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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast.
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My name is Jonathan McClintock.
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And today we're going to be looking at part two at an interview that we shared last week with Jerry Jones.
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And this week he's going to be talking a little bit about his book, We Preach, also about his involvement in teaching as a professor right now at Urshian University, teaching preaching classes and several other classes for the Christian ministry department.
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So we're going to talk a little bit about some of those things and have him share some of his thoughts about training this next generation of preachers.
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I hope you enjoy this interview today with Jerry Jones.
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I would like to talk about a little more what's going on right now, present in your life.
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And because, of course, you and I both together teach some classes at Urshan.
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You teach a few more than I do, but we teach some preaching classes for Urshian.
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So talk to us a little bit about We Preach.
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You wrote this book eight or so years ago.
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It's required reading for general licensure with the United Pentecostal church.
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We use it in a class or two here at Urshian.
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So I kind of want what's the genesis of that book?
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And I know it's it was something that you had been thinking about for a while.
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A long time.
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And finally, just as any of us who've written a book, just finally got decided just to do it.
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Yes.
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So kind of so tell us a little bit about the genesis behind it and why you why you wrote it.
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Well, as you mentioned, it'd been a long time burden.
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There's good stuff on the ministry, on preaching per se.
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You had just come out with a very good book.
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It's also required reading at the local level.
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Very, very impactful.
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But I had, I had, I learned to preach like I learned to swim.
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I fell in the creek and you gotta swim.
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And that's kind of how it was when I began preaching.
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There was only two things you could do in those days.
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You could either pastor or evangelize.
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And all new preachers started out evangelizing.
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Evangelizing was preaching.
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You would start on a Sunday morning and you'd go eight sermons, you know.
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And you I didn't have that many when I started evangelizing.
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Well, I didn't either, but that's how you got them real quick.
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That takes them real quick.
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You did a lot of study during the day.
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But uh you learned what worked and what different didn't, not by theory, but by experience.
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And so you're out there preaching, you know, you're starting out.
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My dad was not a preacher, and and I was from a smaller country church who brother Carney could produce preachers.
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He produced scores of preachers, but I didn't go to Bible school.
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Brother Carney didn't formally train us, he he taught us, supported us, and so on.
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But you didn't know why it worked.
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You just knew that doesn't work.
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This worked.
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Putting it in this order is more effective, especially when you're repeating sermons every two or three weeks.
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You you you really pick, you get down to the detail.
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This set this point really got something, but then the next two killed it.
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So what can I do to make that work?
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So I realized uh later on in my ministry that I have the feel for it.
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I I have the experience, but I don't have the theory.
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I don't know why.
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And I don't understand.
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And and when it's all your experience and you have no, I call it theory of the why that works and why that doesn't work, until you understand those things, you really can't teach them.
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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You can share your experience, but it's harder for people to get that without why.
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And so I began to read and study why these things work that way, why the emotional impact of a point matters, why why the the the rhythm and cadence of the of the opening introduction, if you will, why that draws people in.
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How does that work?
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And that's old as Aristotle.
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But until you've done the the work to understand the theory behind it, why it works, it's hard to communicate it.
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So I reached a point where I said, you know, we don't have, I say, we, the UPCI, we don't have a book of nuts and bolts with this kind of rhetorical, and I know that's a bad word, but this kind of uh rhetorical rules.
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Sure.
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And of course, those rules weren't arbitrarily written.
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They are devised by the same thing, experience.
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It worked with people.
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It got them to make a decision, it got them to to to get into action.
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And so that was my ambition to write something that a younger preacher could be exposed to some of these things much earlier in their ministry than me.
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And then maybe they could get where they were effective quicker and they could communicate it better to other people later.
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That was my motive.
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Like you said, you know, bits and pieces here and there, but sooner or later you have to go somewhere and get you a room away from everybody and sit down at that computer and get it written.
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Yeah.
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And we we finally did, and I'm very gratified.
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I've heard, I hear a whole lot about it.
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And of course, being required reading, you know, but then we use it here at at Urshian, and people come up.
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In fact, I had a preacher just the other day in Arkansas talk about going through your book for the second time, and I've gotten so much, it's helped me so much.
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That's the gratification of it, yeah.
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I chose to use I had only been teaching preaching six years, maybe when I wrote the book.
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I had quite a little I had quite quite less experience than you had.
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So I chose to go the route of I interviewed 20, 21 different preachers.
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Yeah.
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I I wanted to get I wanted to pull in experience.
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It was genius.
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Your book is so impactful because it Well, I want to talk about your book.
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I know, no, no.
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But I want to say this because it gives a much broader experience base than any one person could do.
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I love what you did, is because you you brought in some of your own sermons, some of the things that you'd worked on and showed people this is how this was put together.
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This is the theory behind it, which I thought was what thought is invaluable.
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It's it's one thing, and I think, you know, both have their positive points.
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You hear a bunch of uh people talking about how they do things, theory and experience, but I loved how you set up the book.
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You talked about the rhetoric, you talked about the the lagos, the pathos, the the ethos, all that, but you also showed how it worked out in a in a message.
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How many different messages did you use in that?
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Well, I probably alluded to four or five, maybe more.
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I used one throughout each step, one sermon to illustrate, okay, here's how I got the title.
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Right.
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Here's what worked here, well why it worked.
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Yeah.
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This is how I learned to order the points, the emotional impact, how you gauge that.
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And I used at kind of at the end of each chapter, I would go back to that sermon and show.
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And then here's how I outline it.
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Here's what I take to the pulpit, here's what it looks like and why.
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And I did use that one, that one sermon, but I I referred to several, particularly how how I how I connected the.
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I remember one point where I was talking about you don't, even though you're preaching expositorially and you're locked into the march of the thought, you're really not locked in.
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Yeah.
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There are techniques that you can skip a point that needs to be taught, but it's so impactful it needs to be toward the end of the sermon rather than the middle.
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Yeah.
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And there's ways to do that.
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And and if I remember right, that sermon kind of did that.
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Sure.
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So I was able to show actually I built that one sermon.
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Um, of course I had built it a long time before, but I I walk I walked them through it.
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In my mind, I was writing to young preachers.
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Okay.
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But even the the powers that be felt it was for a little bit more experienced preacher.
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One thing I did is I used my master's thesis in the in the chapter two and three, I think, that preaching plays a role in the salvation process.
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Romans 10.
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Yeah.
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How can they hear without a preacher?
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They can't be saved without hearing, right?
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And you have to have a preacher to hear.
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And I know that's sad to say, controversial, but that's what my thesis is about.
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And and I I thought it was interesting when I I took the academic language out, because you have to, I'm not saying it's certainly not superior, in my opinion, but when you're writing for academia, there's a certain style you use.
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Well, I took all that and readjust and redid.
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And I I asked my nephew to read through it, the young preacher, and he said, Uncle Jerry, you need to dumb that down some more.
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So I worked it and reworked it, but I wanted that message in me.
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Yeah.
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Why this book?
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Because preaching matters.
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Paul said, you know, I'm sorry, Greeks want a seminar and Jews want a sign, but we preach.
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We preach, yeah.
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That's how important preaching was to Paul.
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And I I think I think that was my goal to help young preachers.
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One, understand what God called you to do is the most important thing in the world because it affects eternity.
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You can do a lot of other things to help people here and now, and they are all worthy.
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But preaching affects people's eternity.
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And so I wanted preachers to recapture.
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I think sometimes we downplay the preacher, the preaching, probably inadvertently.
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Probably it's an influence of our culture that we give too much credence to, I think.
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But for whatever reason, I wanted to do that.
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And then, too, I want them to be able to get done and say, okay, I've been working on this sermon.
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I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna walk through these steps and and hopefully someone will preach better.
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Well, so if anybody listening to this doesn't have the book yet, they need to go buy it.
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We preach, find it Amazon, find it pentecostalpublishing.com.
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Is there another book in you?
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I asked that because here's what I what I admire about you.
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If if anyone would have would have the right to just kind of, you know what?
