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This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53
Let's get into it.
0:54
All right, guys.
0:55
We've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:56
His name is Tom Rayner.
0:58
He's actually been on the show before, so you guys can check out his old interview as well.
1:01
But he is an author, church consultant, and former pastor.
1:04
He's also the founder and CEO of Church Answers.
1:06
So Church Answers is an online community and research for church leaders.
1:10
And before that, he actually was the CEO of LifeWay.
1:13
And before coming to LifeWay, he served at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1:16
for 12 years, where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and
1:20
Evangelism.
1:21
So he has written three best-selling books, but he's written over 40 books at this point.
1:26
And today we're just talking about, I think he said it was book 39 of 41.
1:31
He's got two that haven't been released yet, but it's this book right here.
1:33
When the people pray an invitation to intercede for your pastor and revive your church.
1:38
And so he's also the host of the Rainer on Leadership Podcast.
1:41
But to go back to the book, when people pray, this is basically a 30-day devotional to help
1:46
you pray for your pastor, which frankly is not really something that I've ever really
1:49
thought about too much.
1:50
It's like, shouldn't they be praying for me?
1:51
Shouldn't they be doing it for me?
1:53
And so I kind of got rebuked for that selfishness as I was reading it.
1:56
But we're going to talk about preparation, like what does a pastor go through to prepare
2:01
their sermon every week?
2:03
And what are the other jobs that they do?
2:04
What about unwarranted criticism?
2:06
What about warranted criticism for people that are saying, "horetical or non-doptrinal"
2:11
things?
2:12
What, how should they study the word?
2:13
How should they balance studying the word and being a caregiver?
2:16
Also, we talked about how do you do a funeral for someone that you know isn't a Christian
2:22
or wasn't a Christian?
2:23
How do you care for the family while giving a gospel presentation to everybody else that
2:28
may be fertile soil for the gospel in that moment?
2:32
And then we talked about weariness because I got to be honest, when pastors complain about
2:35
their job, I'm like, "I'm sorry, are you coal mining?
2:38
Like are you climbing cell towers, like hundreds of feet up?
2:43
What exactly so hard are you working rotating shifts?"
2:46
And so I kind of had fun with that question with him because he himself is a former pastor.
2:50
But also we got into courage and how a lot of modern-day pastors don't have the courage
2:55
to push back against the government mandates during COVID or against the racial grift of
3:02
Black Lives Matter or against the LGBTQ+ revolution that's coming for their kids and for the public
3:06
schools and everything else.
3:08
They don't have the courage, they don't have the hoods, but I guess, to really push back
3:12
against these things.
3:13
And then also what pastors can do about temptation and how that's something that they could become
3:17
very susceptible to.
3:19
So we weaved in and out a lot today, I really enjoyed my time with Tom, I always enjoyed
3:22
my Tom with Tom.
3:23
So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:25
Hey, Tom, great to see you as always.
3:27
Welcome back.
3:28
Oh, man.
3:29
Thank you for letting me be here.
3:30
This is going to be a fun time of interview, I think.
3:33
Well, I mean, don't oversell it.
3:36
We barely gotten started and people didn't see this because I added it out, but I already
3:40
messed up my intro once.
3:42
But here's the deal, Tom.
3:44
I'm a pretty busy guy.
3:45
I got a lot of things going on.
3:46
I got a lot of irons in the fire.
3:48
I got a lot of people that need my time and attention.
3:50
And you are that person as well, but to a more severe degree.
3:55
And yet somehow you still have time to put out books like every three or four weeks.
4:00
Can you help me understand how it is possible that you write so many books?
4:04
I just finished book number 41, Cal.
4:09
It's different than the others in that it's a fiction book.
4:11
In fact, it's a fable about a church, as you can imagine.
4:15
That's everything I write is in the church, a church of leadership genre.
4:18
And so I just finished number 41.
4:20
Basically the more you do it, the more you can do it and the more quantity you can do.
4:25
I remember my first book took me a year to write.
4:28
And then I also remember when Tyndale called me up during the pandemic and said, can you
4:32
write a book about what you think churches can do when they come out of the pandemic?
4:36
I said, sure.
4:37
They said, I said, how long do you have for me to get it written?
4:41
They said, can you do it in three weeks?
4:43
It's so cool.
4:44
So I wrote the book in 18 days.
4:46
Now, one thing that has changed with my writing is smaller books.
4:50
I've gone from 70,000 words to 25,000 as an average.
4:56
So the length of the book is cut down significantly, but most of it is just like anything else.
5:02
You do a lot of it and it becomes easier.
5:04
I mean, you pray more, it becomes more natural, or supernatural, I should say.
5:10
You're in the word more.
5:11
You get habits get learned and formed.
5:14
And that's the case with writing, I think.
5:17
I do not consider myself the consummate writer, especially when I get the manuscripts back
5:21
from the editor.
5:23
It looks nasty.
5:24
It just, I mean, we used to call it red ink, but whatever you call it now, I can tell that
5:30
I have a long way to go, but I'm grateful I have good editors.
5:34
And the other thing that makes doing books kind of easy is I'm passionate about the topic.
5:41
And if I'm passionate about the topic, it's kind of like, when John and Peter, I believe
5:49
that's right, were put in prison and the Sanhedrin told them to shut up talking about Jesus.
5:54
And they said in Acts 4, 20, I cannot help but speak about the things that we have seen
5:58
and heard.
5:59
Well, kill us if you want to, imprison us if you want to, but you can't shut us up.
6:04
Well, when I start talking about churches and church leaders, specifically pastors, I am
6:10
passionate about that.
6:11
There's a reason for it.
6:12
I've been one, number two, I have three sons that are pastors.
6:18
They all started out in the business world and they are pastors.
6:21
And naturally at church answers, we serve a lot of pastors too.
6:25
So that's a long answer.
6:27
You just wanted to know how I write so many books.
6:29
I don't know how I taught that long on it.
6:30
I'm really sorry.
6:31
That time from here on out, I'm just going to ask, yes, no, or what color do you feel
6:35
like?
6:36
And so we'll just kind of figure it out.
6:37
But no, I appreciate that input because I was going to ask you about the length of
6:40
book as well, because I have a stack of your books on my bookshelf over here, thanks to
6:45
you because you sent them over to us after your first interview.
6:48
And they're all short.
6:49
And I kind of thought that most publishers, the way that they thought is like, okay, if
6:53
it's under 200 pages, it's not a serious book, if it's over 250 pages, no one is going to
6:58
read it.
6:59
That's why most of the books on my shelf are in that 200 to 250.
7:03
And you kind of broke out of that mold, which, you know, hey, whatever the people are going
7:07
to end up reading, like that's what we need to do.
7:09
And so the latest book of yours, I guess this is, is this book 40 or would this, uh, when
7:15
the people pray 30, 30, 30, 32 are being released in 2024.
7:20
Okay, very good.
7:21
So it's called when the people pray an invitation to intercede for your pastor and revive your
7:26
church.
7:27
You're quote from the book just to set it up.
