What makes someone a good pastor? In this episode, Brody walks through 1 Peter, where Peter describes pastoral leadership, to show us what Biblical pastoral ministry looks like. Biblical church leadership is driven by a love for the Lord and a love for people.
God calls pastors to shepherd the church well, to be faithful to the Word, and to love the body well. Leaders are to be held accountable by the Word of God and other men in the church. Our hope and prayer is that you’re part of a church that strives to function biblically.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
What makes someone a good pastor? In this episode, Brody walks through 1 Peter, where Peter describes pastoral leadership, to show us what Biblical pastoral ministry looks like. Biblical church leadership is driven by a love for the Lord and a love for people.
God calls pastors to shepherd the church well, to be faithful to the Word, and to love the body well. Leaders are to be held accountable by the Word of God and other men in the church. Our hope and prayer is that you’re part of a church that strives to function biblically.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Sorry that we're late this week in an episode out, but it has been a crazy, crazy few weeks. I want to Apologize for being late, late to this week's episode, but I also want to give you a little update on what's been going on in my world and then just my microphone here and in the world of SWO. So we'll give a little update and then today we're going to talk about what makes a biblical pastor what. What is, what is a good pastor? I want to be a good pastor. I want to. That's what I want to strive to be. That's what I, that's what I, you know, god's called me to this and I want to do it his way and I want to do it right.
Speaker 1:And and so what does the Bible say? Not, I'm not talking about just simply the qualifications of a pastor. That'd be maybe a different episode. What I want to look at today is what is it? What is what is biblical? Biblical pastoral ministry? What does it look like? What does a good pastor do? And so I don't know. I know there's 99% of our folks are not pastors, but a bunch of Mar, and I had this on my heart coming off of the iron-on-iron conference we we just had last weekend at SWO, and so I'm looking forward to having this conversation getting into it. We're gonna look at Words from one of the first pastors, the apostle Peter, and I hope that it's an encouragement. So stick around and Welcome to no sanity required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no sanity required from the ministry of snowbird wilderness outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:So first I said I'd give you a little update, so let me do that and then, lord willing, we'll have an episode out. Normal, normal schedule next week Monday, tuesday we shoot for Monday. Some weeks it's Tuesday but we try to get out the first two days of the week. This week we're getting it out midweek, but we'll we'll try to have something ready to go on Monday. Gosh had a crazy travel schedule. I've seen a lot of our listeners, seen a lot of you on the road here recently had the opportunity to teach and preach and lead and I've been to Minnesota, wisconsin, flew into Minnesota, drove over to Wisconsin, was with our good friends, brothers, sisters, extended swowe family with several churches in the Eau Claire Wisconsin area. That was awesome. We had a great evening. Man, that's good people. Gosh, it was good people. I enjoyed it so much and that was cool that we were.
Speaker 1:We started off the evening, got to speak to middle schoolers at Calvary and Eau Claire Calvary Baptist and that was cool because it was it was kind of a closed early session, just just connected with those folks. That it was cool. It was just like going back in time for me to an earlier snowbird time. It was me and Adam Garner in the middle school worship service. Not even a worship service, more like a Sunday school is what it felt like, because there wasn't singing and no worship music. It was just our 20 or 30 middle schoolers and youth pastor Evan, just solid leadership, teaching those kids biblical doctrine, history. And those kids had a high IQ of the scripture in the Bible and they played this trivia game and it was so cool they. There was so many questions on there I didn't even know the answer to, but that was so great. And then. But then later that evening, joint worship service. Several churches were there came together Calvary hosted it, lots of high schoolers, moms, dads, family, and then we did a Q&A to talk about swows.
Speaker 1:Folks come a long way. You, you're coming from you. We got churches come to summer camp at SWO, at snowbird wilderness. Outfitters from Wisconsin, from Ontario, canada, from Denver, colorado shout out to church at 8025. Michael Talley, snowbird board member, who's the lead pastor out there at 8025?. But We've got churches that come in from Oklahoma City, kansas City I feel like that James Brown song living in America. But they do. They come from all over. We got churches from PA. We got churches from All over the Midwest. Now we got church from Ohio, indiana, so it's it's. It's awesome to be able to get out and see some of those folks and so that was fun trip. And then did men's conference Hosted by first Baptist Church of Watkinsville, georgia Shout out to Wadi, the folks at Wadi and I don't know, a couple hundred guys there, a couple hundred dudes Really cool event was was hosted at a conference center sort of camp place.
