Before You Quit

We assume pastors have it all together. After all, they stand behind the pulpit and preach the Word of God. However, did you know some pastors also struggle with their faith? That is Julian Pace’s story. And he wrote a book about it which you can order by clicking the image before. I appreciated so much Julian’s honestly. At one point he expressed that he is a better pastor for struggling with his faith.

Julian Pace is a Christian pastor and author. He currently serves as the Pastor of Central Alliance Church in Mt. Airy, Ga. He is also the President of Risen Savior Ministries a non-profit Christian ministry dedicated to evangelism and church renewal. Julian is the author of more than a dozen popular and scholarly articles that have all been featured in a variety of Christian publications. Julian’s writing is fueled by the deeply held conviction that authentic fulfillment is found only in an intimate relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. When Julian is not preaching, teaching, or writing you may find him singing, playing one of his beloved acoustic guitars, or spending time with his family. Julian holds an MA in Biblical Studies from Piedmont International University (now Carolina University) and is currently pursuing a ThD with a focus in Historical Theology from Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown, PA.

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A couple weeks ago I interviewed Amy Spreeman and Michelle Lesley on the complementarianism view of women in ministry. Today I had the privilege of interviewing Pastor Rob Bashioum on the egalitarian view. I encourage you to learn by deep study in the Word and to learn from the view of others that perhaps might differ to yours.

Rob and his wife Jess are native east coasters who served in Boston before ministering in the middle east for twelve years.  Rob has led Reach Training Institute, a four year ministry training college in Salem, Oregon and is currently the lead pastor of Salem Alliance Church.  He holds a Masters Degree from Univ of Connecticut (Go Huskies) and a DMin from Alliance Theological Seminary.  He and Jess are parents of four beautiful kids. 

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** APOLOGIES FOR THE POOR SOUND QUALITY OF THIS PODCAST. I WAS FORCED TO DO THE LAST TWO PODCASTS ONLY USING MY COMPUTER MIC. IT HAS BEEN RESOLVED AND FUTURE PODCASTS WILL BE CLEARER. IN THIS CASE I HAD TO TURN UP THE VULUME TOO MUCH TO COMPENSATE WITH MY VOLUME. 

What does the Bible say about music in the Church? What role does the pastor play in the selection of songs? Is worship about music, or is the music part of worship? Should churches sing songs produced by movements that have questionable theology? Where do we draw the line when worship leading turns into a performance? All these questions and more are addressed in this wonderful interview with three pastors and myself. Here’s a little about each of the guys:

Pastor Dan Samms -Dan’s primary role is equipping the saints to make disciples.  He plants house churches and trains shepherds with Restoration House Church Network.  He also teaches theology for Liberty University and for Underground Seminary.  Dan is in love with his wife, Christy.  They have three kids, a few chickens, and an awesome dog named “Sam.”  Dan drinks good coffee, enjoys fine woodworking, and writes theology curriculum.  Christy is a licensed counselor.  She owns Hope Counseling and Consultation Services, LLC  and is an incredible mother who has a variety of hobbies .  Together, they raise their kids, lead the church, and enjoy God’s blessings. 

Pastor Eric Anderson – is founding pastor of Lifespring Church, Crosby MN, (www.visitlifespring.com) where he has served for 11 years, previously he served as youth pastors for 7 years in the Evangelical Free Church.  He is husband to Miriam, father to 9 children.  He also is co-organizer of the Common Slaves Fellowship (www.commonslaves.com), a network of Reformed and Reforming churches and pastors in North East Minnesota.  Additionally, he hosts a Zoom meetings podcast called “a Place for Truth”, geared at laymen,  which gathers together experienced Reformed pastors and professors to discuss cultural topics. 

Pastor Ian Bultman – Served for many years as worship pastor at Alliance Bible Church in Mequon, WI. He now serves as director and president of the Brinkman Adventures, an exciting radio show that tells true, modern, missionary stories through the fictional Brinkman family.  Each twenty-six minute episode contains a Biblical theme, lesson, and compelling drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat.  Using modern sound effects, original music, and superb writing, Brinkman Adventures are ‘Movies for the Ears’. Check out this radio program here.

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Here is more information about today’s guests.

