're not naturally outgoing and part of the part of the 31 years pastoring you you've been kind of, you know, pushed to, you know to be mingle with people more, but I see that you have a real, genuine heart to to process things with people, to talk about things that that maybe there's not a full agreement on. But hey, let's, let's come and reason together, right?
Navigating COVID Church Challenges
Speaker 2Exactly. Let's come together. We are colleagues. We're not going to agree with every detail. You're not going to go through the food line and all get the same combination of stuff, but that doesn't mean you have to be tribal about it and say that guy didn't take my wife's beans, he's a bad guy. We're all in this together, amen. We disagree maybe on very substantive issues. That doesn't mean you have to go to war. We can be colleagues with each other. We're not going to see things the same way. You know, I always think Christians should be like mosquitoes. We like large crowds of people. You know we want to, even though we might not be inclined to. We need to let God help us so that we can find ways to share our faith. Amen.
Speaker 2Your car, you know you might have changed your oil and you might have gas in your car, but if you don't have tracts in your car, your car is not ready to drive out. You're not ready. Not ready to drive out of the driveway. We should have tracks stuffed in our pocket, in our car, and not only tracks. I mean tracks. You can hand out tracks easily, but we should be trying to engage people. Just starting a conversation with somebody over the cucumbers. You know when you're at the store and if you start talking with them and there's two people and you're near the cucumber section and you can start talking about cucumbers, but that doesn't mean you have to end talking about cucumbers it may be that the Holy Spirit will lead and you'll be talking to somebody who maybe even their own wife doesn't talk to them. Their own spouse or children are just, you know, plugged in and there's a lot of lonely people who, if they could just be introduced to somebody who's kind and cares for them and maybe be introduced not maybe be introduced to Jesus.
Speaker 2Along the way, we can see the revival that we boys hope for. We can see, you know, the end times. We're in the time of the outpouring of the latter rain. You know why are we like? Why are we parked in the rest area of earth? Why are we? There's just so much awesome things we can do and and by god's grace, I see a good vision for northern new england and I, I, I feel unspeakably privileged to be, to be able to be a part of this. Amen.
Speaker 2This was like the call to California when this thing just came up so quickly here, not so long ago at all this possibility of going to Northern New England again. It was kind of like our call to California it's not going to happen. We can safely say, yeah, you can consider us because that's not going to happen. Well, say, yeah, you can consider us because that's not going to happen. Well, now it's happened. So God is the God of the improbable and he certainly is the God who takes people who are not capable and he calls us and he empowersowers and he helps those who he calls. So I'm depending, rick. I'm depending on that that God's going to help me and looking forward to be a part of.
Speaker 2Why do we always put it off in the future? Why is it always going to be? Well, the end will come in 20 or 30 years and right now I can safely kind of do kind of just, kind of get along with life in the normal mode. Why not take up Jesus on the adventure he offers us? Let's make life an adventure today and let's be. We are ambassadors for the kingdom. So what are we waiting for? The Holy Spirit, spirit. Is god's ready to give the holy spirit? Amen, um, why would I go out the door in the morning without seeking for the holy spirit asking god give some divine appointments. Anyway, I'm getting a little, a little loud, so forgive me for that.
Speaker 1I that's, that's that's I understand. So I I know you have to get going. You have a five-hour drive to a funeral that's scheduled. But before we finish this time together, I want to share just something here from 1 Chronicles 12, verse 32.
Speaker 1And the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. The heads of them were 200, and all their brethren were at their commandment. And so, lord, father, I want to close this time with my brother, larry, in prayer. Father, we're all broken vessels. Every one of us need a constant, daily and filling of your Holy Spirit. We need more healing, deeper healing in our souls so we can experience the fullness of your love and the fullness of your compassionate heart. Amen, so we can see other people at all times and in all situations through your eyes and Lord.
Speaker 1So we're praying for this blessing that the children of Issachar had, that we would be men and women who have an understanding of the times, as Larry just mentioned, that we see, this is an opportunity all over the world that your Holy Spirit is knocking at the door, that now you can finish the work and cut it short in righteousness. And so, lord, we trust you. We're not looking to what we're going to do, but we're thankful we can rest in what you've already done through Jesus, what you're doing through Jesus' intercession right now, what you're doing through the work of your Holy Spirit. We pray for Larry and his family as they transition and we pray, lord, that you'll continue to work in our hearts to be humble servants of yours, filled with your Spirit, as you finish the work. Lord, we don't want to be resisting your Spirit. We don't want to be working contrary to your spirit. We want to be heart to heart with you. So we trust you for that and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Well, we'll see you soon, brother Larry.
Speaker 2All right, yeah, I know you will. My books are coming off the shelves and going into boxes, which? Is a lot of boxes and a lot of books. Apparently they need to go to Maine or something, so we're going to bring up a bunch of books to Maine.
Speaker 1Amen. Well, god bless you. We love you and you keep trusting the Lord. Please give your wife our love and greetings, and your children.
Speaker 2Her name is Pamela, and Shamus and Michaela, and we're all looking forward to meeting all of our fellow people who are preparing for Jesus to return soon.
Speaker 1Amen, amen, all right, god bless.
Speaker 2All right, god bless all of you. Bye.