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I know you would never say this about yourself, but let somebody else say it.
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I've I've reached the pinnacle.
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I mean, I've I've I know what I'm doing.
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I've got a handle on the craft.
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I'm I've you've preached so many different places, so many different audiences.
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As I said in our previous episode, talking about your messages.
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I mean, you could you could just just coast.
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And you've chosen not to.
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In fact, not only did you finish your master's degree, but you're now working on your doctor of ministry degree.
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It's going to be Dr.
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Jerry Jones here.
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I hope I live long enough to.
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You're going to.
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You are going to, in Jesus' name, it's going to happen.
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So you're, it's a doctor of ministry, but your dissertation is going to be on an element of preaching.
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Yes.
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Right?
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So you're you're working on rhetorical, persuasive, emotional preaching they say did not exist in the first 200 years of the church.
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And I read it of all crazy places in a book on establishing a church, a church plant, so to speak.
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And the nationally recognized guy said, Don't worry with including preaching in your paradigm of starting a church because it did not exist in the early church, but was a later adaptation from a from the pagan worship.
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Well, I was floored, and of course it made me look into it, and I found out it's both bad theology and bad history.
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And yet I discovered that it's very common among ac academics.
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In fact, in the 1990s, two books and a major paper were published that uh basically asserted that that Paul in writing to the Corinthian church forbade the use of persuasive rhetoric, that you're not supposed to persuade people.
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You just present the gospel.
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God bless you, see you next week.
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And the more I researched, the more I realized how widespread this kind of thinking is.
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So my the my dissertation, I plan to take that on.
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I don't believe it's truth.
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I will base it on, I know one of them is a sermon, and I'm becoming convinced the other one is.
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Hebrews is a sermon, and first John is probably a sermon.
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Okay.
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And they, of course, represent apostolic preaching.
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So do they persuade?
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Are they emotional?
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Yeah.
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Do they use rhetoric?
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Yeah.
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And so I will begin there, and then I will I am just fascinated by a sermon that was discovered in 1939 and published.
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It took a few years before all the fragments were discovered to put it all together, and by 1960 it was published, and it's by Melito of Sardis, pastor in Sardis, about 60 years after the death of John.
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He probably knew Polycarp, and of course, Polycarp knew John.
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And so he is listed by Polybius as one of the seven illuminaries of Asia Minor that Polybius says preached that Jesus was God.
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And the first two were Philip and John.
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And Melito is the last one in that line of seven preachers.
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Now we have one of his sermons.
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Wow.
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And it is powerful and fiery and persuasive.
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And of course, I'll refer to that.
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And uh then I'll address Dwayne Litfin and others' assertion that Paul condemned the use of rhetoric.
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I don't believe that.
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I think I think there's a much more plausible interpretation.
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So I'll be dealing with that.
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And uh I I think we have to address this because as more and more of our younger preachers are getting introduced to the academic world, there's a tendency for us to think if he's got a if he's got a degree behind his name, he knows what he's talking about.
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And if we accept this premise that what we do in the pulpit is not original, then we whose whole doctrine is based on Restorationism, that we go back to what the apostles preached and practiced.
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If they didn't practice this, we shouldn't be doing it.
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Right.
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And I think we have to settle that.
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And I think I hope that dissertation floats around out there, and maybe in future years some young Pentecostal preacher will hear these other voices, but maybe there'll be a voice out there saying, no, they preach like we do.
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Yeah.
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We just don't have I mean Hebrews is a full sermon.
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Sounds like a book to me.
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Well, we'll see.
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Sounds like it to me.
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If somebody wants to publish it, I'm all for it.
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Oh, we can find a publisher.
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I I've got I got inside track on that.
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Oh, I appreciate it.
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We can find somebody up.
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I am finishing up another sermon.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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I'm in the final edit process.
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Okay.
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It it'll be titled Encore.
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Okay.
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I did one, and so this is the on that's also one of the sermons in it.
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So anyway.
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Speaking of all of that now, you you're pursuing your doctorate.
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Again, mentioned teaching an urshan.
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What do you what do you enjoy the most about course?
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You teach other classes other than than preaching.
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Yes.
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You teach other doctrinal classes, but what what is it about specifically about training preachers that you enjoy the most?
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Well, it's the bread and butter.
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No, it's the dessert.
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It's the dessert.
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You you teach the other stuff.
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I love it.
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I love modern Pentecostal movements.
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I I I teach it every spring.
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I love Romans, I teach it every fall.
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I'm not saying those are drudgery.
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Sure.
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But it's a delight to preach.
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Uh you teach the introductory courses.
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And so they come already knowing a lot.
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And so I don't go back over the basics.
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You gave it to them.
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:46.559
They've already read both our books and other books on preaching.
00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:52.480
I always throw uh uh in the evangelistic preaching course, there's a book on preaching evangelists.
00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:58.160
And and by the way, out there, we need apostolics writing books like this.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:17:58.880
Yes, we do.
00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:07.920
Because we don't have a purely apostolic say how to build an evangelistic son, how to give an apostolic altar call.
00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:08.160
Right.
00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.920
It's touched on in our books, but a whole book on that.
00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:12.799
You could do that.
00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:13.279
Yes.
00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:17.920
But anyway, so I focus on their actual preaching.
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:28.079
And sometimes it because our classes are growing, I think I had 19, and each one preached three times in 16 weeks.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:33.279
So I had to, you know, really control the length and all of that.
00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:39.839
But they all got 15 to 20 minutes, mostly 10 to 15, to squeeze them in.
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:56.000
But uh it's remarkable to me that a and in one class you'll have a a student who's never preached, maybe testimony in a youth service, but they've never stood behind a pulpit, took a text, preached a sermon.
00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:01.200
Then you'll have some that obviously they've preached a lot already when they get here.
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:07.920
So putting them all in one class, uh, if it's expository, they have to build expository sermons.
00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:13.759
If it's evangelistic, they and that's a challenge for a young person to preach evangelistic.
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:14.319
It really is.
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:16.640
Because they don't hear a lot of evangelistic preaching.
00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:23.519
And one of the questions that are in on the response, is it truly evangelistic?
00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.920
And the first one or two, there'll always be three or four of them.
00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:29.279
No, it wasn't.
00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:30.480
It was to the church.
00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:30.799
Yeah.
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:31.839
And and and that's the thing.
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:39.359
Well, I found most of most of the times I've I've given students the call, give an evangelistic sermon, and they'll get up and preach we need to win souls.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:39.839
That's it.
00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:40.720
That's that's it.
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:42.640
That's their preaching of evangelism.
00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:44.000
That's their idea of it.
00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:44.880
Yeah.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:51.920
Hey, before we get back to the rest of this episode, just want to take a brief moment and tell you a little bit more about the Clear Preaching Academy.
00:19:52.079 --> 00:20:00.000
The Clear Preaching Academy is a community-first platform built for preachers who take their calling seriously.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.519
In this community, you don't have to carry the calling alone.
00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:14.880
You can join a growing community of pastors and evangelists and youth pastors and preachers that preach on a regular basis, a semi-regular basis, and maybe just beginning to preach.
00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:21.440
But it's a great place to learn this craft and understand the calling of the preacher.
00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:24.400
We have small group cohorts you can get involved with.
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:32.720
We have courses, a growing library of courses that you can look and watch things and study and learn on your own at your own pace.
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:40.000
All kinds of forums for you to get involved with to grow and develop and encourage and learn from one another.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:44.960
So visit clearpreaching.com and check out the Clear Preaching Academy.
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:46.880
I'd love to see you on the inside.
00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:48.720
Part of it is youth.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:49.119
Sure.
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:50.640
Youth wants to fix everything.
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:53.680
You know, but part of it is experience.
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:58.079
Because we don't have a lot of revivals anymore.
00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:01.839
And if we do, they're in the normal life of the church.
00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:06.799
And most of our preaching, probably the vast majority, is a mixture.
00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:07.119
Yeah.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:09.039
We're going to reach for the longest.
