WEBVTT
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Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
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soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
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and the broader kingdom of God.
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Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole
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and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
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Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
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of making every church flourish.
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And hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 13.
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Uh-oh, Triska Decaphobiacs, beware of the Every Church Flourishing podcast where
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we are not afraid of the number 13 because we have some great things on tap for today.
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I want to shout out and welcome new listeners in Vietnam, Thailand,
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Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Barbados, and Venezuela.
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Thanks for joining us. For our main discussion today, we have Pastor Christopher
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Cole, and he and I are going to talk about the mental and emotional health crisis
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among pastors and church leaders.
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You might be thinking, what mental health crisis?
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Well, less than 10 years ago, 40% of pastors rated their own mental and emotional
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health as excellent, which honestly does strike me as a tiny bit high.
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But recently, that number has plummeted to 15%. That is a massive drop.
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So what in the world can explain that?
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On the episode today, you're going to hear Pastor Christopher say,
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Jesus did not say, come unto me and get busy.
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He said, come unto me and I will give you rest. If we aren't regularly Sabbathing
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our souls, We are missing out on one of the greatest invitations of Christ.
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That is a strong insight.
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And we're going to talk about rest and how you can find rest through reading
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books like Ecclesiastes and Psalms and how those particular books can ease our
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anxiety and our emotional ups and downs.
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We also have a great soda to review, Dirty Mountain Dew, which I realize Dirty
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Mountain sounds kind of gross, but spoiler alert, it tastes pretty great.
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And I jumped in my time machine this week, and I traveled back almost 2,000
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years, all throughout the centuries,
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To interview the best preachers and teachers of God's Word, and almost 2,000
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years of the best preaching and teaching advice for you.
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How you can preach better, how you can teach better.
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We're going to cover three of the best bits of advice from modernity and ancient
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times on this episode, but maybe Monday or Tuesday, depending on how things
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go, my plan is to release 10 episodes.
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Of those tips, as well as some interesting factoids about some of the greatest teachers in history.
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So stay tuned for that. For now, let's dive into the interview today with Pastor
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Christopher Cole of the Great Commission Association of California,
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which is a group of nearly 100 churches from Santa Barbara,
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California, all the way up to San Francisco.
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That is the group that sponsors this podcast, and we are going to be talking
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to Pastor Christopher today about all sorts of great things that will encourage
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you and help you walk in greater spiritual, mental, and emotional health.
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Here we go. So now we are joined by our old friend,
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Pastor Chris Cole, co-host of the show, who shows up all the time,
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and he works with the GCA as the Associate Director of Missions and has a long
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and wonderful history of pastoring in churches and working in various ministries.
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And rather than me telling you about that, how about Pastor Christopher Cole?
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You tell us about yourself and what your role is with the GCA Association.
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I lead what's called our mission advance team.
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So pretty much everything that interfaces or works with our local churches,
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our team heads up that piece of the ministry of the Great Commission Association
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because we have schools, because we have operations that are complex.
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We have leaders for those.
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And so I serve as a senior director, sort of helping us focus on whatever it
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takes to help every church flourish and every community be transformed by the gospel.
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And I come to this role after 35 years as a pastor.
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Various ministry roles and leadership roles within churches and as an international
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mission board missionary.
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Awesome. So you've been a pastor for a long time. You were a missionary like Dr.
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Chris Smith, and now you work kind of helping pastors, pastor in a healthy, stronger way.
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And we're kind of at a crisis point right now, post-COVID among church leadership.
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I understand according to the Barner Group that in 2015, the percentage of pastors
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reporting that they had excellent mental and emotional well-being was about 40%, 39 to 40%.
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But less than 10 years later, it was only 14% of pastors reporting excellent emotional well-being.
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And I'll just be honest with you, I don't think in 2015, if you had asked me,
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is your well-being excellent and emotional well-being excellent?
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I think I would have said no. Excellent is a very strong word.
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But I think the important part of that is the math,
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that there's been a massive drop in people who would rate themselves at the
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highest level among pastors in emotional well-being and mental well-being.
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So I guess I'll just start with there. What do you think explains that?
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Is it more awareness of mental health?
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COVID, is it a variety of factors?
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Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think that probably is complex.
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I think there is perhaps a greater willingness to be honest about,
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today. I think younger generations are more open and accepting of the idea of
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the need for regular mental health.
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And I think we've got some episodes coming up to sort of cue into that and engage
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that reality to talk about when pastors need mental health.
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So I think there's some greater honesty. I think there's greater transparency
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than there has been in the past. So I think that's a factor.
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I do think ministry is much more complex than when I started doing it 35 years ago.
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And I think that's the nature of the world that we're in.
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We have far more information flowing at us. We're not just talking to a group
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of people who have six television channels that they get to choose from,
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or even 12, or, you know, if they have the extended cable package, 25.
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We're talking to people that are constantly saturated with content.
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And so pastors are in a competitive space now that they've never been before.
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You don't, your congregants, you know, in the old days,
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I might have one or two congregants that subscribe to a tape ministry of some
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famous preacher, but everybody can download hundreds of podcasts or quality
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content from amazing organizations. Right.
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Pastors are in a competitive environment that they've never been in before.
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People are less engaged in community. So pastors are not getting those life
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building types of relationships happening.
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And I think the stresses on modern family life are just magnified and increasing in significant ways.
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Probably this is the greatest amount of pressure, I think, on the family life since World War II.
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I think you're right.
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And I think that that is the parallel, is that if you would go back to some
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global-level catastrophe like World War II, where there would have been tremendous
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challenges for people in their daily living.
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So pastors are experiencing that. And their other factors are that they are
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facing greater economic stress.
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Than they have before. Pastors in my father's generation could expect to reasonably retire.
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My grandfather and my father both retired with not, they were never going to
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be wealthy, but they had sustainable retirements.
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As soon as the silent generation was done, the baby boomer pastors are having
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a hard time with retirement.
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The income that pastors make proportionate to everyone else is actually lower
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than it's ever been. That adds economic stress.
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So yeah, we could go on and on. I think there's just a huge amount of complexity.
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One other factor I would just say is the amount of temptation that comes at pastors.
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Just speaking frankly, pornography is a huge problem in the pastoral world.
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The amount of pornographic content that comes into just a pastor's Facebook
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feed or into other social media,
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is just one example of the hypersaturations
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of temptation that would have been different 50 years ago.
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20 years ago.
