[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome into think deeper podcast presented by Focus Press Jack Wilke. Joe Wilke will harab with you once again on another Monday. Thanks for listening and joining us. Excited about this week's topic. It will probably be a two parter. We don't know just yet, but we might end up running long and push this into two talking about preachers. This is, we've all been preachers. We've done some of that work. We're well familiar with the industry and so we're going to question how it's been done, the system and how it currently is done and the role as biblically stated and so should be an interesting one. Before we get to that, I want to tell you guys first of all about a Facebook group that we started. We've had a Facebook page for a while where you can follow. We post quotes from the episode, little video clips or whatever. It's not very interactive. That's just not how pages work. As I've said before, a page is kind of like a billboard where you put your, your name, your advertising up there. A group is a discussion. It's a club. It's where you can come together. And so we've had a number of people join. We've already had a couple good discussions. Every Monday when the episode goes out, I put a post up for that week's thread. We want to encourage you to join if you're in the group already, which I know a number of you already are, it use it. You can ask your own questions, just about christian or biblical topics and things like that. Somebody had one about tattoos that create some interesting discussion.
So I encourage that. But also the episode threads, be sure to agree, disagree, give your thoughts, add on to what we had to say. We would love to get feedback. We feel like we've kind of lost touch a little bit with the deep thinkers as we used to be a little bit better about that. And so check out the Facebook group. It's the think deeper deep thinkers is the name of the group.
Check that out on there or send me a message if you can't find it and I'll help you get added.
So there was that. The other thing we're going to tell you about is Doctor Brad Harab's biology textbook. School is rapidly approaching and it's a great resource for christian schools, for home schools, for studying biology. It's mainly 10th, 11th grade targeted. There's a workbook, there's an answer key for teachers and just walking through biology. But from a christian creationist perspective, very well done. Book and so pick that
[email protected]. dot. Be sure to check that out. If you are teaching teenagers, want them to learn science from a biblical perspective. Very good resource there, but that's all we had to tell you about. Again, check out the Facebook group and then that book. And let's get into the episode, which will is heading up for us.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah, so as Jack said, I'm tremendously excited for this episode. I sat down and I was writing the outline last night for it, and I just, I just kept throwing stuff on there. I was getting excited.
All kinds of different angles to address, all kinds of different questions to ask, topics to discuss again, thus probably the need for it to go to two parts rather than just one, because we don't want to do any of this outline and injustice by speeding through it and skipping through it. So I hope you're here for a fun ride and then here for some good discussion. As Jack already did state, we do want to examine kind of the, the predominant current pulpit system that primarily the church of Christ utilizes. And we want to examine it in such a way as to ask the question, first of all, is it biblical? Is it effective? And then I guess, most importantly, you might argue, how could it be improved? And all three of us have preached for a number of years, I guess technically Jack, probably longer than any of us, but Jack and Joe have been preaching since they were teenagers. I did. I was a technically a pulpit preacher for two years, from age 18 to 20. And so, as Jack said a second ago, all of us have experience here. All of us are familiar with the industry. We know a lot of preachers as well. And so with that comes, I think, some very needed qualifiers before we get into some of these questions, some of these headings, topics that we want to address. This episode is not going to be an attack on preachers. This is not going to be a preacher bashing session where we just get up here and spill out all the problems that we think preachers have or anything like that. It's not going to be that.
All three of us know and respect many pulpit preachers. And we're very grateful for them. We're grateful for the work that they do.
Their contribution to the spreading of the gospel, their contribution to the work of the church is truly, is truly immeasurable. And so for them, we are grateful. And again, this is not going to be an attack on them or anybody else. With that being said, we are going to be talking about some kind of common preacher stereotypes. We're going to be talking about, again, kind of the, whether it's in this episode or the follow up episode, kind of the current system. And to do that, we are going to have to make some generalizations. We are going to address many of the current, and as we're going to argue accurate preacher stereotypes and things that we do see a problem with, things that we do wish that a lot of preachers would improve upon, things that preacher, we wish preachers would understand. Um, but a lot of this, as we'll get to again, probably in the follow up episode, is kind of a product of the system. And so we'll save that discussion. But I did want to throw those qualifiers out there, um, and just establish the fact this is not going to be necessarily a preacher bashing session. It's not a full on attack. We're trying to, as the very heart of this podcast, think deeper. We are trying to to look at some of these topics, ask some of these tough questions, and really just have a great discussion. So that's what we're looking forward to. So, guys, let's go ahead and get started into this first section. And that is, is the idea of a pulpit preacher biblical and needed? Some people might listen to that question and go, well, does, isn't that obvious that it's biblical and isn't it obvious that it's needed? Let's address it. Let's get into it. I've done a lot of talking, so I'm going to go ahead and hand this off, I guess, to Joe next. Joe, let's get into this question. Is the idea of a pulpit preacher biblical, and is it needed? Where would you start this conversation?
[00:05:57] Speaker C: This is a tough one. This is a tough one for me, and I hate that you put me on this first. So we do know there is an evangelist, right? I mean, we see this in Ephesians four as some are given as evangelists, obviously Timothy and Titus. We see them as what we might consider pulpit preachers or the evangelists at a congregation. And I think that is the first question you have to ask, is the evangelist the same as a pulpit minister, especially as it's currently structured in our culture and kind of in the american system? Because. And some people also going to revelation, some people make the case that the angels that are said in revelation are.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Speaking of the seven churches.
[00:06:39] Speaker C: You're talking of the seven churches, correct? Yeah. That those are written to the leader, a leader, or more specifically a minister, a preacher of that congregation. I don't know that you can fully make that case, but some people do make that case we see prophets going all the way back. But as the church is structured, this is a tough one for me because, yes, I grew up, always wanted to be a preacher, went to preaching school, have preached at different congregations, filling in. But then now it obviously Jackson Temple being the minister there. So as it's currently structured, I don't know that. And this is again, what we're going to get into. I don't know that this. That's what's supposed to be there. Do we see a preaching role in church? Yes, somebody's got to get up and give, give sermons. We do see sermons preached throughout the New Testament, whether it be Peter or Paul. Some people say the book of Hebrews is a sermon. So I think sermons are biblical. Obviously, somebody's got to be doing that. The question is, does it have to be a full time guy that has paid or should it be more of the Paul tent maker? Should it be. We see worker work. This is the difficulty. There's a lot of scriptures going back and forth. The workers wear the others wages, don't muzzle the ox. So clearly there is somebody that is okay to be paid to preach, it would seem. However, does that mean that the guy needs to be a full time minister or should there be more of a mutual edification? This is a very difficult one for me to answer.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: That's what I was going to lay out. And Jack, I'll hand it to you to kind of get your thoughts. So a lot of people would argue for the idea of mutual edification, which is essentially the role of the pulpit is shared by the men of the congregation. Whichever men have decided that that's something they want to do. There is not a full time preacher, not a full time pulpit guy, but the pulpit, the preaching is. Duties are shared by the men of the congregation.
That would be kind of one side. And to be honest, for a while, that was kind of my take is like, I think that makes the most sense. I do think that that would maybe eliminate some of the problems that we do see with the kind of the broken system that we'll get to later on. I don't know that I'm there anymore, and I want to get Jack in here to get his thoughts on it, because I do see a use and a benefit to somebody holding the preacher role. But Jack, go ahead and get in on this. I just wanted to kind of lay that out of like, that's what some people would argue for. Joe, it sounds like maybe you lean a little bit that way of mutual edification as opposed to one guy holding the pulpit. Jack, what are your thoughts?