Amy Spreeman hails from Minnesota, but has spent most of her adult life across the border in Wisconsin. She and her husband have two grown kids and are empty-nesters, except for the dogs and chickens. Amy enjoys reading and designing websites in her spare time, and loves to listen to Christian audiobooks and podcasts. Growing up, she was fascinated with the cult craze of the 70s, and started researching movements within the visible church after learning first hand how devastating those aberrant gospels (small g) can be. In 2010 she helped launch a discernment radio program called Stand Up for the Truth, and spent 5 years having her mind blown by the level of apostasy in churches around the world. When she speaks at conferences and women’s groups, she points them to the hope of Jesus Christ. She is the founder of Berean Research and Naomi’s Table Bible Studies for Women. You can also check out her archives from earlier work at aspreeman.com.

Michelle Lesley hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, (Geaux Tigers!) where she and her husband are the proud parents of five sons and one daughter ranging in age from their teens to their thirties. Michelle loves to read, cook, and stay active in women’s ministry and other activities at church. God has blessed her with ministry opportunities outside the church as well, from authoring a women’s Bible study to writing Sunday School material for a major Christian publisher to speaking all over the country at women’s conferences, on podcasts, and at other events. Currently, Michelle’s ministry focus is discipling Christian women through her writing. Find out more about Michelle and her ministry at her blog: Michelle Lesley- Discipleship for Christian Women. 

Both Michelle and Amy host a podcast called, called A Word Fitly Spoken. Check it out here.

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What is the state of Global Missions? Ironically, in my view, globalization has affected our burden for the lost in our world. Or, maybe it’s just me. I remember early in my days of ministry training, you had to work hard to see what was happening in far reaches of the world. We did a ton of reading. Speakers would share powerful stories and implore us to pray and go. Today, with a push of a button we can pretty much connect anywhere in the globe. I’d like, in this podcast, to remind us of the urgency. To remind us that there are still billions of people who have little opportunity to hear of Jesus. To remind us to pray, to support and even go. This conversation with Tim Crouch was helpful to me in having a refreshed burden for missions. I hope it will do the same for you. 

Tim Crouch took on the role of vice president for Alliance Missions of The Christian & Missionary Alliance on February 1, 2014. Tim’s role, along with regional and ministry location leaders, is to provide leadership to over 700 U.S. Alliance IWs (with aXcess, marketplace ministries, CAMA, and Envision).

Tim’s heart is to see Alliance Missions help make gospel access available for peoples of the world that lack it, and to flow from peoples who’ve gained it to others who still wait. 

Prior to becoming the vice president for Alliance Missions, Tim and his wife, Shelly, served as Alliance international workers (IWs) in Russia from 1995-2010, with seven of those years Tim being the field director for the Alliance there. In 2010 Tim and Shelly were appointed the regional leadership couple for the N&C Asia region where they supervised 75 IWs serving in six countries and worked with national church leaders in each of those nations. 

Tim and Shelly reside in Columbus, OH. They have four grown children—Anna, Joshua, David, and Michael.

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Stories grip me. Stories that depict the wonderful work of Jesus in the lives of people grip me more. I have known Glenn Wanless for over twenty years. We met and served together in England. He tells the story of how Jesus met him, called him and continues to do his wonderful work through him. What you will hear today is more evidence that our wonderful Savior has a wonderful and specific touch in how he brings us to himself.

Rev Glenn and Vivienne Wanless, have been serving the Lord in ministry for over 27 years. Glenn has been ordained with the Christian & Missionary Alliance for over 25 years, both he and Vivienne have been used by God to mobilize and unify the body of Christ into Kingdom action. They 

lived most of their lives in England becoming Christians in their early 20’s. Glenn earned his degree at an Interdenominational and International seminary while living in Scotland. The focus of their ministry has been church planting, replanting and bringing renewal to Christians and churches.
As well as serving in the UK, they have these past 19 years served in the USA in Montana, Ohio and Florida. They have been married for 34 years and have two children, David and Rachel and 5 grandchildren Benjamin, James, William, Everly and Jovie. They believe that God has called them to bring the whole gospel to the whole world.

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As you know if you have been listening to these podcasts for very long, I love the church. Even though the church has a lot of flaws, and has a long way to go to be what Jesus wants her to be, I still love the church. I love the church not only because Jesus loves the church, after all she is his bride, but I actually love the church because it is meaningful to me. I love the worship, the hearing of the Word, the sacraments, witnessing baptisms, and seeing how it is the church more than any other organization that serves others, the community and the world. I also love the church because we are promised in Ephesians 5:27 that one day Jesus will present her to himself in splendor, without spots or wrinkle that she might be without blemish. While the church is imperfect, God is doing a perfect work through her, through us. That is why I love the church. Now this begs the question. How are we doing? How is the church doing in being this body of Jesus to a dying and lost world. How is the church doing in being a place of worship and place for discipleship? Well, I talked about all that with someone who not only loves the church himself, but knows a lot about it. His name is Terry Smith and Terry serves as Vice President for Church Ministries with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. So grab your coffee, put on your fluffy bunny slippers and lets join Terry in this wonderful conversation about the state of the Church in America. 