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20 years ago. Right. So that adds to, I think, a challenge when it comes to
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mental health. We're oversaturated with temptation.
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We're in a hyper-competitive environment for attention.
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We're in less life-giving relationships than we've had before. And
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We're doing it all with less reward economically and less security.
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There's a whole lot of complexity there. And I think people are being more honest, too.
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I think that, yeah, I think those are. So it's multifactorial.
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And it's funny. Well, funny is not the right word.
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It's intriguing, of course, that you mentioned World War II and how mental health
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crisis and all that is at its lowest levels since then.
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I am not making a prophetic prediction,
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but geopolitically, when we record this,
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We are at the very advent of what is apparently going to be a war between Israel
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and the United States and Iran and possibly the Houthis and Yemen and Hezbollah and other groups.
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And again, not making a prophecy, but I certainly wonder if we are looking at
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the advent of the next severe global conflict, world war.
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I don't know, but it's looking like just the first days of dropping a couple
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of bombs on a regime in Iran is going to stretch into a lot more than a seven-day war, so to speak.
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So in the midst of all of this stimulation and wars and rumors of wars and troubles
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and all of that, Pastor Christopher,
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how can church leaders and pastors
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deal with discouragement in general and discouragement in ministry?
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Hmm.
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Such a big question, right? I mean, huge question, right?
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So anything I'm going to say at this point is going to be inadequate.
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It's almost one of those moments where you say, let us keep silence lest we
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say something or leave something out, say something that's trivial.
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So with that caveat and recognizing our objective here is to encourage every
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pastor and every church to flourish, right?
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With that caveat, I think what I would say is the basics matter.
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So we start with, what's our personal walk with Jesus like, right?
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Are we abiding in Christ?
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Are we resting in his grace? And that is typically through the spiritual disciplines,
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the practice of the spiritual disciplines. I don't just mean having a quiet time. I do mean,
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Adding the realities of, you know, meditation on God's Word.
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Amen. Reflections on God's Word.
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Thorough prayer that's about our relationship with God. Deliberate consecration.
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Reviewing our lives regularly through the Word of God.
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You know, praying through, for example, the Beatitudes and asking the Holy Spirit to check us.
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And that intimacy, that intimacy of abiding with Christ and crying out for him,
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I think is the cornerstone to dealing with the hyper temptations,
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the stresses and everything else.
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We need to come into the manifest revealed presence of the living God and there
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encounter him afresh and anew ourselves on a regular basis.
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And that means we need to do the serious work of blocking out in our calendars
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and in our daily life and then in rhythms.
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Andy Addis has some great stuff on this. Dr. Andy Addis with the North American
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Mission Board pastor in Kansas, you know, has some great material on the rhythms of rest.
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And I don't have it down exactly, but, you know, he points out you should have a daily quiet time.
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Then you should have three to four hours a week where you have like every week
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a quiet meditation time that's just you and God.
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And then every month you should deliberately take off time from some aspect
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of ministry and consecrate that time unto the Lord,
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maybe spending half the day in intimacy with God and half the day with your
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wife or with your kids, doing something like that.
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And then having an annual sabbatical week, rest week, those kinds of rhythms of rest.
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Focus you on your abiding with Christ. It's not just resting to get entertained or veg on the couch.
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It's resting in the presence of God, crying out to him, being honest about our
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neediness and our dependence on him.
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You know, John 15 is such a good place for us to meditate and reflect on that
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we would sit before the living God and understand that if he abides in us and
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we abide in Him, then our lives bear much fruit.
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And we would not try to overwork ourselves with the commitments that we make
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and say, hey, I'm too busy for my quiet time.
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And I'm very guilty of that, Pastor Chase. I don't know if you are.
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There's so many days I wake up and I'm on the go, I'm on the run,
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and I prioritize all kinds of other things.
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Hey, let me check the news. Let me pay this bill.
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Let me get this thing done. Let me check my email or do this or that before
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I spend time with God, or it's easy to come to the end of the day and not spend
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time reflecting upon the day.
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So for the past couple of years, you know, just different tools.
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One of the tools I've been using is I use a tool called Lectio 365.
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It's an app from the 24-7 prayer movement.
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And they have morning, noon, and evening prayer. Still haven't gotten the noon one down very well.
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I can't figure out quite how to interrupt my day on a regular basis there.
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But I'm pretty good about not only using my regular Bible reading and prayer
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time, but using that as an outside reflection and challenge in the morning and
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then in the evening to walk through a prayer of confession,
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a prayer of reflection, a prayer of rest before God.
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So I think you gotta start there. You gotta start in your relationship with
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God. And then I think, secondly, you have to be committed to enjoy life.
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Ecclesiastes 9 has this amazing, there's so many, I love Ecclesiastes, by the way.
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It's like my hidden secret about the Bible.
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It's one of my favorite books. I read it through at least when my regular Bible readings come through.
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But in the month of May, which is my birthday month, I will read it through repeatedly.
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So at least every week during the month of May, I will read Ecclesiastes over and over again.
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So usually at least three to five times during the month of May.
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But Ecclesiastes 9 says this, that we're to enjoy life.
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Just stop right there. What happens when we are not okay with our desires?
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Part of being emotionally healthy
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is being committed to enjoying the life that God has set out for us.
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It goes on to say, enjoy life with the wife that you love.
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So what's our intimate relationship with our spouses like?
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Are we actually in a healthy relationship? It's hard to have a healthy relationship
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with your spouse if you're overcommitted to work, if you're overcommitted to
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other priorities, hobbies.
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So I think you got to start with your God and then move into your relationship
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with your wife. What does that look like?
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Ecclesiastes goes on to say.
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And it talks about whatever your hand is given to do, do it with all your might.
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And the point isn't for us to overwork, because if you read the context of the
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passage, he's like, he's constantly arguing against overwork.
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But he's saying, hey, when you work, work hard. Or the New Testament version
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is, you know, work heartily as unto the Lord, but be willing to lay it down at the end of the day.
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You know, when you're quitting time comes, quit and be okay with that.
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Recognize that you have limits.
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And that passage in Ecclesiastes 9 goes on to say that Solomon saw that under
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the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
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nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with
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knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.
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Which is just humbling, right? It's just so humbling.
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We're not the ultimate masters of our fate. No, we're not.
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We should work heartily as unto the Lord, but we rest and lay it all down at the hands of Jesus.