Speaker 1:It's owned by University of Georgia I think, if I understood it is a really nice facility. It was awesome, awesome experience. Had three sessions with those guys just Godly dudes and some guys that are young in the faith and got to meet some new, new dudes. They didn't really know anybody got there. I knew this. I knew one student pastor that was there and I knew man, maybe that's it. I had conversations on the phone with one of the pastors, with a pastor, but that that was it. They didn't know anybody else. Oh no, I knew what I broke. Loving good Brooke, loving good's husband, was there, so Did I got to see Tyler, know him, but it was a cool event.
Speaker 1:And then Was down in Jacksonville, florida, in Fleming Island, actually just outside of Jacksonville, speaking at a disciple now weekend and that was cool got to speak and preach in that event, was called Thrive and then preached at Habernia Baptist Church in Fleming Island, both services on Sunday morning. Love you guys. We got a lot of no sanity listeners down there and wonderful being in that church, love that church and those people and just good fellowship and it was awesome. And then while I was there, got a call that One of our former students from our youth group, red Oak youth. We planted a lot of you know. We planted a church, red Oak church, which, by the way, that we post the teaching content from Red Oak church For those of you that listen to the SWO teaching content and you listen to NSR. Another option is our weekly preaching teaching podcast from Red Oak Church and Andrews, north Carolina planted that church about 12 years ago and Our lead pastor now, joseph Tucker, doing a phenomenal job and so thankful for his leadership in the early days Before we had a full-time, before we had any paid staff, lead pastor, student pastor. We were kind of sharing responsibility the team of elders and little and I did the youth. We did it in our home for about five years and it was awesome.
Speaker 1:One of the young men that came through. That was a young man named Cameron who we grew to love, had the opportunity to baptize his mom. She'd come out of the LDS church, came to faith. They got assimilated into the the church community at Red Oak and Cameron was tragically killed 22 years of age Two Saturdays ago. And I got the call. I was down there in Jacksonville. Little called me. I just walked off stage. It was so loud I couldn't even hear anything. But so Loud I couldn't even hear anything, but saw my phone lighten up and I Literally walked off stage and saw my phone lighten up, scooped it up, walked outside. Little said you're not gonna believe this but Cameron was just killed in the car wreck. And so after church on Sunday, it was, it was. It was really beautiful.
Speaker 1:That morning in both services at High Bernie of Baptist, I shared that burden with that church. Who doesn't know this young man or the family, but we prayed and it was. It was wonderful to see God's people pray for a grieving family that they don't know. But then I drove out and Because that family's just settled into and I'm getting I'm getting to the content that we're gonna cover today. I'm getting to the point. I'm kind of using the craziness of what schedules been to ramp up to to where we're gonna land here. But I Got. I drove from Jacksonville instead of coming home that Sunday I drove I was gonna actually swing through Middle Georgia and visit some family and the Tennell Georgia Little's family, who I love so much and was gonna spend some time with them, just pop in on them, ended up just wheeling and driving straight to Instead of, instead of going through Middle Georgia and then on home that night I drove straight to the coast of North Carolina, oak Island, north Carolina, which is just below Wilmington, and that's where Cameron and his family had moved to a couple years ago and after they had left our church and moved out there, they had not plugged into a home church that just kind of you know it is, you move to a new place.
Speaker 1:They had visited quite a few churches, just hadn't found anything that felt like home and we prayed and asked the Lord to guide us to a church where. So I drove out there to sort of Pastor and shepherd through through that. They didn't have anyone feeling that role. And so Red Oak as a church. We just, we just decided and committed to try to Shepherd and walk through this with them. Our church is amazing. The people at Red Oak church are just phenomenal. I think when it was all said and done, about 30 different Red Oak folks had driven out to the coast to minister to this family.
Speaker 1:That's just grieving. But Cameron was number two of four children One older brother and two younger sisters. The age ranges of that family 17 to 25. So a grieving family with no home church. And the church they've been attended Attending was a much larger church and they just hadn't connected yet and I just prayed and the Lord led me to a church called Beach Road Baptist Church and I want to just talk about this church for a minute, because biblical churches there are man, they are gold, they're golden.
Speaker 1:There's no perfect church. I want to say this there's no perfect church. A lot of people are critical of churches, critical of pastors. You've had a bad experience and you project that on everybody that is related to the church. But I'm going to tell you there are good churches and there are good pastors and there are good people doing God's work, and Beech Road Baptist Church is one of them. And if you're waiting to find the perfect church, let me just tell you first, it don't exist. And if it did, the minute you walked through the door it would go to crap because you ain't perfect and I ain't perfect. But there is no perfect church, right, we're just a bunch of jacked up, broken people, and so you know you'll have people say I don't want to go to church because it's full of hypocrites. Engels is full of hypocrites. Public grocery store, go to Walmart, it's full of hypocrites. Your high school is full of hypocrites. The news, media, politics, hollywood full of hypocrites. It's hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites. Everything's full of hypocrites.