Rev. Terry Smith was appointed as vice president for Church Ministries with The Christian and Missionary Alliance and began serving in this role on December 1, 2017.

Terry has served with the C&MA since 1981. He pastored Alliance churches in Florida and in Pennsylvania as well as serving in the role of church-planting director in three districts, He was elected superintendent of the Eastern PA district in August 2014. Terry also served on the C&MA Board of Directors prior to being appointed as vice president for Church Ministries in December 2017. 

A graduate of Toccoa Falls College, Terry also holds a master’s degree from Crown College. He is the author of Changing Course: Leading Older Churches in a New Direction. 

Terry has been married to Ruth since 1977. They have two married, adult sons and five grandchildren.

Order Terry’s book by clicking on the book cover

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Have you ever wondered how this generation is doing in defending their faith? I remember back in my early years in ministry doing a number of training programs such as Evangelism Explosion which provided me wonderful tools for sharing the gospel to others. Yet, in forty years so much has changed. We have changed, the church has changed, college institutions have changed and most notable the world around us has changed. It’s not as easy, and dare I say common now to share our faith particularly in a world that more than ever resists that gospel message. How does this generation address moral issues like homosexuality, the redefining of marriage, or the historicity of Adam, or evolution? How is this generation doing in giving clear, solid responses to those hard parts of the Bible like genocide and slavery? Well thankfully someone has put a lot of thought and work into this and placed those thoughts into a wonderful book called The Young Christians Survival Guide: (Defending your faith and common questions young Christians are asked about the God, the Bible and Christian Faith Answered.) I had the privilege to sit down with that author about his book. His name is Don Williams who is  is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College.  A border dweller, he stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, theology and literature, Narnia and Middle-Earth. An ordained minister in The Evangelical Free  Church of America, he has spent many years in pastoral ministry and many summers training local pastors in Uganda, Kenya, and India for Church Planting International. He is the author of thirteen books, including Ninety-Five Theses for a New Reformation: A Road Map for Post-Evangelical Christianity and more.

Click on book for order information

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In this podcast, Dr. Richard Kronk and I discuss his book, Not Called. Do you remember being called into ministry? How do you look back at that now? I’ll be honest, when I sat down to be interviewed for licensing I felt I had to come up with a dramatic, mystical experience, a supernatural finger pointing directive from Jesus himself to validate my call to ministry. As I got older, life and ministry did not go the way I had hoped. Did I mis-read the call of God on my life? I committed myself to life-long service as a missionary, but that lasted only six years. A friend of mine shared his guilt with me of having gone forward in a meeting to serve God in full-time ministry only to find himself serving in secular work? Was God angry with my friend for going back on his vow to serve Jesus? Or, can we rethink and reframe the whole notion of calling into ministry? I think we can, and that is what Dr. Kronk and I discuss together in this BYQ episode. You will be challenged, and I think, encouraged.

Rick Kronk serves as an associate professor of Intercultural Studies at Toccoa falls College in Toccoa Falls, GA. Before joining the faculty at Toccoa seven years ago, Rick and his wife spent 16 years in ministry among Muslims in France. Rick’s ministry experience among Muslims has fueled his on-going research and publication efforts which include the role of dreams and visions in conversion, the dynamics of conversion and church affiliation and his latest book which deals with the historical, biblical and missional understanding of divine calling. Rick and his wife have two married children. When Rick is not teaching, researching or writing you can find him out on some nearby lake with a fishing rod in his hands.

Click on book to order!

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Why do pastors quit? Perhaps a positive way to frame this is, what keeps pastors from quitting? The pressures to quit is great. Pastors probably face more pressures than people do in other occupations. The reasons are many and the reasons, and motivations, to not quit are also great. I had the opportunity to speak to two pastors who’ve known what it is like to want to quit but discovered the joy of pressing through when that temptation was strongest. 

Rev. Steve Kerhoulas (MA in Pastoral Counseling)
In 1970 the Holy Spirit drew Steve to the cross, and he became a Christian. After finishing college at Western Carolina University he was accepted into a one year program through New York Theological Seminary. That year was a turning point in his life. Upon its completion he began a journey that would lead him to be a group home parent with Youth For Christ, then off to Asbury Theological Seminary, and then to five churches as the senior pastor. He is married to Candi and has four grown children. Steve and Candi live in Sky Valley GA. Steve is also an active member of IMP. Check out their website here.