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:18.079
We're not going to we're going to share the gospel, but it's going to be mixed in with other things to help the saints.
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:19.519
Nothing wrong with that.
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:23.279
But to do a purely evangelistic sermon is a challenge.
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:23.839
It is.
00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:27.599
And I I think of that because we just did that last spring.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:38.319
But I'm I'm often amazed at the progress you can see over 16 weeks and just three sermons.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:47.119
Of course, what I do is they preach and then it's open what you do for their peers.
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:47.440
Yeah.
00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:50.400
And sometimes it's nonsense, you know.
00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:52.160
That's okay, you know.
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:59.839
But it's amazing how they begin to focus in and actually are helpful.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.240
Yeah.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.240
But they're talking to themselves too.
00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:02.559
Right.
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:10.720
They're thinking about why this worked, why it didn't work, why that point should have been earlier or later.
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:15.680
And and and of course I work in little mini lectures as we go along.
00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:21.359
And I'll tell a student, I'm sorry, but I'm going to use you as a preaching example right now.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:21.920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:26.160
And I'll go over not necessarily what didn't work, it might be what worked.
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:28.240
Why this worked.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:28.480
Yeah.
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:31.519
Why that story drew us in.
00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:41.839
And by that last sermon, I'd say anywhere from 60 to 80 percent have made discernible progress.
00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:45.599
You see it in preaching practicum, I'm sure.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:51.119
And and of course, these are juniors and seniors that I'm I'm teaching.
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:53.920
And there might be a sprinkle of sophomores, not many.
00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:04.880
They're with you then, but some of them, I guess, get with you as freshmen, and then I don't know, but uh but uh maybe one out of that nineteen was a sophomore.
00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:08.240
So it's juniors and seniors, and it's remarkable.
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:16.400
And of course, it's it's an artificial situation, but it I started welcome to first church aversion.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.440
You know, wasn't that choir awesome?
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:27.359
And and I teach them how to thank the pastor because you know, you're you're almost always going to be a guest at this stage.
00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:32.880
Yeah and and that you need to say something nice about the church, the choir, the music.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:39.359
Yeah, you know, the ushers are awesome, you know, something right and they'll get up and they'll start their sermons with that.
00:23:39.519 --> 00:23:50.960
And but they know what they're doing, they understand that that and and we use the UGST chapel, so we have kind of a churchy feeling to it.
00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:58.720
And uh, you know, we try to create it, and I I I'm just that that is the dessert.
00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:05.839
That's the candy of being here to see young preachers, and some of them leave here ready for the pulpit.
00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:06.160
Yeah.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:15.039
I mean, they don't have broad experience, but in a youth service, there was one young lady this that feels a call to evangelize.
00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:18.640
She wants to evangelize, and she could carry the weight.
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:19.119
Yeah.
00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:19.359
Yeah.
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:25.039
She shit we we had her preach at pulpit conference, and she is she's remarkable.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:26.160
She really is.
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:29.759
And you you find that, you know, you find some.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:34.240
There's one in my mind right now, so sincere.
00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:42.000
And a bright, personable, humble, and yet can handle, can bring you in.
00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:50.640
I I use the example, you gotta get them on the bus, you gotta give them the the stops of the tour, and you gotta get them to the destination.
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:54.000
And some of them can do it already.
00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:54.480
Yeah.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:55.359
Already.
00:24:55.599 --> 00:24:58.240
So that's that's what I love about that.
00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:01.839
Seeing much of what we do, you don't see the results.
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:09.519
They may pass the test, but I'm not so convinced, you know, they really could explain justification from a Pentecostal perspective.
00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:10.240
That's true.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:12.559
But you see them up there.
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:13.039
Yeah.
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:24.240
And you recognize the work they put in, and they gauge the emotional impact, they got the points in the right order, they used powerful illustrations.
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:27.759
So that's that's what my work here is all about.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:38.799
I talked to you recently about uh something that that I started working on, and I wanted I wanted you to come be a part of it, and you have since then.
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:55.839
I wanted to get your get your thoughts about this because really what there's several things that kind of led me to to feel to kind of go in this direction is there's many people who come to Urshan, come to any of the other Bible schools, they'll get they'll get some training.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.319
Some of them, some of them even that go into ministry, may only take one class in preaching.
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:03.920
They may not take three or four or five.
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:04.400
That's right.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:06.000
They may only take one.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:11.839
And then you leave, you leave Bible school, you leave, you leave college.
00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:15.440
Of course, there's some that that's never even in the book, or in the cards for them.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:19.200
They never just ever go that direction because of other, and they, but they enter into ministry.
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:20.160
They get called, yeah.
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:25.599
And there's there's really, it's almost like people are on their own out there.
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:39.519
They're trying to carry it all by themselves, learning on the job, maybe things they read or they heard at Bible school or whatever, and they're trying to put into practice, but it's one of the hardest things, all by yourself.
00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:41.519
You don't know whether it's working or not.
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:43.119
You're just, you're just going at it.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:43.359
Right.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:47.279
And so led me to this idea of developing this clear preaching academy.
00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:48.400
I talked with you about it.
00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:51.200
You had some so many kind words to say about it.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:27:10.079
Of course, the community's built with the idea in mind to get people in the room together, iron sharpening iron, feedback, uh, encouragement, even small groups where they can get together and spend four or five months focusing on a particular thing, getting, you know, building one another.
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:13.039
Uh, there's courses in there people can go through.
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:18.079
But what what do you see as the benefit of something like this?
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:21.279
And what kind of role could that play in somebody's life?
00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:22.480
What's the benefit?
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:29.839
Well, you and I both really painted a very rosy picture of our graduates.
00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:30.559
Yes.
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.359
Some of them are going to make a mark.
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:34.559
There is no question.
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:34.960
Yeah.
00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:36.880
But are they there yet?
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:38.079
No, of course not.
00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:41.519
College of any kind, uh fine Bible colleges.
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:44.640
They're all an artificial, a training ground.
00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:45.200
Definitely.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:51.519
You may be crawling through the mud and there may be explosions, but nobody's really shooting at you.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:52.799
That comes later.
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:53.200
Yeah.
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:56.000
And so ongoing education's vital.
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:56.319
Yeah.
00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:16.640
I mean, you can't get it all in 32 weeks if if they take our if they if they take every course they could possibly take here, using up every elective they have, they could probably take what, five, two from you, and two or three from us on the upper level, maybe.
00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:22.400
Uh maybe four, because we're trying now to offer one of our preaching courses every semester.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:23.279
And I hope they do.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:24.640
We want them to take all of them.
00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:27.039
But that's they're specialized.
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:27.440
Yeah.
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:31.279
And and some of these guys, they're ready to youth pastor.
00:28:31.519 --> 00:28:36.720
We've got three that graduated three years ago that are already pastoring churches.
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:37.200
Sure.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:37.519
Yeah.
00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:39.680
But that that's not the norm.
00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.480
And even those three are going to need ongoing checking.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:52.240
So what you're doing, since I've I've signed up, got into it, I'm probably not going to be your best student.
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:53.759
Well, you're not my student.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:59.920
You are, you are, you are there to add uh just the couple weeks ago.
00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:12.480
We had you come on there, and there's about seven or eight, nine uh members of the community that we we got on a live Zoom call, and you spent about 45 minutes just kind of teaching a little bit and answering questions.
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:14.319
Preaching or to change lives.
00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:14.960
Exactly.
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:16.720
And that's that's what it's about.
00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:17.200
Yeah.
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:19.599
Because, you know, we have some, we have some on there.
00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:29.440
I've one young man who did graduate, he graduated from Urshan, but he's now uh out west and lives in a small town, a small district.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:32.880
There's not a whole lot of connection.
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:33.599
Right.
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:42.400
And the other the other night we were on a call together and just a handful, and I, you know, just asking what you find benefit in this community.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:44.319
It's just we just launched it in June.
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:48.319
So, and he said, I thought it was lacking a little bit until tonight.