Speaker 1:Nobody lives perfect consistency, but as Christians we strive for it. Remember a few years ago when all the COVID restrictions were going on and you had Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Nancy Pelosi, the governor of hell. That's so bad. I'm sorry, nancy Pelosi, the congresswoman from California, from that same district. I think they're related. I think he's heard maybe her nephew or something. You know, they got these crazy lockdown restrictions and both of them get busted not abiding by the restriction. So they're imposing these heavy handed restrictions on people and then they're not abiding by them and it's just kind of like come on, man, where's the consistency and that hypocrisy and inconsistency? It drives us crazy, and so a lot of people vent and rant and complain about the church.
Speaker 1:Many of you know my story. I grew up in a strict, strict southern back and the Baptist meets independent Baptist. If you know anything about the fundamentalist movement we were, I kind of grew up in that where, you know, had to keep short haircut, shirt tucked in, had to dress nice to you know, dress up to go to church, which is another conversation for another day. Should you or shouldn't you? I don't think it should be necessary. I preached Sunday night at Red Oak in a snowboard t-shirt and I know there are guys that say, no, you should wear a suit, and that's a conversation that can be had. But as soon as you start to make rules about church that don't line up with scripture, it just gets weird.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you when the lid got blown off of that for me, when we were serving in India. We were ministering with our team there, the discipleship training we do every year. We're up in the mountains of Northern India and everybody there was wearing just the same common clothes they would wear day to day. I mean, they don't have anything else. They have very small, limited wardrobe, maybe two t-shirts and one pair of jeans or pants, you know whatever anyway, and then a pair of flip flops and that's all they had in that. We just worshiped the Lord together for 12 straight days, deep dives into discipleship, took the Lord's supper together. It was beautiful fellowship and these people have no concept of putting on fancy clothes to come into that gathering.
Speaker 1:So that's when, for me, it was like I'm done. I'm not even gonna wear a collared shirt. Most times Now when I'm on the road preaching, I do. I'm not throwing a sport coat or a tie if I need to. So it's not like I'm dogmatic.
Speaker 1:If a church if that's kind of the way a church typically meets, then I definitely want to be sensitive to that. What I'm getting at is there's no rules, there's no regulations, there's no, you gotta do it this way, you gotta do it that way. And as soon as we start coming up with all that stuff, we create a system that is very hard to maintain, a system of rules and do's and don'ts. So I kind of grew up in a system like that, where it was like you're not being faithful if you show up to church in flip flops, you know? And so people get man, people get turned out and put off by that, and I understand that, and so I grew up in that system. But then, after all the strenuous, strict regulations like, for instance, I was not allowed to attend movies Now, my younger siblings had a different experience than me, but I can speak from my own experience as the oldest child in our family my mom and dad, my mom's first marriage to my biological father that I wasn't allowed to go to the movies.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was in the eighth grade receiving a Sony Walkman for a Walkman for Christmas and a Walkman is a cassette tape player. This is before the days of AirPods and iPhones and streaming music, and all of our older listeners remember this. But that was like that was the cat's meow. The Walkman was like tip of the spear, it was like what everything else was kind of a knockoff of, but you could listen to music as you went on your way there and it was revolutionary. Go look it up, young listeners, go Google Sony Walkman from the 80s. I mean it was revolutionary. And so, anyway, I think I got that Walkman and then I was given strict, strict orders that as a 13 year old dude, 13, 14 year old kid, I was given the orders that I was allowed to listen to either Easy listening music.
Speaker 1:There was what they called the Easy Listening Channel, which was like horns and stuff. It was like, you know, kind of no lyrics, no music. I mean no song lyrics, no words, just easy listening music. You know, elevator music, think of elevator music, doctor's office music. I could listen to that, even though and here's what's funny most of that was secular music, stuff like Kenny G. So I could listen to that. I could listen to Southern Gospel, which, lord help goodness, I'm not throwing off on it, but all that is is like borrowed honky-tonk tunes from the 60s. That's Porter Wagner with Christian lyrics. There you go, there's another throwback for our older listeners. And so Southern Gospel somehow is more holy than you know contemporary Christian music that had drums and stuff. It was just weird. It was just a weird system.
Speaker 1:So I had this, what I'm getting at, couldn't go to the movies, didn't have a TV till I was in the seventh grade. I was in the seventh grade when we got a TV. So even my younger siblings that were probably like third and fourth grade during that era fourth, fifth grade it was Fourth and fifth grade was the age that my siblings were my next two siblings. When I got, when first time we had a TV, it was the summer before my seventh grade year and someone gave it to us and and that was a big deal, you know. And so I Grew up in a strict, strict household but it but.