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I've said before, I'm more and more all the time an elitist, and I don't mean that in a snobby, I'm better than you way. I mean, there are certain people who are tasked the five talent man. There are certain people who are tasked with doing more with because they bear more responsibility. This is something that when you read Timothy and Titus, there's a lot on their shoulders that Paul is charging them with. And so you need somebody to stand up and be the guy. Now in one corinthians 14, it's interesting where Paul talks about when you come together, everybody brings a song, everybody brings a prayer, everybody kind of, everybody brings something. And we don't do that. I think we need to get closer to that, where everybody has something to bring. Maybe a scripture reading that a man has been meditating on that week. But as far as the guy who's going to stand up and reprove, rebuke and exhort the guy who's going to really drive the direction of the congregation in that way, I do think that is a role that is biblical. You look at Ephesians 411, which I believe we brought up last week, but he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints. Well, obviously you can remove apostles, you can move prophets, but evangelists, pastors, teachers are roles that are still there. And when he says he gave some, that does mean he didn't give everybody that role. Not everybody is going to be the mouth. Not everybody is an evangelist, pastor or teacher. And of course, pastor we take as elders teacher.
Timothy was called an evangelist. And I had an interesting discussion with my buddy Daniel Mayfield from the who let the dogma I out podcast a preacher down in Texas as well about the role of evangelist and Timothy being an evangelist. And that's kind of a permanent thing. I could really see a world in which Timothy and Titus, that role of evangelists was short term. Guys like table setters go get that church started, get the wheels in motion.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Get established the elders, get elders set.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: In place, teach well in two, Timothy two two entrust faithful men to teach others. So you create the teachers, you establish the elders. Now you've got a church that can sustain itself. Same thing with Titus one five, where he says, I left you in Crete to set in order what remains, namely appointing elders. Well, I left you to set in order what remains does sound pretty temporary like, all right, I established this church, but it wasn't done. There was more work needed. Paul, Paul, being the. The apostle, said, I've got to go help other churches. So, Titus, you stay here and make sure they get elders in place. That does not sound like, all right, Titus, you're just the preacher here now, and this is your church. And so I think there is a role. I'm not sure that what Timothy and Titus did is the parallel to today's preachers, but I do think somebody needs to be, or at least a couple guys need to prominently be the ones teaching the church, because it is a gift. It is something given to some. And not all.
Not everybody gets to do everything. I think you see this happen sometimes where it's like, well, we all can. You can't.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: It's like retiree Irving thing with the Brooklyn Nets a couple years ago, basketball player, for all those who might not know, came out and said, oh, we're, you know, we don't. We don't need a coach. We're all the coach. We're all of us players are coaches. And, you know, that team didn't make it past the first round of the playoffs. And. And, you know, you see the problem with that is you need some kind of authority. You need some kind of, kind of, obviously, in a church context, spiritual authority that, Joe, you can jump in here. I do feel that that is where mutual edification type of thing could fall short, is that there is a void.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: There if there's not responsibility placed on, like, it's that thing of everybody's responsibility is nobody's responsibility, correct.
[00:12:28] Speaker C: Let me say from a mutual education.
I guess I don't use it in the traditional sense, because traditional is like, everybody can get up there and preach. I don't believe that's the case. I think I take it to be. There should be a term plethora of preachers, a plurality of preachers, and what I've used edification specifically. Specifically the elders, because Jack's hitting on this. I think the whole point of the evangelist. I mean, in an ideal world, this is, for me what I think would be the best structure of the church. An evangelist goes in, he does exactly the work of Timothy and Titus. He sets in order what remains. Right. He is establishing elders. He's rebuking those and kind of getting the church on the doctrinal right path. And he's. He's appointing elders and setting up teachers who can really do this work in the congregation. The reason why I think elders have to be able to teach and why they have to be not new converts, but men of the word is specifically for this because they want to be able to get into their, their people's lives, right, the sheep. And they want to be able to speak to the needs of the congregation, who can do that better than the elders who are supposed to be in the lives of those, again, that they're in charge of. So the evangelist goes in, he establishes elders, he sets everything up kind of as he's preaching through the elders, then take the role of preaching. And this is the mutual edification is you got two, three, four elders who are sharing some of the preaching duties, depending on what God's putting on their heart, what they're running into in the congregation, what they think is most needed in that congregation. And the evangelist can then go, he's free to go work with another congregation to help establish that eldership, which I think would be most biblical. So in my opinion, the idea of the formal preacher who is overseeing all these programs, and let's be honest, we run every spiritual thing through him. We don't go to the elders for Bible studies. We go to the preacher when somebody's new and baptized, we don't run them through the eldership. We run them to the preacher. Well, preacher, he can go study. That's what we pay him for. I'm all for paying somebody for preaching. I think the elder should get paid for the time and the effort that they put in. And I'm actually more okay with paying elders than I think I am with paying preachers for formally, um, to do.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: The work they're doing.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Yeah, as a full time elder, I'm actually more okay with that. I know you can't, in this economy, you can't pay four guys full time salaries, but I think that's more biblical, in my opinion, than the other.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Let me, I would just clarify my position real quick as I do lean more towards needing a role or they're believing in some kind of a role there. The way that it's currently set up, Joe, where you did speak to this point of, like, the preacher is just basically, he's everybody's spirituality, and if, you know, nobody else feels the need to do anything is, oh, that's the preacher. I don't have to visit anybody. The preacher does that. I don't have to send any cards. Anybody. The preacher does that, I don't have to go, again, do anything outside my comfort zone because preacher does that, that system. I do think there's a lot of holes and flaws in, but as far as overall, you know, what is. Is there a value? Is there a biblical precedent for the role? I think there is, Jack.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: So, three things. One, I think you've said the word plethora on three episodes in a row. So I have.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: I know.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: That's why shout out to three amigos. El guapo over here. Um, first Timothy number two. First Timothy, 517. Your point about elders. It says, the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. So specifically, you're right. This is something they're supposed to be doing. Where? Number three, to give the counterpoint to that, Ephesians 411 does say some as pastors, elders, and teachers. And so those might be separated, implying that they're separate.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: And so I'm fine with teaching some, as I see.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: But this is kind of my point and a point somebody else was making to my article on my site where I wrote about why I'm not encouraging my sons to go into this preacher role that we're talking about here, because I do have a problem with the system. I do have a problem with the one man system will was just talking about and all that. But somebody in the comments said, preach in the New Testament usually is in conjunction with evangelism. You're talking to non Christians, whereas with the church, it's teaching. Even in acts, chapter 20, verse seven, where Paul prolonged his message till midnight, the King James says that he preached. That's not right. It really is more of like he discussed or he reasoned with them that Paul was there. And I don't know if it was a q and a, if it was just a roundtable or whatever it was, but it wasn't. Paul had a sermon going the whole time because there are the words for preach used in the rest of the New Testament, and that doesn't seem to be it.