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:50.880
And tonight I found what's most valuable.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:56.000
It's that connection with have just having people there that you can talk to that understand.
00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:56.880
Yeah.
00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:57.920
We'll go back to M.
00:29:58.480 --> 00:29:58.720
Yeah.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:08.559
An isolated, we did a 10, we did a study of 10 years uh in 10 districts, some small, medium, large.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:16.240
And in those 10 years, in those 10 districts, we studied every church closing and every church that left truth.
00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:16.720
Okay.
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:22.799
And the vast majority closed and we found it was the preacher.
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:30.160
He and what we found was good-hearted, loved people, loved the call, but they got isolated.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:30.640
Yeah.
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.400
They got out there by themselves.
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:34.720
And you got isolated in a big or small distance, right?
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:35.440
It didn't matter.
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:37.039
It happened everywhere.
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:47.839
They some of it was they something happened, some some a challenge, some injustice, who knows, but they withdrew.
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:56.720
And that first step by yourself is critical because if there's not someone, there will be someone.
00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:57.279
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:00.079
And they fell under the sway of the wrong people.
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:01.200
Many of them did.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:10.720
And we found the majority of those who had started churches and the churches failed, were no longer in the ministry, and many of them were no longer in the church.
00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:13.039
So that is a vital part.
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:14.559
We have it in the organization.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:15.440
Thank God for it.
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.559
But sectional meetings are almost history now.
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:19.839
They don't happen much.
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:23.920
District meetings, some I think there's a resurgence.
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:32.079
I'm a little encouraged, but who knows, you know, whether a guy can get off work if he's out, you know, he's bivocational.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:33.599
Can he go to camp meet?
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:34.960
Maybe a night or two.
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:47.200
And so what happens if you're not careful, you fall in with one of these gripe sessions that, you know, that really aren't healthy, and you get influenced.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:58.480
And but if we could get preachers together, supporting one another, loving one another, talking about the word of God, talking about our calling, talking about how to do it better.
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:01.359
I think there's a tremendous need for that.
00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:02.880
So that's part of it.
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:21.440
The other part is the good training, the teaching, the solid theological and and and yes, rhetorical methodology that it works because the human that Aristotle drew this from.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:22.720
This is why this works.
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:24.480
This is why pathos works.
00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:26.640
This is why Logos works.
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:30.640
This is, you know, it worked because it was tried out and people responded.
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:32.319
It's still it's still people today.
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:35.039
Maybe we speak a different language and have a very different culture.
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:36.319
We're still people.
00:32:36.559 --> 00:32:40.000
And so what you're doing, I I'm excited about it.
00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:45.279
I feel like it's not only needed from a fellowship and an iron sharpened with iron.
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:48.240
To me, I'm like the young man you mentioned.
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:49.359
This is what it's about.
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:51.279
This is the strongest part.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:53.839
But in reality, it's much more than that.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:33:00.480
And you can go to Urshan, TBC, IBC, CLC, ABI, go to any of them.
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:00.880
Yeah.
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:04.480
But when you walk out, you're still a baby.
00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:12.880
And you can short, find a shortcut through experience by drawing from the experience of others.
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:13.359
Yeah.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:16.240
And and the technology, it's amazing.
00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:23.359
The text I'm getting and emails, and it's amazing how this thing operates.
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:27.119
Just watching it it draws you in.
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:32.400
And that's why your voice is so valuable.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:38.240
Uh, and and I'm I'm so grateful that you have it, you have a say, you have a voice in this.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:41.680
And I I want you to more and more as you're a part.
00:33:41.839 --> 00:33:43.759
You're not you're not in there to learn, Brother Jones.
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:45.200
You are in there too.
00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:45.680
You're in there.
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:47.200
Well, we'll all learn something.
00:33:47.359 --> 00:33:48.640
We're all learning something.
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:53.920
But I I'm just I'm grateful that God linked us together a long time ago.
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:58.240
And I will never I I I'm so thankful for that all the time.
00:33:58.559 --> 00:34:00.480
I believed in you since you were a teenager.
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:02.720
And I I saw great things in you then.
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:03.759
I still see it.
00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:04.960
And thank you for doing this.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:08.159
Has got to be taking up a lot of your energy.
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:09.360
You're planning a church.
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:16.239
But this is you're working a full-time job, you're adjunct professor here, and yet you're pouring yourself.
00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:17.280
You understand it.
00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:22.559
This is what we're this is the This is what we're, you know, feel like we're called to do.
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:26.639
Well, I tell people I'm touching a generation I will not live to see.
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:33.280
I'm teaching students that will one day teach preachers that aren't even born yet.
00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:35.039
And they will teach.
00:34:35.199 --> 00:34:38.159
And until the Lord comes, I will have a role.
00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:41.039
I'll be forgotten, and that's it, that's the way it works.
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:42.239
That's okay.
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:44.880
But God doesn't forget.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:45.119
Yeah.
00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:45.360
Right.
00:34:45.599 --> 00:34:58.719
And if I can help keep someone in the truth, someone connected, and someone successful in their calling, just a little role, just a little part of that is worth every effort to me.
00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:05.280
And I think what you're doing here, uh, I think many, many, many preachers should get on board with this.
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:06.800
It'll make a big difference.
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:08.079
I really appreciate it.
00:35:08.239 --> 00:35:09.519
Thank you for your time.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:12.960
Well, that'll do it for this episode of the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:16.880
I hope you enjoyed these last two episodes with Gary Jones.
00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:18.960
And I hope you took something away from it.
00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:19.679
You learned something.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:24.480
Maybe Gary's something that's going to help you uh develop as a preacher yourself.
00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:30.960
If you did enjoy it, I invite you to share this with some of the preachers, somebody you think also might enjoy this podcast.
00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:33.519
If you haven't yet subscribed, please do so.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:34.880
Share it with somebody else.
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:36.800
Give us a five star review if you can.
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:40.639
We would love to for others to find this podcast also.
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:45.920
I look forward to next week, once again, bringing the Clear Preaching podcast to you.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:46.880
God bless.
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.640
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:04.480
My name is Jonathan McClintock.
00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:11.519
And today we're going to be looking at part two at an interview that we shared last week with Jerry Jones.
00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:26.960
And this week he's going to be talking a little bit about his book, We Preach, also about his involvement in teaching as a professor right now at Urshian University, teaching preaching classes and several other classes for the Christian ministry department.
00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:34.640
So we're going to talk a little bit about some of those things and have him share some of his thoughts about training this next generation of preachers.
00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:37.679
I hope you enjoy this interview today with Jerry Jones.
00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:43.439
I would like to talk about a little more what's going on right now, present in your life.
00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:47.920
And because, of course, you and I both together teach some classes at Urshan.
00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:53.200
You teach a few more than I do, but we teach some preaching classes for Urshian.
00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:55.520
So talk to us a little bit about We Preach.
00:00:55.759 --> 00:00:58.240
You wrote this book eight or so years ago.
00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:03.359
It's required reading for general licensure with the United Pentecostal church.
00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:06.319
We use it in a class or two here at Urshian.
00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:08.799
So I kind of want what's the genesis of that book?
00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:13.519
And I know it's it was something that you had been thinking about for a while.
00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:14.239
A long time.
00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:19.280
And finally, just as any of us who've written a book, just finally got decided just to do it.
00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:19.599
Yes.
00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:24.640
So kind of so tell us a little bit about the genesis behind it and why you why you wrote it.
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.480
Well, as you mentioned, it'd been a long time burden.
00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:32.640
There's good stuff on the ministry, on preaching per se.
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You had just come out with a very good book.
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It's also required reading at the local level.
00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:41.359
Very, very impactful.
00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:45.519
But I had, I had, I learned to preach like I learned to swim.
00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:47.840
I fell in the creek and you gotta swim.
00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:52.480
And that's kind of how it was when I began preaching.
00:01:52.719 --> 00:01:55.359
There was only two things you could do in those days.
00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:57.760
You could either pastor or evangelize.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.799
And all new preachers started out evangelizing.