Speaker 1:Then when I was a teenager, I, like my world was completely shredded apart because I found out that there was infidelity Among the church leadership, not the least was my father, who was the pastor, who was unfaithful to my mom, multiple women, and I don't want to throw my dad under the under the bus here. I love him, I miss him. He's been dead and gone since 2007 and we had great, you know, restored fellowship towards the end of his life. But I mean, I have memory in my younger sisters. I'll see them Talk about him with an affection and post things that they have a different view of him than I have. But I was much older and I went, you know, I experienced first-hand things that they didn't experience and I want to. I don't want to discard that on a preserve that. But I mean my dad.
Speaker 1:I remember getting getting whipped for Listening to secular music, getting caught listening to secular music. I remember getting whipped for chewing tobacco which maybe that's up for debate, but it was like man. It was a strict, strenuous lifestyle up until I was in about the 10th or 11th grade. When I got to a 10th, eleventh grade somewhere in there, I think 11th grade it loosened up a little bit. So my junior and senior year was much more likes. They gave me some freedom and I was grateful for that. But things just started to change by then. So when I'm in about the 10th grade, my siblings are in middle school and elementary school. I then things started to sort of change and so it wasn't as bad towards the end. But, man, when my elementary school years and my middle school years, the strictness was crazy. Well then there was this crazy inconsistency with how life was being lived Like.
Speaker 1:If you find out that it's kind of this double standard of living. Like, hey, you can't listen to this music, you can't do this, can't go the movies, you can't watch TV, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't. Got a short haircut, got a. Tuck your shirt in, got a disc, got it that, got it whatever. And then and then you got to use a King James Bible. We got to only use the piano and church piano guitar. That's it. And then Find out that, oh, the preacher's got a girlfriend that nobody knows about. It's just weird. It kind of messes with your head. You know it's about to come to this.
Speaker 1:Hard, I had to come to hard grips in terms with okay, am I worshiping Jesus or am I worshiping the system? I'm worshiping Jesus. Okay, so the system is broken, but Jesus is not. So when you find a church with leadership that's striving to function biblically, it, even with the, with the brokenness, it's, it's beautiful, it's people loving each other Well, it's a pastor leading people well, or a team of pastors, it's, it's so you know. You know churches perfect, no, leadership is perfect, but there are churches that are striving to do and be what the church is supposed to do and be into into function biblically and and and I think, one thing you know before we get into the, you know before we talk about Peter's instruction or or description of biblical pastor, pastor leadership.
Speaker 1:I want to finish kind of explaining what happened with this church, beach Road Baptist, because we, we got, I got out there by myself on Sunday night to try to minister to this family that 24 hours prior had lost their son in a terrible car crash and the Lord led me to this church. I went to three or four churches on Monday just trying to network and couldn't, couldn't find any connections. That seemed bright and Lord led me to this church on Monday afternoon, late morning, late morning talk to, went over there, Snooped around, ended up talking with a lady named Mary. She was the church's admin. She said come back at one, our discipleship pastor will be here, pastor Woody walls.
Speaker 1:I went back at one. He was there and it was like boom bound together, like-minded, you know. The spirit bore witness. He said how can we serve and minister to this family? And I said, man, we need a place to To do a celebration of life, a funeral service. We need a church to base it out of, but we need to feed people. We need to basically come in and partner with a local church to do what we would do if it was our own church. And, man, he said what's ours is yours. We will serve. We'll stay in the shadows and serve from behind the curtain. You know, whatever we can do, they opened their church up and, long story short, we ended up hosting a celebration of life service for Cameron last Saturday and that church. The senior pastor, pastor James, was there, discipleship pastor, pastor Woody, the resident pastor, intern, young man named Carter, and then a team, a whole host of Church members, came to serve the food. We had food catered in. They came in, set up their dining area. They're they're sort of family life center, set it up, had their people there, as if this family, the Ogilvy family that was grieving in mourning, as if they were part of their church. They stay, ministered and then it was beautiful and these pastors just so blessed me and I'm so thankful for it, and and it just reminded me of the beauty that can be displayed by the local church.
Speaker 1:And if you're not part of a local church and there could be a number of reasons and and that maybe is maybe, that's another episode why do people become disgruntled with a local church? What are the, what are the top reasons people leave the church? Yeah, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. But it could be that you got hurt. It could be that you got bored. It could be that you never went back after COVID. It could be that it's too easy to sit on the couch and watch it on YouTube or Facebook. It could be that Sundays your only day off and you want to go to the lake, or you want to go biking, or you want to go fishing, or you want to go To t-ball travel, t-ball travel, whatever it is. Travel baseball, whatever heck they call it, try, you know, baseball tournaments for your kid, whatever you, you've come up with other reasons and or you're genuinely mad at the church, whatever we could go the route of and I get that man, I ain't gonna lie, there's a lot of Sundays. I'd rather sit at the house my one day free that week and I want to just be alone with my family and rest and chill and Maybe, maybe, you know, toss a ball around in the front yard or shoot our bows at the targets and, you know, just do something relaxing and recreational.
