Episode 13: At The End of Your Rope? +Preacher Myths (Lions Lay Down with the Lamb? Folded Napkin, Sparing the Rod, God Running?!) with Dr. Mike Stewart and Pastor Grant Combs

0:14 Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God. Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal of making every church flourish. Hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 14 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast sponsored by the Great Commission Association of California. If you are a California pastor or church leader looking for a home, get in touch with us through our website, gcasbc.org.

0:55 We would love to partner with you, and I think you will find a home with us. Today, the senior director of the GCA, Dr. Mike Stewart, and I interview Pastor Grant Combs of Lighthouse Baptist in Seaside, California. We're going to be talking to him about how to respond when you're a leader, you're a pastor, and you feel like you're at the end of your rope. You're just about to let go and trouble's coming. In addition to pastoring Lighthouse, Grant is an ambassador to other pastors and church leaders, and he's going to kind of help us know how to see when disaster is coming, how to anticipate trouble. Yeah. And give us some practical steps to avoid disaster in ministry.

1:38 We're going to get to that interview in just a moment, but let me plug a couple of things coming up. Very soon, we will have a couple of episodes with Dr. Kristen Ferguson, Vice President of Gateway Seminary, a mom, a pastor's wife, a lady in ministry, and an expert on the Christian use of AI. We're also going to be talking to Dr. Kathy Smith about women in ministry, women on mission, And this week, we are recording with Dr. Cameron Schweitzer, who is also with Gateway Seminary. He's the director of their campus in San Leandro, and we've got lots of other guests coming up as well. It's going to be a lot of fun. Now, after our main interview, we're going to talk about something that I think will be pretty interesting to you, whether you're a preacher or not.

2:23 There are a lot of urban legends and myths in Christianity, and preachers like myself can be among the worst transmitters of these things. You've probably heard verses about lions lying down with lambs, right? And camels going through eyes of the needle and things like that. Well, we're going to talk in just a few minutes after our main interview about the danger of preacher myths and urban legends. So hang in there for that. And right now, let's go over to Dr. Mike Stewart and Grant Combs And let's talk about seeing danger coming at a distance so we swerve and avoid it and we don't run straight over it. Here we go.

3:08 And we are joined by Pastor Grant Combs from Seaside, which is a nice little community right on the Pacific Ocean in Monterey Bay. Beautiful place. Pastor Grant, tell us a little bit about yourself, your church, all that kind of good stuff. Yeah, somebody had to be called here, man. It had to be me. Suffering. Suffering. That's right. I've been at Lighthouse Baptist for about 10 years, just over 10 years. We are right between Monterey, so just north of Monterey on the beautiful Monterey Bay. We have a congregation of just over 100 people. We're a sweet church family that loves the Lord and gets along. We're a fun little congregation.

3:50 And, you know, We are no big deal, but we enjoy worshiping Jesus together every Sunday morning. Yeah, my wife and I have been on the peninsula since 2001. We both grew up in Orange County and came to the peninsula to work in Carmel. I know. It's been rough places. I worked in Carmel for 15 years doing youth and music ministry and then took the church that was already in the neighborhood where we were living about 10 years ago and have enjoyed it greatly. Well, Pastor Grant, I know that I still remember you coming on board there 10 years ago and having that conversation with you. You got started doing that. I think you just recently wrote a paper about the issues that face pastors and burnout and those kinds of things.

4:38 What led you to want to kind of investigate that and speak out? You know, I'm in a season of my life in ministry where a lot of guys burn out. And I've been doing ministry since I was like 20 years old, since before I knew that it was something you could actually do. You know, I was working with junior hires and led to a career in youth ministry, led to a career behind the pulpit. And I've just seen so many guys end up in the ditch, but not everybody. I've seen many guys finish the course and have faithful careers and enjoy it and have great families. And then other guys I've seen not only fall to great sin, but just be really miserable in the pulpit and resent their congregation and feel like they have nothing to say.

5:26 And I love the Lord very much, and I love this church, and I want to be a pastor for the rest of my working career. But truthfully, I don't have skills to do anything else either. And so I see how people get stuck in a spot they don't want to be. And burnout looks like a lot of different things, but it really hurts families and congregations. And the ministry is too precious to do that. And so one of the motivations for doing some research was to avoid it. You know, do you be somebody who doesn't fall in that ditch? So what did you discover? What would be some signs or telltale indicators that that might be something that is starting to be in your ministry world?

6:11 It might be creeping in on you. Yeah, I think some of it is the obvious things. It's, I'm not sleeping. I'm sleeping too much, gained a bunch of weight. I lost a bunch of weight. Some of those things that you can just tell biologically things are not going well in your life. But I do think a lot of it is, you know, there's seasons of, man, I love being behind the pulpit and seasons of, okay, this is a little bit of a grind. Is it Sunday again? You know, that kind of thing. But when it's more than that, when it's like, man, I really, I'm starting to resent the people that I'm serving. It's things like that. I'm starting to feel like I'm having to choose between my marriage and the church.