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:02.719
Evangelizing was preaching.
00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:07.840
You would start on a Sunday morning and you'd go eight sermons, you know.
00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:10.960
And you I didn't have that many when I started evangelizing.
00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.080
Well, I didn't either, but that's how you got them real quick.
00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:15.120
That takes them real quick.
00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.120
You did a lot of study during the day.
00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:24.159
But uh you learned what worked and what different didn't, not by theory, but by experience.
00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:27.680
And so you're out there preaching, you know, you're starting out.
00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:34.639
My dad was not a preacher, and and I was from a smaller country church who brother Carney could produce preachers.
00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:39.520
He produced scores of preachers, but I didn't go to Bible school.
00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:47.280
Brother Carney didn't formally train us, he he taught us, supported us, and so on.
00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:50.319
But you didn't know why it worked.
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You just knew that doesn't work.
00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:53.759
This worked.
00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:00.719
Putting it in this order is more effective, especially when you're repeating sermons every two or three weeks.
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.800
You you you really pick, you get down to the detail.
00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:10.319
This set this point really got something, but then the next two killed it.
00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:13.280
So what can I do to make that work?
00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:20.879
So I realized uh later on in my ministry that I have the feel for it.
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:24.639
I I have the experience, but I don't have the theory.
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I don't know why.
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And I don't understand.
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And and when it's all your experience and you have no, I call it theory of the why that works and why that doesn't work, until you understand those things, you really can't teach them.
00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:41.439
Sure.
00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:41.759
Yeah.
00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:48.479
You can share your experience, but it's harder for people to get that without why.
00:03:48.639 --> 00:04:06.800
And so I began to read and study why these things work that way, why the emotional impact of a point matters, why why the the the rhythm and cadence of the of the opening introduction, if you will, why that draws people in.
00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:08.000
How does that work?
00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:10.000
And that's old as Aristotle.
00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:18.720
But until you've done the the work to understand the theory behind it, why it works, it's hard to communicate it.
00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:36.639
So I reached a point where I said, you know, we don't have, I say, we, the UPCI, we don't have a book of nuts and bolts with this kind of rhetorical, and I know that's a bad word, but this kind of uh rhetorical rules.
00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:37.199
Sure.
00:04:37.439 --> 00:04:40.560
And of course, those rules weren't arbitrarily written.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.040
They are devised by the same thing, experience.
00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:46.959
It worked with people.
00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:53.439
It got them to make a decision, it got them to to to get into action.
00:04:53.920 --> 00:05:04.480
And so that was my ambition to write something that a younger preacher could be exposed to some of these things much earlier in their ministry than me.
00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:13.920
And then maybe they could get where they were effective quicker and they could communicate it better to other people later.
00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:15.120
That was my motive.
00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:27.519
Like you said, you know, bits and pieces here and there, but sooner or later you have to go somewhere and get you a room away from everybody and sit down at that computer and get it written.
00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:27.839
Yeah.
00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:31.120
And we we finally did, and I'm very gratified.
00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:33.439
I've heard, I hear a whole lot about it.
00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:41.680
And of course, being required reading, you know, but then we use it here at at Urshian, and people come up.
00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:52.319
In fact, I had a preacher just the other day in Arkansas talk about going through your book for the second time, and I've gotten so much, it's helped me so much.
00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:55.040
That's the gratification of it, yeah.
00:05:55.439 --> 00:06:00.639
I chose to use I had only been teaching preaching six years, maybe when I wrote the book.
00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:06.399
I had quite a little I had quite quite less experience than you had.
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:12.240
So I chose to go the route of I interviewed 20, 21 different preachers.
00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:12.560
Yeah.
00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.120
I I wanted to get I wanted to pull in experience.
00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:16.160
It was genius.
00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:20.160
Your book is so impactful because it Well, I want to talk about your book.
00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:21.199
I know, no, no.
00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:28.560
But I want to say this because it gives a much broader experience base than any one person could do.
00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:37.920
I love what you did, is because you you brought in some of your own sermons, some of the things that you'd worked on and showed people this is how this was put together.
00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:42.240
This is the theory behind it, which I thought was what thought is invaluable.
00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:46.399
It's it's one thing, and I think, you know, both have their positive points.
00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:53.759
You hear a bunch of uh people talking about how they do things, theory and experience, but I loved how you set up the book.
00:06:53.920 --> 00:07:04.480
You talked about the rhetoric, you talked about the the lagos, the pathos, the the ethos, all that, but you also showed how it worked out in a in a message.
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:06.480
How many different messages did you use in that?
00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:11.199
Well, I probably alluded to four or five, maybe more.
00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:19.199
I used one throughout each step, one sermon to illustrate, okay, here's how I got the title.
00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:19.360
Right.
00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:21.680
Here's what worked here, well why it worked.
00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:22.000
Yeah.
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:29.600
This is how I learned to order the points, the emotional impact, how you gauge that.
00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:36.160
And I used at kind of at the end of each chapter, I would go back to that sermon and show.
00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:38.639
And then here's how I outline it.
00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:43.040
Here's what I take to the pulpit, here's what it looks like and why.
00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:53.519
And I did use that one, that one sermon, but I I referred to several, particularly how how I how I connected the.
00:07:53.680 --> 00:08:06.800
I remember one point where I was talking about you don't, even though you're preaching expositorially and you're locked into the march of the thought, you're really not locked in.
00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:07.199
Yeah.
00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:17.439
There are techniques that you can skip a point that needs to be taught, but it's so impactful it needs to be toward the end of the sermon rather than the middle.
00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:17.680
Yeah.
00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:19.439
And there's ways to do that.
00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:23.839
And and if I remember right, that sermon kind of did that.
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:24.240
Sure.
00:08:24.399 --> 00:08:28.720
So I was able to show actually I built that one sermon.
00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:34.320
Um, of course I had built it a long time before, but I I walk I walked them through it.
00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:37.679
In my mind, I was writing to young preachers.
00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:38.080
Okay.
00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:47.120
But even the the powers that be felt it was for a little bit more experienced preacher.
00:08:47.600 --> 00:09:02.000
One thing I did is I used my master's thesis in the in the chapter two and three, I think, that preaching plays a role in the salvation process.
00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:03.440
Romans 10.
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:03.759
Yeah.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:05.919
How can they hear without a preacher?
00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:08.080
They can't be saved without hearing, right?
00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:10.080
And you have to have a preacher to hear.
00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:15.360
And I know that's sad to say, controversial, but that's what my thesis is about.
00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:33.440
And and I I thought it was interesting when I I took the academic language out, because you have to, I'm not saying it's certainly not superior, in my opinion, but when you're writing for academia, there's a certain style you use.
00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:37.039
Well, I took all that and readjust and redid.
00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:45.440
And I I asked my nephew to read through it, the young preacher, and he said, Uncle Jerry, you need to dumb that down some more.
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:49.440
So I worked it and reworked it, but I wanted that message in me.
00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:49.840
Yeah.
00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:51.279
Why this book?
00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.360
Because preaching matters.
00:09:54.559 --> 00:10:00.159
Paul said, you know, I'm sorry, Greeks want a seminar and Jews want a sign, but we preach.
00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:01.039
We preach, yeah.
00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:03.440
That's how important preaching was to Paul.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:09.120
And I I think I think that was my goal to help young preachers.
00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:16.159
One, understand what God called you to do is the most important thing in the world because it affects eternity.
00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:21.679
You can do a lot of other things to help people here and now, and they are all worthy.
00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.879
But preaching affects people's eternity.
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:28.799
And so I wanted preachers to recapture.
00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:35.519
I think sometimes we downplay the preacher, the preaching, probably inadvertently.
00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:41.679
Probably it's an influence of our culture that we give too much credence to, I think.
00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:44.480
But for whatever reason, I wanted to do that.
00:10:44.559 --> 00:10:49.360
And then, too, I want them to be able to get done and say, okay, I've been working on this sermon.
00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:55.440
I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna walk through these steps and and hopefully someone will preach better.