7:29
It is my prayer that this book and your decision to read it are a divine intersection.
7:34
You see, if you really take this plan seriously and pray for your pastor for the next 30 days,
7:40
you could see your church trams formed.
7:42
I'm serious.
7:43
So why'd you write the book?
7:46
For the reasons you just stated that there's an experiential reason behind it too.
7:50
When I was a pastor, many, many years ago, I was a pastor at four churches, but I need
7:55
to put it in a transparent perspective.
7:58
The last time I pastored was the mid nineties.
8:00
So, you know, some, somewhere in antiquity, I was, I was a pastor.
8:06
After that, I went to be dean of seminary and president of life way in that church answer.
8:09
So it's been a long time when I was a pastor, I hit a low point, a really low point, priest
8:16
discernment that I thought did not have much of God's spirit in it.
8:20
I could go back and think I can recall that I did not put much work into it.
8:25
I don't know if burnout was the word, but I was sure, I was it wits the end to say the
8:29
least.
8:30
And I did something probably I would not recommend to other pastors unless you truly know that
8:35
God is in it.
8:36
I just at the end of the sermon, I said, can I just be honest with you folks, I'm struggling
8:41
right now.
8:42
I'm struggling in pastoral ministry, my family's struggling a bit.
8:46
I didn't give them details.
8:48
I said, but I'm just struggling and I'm just going to ask you to pray for me, but not just
8:53
to pray for me, which I find to be challenging because I'm supposed to be serving you and
8:58
I'm asking you to help me.
9:00
But if you will commit to praying for me, will you let me know?
9:04
And two days later, Frances Mason came to my office.
9:11
She was probably about 80 at the time.
9:15
And she said, I took you seriously, pastor.
9:18
I said, thank you, Frances.
9:19
She said, I'm going to pray for you every day at noon.
9:22
She said, it may only be 30 seconds.
9:23
It may be five minutes, but I'm going to pray for you every day at noon.
9:27
I said, Frances, that means the world to me.
9:29
She says, I hope you don't mind that I recruited a few more people.
9:32
But gosh, no.
9:35
She recruited over 100 people to pray for me.
9:39
And by the time others had joined, it was significantly higher than that.
9:43
I don't remember the number.
9:45
I got to say, Cal, that that was my most meaningful part of pastoral ministry.
9:51
It was my most powerful part of pastoral ministry.
9:54
Why?
9:55
Because it wasn't time-powered.
9:57
It was God-powered.
9:59
And it was interceded by God's people.
10:02
The reality is, I've wanted to write this book for some time.
10:05
Don't ask me why I haven't, because I don't have a good answer.
10:08
I'll just have to make up something.
10:10
But I've wanted to write this book for some time.
10:12
And this is a book that even if you don't get any waltzes, I want this book in the hands
10:18
of a lot of people because I want people praying for their pastor.
10:22
As I indicated to you at the onset of your questions, my prolonged answers to what should
10:28
be yes or no and what color type of questions, as I indicated to you, if we can get in the
10:33
habit of something, then we can get better at something.
10:37
And this is a 30-day type of kickoff where you just commit to pray for your pastor for
10:43
30 days and see what God will do, and it may not end at the 30 days.
10:49
I would not presume, but I hope a lot of people get in the habit for it.
10:53
There's another reality.
10:54
Pastors, like a lot of other people are struggling right now, it's common.
10:59
Churches are down in attendance and that number is everything, but that means fewer people
11:04
are hearing God's word preached and proclaimed.
11:06
And pastors are seeing a lot of problems and they're feeling those problems.
11:12
Intercession is always needed, but I feel at my age, this time of life and ministry,
11:18
I can say I feel the burden for pastors more than any other time.
11:24
And that's I guess why I wrote this book.
11:26
Hey guys, real quick, as you may have heard me mention previously, before I started this
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Now while doing that, I got to sit down with literally hundreds of families to discuss
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I got to see some families that had all their ducks in a row, but unfortunately the overwhelming
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majority of the people I sat down with had major holes in their financial plans.
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So whether it was not diversifying their retirement investments, having no plan for replacement
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13:01
And the way that you have the book set up, Tom is really interesting because you have
13:05
basically a category that guides the chapter.
13:07
You have some scriptural references, you have some anecdotes typically from your personal
13:12
life to kind of bring it to life and then you kind of give some commentary.
13:16
And so we're obviously not going to go for all 30 today.
13:18
You'll have to get the book is in the show notes for that.
13:20
But I do want to highlight a few because I have some questions.
13:23
So we'll pull them out, you know, day by day, and then we'll look at a few quotes and then
13:27
kind of go from there.
13:28
So the first one I wanted to talk about was actually day four and that is called preparation.
13:32
So I'll read this quote here.
13:33
I wish I had your job pastor.
13:35
They only work one hour a week.
13:38
Certainly most, most church members make such claims and just they know a pastor's work
13:42
week is not limited to one hour on Sunday morning.
13:45
They know the pastor does more than preach a sermon once a week.
13:48
Now you're a more generous person than I am because I don't think most people do realize
13:53
that because I think most people are stupid.
13:54
And so most people will look at somebody and be like, this is all you do.
13:58
They will watch the NFL game on Sunday and think, Oh, these people work three hours a
14:01
week and they made, you know, $400,000 today.
14:04
This is ridiculous and they don't take into account any of the other things that go on.
14:08
But why do you think that's so important for us to pray for the preparation that a pastor
14:12
has to put in on a weekend, week out basis?
14:15
I have a bias and I hope it's a good bias that the pulpit is centered to the life of
14:20
the church.
14:21
I have a bias that the teaching and the preaching of God's word is what shapes a lot of the ethos
14:27
and the power of the church and the sermon does not just appear.
14:33
There may be a few extemporaneous preachers out there that it just appears and spirit
14:37
gives you something and you can say it.
14:39
But for most pastors, it does not just appear.
14:41
It's labor.
14:42
It's a labor of love.
14:44
It's not always a labor of pain, but it's a labor of love.
14:47
And whether you have digital commentary or you have artificial intelligence or you have
14:51
whatever, it ultimately comes down to the pastor getting into God's word and studying
14:58
it and bathing in it.
15:01
That is the time that we need to be praying for our pastors in addition to these other
15:04
times because what takes place during that preparation, God's spirit is already working
15:09
during the preparation.
15:11
We need to pray that the pastor will be sensitive to the spirit.
15:14
We need to pray that he will hear the spirit and we need to pray that what will come from
15:19
his study will be right for the church in an ester-like fashion as such a time is this,
15:25
is not just standing up and talking, it's all the work that goes before this.
15:29
The last study that we did on pastors in sermon preparation time has been, it's been
15:34
several years since this lapse.
15:35
So I don't want to say that this is current data, but in that quote that you read and the
15:41
number of hours that you read, 15 to 20 hours, 15 to 25 hours, what I said in the book, that
15:48
coincides somewhat with the research we had.
15:51
It was on the lower side somewhere between 15 and 20 that we actually were able to do
15:57
time studies of pastors and this is what the time they did.