Daniel Stegeman, (DMin)Daniel is pastor of Pine Glen Alliance Church in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Daniel and his wife Stephane are the proud parents of four children and you can find his blog at www.pastoral-theology.com. 

Check out Daniel’s blog on the subject here:

A key to ministry longevity that most pastors miss  

One of the most influential recent books on pastoral ministry is Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp. Published back in 2012, I have read it multiple times and been impacted by Tripp’s plea for pastoral faithfulness in the midst of a uniquely challenging vocation. 

Some time ago, I picked up my copy and something caught my attention on the back. The book was endorsed by five well-known Christian leaders, and of those five, three have since left the ministry. I won’t mention any names, but I will say that two were disqualified from ministry, and one has renounced Christianity altogether. The sad irony is that it only bolsters Tripp’s contention that pastoral ministry is indeed a dangerous calling. 

Just to clarify, if you have a copy of the book, more than likely your copy isn’t endorsed by these three fallen leaders. I have one of the first editions of the book and Crossway (the Publisher), has updated it for obvious reasons so as not to include them.

In his classic work, Lectures to My Students, Charles Spurgeon writes,“Do not enter the ministry if you can help it,” …..If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit by that for which his inmost soul pants. (26-27)

While perhaps Spurgeon goes too far (DeYoung article TGC 2010) in stating this, few would miss the wisdom of his words. Ministry is not just one out of a smorgasbord of job options to choose from. If a man is not truly called of the Lord and He doesn’t feel utterly compelled to shepherd the flock of God (1 Peter 5:1-4), then it is sound advice to find another calling.  

I have only been a pastor for about 14 years, but I can think of several friends and acquaintances who have left the ministry during that time. Some should not have entered ministry in the first place, but not everyone who leaves the ministry is a failure.  For one of those friends, stepping aside from pastoral ministry was the last thing he wanted to do. Even though God opened the door for him to take a government job with a much higher salary, he wrestled mightily with this transition.            

Ministry is hard! Perhaps you have come through a particularly difficult season of ministry, and you are asking, “will I last in ministry?” If you are, you are certainly not alone.  

I recently read David Murray’s book “Reset” and found it to be filled with much practical wisdom, particularly when it comes to taking care of your physical and emotional health. I would heartily commend it, but one of the things I wish Murray had emphasized more was that of personal holiness. 

When a pastor is not actively pursuing sanctification and godliness in his own life, it greatly hinders his ability to shepherd God’s flock. When a pastor fails to keep watch over his soul, it matters little how well he cares for his own physical health. Paul instructed Timothy to “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).

Later on, in that same letter, after exhorting Timothy on the dangers of the love of money, he writes, “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:11-12). 

We need to get serious about sanctification! One of the best ways that all Christians, not just gospel ministers, can battle Satan and “fight the good fight” is through holy living. Robert Murray McCheyne once said, “my people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.” This word is especially relevant to pastors and leaders in the 21st century. Every pastor must deal with unique challenges and pressures, and the tendency is to elevate something else (managing, counselling, networking, visiting, and even preaching) in the place of pursuing holiness. 

In recent years, we have witnessed the fall of several high-profile Christian leaders. To that we can add many more “ordinary” leaders who have also fallen, but done so under the radar. While each situation is different, I would argue that the vast majority of these leaders gave the enemy a foothold by letting their walk with the Lord slide.       

God has called every pastor, first and foremost, to be a worshipper of Jesus (Psalm 32:11)! That is the calling of every Christian, of course, but pastors are called to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). 

Christian leader, how much time are you spending in daily prayer? How much time do you spend in Bible and devotional reading, not related to teaching and preaching? How actively are you pursuing the spiritual disciplines and a greater level of intimacy with Jesus? When we let these practices slip, it greatly hinders our ability to shepherd and care for the flock God has entrusted to us.  

Indeed, it is a “dangerous calling.” It takes years to foster a healthy ministry lifestyle and habits, but it only takes a misstep here or there, to be disqualified. The battle is raging (Ephesians 6:10-18), Satan is real (2 Corinthians 11:14), and the salvation of souls is at stake (2 Corinthians 12:15). Every pastor and Christian leader wants to endure in ministry and go the distance. However, if we neglect the all-important aspect of holiness, and fail to live lives in keeping with our profession, it will eventually comprise our longevity, not to mention our effectiveness. 

The words of Hebrews 12:14 offer a sober warning for every believer. “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” 

Holiness is not optional. May we strive for holiness and exhort our people to do the same!   

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