Speaker 1:But but the scripture says in in Hebrews 10 we're not to forsake the assembling together of ourselves. Is the manner of such some is, and even more so as we see the return of Christ's Approaching. And then it goes on to say each day has sufficient evil for that day. And so we need to come together with God's people for strength, for fellowship, for encouragement and At the, at the foundation of what the church is to be, we need biblical leadership, and so biblical leadership means faithful, healthy, pastoral leadership, and I'm thankful for churches like Beach Road, where that exists. I'm thankful for churches like Red Oak, where that exists, and I'm thankful that Peter gives us some instruction on what the church should look like.
Speaker 1:So let's let's just jump into this with second half of the episode. Let's just jump into this and we are gonna be over the rest of the spring looking at some different Um, uh Distinctives of a biblical church, and I hope that that'll be helpful. I've got this burden in my heart for the church right now, because people are walking away. People are criticizing this whole conversation about deconstruction. At the center of it is people walking away from the church.
Speaker 1:So Let me let me jump in by telling you a story from my childhood. There was a guy that was at A ghost town in the sky. I don't know if you've ever been to ghost town. It was a amusement park in Maggie Valley, north Carolina, just outside the Great Smoky Mountains. When I was a kid, my mom worked there when I was Before I was born, and when I was a kid we would go up there. It was, you know, just in our back yard. So we go to ghost town in the sky. It was a little amusement park on the tippy top of a mountain Right by Cattilucci ski area and you rode a chairlift to get up there. And then you got up on top of the mountain and it was, like you know, crazy rides and swings is really fun and they would do these. Oh, it was set up like an old Western town and they would have shootouts. These guys walked around like real cowboys. I loved it, man. It was the coolest thing. As a little kid it was the coolest.
Speaker 1:But there was a guy that there was a guy that performed in one of the little they had, like a little saloon. You go in there and get. They had multiple eating establishments, like a saloon and then a bar and then a family restaurant and then the general store and but in the saloon there was a guy he was. He was called the one-man band. You know. He had like a harmonica on a rack around his neck and then he would stomp a Hi-hat with one foot and stomp a symbol with the other foot and hit it, go back and forth between a kick bass and then he had, like you know, a ukulele hanging around his neck on one side and some horn on the other side. He could and he would just play all these instruments and it was a hoot to watch this guy. It was pretty obnoxious, the more I think about it, you know, and but as a kid I was intrigued by this guy.
Speaker 1:But that the one-man band approach to church is is horrible. I like to I like to use that as a picture Compare the one-man band to a beautifully orchestrated band or symphony or orchestra, where everyone's playing their instrument and it's synced up and the sound is full and beautiful and synchronized and harmonized and it just. It's so much better that way. And then you've got in the front a conductor, you know, and I think that's a better picture of the church than the picture of the one man band.
Speaker 1:A lot of churches, you got one guy kind of doing everything and it could be out of necessity, you know, we could talk about the fact that some pastors of small churches are just worn out and they're having to do everything.
Speaker 1:But then there's some churches that have established a system where one guy does it all because he wants to be the face of that ministry. You have 10 or 12 church campuses and they got movie screens and they video the one guy and then it's like you could go to the third campus and he ain't gonna be there, but you'll watch a hologram of him or a movie of him up on the screen. And that's just weird, man. I think we're gonna look back at some point and go what were we thinking about church in 2000? And I know big churches do it, like famous, the most famous pastors right now are doing this. But I don't man, I don't like it and I don't agree with it and I just that's my thing. And I know somebody could come right on here and argue why that's not the, why it's the best way to do things. You know well, we're a technological society. People are used to watching TV, people are used to watching they're phones or their devices.
Speaker 1:I don't like it. I think there's something very, very intimate and biblical about the physical presence of a pastor. And then you know I struggle with mega churches. We're gonna be doing an episode in this church series over the spring. One of the episodes will be a look at mega churches and not we're not gonna criticize and bash them, but just like what are the struggles, what are the benefits, what are you know, what do you gain, what do you lose? We're gonna consider that.