6:53 I'm starting to feel like I'm having to hide so much about my life, about what my kids are up to, about what I'm doing as a hobby, about the way I'm blowing off steam. I'm having to hide so much of my life that I feel phony in the pulpit. I think those are the things you're looking for when you feel like a fraud. And I'm not talking about imposter syndrome. If you feel worthy to open up the holy scriptures to people, that's arrogance. You should not feel that. But when you really feel like I'm faking it here and there's, and I, and I'm not enjoying being a pastor anymore. And I resent the people that I work with. And I think those things, sneak up little by little and then all at once. And if you can be mindful about the little by little and avoid the all at once, it's a good thing.

7:44 That's a great word. I recently counseled with a college student who was in the middle of exams and in a deeply stressful part of his life. And he was kind of talking to me about how everything was bad. All his relationships were bad and it felt to him like his life was kind of falling apart. And I said, well, hey, let's get through these exams and then see how you're feeling. So, you know, in light of that, Pastor Grant, Dr. Stewart, too, because you work with pastors for decades. What, how would you counsel somebody that comes to you and says, you know, hey, everything is feeling bad. I resent the people I'm with.

8:26 I resent the church. I'm tired of it. I fantasize about doing other things, maybe quitting my job. When you feel those things, as you say, you're really kind of not at the beginning stages of burnout. You're sort of halfway or even three quarters of the way there. So let's say somebody's listening and everything is dark and dim and everything is struggle. What kinds of emergency steps should leaders in that position engage in? I think that we just had a conversation that I think will be on another episode about friendship, about having mentors, about having those kind of connections. And I do think the first thing is you need to be honest. With yourself and you need to be honest with somebody else. And you need to understand that this church has a Savior and it's not you.

9:12 If you need to step away for a season of your life and go work at Home Depot, God bless you. That's not a terrible idea. At the same time, if you can work over a season, over three or six months, and get some help and get some advice and put in some good practices and see growth, you know, one of the things that I've just noticed is that no matter how deep and dark a hole you're in, any progress feels pretty good. So if you don't have to get all the way to healthy, if you can start doing some good things that are moving towards health, you're going to feel a lot better right away. And so you're the only one who's going to know whether that's possible in this situation.

9:54 You might be to a point where you say, look, you're an affair waiting to happen, or you're an anger and abuse issue waiting to happen, or you're just about to steal the tithe, man. You have gone so far, you really need to take a step away from ministry. Or this is just a heavy load you're bearing, and there's still time. Repent. Get moving in the right direction. Get some folks around you. Pick up some spiritual disciplines that are helpful. And I think let's get through this season is really good advice. Let's start some things, let's work together, and let's see how you feel in a couple months.

10:36 Yeah, great. Dr. Stewart, you pastor pastors. So if a pastor comes to you and says, hey, I resent the people, I'm tired of this, I wish I'd become an insurance salesman or whatever, what are the things you're going to say to them at the very beginning of that conversation? Well, I think when that's happening to a person, one of the things happening inside their life and in the congregation, is they don't think anybody cares. No one cares. And they may be—I mean— They may be married to Job's wife. There may be no one. Well, somebody's married to her. Probably. They come to this belief, and the enemy has them isolated and trapped in their mind that even if they tell someone, no one will care.

11:20 I would say to them, if you're listening, you are so important to God. He knows everything, and you're important to other believers. And if you can't go to your congregation, that's one of the great things about being inside of an association. Our association has, it's not me, but they have an office that has me, someone like me in it, or Chris Smith in it, or Grant. It matters to us. It matters to us that a minister is feeling trapped and isolated and he's wrung out. Most of the guys I know. They are heroic and they will tie the knot on the rope and they will hang on until there's no flesh left on the bone.

12:04 They are that committed. And then there's nothing left. So first of all, in your mind, people care about you. Pastors are cared about, and Satan will tell you that they're not important. Nobody respects you. That's not true in the kingdom of God. So I would say that first, that you're very important, even if you have something to share that you're embarrassed about. Who wants to say this out loud? I'm quitting. I'm giving up. I've spent my whole life. I've spent 40 years. So there's some things that are happening spiritually inside of us. And when we say it out loud, it's important for everyone listening to this person that they rally.

12:45 Don't try to dissect it. Rally to them and tell them how important and how you're going to pray for them and help them and listen to them. You're not going to fix their issue. That issue that they have inside their heart, you're going to be an encourager or Barnabas alongside of them. You've got to commit to them because that person in front of you, they've been used in God in many ways. They're just not seeing the fruit of this moment. So that's the first thing. And secondly, I would encourage them. There are spiritual things that they need to lean into. Fasting. God, I can't hear you anymore. A lot of times, this is the issue. I can't hear God speaking to my life anymore. There's too many problems, too many issues.

13:30 Change it up. Call your association. call a friend, come fill the pulpit for three weeks. I have to, I need to reconnect. That's another thing. Take time off. Get out of the, get out of the frying pan, you know, and take some time off, but don't lay around. Take some time off to spiritually engage with God. He cares. Even if you don't know how to do that perfectly with him, he cares and just say, I need to, I need, I need more of you, Lord, whether I'm pastoring or not. I need more of you in my life because That's certainly not that he hasn't trapped us in a corner of ministry and said, aha, aha, I knew you would quit when I got you here. That's not the work of the father. That's the enemy.