And so it's interesting. And so what I was getting at with the pastors and teachers, a lot of the denominational folks have teaching pastors and ruling pastors. I don't remember which denominations use this distinction. And the ruling pastors are overseer shepherd types. Teaching pastors are that. And obviously the pastor thing, we don't do things the way they do. But it's not that far from our elderly and preacher thing, except that he is an elder, in a sense, when he's a preacher teacher kind of thing. So you've got preacher because the other thing is when it says an elder must be able to teach, there are plenty that are able to teach. That still aren't going to be the best at presenting a message. But there might be guys that are more gifted towards that. And so I could see that some of your elders might really well and is again one Timothy 517. Those who work hard at preaching and teaching, some of them are going to be more apt and angled towards that than the other ones.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: I agree with that.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: And so I, the idea that the elders are going to be mostly responsible for it, I like that idea a lot. Honestly. I agree with what you say there of paying elders versus paying preachers might actually make a healthier church.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Well, and these giving some as teachers, I do think some men have the gift of teaching. I do. And I don't have any problem with them getting up and teaching the congregation. When a guy is strong in the word, we're seeing apollos here. We're seeing some guys like that. Right? We're strong in the word. He understands the scriptures. He's got a gift for teaching people. I have no problem with him getting up and doing some of that. That's the mutual edification part of what, what I'm talking about of like, I think the elders are primarily responsible. If there is a guy who has a gift within the congregation that we're seeing, we're going to get into this of kind of one of our, the ways we fix the system. So maybe that's next week, I don't know, depending if we get there this week, um, of raising guys up in the church who you go, this guy's got a gift for this. I have no problem sticking up in front of the congregation, letting him preach, letting him teach from time to time. Do I think we need to give him the full salary and, and devote all of our attention and time into making him the spiritual focus of the congregation? No, I don't. I really don't. So I think the system itself is broken. And if we can get a preacher within that system where it's not broken, great. Well, as we're going to find out, that's a lot harder to do because of the. I think we have eight problems that we'll get to one of these days. Um, that I think by the time you lay those out, the idea of having a singular guy that we pay to do these things, it's challenging.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: It's a, for me, here's the other thing that would support your point in response to my point about if there's not necessarily somebody in that preacher role, maybe there's a void of a spiritual authority. If the elders are filling that then there should not be a void of that spiritual authority. The problem is, as we've had eldership episodes before, a lot of elders and a lot of elder ships don't necessarily want to take on that kind of in front of the congregation teaching role. And also the authority thing is more for them, a behind the scenes thing.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Where high end deacons.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's adjust the thermostat and make sure the budget works out. You know, as far as the out in front spiritual authority, we'll let the preacher do that.
So again, add a little bit more support to Joe's point there. Ideally there would not be a void, spiritually speaking, of at least of spiritual authority. Because again, where, where I could see a problem with the mutual education thing is like, well, you know, we have a bunch of guys who are somewhat immersed in the knowledge of the word, but not a ton. Maybe they, maybe it's a little shallower lessons or maybe they don't have as, because they simply don't have as much time to study or whatever it is. And so I can see that leading to, um, again, less bible knowledge for the congregation, less understanding and more shallower sermons, whatever. Ideally, you do have elders, and so there would be no spiritual authority, I guess, would be to kind of further flush that point out. Ideally you would have elders that would be that spiritual authority that would have that depth of knowledge that maybe, you know, the, the preacher nowadays, at most congregations, normally provides. Again, the guy that has 10 hours, 15, however many hours a week to study and to really dig into these things that the average maybe mutualification guy does not.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: So while we're talking on the subject, let's get into sermons, because we've kind of talked around this subject here. And Jack, you mentioned, like a lot of the New Testament, specifically when it comes to christians, is teaching more than preaching. Preaching seems to be preaching the gospel to a lost and dying generation. So what role do sermons play? And specifically, as we think about elders, you know, if the elders are stepping up, if we do have a preacher, I'm going to say this, and this is unless.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Will, I was just going to go back to you to add to the point of what you're talking about. I've got on the outline that we see sermons throughout the New Testament, but every single one of those that I have on there, you got Peter in acts two, you've got Paul in acts 17, you've got Stephen in acts chapter. What is that? Acts chapter seven.
Every single one of those is preaching to who? Who are those? Sermons towards non Christians, the lost. Right. Um, so I just wanted to throw that in there, Joe, before you kind of further elaborate on your point there, when we see those. Oh, yeah. Well, there were sermons in the. In the New Testament. There were a lot of them, but at least the ones that are, like, fully spelled out. Like, this is what they said. A lot of them are sermons to the lost, those who are not part of the church.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: I will. The book of Hebrews is often considered to be a sermon written out.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: And obviously, it's pretty lengthy. It's very detailed. It's funny enough, we're big fans of expository preaching, where you kind of go into a verse and break it down and how it applies, rather than jumping all over the Bible. And there's more exposition in Hebrews than there is in any of the other quote unquote, sermons in the New Testament. And so it's kind of the only major example of that. But, yeah, the idea that that was preached somewhere to a church is kind of your strongest argument on the counterpoint. There's.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I was going to bring that up of Hebrews maybe, but that would be the only that I can see. Here's how I. My perfect world worship service. I think there is an exhortation, or there is an uplifting message, ten minutes long, something like that. And I think you spend the majority of the time on the Lord's supper, and I think you have a Bible class that runs for a while, and I think the Bible class would be in my. In the perfect world. That's where a lot of people are going to be able to engage, and that's where the majority of the teaching is going to come from. I'm kind of out on sermons, and this sounds horrible as a preacher, but I'll tell you, I've. Jack, I think of your sermon. You preach a great sermon on Sunday. Alyssa and I were rehashing it by the time this was Tuesday night. I want to say maybe Wednesday morning, we were talking about some of the points that you had brought up. It was already getting hazy. We're talking like, when's it. Okay, did he say it was that. Was that in this sermon, or was that in a different sermon, like Wednesday morning? And it was already hazy in our minds as to what you preached. It was a great sermon. You made some really good points, some of them very clearly stuck in our minds. You know, two or three of them. But there are some points that you made that we are already. I'm kind of out on sermons as the principle, building the body up. Oh, preacher, you stepped on my toes. Great. Go change.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Especially as the focal point of the worship service, too.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: Exactly. And most of the time, you stepped on the toes. Does anything tangibly change? No. There's no follow up. There's no accountability. There's no, there's no, like, getting together and discussing these things. And so if you remember it throughout the week and apply it on your own life, fantastic. How many of us is that going to actually change? How many people are going to hear something? It's the same as like, okay, I'm really in a golf right now. If I watch a golf YouTube video and I go, okay, I'm going to go practice that swing throughout the week. Nobody's following up on me. I may not be practicing it appropriately. I don't know. I think my coaching.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Your technique.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: Nobody's coaching my technique. Nobody's giving me any feedback on any of this.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: And so I come back, game, have.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: You seen your game? Are you kidding me?
[00:24:32] Speaker A: I don't play for a reason.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: You can't critique anybody.
Yeah, if we'll said that, that's thing a lot more. Yeah, we, we play together. But no, to my point, you can watch a YouTube video and you can get all the technique in the world and you could have Tiger woods himself explain it. If you don't know what you're doing and there's nobody to critique it throughout the week, you're toast. I look at the sermon as a very similar thing. You can listen to a 30 minutes sermon. It's like, whoa, that is a fantastic. The other thing, some people, they're going to change for the majority. They're going to go by Tuesday. They're going to forget it. I don't like that as the central point of worship.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: And the other thing, to add to that point of not being able to take a lot from the sermon, you know how difficult it is for people to remain engaged in lecture style, in a lecture style format anyway?