Speaker 1:But the thing that is so valuable, like I think of my church at Red Oak, we have strong senior leadership from our lead pastor and then strong plural leadership from our board or team, our board or team of elders, and then we've got active deacons, we've got men and women in hospitality and in child you know, children's ministry and childcare and everyone sort of doing the lifting and it's synced up and it's harmonious. But, man, if somebody wants to see the senior pastor, lead pastor, he's just down there every Sunday. He's right there, you know, and he shares the teaching responsibilities. I mean, he's so gracious, I preach once a month at our church. He didn't have to do that, he could preach every Sunday, you know. So I'm thankful for this guy called Joseph Tucker, lead pastor. I love him, but I'm thankful for my church at Red Oak and it's not the perfect church but I love the symphony and the harmony of the church. So in a biblical church you've got different gifts, different roles, one mission and a lead guy maybe down there that's kind of orchestrating a lot of it and a team of elders around him that are working to do that.
Speaker 1:And so I'm gonna read an excerpt from a commentary by Daniel Doreani. This is from his first Peter commentary. Daniel Doreani is one of my favorite commentators top five for sure and this is on the section under like how we view leadership, with a healthy and balanced dose of discretion and grace. And I wrote in my own notes here. I wrote be an asset, not a liability. As a church member, I wanna challenge you to be an asset, not a liability.
Speaker 1:There is often a difference between a true leader and an effective influencer, and so we need to recognize that true leadership embraces responsibility. That is often carried out behind the scenes and without appreciation or approval from others. Case in point Beach Road Baptist Church. Last weekend those pastors came and served behind the scenes while we administered to this grieving family and they didn't get noticed or seen. They just served for the advance of the kingdom.
Speaker 1:Stress and demands of high level leadership will never be understood by those in middle management or ground level leadership. Let me read that again stress and the demands of high level leadership will never be understood by those in middle management or ground level leadership Doesn't mean that one's better than the other. But when you're in the high level leadership of a church or a corporation or business, whatever any organization, you're gonna deal with some levels of stress and demand that people in middle management just aren't gonna understand and wouldn't even if you try to explain it to them. And so I appreciate what I'm getting ready to read from this Daniel Doreani commentary. Listen to what he says and I quote "'Leadership is a paradox.
Speaker 1:It is a glory and a ruin, a privilege and a torment. People look for leaders who are in short supply and look to leaders whose skills are often exaggerated. People assist and advise them, favor and flatter them, haunt them and hover over them, but others suspect, criticize and condemn. They drown their leaders and delight in their demise. It's so much easier to review a book or movie than to write or direct one, and it's so much easier to rail at a leader than to be one. Every step up is simultaneously a step down. Every leader knows the paradoxes of headship, sees them, hears them, smells them coming in the way that fits his room.
Speaker 1:A judge has great power. He ferrets out the truth, protects the defenseless and punishes evil doers. He finds petty miscrints, jails the wicked and acquits the innocent. But every sound judgment disappoints someone a little bit, and a few earn a leader full-blooded enemies. Headless chickens on the porch and slash tires are one thing, death threats on wives and children another. Presidents and prime ministers are the most loved and most detested persons in their lands, the objects of fevered adulation and plotted assassination. In the circle of admirers every wish is a command, but in the circle of foes every gesture is reviled. The boss, the coach, the director, the governor, the pastor, all loved, all scorned. Every privilege gained is a freedom lost man.
Speaker 1:Those are powerful and descriptive words from Daniel Doriani on the first Peter commentary on pastoral leadership. He says view those in leadership with a healthy and balanced dose of discretion and grace. And so let's get into what Peter says in 1 Peter 5. And we get in verse one. He says I exhort the elders. This is a specific challenge. Peter's speaking to the leadership of the church. Now, we've talked about this here before. By the way, this is not a completely new material. We've talked about it here before, but I think it's important to revisit from time to time. So he exhorts the elders, peter's challenging the leadership of the church. He's speaking to them and in one sense, this passage is for pastors and leaders, but it's also important for everyone to understand.
Speaker 1:It's important for those who are choosing a home church. You know, thinking about this family, that we're saying, hey, you need to. You need to get plugged in and get a church that can minister to you as you're healing. You know we were able to come in there and be a part of. You know the initial phase of grieving and mourning and to walk through the memorial service and the celebration of life and to organize the things that we needed to organize. But you need somebody to gather around, get around you. You're seven hours from here, eight hours from us. You need a home church. So it's important to understand these characteristics of leadership within a church when you choose a home church.
Speaker 1:It's important in the accountability of leaders. Leaders are to be accountable to the church, to the Lord to the word of God. Those in pastoral leadership are not called to a different level of holiness or righteousness. Yet the scripture warns us about how we lead and teach. James 3.1, I think it says my brother's warned you let not many of you become teachers, because we will receive a stricter judgment. Think about how destructive it is when a ministry leader or pastor falls. Sexual failure, financial failure, marital failure, abusive power these are things that ruin ministries. When the leadership falls. It's an intense moment for me. It's like Peter is looking straight into my eyes. This is me as a pastor, as a leader of a ministry. I feel like when I read this, I exhort you that he's looking dead at me. In the same way, jesus looked into his eyes and challenged him when he told Peter feed my sheep.