14:11 And there's always Jesus said he was what? A gate. He was a gate. So he's the gate that we go through to get out of that trap place in that desolate place. He's always going to be the gate. And for pastors and us who are always around the Word of God and always around serving others, He's still the only answer to what we have. I saw this little cartoon the other day. This is a segue, but a little segue. There's a very complicated math problem. The student writes in, Jesus is always the answer. And the teacher writes below it, not on this question, minus five points. But for us, in this scenario, Jesus is always the answer. But they need encouragement, not discouragement.

14:57 So you refrain from that if you're a friend or anyone around them. Because it's easy to judge and say, I can't believe you're giving up. But don't do that. Because God and his great power can redeem and restore. But he won't do it in five minutes. He will come to you and speak to you. But your friends around you, let's be the friends that Job didn't have. And be the friends that come around to you and say, we hear you. We love you. And we're praying with you. And maybe we can be the people that say, let's go on a prayer retreat, just you and me, because you're too important. And if you move in this direction, I'm with you. I'm with you as a friend, but I want God's will to be done in your life.

15:39 And ultimately, maybe that's what it really is. They need something that's refreshing to them. They need someone to say, even though you lost that church vote, even though that lady said, you're a horrible pastor and you don't visit anybody in the hospital, when you came home from the hospital at one o'clock last night in the morning They need somebody else. Let that be us to those people. Amen. To the men in the ministry. But let us always be ready with the word of encouragement. Amen to that. So one of the things you point out, Dr. Stewart, that I think is a real dynamic among church leaders, pastors, and deacons and whatever is they will wait until it is an emergency issue before they ask for help.

16:21 And with our health, our real physical health, if we do that, what we do is we generally skip going to the doctor and have to head straight to the emergency room. And that's not a wise way to practice things, to wait until your health is so bad you need to go to the hospital. So hopefully we leaders can model this because, again, we're being watched. We can model this for other people that before we're about to fall off the cliff into total destruction, we should ask for help. And to summarize your advices, both you guys gave very similar advice to people in this situation. You focused on spiritual disciplines, your relationship with Jesus.

17:02 You focused on Sabbath, taking a break, taking a rest, whatever that might look like. You focused on asking for help and looking for refreshment, whether that be in relationships or hobbies or whatever. One more thing to talk about with Pastor Grant. Let's talk a little bit about, please do. Yes, sir. Also, I also said, and this is key, you must believe that people care about you and your ministry. That's the idea that no one cares, and I've not been successful in however you measure success. That belief that people really do care about you. Because I can tell you, the GCA pastors, and we hear a lot of pastor concerns, a lot of, I don't ever have any staff person. We have prayer every Monday.

17:47 We pray for our pastors in need and those kinds of things. Nobody, it's always important. That pastor and his ministry, it's never like, oh, well, hey, it's critical. But the enemy will tell you what your problems and your ministry are not important. That is a lie. Just acknowledging that you're not gonna agree with the enemy. About the ministry God has given you because the ministry comes from God. So I would just don't agree with the enemy, agree with God and that people really do care. They really will help you. I couldn't agree with you more. That's one of the things we focused on the early episodes of this podcast is the benefits of being part of a team of associationalism so that you are not alone. And if you're a pastor out there and you feel alone, it's time to look for a home, a community in the same way that you would not have a church member do their Christian walk alone. pastors should not do their pastoring alone.

18:40 So find your team. That's just so crucial. Well, last thing, we won't have a long time to talk about this, but let's at least hit on the issue of depression. Because according to the Duke Clergy Health Initiative, the rate of depression among pastors is roughly double the general population of the United States, which you feel like it should be the other way around, half, not double. And 18% of the United States Protestant pastors, 18%, so nearly one in five, say they have contemplated self-harm or suicide within the past year, which, again, is a high number. So starting with you, Pastor Grant, and then Dr.

19:22 Stewart, what do you think explains the high rate of depression among pastors and church leaders and even that temptation or bent towards self-harm and suicide? Yeah, I think, first of all, well, two things. First of all, when we're talking about burnout or depression, I'm not sure we're talking about entirely different things. I think that these are similar issues in a pastor's life. I also just want to be clear. I assume you're talking about situational depression. This is not a chemical issue, a biological issue. This is not something for a doctor. This is an otherwise healthy person that just is in despair because of the situation of life they're in.

20:08 And, you know, I was very taken by Jim Berg wrote an article that just meant the world to me. And he had it's I know this is an audio thing. So describing a graphic is not great, but he has an image that looks like a bridge. And the platform of the bridge is two things, mind and body. The upright of the bridge underneath it is a disciplined mind and body. So those are like drink some water, get some rest, take a day off, hit the gym, like get some exercise and, you know, be a healthy person and don't only read theology, mix in some of the sports page and like, you know, just good stuff.

20:48 I don't know if self-care is the word you want to use, but take care of your mind and your body. The other upright to the bridge is a renewed mind. So this is all of the, this is, you know, read and put all of those spiritual disciplines into place. And this is the fasting and this is the celebration and this is the prayer and this is all of that stuff. And so if you if you build those uprights well, your mind and your body will be able to take a certain amount of pressures. So the things we put on top of those that are the pressures of life. And I think one of the big things is those are not all bad. Sometimes you took on too many good things.