[00:25:17] Speaker A: It is literally the worst form of learning.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: I love our congregation. I love preaching for our congregation. But you know how many times I'm up there and I'm watching people's eyes drift? We got a lot of young kids at our congregation, a lot of distractions. You can visibly see when people are tuning out. It's like they literally did not hear the last two minutes of what I just said. And I spent 30 minutes prepping those two minutes, you know what I mean? And so, like, there, as far as a, as far as engagement and as far as taking things from a lesson, it is true that a class type setting where you're asking questions and, you know, not that you, like, let everybody else lead the class, but you're maybe driving the discussion, but certain, certain people are asking questions or you're. You're bringing up this discussion point and it is more interactive, it is way more engaging, and it is going to stick with you way more. It just is like that has been. You know, there have been studies that have shown that as well. To Jack's point of a lecture style format is the worst type of learning as far as retention goes, as far as retaining what you learned, it is very difficult because again, you know, Jack has, like, mastered. I feel like the 25, 23 minutes sermon. Me and Joe can't get under 30 minutes to save our lives. It is so difficult to keep people's. Not just keep people's attention, but to even give them. Okay, here's my three main application points, or here's what you need to take home from. From today's lesson. It's so difficult for them to remember even that. And again, the way that we preach, we're usually walking through the text and then we get to the application point. If they're tuned in, tuned out to 40% of that, it does make it seem pretty, pretty futile, makes it seem pretty useful.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: And I want to bring Jack in on this, but to further this point, I took three homiletics classes in Bear Valley, read the books, you know, homiletically speaking. The entire point is, hey, guys, we live in a TikTok generation, and at the time, which was a while back, we did not have TikTok.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Was it MySpace generation back then? Sorry, Facebook.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Facebook was getting big. Facebook. No, that's Jack's, actually. I think Facebook had just started. Jack's old. Jack's very old. Yeah, he was definitely MySpace. But look, we got Twitter with small characters and whatnot. And so the whole point is you need to get in and out. And I remember learning in my first analytics class, you basically have, what did they say? 30 seconds to hook them, I think. And if you don't in the first.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: I've heard 7 seconds. I've heard.
[00:27:31] Speaker C: Yeah, some people say all the way down to 7 seconds, like, you have very little time. And all of it is about creating engagement for the person.
I'm sorry. There are some people that are very gifted at that and. But they come up with the goofy illustrations and I'm ultra engaged and maybe I remember, and that's fantastic. I shouldn't have to bring up a balance beam on the, on the stage in order to create an illustration that you remember. I shouldn't. This is God's word. I'm not saying we should make it dull. God's word is exciting, but in a class setting. And this is why, going back to my golf illustration, I can watch a video of Tiger woods, or I can go be trained by a guy who has never even come close to Tiger woods. But you know what? The training in person from a golf professional who is, again, infinitely lower than Tiger woods, that's going to be way more helpful. And we can get into, this is our lectureship circle where we get onto this, the lectureship circuit. We can look at some of the best guys in lectureships or can go, man, I'd love to hear a lesson from him. Could you imagine listening to him every Sunday? You know, if an elder of your congregation came and showed up to your house and helped you during the week, how much more helpful that would be than you listening to the best of the best of the best preachers in the church of Christ? It's the same as me watching a video. Tiger woods versus getting actual lessons. So, Jack, I want to bring you in on this, because maybe I'm off on it, but, man, I'm really out on the traditional 30 minutes sermon. Really doing much of anything for anybody at this point, especially with our attention span of like two minutes.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I had to look it up, and it was five years ago. I wrote an article called preaching is overrated. People went nuts, especially preachers. And I was. I was employed, as, in a pulpit job at that time when I wrote it. And so I was saying about my own job, and I wasn't saying that talking about the Bible is overrated. I wasn't saying that ministry work is overrated, any of that stuff, but the sermon itself, that we expect so much to happen. And it's just absurd in that, like, if your kids, whether you send them to school, homeschool, and whatever you do, if. If you just send them for 30 minutes a week, what do you expect they're going to get out of that? What do you think is going to happen from that? And it's just a lecture. There's no interaction. There's no practical usefulness to anything they're doing.
As you said, Joe the visiting with the elder, sitting across the table and discussing the word with somebody, the Bible classes, where we can sit and ask questions, things like that. People always get more out of those things. In fact, a congregation, my first congregation, I preached at. After a while, they asked me how, hey, instead of having two sermons on a Sunday, which to me is in hindsight is such a ridiculous idea, that's still a thing some places. Instead of that, let's have a discussion over the sermon on Sunday night. And we've switched to something like that here now, where people can come back and ask their questions about the sermon because it does make it stick better. It's another way of learning. And so this idea of, we're going to have one guy get up every week, talk to us for 30 minutes, and the, the weakest christians are only going to come. They're Sunday morning only people. They're going to come and hear the sermon and we're going to hope that that brings them into maturity. It's one size fits all. That's one of my other problems with it is you've got somebody who was baptized last year and you've got somebody who's been going to church for 40 years and deep in the word and all that, and you've got to speak to all of these people at the same time. And good preachers can do that well, but it's still, there's only so much you can do. I mean, it's such a limiting thing. And when you look at the Bible, you look at them being hospitable with one another. They're breaking bread from house to house and daily devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and all those things that they were doing. And some of that's not. Yeah, we can't daily do all of these things. But on the other hand, I guess that's just the way to sum up, is we expect way too much from sermons and way too little from other stuff. To your point about lectureships and all that, we have more premium preaching now than we've ever had before through sermon, you know, through lectureships, through YouTube videos, through podcasts, things like, you can get sermons any time of day from, from the most talented people in the world.
Church isn't stronger for it. I mean, we have a lectureship in the church or seminary, like something, some big conference every other weekend. Genuinely, there's got to be 30, 40 of them at this point, almost all year round. And yet the church continues to shrink. Like, we're not going out and busting down doors, we're not going out there bringing people in droves, but we've got more preaching than ever. Well, is that really the answer?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: I would say, joe, I think you referenced this a second ago. There is something to be said for a power punch of a little exhortation of a, you know, God put it on my heart or whatever, I need to declare this rather than, you know, what do you guys think about this in a discussion there? There is, there is a difference there, and I think there is some need to some extent other than that I don't have any disagreement with you guys. I mean, again, the 35 minutes sermon, especially the ones that are going to do it twice on Sunday, so what is that, 70 minutes, you know, an hour and ten minutes per week that most people are not going to retain? It does seem like that is when it comes to bringing people to spiritual maturity, when it comes to just growing people's Bible knowledge, when it comes to teaching people how to study the Bible, sermons just fall very short. You know, how many christians don't know how to study. You know, how many christians don't know how to walk through a text or anything. A lot of that is, you know, topical preaching and whatnot. But I think, again, the sermon format, as opposed to something that is more interactive, something that is more engaging, Bible class discussion, whatever, is partly what is contributing to people that don't know how to read the Bible. They don't know how to study the Bible. They don't know how to walk through a four verse text and pull things out. And this is, you know, this, this connects to this. And the, here's four imperatives that, that you see in these four verses or whatever it is.
Sermons are just not super conducive to that.