Speaker 1:In John 21.15 through 19, we get this conversation between Jesus and Peter. It's intense. It's kind of a monumental moment in Peter's life because Peter had denied and disavowed the Lord. But after the resurrection, jesus comes to Peter and prepares breakfast for him and some of the other disciples. It says when they finished breakfast, jesus said to Simon Peter Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him yes, lord, you know that I love you. He said to him feed my lambs. He said to him a second time say to you, when you were young you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. This he said to show by what kind of death was to glorify God. And after saying this, he said to him follow me. So, jesus, in that encounter with Peter, I mean, he buried something deep in the heart and mind of Peter. In that commissioning he drew him up out of his despair and guilt and he called him into ministry. That calling was based on the authority of Jesus. My call to ministry is not based on my authority. I am not here because I chose to be. I am here because God chose it for me. So Peter has been. As he is writing his letter.
Speaker 1:1 Peter, he has been on this journey in his life. He has been open and raw in how he describes what that journey looked like. So he speaks this exhortation to us as a man of conviction, from personal experience. He has experienced highs and lows. We can hardly imagine what he has been through, and so I want to pause here. We are going to wrap it up in the next episode. We are going to walk through what this exhortation is, but I just want to spend these couple of episodes looking at Peter's instruction on church leadership. So it is so important that we be plugged into the local church. I want to wrap this episode up and then we will roll into the next episode. The way I want to wrap this episode up is I want to say and we are going to come right back with a part two of this on Monday, so it is going to be a short distance between episodes here. Since we are dropping this mid-week, I don't want to overwhelm you with an hour and 15 minute episode. So the follow up is going to come out on Monday.
Speaker 1:But, peter, I think Peter would say to us love the church, because Jesus said to Peter if you love me, feed my sheep. So biblical church leadership is driven by a love for the Lord and a love for people. I love the Lord and he is giving me a love for people, and I will tell you that I am not hardwired, naturally, to love people. But God has put that in me and I counted it all joy to drive to Oak Island, north Carolina, last week and be with a grieving family in their loss and in their pain, and it was uncomfortable and it was painful and it was difficult and I don't have answers and I don't know what to say. But I love the people of God and I love the people who are not the people of God, who need Jesus. And I think at the core, at the foundation, biblical leadership is driven by a desire to honor and obey the Lord and then it is driven by a desire to love people well and to minister and help people along the way in life and to encourage them. And that is where it just kind of ends by jumping back on the thing about mega churches and multi-site churches and my thoughts on that. And I'm look, I'm just a hillbilly in the mountains of North Carolina and I'm a true hillbilly.
Speaker 1:Me and Tuck were laughing the other day because he had been to he's talking about. There's a. There's a well-known musical artist. His name is Brandon something Y'all would know him a lot of. Y'all would know him and he's you know he's. He's a phenomenal talent, he's a super gifted dude. I think he does either Hillsong or Elevation, one of the real trendy modern worship production teams or company I don't know the terminology I'm supposed to be using, but like he's really, we view some of his songs that are so good I don't. I don't know. You know what his orthodoxy is, or his you know, theological leanings, I don't know any of that.
Speaker 1:But he's a really gifted singer. But he's got, like you know, this big, this big, wonderful, glorious hair, which for a dude like me that couldn't grow hair if he wanted to. I'm a little jealous, I'm not going to lie. He got this big old, braided Samson hairdo, you know, and he's you know, he's got the forearm tattoos and the little cowboy boots and he's trendy and he's hip and he's cool. And I'm not making fun of him, I'm just saying I could never pull that off. It'd be weird if I tried.
Speaker 1:But he Tuck was laughing because Tuck really enjoys this guy's music and he said it's funny. He saw him, he was, he was on stage somewhere and he said I'm just a country boy, you know, I'm just a good old boy. And Tuck's like, uh, that is not true, you are not a good old boy. So when I say I'm just a country boy and I've heard people say, oh yeah, I love this pastor, that pastor, he's just, he's just down earth, he's just a good old boy. He likes to go hunting, let me say, because you like to hunt does not mean you're a country boy. Some of the best hunters, some of the most accomplished hunters. I know there's a guy named Brad. I know he lives in Atlanta. He's one of the most accomplished hunters. I know he lives in a $2 million house in a subdivision full of $2 million houses and he works in downtown Atlanta and a sky rise and he flies around on jets to Dallas and LA and, and you know, in Chicago, like he ain't a country boy but he's accomplished as a hunter. So being a country boy don't just mean you like to hunt Now I think it is most country boys like to hunt fish. But I'm talking about I live in a small town, you know I I live in the rural country setting and I live a rural country life and it is what it is. I'm not trying to be something I'm not Okay.