21:29 Sometimes you just don't have the ability to handle everything that you have put on your table. And I also think like we automatically go to this is a spiritual issue. Sometimes it is a physical issue. We are embodied beings like so it could be that you are there's been a medical issue in your life and you're dealing with that and you feel like, oh, well, I should be able to. Deal with that and take on everything I've always taken on because God is with me. And you go, God is with you, but God's with the people that you're serving too. And so to think about when I'm feeling like there's too much, when I'm feeling like I can't do it, when I'm feeling like there's so much pressure on this table that I can't bear it, you have a couple of issues.

22:17 You have a couple of options. You strengthen your mind, strengthen your body, or take some of the pressures off. And I think that, you know, we are all hired by wonderful, sweet congregations who have no idea what it means to be a pastor. And so they are fully willing to put as much on top of your table as you will say yes to. And not only that, but you're raising children or you're in certain seasons of life and you have parents you're taking care of and all of these things. They don't have to be bad, but they are pressures. And I think it's also okay to say, I might not be able to take on everything the guy next door can. Yeah. I don't know why God, he's going to have to stand before God on his own.

23:00 And I'm going to have to stand before God on my own. And so if you feel like that in the bridge metaphor, if you feel the bridge sagging. Don't wait till it breaks. You have to articulate. And this is where you go to some friends too and go, here, are there things in my life that I could gird up, that I could be strengthened? Are there spiritual disciplines? Are there friendships? Are there like, do I need to, you know, buy a bike and get in better shape? Like, would those things help? Or is this an issue of there's just too much on the table and no good, healthy person is going to be able to do this forever. And so the idea that my options are the bridge breaks or it doesn't, that's not, those are wrong choices.

23:45 The truth is probably that the table of your life is going to get weaker and weaker and weaker over time. And by the time you're using words like depression and despair man there were signs a long time ago and so when you feel that that the burden is too much. Either take something off or find a way to gird yourself up. And if you go, I'm trying to gird myself up, I'm fasting, I'm giving, I'm praying, I'm memorizing, I'm doing everything. And I still feel this unbearable burden. Take something off your plate. It's the only option because it's going to cost you, it's going to cost you much more in the near future.

24:28 And, you know, I do, I said it before, and I do think that building into those most primary relationships, you know, I think there's a reason that Paul tells Timothy, hey, find guys whose family is in good order. It's not that like you have to have your kids and better not be a mess and embarrass the church. No, it's if you have stuff going on at home that is causing a huge burden on you, go take care of that. Like that needs to be the thing that you care about. That's gonna take a lot of time. So there might be a season where you go, guys, I'm not going to potlucks for a while. I gotta take care of some stuff at home. This is, you know, I'm going to only be in the office a couple days a week for a season because I've got to take care of home.

25:12 You're not going to be able to bear all of the burdens, all of the pressures that life is going to ask of you. You're going to have to find out what is peak me. How do I be as strong as I can be? And then what's the appropriate amount of things I can say yes to? And if it's more than that, if you go to a congregation and go, guys, I've got too much on my plate and I feel like I'm breaking, I need to say no to some things. And they respond badly to that, then you need to go find another place. Like you need to, you need to find someplace that, that understands that a person can only do so much. So I think if what you're talking about is situational depression, just the world is caving in on me.

25:54 I can't, I can't bear this up anymore. You know, sometimes you have a great victory and you defeat all of the prophets of Baal and you feel great. And then the next day you're sitting under a tree crying and feeling like you're all alone. And some of that's just welcome to life in ministry. But when it's year three under that broom tree, it's time to go, I've taken on too much. I have to take some stuff off of this. And then if I can't gird myself up to the point where this is joyful, I got to figure out what has to go. All right. Those are good insights. And yes, of course, we may be over-medicated as a society, but there is nothing in scripture that would rule out a person with literal clinical depression from getting medicine.

26:41 And I know the church has shamed that in some instances, and we have, I think, wrongly done so. Yeah. I think that's part of the body, part of mind, body, and spirit. Am I strong? If you've got a problem with your brain, It's not necessarily a problem with your mind and get healthy. Be healthy. Yeah, agree. Dr. Stewart, what would you like to add to all that? I think that was pretty comprehensive. I don't have a whole lot more to add to the issue. I just think one of the things that I have dealt with is, and it's been from guys who've been in the ministry a while, and it's been a real, it's been challenging for their families. And it's when they come to the road where they're really their wife is saying, she just can't do it anymore.

27:24 And that is, can't do it anymore. She feels like she's faking it. And that caused, there's all kinds of challenges that come with that. And if that's you and you're listening, I would say to you that you're one flesh. The Christian marriage is totally different than the secular world. You are one flesh before God. And at that point, You need to, I would say, you need to take care of her. And as hard as it would sound, go before the Lord and pray with her about stepping down from that level of leadership. Not stepping away from the Lord or stepping away from his church, but stepping away from that level of leadership so that her heart can be restored to whatever God has next.

28:06 But if she's there and you're not listening, that will be a bad ending. And she's got to be an honest person, too. God put, you know, and I've helped, I would say, five or six guys over my ministry deal with that issue. And some lost everything because they believed that they had to stay in the church in order to honor God, and they would be able to lose their wife and stay in the ministry. But that seems sideways thinking to me as to what the Lord was wanting to do. Anyway, so that can be a huge issue going on in people's lives. So get some help. You know, the things we reiterated, there's people care about you deeply, people you don't even know.