00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:00.159
Well, so if anybody listening to this doesn't have the book yet, they need to go buy it.
00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:03.679
We preach, find it Amazon, find it pentecostalpublishing.com.
00:11:03.919 --> 00:11:05.519
Is there another book in you?
00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.960
I asked that because here's what I what I admire about you.
00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:15.840
If if anyone would have would have the right to just kind of, you know what?
00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:20.320
I know you would never say this about yourself, but let somebody else say it.
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:22.799
I've I've reached the pinnacle.
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:25.840
I mean, I've I've I know what I'm doing.
00:11:25.919 --> 00:11:27.679
I've got a handle on the craft.
00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:33.039
I'm I've you've preached so many different places, so many different audiences.
00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:36.399
As I said in our previous episode, talking about your messages.
00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.519
I mean, you could you could just just coast.
00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:41.679
And you've chosen not to.
00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:47.200
In fact, not only did you finish your master's degree, but you're now working on your doctor of ministry degree.
00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:48.159
It's going to be Dr.
00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:49.039
Jerry Jones here.
00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:50.720
I hope I live long enough to.
00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:51.519
You're going to.
00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:54.240
You are going to, in Jesus' name, it's going to happen.
00:11:54.559 --> 00:12:03.200
So you're, it's a doctor of ministry, but your dissertation is going to be on an element of preaching.
00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:03.440
Yes.
00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:03.840
Right?
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:16.639
So you're you're working on rhetorical, persuasive, emotional preaching they say did not exist in the first 200 years of the church.
00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:25.840
And I read it of all crazy places in a book on establishing a church, a church plant, so to speak.
00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:46.480
And the nationally recognized guy said, Don't worry with including preaching in your paradigm of starting a church because it did not exist in the early church, but was a later adaptation from a from the pagan worship.
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:55.919
Well, I was floored, and of course it made me look into it, and I found out it's both bad theology and bad history.
00:12:56.399 --> 00:13:02.399
And yet I discovered that it's very common among ac academics.
00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:23.200
In fact, in the 1990s, two books and a major paper were published that uh basically asserted that that Paul in writing to the Corinthian church forbade the use of persuasive rhetoric, that you're not supposed to persuade people.
00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:25.279
You just present the gospel.
00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:28.000
God bless you, see you next week.
00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:34.320
And the more I researched, the more I realized how widespread this kind of thinking is.
00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:38.720
So my the my dissertation, I plan to take that on.
00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:40.639
I don't believe it's truth.
00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:47.600
I will base it on, I know one of them is a sermon, and I'm becoming convinced the other one is.
00:13:47.919 --> 00:13:52.480
Hebrews is a sermon, and first John is probably a sermon.
00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:52.960
Okay.
00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:56.639
And they, of course, represent apostolic preaching.
00:13:57.360 --> 00:13:59.519
So do they persuade?
00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:01.600
Are they emotional?
00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:02.399
Yeah.
00:14:02.720 --> 00:14:04.399
Do they use rhetoric?
00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:04.799
Yeah.
00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:15.600
And so I will begin there, and then I will I am just fascinated by a sermon that was discovered in 1939 and published.
00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:31.120
It took a few years before all the fragments were discovered to put it all together, and by 1960 it was published, and it's by Melito of Sardis, pastor in Sardis, about 60 years after the death of John.
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:35.200
He probably knew Polycarp, and of course, Polycarp knew John.
00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:47.919
And so he is listed by Polybius as one of the seven illuminaries of Asia Minor that Polybius says preached that Jesus was God.
00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:50.080
And the first two were Philip and John.
00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:54.080
And Melito is the last one in that line of seven preachers.
00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:56.240
Now we have one of his sermons.
00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:56.639
Wow.
00:14:56.879 --> 00:15:02.240
And it is powerful and fiery and persuasive.
00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:04.480
And of course, I'll refer to that.
00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:12.960
And uh then I'll address Dwayne Litfin and others' assertion that Paul condemned the use of rhetoric.
00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:13.840
I don't believe that.
00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:18.000
I think I think there's a much more plausible interpretation.
00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:20.080
So I'll be dealing with that.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:37.679
And uh I I think we have to address this because as more and more of our younger preachers are getting introduced to the academic world, there's a tendency for us to think if he's got a if he's got a degree behind his name, he knows what he's talking about.
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:56.720
And if we accept this premise that what we do in the pulpit is not original, then we whose whole doctrine is based on Restorationism, that we go back to what the apostles preached and practiced.
00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:01.039
If they didn't practice this, we shouldn't be doing it.
00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:01.360
Right.
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:04.320
And I think we have to settle that.
00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:21.679
And I think I hope that dissertation floats around out there, and maybe in future years some young Pentecostal preacher will hear these other voices, but maybe there'll be a voice out there saying, no, they preach like we do.
00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:22.000
Yeah.
00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:26.639
We just don't have I mean Hebrews is a full sermon.
00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:28.559
Sounds like a book to me.
00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:29.360
Well, we'll see.
00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:30.240
Sounds like it to me.
00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:32.159
If somebody wants to publish it, I'm all for it.
00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:33.759
Oh, we can find a publisher.
00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:35.679
I I've got I got inside track on that.
00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:36.480
Oh, I appreciate it.
00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:37.279
We can find somebody up.
00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:39.200
I am finishing up another sermon.
00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:39.679
Okay.
00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:39.840
Okay.
00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.000
I'm in the final edit process.
00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:42.639
Okay.
00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:45.360
It it'll be titled Encore.
00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:46.000
Okay.
00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:52.159
I did one, and so this is the on that's also one of the sermons in it.
00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:53.039
So anyway.
00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:58.559
Speaking of all of that now, you you're pursuing your doctorate.
00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:00.879
Again, mentioned teaching an urshan.
00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.679
What do you what do you enjoy the most about course?
00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:05.759
You teach other classes other than than preaching.
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:06.240
Yes.
00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:14.720
You teach other doctrinal classes, but what what is it about specifically about training preachers that you enjoy the most?
00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:16.480
Well, it's the bread and butter.
00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:17.839
No, it's the dessert.
00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:18.799
It's the dessert.
00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:20.960
You you teach the other stuff.
00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:21.599
I love it.
00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:23.440
I love modern Pentecostal movements.
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:25.359
I I I teach it every spring.
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:27.279
I love Romans, I teach it every fall.
00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:29.599
I'm not saying those are drudgery.
00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:30.160
Sure.
00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:33.119
But it's a delight to preach.
00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:36.319
Uh you teach the introductory courses.
00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:38.960
And so they come already knowing a lot.
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:41.680
And so I don't go back over the basics.
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:42.640
You gave it to them.
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:46.559
They've already read both our books and other books on preaching.
00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:52.480
I always throw uh uh in the evangelistic preaching course, there's a book on preaching evangelists.
00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:58.160
And and by the way, out there, we need apostolics writing books like this.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:17:58.880
Yes, we do.
00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:07.920
Because we don't have a purely apostolic say how to build an evangelistic son, how to give an apostolic altar call.
00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:08.160
Right.
00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.920
It's touched on in our books, but a whole book on that.
00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:12.799
You could do that.
00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:13.279
Yes.
00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:17.920
But anyway, so I focus on their actual preaching.
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:28.079
And sometimes it because our classes are growing, I think I had 19, and each one preached three times in 16 weeks.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:33.279
So I had to, you know, really control the length and all of that.
00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:39.839
But they all got 15 to 20 minutes, mostly 10 to 15, to squeeze them in.
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:56.000
But uh it's remarkable to me that a and in one class you'll have a a student who's never preached, maybe testimony in a youth service, but they've never stood behind a pulpit, took a text, preached a sermon.
00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:01.200
Then you'll have some that obviously they've preached a lot already when they get here.
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:07.920
So putting them all in one class, uh, if it's expository, they have to build expository sermons.
00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:13.759
If it's evangelistic, they and that's a challenge for a young person to preach evangelistic.
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:14.319
It really is.