16:00
It's a lot of time and if that's what a pastor is doing and that is part of his primary
16:06
calling, we just need to be praying for him during that time.
16:09
One time I feel like, you know, because a lot of people talk to me about my job which is
16:14
screaming things into a microphone and they're like, well, yeah, you know, you just kind
16:18
of do these interviews and you kind of do these other episodes, but it seems like you
16:21
just kind of flow and it's like, do you understand how much pre-work it takes to seem like I'm
16:26
just flowing because every person that sends me a book, guess what I do with it, Tom?
16:30
I read it and then I pull out quotes and apply it.
16:34
You know, like that takes a lot of time and you not only read it, but you're looking ahead
16:40
as you read it, which most podcasters don't do because they haven't read it ahead of time.
16:45
So they're thumbing through the book at that.
16:47
You've already prepared and I don't know what you're reading, but you've already extracted
16:51
the quote and you have it right up there for you.
16:54
So you're one of these prepared podcasters.
16:56
So if podcasting, communicating an important message, yes, preaching is in communicating
17:01
an important message.
17:02
When I'll say what this book, I'll try to give you compliments based on me personally
17:07
as to what this book has helped me to do.
17:10
The first compliment I want to give you is I've never really even thought about praying
17:13
for my pastor because I was like, that's his job.
17:15
He's supposed to pray to me.
17:16
Pray for me.
17:17
So it made me feel, you know, a little bit like a selfish jerk.
17:19
Thank you so much, Tom.
17:20
And so I've been able to turn that around.
17:21
But also with, also with this part, I, and this will kind of go from day four right into
17:26
day six, which is what I want to ask about next.
17:29
I have a very critical spirit because I love things to be excellent.
17:33
And if I see somebody that has potential, but they're leaving something to be desired,
17:37
I hate that because I want them to maximize, right?
17:40
And so when I, when I think about being critical of my pastor in the way that he approaches
17:45
his sermons because his sermons are very formulaic.
17:47
He does the exact same style of sermon on a weekend, week out basis.
17:50
I have to remember, well, that styled and just come out of the sky, like this is a sword
17:55
that this dude has been sharpening, week in and week out for decades.
18:00
And this is just the way it's presented.
18:01
Is it my favorite?
18:02
No.
18:03
Is it effective?
18:04
And does it get the, does he exit G to the scripture so that, you know, it can be applied
18:08
to us and for us to understand where we are in the story of God and where we aren't in
18:12
the story of God where, you know, it's just the word in and of itself.
18:15
Yes.
18:16
And so it's like, shut up, stop being so critical.
18:19
Just move on with your life.
18:20
So let's talk about day six.
18:22
Let's talk about criticism.
18:23
Let me read this quote here, pastors need intercession in three major ways.
18:27
First they need prayer to withstand criticism.
18:30
Second they need church members to stand up for them.
18:32
And if necessary, challenge and rebuke those who lob unwarranted criticism.
18:37
Third, they need intercessions of encouragement.
18:39
As one pastor shared with us, he began to believe he was as bad as his critic, as his
18:44
critics said, because no other church members said otherwise.
18:48
So I'm going to co sign most of that because if somebody is, you know, throwing slings
18:51
and arrows at your pastor and it's not warranted, sure, stand up for him.
18:55
And I've encouraged guys to do that a lot.
18:57
It's like, look, if you want your pastor to talk about incendiary topics like the pro
19:00
life issue, go into his office and say, guess what?
19:03
If you start talking about this, I'm going to stand in front of you.
19:06
And I got about a dozen more guys ready to do the same.
19:08
And we're going to take some of these slings and arrows.
19:10
So that's not what I want to talk about.
19:12
I want to talk about warranted criticism.
19:14
I want to talk about people that are maybe in Atlanta right now, hanging out North Point
19:18
Community Church and they see some of the things Andy Stanley is saying and doing, especially
19:22
in these last several months here and thinking to themselves, no, not always that not biblical.
19:27
That's a reticle.
19:28
You shouldn't do this.
19:29
You need to repent.
19:30
And then you have people that will come to Andy Stanley's defense.
19:32
I'm just using him as an example.
19:33
They'll come to a guy like that's defense because he's their guy.
19:37
And what they've done is they've actually placed themselves on the wrong side of the
19:39
ledger on the non biblical side of the ledger and they're doing it out of this, you know,
19:45
desire to have oneness with their pastor and to be seen as as defending him.
19:50
So I want to talk about warranted criticism.
19:52
So give me a little bit more on that.
19:54
I divide criticism of pastors into two broad categories, warranted and preferential criticism.
20:00
Preferential criticism is when the pastor doesn't that do something that you would like
20:03
for him to do?
20:04
In other words, it's a preference issue is a stylistic issue.
20:08
It may be a time issue that is where most pastors get most of their criticism.
20:14
Here's the bad news, Kyle, many pastors can preach heresy and not get as much criticism
20:20
if they go five minutes over the normal time and that's easy.
20:24
So yeah, warranted criticism.
20:28
If someone is aberrant doctrinally challenge them, if someone has misspoke in a way that
20:36
is an obvious deception from the pulpit, challenge them.
20:41
My point in all of this is pastors die at death of a thousand cuts by unwarranted criticism.
20:48
I am not suggesting pastors are perfect.
20:51
I've never known one that was perfect, even though my wife would say her three sons are
20:55
but her husband is not, I have never seen a perfect pastor.
20:59
So the reality of it is there will always be some areas, but warranted criticism is not
21:04
only that they have done something negative, but is it rise to the level of needing rebuke?
21:10
That would be the same thing.
21:12
So I'll stop there, let you let you follow up like, well, let me let me hop back in there
21:16
on that same thing.
21:17
So this is how I handle criticism.
21:21
When somebody criticizes my show, if I would not take advice from them, I'm also not going
21:26
to accept their criticism.
21:28
That's kind of a category, you know, hack for me is like, look, if I don't trust you
21:32
enough to give me good advice, I'm not going to trust you enough to give me good criticism.
21:35
Not to say that that makes their criticism incorrect by any means, but it's like, look,
21:39
I don't have time.
21:40
Yeah, it's my filter.
21:41
I don't have time to deal with everybody that doesn't like everything that I do.
21:44
Should pastors just, I don't know, just respond a little more rudely or maybe not rudely,
21:49
but currently and be like, thank you so much for your feedback.
21:52
I'll take it under advisement.
21:53
I feel like a lot of pastors will trip over themselves being like, sure, let me go ahead
21:57
and accommodate you because I don't want you to be late to your buffet.
22:01
I think you're absolutely right.
22:02
And if I'm talking to a pastor about dealing with this, so the first thing that you've
22:07
got to learn is that you need to walk away from some of these.
22:10
And it may be a brief comment that is partially polite, maybe not so polite, but pastors spend
22:15
more time on those who are the wrong type of critics and that takes away from the pastoral
22:23
ministry of those who are legitimate needs within the church.
22:28
And so I'm encouraging more and more pastors and have been for some time.