[00:33:08] Speaker C: And when you think about a preacher as it currently stands in the system, we are rewarded for those who are fantastic orators, those who are just really, really good at. Maybe they're not good on the personal end. Maybe they've got some serious sin issues. I mean, I. It is so sad to see what we were watching Ashley Madison thing. How many preachers were attached to the Ashley Madison leak, which was, I think, 2015 crazy, almost a decade ago, how many preachers have come out with raging porn addictions, cheating on their wives, all of these things which we're going to get to later in terms of glass House and how big a problem that is. But my goodness, they can preach a lesson. They're fantastic orators. Why don't we go for the heart? And maybe, again, the guy has to have a gift. He can't be dry as dirt. At the same time, we put so much emphasis on the sermon that we're almost willing to put up with anything as long as the guy brings in a crowd and and, you know, is fantastic where he keeps people engaged. That, to me, is a poor litmus test as to whether a guy is a strong leader and a good leader of the church just because he's really good on his illustrations and he can keep people for longer than two minutes.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Well, we're going to get to the broken system here in just a bit. But, like, that's why guys get hired, is you look at resumes. The guys that have decent resumes, you bring them in, and the one that preaches the best sermon gets the job, usually. That's weird.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I think this begs the. Or this not begs the question. Jack taught us. What begs the question means this brings up the question, what is it that we should be looking for out of preachers? To Joe's point, a lot of people are looking for the man. Maybe he keeps my attention better than most because of his hand gestures or because he, you know, his voice inflection, which I do think is important when you're communicating. But, like, you know, it's, it's the path. The powerful orator, as Joe said, the guy who, who just comes out with the best illustrations and starts off with the best story. Like, is that what you're looking for in a preacher? That's what you have to ask, because if it is, I do think that it falls short. What we should be looking for in somebody who fills that role or somebody who leads the discussion, Bible class, whatever, to me, is somebody who can effectively guide somebody through the word, somebody who can effectively communicate the word and not just communicate it in a sense, again, of like, here's what it says, now go and do it. But more so, in a way of like, let me show you how I got to this point. Let me show you how I pulled this out of the text. Let me effectively communicate, walk you through, guide you. Guide you through the scriptures to make application for our lives. That needs to be, to me, the ultimate, you know, as Joe said, litmus test of a preacher. And to a lot of preachers defense. There are a lot of guys out there who do a great job of that, who. That is their objective when they go out and preach. That's not everybody's objective. And again, we do condition people, we incentivize people to kind of have the. The just banger of a sermon and the one that, you know, you raise your voice the most or you pound the pulpit the most, or whatever.
To me, the question you have to answer is, what are you looking for out of a preacher? And if it's anything other than can you effectively communicate the word of God to people and again show people how you got to your application points or whatever, then you're missing the mark somewhere.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: And my favorite thing to criticize or to, I don't know, the thing I dislike the most. Man, he used 95 scriptures in that sermon. It was so loaded with Bible. No, that was one of the least biblical sermons you'll ever hear because he didn't give you the context of any of them. He just said they mean what he says they mean and threw them in there. There's a place for topical preaching, but I think that's something that in certain corners of our brotherhood are so like that's considered really biblical preaching when it's.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Usually, let me just, let me just say this and then we'll get into the next section here and we can go ahead and move on. On Jack's point, it is way easier to preach a sermon when you have 95 scriptures because you know what reading 95 scriptures does? It fills the time. It fills the time as opposed to man. I got three verses that I got to pull 25 minutes out of. It's a lot more difficult to do that way. It is again, the 95 scriptures things does for all three of us who have preached. It makes it a whole lot easier to preach when you're constantly spending three minutes turning to another passage and reading it.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: And even if it doesn't, there's just something that's like hey, good morning brethren. First John 3310, like you don't have to quote, jack's gone off on this before. Well Jesus loves us, Matthew 945. And like guys, you don't have to quote a scripture for every last thing that you're doing. But it makes it sound extra biblical. It makes it sound great. Like how about you dig into the text and this is what I love about Hebrews, if that is a sermon is it takes several different Old Testament texts, but at least three different Old Testament texts. And to Jacks Boyne expositorily breaks it down to where really he makes a central point of Christ being better than everything else. But its a beautiful way that he breaks it down. And so many preachers nowadays, again, theyre rewarded for being good speakers and for using a bazillion scriptures out of context. Man I don't think that helps. But to Wills point, we do have a lot more to get to. So we're going to move on here into the next part which is I think we do have a stereotype problem as it pertains to preachers in particular. I think there are a lot of negative stereotypes with preachers.
There are three specifically kind of three categories I think we get into. But as far as it goes with the stereotypes, will, it's your outline. I'll kind of let you get us into this. So know what your thoughts are on it, because I think there's a few different ways you could take it.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And just to reiterate the qualifiers, this is not meant to be a full out assault on preachers. At the same time, I would. I would challenge a lot of our listeners. When you think of your current preacher, what comes to mind? When you think of your current preacher, what comes to mind, what characteristics, what is his Persona, what level of spiritual wisdom? And hopefully, again, this is where, again, the qualifier, we're making some generalizations here has to come into play. There are a lot of guys who you might look up to as, you know, maybe some of our listeners, they think of, you know, really knowledgeable in the scriptures. Maybe it's an older guy. They think of, like, man, he is grounded in the text. That's great. I think a lot.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Go ahead. Just before you get to that, there's another side of that. If it also says something about you. A lot of people are dismissive of their preacher. They just don't think very highly of him and or the work that he does. And sometimes that's earned, but sometimes it's on, like you said earlier. Well, that, well, we all can be the coach, and so there's two ways that that goes. I just want to say.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, great point. So my point here with the stereotype problem is, I think a lot of times we have these various stereotypes with preachers that, unfortunately, the preachers play into a bit. Um, I'll get to. To more of that in just a second.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: We.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: We kind of came up with three categories here that, unfortunately, a lot of preachers, not all, but three categories that a lot of preachers can fall into. That, again, feel like we. We feel like they're missing the mark.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: Like there.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: There's something off about it, specifically in their. In their job and what their. Their role is supposed to be. The first category is we have a lot of preachers who are just, frankly, too young. They're too young. This is where we need to get into kind of the preaching school problem, you might say, where we have guys that are going through preaching school, coming out at goodness, 21, 22 years old. A lot of them not married well, they just graduated preaching school. So what do they need to go. Do they need to go find a pulpit job? And it just, it's, to me, there is a bit of a problem when you have somebody who is, biblically speaking, supposed to be a spiritual authority in your congregation. He is supposed to be, you know, not usurping the elders in any way, but in some way leading your congregation, at least on a spiritual level. And for a lot of people, this is the 24 year old guy who doesn't have any life experience that he doesn't have. You know, he took two, however many years of preaching school, so he might know the text fairly well, or at least he thinks he knows it fairly well. But this is the guy's linear congregation. And so just, like, kind of naturally, you can, you can't really blame people. They look at the guy that's 23, and it's like, man, that's great that he's here. You know, it's really cool, you know, kind of patronizing, pat him on the head type of thing. But they're not going to take him all that seriously.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: He's 23 years old.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: And speaking of, speaking as somebody who was 18, filling a pulpit, like, I fully understand. That's, I'm sure, where a lot of people are with me, like, yeah, man, it's great to have him here. He's young, energetic, whatever. But again, kind of like, let's pat him on the head. Grateful that he's here, but people aren't looking to him as the spiritual authority because it's difficult. It'd be the same thing if we have a 22 year old president of the United States. You know, how many people would look at him and go, man, I'm. That's really cool. I mean, maybe he's passionate or whatever, great in front of a camera, but it's going to be hard to take that guy seriously. Why? Because he's 22? That's just the way it works.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: So let me play to the other side, though. Um, I agree with you, but what would you say to first Timothy 412? Timothy's young. Let no one look down on your youthfulness. Uh, what would you say to the, the people that I'm sure are listening going, but what about Timothy? He's a young man. He's leading a congregation. How would you respond to that?