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:16.640
Because they don't hear a lot of evangelistic preaching.
00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:23.519
And one of the questions that are in on the response, is it truly evangelistic?
00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.920
And the first one or two, there'll always be three or four of them.
00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:29.279
No, it wasn't.
00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:30.480
It was to the church.
00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:30.799
Yeah.
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:31.839
And and and that's the thing.
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:39.359
Well, I found most of most of the times I've I've given students the call, give an evangelistic sermon, and they'll get up and preach we need to win souls.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:39.839
That's it.
00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:40.720
That's that's it.
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:42.640
That's their preaching of evangelism.
00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:44.000
That's their idea of it.
00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:44.880
Yeah.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:51.920
Hey, before we get back to the rest of this episode, just want to take a brief moment and tell you a little bit more about the Clear Preaching Academy.
00:19:52.079 --> 00:20:00.000
The Clear Preaching Academy is a community-first platform built for preachers who take their calling seriously.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.519
In this community, you don't have to carry the calling alone.
00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:14.880
You can join a growing community of pastors and evangelists and youth pastors and preachers that preach on a regular basis, a semi-regular basis, and maybe just beginning to preach.
00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:21.440
But it's a great place to learn this craft and understand the calling of the preacher.
00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:24.400
We have small group cohorts you can get involved with.
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:32.720
We have courses, a growing library of courses that you can look and watch things and study and learn on your own at your own pace.
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:40.000
All kinds of forums for you to get involved with to grow and develop and encourage and learn from one another.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:44.960
So visit clearpreaching.com and check out the Clear Preaching Academy.
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:46.880
I'd love to see you on the inside.
00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:48.720
Part of it is youth.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:49.119
Sure.
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:50.640
Youth wants to fix everything.
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:53.680
You know, but part of it is experience.
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:58.079
Because we don't have a lot of revivals anymore.
00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:01.839
And if we do, they're in the normal life of the church.
00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:06.799
And most of our preaching, probably the vast majority, is a mixture.
00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:07.119
Yeah.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:09.039
We're going to reach for the longest.
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:18.079
We're not going to we're going to share the gospel, but it's going to be mixed in with other things to help the saints.
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:19.519
Nothing wrong with that.
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:23.279
But to do a purely evangelistic sermon is a challenge.
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:23.839
It is.
00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:27.599
And I I think of that because we just did that last spring.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:38.319
But I'm I'm often amazed at the progress you can see over 16 weeks and just three sermons.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:47.119
Of course, what I do is they preach and then it's open what you do for their peers.
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:47.440
Yeah.
00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:50.400
And sometimes it's nonsense, you know.
00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:52.160
That's okay, you know.
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:59.839
But it's amazing how they begin to focus in and actually are helpful.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.240
Yeah.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.240
But they're talking to themselves too.
00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:02.559
Right.
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:10.720
They're thinking about why this worked, why it didn't work, why that point should have been earlier or later.
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:15.680
And and and of course I work in little mini lectures as we go along.
00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:21.359
And I'll tell a student, I'm sorry, but I'm going to use you as a preaching example right now.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:21.920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:26.160
And I'll go over not necessarily what didn't work, it might be what worked.
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:28.240
Why this worked.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:28.480
Yeah.
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:31.519
Why that story drew us in.
00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:41.839
And by that last sermon, I'd say anywhere from 60 to 80 percent have made discernible progress.
00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:45.599
You see it in preaching practicum, I'm sure.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:51.119
And and of course, these are juniors and seniors that I'm I'm teaching.
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:53.920
And there might be a sprinkle of sophomores, not many.
00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:04.880
They're with you then, but some of them, I guess, get with you as freshmen, and then I don't know, but uh but uh maybe one out of that nineteen was a sophomore.
00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:08.240
So it's juniors and seniors, and it's remarkable.
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:16.400
And of course, it's it's an artificial situation, but it I started welcome to first church aversion.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.440
You know, wasn't that choir awesome?
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:27.359
And and I teach them how to thank the pastor because you know, you're you're almost always going to be a guest at this stage.
00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:32.880
Yeah and and that you need to say something nice about the church, the choir, the music.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:39.359
Yeah, you know, the ushers are awesome, you know, something right and they'll get up and they'll start their sermons with that.
00:23:39.519 --> 00:23:50.960
And but they know what they're doing, they understand that that and and we use the UGST chapel, so we have kind of a churchy feeling to it.
00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:58.720
And uh, you know, we try to create it, and I I I'm just that that is the dessert.
00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:05.839
That's the candy of being here to see young preachers, and some of them leave here ready for the pulpit.
00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:06.160
Yeah.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:15.039
I mean, they don't have broad experience, but in a youth service, there was one young lady this that feels a call to evangelize.
00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:18.640
She wants to evangelize, and she could carry the weight.
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:19.119
Yeah.
00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:19.359
Yeah.
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:25.039
She shit we we had her preach at pulpit conference, and she is she's remarkable.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:26.160
She really is.
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:29.759
And you you find that, you know, you find some.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:34.240
There's one in my mind right now, so sincere.
00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:42.000
And a bright, personable, humble, and yet can handle, can bring you in.
00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:50.640
I I use the example, you gotta get them on the bus, you gotta give them the the stops of the tour, and you gotta get them to the destination.
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:54.000
And some of them can do it already.
00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:54.480
Yeah.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:55.359
Already.
00:24:55.599 --> 00:24:58.240
So that's that's what I love about that.
00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:01.839
Seeing much of what we do, you don't see the results.
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:09.519
They may pass the test, but I'm not so convinced, you know, they really could explain justification from a Pentecostal perspective.
00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:10.240
That's true.
00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:12.559
But you see them up there.
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:13.039
Yeah.
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:24.240
And you recognize the work they put in, and they gauge the emotional impact, they got the points in the right order, they used powerful illustrations.
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:27.759
So that's that's what my work here is all about.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:38.799
I talked to you recently about uh something that that I started working on, and I wanted I wanted you to come be a part of it, and you have since then.
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:55.839
I wanted to get your get your thoughts about this because really what there's several things that kind of led me to to feel to kind of go in this direction is there's many people who come to Urshan, come to any of the other Bible schools, they'll get they'll get some training.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.319
Some of them, some of them even that go into ministry, may only take one class in preaching.
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:03.920
They may not take three or four or five.
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:04.400
That's right.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:06.000
They may only take one.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:11.839
And then you leave, you leave Bible school, you leave, you leave college.
00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:15.440
Of course, there's some that that's never even in the book, or in the cards for them.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:19.200
They never just ever go that direction because of other, and they, but they enter into ministry.
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:20.160
They get called, yeah.
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:25.599
And there's there's really, it's almost like people are on their own out there.
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:39.519
They're trying to carry it all by themselves, learning on the job, maybe things they read or they heard at Bible school or whatever, and they're trying to put into practice, but it's one of the hardest things, all by yourself.
00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:41.519
You don't know whether it's working or not.
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:43.119
You're just, you're just going at it.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:43.359
Right.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:47.279
And so led me to this idea of developing this clear preaching academy.
00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:48.400
I talked with you about it.
00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:51.200
You had some so many kind words to say about it.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:27:10.079
Of course, the community's built with the idea in mind to get people in the room together, iron sharpening iron, feedback, uh, encouragement, even small groups where they can get together and spend four or five months focusing on a particular thing, getting, you know, building one another.
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:13.039
Uh, there's courses in there people can go through.
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:18.079
But what what do you see as the benefit of something like this?
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:21.279
And what kind of role could that play in somebody's life?
00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:22.480
What's the benefit?
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:29.839
Well, you and I both really painted a very rosy picture of our graduates.
00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:30.559
Yes.
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.359
Some of them are going to make a mark.
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:34.559
There is no question.
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:34.960
Yeah.
00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:36.880
But are they there yet?
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:38.079
No, of course not.
00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:41.519
College of any kind, uh fine Bible colleges.
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:44.640
They're all an artificial, a training ground.