28:49 If you're a pastor, honestly, with a lot of Christian people, if you say you're a pastor and you need help, triggers all kinds of spiritual things inside of the hearts of the normal believer. And so just take that to heart. Yeah, good word. And we have an upcoming episode where we're going to be talking about wives in ministry, ministry wives, supporting them. And I think it's the kind of insight we would get from somebody who pastors pastors that an issue struggles in the pastor's wife can lead to struggles in everything. Because generally speaking, at least in my experience, with my wife and most of the pastors I know, our wives are not just a pastoral wife.

29:32 They are playing the game. They are in it. They are, you know, maybe we're a point guard, they're a shooting guard, something like that. They are so immersed in the life of the church. And if they're not being taken care of, if they're not resting enough, and it's something I have to remind myself of all the time, if they're not resting enough, then the whole thing is, your whole ministry is in danger. Well, have me back on that episode. I'll tell a great story that will resonate with your audience. Well, fantastic. We will do that. One more thing before we go out. Pastor Grant, tell us about your role with the GCA just in general, how you work with pastors. I know it's a relatively new role for you, but tell us what you do and how it's going so far.

30:15 Yeah. Well, an expert at it. I've been doing That's fantastic. The people you serve think that you live at church and would be shocked to see you elsewhere or whatever. And so to have a, I think the role is connecting us, doing some team captain stuff, pastor to pastor encouragement. And with all things, this is the way ministry is, whether it's visiting other churches or hospital visits or whatever. Or, you know, what I'm already finding is I walk away from every meeting saying, well, I'm the one that got blessed there.

31:08 There's a great bunch of guys in the GCA that genuinely are answering sincere call to an important assignment. You know, let's over the next year or so get a system where we don't feel alone, where we have built some relationships, where there's genuine friendships there. And so it'll be sort of slow going, you know, I'm very part time. And so I'm meeting individually with guys right now, trying to figure out who has a heart to get together, who has a heart to set aside some time. You know, the one of my biggest hopes is that we would be able to do some ministry alongside each other, too. It's one thing to be friends together. But, you know, a lot of us are the size churches where it's hard to do a big men's event or a big event of any kind.

31:56 But if three or four of us got together, we could have a pretty good time and not have to be the one running the whole thing and generating every idea. And so if we can have the idea that we're together in friendship, we're together in ministry, that would be a real blessing. It's something that I crave, that I have hoped for. And the other thing is we have some small churches, and to have the message of, man. The hope is not always that every church triples in size. To be a loving church family of any size is so important. You are the man, the family that God has called to proclaim Christ as King on that corner, on that street, in that neighborhood.

32:40 And that is a profound and noble and sacred work that has nothing to do with how many people are in the pews or what exciting story you have to tell. And so to help people sense the importance in that role and to know that people are praying and serving alongside, that's the, that's the. That's great. I don't know your official title. I do sometimes I've forgotten it, but I consider you kind of the ambassador of the message that you are not alone. And we need a lot of those people in the field. Well, Dr. Starr, Dr. Stewart, do you have any parting shots or last words before we close out. I think this has been a great topic. It's one that, you know, you don't talk about this. You don't go to the pastor's meeting and say, hey, let's talk about how I'm depressed.

33:25 So hopefully if you're riding in your car, you're sitting in your church office thinking about this, this is something the enemy will use for us to get fixated on what's not working. And you're not alone. A lot of guys come to this. It's like you're saying, there are guys that get to the point 20%, It's not 20%. Don't let that happen. I'll just say, be proactive. What Grant was talking about. What's your bridge feel like? And you don't have to take everything. You don't have to take everything that everybody else wants to hand you. You have a high calling. Filter. Filter what gets onto your bridge and say, you know, brother, sister, I love you, but that's not me. I can't bear that. This is my—I'm running in this lane. God will provide.

34:09 I was listening to some guys talk about they needed things. They needed people to help and that kind of stuff. And I asked them, have you prayed for this? because they kept asking me, you know, that, hey, I need people. Have you prayed about it? Because this is going to most benefit you. Have you prayed about it? No, I haven't yet. Well, you pray about it, brother. And, you know, the pastor has other things that can do, but this is important. But it's only as important as you make it before God. And you pray about it and then see what God does. And then I'll be, I'm praying for you to pray. And so I just say, filter what gets onto your must do or have to do list. Grant has some wisdom there, your calendar, all the things that can protect you. Do the work God's called you to do, but don't do other people's work.

34:55 Yeah, yes. Amen to that. Well, I will close this out with a quote from my guy, Charles Spurgeon, probably my ministry hero. He was one of the first megachurch pastors, brilliant mind, and he struggled greatly with depression and he wrote about it frequently. And this was in the 1800s. And it's kind of shocking that depression in the church still has the stigma that it does now, considering some of these early guys, Richard Baxter and Charles Spurgeon, who talked about it a little bit. Of course, he didn't differentiate between clinical depression and situational depression, but he did say, our depressions may tend to our fruitfulness. A heart bowed down with despair is a dreadful thing.