[00:41:55] Speaker B: I'd say, first of all, we don't know precisely how young. I mean, that word young. Don't let no one despise your, your youth. Your youthfulness is a bit relative. But, yeah, I mean, we know he was not a seasoned veteran, so to speak. And I think my answer to that would be what Paul is saying is, like, you look at your, like people are going to naturally look at your. They're going to look down on your youthfulness naturally. Don't give them a reason to. Don't give them a.
Don't give that any legitimacy, essentially. And my problem with this is a lot of young preachers do give it legitimacy. They do, you know, kind of add some legitimacy to the two young thing, whether it's, again, not married and just kind of, I don't, I don't know. I feel like, again, Paul's warning to Timothy was like, look, people are going to think this about you because you're young. They're going to despise you or look down on your youthfulness. Don't give them any reason to. And we do have a lot of guys who. And not all of them again, but we do have a lot of guys who are giving some legitimacy to that.
[00:42:51] Speaker C: Paul had also established the church and established Timothy in that role. So when you had the backing of the apostle Paul in that role, there's a little more legitimacy to that as well, where if they have a problem with Timothy.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Right, correct.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: When they have a problem with Timothy, it's like, hey, guys, here's a letter, you know what I mean? Coming from Paul himself. Yeah, there's probably a little bit showing up.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Like, is this letter of recommendation acceptable? It's from the apostle Paul, like.
[00:43:15] Speaker C: Right, exactly.
But you also see in second Timothy. Timothy. I don't know if it's due to his youth or whatever it is. Timothy's given up. Timothy struggling. Timothy's afraid. Timothy is, is, you know, not fighting that timid. And so.
Oh, my word. Oh, my word. Cut that out of the.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Somebody somewhere, one of the deep thinkers is cracking up, going, man, that guy's funny. All the other ones are like, he's got to shut up. But one guy, I did it for that person.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: Exactly. So anyway, Timothy. Yeah, great. Now I'm never going to be able to say that without thinking of that. So thank you for that.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:43:55] Speaker C: But you see that on the back end. And luckily, he does have a mentor in Paul. And this is why we talk about mentors. But this is the importance of young preachers not going out into the abyss and not having any older mentors, anybody who's going to help them, because how many of those young guys burn out? How many of those guys get into small congregations? They don't have anybody to look up to, nobody holding them accountable, nobody holding their feet to the fire going, hey, get busy doing something. There are. Jack, you had actually made a very interesting point about speaking of revelation. Going back to that. I don't know if that's something you want to get into, because it is pure speculation, but I think it's interesting regarding the Paul and Timothy discussion of two Timothy as it relates to the seven churches.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Oh, that's too, too far afield of a theory.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: It's so interesting.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: Mental speculation.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Save it for the deep end.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Write it down. There you go. Yeah, people want more of that and less timid theory, but, you know, you get what you get.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: So, Jack, do you have any, any comment on the too young aspect, though, of the category the preachers can fall into?
[00:44:49] Speaker A: So with all three of these stereotypes, not going to get to the other ones yet, but they, there's a thread running through them that I really feel like the preacher should be one of, if not the most respected and not just respected, but respectable person in the congregation, uh, respected by people on the outside world. They encounter of encounter him, but the kind of, like in the military or even with the president, like, you respect the title, you respect the office kind of thing. I think christians need to develop a respect for their preachers, and we'll talk to that a little bit more in a minute.
But I think he also needs to be the most respectable man that even if he were not the preacher, if he were anywhere else, if he would have worked in the grocery store or the bank or whatever else, that people would look at it and be like, that's a good man, that's a strong man. And to the point about one Timothy 412, it's, you be the example of what a Christian is in your conduct, in your speech, your love, faith, purity. Like, you've got to be a cut above. And with the young guy, you've got guys that have worked their whole career, you've got businessmen, you've got people that have been christians for decades and all that, and they've just been in the trenches this whole time. And they see this young kid that kind of can preach a sermon and, you know, has his degree from a christian college or preaching school.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: And that does lead to a lot of arrogance. In some instances, it can lead to.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: The arrogance, but it also can just be like, this guy doesn't know anything about the real world, about life. He doesn't.
And I'm saying this not, this is very hard. I'm not. Because it's gonna be looked at as a shot against certain preachers. There might be certain people listening, like, hey, that's me. I'm not taking a shot at any of you. I'm taking a shot at myself ten years ago.
I've learned a lot from that in looking back. I just wrote this the other day. Why on earth did anyone give 24 year old me I started the job the week I turned 24? Why did anyone give me a preaching job? Well, because, again, I could deliver a sermon. I had been to preaching school. I knew the Bible fairly well. Those are parts of the job. But as far as, like, the respectability aspect of it, if you are going to be the person that's going to go in and reprove, rebuke, exhort, and all those hard things that Timothy was called to do, you've got to have people's respect. And young guys can have that respect, but it has to be earned, that respectability, the characteristics in yourself have to be demonstrable to everybody. You've got to be that cut above. I was not, and a lot of times they're not. A lot of the guys I went to preaching school were not. And we were just young guys doing it because that's where we found ourselves. And so that point of the two young, at the very least, you've got to be somebody that people can look at and be like, even if I think he's young, man, he's really got.
I can trust that guy with my spirituality.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: That's exactly what I was going to say, is that we're not saying that just like the president, there has to. You got to be. You got to be a minimum of 35 before you can be a preacher. We're not necessarily saying that. I do. I appreciate the way Jack said. It is like, if you are going to be a preacher who is very young, understand that it is much more of a battle to earn people's respect. Then, like you, you have to be not just one cut above, you got to be two or three or four or five, six cuts above everybody when it comes to earning people's respect, because, again, Joe brought first Timothy 412. People just naturally are going to look down on you for your youthfulness or because of how old you are. And so, you know, the response to that doesn't necessarily have to be, well, then I guess I just won't preach. So I'm 35. It just needs to be, okay, well, then I got to level up even more. I've got to be even more dedicated. I've got to be even more in my personal life. I've got to even be even more dedicated to not looking at porn or to be helped to be out serving people or to do whatever it is. That's just kind of the way it is. Same thing of, like, when you start at a company, guess what? You don't get all the cushy benefits and maybe the nice things that the guys that have been there for 30 years, you know, already have. And so what do you have to do if you want. If you want to get those things maybe a little bit earlier? You got to level up. You got to show up on Saturdays. You got to work some overtime. You got to cover some shifts. You got to do whatever it is to get to that point where, like, man, this guy's. He's really earned it. He's dependable, he's reliable, whatever. You don't get it instantly. And I think a lot of times with this too young category, we just kind of don't communicate that of the most respectable guy in the congregation. We think, oh, well, I'm the preacher, so I deserve the respect. Not necessarily.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: And if you are a young preacher, I would also encourage you, the same way that Timothy had Paul, find yourself a godly mentor, maybe a preacher who's done it for a long time. Make sure you have somebody who can back you, but who also can exhort you and edify you, encourage you, but say, hey, get straight, right? If you're really struggling in certain areas, you need that. As a young guy, we realize we're not solving the minister problem here. There are always going to be preachers who are getting into it young, but we have to be very careful of that. But the second stereotype, getting into that, will, you just kind of touched on this a little bit of the too immature. The too immature. And you may think those go hand in hand, but not really, because you can be too immature and be the 45 year old goofball on the pulpit that is always self deprecating. Um, just goofy, you know what I mean? And nobody really takes him seriously, and he's the butt of every single joke. And unfortunately, we do see this within our pulpits where there is. He's kind of the perpetual kid in some ways. I think you see this more in the youth minister role, because that's he's got to stay relevant for the kids type of thing, which I also don't agree with, as we've talked about before. But I think you can see this in the pulpits as well, of a guy who doesn't really take himself that seriously. He's not ultra self disciplined.