22:33
Gage that pastor.
22:34
I mean, Cal Thompson has this filter and I like your filter.
22:37
If I wouldn't take advice from them, what I take their criticism, pastors can develop
22:41
their own filter.
22:42
And is this someone in the church that really has the church's best at art?
22:46
Is this someone in the church that really has the pastor's best at art and the pastor's
22:50
family?
22:51
Or is this someone that is a perpetual critic that is just going to be a naysayer on everything?
22:57
Those are the squeaky wheels that get all too much in the church to the distraction of
23:01
doing the main thing in the church.
23:03
So pastors do need more filters.
23:05
It's difficult.
23:06
And most pastors have not had training in leadership.
23:09
Most pastors have not had training in the conflict resolution.
23:14
But they do have the word of God and the word of God and prayer is what they need more than
23:19
anything Hey guys, real quick, I've talked about this on the show before, but I've been
23:23
experimenting with the idea of getting on the carnivore diet.
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And so I've got a good buddy Chad Robis show who's been on the podcast that he's been on
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23:30
He's seen a lot of great success.
23:32
But the big thing that I've been worrying about is like, where do I get high quality
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23:36
Like where exactly can I get beef where I can trust that's coming from a reputable source
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Use the code Kyle, kyle to get 10% off of your order when again, if someone's given
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you negative feedback, you can say, thank you so much for your honest feedback.
25:25
What they're expecting is for you to say, thank you so much for your honest feedback.
25:29
Here are the 17 ways I'm going to change to acquiesce to your very specific requests.
25:33
But if you just leave it there awkwardly, if they're dense, they won't get the point.
25:38
So you might have to drive it home a little bit further.
25:40
But if they can pick up on your cues, they can be like, okay, he doesn't agree with me.
25:45
He's being nice.
25:46
I've said my piece.
25:47
I'm going to move on with my day.
25:48
So I got to give you this great illustration.
25:52
I got to give this great illustration.
25:53
Told you I had three sign pastors, okay?
25:55
I'm not going to tell you which one because people might be listening to you and they
25:59
will be able to identify which one.
26:01
But this is a true story.
26:03
I was at the church when this happened, I saw it happen, someone came up to my son right
26:10
before the service began and they said, we're about to walk out on this church.
26:15
He said, oh, tell me why.
26:17
He said, we see who's singing.
26:20
And we said, if she ever sings again, we're leaving.
26:25
And my son looked at him and said, well, okay, see you later.
26:30
And they didn't come back and the church was much healthier as a result.
26:38
I tell people all the time, because you've heard my spiel because you've been on a couple
26:41
of times before people come on, I kind of give them an idea of who their audience is.
26:45
It's like, you know, it's this percentage mail.
26:47
It's typically rough, typically Christian, typically conservative.
26:50
And I say my audience is not easily offended because we're over 500 episodes in at this
26:54
point.
26:55
If they were easily offended, they were gone a long time ago.
26:57
And I have invited Tom, I've invited a bunch of my critics to no longer listen to me because
27:03
there will be people that will send me these very long emails that are just drawing on
27:07
about their preferences.
27:08
They're not legitimate criticisms because if I've said something that's incorrect, I want
27:11
to be corrected.
27:12
It's incumbent upon you as my fan, as my listener, as my viewer to correct the record
27:17
if I've given it inaccurately.
27:20
But I just say, hey, man, the good thing about this situation is there are roughly 3 million
27:24
podcast shows on the planet, you have just discovered one of the ones that you can't
27:28
stomach anymore.
27:29
This is a great news.
27:30
So I wish you well, please get out of my inbox like that.
27:34
It's a nice way of doing it.
27:35
So I feel like you, your son and I are kindred spirits as far as that goes.
27:40
Now when to get into day nine, that's where you're talking about the word.
27:44
So here's a quote.
27:46
Here's the essence of the pastoral dilemma in most churches.
27:49
How much time should the pastor devote to prayer and teaching and how much to other ministry?
27:54
There's no question that pastors are tugged in multiple directions.
27:57
As a consequence, they may be tempted to substitute good for the best.
28:02
Sure, they can be involved in the food ministry.
28:05
That's a good outreach for the church, but pastors can be tugged in so many directions
28:09
that they sacrifice spending time and prayer and in the word.
28:13
Now we're going to get more into this a little bit later when I start talking about pastors
28:17
that operate more like a CEO instead of a lead pastor.
28:20
But obviously there are the visible things that the church can see, teaching on Sunday
28:24
morning, you know, speaking on Wednesday night, being at the soup kitchen that the church
28:30
provides for financially, those types of things.
28:34
But then there is all the other things like I have good pastor friends are like, look,
28:37
I'm a terrible marriage counselor.
28:39
And so when people come up to me, they're like, Hey, do you need me or do you need help?
28:43
Because if you want me, it's not going to be very helpful.
28:45
Let me get you to someone who I identify with that, but the reality of it, Tom, is if you're
28:51
going to hire a team as a pastor that cares about discipleship and cares about shepherding
28:55
the flock, you want the flock to get the help from the most appropriate people and that
28:59
can't always be you.
29:00
So talk to me a little bit about that dissonance.
29:04
Well the dissonance occurred early in the early church.
29:06
Act six is the point where the dissonance occurred, where the Grecian widows were being
29:11
overlooked in the daily distribution of food, which is just a fancy way of saying you had
29:16
the Hebrew Christians and you had the Greek Christians.
29:19
And because of familial ties, the Hebrew Christians were getting meals, but the Greek
29:24
Christians were not.
29:25
And it became divisive within the church.
29:28
And I don't want to read into scripture too much.
29:31
I can just imagine that there was this business meeting saying, you don't love us.
29:36
You don't care far.
29:37
You're not doing this.
29:38
And what do they say?
29:39
They said, you know, it's not good for us to serve this food.
29:45
But the food does need to be served.
29:47
So we will find seven full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom and we will ask them to do it.
29:52
Why?
29:53
Six, four.
29:54
So we can give our attention to prayer and to the ministry of word.
29:58
That is right at the beginning of the Jerusalem church.
30:02
That is that is that is not just something that happened in the thirties ad that is something
30:07
that is normative for us today.
30:09
And most church members do not realize that the best thing a pastor can be doing is spending
30:15
more time in the ministry of prayer and the ministry of the word, which means he cannot
30:20
spend time in everything else you want him to do.
30:24
I know some pastors who feel like they have to show up at every committee meeting who have
30:27
to show up at every social event that occurs and they are killing themselves doing things
30:33
that are good, but not great.
30:36
So I heard the story once and I change the details a little bit every time because I
30:39
forget it, but the gist of the story is great.
30:42
So there was this amazing American table tennis player.
30:44
Let's call what it is as ping pong, but it's an American ping pong player.
30:48
And he's good, but he's not great.
30:50
But the great player, the best player in the world was this Chinese player.
30:53
And so he's invited over to China to watch this guy play and watch this guy practice.