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So I think starting with your walk with Christ, moving into your relationship
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with your spouse, your children, and making sure that you have healthy community.
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And then when you're doing work, be willing to leave the work done or undone
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at the end of the day, be okay with what God's given you.
00:17:46.679 --> 00:17:52.319
So there's probably a ton more to say there, but that's a concise thing I think
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:54.759
I would just sort of say, hey, reflect on that, maybe.
00:17:55.159 --> 00:17:58.839
Hey, that's wise counsel there. I'm going to throw out three answers of my own.
00:17:58.999 --> 00:18:03.079
This will not solve all your problems or solve all the problems of the world
00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:08.439
or whatever, but I do think they will be healthy spiritual medicines in a time
00:18:08.439 --> 00:18:10.299
that requires that kind of thing.
00:18:10.479 --> 00:18:14.279
So number one, you mentioned Ecclesiastes. I'm going to mention the Psalms.
00:18:14.479 --> 00:18:20.159
The Psalms have been very deep and rich sources for me the past few years of
00:18:20.159 --> 00:18:23.979
mental and emotional healthy things to do.
00:18:24.356 --> 00:18:30.996
Battlers of anxiety, all sorts of things. I find that I feel very seen and heard
00:18:30.996 --> 00:18:33.576
when I read the Psalms and I see, hey, you know what?
00:18:33.696 --> 00:18:40.016
People have been struggling with the same thing I'm struggling with before God for thousands of years.
00:18:40.236 --> 00:18:45.496
And so I would say that, and I would say avoid poison. There is so much social
00:18:45.496 --> 00:18:52.176
media, internet-based news poison out there that I know when I read it,
00:18:52.176 --> 00:18:54.236
It's the weird part of our psychology.
00:18:54.236 --> 00:18:59.096
And I'm thinking about a current conflict online that I read about last week
00:18:59.096 --> 00:19:03.956
where a person I know to be very faithful posted something and just got absolutely
00:19:03.956 --> 00:19:07.176
roasted by a bunch of other people that call themselves Christians.
00:19:07.576 --> 00:19:11.116
Reading through something like that, on the one hand, is poison.
00:19:11.256 --> 00:19:15.296
On the other hand, it's something our soul, our flesh craves,
00:19:15.576 --> 00:19:20.136
that controversy, that anger feeling, that righteous sense of justice.
00:19:20.136 --> 00:19:24.416
And I don't know that we're, I know, in fact, let me rephrase that.
00:19:24.616 --> 00:19:31.756
I know that we are not created by our creator to be involved in dozens of conflicts
00:19:31.756 --> 00:19:35.576
and arguments and disputations all around the world.
00:19:35.576 --> 00:19:40.896
And to the degree that we constantly step into every argument we see,
00:19:41.076 --> 00:19:44.896
even when we're on the right side, it can be poisonous to our soul.
00:19:44.896 --> 00:19:48.196
Because I think sometimes we just get out of our sphere of influence.
00:19:48.476 --> 00:19:53.076
And then finally, I would just say it's important to lean into healthy,
00:19:53.536 --> 00:19:55.176
life-giving relationships.
00:19:55.636 --> 00:20:00.276
If you're a church leader, if you're a pastor, there will be relationships in
00:20:00.276 --> 00:20:01.916
your life that are draining.
00:20:02.696 --> 00:20:06.916
There's no antidote for that. That's part of the role. It's part of the job.
00:20:07.096 --> 00:20:10.956
And if you avoid that, you avoid ministry. At the same time,
00:20:11.156 --> 00:20:16.176
if that's all the relationships you have, you're going to be just sucked dry
00:20:16.704 --> 00:20:24.024
All the time. So find, cultivate, search out and lean into relationships that
00:20:24.024 --> 00:20:29.524
are healthy, that exhort you and encourage you and build you up and not pamper your flesh.
00:20:29.524 --> 00:20:34.284
I'm not talking about that, but that are life giving to you because we need
00:20:34.284 --> 00:20:37.844
life and we need to share life. So that's my counsel.
00:20:38.044 --> 00:20:43.024
Because we're all going through just the stuff right now. Let me ask you one
00:20:43.024 --> 00:20:46.604
other question, Pastor Christopher, and I guess we can close out on this one.
00:20:46.684 --> 00:20:51.824
It's a complication that I have dealt with for a long time in pastoral ministry.
00:20:51.984 --> 00:20:57.684
We that are pastors and church leaders are generally paid for our work,
00:20:57.804 --> 00:21:03.944
whether it be full-time or part-time, and we deal with leaders who are not paid.
00:21:04.164 --> 00:21:08.924
And there's a difference there. I don't mean a qualitative difference or a difference
00:21:08.924 --> 00:21:11.244
of spiritual level or anything like that.
00:21:11.344 --> 00:21:16.584
I mean, there's a difference in somebody's paid for a job and somebody's not paid for a job.
00:21:16.684 --> 00:21:21.084
And I think sometimes pastors are not as aware of that as they could be,
00:21:21.124 --> 00:21:24.104
and they can act like slave drivers a little bit.
00:21:24.244 --> 00:21:29.404
But at the same time, maybe they can be overly lax and not urge people in the
00:21:29.404 --> 00:21:33.584
body of Christ onward enough. I want to have the right balance of that.
00:21:33.704 --> 00:21:39.404
So here's my question for you. How do we exhort non-paid leaders to be consistent
00:21:39.404 --> 00:21:45.984
and faithful in their commitment to the body of Christ while not guilt tripping
00:21:45.984 --> 00:21:50.224
them or burning them out or being overbearing?
00:21:50.444 --> 00:21:55.164
I know we're not going to solve that problem either, but what's some wisdom you have on that?
00:21:55.484 --> 00:22:01.344
Well, I think you just by naming it, Chase, you've already begun to address
00:22:01.344 --> 00:22:05.244
it, right? The truth is we don't name that dynamic very often.
00:22:05.544 --> 00:22:07.644
We as a pastor, we've spent, you know,
00:22:07.954 --> 00:22:13.734
I don't know, let's say 15 hours, you know, prepping a sermon and doing this and that.
00:22:13.894 --> 00:22:16.114
And, you know, before long, our weeks are full.
00:22:16.354 --> 00:22:20.394
And then we have a volunteer leader in the church, and they seem to be struggling
00:22:20.394 --> 00:22:24.834
to do an hour meeting aside from showing up at church, right?
00:22:25.174 --> 00:22:25.414
Yeah.