This sounds really mean, but we said it before, it's very difficult to take your cues of self discipline from a guy who's very overweight, who is not taking care of what he has in his own life, and is basically showing immaturity across the board, plays video games all the time, things like that. That is a sign, in my opinion, of the immaturity that fills the pulpit. And this person ought to be one of the most mature in terms of how he conducts himself. If everybody's going to look to him as a spiritual leader of the congregation, that's a massive weight. Let not many of you become teachers. James, three. One. For this reason, because you will incur stricter judgment, and there will be people that are looking at you. And if you're too immature to handle some of the pressure, especially the glass house and everything else, it's a dangerous game to fill our pulpits with immature men who don't take themselves seriously and who nobody else takes seriously.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: There's two things we got to balance here that are tough, because I don't believe you have to be mister Stoic, stone faced. Like humor is. Is a part of life. That's a gift from God.
[00:51:04] Speaker C: I very much agree. I agree.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Stupid jokes like I just did a minute ago, like, that's important. There are the guys that get up and start every sermon with a joke, and everything just has to be played off with humor. And there's a time to be serious. And if you can't do that, and if you can't treat worship seriously and kind of let everyone know there's a gravity to what we're doing here, that's not good. But again, you don't have to be Mister Stoic and stone face. You got to strike that balance. The other thing is, there's a term that used to be used and isn't really much anymore, is it's a man of God.
And that sounds weird, and it might go a little bit too far, because the balance here is we don't want to put this man up on a pedestal because that sets people up for failure. That sets us up for disappointment. That's not a good thing to do. Don't look at anybody that way. On the other hand, this is God's man in the pulpit. He is different than the rest of us. He is somebody who has dedicated his life to this. Paul talks about this as the workers worthy of his wages, yes, but also the respect. And this is a dedicated lifestyle that not everyone's going to do. And so we talked last week about like, let's not downplay the role of the everyday. What? Quote unquote average christians, on the other hand, let's not downplay the role of the preacher. He's a very important guy. And you brought up the butt of every joke. I really want to encourage people on this one. And you might be listening to this going, man, my preacher is all these things. I don't respect that guy at all. Respect the office, but also help build him up, encourage him. Because I've been places as a guest speaker multiple times where the members will say something like, boy, it's sure good we brought in a real preacher this week, huh, buddy? And they elbow the preacher, and you can just see he goes along with it. He rolls with the punches, but he also dies a little inside. Well, you know, seeing that on, just don't do that. If you've got a guy who has dedicated himself, he's showing up visiting the hospital for your grandma who's sick, he's there with a meal, him and his wife, and they're having you in their home and things like that, and then you're going to turn around and do that to him. Don't do that.
[00:52:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: Show him some respect.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: It is a role deserving of respect. It is a role that's a challenge. And preachers sometimes can get a little too self congratulatory about how hard the job is about that. You're always on call about the. The emotional toll and. But it's very real in a sense. One of the reasons I stopped is when we had the twins, Allison was like, look, you're. It's Friday night at 11:00 at night, and you're thinking about who wasn't there last Sunday. It's, you know, Saturday afternoon, and we're out at the park with the kids, and you're thinking about, I got to call somebody and check on their surgery they had or whatever. Like, you can't stop. And family time, it's a real divide. And so the guys that are doing that, please respect them. Please realize the value they're adding to your life and don't tear them down like that. I mean, be the guys that hold up Moses arms, because maybe you're not Moses in this situation, but you can hold up his arms. Don't pull them down.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a. That's a very needed point. And as far as this category of two immature, I would say, like, numerically, percentage wise, this is probably the smallest percentage of people that would fall into this area. But I do. I do see this as a problem that some preachers do play into. But I appreciate Jack's point about, like, yeah, if they're the butt of every joke, it means that people are making the jokes. So you, you know, you should probably be stand up and go ahead.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: Some do it to themselves. Some play themselves off as. I'm just a big goofball. Oh, boy. Look at me.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: That's more what I. Yeah, that's more what I was speaking to at the.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Beginning is like, don't have your office lined with funko pops and bobbleheads like, you are God's man here. You need to be somebody that they can respect and look up to, and because they're going to, whether you like that or not. And again, don't put them on a pedestal. Don't put yourself on a pedestal. Don't make yourself above everybody else or anything like that, but you got to at least take yourselves, dress like it, show up on time, take care of yourself, show that you respect yourself, because if you don't, they're not going to.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right. Let's get into this third category before. We probably will have to wrap this week and save the real juicy stuff for next week. The third category that I would say the preachers can fall into is just simply being too out of touch. So we have too young, too immature, and too out of touch. And you might think that, oh, he's talking about old, older preachers, and I do think that is a part of it. You have the. The older preacher who kind of refuses to stay informed on any kind of cultural issue, any kind of relevant problem, any kind of, again, stuff that his congregation is going through, stuff that. That families within his. Within his congregation, they got kids that are going through this or, again, just doesn't really stay informed on any of that stuff. And it is more so worried about, just let me just preach through whatever it is and just. Just out of touch. Out of touch with this congregation, out of touch with society, out of touch with, hey, what does my congregation need to hear? You have that end of things, and that generally is an older guy, but you also have, and, you know, this does not necessarily have to be an older guy. You have guys who, as we've said before, they just want to rehash baptism and mechanical instruments of worship, 50 sermons a year, and evangelism, those three. Kind of the trifecta there that those. Those three things out of, what is it, 52 Sundays, you can have 104 sermons. Those three things make up 60 of the 104 sermons that go on throughout the year.
That's pretty out of touch. As we've said before, that is pretty out of touch that you're talking to a group of people who's, you know, 97% of them are baptized. But your entire lesson, your entire 30 minutes sermon is going to be on baptism. Listen, it's great to have a baptism sermon every now and then. It's great to talk about why we shouldn't use instruments in worship. It's helpful to talk about, you know, evangelism and going out and reaching people.
It's pretty out of touch to say, yeah, that needs to make up 60% of my preaching repertoire is to have that as my, again, 60% of my sermons every single year. That's pretty out of touch as well. And so that would kind of be the two sides to this that I would. That I would bring up here with the two out of touch preachers. You've got. Again, this is going around the church of Christ circuit. Guys that are getting up, talking about the title for their lesson is why the new heavens, new earth teaching is harmful or is not harmless. I forget what the title was, but it's like, okay, we've got people that are facing issues with transgenderism. We've got people trying to figure out, can I use IVF? We've got people trying to all of these real world things, and we're over here worried about, you know, what someone said about a new heavens, new earth issue.
Just pretty out of touch. Guys, what would you add to this point that I think does encapsulate a.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Pretty big percentage of preachers long time deep thinkers probably heard me tell the story about going to a preacher's lunch, and every year, every month, they'd have one of the local guys get up and talk about a topic he was passionate about. And my brother in law got up to speak about pornography addiction and helping that, helping guys with our church and that. And there was a guy, and he was an older guy. As Will said, this doesn't always have to be older guys, but he just goes, well, those perverts just need to be told to stop.