00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:45.200
Definitely.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:51.519
You may be crawling through the mud and there may be explosions, but nobody's really shooting at you.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:52.799
That comes later.
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:53.200
Yeah.
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:56.000
And so ongoing education's vital.
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:56.319
Yeah.
00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:16.640
I mean, you can't get it all in 32 weeks if if they take our if they if they take every course they could possibly take here, using up every elective they have, they could probably take what, five, two from you, and two or three from us on the upper level, maybe.
00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:22.400
Uh maybe four, because we're trying now to offer one of our preaching courses every semester.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:23.279
And I hope they do.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:24.640
We want them to take all of them.
00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:27.039
But that's they're specialized.
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:27.440
Yeah.
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:31.279
And and some of these guys, they're ready to youth pastor.
00:28:31.519 --> 00:28:36.720
We've got three that graduated three years ago that are already pastoring churches.
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:37.200
Sure.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:37.519
Yeah.
00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:39.680
But that that's not the norm.
00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.480
And even those three are going to need ongoing checking.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:52.240
So what you're doing, since I've I've signed up, got into it, I'm probably not going to be your best student.
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:53.759
Well, you're not my student.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:59.920
You are, you are, you are there to add uh just the couple weeks ago.
00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:12.480
We had you come on there, and there's about seven or eight, nine uh members of the community that we we got on a live Zoom call, and you spent about 45 minutes just kind of teaching a little bit and answering questions.
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:14.319
Preaching or to change lives.
00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:14.960
Exactly.
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:16.720
And that's that's what it's about.
00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:17.200
Yeah.
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:19.599
Because, you know, we have some, we have some on there.
00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:29.440
I've one young man who did graduate, he graduated from Urshan, but he's now uh out west and lives in a small town, a small district.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:32.880
There's not a whole lot of connection.
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:33.599
Right.
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:42.400
And the other the other night we were on a call together and just a handful, and I, you know, just asking what you find benefit in this community.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:44.319
It's just we just launched it in June.
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:48.319
So, and he said, I thought it was lacking a little bit until tonight.
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:50.880
And tonight I found what's most valuable.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:56.000
It's that connection with have just having people there that you can talk to that understand.
00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:56.880
Yeah.
00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:57.920
We'll go back to M.
00:29:58.480 --> 00:29:58.720
Yeah.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:08.559
An isolated, we did a 10, we did a study of 10 years uh in 10 districts, some small, medium, large.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:16.240
And in those 10 years, in those 10 districts, we studied every church closing and every church that left truth.
00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:16.720
Okay.
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:22.799
And the vast majority closed and we found it was the preacher.
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:30.160
He and what we found was good-hearted, loved people, loved the call, but they got isolated.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:30.640
Yeah.
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.400
They got out there by themselves.
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:34.720
And you got isolated in a big or small distance, right?
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:35.440
It didn't matter.
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:37.039
It happened everywhere.
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:47.839
They some of it was they something happened, some some a challenge, some injustice, who knows, but they withdrew.
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:56.720
And that first step by yourself is critical because if there's not someone, there will be someone.
00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:57.279
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:00.079
And they fell under the sway of the wrong people.
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:01.200
Many of them did.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:10.720
And we found the majority of those who had started churches and the churches failed, were no longer in the ministry, and many of them were no longer in the church.
00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:13.039
So that is a vital part.
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:14.559
We have it in the organization.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:15.440
Thank God for it.
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.559
But sectional meetings are almost history now.
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:19.839
They don't happen much.
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:23.920
District meetings, some I think there's a resurgence.
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:32.079
I'm a little encouraged, but who knows, you know, whether a guy can get off work if he's out, you know, he's bivocational.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:33.599
Can he go to camp meet?
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:34.960
Maybe a night or two.
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:47.200
And so what happens if you're not careful, you fall in with one of these gripe sessions that, you know, that really aren't healthy, and you get influenced.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:58.480
And but if we could get preachers together, supporting one another, loving one another, talking about the word of God, talking about our calling, talking about how to do it better.
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:01.359
I think there's a tremendous need for that.
00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:02.880
So that's part of it.
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:21.440
The other part is the good training, the teaching, the solid theological and and and yes, rhetorical methodology that it works because the human that Aristotle drew this from.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:22.720
This is why this works.
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:24.480
This is why pathos works.
00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:26.640
This is why Logos works.
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:30.640
This is, you know, it worked because it was tried out and people responded.
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:32.319
It's still it's still people today.
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:35.039
Maybe we speak a different language and have a very different culture.
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:36.319
We're still people.
00:32:36.559 --> 00:32:40.000
And so what you're doing, I I'm excited about it.
00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:45.279
I feel like it's not only needed from a fellowship and an iron sharpened with iron.
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:48.240
To me, I'm like the young man you mentioned.
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:49.359
This is what it's about.
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:51.279
This is the strongest part.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:53.839
But in reality, it's much more than that.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:33:00.480
And you can go to Urshan, TBC, IBC, CLC, ABI, go to any of them.
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:00.880
Yeah.
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:04.480
But when you walk out, you're still a baby.
00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:12.880
And you can short, find a shortcut through experience by drawing from the experience of others.
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:13.359
Yeah.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:16.240
And and the technology, it's amazing.
00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:23.359
The text I'm getting and emails, and it's amazing how this thing operates.
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:27.119
Just watching it it draws you in.
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:32.400
And that's why your voice is so valuable.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:38.240
Uh, and and I'm I'm so grateful that you have it, you have a say, you have a voice in this.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:41.680
And I I want you to more and more as you're a part.
00:33:41.839 --> 00:33:43.759
You're not you're not in there to learn, Brother Jones.
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:45.200
You are in there too.
00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:45.680
You're in there.
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:47.200
Well, we'll all learn something.
00:33:47.359 --> 00:33:48.640
We're all learning something.
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:53.920
But I I'm just I'm grateful that God linked us together a long time ago.
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:58.240
And I will never I I I'm so thankful for that all the time.
00:33:58.559 --> 00:34:00.480
I believed in you since you were a teenager.
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:02.720
And I I saw great things in you then.
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:03.759
I still see it.
00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:04.960
And thank you for doing this.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:08.159
Has got to be taking up a lot of your energy.
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:09.360
You're planning a church.
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:16.239
But this is you're working a full-time job, you're adjunct professor here, and yet you're pouring yourself.
00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:17.280
You understand it.
00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:22.559
This is what we're this is the This is what we're, you know, feel like we're called to do.
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:26.639
Well, I tell people I'm touching a generation I will not live to see.
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:33.280
I'm teaching students that will one day teach preachers that aren't even born yet.
00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:35.039
And they will teach.
00:34:35.199 --> 00:34:38.159
And until the Lord comes, I will have a role.
00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:41.039
I'll be forgotten, and that's it, that's the way it works.
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:42.239
That's okay.
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:44.880
But God doesn't forget.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:45.119
Yeah.
00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:45.360
Right.
00:34:45.599 --> 00:34:58.719
And if I can help keep someone in the truth, someone connected, and someone successful in their calling, just a little role, just a little part of that is worth every effort to me.
00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:05.280
And I think what you're doing here, uh, I think many, many, many preachers should get on board with this.
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:06.800
It'll make a big difference.
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:08.079
I really appreciate it.
00:35:08.239 --> 00:35:09.519
Thank you for your time.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:12.960
Well, that'll do it for this episode of the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:16.880
I hope you enjoyed these last two episodes with Gary Jones.
00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:18.960
And I hope you took something away from it.
00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:19.679
You learned something.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:24.480
Maybe Gary's something that's going to help you uh develop as a preacher yourself.
00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:30.960
If you did enjoy it, I invite you to share this with some of the preachers, somebody you think also might enjoy this podcast.
00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:33.519
If you haven't yet subscribed, please do so.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:34.880
Share it with somebody else.
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:36.800
Give us a five star review if you can.
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:40.639
We would love to for others to find this podcast also.
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:45.920
I look forward to next week, once again, bringing the Clear Preaching podcast to you.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:46.880
God bless.