00:22:25.514 --> 00:22:30.834
So I understand, and I've lived with that real tension. And I think I've shifted
00:22:30.834 --> 00:22:37.034
a lot. when I was a younger pastor, I absolutely overdrove my church.
00:22:37.334 --> 00:22:41.274
And I hurt people, truthfully, when I did that.
00:22:41.554 --> 00:22:45.434
I hurt their walks with God because I was more concerned about their commitment
00:22:45.434 --> 00:22:47.834
to the church than their relationship with Christ.
00:22:48.034 --> 00:22:48.914
That's a danger.
00:22:49.154 --> 00:22:53.554
And I was more concerned about their commitment to our programs than I was to their families.
00:22:53.694 --> 00:22:59.414
So I think part of that is maybe us having a commitment and a scope and a scale
00:22:59.414 --> 00:23:05.454
of church life that is realistic to the contemporary age.
00:23:05.514 --> 00:23:10.254
And I realize that that could be very different in different circumstances, right?
00:23:10.374 --> 00:23:16.934
But we have to give a tremendous amount of grace to people to live out faithfully in their context.
00:23:17.034 --> 00:23:19.654
What does it look like to be a faithful believer?
00:23:19.834 --> 00:23:26.214
And I think that for us in the church, we need to set our programming such that
00:23:26.214 --> 00:23:29.014
our focus is on building healthy disciples, right?
00:23:29.370 --> 00:23:33.810
And so healthy discipleship starts with equipping them to have that intimate
00:23:33.810 --> 00:23:37.630
relationship with Christ and equipping them to have that relationship with their
00:23:37.630 --> 00:23:38.890
spouse and their children.
00:23:39.190 --> 00:23:43.330
So if we're equipping them for that and then we don't give them time to do it,
00:23:43.670 --> 00:23:48.230
that's problematic if we've got so many other programs and events and activities.
00:23:48.510 --> 00:23:52.570
And I think especially in churches that are diminishing, demands can grow very
00:23:52.570 --> 00:23:55.930
high on people. So some people are going to have higher capacity.
00:23:56.830 --> 00:24:02.090
Maybe they're retired and they have a great deal of time and they're still physically
00:24:02.090 --> 00:24:04.750
strong enough and they want to contribute more.
00:24:04.890 --> 00:24:09.910
And I think that would fit with the strong bearing the burdens of the weak.
00:24:10.150 --> 00:24:15.190
They have more time, more energy, and perhaps God expects more from them in
00:24:15.190 --> 00:24:18.850
their time commitment to the body of Christ during that season.
00:24:19.010 --> 00:24:23.390
We see an indicator of that, by the way, when Paul's talking to Timothy about
00:24:23.390 --> 00:24:25.750
the widows, the ministry of the widows.
00:24:26.130 --> 00:24:31.190
And he says, hey, there's widows that are busybodies, is the word that he uses.
00:24:31.470 --> 00:24:34.470
They're not spending their time fruitfully. And then he says,
00:24:34.570 --> 00:24:38.470
but there are other widows that are ministering to the hurting and the poor,
00:24:38.610 --> 00:24:42.590
and they're taking care of others, and they're spending their days in prayers.
00:24:42.870 --> 00:24:46.950
The church should honor them, he says. And so I think there are people that
00:24:46.950 --> 00:24:49.230
we should perhaps honor better.
00:24:49.752 --> 00:24:52.652
Love well, better, and know that they're going to have greater capacity.
00:24:52.652 --> 00:25:00.052
The young mom with five kids who is struggling to even get her kids to put on
00:25:00.052 --> 00:25:02.932
clothes to be in church on Sunday morning.
00:25:03.212 --> 00:25:03.732
Yes.
00:25:03.912 --> 00:25:08.592
To guilt trip her into saying, why aren't you doing more ministry during the
00:25:08.592 --> 00:25:11.372
week? I think that's spiritual malpractice. Yeah.
00:25:11.532 --> 00:25:17.612
And I think we got to be giving them ways to say, okay, how can we help you show up here, get fed?
00:25:17.772 --> 00:25:21.472
And then also, how can we help you to minister to those five children?
00:25:21.672 --> 00:25:26.252
How can you insert the word of God into their lives and be less concerned about
00:25:26.252 --> 00:25:30.352
whether or not she's taking a rotation in some particular ministry there?
00:25:30.452 --> 00:25:33.332
So we do have that danger of overworking others.
00:25:33.592 --> 00:25:38.212
And again, here's the truth. If we're not healthy in our own time boundaries
00:25:38.212 --> 00:25:43.692
and our own awareness of what is it like to be healthy in our use of time,
00:25:43.692 --> 00:25:45.992
We're likely to overdrive other people.
00:25:46.212 --> 00:25:50.512
I'm a very high operator personality.
00:25:50.772 --> 00:25:55.432
Those people who know me well, you know, overwork is always going to be my temptation.
00:25:55.892 --> 00:26:00.692
At one point in my life in ministry, this really happened. I was completing
00:26:00.692 --> 00:26:06.992
my master's degree, pastoring a church full time and working 48 hours a week
00:26:06.992 --> 00:26:10.552
on the ambulance rigs and was having children. Wow.
00:26:10.972 --> 00:26:14.192
And I could say that that was a huge amount.
00:26:14.592 --> 00:26:20.092
And there were, hey, I got during that season, I had a 4.0 seminary at that point.
00:26:20.272 --> 00:26:23.032
I was thriving and my marriage was dying.
00:26:23.252 --> 00:26:25.212
Yeah. And I almost lost my marriage.
00:26:25.252 --> 00:26:25.732
You can't be great at everything.
00:26:26.211 --> 00:26:34.671
So accepting the realities that we are human, God has not made us to work at
00:26:34.671 --> 00:26:37.131
that level for an extended period of time.
00:26:37.191 --> 00:26:41.011
Anybody could do it for a short season if there's a particular financial crisis
00:26:41.011 --> 00:26:46.331
or you're a doctor going through residency training or something like that,
00:26:46.411 --> 00:26:47.591
right? There are seasons.
00:26:47.791 --> 00:26:52.491
But you have to be cognizant. We are not built like that. We are not God,
00:26:52.591 --> 00:26:56.691
and we're not intended to replace God in our knowledge or in our work.
00:26:56.951 --> 00:27:01.051
God is the one who does not sleep, and that's why we can rest. Good word.