35:38 Proverbs 18, 14, a broken spirit who may bear it. But if you have never had such an experience, you will not be worth a pin as a preacher. You can't help others who are depressed unless you have been down in the depths yourself. You cannot lift others out of despondency and depression unless you yourself sometimes need to be lifted out of such experiences. You must be compassed with this infirmity too in times in order to have compassion on those in similar cases. Our whole nature, says Spurgeon, as feeble men may be turned to the noblest use if it calls forth our compassion towards others.

36:19 When we are less than nothing, the all-sufficiency of God will be all the more manifested. I think that's a good truth to end on. So thank you, Dr. Stewart. Thank you, Pastor Grant, for your time. May the Lord bless you and your ministry. Well, so if you're a pastor or church leader, I think you're going to have gotten a lot out of that interview. Grant is a stand-up, straight-shooting kind of guy, my favorite kind of guy. And I love talking with him about things in the ministry and pitfalls to avoid. Well, credibility and integrity are important. I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? I don't think any real Christian would disagree with that statement.

37:02 Jesus spoke the truth. He identified himself as a truth speaker, a truth teller in John chapter 8. In fact, he noted that some of the Jews wanted to kill him because he told them the truth. The truth isn't always popular. And in John chapter 8, Jesus also noted that Satan was the one who peddled lies. In fact, Jesus said to the Jews, you are of your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature because he is a liar and the father of lies.

37:42 When we lie, we identify and support the father of lies, as it were, and we repudiate and reject, at least temporarily, Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. Over the past five years, I've seen a genuine flood of Christians publicly sharing false information, and very few things other than hypocrisy does more to erode and undermine our claims about Jesus than sharing lies about other things. I've seen Christians share just tons of unverified lies. Urban legends, myths, rumors, that sort of thing as true. I'm seeing it more and more, more than ever in my lifetime.

38:23 And honestly, it kind of worries me greatly. Think about it. What skeptic would trust a habitual liar to point them to the way of eternal life? At some point, I'm hoping to have a deep discussion with our co-host, Pastor Christopher Cole, on Christian urban legends and the Christian spread of myth as fact in an upcoming episode. I expect such things from worldly sources. For instance, Joe Rogan's podcast a couple years ago had a New York Times writer and college journalism professor named Michelle Dowd on. And she had a lot of claims about the Bible. For instance, she claimed that the first gospel written about Jesus wasn't written until about a hundred years after his death. And look, that's just not true.

39:10 Textual evidence argues strongly against that. But those kind of things are said all the time by skeptics and conspiracy theorists and people who claim to be experts but aren't. And Dowd also said that the expression pearls before swine was somehow related to the parable of the prodigal son. It's not. Tamar and Bathsheba are ignored or treated poorly in modern Christianity, and I don't think they are. And most Christians solely blame Eve for the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. And you know what? That's not biblical, and I haven't really heard Christians do that. Yes, she got deceived, but honestly, in the Bible and in most people's thinking, the blame falls on her guy, Adam.

39:53 Romans 5.12, Paul says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people because all sinned. Or 1 Corinthians 15.22, For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. And I see secular academics and pundits and journalists and podcasters and broadcasters or whatever, they make factual mistakes and false claims about the Bible all the time. And again, I suppose that's not very surprising, but preachers and Christian leaders and Christian teachers should not do the same thing.

40:34 There's a reliance out there on unverified illustrations and stories and things like that to go along with the teaching of the word. And it leads to this terrible repetition of preacher myths, which kind of itself carries some really significant long-term risks to our credibility. When listeners discover that an illustration or story used to substantiate or illuminate a core theological truth is a fabrication, the credibility of the theology is compromised big time as well as the overall believability of the preacher. Beyond that, I guess the borrowing of illustrations without independent verification, without doing your homework, it kind of borders on plagiarism as speakers.

41:21 They share these myths as truth, and it spreads around in a viral sort of way, and it's just bad for our credibility. Well, TLDR, lying preachers are bad, and that's what we're going to talk about a little bit today. We're going to talk about preacher myths, and I've got five of them for you. We're going to begin, number one, with made-up verses or near verses. And there look there's a lot of pseudo bible verses out there like cleanliness is next to godliness that is not a Bible verse, but a Bible guy, I guess, a preacher came up with it, John Wesley, who said that let it be observed, the slovenliness is no part of religion.

42:07 Neither this nor any text of scripture condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness. And even back in the second century, Rabbi Pinchas Benyar, not a Christian, but a teacher of the Jews said that zeal leads to cleanliness. Cleanliness leads to purity. Purity leads to restraint. Restraint leads to holiness. Holiness leads to humility. Humility leads to fear of sin. Fear of sin leads to piety. Piety leads to divine inspiration. And he was one of the earliest guys who really connected cleanliness with godliness somehow. And it It sounds like he also was an early discipler of Yoda.

42:50 The Bible does not say money is the root of all evil, but the love of money is the root of all evil. It does not say spare the rod, spoil the child, but it does say something very, very similar. Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. Now, I guess spare the rod, spoil the child is kind of a boiled down version of that. It's in the neighborhood, at least. Most Christians and preachers actually know those verses are in the Bible, or that it really is the love of money, not money is the root of all evil. But that might not be true for preacher myth number two.