30:58
And so the whole time he's watching this guy practice, all he's doing is hitting four
31:01
hands, four hands, all day long, four hands, four hands, four hands.
31:06
The next day training begins the Chinese player, four hands, four hands, four hands.
31:11
Finally, through an interpreter, the American asked the Chinese player like, Hey, you, you
31:16
have the best forehand in the world.
31:18
Everyone already knows that.
31:19
I haven't seen you work on any other parts of your game.
31:21
Why are you only working on your forehand?
31:24
And he said, well, that's the problem with you Americans is you try to make the things
31:27
you suck at mediocre as opposed to making the things you're good at excellent or great.
31:32
And so with this thing, if you're a pastor, if you were put on this planet to push back
31:38
darkness by being on stage and preaching the word, that is your main focus.
31:42
With this, this podcast, this ministry with undaunted life, there are things that I don't
31:46
put, you know, super full effort into because it doesn't really matter.
31:49
It's not my, my bread and butter, but making great content, you know, doing right by the
31:55
people I'm interviewing, that's something that I take very, very seriously.
31:58
So I will spend hours and hours and hours in preparation before the time of interview
32:03
and before the time of release, because that is the high leverage skill set that that I've
32:10
been given as a gift.
32:11
Does that make, would you cosign that?
32:13
I will cosign it.
32:14
I will put an exclamation point at the end and I will make it redundant as a part of my
32:18
speech to.
32:19
Okay.
32:20
Very, very good.
32:21
Everyone actually works closely in concert with day nine and that's day 11 and that's
32:26
caregiver.
32:27
So let me read this quote, counseling in some ways is a subset of pastoral care.
32:32
Pastors who counsel will meet with one person or a few people concerning a specific need.
32:37
Pastoral care, on the other hand, is broader.
32:39
It includes counseling, hospital visits, home hospice visits, telephone calls, emails and
32:45
other forms of communication with those in need.
32:48
So this is one place where I have been critical of mega church pastors and I always try to
32:53
delineate.
32:54
There are pastors that have enormous churches that care about the true gospel, exegeting
33:00
the scripture and discipleship.
33:01
So those just happen to be enormous churches.
33:04
There are other mega churches where the guy basically read good to great and rich dad
33:09
poor dad and then decided to start a church.
33:12
And so this person doesn't have an elder board.
33:14
They have a board of directors.
33:15
That's all their buddies.
33:16
They happen to be the chairman of that, that board as well.
33:19
They have no one that can check them, no one that can, you know, basically call them on
33:23
the carpet and they're whisked into the church before they deliver their speech in a, you
33:28
know, blacked out SUV and afterwards they're not staying and praying over people and shaking
33:32
hands.
33:33
They are whisked back away to wherever else they're needing to go.
33:36
So they operate as a high leverage CEO and not a lowly pastor.
33:41
It absolutely drives me nuts.
33:43
I understand your entire life can't be hospice visits and answering phone calls and emails
33:48
and doing counseling.
33:49
But what do you have to say about those pastors that are just operating like they're, you
33:54
know, applying for a job to have the next TED talk as opposed to making sure they're
33:58
shepherding their flock?
34:00
I don't think they're pastors bottom line.
34:03
Pastor by the very definition has a shepherding understanding to it.
34:07
And you may not can shepherd everybody, but you better have a shepherd heart and be prepared
34:11
to shepherd those that God has put into your path.
34:15
And another thing is when that type of model is put before people and I'm talking about
34:20
them, those who are seeing it, it is something that makes pastors look like they don't care.
34:28
It makes pastors over all bad people.
34:31
And it's bad.
34:32
I don't want to call pastors profession.
34:33
I'll say it's bad for the calling.
34:36
So I am glad out of 400,000 American churches that there are not that many of those, but
34:42
there are enough of them and they're large enough that they're the ones that get the
34:45
ink, maybe the digital print, they're the ones that get the attention and they are
34:52
not good for the kingdom and they're not good for churches.
34:55
I'm just hesitant to call that type of model a pastor at all.
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I was being honest, you're normally pretty polite and that seemed downright rude.
35:33
Tom, I love it.
35:34
I love that you rip the Band-Aid off on that one, but I think you're absolutely right.
35:39
These jobs have titles and those titles have job descriptions and where do we get those
35:43
job descriptions from a book that we purportedly say is the living and errand word of God.
35:49
If you're not doing the things in that book that give you the title that you've taken
35:54
for yourself, then what exactly are you doing?
35:57
That's the thing and then we can get into other ministries like Robbie Zacharias comes
36:00
to mind, his name is on the mast head and so nobody could really call him on his stuff.
36:05
He had insulated himself from rebuke and then obviously we saw some horrific things that
36:09
happened up with his ministry.
36:11
But now let's go to something that I was shocked that you covered this, but I was really glad
36:15
that you did.
36:16
It's day 14.
36:17
It's called funerals.
36:18
So let's read a quote here, "Perhaps the most difficult funeral is for someone who was
36:22
not a Christian.
36:24
How can a pastor who believes John 14-6 that no one comes to the Father except for Jesus
36:29
offer hope and compassion to the family of the deceased?
36:32
Certainly, he can give a clear gospel presentation.
36:35
But what can he say about the person's eternal home?
36:39
Most pastors simply don't address that painful reality."
36:42
Now, I'm not going to presume anything in this question because I've never been on that
36:48
side.
36:49
I've only been on the side of the people that have lost a loved one or something like that.
36:54
But I'd be lying if I said I didn't sit at funerals wondering whether the deceased wasn't
36:58
heaven or in hell because I saw no fruit of the gospel in their life.
37:02
That would make me believe that they are in heaven.
37:05
But we love to play our Christian songs at funerals.
37:08
We love to say they're in a better place.
37:09
We love to give the eulogy and look up at the sky and say, "I'll see you again someday."
37:14
But for the most part, none of that's biblical.
37:17
None of that is something that we can really get into.
37:19
So talk to me a little bit more about an impossible situation for a pastor to find themselves
37:25
in.
37:26
The audience may not be the best description, but you have two groups listening to you when
37:30
you do the funeral of a nine Christian.
37:34
You have the family and then you have everybody else.
37:37
And the family does need love, compassion, and understanding.
37:42
I don't think I would recommend saying by every measure, this person is now burning
37:47
in hell.
37:48
I don't think I would use that as part of the funeral because you have to have compassion
37:51
on the family.
37:52
But you cannot be disingenuous.
37:54
You cannot compromise truth.
37:58
And so at this point, you're not only speaking to the family, but you're speaking to everyone
38:01
else.
38:02
And you're saying, "Let's talk about eternal life."
38:05
And again, you're not pointing to the deceased, but let's talk about eternal life.
38:09
That is an incredible opportunity to share the gospel without being offensive to the
38:15
family.
38:16
And I've done a lot of funerals of a lot of people that I presume were not believers.
38:20
I didn't even know them, most of them, when I was asked to do the funeral.
38:24
But from what I heard, they were not.
38:26
And I never stopped sharing the gospel.