00:27:01.231 --> 00:27:06.831
So I think if we give that mentality to ourselves, then we're likely to give grace to other people.
00:27:06.951 --> 00:27:11.771
And it does require, I think, also the church to recognize that we live in a
00:27:11.771 --> 00:27:16.331
different season. We're not in a rural environment in most contexts where the
00:27:16.331 --> 00:27:17.711
pace of life was very slow.
00:27:17.851 --> 00:27:20.491
This is not in East Alabama, right?
00:27:20.491 --> 00:27:21.511
No, it's not.
00:27:21.591 --> 00:27:26.811
There was no significant activity except the barn dance on Friday night once a month or something.
00:27:27.011 --> 00:27:30.271
You could expect people to come to church. There wasn't a lot else to do.
00:27:30.491 --> 00:27:35.451
Now we have dual spouses working in the vast majority of our marriages.
00:27:36.123 --> 00:27:41.783
The kids have much higher intensity in things like homework and programming.
00:27:42.043 --> 00:27:47.583
And I'm not saying we shouldn't invite people into greater activities that have
00:27:47.583 --> 00:27:51.803
spiritual depth and meaningfulness. I just came back from a church in Texas.
00:27:52.403 --> 00:27:57.383
We saw 200 plus people on a random Tuesday night in February in a prayer service.
00:27:57.603 --> 00:28:02.863
And that included families and young adult men and retired couples.
00:28:03.243 --> 00:28:07.163
And praise God for that. And there was something meaningful that they were willing
00:28:07.163 --> 00:28:10.703
to engage in and go and do on a Tuesday night.
00:28:10.923 --> 00:28:13.683
But, you know, the pastor made it very clear to us. He's like,
00:28:13.763 --> 00:28:15.743
we don't, you know, we don't guilt people into this.
00:28:15.903 --> 00:28:20.523
We don't shame them into this. They didn't even require all their staff to attend
00:28:20.523 --> 00:28:23.023
this major event of the church.
00:28:23.163 --> 00:28:28.223
Now, most of them did on most of the Tuesday nights of the year because they wanted to.
00:28:28.423 --> 00:28:32.723
So I think that's the other key I would just say is if you create things that
00:28:32.723 --> 00:28:38.263
are deeply meaningful spiritual experiences, people will be drawn to those things,
00:28:38.263 --> 00:28:41.103
and there will be less so to programmatic things.
00:28:41.243 --> 00:28:43.943
That's great. That's great. Well, hey, this has been a good,
00:28:44.163 --> 00:28:45.783
deep, rich conversation.
00:28:45.783 --> 00:28:50.723
I will tack on just one thing to what you are saying, and that is pastors and
00:28:50.723 --> 00:28:58.263
church leaders, we have to remember that we are not seeking to tap people into the
00:28:59.196 --> 00:29:04.776
the church so much as to tap them into the source of life.
00:29:04.996 --> 00:29:10.756
John 5, 40, Jesus says, you're not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
00:29:10.896 --> 00:29:15.376
First and foremost, if you're a pastor or a church leader, your calling,
00:29:15.636 --> 00:29:19.996
your privilege, your role, your job is to connect people with Christ.
00:29:20.116 --> 00:29:22.876
And of course, some of that happens through the body of Christ,
00:29:23.016 --> 00:29:29.056
but I would say it happens a lot less through the programs of the church than what we think.
00:29:29.196 --> 00:29:33.416
It happens more in the life of the church, the worship of the church,
00:29:33.636 --> 00:29:37.096
the word embracing of the church, the prayer of the church.
00:29:37.196 --> 00:29:41.076
And we really have to be able to differentiate between those things or we're
00:29:41.076 --> 00:29:44.416
going to burn ourselves out, as you say, Pastor Chris, and we're going to burn
00:29:44.416 --> 00:29:46.636
a lot of other people out as well.
00:29:46.636 --> 00:29:51.116
And the stakes are high because we don't want to confuse people with dedication
00:29:51.116 --> 00:29:59.696
to a plan, a ministry, a building, and a program structure versus dedication to Jesus the Lord.
00:29:59.956 --> 00:30:03.556
Well, Pastor Christopher, do you have any parting shots for us as we close out?
00:30:03.796 --> 00:30:07.416
Yeah, I just think on that, I would just tag onto this, you know,
00:30:07.516 --> 00:30:12.576
the idea that Jesus did not say, come unto me and get busy.
00:30:12.776 --> 00:30:16.196
He said, come unto me, all ye who are weary.
00:30:16.636 --> 00:30:20.196
And heavily laden. And he says, and I will give you rest.
00:30:20.376 --> 00:30:25.656
The invitation of Jesus is not to enter into greater and greater work,
00:30:25.736 --> 00:30:30.856
although he is the Lord of the harvest and he just graces us with meaningful
00:30:30.856 --> 00:30:35.236
ministry and wonderful fellowship and so many good things we can do in ministry.
00:30:35.396 --> 00:30:40.236
But if we're not coming to him as the rest giver and we're not Sabbathing in
00:30:40.236 --> 00:30:45.336
our souls, then we're missing out on one of the great invitations of Christ.
00:30:45.989 --> 00:30:51.409
Amen. Lord, help us to Sabbath. Okay, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with
00:30:51.409 --> 00:30:54.049
Pastor Christopher of the Great Commission Association.
00:30:54.209 --> 00:30:58.129
I particularly liked the part of the discussion where we got into something
00:30:58.129 --> 00:31:00.549
that church leaders don't talk about a whole lot.
00:31:00.549 --> 00:31:07.489
How can pastors lead, encourage, and exhort church members without overdriving
00:31:07.489 --> 00:31:14.049
them or being a slave driver, but also adequately exhorting them to fruitfulness.
00:31:14.049 --> 00:31:17.669
That's a question as a pastor I struggle with all the time.
00:31:17.969 --> 00:31:22.669
Unfortunately, Pastor Christopher had to bounce, which honestly is his loss
00:31:22.669 --> 00:31:28.809
because we have got a great soda to review today before we get into our discussion
00:31:28.809 --> 00:31:35.549
of some very helpful preaching and teaching tips from ancients and moderns.
00:31:35.609 --> 00:31:38.829
Our soda today is Dirty Mountain Dew.
00:31:39.349 --> 00:31:43.909
It's a cream I am drinking the zero sugar version.