43:30 Will the lion indeed lie down with the lamb? Well, I guess it's possible. It sounds like it's very plausible, but the Bible doesn't actually say that. Instead, specifically, the Bible actually says in Isaiah 11, 6, the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the goat. And in Isaiah 65, 25, similar, the wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion will eat straw like cattle, but the serpent's food will be dust. And there's also passages about babies playing near snake holes. So lots of things like that are going to happen, but the Bible never specifically says the lion will lie down with the lamb.

44:18 Now, you're not being led too far astray with that preacher myth. But we should still strive for accuracy, which brings me to number three. And this one might disappoint some of our Benny Hester and Phillips Craig and Dean old school Christian music fans. But the fact is that first century Jewish men sometimes did run. Now, lots of preachers and several popular Christian songs share that widely repeated claim that in ancient Jewish and even broader Middle Eastern culture, it was considered deeply shameful, humiliating, and entirely unprecedented for an older noble patriarch to run.

45:05 And part of that, I guess, the thought was that running requires a man to lift his flowing robes, therefore exposing his ankles, his bare legs. And it was seen, the story goes, as a profound loss of dignity. And therefore, in the parable of the prodigal son, the father running to his returning son represents this earth-shattering break from cultural norms symbolizing God casting aside all dignity to welcome a repentant sinner. but is it true? Here's the thing. It's not exactly true. Honestly, we have virtually no evidence for those claims. It was probably unusual and socially undignified for an older patriarch in the Middle East in the first century during Jesus's day to run in public, but it certainly wasn't a law or anything like that.

46:00 And in the Bible, you're going to find Abraham ran, and so did John and Peter. Of course, John outran him. Laban ran. Moses ran. Esau ran. And the origin of this, probably in modern times, goes back to the New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey in his 1976 book, Poet and Peasant. Now, Bailey was a good scholar, and he cited Aristotle, and he cited the apocryphal book of Sirach and he cited modern Middle Eastern society and argued that oriental noblemen with flowing robes never ran anywhere to do so is humiliating But the problem is, he didn't really have historical backup for that.

46:46 Historical context demonstrates that while a slow, deliberate kind of walking pace was generally a sign of dignity among people in the first century, especially men, it was not as taboo as some preachers seem to have made it. Men ran in war. They ran to convey urgent news. They, of course, ran in athletic competition, and they ran at times of emotional distress, and probably they ran to go to the bathroom and get water and things like that. To state categorically that first century men never ran kind of artificially inflates the cultural shock of that part of the parable.

47:28 And here's the important thing. It's totally unnecessary, and it adds nothing to the story of the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The running is not emphasized in the text because the running is not really the big deal. It's a detail. It might be somewhat significant, but the bigger mind-blowing detail is the father met his son. And instantly dismissed his silly plan to get a job, the son get a job with the dad, he fell on his neck and kissed him. Surely that massive hug and kiss is the bigger and more potent symbol of love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and welcome.

48:16 But wait, there's more. Because the father called for his best robe, his rings, sandals, a fattened cap to be slaughtered, and a feast, a party. These are the big things. These are the massive things. Great. The dad ran. But all of those other things really just speak louder. The father rejoices incredibly. I mean, even to the point where his older son is like, why all this commotion and all this fuss? This isn't fair. Why we focus on the running part is strange to me. The song really should be more along the lines of when God had a party and all of heaven celebrated, which is, again, more impactful than running and also very biblically accurate because Luke 15 portrays multiple celebrations in heaven and joy by the Father, by God himself, the creator of everything, when the lost are found and sinners repent.

49:16 All right, number four, horses and donkeys. Everybody knows Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem, right? And not everybody knows, but a lot of people know that Paul fell off of his horse on the Damascus road in Acts 9 when Jesus appeared to him in a vision, right? Well, maybe. Maybe not. We don't know really because the Bible never mentions a donkey in the Jesus Nativity stories and it doesn't mention a horse on the road to Damascus. In fact, in reading the Acts account, number one, there's not a horse mentioned in the whole book of Acts. But number two, it seems very likely reading Acts 9 that Paul was not riding a horse.

50:02 I mean, probably it would have been mentioned. It does say he fell down, but I think Luke would have told us if he'd fallen off of a horse. That myth is so pervasive that it has infected most modern AI platforms. And when I today asked both Gemini's Nano Banana 2 and ChatGPT to produce a picture of Paul meeting Jesus on the Damascus Road, as recorded in Acts 9, Both of them made illustrations that prominently featured Paul falling off of a horse. Similarly, the same thing happened with Mary and the donkey. I said, and I quote, please make a similar illustration of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem using only what is recorded in Matthew and Luke.

50:50 The only person who rides a donkey in the New Testament is Jesus. Did Mary ride a donkey on On the way to Bethlehem, maybe, but the Bible just doesn't record it. And of course, ChatGBT and Jim and I both produced pictures for me of Joseph leading a donkey with Mary on top of it. But I will say this, kudos to Jim and I, however, who after producing that picture said, The detail of Mary riding a donkey, though perhaps the most iconic image of this journey, is actually a traditional addition and is not found in either Matthew or Luke. However, there's a big however here.