38:29
And I never had a family say, "Well, that was offensive because I know that you really
38:33
meant that my husband or my dad or my mom or my wife was not that person."
38:38
No, they need to hear the truth.
38:40
The most pastoral thing that you can do for anyone is to point them to eternal life through
38:46
Jesus Christ.
38:47
And if you don't do that in a funeral, you have missed that God-given opportunity to
38:52
share what God really wants you to share.
38:55
When I think you're displaying a way where you can toe the line between really holding
39:02
the line for truth while at the same time not resurrecting the dead person to kill them
39:08
again.
39:09
And that's because again, can you imagine the fight that could ensue at a funeral if you
39:13
say, "Well, that guy over there, that dead guy, definitely in hell."
39:16
But for you today, I've got a message of hope that probably wouldn't go well for you.
39:21
So I appreciate your perspective on that.
39:23
Day 15, you talk about weariness.
39:27
And just like with the other chapters, you have some commentary, some scripture in your
39:32
own thoughts.
39:33
And I got to tell you, I keep hearing about these weary pastors whose lives are so hard.
39:38
But at some point, Tom, I just want to say, you have a hard job.
39:43
Suck it up.
39:44
Quick complaining.
39:45
Like, there are plenty of jobs out there that are harder than yours.
39:50
And those guys don't get sabbaticals every two or three years or something like that.
39:54
Like my dad, I love and respect him so much for this.
39:56
He busted his tail for 40 plus years working at a factory so that I never had to worry
40:01
about living indoors or getting a hot meal.
40:03
I never had to worry about that because my dad busted his tail working, rotating shifts.
40:08
He never got more than a few days off in his entire career at a time.
40:13
And again, not every pastor's the same, not every church is the same, not everybody even
40:17
does a sabbatical.
40:18
Like I get it.
40:19
But part of me is like, goodness gracious, can you complain some more way?
40:22
You got a hard job.
40:23
Like, why should I feel that bad for them and not for all these other folks?
40:27
Well, first of all, most pastors do not complain.
40:32
So I just want, I want to make that very, very clear.
40:35
We do, we do hear the negatives and we do hear about those.
40:38
So that's one thing I want to share out of, you know, 400,000 churches.
40:42
I don't have a percentage, but it's a very small percentage.
40:44
And I want to be very careful, Kyle, with his next statement.
40:47
I got to say it very carefully because it is not a blanket statement, but sometimes pastors
40:54
are weary because they haven't been called to do what they do.
41:00
And then when the negative stuff hits, they don't have the calling of God to turn back
41:05
to, to say, I need, I know God call me to this and if he called me to it, he is going
41:12
to see me through it.
41:14
I am talking with close to 10 pastors right now who are now questioning whether God really
41:22
called them into ministry or their family tradition call them into ministry.
41:28
And those, those, those men, good men, but probably not called men are failing the weariness
41:37
because they don't have that sense that God got me in this.
41:41
And so I'm ready to get out of it, but I want to be very careful.
41:44
I don't want your viewer or listener to hear me say, if you get weary, you're not called.
41:49
I'm just saying that is a common issue that we often see in weary pastors.
41:54
If you're not called, you can't do it.
41:57
So how does a pastor go, gosh, this is a one size fits all question.
42:01
But here it is.
42:02
But how does a pastor determine that?
42:03
Because there are a lot of people, Tom, that are in jobs that they took excitedly.
42:09
They were excited to take this job, they applied for it on purpose.
42:13
It's kind of like, for me, I get criticized for this, but I don't like when teachers complain
42:17
about how much they make in Oklahoma, we don't pay our teachers very well, but they went
42:21
to school to be a teacher.
42:22
They got their degree in teaching.
42:25
They sought out a job in teaching.
42:27
They applied for that job.
42:28
They interviewed for that job.
42:29
They accepted that job.
42:30
They choose to still work at that job.
42:32
Okay.
42:33
Then you have that job now.
42:34
Why are you complaining?
42:35
Like when NFL guys want to hold out because they want a bigger contract.
42:37
Like you signed the contract, like play the contract that you signed, right?
42:41
And so how does somebody determine when they're stuck in the thing specifically pastors like,
42:45
wait a minute, did I make a huge mistake?
42:47
How do I get this egg off my face?
42:50
These pastors, at least anecdotally, those to whom I speak knew that they weren't called
42:54
before the pain hit, but they were it.
42:58
They were able to stay and get a paycheck because there was not the conflict, but everyone
43:04
I'm with whom I'm speaking right now, they could say, I never had a sense of God's call.
43:09
So it's not how do I discern?
43:11
I don't have a call.
43:12
They knew that that was not the case.
43:14
And okay, why did they do that?
43:16
Well, sometimes it's family pressure, sometimes it's financial need, and I've had three pastors
43:20
in the last week tell me, it's the only thing I know to do.
43:23
I just don't know what to do beyond this.
43:26
And so again, no blanket statements here, Kyle, I love pastors, but those are some of
43:31
the issues that we see in pastors who are weary.
43:35
Well, that's another thing that I've never really thought about is a pastor that's sitting
43:38
in that seat that probably shouldn't be there because I mean, you probably know this because
43:42
you're in this world, but like I have never, I very rarely ran across former pastors, right?
43:48
It's typically they're either currently a pastor or they're aspiring to be one.
43:51
And it's not like, Oh yeah, hey, I used to work in insurance.
43:54
I used to mow lawns.
43:55
I used to run an entire church.
43:56
I shepherd at a flock by which I'm going to have to give an account to God for someday.
44:00
And now I'm selling insurance again, right?
44:02
Like it's not, you never see that trajectory for somebody.
44:05
So I guess I would be interesting for somebody to kind of move in that direction.
44:09
Let me say we are seeing that trajectory more today though.
44:13
We are seeing the trajectory where you are running into more former pastors than you
44:17
used to.
44:19
And I think a lot of it has been heightened by the culture and the times that we're in,
44:23
but some of them are finally saying, I'm not meant to be here and I'm going to be a former
44:27
pastor.
44:28
Well, let's talk a little bit more about that.
44:29
Because one thing that you need in order to stand up to an atheistic culture is courage.
44:33
And that's what you deal with in day 19.
44:35
So let me read this quote here.
44:37
I've worked with numerous pastors who struggled because they didn't grasp the importance of
44:41
leadership or perhaps they didn't think they were leaders.
44:45
So they avoided leading.
44:46
They preached well.
44:47
They taught well.
44:48
They did pastoral care well, but they felt woefully inadequate when they were confronted
44:52
with decisions that required courageous leadership.
44:56
So one of my bugaboos are these lamb only pastors that have no lying in them.
45:02
And so I love what Jordan Peterson says about men.
45:04
It's like a a weak man is not a good man.
45:08
A weak man is a useless man.
45:10
A good man is a man that is capable of incredible fit feats of strength in every way possible,
45:16
but they know when it's appropriate to show it.
45:17
They're like a knight with their sword in the sheath and they only pull the sword when
45:21
they know they need to use it.
45:22
But when they pull it, they know what they're doing.