Speaker 1:So when I say that I have an issue with with multi-site TV screen church services, it's a personal thing. Take it for what it's worth and I think both sides can be argued and articulated, okay. So a guy that you know, you take a church like you know big. There's a big one in Jacksonville area that's got got multiple campuses and you take the one in Charlotte elevations got campus all over the country and there's one out of St Louis, I think, and the summit church network out of Eastern North Carolina, like there's some big churches with faithful preachers, some that don't have faithful preachers. The one in Charlotte, I don't think, has faithful pastoral leadership and preaching, and that's a different conversation. That that would also go along with what we're talking about in these two episodes.
Speaker 1:But concerning multi site mega churches, where you go in and man the, you know they've got some small group structure maybe and ways for you to try to plug in, but when you're watching a preacher on a screen, I just don't think that's the way Peter would have done it. I don't think that's the way Peter would have done it. I don't think this is the way the apostle Paul did it or would have done it. And people might argue well, they didn't have the technology then. Yet Paul went and lived among people, people. Peter went and lived among people and trained up elders and then exhorted them and then left the work to them. Paul trained up Timothy and left him in Ephesus. He trained up Titus and left him on the island of Crete. You know, there's, there's. Paul says to Titus the reason I left you on the island of Crete is so that you might train up elders in every town to do the work of ministry.
Speaker 1:The biblical model to me does does seems to be so much more personal and I know churches grow and get big and I get that. But I appreciate so much my friend John G Tate. He's a pastor in Bedford, virginia and their church gets to about 500 and they peel off a couple of hundred and start a new one. Real people start a new church with a real pastor and you've got now four or five campuses of four to 500 people. So there's an intimacy, there's a connectivity, and just this is fresh on my mind after this week and and seeing the need this family had. They had been attending a church that was a mega church with screens and lots of people and and that church encourages you to get involved in a discipleship group, community group, connect group, whatever they call them. But but the reality is it's a big production on Sunday and it's hard to stay connected.
Speaker 1:And I think that there's nothing wrong with the mega churches of the world when it comes to if you all you want to get out of it is to hear a good sermon and to have a good corporate singing experience. I think you check those marks. Okay, I think, like back to the summit church. I don't think there's a better exposer, communicator and teacher than in our generation, the JD Greer. The dude is so gifted, he's so faithful. I have nothing but pure respect for him as a communicator and he's a phenomenal leader.
Speaker 1:So if all you want to do is go hear a faithful and good sermon and sing songs because because those multi-site churches always have an in person, usually they have an in person band you know worship and sing with God's people and that's it, and you want to go home and kind of be, do your thing. But if you want to do, if you want to live your life in a way that's interactive with God's people and and and be able to reach out and touch your pastoral leadership in in a time of need and and connect with them and I think there's something to be said for the way that local church is set up and and so I just just wrestle with it is all I would say I challenge you to wrestle with. You're in a small town and you've relocated and it's like I have. You know, man, there's nothing here but these little small country churches and then then get plugged in and maybe it's not the best preaching and maybe it's old fashioned music or old timing music that is not your favorite to plug in and invest in the relationships. Be, be a part of the local church and do your part and, as as Peter exhorts the elders among us, see that a faithful pastor is going to care deeply about the people and he's going to love them. Well, that's where it starts, so we'll follow up Monday with the next episode. We're going to get into what the Peter's instruction to those pastors looks like, so we'll come right back at it.
Speaker 1:Please pray for the Ogilvy family as they walk through and grieve the death of their son. Pray that the Lord would comfort them. I'd ask you to do that as as just. I just ask you as a brother and cross. Please pray for this family that's grieving so so in such a real way, just so heavy. But thank, y'all Appreciate you and it was cool. One last thing Sit down with a, with a couple at the iron on iron conference last weekend. Sit down during a meal and it was so cool. I said how'd you guys hear about snowbird? They said, oh, we came across a no sanity required podcast and started listening to it, and that opened the door for us to to look into what SWO has to offer and what you guys are about. So praise the Lord for that. Using NSR to now reach outside of the just the network of SWO churches and schools and and and partnerships. So that was pretty awesome. Iron on iron was awesome. We'll talk a little bit more about it in the next episode. Thank y'all. See you Monday.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no sanity required. Please take a moment to subscribe to our channel and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SW outfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no sanity required.