51:32 However, since a literal illustration based only on the few verses in the Gospels might appear too abstract or sparse, I included this traditional element to make the scene immediately recognizable. And you know what? Preachers for hundreds of years have done the exact same thing. They, we, have added to the story to, at least in our minds, make it better or to fill in the gaps. And friends, that's dangerous. The core is good enough. It's awesome enough. It's powerful enough.

52:14 In fact, it's more than good enough. You don't have to add salt to a perfectly seasoned steak. It just makes it worse. And we don't have to add our own embellishments in drama to the perfect story because it just makes it worse. You can't add to perfection. Last one for today, and some people might be a little bummed out about this one. Number five, the folded napkin that supposedly sent a message. You remember John chapter 20. It gives us this amazing peek into the empty tomb of Jesus. And we'll read verse three, John 20, verse three, Peter and the other disciple went out heading for the tomb.

52:59 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first. Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then following him, Simon Peter also came. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths, but was folded up in a separate place by itself. The other disciple who had reached the tomb first, then also went in, saw and believed. Now, you might have heard that this folded cloth, sometimes called a napkin because of the King James translation, was a code that Jesus left indicating that he was coming back.

53:46 In a lot of modern sermons and social media posts regarding the resurrection of Jesus, a lot of attention to detail is paid to this face cloth or napkin that was left in the empty tomb and was neatly folded by itself. The prevailing myth claims that in the first century Hebrew tradition, A folded napkin at a dinner table carried a highly specific coded symbolic kind of meeting. According to this, which is a myth, if a master wadded up his napkin and tossed it onto the table, it meant he was finished eating, signaling his servant to clear the plates.

54:27 But if he folded it neatly and placed it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table because the folded napkin meant... I am not finished. I'm coming back. Well, this preacher myth claims that Jesus, in leaving a folded napkin, was communicating a deliberate message to his disciples that he was returning. Well, problem is, as near as I can tell, that concept is kind of a modern internet fabrication that began circulating heavily in emails and online forums, I don't know, 20, 25 years ago. From my searching and the research of others, there's pretty much no evidence in rabbinic literature or historical records or archaeological findings or any of those kind of things of those kind of Jewish dining customs in the first century.

55:23 In fact, in the first century, the Greeks and the Jews of that era predominantly ate with their hands. They used bread to scoop food, and they didn't really utilize modern table napkins. Instead, they had ritual hand-washing before and after the meal. The Greek word translated as napkin, like the King James Version and others, is sudarian. And it really is not a napkin like we think of. It's more of a sweat cloth or a face cloth or a face covering that was used specifically for the dead and it was not a piece of tableware. It's the same word used for the cloth that covered Lazarus' face in John 11.44 and the handkerchiefs that were touched by Paul in Acts 19.12.

56:12 The Jews didn't really use napkins like we do, and projecting Western European or modern American dining etiquette onto ancient Near Eastern burial customs is a bad idea, and it's just wrong. Not only that, but it's kind of a weird message, too, regardless. Look, even if it were true, because the disciples essentially got it, again, were it true, after Jesus had returned. because they didn't go into the tomb during the Friday night and Saturday while he was in the tomb. The coded message, I'm returning to the table, would logically sort of imply that Jesus intended to return to the tomb, which that kind of subverts the entire Christian doctrine of a permanent victorious resurrection.

57:02 And beyond that, it's just silly. Now, that said, the sidarium, the face cloth and the other burial cloths is indeed important in a lot of early church fathers' writings. Augustine talked about it, and he has a very interesting passage. He's like, I'm sure there's meaning to this, but I don't have time to talk about it right now. John Chrysostom saw it as a proof of Jesus' resurrection, but not like a coded message. Just the fact that it was set there neatly meant that he had done it. And beyond that, a couple of massive legends have arisen around that face cloth and the other grave cloths in the tomb that persists to this day.

57:44 Of course, you've heard of the Shroud of Turin. You may not have heard of the Mandillion or the image of Edessa, which could be a face cloth that touched the face of Jesus, but also could be this Sudarium we're talking about. Now, those aren't exactly preacher myths, but I would say maybe the Mandillion and the Shroud of Turin probably shouldn't form the basis of any sort of apologetic about the risen Jesus... Interesting as those things are, but maybe more on that one day. Beyond these five, I have several more preacher myths, and I may turn that into a standalone episode just like I did with the quotes on preaching last week. But let me restate something important one more time in closing.

58:28 Lying, embellishing, exaggeration. Look, none of that adds to the gospel power. We don't have to amp it up. We don't have to pretty it up. We don't have to add things to it. we don't have to drama it up. It doesn't add to it. At best, it adds a bit of fluff that might entertain the immature and the lost, but more likely, those kind of things will eventually catch up to us and cause not only a drop in our own personal credibility, but a drop in the credibility of the message we're talking about, the gospel of Jesus. And the last thing any one of us should want to do is tarnish the beauty of the gospel by adding to it or trying to over-season in it.

59:08 You don't improve perfection. Well, that is all for episode number 14. Please do allow me to point you to our website, Every Church Flourishing. And as always, I want to end with a request to share the show with your friends and neighbors and enemies and teammates and bosses and coworkers and anybody you see on the street or in a cave you're exploring or while you're out swimming in the ocean. Thanks for listening. Good day to you and God speak.