00:31:44.149 --> 00:31:49.109
It's a blend of traditional Mountain Dew citrus with a prominently green
00:31:49.221 --> 00:31:54.581
creamy edition, or even some people call it like a lemon chiffon kind of flavor.
00:31:54.741 --> 00:31:58.501
That sounds great to me. I hope it's as good as it sounds.
00:31:58.661 --> 00:32:03.041
Now, a little bit of Mountain Dew trivia for you. Its original formula was invented
00:32:03.041 --> 00:32:06.881
in the 1940s, like before World War II was over,
00:32:07.041 --> 00:32:12.081
by the Tennessee brothers Barney and Allie Hartman, and it was first marketed
00:32:12.081 --> 00:32:14.261
in Virginia, oddly enough.
00:32:14.261 --> 00:32:19.361
And the name Mountain Dew comes from an old slang for moonshine,
00:32:19.461 --> 00:32:22.621
although it does not have any alcohol in it.
00:32:22.821 --> 00:32:30.741
A standard 12 ounce can of Mountain Dew does, however, have 54 milligrams of caffeine.
00:32:30.981 --> 00:32:35.401
Now, that's not as much as coffee. Usually 12 ounces of coffee has around 90
00:32:35.401 --> 00:32:40.061
to 100, a little bit more of Starbucks coffee, milligrams of caffeine.
00:32:40.061 --> 00:32:45.741
But Coke Classic or Coke Zero, only 34 milligrams per can.
00:32:45.941 --> 00:32:49.301
So quite a bit more for Mountain Dew.
00:32:49.541 --> 00:32:52.481
And I will tell you this, and this is something I'm kind of excited about,
00:32:52.601 --> 00:32:54.921
but it's the most I've ever spent on a soda in my life.
00:32:55.061 --> 00:32:58.081
So maybe I hope my wife doesn't listen to this too soon.
00:32:58.221 --> 00:33:03.781
There was a flavor I discovered this week in my research of Mountain Dew called
00:33:03.781 --> 00:33:09.661
Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew. It launched as a very limited edition.
00:33:10.161 --> 00:33:14.841
It had chili spice in it, and it was only sold through the Dew store.
00:33:15.001 --> 00:33:18.521
And I think it stopped selling either in late 2022 or 2023.
00:33:18.781 --> 00:33:25.241
I just bought a 2022 can, one can of soda for $9.
00:33:25.481 --> 00:33:29.961
Now that does include shipping, but it's going to be here in a week or so.
00:33:30.161 --> 00:33:35.441
So stay tuned for a review of a soda you're probably not going to be able to
00:33:35.441 --> 00:33:37.401
get. but I'm at least going to tell you about it.
00:33:37.601 --> 00:33:40.801
Let's drink this thing. Here we go. Oh, by the way, the can looks good.
00:33:40.941 --> 00:33:46.001
It's got a little bit of a blend of Mountain Dew colors with orange and cream.
00:33:46.281 --> 00:33:50.981
So it's very much in that neutral color palette that's so popular right now.
00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:54.719
All right. What does it smell like? Oh, yeah.
00:33:54.959 --> 00:34:00.239
It actually has a creamy lemon smell to it. I'm impressed.
00:34:00.399 --> 00:34:04.239
But the big question is, how does it taste? Here we go.
00:34:04.819 --> 00:34:11.999
Oh, oh, great. I will tell you, this is not my first time to try Dirty Mountain
00:34:11.999 --> 00:34:14.619
Dew because I got this a few days ago.
00:34:14.619 --> 00:34:19.459
But I had a cold and I tried it while I had a cold and I thought the flavor
00:34:19.459 --> 00:34:23.039
was kind of flat and not great, but I'm over the cold now.
00:34:23.219 --> 00:34:28.599
And my second time to try it is far superior to the first time.
00:34:28.739 --> 00:34:32.499
This is why you don't review a soda when you have a cold. We'll try another sip.
00:34:32.979 --> 00:34:36.739
Hmm. Yeah. See that first time I couldn't really taste the cream.
00:34:36.899 --> 00:34:38.259
And I know that sounds weird.
00:34:38.459 --> 00:34:41.719
Maybe you're thinking, why would I want a creamy flavor in my soda?
00:34:42.019 --> 00:34:46.319
Maybe you don't, But this is good. This is a really great...
00:34:46.998 --> 00:34:49.818
Twist or variation on Mountain Dew.
00:34:50.158 --> 00:34:54.978
And Coke Zero is probably my first love now in the soda realm.
00:34:55.098 --> 00:34:58.918
And there's one Coke Zero in particular that blows every other one away,
00:34:59.038 --> 00:35:00.318
but I'm not going to review it yet.
00:35:00.458 --> 00:35:04.898
But Mountain Dew was my first girlfriend, so to speak.
00:35:05.118 --> 00:35:10.478
Mountain Dew is the drink that was my favorite up until middle age, really.
00:35:10.658 --> 00:35:15.018
And I still love Mountain Dew. Coke Zero just barely surpassed it a few years
00:35:15.018 --> 00:35:18.218
ago. But this Mountain Dew is really, really solid.
00:35:18.458 --> 00:35:22.958
Got a good citrus flavor, blended with creamy lemon.
00:35:23.238 --> 00:35:27.818
I don't know exactly what lemon chiffon tastes like, so I can't really rate
00:35:27.818 --> 00:35:29.358
it based on lemon chiffon.
00:35:29.498 --> 00:35:32.378
But I can say this is good. This is drinkable. It's delicious.
00:35:32.638 --> 00:35:37.738
It doesn't have an aftertaste or anything like that. It's a borderline five Spurgeon soda.
00:35:37.958 --> 00:35:42.498
I'm going to come in just short. I'm going to give it four and three quarters
00:35:43.118 --> 00:35:45.398
Spurgeons out of five. It's excellent.
00:35:45.638 --> 00:35:49.998
You should try it. I got mine from Walmart, so it's not too hard to find.
00:35:50.158 --> 00:35:53.758
All right, I hope you don't mind. I'm probably going to be sipping on this dirty
00:35:53.758 --> 00:35:58.118
dew for the rest of the podcast, but we're going to transition now to talking
00:35:58.118 --> 00:36:02.358
about 2,000 years of the best preaching advice, how you can preach better.
00:36:02.478 --> 00:36:07.878
And I know not everybody who listens to this podcast is a pastor or a preacher. In fact,
00:36:08.172 --> 00:36:11.852
The majority of people I personally know who listen are not pastors,
00:36:12.112 --> 00:36:14.732
but they are church leaders of various kinds.