Like, I'm sorry, every man in your church who struggles with that, and I guarantee there are, because the stats are what they are, knows they cannot talk to you, that their church is somewhere they will be vilified and called a pervert and not have any help to deal with their sin. They're being told, you're on your own. I like, it was just like, that's a fireable offense, being that out of touch being that callous being that just not caring enough to know about the world around you and things like that because he was stuck in 1970s thing of people slinking into an old store and walking out the brown paper bag. Come on, man. Like kids are getting this put in front of them on the school bus at eight years old. Like you've got to know. And we've talked before about people in the workplace, their trans pronouns and all the things some of the examples will gave there of things that people are really dealing with and we are stuck on things that matter, but that we should not just be rehashing over and over and over. As will said.
[00:58:45] Speaker C: The only thing id add to that is why would we do that in a lot of situations? Safety.
Their job is at stake. Were going to get into this in the next one. So this is a bit of a preview with the broken system of it. But their job is at stake. If they wade into IVF, if they wade into pornography, if they wait into transgenderism, because so and so whos, you know, hey, half their family goes to this church and they just had one of their kids come out as trans. You can't preach on that.
Those are the type of issues that I think they're encouraged to stay out of touch. They're encouraged to stay above it all in their ivory tower incentivize at least. Yeah, correct. They're, they're incentivized to discuss new heavens, new earth as opposed to the pornography epidemic because now you're really stepping on toes. The average person doesn't care about new heavens, new earth for the most part. I mean, you got scholars that care about it and that's about it. Preachers debate it amongst themselves. The average person who's going through the trenches really needs to hear that sermon on pornography, really needs to hear the sermon on raising up godly kids and how gentle parenting is ruining kids. But whoa, whoa. We got members here who do that. So they are once again incentivized to stay out of touch. In my opinion. That's part of the broken system. Again, we want to get into in the next one. So I'm not going to go too far into it. But yeah, I do think this is a stereotype for a reason, that preachers do want to stay above some of the real difficult topics. But then you also think like, am I really going to get up and preach an entire sermon on IVF?
I've seen it done, actually. And they, they said, yeah, at one of the churches and they had a woman who went to the elders and said, if that guy ever gets up and preaches again, I'm leaving. Me and my family are leaving, and I don't think you ever preached again. So, yeah, these things actually happen where somebody actually gets them and does it. But this is where Bible class and everything else we talked about, the beginning come into play of working people through things, in asking questions and reasoning with them and everything else. Maybe the sermon isn't the best place to do it. So I know that this, this episode probably seems contradictory because we spent the first half saying, maybe preachers aren't even relevant, which I think they are to a certain degree. The second half saying, well, here's all the problems. Look, once again, please do not bash your preachers. That is not the point of this is to bash. I know I got a little carried away in some of those, and I don't want people getting upset at their preachers or at us for saying, wow, you're just bashing the pulpits. No, we are calling out real world problems saying these things, I think. And if there are preachers listening to us, please don't be these things. You know, please be the mature guy.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: Is we had eldership episodes where we called elders or we challenged elders. Hey, quit being the people. The guy that just worries about the budget start getting in people. So, like, kind of calling them to more. That's all we're doing here, especially with this last half of the episode of, like, if you're, you know, the preacher who, you know, you're not really trying to be all that respectable, you're really young, or you're really immature and goofy, like, don't do that. Or you're really out of touch. Like, please stay plugged in and get in touch with, with what people need. If you don't fall in any of those three categories, then we're not really necessarily talking to you. We're talking to the, to those, again, same as the elder who is in people's homes, who's having people out for coffee, who's really shepherding. We weren't talking to them like, they are the ones that are doing it very well. And so if you are a preacher listening to this, maybe feeling like, man, they're beating up on me. If you're any of those three categories, I would encourage you, just don't do that. And if you're not, then stay tuned for next week because we are going to get into a lot of what we believe is not necessarily the preacher's fault, problems with the system, how the system, the way, again, the way the current church of Christ pulpit preacher system, there's a lot of components to it. There's a lot of different aspects, kind of a big massive spider web of things that, that interweave with each other. It's not necessarily a step by step thing, but, man, a lot of these components of the, of the system are broken. A lot of these aspects we feel like drastically need to, or need to be drastically improved. And so I would encourage everybody, man, come back next week. There's going to be a lot of good, good discussion here. Again, a lot of this, you know, is not necessarily at the fault of preachers themselves. A lot of these things that we see as problems fall, you know, fall at the feet of church leaders or fall at the feet of just, again, we'll save it for next week. But I did want to encourage anybody who's listening who might be a preacher. Like, we understand the difficulties. We understand, Jack referenced the, you know, kind of the things that jobs, that the job calls you to that maybe other jobs don't have to deal with. So stay tuned for next week as we're going to get into that. Guys, what would you have to wrap us up? Anything at all?
[01:02:58] Speaker A: I get a lot of comments and messages from people very frustrated with their preachers. They won't touch the things, you know, some of the complaints that we've had here. And then these are very real things. Obviously, we agree with you on those.
Be careful. Honor these people, even if it, even if they, you think they're just doing the job very poorly. I feel like David with Saul, like, I'm not going to kill the Lord's anointed. I'll let God handle that part of it. And I think there's some of that not to kill him, but like, hey, this is somebody trying to serve God. And even the worst of them in a lot of ways has made sacrifices doing things for God. They think they're doing the right thing.
That sounds so harsh. But even the ones that you just don't agree with at all or think that they're doing a bad job, honor them to that degree. The criticism comes from a place of love. It comes from a place of respect.
Again, we'll get into the system there. There's real problems here for sure. But let's also not just throw all these guys under the bus. I don't want that to be the takeaway from this. We want to be thankful for those guys. We want to appreciate those guys while still at the same time saying some things do need to change. And so that's, I just want to make sure I leave it on that note. Joe, did you have anything?
[01:04:03] Speaker C: No, no. I think that's a good, good note to leave it on, one of encouragement that we can get hot fired about it. But at the end of the day, we are grateful for the men that have dedicated their lives. I remember going to preaching school, Bear Valley, and my best friend Tony Johnson, through our preaching school. He had come from seriously well paying careers and he felt called by God to come serve in the ministry and to become a missionary. And man, the amount of respect I had for that guy in his fifties to go, you know what? I made a lot of money. It's not about money. It's about going and serving God and making peanuts as he goes over to Ghana to serve. Like my respect is through the roof for guys like that that had every other opportunity to go do something else and they felt called by God. Respect those guys, you know, respect the men that are making sacrifices, putting their family under the microscope and everything else. Like you said, maybe not every part of them you feel is worthy of respect, but the position is much like the president, much like your parents, other people you may disagree with, it is worthy of honor and respect because God said it is. And so with these men that are, that are held up in the congregation.
So, yeah, I just reiterate not to go off on that, but I just reiterate what you said. We want to make this an encouraging thing next week. We are going to get into, Will said we are going to get into that, the broader scope of this and maybe what we can do about it on the back end. So stay tuned for that one. We will have some things maybe to go into and go a little further into this with some of the stereotypes in the deep end.
[01:05:26] Speaker A: Check out Friday episode biology textbook. Check out again. The Facebook group. Join us over there for the discussion. Think deeper deep thinkers and we'll talk to you on there. We'll talk to the deep thinkers and focus. Plus on Friday and everybody else next Monday.