45:25
And so pastors got smacked up beside beside their heads in 2020 when COVID hit, they didn't
45:30
know what to do.
45:31
They'd never really reckoned with what would happen if the government said, no, you're
45:34
not allowed to go to church.
45:35
You're not essential, but the titty bar and the weed shop, those are essential, right?
45:39
They didn't really take that into consideration.
45:42
Black lives matter.
45:43
George Floyd overdoses in police custody.
45:45
All of a sudden the world's on fire.
45:47
Pastors had no idea what to do.
45:48
The LGBTQ, the trans, all these different revolutions that are coming inside of public
45:52
schools, inside a culture, inside of universities, whatever, they're woefully unprepared.
45:57
And part of it is because they're cowards in their core of their belly.
46:01
They are cowardly men and they're doing nothing to try to make themselves the opposite of
46:06
that to be courageous, strong men.
46:09
So take that wherever you want to go with it.
46:12
When I think of courageous pastors, I don't necessarily think of those who have an MBA
46:17
before they went into ministry.
46:18
I don't necessarily think of those who went to some institute of leadership or have read
46:22
the right books, though they may have.
46:24
When I think of pastors who are courageous, I think of pastors who are courageous because
46:27
they tried to be courageous.
46:29
Now think about that for a minute.
46:30
Caleb, I don't know a whole lot about Caleb other than the wilderness wanderings and get
46:36
into the promised land and at 85 saying, I'll give me that mountain.
46:39
I will take it.
46:40
I don't know a lot more about him other than he was one of the minority report that said
46:43
we can go into the promised land.
46:45
God told us we can take it because it is there and God promised it.
46:49
I don't see any indication that he was a naturally courageous person.
46:53
I say that he's a supernaturally courageous person.
46:57
And if he's one of two of 12 who were part of the minority report to say, let's take
47:01
this land.
47:02
God has promised it to us.
47:04
He did it because he did it.
47:07
Courage does not mean that you are excited about facing something fearful.
47:12
It just means you do it.
47:14
And sometimes that's what courage is and if a pastor decides to back off of some of
47:21
the critical Biblical issues, that is lack of courage.
47:24
How do you overcome that?
47:25
You be courageous.
47:26
I mean, that sounds a little circular, but you be courageous.
47:30
That's it.
47:31
No, it doesn't sound circular.
47:32
I don't want to.
47:33
No, Tom, it doesn't sound circular.
47:35
I remember back in the day.
47:36
So I follow this guy, Jocko Willink.
47:37
He's a best-selling author of the book, Extreme Ownership, former Navy SEAL, you know, wake
47:42
up at four o'clock in the morning every day to work out type of guy.
47:44
And he was doing this Q and A on Twitter years ago.
47:47
And someone messaged him and said, "Hey, I really struggle with pullups.
47:50
How would you suggest I get better at doing pullups?"
47:52
And what do you think his answer was?
47:54
Do more pullups.
47:55
Do more pullups.
47:56
That's the answer.
47:57
Do more pullups.
47:59
People that are out of shape, overweight, it's like, man, I really wish I knew how to get
48:02
out of shape and, you know, really take care of this.
48:05
It's like, have you ever tried putting on your workout shoes and go into the gym?
48:07
Have you ever tried going for a run?
48:09
Have you ever tried putting the second donut down before you even get to the gym?
48:11
The third, fourth, or fifth?
48:13
But I think the best example of this that I've ever seen, Tom, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
48:18
And so I've talked about him on this show repeatedly, Eric Metaxas' book, his biography
48:23
of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is one of the best biographies I've ever read, one of the best
48:28
books I've ever read.
48:29
But here's the thing.
48:30
I need to read it.
48:31
I really do.
48:32
Okay.
48:33
Well, you'll learn about that.
48:34
And then in the subsequent writing, the letter to the American church where he talks about
48:37
Dietrich Bonhoeffer again.
48:39
This was not a six foot five, 250 pound Adonis of a man.
48:45
This guy didn't have an extra vocal fold so he could scream like Matt Chandler.
48:49
This guy wasn't delivering two and three hour booming sermons like Charles Spurgeon.
48:53
This was, by all intents and purposes, a fairly diminutive guy.
48:57
Like he wasn't very big.
48:58
He wasn't the best athlete.
49:00
He was kind of a bookworm, kind of a nerd.
49:03
But he was also a gangster that tried to kill Hitler.
49:06
And so like that, that's the thing is like most people think their immutable characteristics
49:11
or their natural wiring is, well, I'm just not courageous by nature.
49:16
Well, it's like, no, you're not practicing courage.
49:18
So how do you expect your courage to grow?
49:21
But to go back to specifically the fights that are in culture, some of the most godless
49:25
ideologies, like the transing of the kids is as one example between that and the killing
49:31
of the unborn.
49:32
You can't really see much that's, that's more satanic than those two ideologies, attacking
49:37
life itself and then attacking the binary nature of sex and gender, which are the same
49:43
thing, by the way, most pastors Tom will not touch those subjects and they will hide behind
49:49
a veil of, well, I just want to be a winsome.
49:52
I just, I don't want to be needlessly divisive and the problem is is their flock that they've
49:57
said they would like to shepherd in a good way.
50:00
They're confused about how to operate in culture when their son comes home from school and
50:05
says, Hey, you know, my friend Ben, he says that I should call him Jennifer now and he's
50:09
wearing dresses.
50:10
What is it?
50:11
What's happening?
50:12
Like I thought he was a boy and they can't lean on their pastor for understanding because
50:16
their pastor is too much of a coward to bring it up.
50:18
So what is your suggestion to these pastors that are like, look, I just, you know, I just
50:23
want to do the Bible.
50:24
I only want to talk about gospel issues and they pretend like life and the snuffing out
50:28
of innocent human life is not a gospel issue.
50:31
What would you suggest for those people to do to help steal their nerves?
50:34
Well, first of all, you really hit it when you said they only want to do gospel issues,
50:41
but they're not doing gospel issues.
50:42
Life is a gospel issue.
50:44
Thank you.
50:45
Creation and who we are and our sexual identity is a gospel issue.
50:52
All of those are gospel issues.
50:53
So you're compromising the gospel.
50:55
When you do that, I think what happens to those who do not have that courage, I'm getting
51:00
back to the spies again, but I think basically they write in the wilderness.
51:05
They're not effective.
51:07
They don't have a ministry because their ministry is one of compromise instead of one of conviction
51:13
and they have been called to preach the word, do the word and do so uncompromisingly.
51:20
And there is a lot in the Bible that goes against culture, perhaps more today than any
51:25
point in my lifetime.
51:26
And if the Bible goes against culture, we have to take that same biblical stand regardless
51:33
of the response.
51:34
And Tom, I think it's bumper bumper sticker theology that comes to this because you have
51:39
these people that say things that look good on the t-shirt.
51:42
It's I want to be known for what I'm for, not what I'm against.
51:46
This church is going to be known for what it's for, not what it's against.
51:49
This church is going to draw circles and not draw lines.