00:36:14.972 --> 00:36:20.232
This next segment is semi-targeted towards pastors and preachers to a degree,
00:36:20.232 --> 00:36:23.972
but I also think its contents and the quotes we're going to be talking about
00:36:23.972 --> 00:36:28.472
are helpful and edifying and powerful for anybody in the church,
00:36:28.632 --> 00:36:31.652
especially if you teach at any level,
00:36:31.832 --> 00:36:33.832
even like teaching your kids.
00:36:33.972 --> 00:36:37.232
So at least give it a chance. I think this will be helpful for,
00:36:37.372 --> 00:36:40.572
like I said, every Christian, but Sunday school teachers, deacons,
00:36:40.792 --> 00:36:45.252
small group teachers, moms and dads, people who teach in a Christian school, etc.
00:36:46.252 --> 00:36:52.712
Everybody who is helping to disciple somebody can learn from what we're going to talk about today.
00:36:52.912 --> 00:36:55.852
So we're going to kind of have a mini seminary on the podcast,
00:36:55.852 --> 00:36:57.092
but not in the boring way.
00:36:57.252 --> 00:37:00.512
And the good news is I'm not going to be your professor, but I've gotten into
00:37:00.512 --> 00:37:02.392
my handy dandy time machine,
00:37:02.552 --> 00:37:06.772
and traveled back over the past nearly 2,000 years, met with some of the greatest
00:37:06.772 --> 00:37:11.492
and wisest people in church history, and I got some direct quotes from them
00:37:11.492 --> 00:37:13.552
about preaching and teaching God's Word.
00:37:13.572 --> 00:37:17.252
And I think you'll be surprised that Christians have been thinking about preaching00:37:17.252 --> 00:37:21.752
and teaching for, honestly, nearly 2,000 years since the time of Jesus.00:37:21.752 --> 00:37:26.652
And you'll probably be pleasantly surprised to realize how fresh and relevant00:37:26.652 --> 00:37:32.912
advice that is hundreds of years old or even almost 2,000 years old still is to this day.00:37:33.072 --> 00:37:38.332
Instead of going strictly chronological from old school to new school,00:37:38.532 --> 00:37:44.232
we're going to alternate back and forth between ancient and modern preaching advice.00:37:44.232 --> 00:37:48.072
But we're going to go back way, way back in the day.00:37:48.322 --> 00:37:53.542
Now, these aren't in any sort of order of ranking, but I did try to put some00:37:53.542 --> 00:37:54.982
of the really good ones at the beginning.00:37:55.182 --> 00:38:01.682
And in terms of like sources and things like that, that is really boring on a podcast.00:38:01.682 --> 00:38:08.402
So I'm not going to read where these sources come from, but I have them carefully listed on our website.00:38:08.402 --> 00:38:14.302
So just come to everychurchflourishing.com if you want to read these quotes00:38:14.302 --> 00:38:18.822
again and find out where I got them from. All of them are sourced,00:38:18.982 --> 00:38:21.542
and I tried to be very careful about that.00:38:21.702 --> 00:38:27.042
So number one, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from Augustine of Hippo,00:38:27.042 --> 00:38:30.022
who lived from 354 to 430 AD.00:38:30.262 --> 00:38:35.582
He was an African writer, theologian, philosopher, and bishop who wrote The00:38:35.582 --> 00:38:37.302
City of God and Confessions.00:38:37.482 --> 00:38:42.742
Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine lived a highly educated but00:38:42.742 --> 00:38:45.602
notoriously hedonistic lifestyle.00:38:46.162 --> 00:38:50.342
He took on a concubine at a young age. He lived with her for over a decade,00:38:50.602 --> 00:38:52.322
had a son born out of wedlock.00:38:52.442 --> 00:38:57.582
And when he was a teenager, he stole pears from vendors and threw them at pigs.00:38:57.742 --> 00:39:03.002
He was in a cult for nine years. And later on in his life, he hated and vigorously00:39:03.002 --> 00:39:05.142
worked against slave traders.00:39:05.382 --> 00:39:11.742
In his book, De Doctrina Christiana, or On Christian Doctrine or On Christian00:39:11.742 --> 00:39:16.182
Teaching, depending on how you want to translate it, is a series of four different00:39:16.182 --> 00:39:20.202
tomes written by Augustine that are all about how to interpret,00:39:20.602 --> 00:39:22.682
preach, and teach the Word of God.00:39:22.782 --> 00:39:25.482
And here is his advice for preachers and teachers.00:39:25.925 --> 00:39:32.005
The preacher should be in no doubt that any ability he has, and however much he has,00:39:32.265 --> 00:39:39.605
derives more from his devotion to prayer than his dedication to oratory,00:39:39.725 --> 00:39:41.025
in other words, speaking well.00:39:41.225 --> 00:39:46.065
And so, by praying for himself and those he is about to address,00:39:46.445 --> 00:39:50.805
He must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words.00:39:50.805 --> 00:39:55.925
As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting lips,00:39:56.085 --> 00:40:01.645
he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has drunk00:40:01.645 --> 00:40:04.725
in and pour out what has filled him.00:40:04.845 --> 00:40:10.565
That is solid advice from somebody writing in the 300s AD.00:40:10.905 --> 00:40:16.225
Well, let's jam back into the time machine and go forward to the present time00:40:16.225 --> 00:40:21.345
and get some modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from Tabithi Anyabwili.00:40:21.565 --> 00:40:26.625
And I probably did not say his Swahili last name right, but he is a Christian00:40:26.625 --> 00:40:29.825
pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C.00:40:29.905 --> 00:40:32.365
And before that, he pastored in the Bahamas.00:40:32.565 --> 00:40:34.405
And honestly, I think I would have00:40:34.405 --> 00:40:38.365
stayed in the Bahamas, but apparently Tabithi does not like the beach.00:40:38.545 --> 00:40:41.585
How can you not like the beach, especially the beach in Bahamas?00:40:41.725 --> 00:40:46.785
Oh, well, he is a convert from Islam. He was with the Gospel Coalition for a long time.00:40:46.945 --> 00:40:50.585
He's written many books and articles, and this is what he says about preaching.00:40:50.825 --> 00:40:54.485
First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority.00:40:54.745 --> 00:40:59.405
He's really not a Christian preacher at all. He can't truly be trusted.00:40:59.625 --> 00:41:02.905
Even some men with Bibles can't be trusted.00:41:03.185 --> 00:41:07.905
Surely the one who leaves it off altogether is better ignored than followed.00:41:08.253 --> 00:41:12.133
Closed Bibles should result in closed mouths.00:41:12.453 --> 00:41:15.433
The preacher should not go beyond what is written.00:41:15.673 --> 00:41:21.013
Let us be careful of the temptation to insert our own opinions and rules under00:41:21.013 --> 00:41:23.393
the guise of application or exposition.00:41:23.613 --> 00:41:28.733
Let us be wary of the subtle coercion of God's people with a thus saith the00:41:28.733 --> 00:41:31.793
Lord when the Lord has not said.00:41:31.793 --> 00:41:37.573
Let us be watchful of our logical deductions and theological conclusions when00:41:37.573 --> 00:41:41.793
they're really just our preferences born of our convenience and wisdom.00:41:42.173 --> 00:41:47.693
Let us declare the whole counsel of God, which is to proclaim all he says in00:41:47.693 --> 00:41:50.533
a text and nothing he leaves out.00:41:50.673 --> 00:41:53.053
Solid wisdom from Pastor Tibidi.00:41:53.293 --> 00:41:58.473
Next, we're going to go back to the 300s again, and this time we're going to00:41:58.473 --> 00:42:02.453
get some ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Chrysostom.00:42:02.681 --> 00:42:07.881
He was a church father who served as the Archbishop of Constantinople.00:42:08.081 --> 00:42:13.221
He is known for his incredible abilities as a preacher and a public speaker.00:42:13.441 --> 00:42:20.101
In fact, he was nicknamed Golden Mouth or Golden Tongue way before James Bond was ever thought of.00:42:20.241 --> 00:42:25.561
His last name, Chrysostomos in the Greek, wasn't really his last name.00:42:25.561 --> 00:42:29.361
It was his nickname. It's just what everybody calls him now.00:42:29.481 --> 00:42:36.161
And again, it means Golden Mouth or Golden Tongue. He was such a good preacher that in 397,00:42:36.361 --> 00:42:42.641
the Roman emperor Arcadius decided he wanted John to be the new archbishop of00:42:42.641 --> 00:42:48.481
Constantinople, knowing the people of Antioch would revolt if they found out.00:42:48.601 --> 00:42:55.101
An imperial official invited John to a meeting outside the city walls, And once he was outside,00:42:55.461 --> 00:43:01.741
He was swiftly thrown into a carriage and secretly whisked away under military00:43:01.741 --> 00:43:09.661
guard to the Capitol to be consecrated as the archbishop against his will. That is an insane story.00:43:09.801 --> 00:43:12.001
Can you imagine the president doing that to somebody?00:43:12.201 --> 00:43:16.821
It's wild. Well, on preaching, this is what our guide John Chrysostom says.00:43:16.961 --> 00:43:21.621
There are many preachers who make long sermons. If they are well applauded,00:43:21.721 --> 00:43:25.201
they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom.00:43:25.481 --> 00:43:30.701
If they bring their sermon to an end in silence, their despondency is worse,00:43:30.721 --> 00:43:32.921
I may almost say, than hell.00:43:33.081 --> 00:43:38.261
It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch the heart,00:43:38.401 --> 00:43:43.221
but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and the structure00:43:43.221 --> 00:43:48.301
of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute players.00:43:48.301 --> 00:43:54.821
And we preachers humor your fancies instead of trying to crush them, yes?00:43:55.335 --> 00:44:01.115
John Chrysostom said that in the 300s, and he's saying people like fancy,00:44:01.275 --> 00:44:06.235
nice sermons that sound good, and preachers want to be applauded,00:44:06.235 --> 00:44:10.395
and they're bummed out at the end of their sermon if there is no applause.00:44:10.735 --> 00:44:15.915
Just as Paul warned Timothy, though, that people would have itching ears in the church,00:44:16.095 --> 00:44:20.335
so did John Chrysostom say the same thing was happening in the 300s,00:44:20.335 --> 00:44:26.695
and He is here exhorting preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle00:44:26.695 --> 00:44:32.435
ears, but powerful spiritual sermons that come from the word and throne of God.00:44:32.575 --> 00:44:38.695
He also says, the goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect.00:44:39.115 --> 00:44:45.115
Sermons are meant to be instruments of spiritual surgery designed to awaken00:44:45.115 --> 00:44:51.715
dead souls, correct error and conform the hearer to the image of Christ.00:44:51.715 --> 00:44:57.795
The preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate the gospel,00:44:58.195 --> 00:45:03.335
serving ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.00:45:03.335 --> 00:45:07.475
I'm going to read that last sentence again because it's so strong.00:45:07.735 --> 00:45:11.835
Keep in mind, Bro said this in the 300s.00:45:12.055 --> 00:45:18.595
John Chrysostom says, the preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate00:45:18.595 --> 00:45:25.175
the gospel, serving ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.00:45:25.375 --> 00:45:31.375
Brothers and sisters, may we not be guilty of serving ice cream.00:45:31.804 --> 00:45:39.464
To sick people who need medicine. May we not domesticate the gospel and water it down and weaken it.00:45:39.584 --> 00:45:47.344
May we share the whole counsel of God, empowered by the whole spirit of God, to please God himself.00:45:47.424 --> 00:45:54.424
Well, that's all for today. As I said, I've got seven more of these tidbits on preaching.00:45:54.424 --> 00:45:58.844
I'm going to put them all together and release them as its own separate podcast00:45:58.844 --> 00:46:01.584
in the Every Church Flourishing feed this week.00:46:01.584 --> 00:46:04.844
So if you're interested in that, you can download that whole episode.00:46:04.844 --> 00:46:09.584
You can find it in writing on our website, everychurchflourishing.com.00:46:10.204 --> 00:46:14.704
As we go out, please allow me to encourage you to tell somebody about the show00:46:14.704 --> 00:46:17.424
and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.00:46:17.444 --> 00:46:19.624
That does help us to reach other people.00:46:19.864 --> 00:46:22.864
Share it with your pastor friends and your church leader friends,00:46:22.864 --> 00:46:26.484
because I think we have something here that is helpful for leaders.00:46:26.684 --> 00:46:30.244
So thank you for listening. Good day to you and Godspeed.