51:52
And though a line is, or a circle is literally a line that's connected and you're either
51:56
inside of the circle or outside of the circle.
51:58
So it's a line, but at the same time, most of these pastors think to themselves, I'm going
52:04
to say things to make nice, nice with culture.
52:07
So last thing on this before we get to the last day that I want to cover here, a lot
52:12
of pastors have bought into the lie that if they're nice enough to culture, that culture
52:16
will love them back.
52:18
And so they've created these churches and these Sunday morning experiences that feel
52:21
a lot like culture, they play secular music to warm the people up before they get into
52:27
the mildly, Jesus is my boyfriend music, you know, they're, they're putting on the rock
52:31
concert.
52:32
They're doing the, the incredibly communicative TED talk with a few Bible verses sprinkled
52:35
over the top so they can keep their tax exempt status.
52:38
And then they're sending everybody off with, you know, a frappuccino and a bag of chips.
52:43
And when something is so like culture, how is it possible that you're going to call everybody
52:48
to something that is as countercultural as the acceptance of the gospel?
52:52
And so what is your, again, just your advice as a pastor, former pastor and as a writer
52:58
in this area for those pastors that kind of want to just go along to get along, not really
53:04
rock the boat, not really mess with the gravy train of people donating to their ministry
53:08
and really start tackling issues that we need in a time such as this.
53:12
There's the biblical response and the biblical response is you cannot compromise what the
53:16
Bible says.
53:17
So no matter what we do, we got to say, okay, that's what the Bible says.
53:21
That's it.
53:22
That's it.
53:23
There's also, I don't want to call this pragmatic, but I want these pastors who think
53:27
they have to compromise with culture in order to have a healthy church.
53:30
I want them to hear this.
53:32
That was a trend that came with probably more of the baby memory generation.
53:37
That trend is going away and culture is becoming clearer what it is for and what it is against.
53:44
And what we are seeing Cal is healthy churches, not necessarily mega churches, not necessarily
53:50
large churches, healthy churches are now taking stands that are counter-cultural and sometimes
53:56
anti-cultural.
53:58
And those are becoming some of the healthiest churches we know.
54:01
We have been doing doctrinal surveys of churches since 1996.
54:06
That sounds boring.
54:07
I mean, it sounds like I don't have a life.
54:09
We're just probably true.
54:10
I don't have a life.
54:11
We're doing that.
54:12
We really want to know what's in the lives of church members.
54:14
And church members take these surveys.
54:16
So we have what's called a longitudinal study when we see what people believe over the years.
54:20
The two things that are being compromised more than anything is the exclusivity of salvation
54:26
to Christ.
54:27
This is church members, active church members, saying we don't believe that Jesus is the
54:31
only way more and more of them are doing that.
54:34
And surprisingly, the other part is that Jesus sinned more and more church members are saying
54:40
that Jesus sinned.
54:42
What is happening to those churches that I've had eroding doctrine?
54:45
Now they are about to go away.
54:48
Only 5 to 10 years from now, this is maybe prophetic and you had to stone me if it's
54:55
not close to being true.
54:56
But 5 to 10 years from now, those will not be the churches that are standing.
55:00
Culture isn't going to compromise culture.
55:02
So no matter how much you try to accede to culture, it's going to be culture.
55:08
You're not going to win them over.
55:10
Culture isn't going to compromise culture would be the title of this episode if I didn't
55:14
already name it when the people pray because again, that's the center point of what we're
55:17
talking about today.
55:18
So let's wrap up the book by talking about day 24.
55:21
So this is talking about temptation.
55:23
Here's a quote.
55:25
Sometimes the loneliness a pastor experiences can lead to sexual temptation.
55:29
Sometimes the financial pressures in a pastor's life can lead to financial temptation.
55:33
But the devil works on a pastor's ego as well.
55:35
If a pastor thinks congregational adulation is true and deserved, he may yield to the
55:40
temptation of power and control.
55:42
It is a very dangerous situation when pastors begin to think they are invincible.
55:46
Why did you use the word invincible?
55:48
I thought that was an interesting way to put a fine point on that point, rather.
55:53
When pastors feel like sexual, they will not yield a sexual temptation to financial temptation
56:00
to the temptation of power.
56:03
The reason they do that is because they do not think that it will ultimately get to them,
56:08
which is one of the greatest lies of Satan that they can believe.
56:12
If you start saying as a Christian in general, but as a pastor in particularly, I am above
56:18
that, what you're basically saying is you have a new idol and that new idol is me.
56:23
I am strong enough to be above this.
56:26
And this type of temptation can happen fairly easily.
56:32
Two counseling sessions can turn into an affair.
56:37
An overdrawn checking account can result in some financial misappropriation.
56:43
And enough praise from within the church about how wonderful you are can convince you that
56:47
you are not a sinner.
56:49
So all of that is what we have to be able to look out for.
56:53
There is criticism.
56:54
There are tough times, but some of the greatest dangers are on what we perceive are the good
56:59
times.
57:00
And it's that ego that you have to keep in check.
57:02
What's funny is I kind of got an ego check that I brought on myself a few weeks ago.
57:06
I was making a comment to my wife and I was like, babe, I don't make mistakes when it comes
57:09
to my show.
57:10
Like, because I would misspeak and I'll say words wrong or whatever, but it's like, I
57:14
don't make mistakes.
57:15
And I've literally just been a litany of mistakes, like uploading the wrong audio, misspelling
57:20
something in a title, posting something at the wrong time and it's just like, okay, all
57:24
right.
57:25
God, can you stop?
57:26
Can I have my brain back?
57:27
Like I get it.
57:28
I get it.
57:29
But you know, my wife just kind of looked at me and gave me that wifely look because she
57:33
can push back on me and she knows how to do so.
57:36
And that's the thing that I want pastors to have is I want them to have not just employees,
57:42
not just elders, but boys, like have some boys around you that it's like, man, those
57:47
are going to be the guys that have no problem grabbing you by the scruff of your neck after,
57:52
you know, a sermon and being like, that was terrible.
57:54
What's wrong with you?
57:55
Snap out of it.
57:56
Like, and if you don't have those types of guys around you, you're not going to be
57:59
emboldened to do the things that you need to do.
58:01
But Tom, I always enjoy whenever you come on the show, we always bounce around to a million
58:05
different subjects and you're always very good to weave in and out.
58:08
But that's all for me.
58:09
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
58:11
I don't have anything else to get off my chest.
58:13
My word to you is, thank you for having me and thank you for taking the type of stand
58:17
you do, Cal.
58:18
I appreciate you.
58:19
Tom, writer, thank you for coming back on a Daunton life a man's podcast.
58:22
All right, guys.
58:23
I hope you enjoyed the return appearance of Tom Rainer on the show, but before we let
58:26
you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
58:28
Add on Daunton life or mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
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forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
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So I've got a link to where you can buy your copy of when the people pray and also a link
58:38
to church answers.
58:39
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.
58:41
For ever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
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59:00
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The links are in the description.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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